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Turning the Body Into a Wire

The Truth News — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 06:46:33 +0000

Turning the Body Into a Wire

When the human body is the communications channel, it’s hard to hack the data

In 2007, U.S. vice president Dick Cheney ordered his doctors to disable all wireless signals to and from his Internet-connected pacemaker. Cheney later said that the decision was motivated by his desire to prevent terrorists from being able to hack his pacemaker and use it to lethally shock his heart. Cheney’s command to his doctors might seem to some to be overly cautious, but wirelessly connected medical devices have a history of exploitable vulnerabilities. At a series of conferences in 2011 and 2012, for example, New Zealand hacker Barnaby Jack showed that connected medical devices could be remotely attacked. Jack used a high-gain antenna to capture the unencrypted electromagnetic signals transmitted by an insulin pump on a mannequin 90 meters away. He then used those signals to hack into the pump and adjust the level of insulin the pump delivered. He also hacked a pacemaker and made it deliver deadly electric shocks.

Eight years after those demonstrations, connected medical devices remain vulnerable. In June 2020, for example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recalled a model of connected insulin pumps. The pumps were transmitting sensitive information without encryption, making the data accessible to anyone nearby who might want to listen in.

Medical devices are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wireless devices people are putting in or on their bodies. The list includes wireless earbuds, smartwatches, and virtual-reality headsets. Technologies still in development, such as smart contact lenses that display information and digital pills that transmit sensor data after being swallowed, will also be at risk.

All of these devices need to transmit data securely at low power and over a short range. That’s why researchers have started to think about them as individual components of a single human-size wireless network, referred to as a body-area network. The term “Internet of Bodies” (IoB) is also coming into use, taking a cue from the Internet of Things.

At the moment, IoB devices use established wireless technologies, mainly Bluetooth, to communicate. While these technologies are low power, well understood, and easy to implement, they were never designed for IoB networks. One of Bluetooth’s defining features is the ability for two devices to easily find and connect to one another from meters away. That feature is precisely what allows a hypothetical attacker to snoop on or attack the devices on someone’s body. Wireless technologies have also been designed to travel through air or vacuum, not through the medium of the human body, and therefore they are less efficient than a method of communicating designed to do so from scratch.

Through our research at Purdue University, we have developed a new method of communication that will keep medical devices, wearables, and any other devices on or near the body more secure than they are using low-power wireless signals to communicate with one another. The system capitalizes on the human body’s innate ability to conduct tiny, harmless electrical signals to turn the entire body into a wired communication channel. By turning the body into the network, we will make IoB devices more secure.

Sensitive personal data like medical information should always be encrypted when it’s transmitted, whether wirelessly or in an email or via some other channel. But there are three other especially good reasons to prevent an attacker from gaining access to medical devices locally.

The first is that medical data should be containable. You don’t want a device to be broadcasting information that someone might eavesdrop on. The second reason is that you don’t want the integrity of the device to be compromised. If you have a glucose monitor connected to an insulin pump, for example, you don’t want the pump to release more glucose because the monitor’s data was compromised. Not enough glucose in the blood can cause headaches, weakness, and dizziness, while too much can lead to vision and nerve problems, kidney disease, and strokes. Either situation can eventually lead to death. The third reason is that the device’s information always needs to be available. If an attacker were to jam the signals from an insulin pump or a pacemaker, the device might not even know it needed to respond to a sudden problem in the body.

So if security and privacy are so important, why not use wires? A wire creates a dedicated channel between two devices. Someone can eavesdrop on a wired signal only if they physically tap the wire itself. That’s going to be hard to do if the wire in question is on or inside your body.

Setting aside the benefits of security and privacy, there are some important reasons why you wouldn’t want wires crisscrossing your body. If a wire isn’t properly insulated, the body’s own biochemical processes can corrode the metal in the wire, which could in turn cause heavy-metal poisoning. It’s also a matter of convenience. Imagine needing to repair or replace a pacemaker with wires. Rethreading the wires through the body would be a very delicate task.

