Nature's greatest artist

Nature is amazing when we take the time to look. This short video shows what some males have to do to attract a mate. Well worth the three minutes it takes to view this.

Dealing with Stress? Try this

Stress is dangerous if we don't manage it, but how do we start to manage our stress? We all know we need to manage stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in our personal life, we can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as we can get to calm our nerves.

Here is one idea, use music. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one's health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. Researchers at Mindlab International in the U.K. wanted to know what kind of music induces the greatest state of relaxation. 

The study involved having participants try to solve difficult puzzles — which inherently triggered a certain degree of stress — while connected to sensors. At the same time, participants listened to a range of songs as researchers measured their brain activity, heart rate, blood pressure and rate of breathing.

What they found is that one song — “Weightless” — resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates.

Interestingly, the song was specifically designed to induce this highly relaxed state. Created by the Marconi Union, the musicians teamed up with sound therapists to carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms and bass lines, which in turn slow a listener’s heart rate and blood pressure, while also lowering stress hormones like cortisol.

In fact, the music is so effective, that many of the female participants became drowsy — to the point where lead researcher Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson advises against listening to it while driving.


But don’t take their word for it. Experience it for yourself here:

8 TED talks on Ageing

I received the following email from Kimberly and I thought I would share. The videos are easy to watch and very informative.

I work for a digital marketing agency in Denver called Volume Nine (v9seo.com). I am writing today to pass along a wonderful blog post called "8 Incredible TED Talks About Aging" 

Here is the direct URL: http://westminsterplace.org/incredible-ted-talks-about-aging.html

This post features short videos from TED speakers on the topics of ageing from brain function and health to living passionately and happily as you get older. This is a great grouping of videos to watch for blog audiences of all ages! 

Please feel free to share this blog with your blog readers as we are excited to share this content and think this would be great information for your blog audience. We are not looking for any type of promotion or links - we just want to get this great content out to the masses. 

A little background: Presbyterian Homes is an independent, not-for-profit, faith-based organisation that provides quality independent living residential communities, health-care programs, and services for older adults. 

Running as a Key Lifestyle Medicine for Longevity

Researchers found that, compared to nonrunners, runners tended to live about three additional years, even if they run slowly or sporadically and smoke, drink or are overweight.

No other form of exercise that researchers looked at showed comparable impacts on lifespan.

The findings come as a follow-up to a study done three years ago, in which a group of distinguished exercise scientists scrutinised data from a large trove of medical and fitness tests. That analysis found that as little as five minutes of daily running was associated with prolonged life spans.

Overall, this new review reinforced the findings of the earlier research, the scientists determined. Cumulatively, the data indicated that running, whatever someone's pace or mileage, dropped a person's risk of premature death by almost 40 percent, a benefit that held true even when the researchers controlled for smoking, drinking and a history of health problems such as hypertension or obesity.

Perhaps most interesting, the researchers calculated that hour for hour, running statistically returns more time to people's lives than it consumes.

Figuring two hours per week of training, since that was the average reported by runners in the earlier study, the researchers estimated that a typical runner would spend less than six months actually running over the course of almost 40 years, but could expect an increase in life expectancy of 3.2 years, for a net gain of about 2.8 years.

In concrete terms, an hour of running statistically lengthens life expectancy by seven hours, the researchers report.

The gains in life expectancy are capped at around three extra years, no matter how much longer you run. The good news is that prolonged running does not seem to become counterproductive for longevity, according to the data.

Improvements in life expectancy generally plateaued at about four hours of running per week, but they did not decline. Meanwhile, other kinds of exercise also reliably benefited life expectancy, the researchers found, but not to the same degree as running.

Walking, cycling and other activities, even if they required the same exertion as running, typically dropped the risk of premature death by about 12 percent.

Why running should be so uniquely potent against early mortality remains uncertain, but it raises aerobic fitness, and high aerobic fitness is one of the best-known indicators of an individual's long-term health.

Another study shows running is a popular and convenient leisure-time physical activity (PA) with a significant impact on longevity.

In general, runners have a 25-40% reduced risk of premature mortality and live approximately 3 years longer than non-runners.

So running and jogging are good for us, but before you start this type of exercise, see and talk to your Doctor about whether this is good for you.