Let me share some thoughts with you. Let me be a source of encouragement and support. May you never forget your dreams and remember miracles happen every day. Let us laugh, have fun, and inspire one another.
There are moments in our lives where we feel utterly and entirely lost.
There are no clear directions or paths for us to take, just one big ball
of confusion without an instruction manual or a tutorial as to how to
“live.”
This is more than okay, for we all become lost in life every now and
then. Sometimes it’s better to surrender yourself to the universe and
let the world show you your next adventure.
The next time you feel like you’re completely lost, remembering these
quotes could save you a lot of trouble and time the next time it happens
to you!
1. “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.”
If you are constantly looking back on the past, then you can never truly
live in the present. You must keep moving forward in your life no
matter how lost you feel. Now’s the time for you to go out there and
discover new and amazing things you could be enjoying!
2. “Sometimes you need to talk to a three-year-old just so you can understand life again.”
This means that sometimes adults too often let the serious things in
life suck all the joy and fun away from their lives. Sometimes we need
to have a quick chat with the younger side of ourselves to revisit what
it means to live again. Let yourself be a kid every now and then, not
everything needs to be so critical all of the time.
3. “Sometimes you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself of who you are and where you want to be.”
This is pretty self-explanatory. However, there are times where the
answer is not always clear, reminding us of who we are, what we love
doing, and where we would rather be right now. Sometimes the answer for a
new direction or path is usually the obvious one right in front of us.
4. “If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.”
If your calling isn’t exactly calling back to you, this isn’t
necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps it was something that you really wanted
to try but didn’t work out. That’s alright, there are bound to be other
doors that you can open, that are made to be opened specifically by
you. Never stop finding new opportunities to test yourself!
5. “If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.”
If you are not satisfied with where you are living, then be that change
you so desire. Find the place that is just right for you, and stop at
nothing to achieve those dreams and goals. If there is nothing holding
you back and you have the means to go and fight for what you want most,
do it. Follow your gut instincts!
6. “Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on
the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.”
One of the most important lessons in life that we must learn is how to
accept the good times, along with the bad times, in our lives.
Sometimes, the bad things that happened to us, happened for a reason,
giving us a new path to go on for newer and better things. It may be
hard, but find that new direction to embark on, take it, and never stop
moving forward.
7. “Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come.”
Remember that not everything is permanent. Being temporary can actually
be a very beautiful thing. There is always another path that can lead
you to something much better or something that you’ve never experienced
before. Be open to the limitless possibilities of the world around you!
It’s
okay to feel lost, just remember that you have more than one path that
lies ahead of you! The world will always give you the chance to try
something new!
Most people need help at some time or another. Especially
when troubles are looming and more so when enemies are out to destroy you. When
the clouds are gathering and you are at
the end of your patience and do not know
how long you can hold on. When you are under immense pressure and feel as
though you are going to crack. When people say
malicious things about you that are untrue
when people who do not care about God come and attack you, there is only one
thing you can do. Stand firm, call on God, He is your defender.
It is a journey, one that I had not anticipated, yet here I am, almost a year later, in fact March 2 is exactly a year. During this time I posted several articles, and dozens more on how to deal with stress, inspiration and life changing situations. It has been an inspiration for me to share and I have learnt so much in this time. What I really can say is that a life changing situation is not the end of life, it is actually the beginning of a new chapter, even if it seems clouded with problems, it is a learning process, and when we finally get the point of what we are to learn, life happens. Yes, life begins to unfold in the most beautiful, calm an serene manner. The evil, greedy manipulative people who walk in darkness are just big men who are bastards and when you know the truth, it sets you free. We know, they have been around from the beginning, we just need to read some of the Psalms and we will understand the terror and fear, that David endured under the hands of the evil dark people. Yes they are in darkness, but light will expose darkness. I am not done, I still have a few giants to face, and I keep getting hit with more trauma. It is annoying, upsetting, and stressful, but, and it is a BIG BUT, its not the end, its a continuation of learning, of experiencing, the true reason why I am here, why love is the greatest force in the entire universe, and through love, forgiveness is easy. I know deep within my soul, I will walk away from this situation a better person, a person who can finally say, I know who I am. When I saw this image, I realized how much time we waste on judging people, its a waste of time. We should not waste time on people who do not deserve our time. Forgive them, its the best way to remain in peace.
Consuming refined carbohydrates is linked to a heightened risk of developing type 2 diabetes, not to mention heart disease. But what if a supplement could decrease the breakdown of carbohydrates into simple sugars? That might reduce a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Our latest study, published in PLOS ONE, shows that an extract made from mulberry leaves might do just that.
Previous research shows that herbal medicines could be effective in regulating blood glucose levels. Indeed, the history of the commonly used diabetic drug metformin can be traced back to the use of a herbal medicine, Galega officinalis (goat’s rue or French lilac) in medieval Europe. G. officinalis was found to be rich in guanidine, a substance with blood glucose-lowering activity that formed the chemical basis of metformin (biguanide). This insulin sensitising drug was introduced in 1957.