Rather than choose between wireless signals, which are easy for eavesdroppers to snoop, and wired signals, which bring risk to the body, why not a third option that combines the best of both? That’s the inspiration behind our work to use the human body as the communication medium for the devices in someone’s body-area network.

Your Body Is a Smart Home

Illustration: Chris Philpot

People are putting more and more devices in and on their bodies. Whether they’re medical devices like pacemakers, insulin pumps, and body-temperature sensors, or consumer tech like wireless earbuds, smartwatches, and fitness trackers, they all have one thing in common. None of them need to send data beyond the range of the human body. Any communications beyond the body can be handled by a central wireless hub.

The network that these devices create is called an Internet of Bodies (IoB) network, borrowing from the Internet of Things concept. IoB networks share some of the same needs as a smart home, for example. A smart home can be filled with wildly different devices—an Amazon Alexa, a smart fridge, and a system that adjusts lights automatically when people enter and exit rooms—that all use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to communicate. Likewise, consumer tech and medical devices in an IoB network can both use the common medium of the body itself to send signals.

We call the method of sending signals directly through the body electro-quasistatic human-body communication. That’s a mouthful, so let’s just think of it as a body channel. The important takeaway is that by exploiting the body’s own conductive properties, we can avoid the pitfalls of both wired and wireless channels.

Metal wires are great conductors of electric charge. It’s a simple matter to transmit data by encoding 1s and 0s as different voltages. You need only define 1s as some voltage, which would cause current to flow through the wire, and 0s as zero voltage, which would mean no current flowing through the wire. By measuring the voltage over time at the other end of the wire, you end up with the original sequence of 1s and 0s. However, given you don’t want metal wires running around or through the body, what can you do instead?

The average adult human is about 60 percent water by weight. And though pure water is a terrible electrical conductor, water filled with conductive particles like electrolytes and salts conducts electricity better. Your body is filled with a watery solution called the interstitial fluid that sits underneath your skin and around the cells of your body. The interstitial fluid is responsible for carrying nutrients from the bloodstream to the body’s cells, and is filled with proteins, salts, sugars, hormones, neurotransmitters, and all sorts of other molecules that help keep the body going. Because interstitial fluid is everywhere in the body, it allows us to establish a circuit among two or more communicating devices sitting pretty much anywhere on the body.

Imagine someone with diabetes who uses an insulin pump and a separate monitor on the abdomen to manage blood glucose levels. Suppose they want their smartwatch, among its many other functions, to display current glucose levels and the operational status of the pump. Traditionally, these devices would have to be connected wirelessly, which would make it theoretically possible for anyone to grab a copy of the user’s personal data. Or worse, potentially attack the pump itself. Today, many medical devices still aren’t encrypted, and even for those that are, encryption is not a guarantee of security.

Here’s how it would work with a body channel instead. The pump, the monitor, and the smartwatch would each be outfitted with a small copper electrode on its back, in direct contact with the skin. Each device also has a second electrode not in contact with the skin that functions as a sort of floating ground, which is a local electrical ground that is not directly connected with Earth’s ground. When the monitor takes a blood glucose measurement, it will need to send that data to both the pump, in case the insulin level needs to be adjusted, and to the smartwatch, so that the individual can see the level. The smartwatch can also store data for long-term monitoring, or encrypt it and send it to the user’s computer, or their doctor’s computer, for remote storage and analysis.

The monitor communicates its glucose measurements by encoding the data into a series of voltage values. Then, it transmits these values by applying a voltage between its two copper electrodes—the one touching the human body, and the one acting as a floating ground.

This applied voltage very slightly changes the potential of the entire body with respect to Earth’s ground. This tiny change in potential between the body and Earth’s ground is just a fraction of the potential difference between the monitor’s two electrodes. But it’s enough to be picked up, as an even smaller fraction after crossing the body, by the devices elsewhere. Because both the pump on the waist as well as the smartwatch on the wrist are on the body, they can detect this change in potential across their own two electrodes—both on-body and floating. The pump and the smartwatch then convert these potential measurements back into data. All without the actual signal ever traveling beyond the skin.

