Massage III

My tip for today is to wash yourself without water and soap. 

Undress completely and systematically rub your skin, your entire body, thoroughly with your hands and even your feet if you can. This rubbing not only massages you but also sensitizes you to areas of your body that sometimes remain hidden or are often neglected. 

One of my masters even said he never does conventional exercise but instead keeps his body, especially his circulatory system, healthy exclusively with this type of massage. I don't share that opinion, but it's worth mentioning. And it underlines, once again in an exaggerated way, the great value of this method. As always, it's free and can be used immediately.

Who lives longer? Women or men?

On average, women live longer than men. Why is that?

Using data from 30 European countries, scientists have determined that cigarettes and alcohol play a role in this gender gap. Women live longer on average than men. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, a boy born in Germany today has a life expectancy of 77 years and 6 months, while a girl would live to over 82.

How can this difference be explained? Is it just biology that allows women to live a few years longer? Researchers from Great Britain wanted to demonstrate the extent to which cigarette and alcohol consumption influence this. They analyzed the causes of death in several European countries, including Germany.

The data came from the World Health Organisation. In addition to cancer of the respiratory organs, smoking can also trigger certain heart, vascular, or lung diseases. Liver diseases and oesophagal cancer, among other things, can be attributed to increased alcohol consumption. Smoking therefore explains up to 60% of the difference in the annual number of deaths between men and women.

The researchers discovered significant differences between individual countries. The difference between men and women was minimal in Iceland, as were the differences in Great Britain, Greece, Sweden, and Cyprus. In Eastern Europe, however, it was particularly pronounced and highest in Ukraine. Germany was in the middle of the pack. In this country, about half of the differences are due to cigarette smoking and one-fifth to alcohol consumption. This suggests that changing smoking habits will lead to a convergence of life expectancy between the sexes in the long term.

Meditation sharpens attention and concentration in old age

Scientists from Harvard, Yale, and Massachusetts Universities have demonstrated for the first time that meditation can change the physical structure of our brains. In their study, the researchers show an increase in the density of parts of the meditators' brains responsible for attention and sensory processing.

Eight reasons why depression is so common today

1. Toxic foods: They poison the brain, preventing it from functioning properly.

2. Heavy metal toxicity: The silent saboteur.

3. Too little nature: Avoiding what grounds the body.

4. Psychological attachment: Unconsciously seeking the same old, familiar misery.

5. Consumerism: The desire for things that create a feeling of emptiness.

6. No exercise: The willingness to be lethargic.

7. Ignorance of feelings: Locking negative emotions in the body.

8. It's a diagnosis: Promotes depression.


I think the topics alone are almost self-explanatory.

Cocoa is better than swallowing pills

In the US, approximately 10% of people suffer from depression, and the trend is rising. Unfortunately, no reliable figures are available for Germany, but it can be assumed that we are not far behind.

For most people, depression is temporary; for others, it is lifelong. Many sufferers, however, take antidepressants to overcome their low moods. However, these medications have severe side effects that can put some patients in a zombie-like state, where they lose touch with reality and their condition becomes even worse than it already was due to the depression.

Fortunately, there are plenty of foods in nature that have a mood-enhancing effect. Bananas, asparagus, eggs, and green leafy vegetables are known as natural helpers, and cocoa plays a special role.

Cocoa, which has been given the honorary name "food of the gods" in its native South America, has long been praised for its mood-enhancing properties. Cocoa contains many active ingredients that stimulate the production of several feel-good chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine and serotonin. Cocoa strengthens mental clarity and lifts the mood. 

This makes it particularly beneficial for people suffering from depression, as depression is often accompanied by impaired thinking. Cocoa beans can be eaten raw, but a hot cup of cocoa is more digestible.

Here, rest my bones. I wish they were yours.

When a friend of mine was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few years ago, he was given a maximum of six months to live. Unfortunately, he only made it to the next four. But what he did at the time he left was both impressive and highly organized. He arranged all his estates and drafted his obituary for the daily newspaper. The only true and most meaningful one I've ever seen. Recently, at a seminar for my "Longevity Training," all participants were asked to write their obituaries.

Wow! That wasn't easy. Putting your own life on paper in 20 minutes. The question quickly arises: Who have I actually "been"? Who would I have liked to have been? I've drawn my conclusions from the exercise and am now working on a kind of biography. This gives me more time to calmly reflect on everything and write it down. It's awful when you're sitting in a chapel, and the pastor reads something the bereaved emailed him. Speaking of pastors, I don't need someone like that to show up at my funeral. But that also needs to be arranged.

Photo: This is an epitaph from a sailor's grave in Brake (Lower Saxony) Here, rest my bones. I wish they were yours.

 

Medicines should be eaten

Even adding fish to your diet once a week significantly reduces the risk of heart and artery problems. Good nutrition is more than just cutting out fat and fast foods. You need to know the difference between "good" and "bad" fats, pay attention to portion size, and make good eating habits a part of your daily routine. 

But the older (and more established!) a person is, the more difficult it becomes to leave old paths. For example, with the right amount of fruits and vegetables per day (I don't want to break the "5 a day" rule here), the risk of contracting cancer decreases by 20%. But less than 40% of the older generation heed this fact and linger in old habits. And the longer these old habits have us in their grip, the more difficult it becomes to switch to new ones.