Metformin, the first-line drug used to treat diabetes was also developed from a herb.Thinglass/Shutterstock.com
Mulberry leaves have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for several millennia and its use was first recorded in around 500AD. In the Grand Materia Medica, it states that “if the juice (of the herb) is decocted and used as a tea substitute it can stop wasting and thirsting disorder”. Wasting (weight loss) and excessive thirst along with increased urination and tiredness are symptoms associated with diabetes. We aimed to investigate the effects of mulberry extract on blood glucose and insulin responses in healthy volunteers with a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial – the gold standard for a clinical trial.
Promising results
We took blood samples from 37 healthy volunteers after they had consumed a carbohydrate rich drink (containing maltodextrin, a dietary starch with a high glycaemic index that is commonly added to many foods and beverages). Each participant took either a placebo or one of three doses of the extract along with the drink on four separate days. We measured each person’s glucose and insulin levels over the following two hours.
Our analysis showed that the standard strength mulberry extract (250mg) reduced the total glucose and insulin rises by 22% and 24% respectively compared to a placebo. These results were both statistically significant (unlikely to be due to chance) and clinically significant, and thus could have meaningful health benefits. The extract effectively reduced the total amount of sugar being absorbed into the bloodstream by over 20%.
The extract didn’t cause any side effects in the volunteers, such as nausea and flatulence – side effects which are common with many diabetic medications. An active component in the extract, 1-deoxynojirimycin (DNJ), blocks the breakdown of carbohydrates into simple sugars, preventing the absorption of sugar, lowering blood-glucose rises. Although mulberry leaves can be used to make tea, the particular extract we used had undergone strict quality control processes in order to guarantee consistency of its DNJ content.
In order to draw definitive conclusions about the long-term health benefits of mulberry leaf extract, longer, more pragmatic trials reflecting real-life dietary habits are needed to show if this herbal supplement could prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. The initial results are certainly promising.
Would you take a painkiller that had been developed from human saliva? A recent study suggests you might in future.
Pain is an essential sensation. Sensory nerves with endings in our skin, tissues and organs, are activated by heat, cold or pressure, or by chemicals that are released from cells after tissue injury. The fibres of these nerves reach the central nervous system, activating neurons in the spinal cord which in turn connect with and activate neurons in a part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex.
The cortex gives you the conscious perception of pain - that “ouch!” The system has evolved to produce a quick response. It takes a split second for you to withdraw your hand from a burning flame.
While pain is essential for survival and good health, unless you have masochistic tendencies, too much pain isn’t a good thing. Especially if it persists. Millions of people live with chronic pain. And chronic pain, whether backache, joint pain or neuropathic pain (neuralgia) can make people’s lives unbearable.
Two centuries of morphine
Throughout recorded human history we have searched for substances to dull pain. The most powerful painkillers are the opioids. Morphine, derived from the opium poppy, is an opioid that has been known to alchemists and medics for centuries. Morphine was one of the first ever medicines and has been available in a pure pharmacological form since 1817.
Morphine and synthetic opioids, such as codeine and fentanyl, bind to opioid receptors located on neurons in the spine and inhibit their activity. This prevents them signalling pain sensations to the brain. Some of our nerve cells, positioned in key places on the path along which pain signals travel, release opioid peptides (fragments of proteins) such as enkephalin. These enkephalins attach to opioid receptors and block pain signals reaching the brain. In the 1970s we discovered that opioids like morphine, codeine or fentanyl act as mimics of these naturally-occurring opioid peptides.
Opiorphin resembles enkephalin, but, rather than binding to opioid receptors to inhibit their activity, they prevent enkephalins from being broken down. So the amount of enkephalin – the body’s natural painkiller – is increased and pain signals are blocked. When you experience pain, enkephalins are released and opiorphin boosts their action.
Opiorphin should only work in the places where enkephalin is being actively released and not affect other neural systems. So unlike conventional opioids it would only have a localised effect. In theory it would have the same effect on pain but without the wider unwanted side effects, such as addiction, tolerance with long-term use, and suppressed breathing.
Opiorphin with a tweak
One problem is that opiorphin would be broken down in the digestive system or in the bloodstream so would not be able to get to particular sites in the body to block pain. So the researchers at Institut Pasteur worked with a company, Stragen, to create a modified version of opiorphin called STR-324, designed to increase its stability. STR-324 should be able to be taken orally or intravenously, though so far only an injectable form is being tested.
The team’s most recent study looking at post-operative pain showed that STR-324, when injected, is effective at blocking pain in rats. The response compares well to morphine, with a lower painkilling effect than morphine.