One of the biggest challenges for realizing this method of body communication is in selecting the best wavelengths for the electrical signals. Electrical wavelengths like the ones we’re considering here are much longer than the RF wavelengths for wireless communications.

Photos: John Underwood/Purdue University

Staying Grounded: David Yang [right], a Ph.D. student of Shreyas Sen [left], wears a transmitter on his right wrist. The transmitter sends a code through his body to unlock a computer connected to the receiver in his left hand. On the left is a close up of the wrist wearable and another prototype of the receiver that has been miniaturized into a USB insert.

The reason selecting a frequency is a challenge is that there is a range of frequencies at which the human body itself can become an antenna. An ordinary radio antenna creates a signal when an alternating current causes the electrons in its material to oscillate and create electromagnetic waves. The frequency of the transmitted waves depends on the frequency of the alternating current fed into the antenna. Likewise, an alternating current at certain frequencies applied to the human body will cause the body to radiate a signal. This signal, while weak, is still strong enough to be picked up with the right equipment and from some distance away. And if the body is acting as an antenna, it can also pick up unwanted signals from elsewhere that might interfere with wearables’ and implants‘ ability to talk with one another.

For the same reason you don’t want to use technologies like Bluetooth, you want to keep electrical signals confined to the body and not accidentally radiating from or to it. So you have to avoid electrical frequencies at which the human body becomes an antenna, which are in the range of 10 to 100 megahertz. Above that are the wireless bands, and we’ve already mentioned the problems there. The upshot is that you need to use frequencies in the range of 0.1 to 10 MHz, in which signals will stay confined to the body.

Earlier attempts to use the human body to communicate have usually shied away from these lower frequencies because the body is typically high loss at low frequencies. In other words, signals at these lower frequencies require more power to guarantee that a signal will make it to its destination. That means a signal from a glucose monitor on the abdomen might not make it to a smartwatch on the wrist before it’s unreadable, without a significant boost in power. These previous efforts were high loss because they focused on sending direct electrical signals, rather than information encoded in potential changes. We’ve found that the parasitic capacitance between a device and the body is key to creating a working channel.

Capacitance refers to the ability of an object to store electrical charge. Parasitic capacitance is unwanted capacitance that occurs unintentionally between any two objects. For example, two charged areas in close proximity on a circuit board, or between a person’s hand and their phone. Typically, parasitic capacitance is a nuisance, although it also enables certain applications like touch screens.

Astute readers may have picked up that we haven’t mentioned one key aspect of circuits before now: A circuit needs to be a closed loop for electrical communication to be possible. Up until now, we’ve restricted our discussion to the forward path, meaning the part of the circuit from the transmitting electrode to the receiving electrode. But we need a path back. We have one thanks to parasitic capacitance between the floating ground electrodes on the devices and Earth’s ground.

Here’s how to picture the circuit we’re using. First, imagine two circuit loops. The first loop begins with the transmitting device, at the electrode touching the skin. The circuit then goes through the body, down through the feet to the actual ground, and then back up through the air to the other (floating) electrode on the transmitting device. We should note here that this is not a loop through which direct current can flow. But because parasitic capacitances exist between any two objects, such as your feet and your shoes, and your shoes and the ground, a small alternating current can exist.

The second loop, in a similar fashion, begins with the receiving device, at its electrode that is touching the skin. It then goes through the body—both loops share this segment—to the ground, and back through the air to the floating-ground electrode on the receiving device.

The key here is to understand that the circuit loops are important not because we have to push a current through them necessarily, but because we need a closed path of capacitors. In a circuit, if the voltage changes across one capacitor—for example, the two electrodes of the transmitting device—it creates a slight alternating current in the loop. The other capacitors, meaning both the body and the air, “see” this current and, because of their impedances, or resistances to the current, their voltages change as well.

Remember that the circuit loop with the transmitting device and the one with the receiving device share the body as a segment of their respective loops. Because they share that segment, the receiving device also responds to the slight change in the body’s voltage. The two electrodes making up the receiving device’s capacitor detect the body’s changing voltage and allow that measurement to be decoded as meaningful information.