 

Take the dictionary when going to hospital

Hari kosi tegiVtss itena

Don't understand anything?
Well, then, practice diligently. There's a topic currently making the news that could actually generate revenue for language schools.

Due to the blatant labor shortage (they're euphemistically calling it a skilled labor shortage) in the nursing industry, the sector that cares for all the elderly and those in need of care and earns a lot of money doing so, the German federal government is now seeking "skilled workers from abroad, " meaning Tunisia, Serbia, China, the Philippines, etc.

But it's not just the underpaid nurses who are supposed to come from abroad. According to the German Medical Association, the situation with doctors is now as follows: "There are now hospitals where hardly any doctors speak proper German. "
It's a similar situation here in England. Foreign doctors are now clearly being required to take a language test after a German doctor allegedly caused a death due to language barriers.

http://www.theguardian.com/eu-doctors-proficiency-english

Cancer inexorably on the rise

The Robert Koch Institute reports that in Germany in 2012 almost half a million people were diagnosed with cancer. And the number of diseases continues to rise. There has been an 80% increase in cancer cases in the last thirty years. 

But what are the reasons for this change? Increasing life expectancy is certainly one reason for the growing number of cases of illness. If you died in the past at 70, you couldn't get cancer at 80. Sounds logical so far. 

But if you take the trouble to sort death statistics by age, you quickly realize that cancer can strike at any age. The usual suspects, alcohol and tobacco, are of course quickly ready as further explanations. We are now witnessing the generation that was able to smoke uninhibitedly for 50 or 60 years. 

Well, and that pushes the cancer rate up properly. The dangers of radiation or toxins are completely ignored. This goes so far in the public consciousness that even serious reactor accidents, like the one in Fukushima 2 years ago, are presented as rather harmless and are then also perceived as such. According to the Japanese government, not a single person has fallen ill from radiation.

Stupidity consumes - intelligence swills

Guzzling until you drop. What an outcry is sweeping through the country these days. A party has taken it upon itself to declare that six times a week is enough! No, they don't mean spreading their intellectual garbage six times a week.

Or from now on, only pay allowances six days a week. Or at least only make the people look stupid six times a week. This is a matter of life and death.

Only eat meat six times a week. What hypocritical populism! As if anyone would eat meat seven days a week. I think these ladies and gentlemen should travel to Tuscany less, lie less, and try less to spread do-gooder sentiments, and then there would be some hope for improvement.

We didn't just know that yesterday. Where do eggs and poultry come from? Exactly, from chicken concentration camps. Beef? Most cattle never see the green pastures of TV commercials. They're just meat producers, and that's that.

Pigs? They're supposed to be almost as intelligent as humans. Yet they're treated like cattle. Castration without anesthesia, stables that are far too small, etc. All known! And how many food scandals have we had in the last 12 months? Oh, I forgot... And anyway.

What would be on the table on the 7th day? Exactly! Fish from farms. Grain products from genetically modified and manure-covered fields. Strawberries and tomatoes from China. Dioxin (what was that again?) says hello. But of course, these people can't think of what would help. One of their pioneers, Joschka Fischer, will soon have the size of Helmut Kohl, and the current chairwoman is so round that she wouldn't benefit from a seven-day-a-week fast.

And anyway. Has no one noticed that citizens get more upset when a neighbourhood cat is tortured or when a neighbour poisons a dog that poops all over the streets than they do about all the issues surrounding factory farming combined? This shows the astonishing contortions that the (good) human moral sense is capable of.

And if the saying "intelligence drinks - stupidity eats" is true, then the fact that the Germans lead the world in meat consumption is rather a bad sign. Here at 115, we simply say: Eat only as much and as much as is good for you and also allows you to work physically. It's all about balance.

 

Graying inhibitors

Yes, I also wondered what that was. Graying inhibitors are present in detergents. Recently, someone sat across from me on the train who smelled quite strange and extremely strong. It wasn't perfume, but simply the scent of his 120% clean clothes. 

 

Supposedly clean, because what smelled—no, stank—was residue from the washing powder. Many conventional washing powders contain enzymes, surfactants, perfumes and fragrances, water softeners, optical brighteners, bleaching agents, or even builders and the aforementioned graying inhibitors. The same strange smell wafts over from my neighbour's clothes rack. 

 

Given that more and more people, especially children, are dealing with allergies, here's a sensible recommendation. If you want to use conventional detergents, because they are naturally cheaper than more ecologically sound washing powders, it's better to use as little as possible and rinse the laundry thoroughly.  

 

Use the extra rinse cycle. Less is more; just use half. Otherwise, graying inhibitors will quickly turn into "gray hair."

Too much meat

Good idea from Paul McCartney. 

Meat-free Monday. 

This applies especially to anyone who consumes meat and meat products more or less daily.  

And to be clear: I'm neither a vegetarian nor am I mentally ill and vegan. Humans need animal protein. End of story. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. These fads in eating habits are just "feeding" a new industry. Keyword: Avocados fly 3,000 miles to end up on vegans' tables.