Later this year, the company developing STR-324 will be testing the drug on humans for the first time. The current evidence suggests that STR-324 will work well for some types of pain, when injected.
The scientists will have a bigger challenge to show that the oral form of the drug is also effective.
A clinical trial for neuropathic pain (pain caused by problems with nerves themselves rather than through tissue damage) has been announced to begin in 2019. Neuropathic pain is common in people with poorly controlled diabetes and can occur following some viral infections. Neuropathic pain and other chronic pain syndromes are notoriously difficult to treat and are often resistant to conventional opioid drugs. If STR-324 is more effective for neuropathic pain that other opioids, it will be a significant new painkiller. That is a big if. The researchers have not yet modelled this type of pain in their experiments.
The main advantage of STR-324 over conventional opioids is that it is predicted not to cause respiratory depression, a reduction in breathing rate. This side effect is linked to fatalities with opioid use. While mostly this is unintentional drug overdose by people with heroin addiction, concerns about respiratory depression limit the medical use of opioids for pain management. The researchers will need to prove the advantages of STR-324 over other medicines. There is already a receptor-binding opioid, buprenorphine, where respiratory depression is less of significant clinical problem than for drugs like morphine and fentanyl.
The data for STR-324 is promising with a benefit that it works in a different way to theoretically provide a more targeted effect on pain systems than conventional opioids. The underlying scientific evidence that it will work in chronic pain, however, is light. The world does need new painkillers and, ultimately, it is only clinical trial data that will show whether STR-324 provides new hope for people living with chronic pain.
Dogs are special. Every dog owner knows that. And most dog owners feel their dog understands every word they say and every move they make. Research over the last two decades shows dogs really can understand human communication in ways no other species can. But a new study confirms that if you want to train your new puppy, you should be speaking to it in a certain way to maximise the chances that it follows what you’re saying.
There is already quite a lot of research evidence showing that the way we communicate to dogs is different from the way we communicate to other humans. When we talk to dogs, we use what is called “dog directed speech”. This means we change the structure of our sentences, shortening and simplifying them. We also tend to speak with a higher pitch in our voices. We also do this when we are not sure we are understood or when talking to very young infants.
A new study has shown we use an even higher pitch when talking to puppies, and that this tactic really does help the animals to pay attention more. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that talking to puppies using dog-directed speech makes them react and attend more to their human instructor than regular speech.
To test this, the researchers use so-called “play back” experiments. They made recordings of humans repeating the phrase “Hi! Hello cutie! Who’s a good boy? Come here! Good boy! Yes! Come here sweetie pie! What a good boy!”. Each time, the speaker was asked to look at photos of either puppies, adult dogs, old dogs or at no photos. Analysing the recordings showed the volunteers did change how they spoke to different aged dogs.
The researchers then played the recordings back to several puppies and adult dogs and recorded the animals’ behaviour in response. They found the puppies responded more strongly to the recordings made while the speakers looked at pictures of dogs (the dog-directed speech).
The study didn’t find the same effect applied for adult dogs. But other studies that recorded dogs’ reactions to the human voice in live interactions, including work I have done, have suggested dog-directed speech can be useful for communicating with canines of any age.
Following the point
It’s also been proven (and most dog-owners will tell you) that we can communicate with dogs through physical gestures. From puppy age on, dogs respond to human gestures, such as pointing, in ways other species can not. The test is very simple. Place two identical cups covering small pieces of food in front of your dog, making sure it cannot see the food and doesn’t have any information about the contents of the cups. Now point to one of the two cups while establishing eye contact with your dog. Your dog will follow your gesture to the cup you pointed to and explore the cup, expecting to find something underneath.
This is because your dog understands that your action is an attempt to communicate. This is fascinating because not even human’s closest living relatives, chimpanzees, seem to understand that humans communicate intent in this situation. Nor do wolves – dog’s closest living relatives – even if they are raised like dogs in a human environment.
This has led to the idea that dogs’ skills and behaviours in this area are actually adaptations to the human environment. That means living in close contact with humans for over 30,000 years has led dogs to evolve communication skills that are effectively equal to those of human children.
But there are significant differences in how dogs understand our communication and how children do. The theory is that dogs, unlike children, view human pointing as some kind of mild command, telling them where to go, rather than a way of transferring information. When you point for a child, on the other hand, they will think you are informing them about something.
This ability of dogs to recognise “spatial directives” would be the perfect adaptation to life with humans. For example, dogs have been used for thousands of years as a kind of “social tool” to help with herding and hunting, when they had to be guided over a great distance by gestural instructions. The latest research affirms the idea that not only have dogs developed an ability to recognise gestures but also a special sensitivity to the human voice that helps them identify when they need to respond to what’s being said.