Body Language

Illustration: Chris Philpot

Using the body as the communications channel for IoB devices avoids the fundamental problem with radiative technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth by keeping the electrical signals under the skin.

Take an insulin pump that needs to send blood-glucose levels to a smartwatch. The technique creates two circuit loops in the body. The first loop [blue] starts with the pump. Two electrodes, one touching the body, the other floating, create an electric-potential difference between them. The voltage change also slightly modulates the body’s potential. This causes a slight alternating current to flow from the pump, through the air to the ground, and up through the body.

The change in the body’s potential causes a similar voltage change between the electrodes of the smartwatch, which also has one touching the body and one floating. This creates a second small alternating current [yellow] to flow in a similar loop. These two closed circuits make it possible to send electrical signals between the devices.

We have found that we want any IoB device’s capacitor to have high capacitance. If this is the case, relatively high voltages created by the transmitting device will result in extremely low currents in the body itself. Obviously, this makes sense from a safety perspective: We don’t want to run high current through the body, after all. But it also makes the communications channel low loss. That’s because a high-impedance capacitor will be particularly sensitive to minor changes in current. The upshot is that we can keep the current low (and safe) and still get clear voltage measurements at the receiving device. We’ve found that our technique results in a reduction in loss of two orders of magnitude compared with previous attempts to create a wireless channel in the body, which relied on sending an electrical signal via current directly through the body.

Our method for turning the human body into a communications channel shifts the distance at which signals can be intercepted from the 5- to 10-meter range of Bluetooth and similar signals to below 15 centimeters. In other words, we’ve reduced the distance over which an attacker can both intercept and interfere with signals by two orders of magnitude. With our method, an attacker would need to be so close to the target that there’s no way to hide.

Not only does our method offer more privacy and security for anyone with a medical implant or device, but as a bonus, the communications are far more energy efficient as well. Because we’ve developed a system that is low loss at low frequencies, we can send information between devices using far less power. Our method requires less than 10 picojoules per transferred bit. For reference, that’s about 0.01 percent of the energy required by Bluetooth. Using 256-bit encryption, it drew 415 nanowatts of power to transmit 1 kilobit per second, which is more than three orders of magnitude below Bluetooth (which draws between 1 and 10 milliwatts).

Medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps have been around for decades. Bluetooth earbuds and smartwatches may be newer, but neither life-saving medical equipment nor consumer tech is leaving our bodies any time soon. It only makes sense to make both categories of devices as secure as possible. Data is always most vulnerable to a malicious attack when it is moving from one point to another, and our IoB communication technique can finally close the loop on keeping personal data from leaving your body.

This article appears in the December 2020 print issue as “To Safeguard Sensitive Data, Turn Flesh and Tissue Into a Secure Wireless Channel.”

About the Author

Shreyas Sen is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE. Shovan Maity and Debayan Das are graduate students of Sen at Purdue University. source

Scientists turn words into matter – The Neuroscience Behind Our Words

The Truth News — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 07:11:43 +0000

How A Scientist Proved Water Has Feelings Too

Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it and indulge it will eat its fruit and bear the consequences of their words.”

Okay, I know, I know… Water doesn’t have feelings, right? Actually, Dr. Masaru Emoto says otherwise.

Dr. Emoto theorizes that human consciousness actually has an effect on the molecular structure of water. In other words, water reacts to positive and negative words accordingly.

In 1994, Dr. Emoto conducted a study which included exposing different samples of water to different words for a period of time. Some samples were exposed to the word “love”, some to the words “thank you”, and others to the phrase, “I hate you”. Then, he would freeze the water to observe the effects.

https://goodshepherdmedia.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/words-change-physical-matter.mp4

Here’s what he found:

These results are pretty amazing on their own, but it gets even more amazing when we consider that our bodies are made up of anywhere between 50% and 75% water.

If words impact a single droplet of water so drastically, can you imagine how much they affect the human body? Can you imagine how much they can affect you and me?

Of course, Dr. Emoto’s findings drummed up a lot of skepticism, and if I’m honest, I was one of the skeptics. That’s why, a few years ago I decided to conduct my own research with the help of my kids.

