Is loss of memory a given?

Like many my age, I worry about my memory.  One of my friends has Alzeimers and I have talked about him in other posts. His memory is getting worse, and he is beginning to loose his sense of who he is now.

Many of my friends notice that from time to time they forget things like a name, face, or where they put their keys. We wonder is this normal and what do we have to do to keep my brain sharp.  By the way according to AARP, the number one priority of 94 percent of people as they age is, "keeping my brain sharp." So me and my friends are not thinking out of the norm when we worry.

Dharma Singh Khalsa, president and medical director of The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation believes that we are not doomed to lose our memory  and here are his reasons and his ideas on how to maintain memory with age.

There are actions or lifestyle measures that you can take that to maintain your mental sharpness with age.  Here are the main ideas:

1. Keep your brain strong. This is called building cognitive reserve or resiliency. To do that, you must discover ways to keep your brain blood flow optimal and your brain big. Why? Brain shrinkage in key areas such as your memory center, or hippocampus, leads to memory loss.
2. Mind the gap, the place where your nerve cells communicate known as the synapse. To stay sharp with age, you have to help your all-important brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, remain in abundance. That will give you the spark that is the hallmark of a youthful brain.
3. Love your genes. Many people still think that the genes you inherit determine your health. But many recent studies have revealed that not all people with the Alzheimer's gene for example, come down with the disease. There are lifestyle measures that you can follow that will keep your genes healthy.
4. Create high levels of well-being. It has been shown, for example, that people who are happy, spiritually attuned, and have a clear picture of their mission in life have less Alzheimer's.

It's time to change the channel on thinking that memory loss is normal with age. We are not doomed! For one thing, subjective complaints can be caused by conditions such as depression that may not be progressive. Moreover, there are many things you can do to keep your mind strong starting right now. Put your health first, make a plan and stick to it. I'll have more to share in future articles on how you can do just that.

To discover more about the work of Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. and receive 2 free e-books please go to www.drdharma.com. To learn more about his groundbreaking research, please go to www.alzheimersprevention.org.


Open vs Closed Society, where is Canada heading?

I have been wondering, like a number of Canadians, how long it would take Harper to move our country along  toward a less open/more totalitarian society.  The following post from The Regina Mom is an excellent expose that puts the case forward that we are moving along this path more quickly than most progressives (conservative and leftist) would have imagined.

I highly recommend this to all of you who want to understand where we are moving and how quickly Harper is taking us down this road.

Canada creeps toward becoming a closed society

Nick Fillmore asks a question the regina mom has been grappling with for years: “Is Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?” Ever since Naomi Wolf published “Ten Steps To Close Down an Open Society” at the Huffington Post in April, 2007, an essay has been brewing on trm‘s computer. (Yes, trm admits to being a slow writer.)

Wolf’s research for that article became the book, The End of America, which documents “how open societies become closed societies.” Her family’s friends, Holocaust survivors, urged her to explore a few texts and the result was what she called a “blueprint” that has been adapted by several societies when making a shift from an open to a closed society. In the HuffPo piece she named ten significant pieces of the blueprint and showed how they were at work in the USA at that time.

To complement Nick Fillmore’s work, trm thought she’d finally share, in point form, what she discovered by placing Wolf’s blueprint on Canada

Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

• What’s more terrifying to a parent than ‘child pornographers’? According to Vic Toews, the regina mom’s opposition to Bill C-30 — the Snoop and Spy bill — means that she stands with “the child pornographers”. How does that make a mother feel?
• Women should be used to it, perhaps. Years ago, the Prime Minister suggested women’s groups are of the “left-wing fringe

• More recently, as trm has noted, on the eve of the Joint Energy Board’s hearings on the Northern Gateway Pipeline, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had choice words to describe those in opposition to the proposed pipeline. He painted “environmental and other radical groups” as those wanting to “block this opportunity to diversify our trade” regardless “the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.” The groups have a “radical ideological agenda” and will “exploit any loophole they can find” to “kill good projects” with “funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

Create a gulag

• What is the purpose of new prisons when Canada’s crime rate is falling? National Chief Sean Atleo understands.

• Canadians can also rot in Guantanamo.

Develop a thug caste

• The RCMP have proven to be thugs and are watched by the public. The taser attack on Robert Dzeikanski is but one instance of their thuggery. [Warning: It is difficult to watch.]

• The Fifth Estate‘s documentary, Out of Control, about the suicide of Ashley Smith when she was improperly incarcerated in a penitentiary and allowed to die. [Warning: It is difficult to watch.]

• The Canadian Race Relations Foundation has found reason to comment on policing in Canada.

• Extreme violence attributed to white supremacist youth. A “dump” by the “hacktivist” group, Anonymous, confirmed that some of the accused are associated with neo-Nazi groups in the USA.