Insufficient sleep not only affects our overall performance, but can affect some physiological functions such as changes to hormones, metabolic factors and immunity. From a business perspective, insufficient sleep can translate into lost profits due to decreased worker productivity. This has led companies such as Google, Nike and Ben & Jerry’s to encourage or allow napping at work, providing employees with napping facilities such as napping pods and quiet rooms in which they can nap if desired.
The pros and cons
Naps have been shown to be effective in reducing and minimising some of the negative effects of insufficient sleep. For example, compared to when no nap is taken, naps have been shown to effectively reduce feelings of sleepiness and improve cognitive performance on tasks such as reaction time and vigilance. Naps may also help to improve short-term memory and overall mood.
Moreover, these improvements can last for a few hours after the nap has ended. Naps may also offer longer lasting improvements in cognitive performance and reduced sleepiness than other commonly used countermeasures of sleepiness such as caffeine.
But as with everything, there are downsides too. Although naps are associated with performance improvements and reduced sleepiness, these benefits may not be immediate. Naps can be associated with a period of sleep inertia, which is the feeling of grogginess most people experience immediately after waking.
You might wake from your nap feeling groggy - for up to 60 minutes.Brown Windsor/Flickr, CC BY
Sleep inertia is also characterised by a decrease in performance ranging from slowed reaction time to decreased coordination.
While the effects of sleep inertia generally subside within 15-60 minutes after waking from a nap, this period of delayed responsiveness and grogginess may pose serious risks for individuals who are required to function at optimal levels shortly after waking, such as those in transportation, aviation and medicine.
Following a nap, a period of sleep inertia may occur, before sleepiness is reduced and performance improved.
There is some research showing naps may affect your ability to get to sleep at night. Following an afternoon or evening nap, night time sleep duration may be shortened and more disrupted according to some studies. But there is some debate about this. A majority of the research suggests naps have minimal impact on night time sleep.
It’s all about timing
The degree to which naps help, or hinder, largely depends on the timing and duration of the nap. Longer naps (two hours or longer) are associated with longer lasting performance improvements and reduced sleepiness than short (30 minutes or less) or brief naps (ten minutes or less). Longer naps, however, are also more susceptible to sleep inertia, with a worsening in performance immediately following the nap. Alternatively, the benefits of brief naps occur almost immediately and are without the negative side-effect of sleep inertia.
Longer naps may also have a greater impact on subsequent sleep periods than shorter naps, as they may decrease “sleep pressure”, which can make falling and staying asleep more difficult.
The time of day naps occur can also affect the benefits of napping. Naps taken in the early morning hours, when there is a high circadian drive for sleep, may worsen the effects of sleep inertia and may not offer as much recuperation compared to naps taken in the afternoon.
One sleep or two?
More recently it has been suggested that perhaps humans were not meant to have one sleep, but were meant to sleep bi-modally - two shorter sleeps instead of one long one a day. While there is still some debate about whether this is true or not, it seems the number of sleep episodes may not make much difference to waking performance.
Rather, the overall amount of sleep per day, seven to nine hours, is what is likely to have the biggest impact on performance. It’s possible splitting the sleep in this manner may affect different sleep stages such as non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep, which may have long-term implications on general health and well-being, however these effects need to be investigated further.
While there are some disadvantages to napping, such as sleep inertia, for the most part, the benefits of improved performance and reduced sleepiness outweigh the negatives. Short naps, less than 30 minutes, may offer the most “bang for your buck” as they can improve performance quickly with minimal side-effects.
A
wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a
stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise
woman opened her bag to share her food.
The
hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman if she could give it
to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good
fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a
lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise
woman.
"I've
been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I
give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.
Please give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the
stone."
'The
Wise Woman's Stone'
Author
Unknown
Rushing into action, one fails.
Trying to grasp things, we lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
will ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the wise take action by letting things take their course.
Remain as calm at the end
as at the beginning.
Attached to nothing,
there is nothing to lose.
The wisest desire is non-desire.
Learn to unlearn.
Simply remind people
of who they have always been.
Caring about nothing but the Tao,
one thereby cares for all things.
"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are
not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of
mankind.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it. Go confidently in the
direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler;
solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."
~Henry David Thoreau
This body is not me.
I am not limited by this body.
I am life without boundaries.
I have never been born,
and I have never died.
Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous true mind.
Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
Any dog owner will tell you how smart they think their dog is.
What we usually think of as smartness in dogs is measured or observed in
their external behaviour. Being able to respond to commands, for
example, or remember the location of a hidden toy.
Scientists have long wondered whether what underlies “smart”
behaviour in animals is cognitive processes – in other words, thinking,
an expression of some kind of intelligence. Researchers started by
studying non-human primates and have since demonstrated remarkable
cognitive abilities in other mammals, including dogs. They have shown
that dogs have significant capacity to remember associations between
commands, situations and behaviour. Recent research even showed that dogs can actually remember specific events, just like humans and other primates can.