How We Used Rice to Test the Power of Words

We filled three jars with cooked rice and assigned each jar to a category of words. The first jar was labelled “love”, which meant we had to say kind and encouraging words to this jar every day.

The second jar was labelled “hate”, which meant we had to say mean and discouraging words to this jar every day.

The last jar remained unlabelled. We ignored this jar all together.

After 21 days, here’s what we found:

We were completely blown away by the results. The jar exposed to kind words flourished, while the jar exposed to mean words didn’t fare as well, and the jar we completely ignored turned out to be the mouldiest of all.

It really makes me wonder how important it is to give attention and love to ourselves (and how detrimental it can be if we don’t).

Honestly, I think Mother Theresa said it best:

“Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.”

source

The Neuroscience Behind Our Words

Sticks and Stones

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

This phrase is reminiscent of childhood recess when we didn’t want others to know how hurtful their words truly were. However, the belief that physical injury is more painful than psychological or emotional injury is not necessarily true.

Scientific studies actually show that positive and negative words not only affect us on a deep psychological level, but they have a significant impact on the outcome of our lives.

It’s a phrase we hear all the time, but it makes me wonder if it’s actually true. For some people, words like “crazy”, “ugly” or “stupid” might not mean a lot. To others, it can leave a really negative impact on their self-esteem.

If you’re someone who has ever felt the detrimental effects of these negative words, you know what I mean.

But guess what — water feels that way too!

**Words Can Hurt Me**

In their neuroscience experiment, “Do Words Hurt?”, Maria Richter and collaborating scientists monitored subjects’ brain responses to auditory and imagined negative words. During this process, they discovered painful or negative words increase Implicit Processing (IMP) within the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sACC).

Put frankly, their study proved that negative words release stress and anxiety-inducing hormones in subjects.

Additionally, a study found increased levels of anxiety in children associated with higher rates of negative self-talk. According to the study’s abstract,

“These results suggest negative self-talk plays a role in the generation or maintenance of anxiety in normal children.”

Ultimately, negative words, whether spoken, heard, or thought, not only cause situational stress, but also contribute to long-term anxiety.

Think Happy Thoughts

Naturally, the recognition that holding negative thoughts in our mind is enough to induce stress and anxiety hormones begs the question, “What effect do positive thoughts have?”

In their jointly written book, Words Can Change Your Brain, Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University, and Mark Robert Waldman, a communications expert state, “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.”

Furthermore, according to these two experts in their field, exercising positive thoughts can quite literally change one’s reality.

“By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.”

~Newburg, Waldman

Over time, given sustained positive though, functions in the parietal lobe start to change. Consequently, this changes our perception of the self and those around us. Essentially, holding a positive view of ourselves helps train our brain to see the good in others.

Thus, by exercising consistent positive thoughts and speech, we not only change our self-perception, but how we perceive the world around us. Ultimately, this grants us the ability the shape our reality and change the world for the better.

BRMs: Using Positive Language to Drive Value

Evidently, as humans, our thought patterns directly shape our perception of the world and those around us. Our thoughts become our words, and therefore our language.

This holds true for humans individually, as well as organizationally. A strong company culture is one derived from a shared positive language based on organizational core values.

As BRMs, we know that relationships lie at the core of our role, and that language shapes our human interactions. So, how can we make a shift in the language we use in our daily work lives to reduce the negative associations with traditional “corporate lingo”?

In his article, “Language Matters”, Aaron Barnes, CEO of BRM Institute, dives deeply into the importance of positive language in elevating your business communications to drive value.

Take a look at a few examples of how you can shift towards positive language. As you do, really think about how each of these words or phrases make you feel, remember, or associate.

BRM Positive Language Shifts

Capability instead of Process
Convergence instead of Alignment
Shared Ownership instead of Accountability
Demand Shaping instead of Demand Management
Business Capabilities instead of Services

Making these small changes in the words we use to express ideas creates a culture that doesn’t single out or place blame on any department or individual within the organization. Rather, it aims to promote transparency, elevate communications, and appreciate individual value.

In the end, shared positive language will promote effective communication and collaboration; breeding innovation, success, and organizational value.