Set up an internal surveillance system

• Since 9/11 Canadians have witnessed an alarming increase in surveillance measures. Are the new airport scanners and procedures are part of the scheme?

• It looks as though Vancouver’s making use of public cameras to invade privacy. So is Victoria.

• What is Bill C-30 really about, anyway?

• BC’s Civil Liberties Association reports on how we’re moving towards a surveillance society.

Harass citizens’ groups

• Dennis Greunding has a list of citizens’ groups which have faced funding cuts courtesy the current regime. trm previously mentioned some, specifically those impacting women. Certainly these, when combined with more recent cuts to organizations such as the Mennonite Central Committee, constitute harassment.
• Forest Ethics supports its former employee in his allegations that the PMO is trying to “to silence and intimidate non profit organizations like ForestEthics, and the thousands of citizens and civil groups who, like us, are concerned about the direction this country is taking and are speaking out.“
• The criminalization of dissent came as a creeping assault until the most noteable at the G20 demonstrations last year

• Continue reading the last five points here

Harper, Britain and Elder Abuse

I have often wondered why Harper wanted to strengthen Canada’ ties to Great Britain, and now I am beginning to see why. It has nothing to do with love of Queen and country, but everything to do with love of Power. It appears to me that Harper loves the idea that the British people are among the most watched and spied upon people in the world. I think he is trying to move  Canadians along the path to accepting the idea that government surveillance is needed and that government can be trusted with the information it keeps on its citizens.

The Following articles from Britain, could be where we are heading in Canada

First Take away Canadians privacy

Pamela Owen wrote a very interesting article on the problem  people in Britain are faced with when going online. She says that details about text messages, phone calls, emails and every website visited by members of the public will be kept on record in a bid to combat terrorism.

The Government will order broadband providers, land line and mobile phone companies to save the information for up to a year under a new security scheme.

So we can see why Harper wants to have closer ties to Great Britain, so he can copy their security protocols  and make Canada the most spied upon country in the world.

But we still have a way to go to beat Britain but under Harper's agenda we may soon get this honour. of being the most spied upon people in the world.

"Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: 'Britain is already one of the most spied on countries off-line and this is a shameful attempt to watch everything we do online in the same way."

According to the Telegraph, the Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is already being attacked by privacy advocates as offering a license for abuse and as raising the “Big Brother” potential for universal surveillance. The British government, however, views it as a “vital” tool against terrorism and serious crime, and the legislation to put it into effect is expected to be proposed in May.

The information to be stored would not include the content of calls or emails but would consist of phone numbers and email addresses. These would would who was communicating with whom on what occasions and could also make it easy for police to track the movements of cellphone and computer users.

The British government is in the process of developing a scheme whereby all phone companies and broadband Internet providers will be required to store customer transaction data for a year and hand it over to security services upon request.

The databases would also include Facebook communications, Twitter posts — including direct messages between subscribers — and even communications between players in online video games.

Second start attacking the elderly and disabled

Disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefit according to this story in the Guardian.

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mental health professionals and charities have said they fear those deemed fit to undertake limited amounts of work under a controversial assessment process could suffer further harm to their health if the plans go ahead.

The new policy, outlined by DWP officials in meetings with disabilities groups, is due to be announced after legal changes contained in clause 54 of the welfare reform bill have made their way through parliament.

According to the Daily Mail, 'The Government in England has been clear that because we are living longer, public service workers must work a bit longer and pay a little more for their pensions,' 'But in return we have also made an important commitment - that at retirement, those on low and middle incomes will get at least as good a pension as they do now.

Harper is also planning on committing financial abuse against elderly Canadians and to frame and sell his position, he will be pitting younger Canadians against older Canadians. Canadians who need their rightly earned pensions to live with some dignity. Harper assumes that people in my generation will not care that younger Canadians will be worse off because of his changing the rules. He assumes that the older Boomers will have an "I'm all right Jack"  attitude and will not care about what happens to younger Canadians. Well I think he is wrong, I have younger brothers, cousins and friends, who are going to be affected by his change of rules. I care and find it objectionable that Harper is pitting one group of Canadians against another.

Conservative government plans to broaden its case for changing Old Age Security by emphasizing the higher price younger Canadians will pay to support government programs unless Ottawa moves now to bring down costs.

In her first extensive speech on the topic of demographics since the furor over pensions erupted last month, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley is expected to confirm on Tuesday that the details of proposed changes to OAS – which could include delaying qualification for benefits until the age of 67 – will be revealed in the forthcoming 2012 budget

Thought for the day

It's not from the known, but the unknown, that creativity and inventiveness are born.

 

To be defeat the fear of the unkown:

• Turn away from the predictable, cliché, and reliable.
• Trust the quiet, find the stillness, feel the calm.
• Behave as if your vision were clear.
• Anticipate the emotional rush that will come with your triumph.