In the early 2000s, a series of studies began to show unequivocally
that dogs have sophisticated abstract abilities. For example, they can follow pointing gestures, something that was previously thought to be a uniquely human capacity. A later study showed that dogs could do this even though chimpanzees, often thought of as one of the smartest animals, can’t.
Dogs have also been shown to have numerical abilities, another skill previously thought to exist only in humans. A 2002 study
investigated the ability of 11 pet dogs to count by performing simple
calculations in front of them using treats. The researcher would place a
number of treats behind a screen one by one and then reveal how many
there were in total. But sometimes the experimenter would manipulate the
outcome so that the total of treats revealed at the end wasn’t the same
number the dog had seen placed there. For example 1+1=3 instead of
1+1=2.
The dogs spent significantly longer looking at the outcome of the
manipulated calculations, as if the answer was not what they had been
expecting. This suggested that not only did the dogs anticipate the
results of the calculations, but also that they held representations of
numbers in their memory.
Fetch!Shutterstock
In November 2016, a new study
showed dogs’ memory may be even more sophisticated than this.
Researchers from Hungary demonstrated that dogs have a type of memory
known in psychological jargon as “episodic memory”. This is the ability
to remember specific events from the past rather than just the
relationship between two things (associative memory). This has been previously only be shown to exist in humans and other primates.
Evidence that non-human animals have some form of episodic memory is
difficult to obtain because you can’t ask animals what they remember. So
in the recent study, a group of dogs were trained to repeat an action
demonstrated by a human trainer. For example, if the model jumped in the
air and gave the dog the command “Do it!”, the dog was supposed to
reproduce the same action as observed. And they did.
More than association
Further experiments showed that the dogs remembered the actions even
when they were not expecting to be rewarded for the “imitation”. The
animals were not simply learning to memorise associations between an
action performed by an actor and their behavioural response because they
wanted to be rewarded. This was the first time, as far as we can tell,
that animals other than primates have been shown to remember events.
Exactly how long dogs can remember things for, however, is not clear.
We don’t have evidence that dogs can remember events months or even
days after they have happened, like humans can. One recent study
that compared the memory capabilities of 25 different animals even
suggested that dogs’ short-term memory for information was limited to
just a couple of minutes.
Still, this was much better than the average time for all the animals
in the study, which was just 27 seconds. Chimpanzees had a short-term
memory of just 20 seconds. Compared to most animals, dogs do seem to
have a particular knack for remembering things. So perhaps dog owners
are right to swear by their pets’ intelligence.
A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."
"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.
"No", she replied. "He's out."
"Then we cannot come in", they replied.
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.
"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!"
The woman went out and invited the men in"
"We do not go into a House together," they replied.
"Why is that?" she asked.
One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"
His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"
Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"
"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife.
"Go out and invite Love to be our guest."
The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."
Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"
The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"
MY WISH FOR YOU...
-Where there is pain, I wish you peace and mercy.
-Where there is self-doubting, I wish you a renewed confidence in your ability to work through it.
-Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I wish you understanding, patience, and renewed strength.
-Where there is fear, I wish you love, and courage.
Invite love by sharing this story with all the people you care about.
Are you happy while you work? The answer to that question may depend on when you’re being asked it. Significant amounts of research suggest that people are – overall – happy with their jobs and get a sense of purpose from work. But our research suggests it’s not so simple.
The way that our study differs from many others is in the way we carried it out. Most research on happiness relies on surveys that ask people to reflect back on and evaluate their experiences “these days” or “nowadays”. In doing so, respondents usually attach weight to events that are related to their overall sense of well-being or satisfaction with their lives.
These studies find consistent evidence that paid work plays an important role in people’s happiness and overall life satisfaction. The research also finds that becoming unemployed results in a precipitous decline in well-being from which – unlike most other changes in personal circumstances – people do not fully recover.
Paid work is a central part of most people’s lives, so it should not be surprising to find that it is critical to the way we feel about ourselves and our sense of well-being. Perhaps it is because work generates a feeling of being worthwhile, leading to a sense of meaning or purpose in life.
To find out how people feel when they are at work – in the moment – one of us (George) designed an app called Mappiness, which allows people to record their well-being on-the-go via a smartphone. This enabled us to capture and analyse people’s feelings at the time they are doing an activity, rather than on reflection afterwards.
Real-time responses
With Mappiness, we were able to collect more than a million observations on tens of thousands of individuals in the UK, from August 2010. People who downloaded the app received randomly timed “dings” on their phone to request that they complete a very short survey. They were asked to rate how happy they felt and how relaxed they were; whether they were alone and, if not, who they were with; whether they were indoors, outdoors or in a vehicle; and whether they were at home, at work or elsewhere. Finally, they were asked what they were doing “just now”.