“Language Matters” contains a comprehensive list of all the positive language shifts you can implement to drive effective communication across your enterprise. source

Scientists turn words into matter

Machine learning translates human language into materials

Is our consciousness, thoughts, and words a state of matter or the result of our neurons creating a material reality? It’s a phenomenon of discovery that MIT scientists explored using a variety of machine learning tools to understand the connection between human language and matter. What they found is that human language can create a physical object which has materialized in the exact way our words describe.

At the American Physics Society’s March Meeting, materials scientist Markus Buehler, the Jerry McAfee Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present new research conducted by him and his team that uncovers a text-to-material design approach of multi-material composite designs based on human readable language and 3D printing.

“Human language contains the rules of grammar that form phrases and sentences together to convey meaning. It’s equivalent to the self-assembly process in materials science, where a molecule forms into larger scale structures by itself,” said Buehler.

Another correlation is the importance of order in language. Different words produce different meanings and the same is true for molecules and the building blocks of materials. “If you assemble them in different order, they are going to have a very different function,” adds Buehler.

The researchers experimented with this concept using deep learning and transformer models to translate human language into describing the assembly of material building blocks. “We developed this system where we can ask computers to help us assemble materials that don’t exist yet,” said Buehler.

The system allows a person to type text into the computer that describes anything their imagination wants to create, and a couple hours later, you have a physical three-dimensional replica in your hands that resembles everything you just typed.

Using machine learning tools to understand and translate human language into multi-dimensional materials is a cumbersome and computationally expensive problem to solve.

Buehler’s lab has been working to solve this problem to design bio-based materials and for many years used analytical methods like category theory.

“The power of machine learning allows us to solve complex problems computationally that are not tractable using any of the analytical pen and paper methods,” said Buehler

Buehler adds, this form of materialization wouldn’t be possible without deep learning models. “It’s building a relationship between language and our thoughts. We can now explore, what are the physical properties of our thoughts?”

Simulation of our thoughts to describe an architectural material printed on flexible black TPU filament

Your Words Do Matter

Negative, angry and critical words cause emotional and physical damage, not only to the listener, but to the speaker. A single negative word, whether spoken to a stranger, a friend or a family member, can leave a lasting impression that might never be erased. Negative words create negative attitudes, destroy relationships and block communication. For children, the effects are more serious. Studies have found that connections between the left and right sides of the brain are underdeveloped in adults who were verbally abused as children by their parents or by peers.

Some people justify angry behavior by claiming that they need to express feelings of being frustrated, stressed, or under pressure. In fact, speaking negative words to others causes physical changes in your own brain that can affect your well-being. Neurologists have found that vocalizing a negative word such as “no” immediately releases a flood of stress-producing hormones that interrupt normal brain function and impair your ability to think logically, reason, process language and communicate. This is believed to be linked to a “flight response” that helped our ancestors survive by reacting instantly to dangerous situations.

Thinking and speaking negative thoughts over and over can permanently damage parts of your brain that regulate your memory, emotions, appetite, and sleep patterns. Feelings of anxiety and sadness increase, and the ability to experience long-term satisfaction decreases. Unfortunately, thinking and saying positive words does not have the same dramatic effect on your brain. You need to speak a positive word multiple times to counteract the effect on your brain of one negative word.

Controlling or eliminating negative words and actions has a positive effect on your overall health. Research shows that a positive attitude reduces the occurrence of heart disease, improves immune responses, and is associated with making healthier lifestyle choices. Here are some tips;

Understand yourself. Ask yourself why you feel so angry or negative. Are you hungry, tired, disappointed, late, or upset by something that happened at work? Instead of saying unkind words to the person in front of you, look for a positive way to alleviate the source of your distress.

Smile (even a fake smile). A study by the University of Kansas showed that the physical act of smiling lowers blood pressure and slows the heart rate during times of stress.

Be polite. Everyone likes to be treated with courtesy and respect. Showing consideration for others creates a positive environment.

Be aware of the whole situation. An employee serving a long line of customers at the deli counter or post office is under a lot of pressure. A waiter who forgets your order could be new on the job. Remember when you might have been in a similar situation. By being tolerant and understanding, you make it easier for them to do their job.

Try an attitude adjustment and turn negatives into positives. Instead of fuming because you have to commute in heavy traffic, use the time to listen to music or podcasts. If you are short on money, appreciate the good things you have, such as the company of friends and family.

Learning to control negative thoughts and avoid negative actions will result in more rewarding relationships and have a positive effect on your health and well-being. source

Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress

Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health. Practice overcoming negative self-talk with examples provided.

Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer this age-old question about positive thinking may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself, and whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic — and it may even affect your health.

Indeed, some studies show that personality traits such as optimism and pessimism can affect many areas of your health and well-being. The positive thinking that usually comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management. And effective stress management is associated with many health benefits. If you tend to be pessimistic, don’t despair — you can learn positive thinking skills.

Understanding positive thinking and self-talk

Positive thinking doesn’t mean that you ignore life’s less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information or expectations due to preconceived ideas of what may happen.

If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, your outlook on life is more likely pessimistic. If your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist — someone who practices positive thinking.

The health benefits of positive thinking

Researchers continue to explore the effects of positive thinking and optimism on health. Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress and pain
Greater resistance to illnesses
Better psychological and physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease and stroke
Reduced risk of death from cancer
Reduced risk of death from respiratory conditions
Reduced risk of death from infections
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

It’s unclear why people who engage in positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on your body.

It’s also thought that positive and optimistic people tend to live healthier lifestyles — they get more physical activity, follow a healthier diet, and don’t smoke or drink alcohol in excess.

Identifying negative thinking

Not sure if your self-talk is positive or negative? Some common forms of negative self-talk include:

Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all the positive ones. For example, you had a great day at work. You completed your tasks ahead of time and were complimented for doing a speedy and thorough job. That evening, you focus only on your plan to do even more tasks and forget about the compliments you received.
Personalizing. When something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. For example, you hear that an evening out with friends is canceled, and you assume that the change in plans is because no one wanted to be around you.
Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst without facts that the worse will happen. The drive-through coffee shop gets your order wrong, and then you think that the rest of your day will be a disaster.
Blaming. You try to say someone else is responsible for what happened to you instead of yourself. You avoid being responsible for your thoughts and feelings.
Saying you “should” do something. You think of all the things you think you should do and blame yourself for not doing them.
Magnifying. You make a big deal out of minor problems.
Perfectionism. Keeping impossible standards and trying to be more perfect sets yourself up for failure.
Polarizing. You see things only as either good or bad. There is no middle ground.

Focusing on positive thinking

You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. The process is simple, but it does take time and practice — you’re creating a new habit, after all. Following are some ways to think and behave in a more positive and optimistic way:

Identify areas to change. If you want to become more optimistic and engage in more positive thinking, first identify areas of your life that you usually think negatively about, whether it’s work, your daily commute, life changes or a relationship. You can start small by focusing on one area to approach in a more positive way. Think of a positive thought to manage your stress instead of a negative one.
Check yourself. Periodically during the day, stop and evaluate what you’re thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, try to find a way to put a positive spin on them.
Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Seek humor in everyday happenings. When you can laugh at life, you feel less stressed.
Follow a healthy lifestyle. Aim to exercise for about 30 minutes on most days of the week. You can also break it up into 5- or 10-minute chunks of time during the day. Exercise can positively affect mood and reduce stress. Follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body. Get enough sleep. And learn techniques to manage stress.
Surround yourself with positive people. Make sure those in your life are positive, supportive people you can depend on to give helpful advice and feedback. Negative people may increase your stress level and make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.
Practice positive self-talk. Start by following one simple rule: Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else. Be gentle and encouraging with yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, evaluate it rationally and respond with affirmations of what is good about you. Think about things you’re thankful for in your life.

Here are some examples of negative self-talk and how you can apply a positive thinking twist to them:

Putting positive thinking into practice
Negative self-talk	Positive thinking
I’ve never done it before.	It’s an opportunity to learn something new.
It’s too complicated.	I’ll tackle it from a different angle.
I don’t have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m too lazy to get this done.	I couldn’t fit it into my schedule, but I can re-examine some priorities.
There’s no way it will work.	I can try to make it work.
It’s too radical a change.	Let’s take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me.	I’ll see if I can open the channels of communication.
I’m not going to get any better at this.	I’ll give it another try.