This way we got a spectrum of responses – including their feelings at work, at home or elsewhere. Together with the responses to the survey, the app transmits the location of the individual (via satellite positioning) and the precise time at which the survey was completed. It also records the time elapsed between the random “ding” and the response, thus making it possible to distinguish between immediate, random responses and delayed ones.
Mappiness captured real-time responses.shutterstock.com
Although there are drawbacks to this method of data collection (such as the non-random sampling of participants) it has considerable advantages over more traditional research methods where individuals are asked to reconstruct their activities and experiences of the preceding day. These surveys may be subject to recall bias and retrospective distortion. In contrast, Mappiness obtains instantaneous responses so that people report their feelings at the time they are undertaking the activity.
Anywhere but work?
Strikingly, our analysis of all these data found that paid work is ranked lower than any of the other 39 activities people engage in, with the exception of being sick in bed. The effect is equivalent to a 7-8% reduction in happiness relative to circumstances in which someone is not working. Time spent in paid work has a similarly bad (in fact, slightly larger) effect on how relaxed people feel.
Precisely how unhappy or anxious someone is while working depends on the circumstances. Well-being at work varies significantly with where you work (at home, at work or elsewhere); whether you are combining work with other activities; whether you are alone or with others; and the time of day or night at which you are working. Many of these circumstances can be shaped by public policies to facilitate “happier” working conditions – which can also improve productivity.
But why does work appear to have such an adverse effect on people’s momentary well-being? We know that part of the answer is related to anxiety at work. Even though people are positive about paid work when reflecting on the meaning and value of their lives, actually engaging in paid work comes at some personal cost in terms of the pressures and stress they face while working.
But this is not the whole story. Working continues to be negatively correlated with happiness, even when it is combined with other activities that are pleasurable such as chatting with friends. Plus, even when we account for how relaxed people felt, working continues to be negatively associated with momentary well-being.
Instead, it appears that we would just rather be doing other things than working. This is why economists have long theorised that work is dependent on getting paid to do it – and why people typically put in more hours and more effort when the pay is higher.
It’s been 20 years since scientists in Scotland told the world about Dolly the sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from an adult body cell. What was special about Dolly is that her “parents” were actually a single cell originating from mammary tissue of an adult ewe. Dolly was an exact genetic copy of that sheep – a clone.
Dolly captured people’s imaginations, but those of us in the field had seen her coming through previous research. I’ve been working with mammalian embryos for over 40 years, with some work in my lab specifically focusing on various methods of cloning cattle and other livestock species. In fact, one of the coauthors of the paper announcing Dolly worked in our laboratory for three years prior to going to Scotland to help create the famous clone.
Dolly was an important milestone, inspiring scientists to continue improving cloning technology as well as to pursue new concepts in stem cell research. The endgame was never meant to be armies of genetically identical livestock: Rather, researchers continue to refine the techniques and combine them with other methods to turbocharge traditional animal breeding methods as well as gain insights into aging and disease.
Not the usual sperm + egg
Dolly was a perfectly normal sheep who became the mother of numerous normal lambs. She lived to six and a half years, when she was eventually put down after a contagious disease spread through her flock, infecting cloned and normally reproduced sheep alike. Her life wasn’t unusual; it’s her origin that made her unique.
Before the decades of experiments that led to Dolly, it was thought that normal animals could be produced only by fertilization of an egg by a sperm. That’s how things naturally work. These germ cells are the only ones in the body that have their genetic material all jumbled up and in half the quantity of every other kind of cell. That way when these so-called haploid cells come together at fertilization, they produce one cell with the full complement of DNA. Joined together, the cell is termed diploid, for twice, or double. Two halves make a whole.
From that moment forward, nearly all cells in that body have the same genetic makeup. When the one-cell embryo duplicates its genetic material, both cells of the now two-cell embryo are genetically identical. When they in turn duplicate their genetic material, each cell at the four-cell stage is genetically identical. This pattern goes on so that each of the trillions of cells in an adult is genetically exactly the same – whether it’s in a lung or a bone or the blood.
In somatic cell nuclear transfer, all the DNA comes from a single adult cell.Belkorin, CC BY-SA
In contrast, Dolly was produced by what’s called somatic cell nuclear transfer. In this process, researchers remove the genetic material from an egg and replace it with the nucleus of some other body cell. The resulting egg becomes a factory to produce an embryo that develops into an offspring. No sperm is in the picture; instead of half the genetic material coming from a sperm and half from an egg, it all comes from a single cell. It’s diploid from the start.
Long research path led to Dolly
Dolly was the culmination of hundreds of cloning experiments that, for example, showed diploid embryonic and fetal cells could be parents of offspring. But there was no way to easily know all the characteristics of the animal that would result from a cloned embryo or fetus. Researchers could freeze a few of the cells of a 16-cell embryo, while going on to produce clones from the other cells; if a desirable animal was produced, they could thaw the frozen cells and make more copies. But this was impractical because of low success rates.
Dolly demonstrated that adult somatic cells also could be used as parents. Thus, one could know the characteristics of the animal being cloned.
By my calculations, Dolly was the single success from 277 tries at somatic cell nuclear transfer. Sometimes the process of cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer still produces abnormal embryos, most of which die. But the process has greatly improved so success rates now are more like 10 percent; it’s highly variable, though, depending on the cell type used and the species.
More than 10 different cell types have been used successfully as “parents” for cloning. These days most cloning is done using cells obtained by biopsying skin.
More than genes can affect a clone
Genetics is only part of the story. Even while clones are genetically identical, their phenotypes – the characteristics they express – will be different. It’s like naturally occurring identical twins: They share all their genes but they’re not really exactly alike, especially if reared in different settings.
Environment plays a huge role for some characteristics. Food availability can influence weight. Diseases can stunt growth. These kinds of lifestyle, nutrition or disease effects can influence which genes are turned on or off in an individual; these are called epigenetic effects. Even though all the genetic material may be the same in two identical clones, they might not be expressing all the same genes.
Cloning a winner doesn’t guarantee success for the next generation.AP Photo/Darron Cummings
Consider the practice of cloning winning racehorses. Clones of winners sometimes also will be winners – but most of the time they’re not. This is because winners are outliers; they need to have the right genetics, but also the right epigenetics and the right environment to reach that winning potential. For example, one can never exactly duplicate the uterine conditions a winning racehorse experienced when it was a developing fetus. Thus, cloning champions usually leads to disappointment. On the other hand, cloning a stallion that sires a high proportion of race-winning horses will result very reliably in a clone that similarly sires winners. This is a genetic rather than a phenotypic situation.
Even though the genetics are reliable, there are aspects of the cloning procedure that mean the epigenetics and environment are suboptimal. For example, sperm have elegant ways of activating the eggs they fertilize, which will die unless activated properly; with cloning, activation usually is accomplished by a strong electric shock. Many of the steps of cloning and subsequent embryonic development are done in test tubes in incubators. These conditions are not perfect substitutes for the female reproductive tract where fertilization and early embryonic development normally occur.
Sometimes abnormal fetuses develop to term, resulting in abnormalities at birth. The most striking abnormal phenotype of some clones is termed “large offspring syndrome,” in which calves or lambs are 30 or 40 percent larger than normal, resulting in difficult birth. The problems stem from an abnormal placenta. At birth, these clones are genetically normal, but are overly large, and tend to be hyperinsulinemic and hypoglycemic. (The conditions normalize over time once the offspring is no longer influenced by the abnormal placenta.)
Recent improvements in cloning procedures have greatly reduced these abnormalities, which also occur with natural reproduction, but at a much lower incidence.
Many thousands of cloned mammals have been produced in nearly two dozen species. Very few of these concern practical applications, such as cloning a famous Angus bull named Final Answer (who recently died at an old age) in order to produce more high-quality cattle via his clone’s sperm.
But the cloning research landscape is changing fast. The driving force for producing Dolly was not to produce genetically identical animals. Rather researchers want to combine cloning techniques with other methods in order to efficiently change animals genetically – much quicker than traditional animal breeding methods that take decades to make changes in populations of species such as cattle.
One recent example is introducing the polled (no horns) gene into dairy cattle, thus eliminating the need for the painful process of dehorning. An even more striking application has been to produce a strain of pigs that is incapable of being infected by the very contagious and debilitating PRRS virus. Researchers have even made cattle that cannot develop Mad Cow Disease. For each of these procedures, somatic cell nuclear transplantation is an essential part of the process.
To date, the most valuable contribution of these somatic cell nuclear transplantation experiments has been the scientific information and insights gained. They’ve enhanced our understanding of normal and abnormal embryonic development, including aspects of aging, and more. This information is already helping reduce birth defects, improve methods of circumventing infertility, develop tools to fight certain cancers and even decrease some of the negative consequences of aging – in livestock and even in people. Two decades since Dolly, important applications are still evolving. George Seidel, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
We all need protection from “Big Men”. Big Men plot and plan evil, and do not care
who they hurt by asserting themselves. “Big Men” pride themselves on being ruthless,
cruel, greedy and destructive. They are
even proud of the number of people who hate them.
I posted the above message on my Facebook page, because I want people to know that these horrible evil people who think they are BIG can manipulate and destroy the lives of ordinary people. Sometimes, we all need protection from "Big Men". I know I do, they are all around and prey on the weak. It is nothing new, we have had Big Men roaming around for centuries. If we look at Psalm 52, we can begin to understand that these wicked evil people tormented even King David. Well one day, they will be banished from the earth.
We have all learned that there is something bigger, better and more enduring than the boasts of Big Evil Men and the trouble they instigate, and that is the grace and mercy of God.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God? 2 You who practice deceit, your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor. 3 You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth.[c] 4 You love every harmful word, you deceitful tongue!
5 Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. 6 The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at you, saying, 7 “Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!”
8 But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. 9 For what you have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will hope in your name, for your name is good.
How can modern parents raise the next generation to be free from corrosive gender and racial stereotypes? By the time children start elementary school, gender and race shape their lives in many ways that parents might want to prevent. As early as first grade, girls are less likely than boys to think members of their own gender are “really, really smart.” And by just age three, white children in the United States implicitly endorse stereotypes that African-American faces are angrier than white faces.
These stereotypes go deeper than children’s beliefs – they can also shape a child’s behavior. By age six, girls are less likely than boys to choose activities that seem to require them to be really smart, which could contribute to the development of long-term gender differences in science and math achievement.
Why do stereotypes develop in such young children? As a professor of early cognitive and social development, I have seen my research reveal how surprisingly subtle features of language contribute to a child’s tendency to view the world through the lens of social stereotypes.
The problem of generalization
Many parents try to prevent the development of stereotypes in children by avoiding saying things like, “boys are good at math,” or “girls cannot be leaders.” Instead, parents might take care to say things that are positive, like “girls can be anything they want.”
But our research has found that, to the developing mind, even these positive statements can have negative consequences.
For young children, how we speak is often more important than what we say. Generalizations, even if they say only things that are positive or neutral, such as “Girls can be anything they want,” “Hispanics live in the Bronx” or “Muslims eat different foods,” communicate that we can tell what someone is like just by knowing her gender, ethnicity or religion.
In our research, published in Child Development, we found that hearing generalizations led children as young as two years old to assume that groups mark stable and important differences between individual people.
In this study, children were introduced to a new, made-up way of categorizing people: “Zarpies.” If they only heard statements about specific individuals, (e.g., “These Zarpies whisper when they talk”), children continued to treat the people as individuals, even though they were all marked by the same label and wore similar clothes. But if they heard the same information as a generalization (e.g., “Zarpies whisper when they talk”), they started to think that “Zarpies” are very different from everyone else. Hearing generalizations led children to think that being a member of the group determined what the members would be like.
In another recent study, we found that hearing these types of generalizations – even if none of them was negative – led five-year-old children to share fewer resources (in this case, colorful stickers) with members outside their own social group.
These findings show that hearing generalizations, even positive or neutral ones, contributes to the tendency to view the world through the lens of social stereotypes. It is the form of the sentence, not exactly what it says, that matters to young children.
Studies show that repeatedly hearing generalizing language can negatively impact children’s behavior toward different social groups.Department of Education, CC BY
From groups to individuals
Our research means that generalizations are problematic even if children do not understand them.
If a young child overhears, “Muslims are terrorists,” the child might not know what it means to be a Muslim or a terrorist. But the child can still learn something problematic – that Muslims, whoever they are, are a distinct kind of person. That it is possible to make assumptions about what someone is like just by knowing if they are Muslim or not.
Language that uses specifics – instead of making general claims – avoids these problems. Sentences like, “Her family is Hispanic and lives in the Bronx,” “This Muslim family eats different foods,” “Those girls are great at math,” “You can be anything you want,” all avoid making general claims about groups.
Using specific language can also teach children to challenge their own and others’ generalizations. My three-year-old recently announced that “Boys play guitar,” despite knowing many female guitar players. This troubled me, not because it matters very much what he thinks about guitar playing, but because this way of talking means that he is starting to think that gender determines what a person can do.
But there is a very easy and natural way to respond to statements like these, which our research suggests reduces stereotyping. Simply say, “Oh? Who are you thinking of? Who did you see play the guitar?” Children usually have someone in mind. “Yes, that man at the restaurant played the guitar tonight. And yes, so does Grandpa.” This response guides children to think in terms of individuals, instead of groups.
This approach works for more sensitive generalizations too – things a child might say, like “Big boys are mean,” or “Muslims wear funny clothes.” Parents can ask children who they are thinking of and discuss whatever specific incident they have in mind. Sometimes children speak this way because they are testing out whether drawing a generalization is sensible. By bringing them back to the specific incident, we communicate to them that it is not.
Teachers and parents both influence the way children think about groups and individuals.Department of Education, CC BY
Every interaction counts
How much can this small change in language really matter? Parents, teachers and other caring adults cannot control everything that children hear, and exposure to explicitly racist, sexist or xenophobic ideas can also influence a child’s view of societal norms and values.
But children develop their sense of the world through minute-by-minute conversations with important adults in their lives. These adults have powerful platforms with their children. As parents and caregivers, we can use our language carefully to help children learn to view themselves and others as individuals, free to choose their own paths. With our language, we can help children develop habits of mind that challenge, rather than endorse, stereotyped views of the people around us.