Practicing positive thinking every day

If you tend to have a negative outlook, don’t expect to become an optimist overnight. But with practice, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You may also become less critical of the world around you.

When your state of mind is generally optimistic, you’re better able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive way. That ability may contribute to the widely observed health benefits of positive thinking. source

Sticks and Stones: Hurtful Words Damage the Brain

Verbal abuse in childhood inflicts lasting physical effects on brain structure.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

We all know how untrue that childhood incantation is. Words do hurt. Ridicule, disdain, humiliation, and taunting all cause injury, and when it is delivered in childhood from a child’s peers, verbal abuse causes more than emotional trauma. It inflicts lasting physical effects on brain structure.

The remarkable thing about the human brain is that it develops after birth. Unlike most animals whose brains are cast at birth, the human brain is so underdeveloped at birth that we cannot even walk for months. Self-awareness does not develop for years. Personality, cognitive abilities, and skills take decades to develop, and these attributes develop differently in every person. This is because the development and wiring of the human brain are guided by our experiences during childhood and adolescence. From a biological perspective, this increases the odds that an individual will compete and reproduce successfully in the environment the individual is born into, rather than the environment experienced by our caveman ancestors and recorded in our genes through natural selection. Developing the human brain out of the womb cheats evolution, and this is the reason for the success of our species.

When that environment is hostile or socially unhealthy, development of the brain is affected, and often it is impaired. Early childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, or even witnessing domestic violence, have been shown to cause abnormal physical changes in the brain of children, with lasting effects that predispose the child to developing psychological disorders. This type of brain scarring is well established now by human brain imaging studies, but prior to the recent study by Martin Teicher and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, taunting and other verbal abuse experienced by middle school children from their peers was not thought to leave a structural imprint on the developing brain. But it does, according to their new study published online in advance of print in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Young adults, ages 18-25, with no history of exposure to domestic violence, sexual abuse, or parental physical abuse, were asked to rate their childhood exposure to parental and peer verbal abuse when they were children, and then they were given a brain scan.

The results revealed that those individuals who reported experiencing verbal abuse from their peers during middle school years had underdeveloped connections between the left and right sides of their brain through the massive bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. Psychological tests given to all subjects in the study showed that this same group of individuals had higher levels of anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, dissociation, and drug abuse than others in the study.

Verbal abuse from peers during the middle school years had the greatest impact, presumably because this is a sensitive period when these brain connections are developing and becoming insulated with myelin. (Myelin is formed by non-neuronal cells, brain cells that are also known as “the other brain”, or glia.)

The environment that children are raised in molds not only their mind, but also their brain. This is something many long suspected, but now we have scientific instruments that show us how dramatically childhood experience alters the physical structure of the brain, and how sensitive we are as children to these environmental effects. Words–verbal harassment–from peers (and, as a previous study from these researchers showed, verbal abuse from a child’s parents) can cause far more than emotional harm.

Early childhood experience can either nourish or stifle brain development, and the consequences are physical, personal, and societal. Childhood taunting and verbal bullying have always been a problem, but many feel that civility, courtesy, polite social interactions, have declined markedly from the environment that today’s adults experienced as children. Many schools are more hostile places than schools once were, and new technologies, such as the internet, offer more opportunities for taunting and humiliation of children. If this is true, modern conditions or attitudes that tolerate verbal abuse of children by their peers are an incubator for developing brains with abnormalities in the corpus callosum and an elevated risk of psychiatric problems. The critical concern for ridding our environment of neurotoxins must also include “neurotoxins” children are exposed to in their social environment. source

Why This Word Is So Dangerous to Say or Hear

This word can damage both the speaker’s and listener’s brain.

KEY POINTS

Research shows that seeing the word “no” causes the sudden release of dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain.
Fear-provoking words—like poverty, illness, and death—also stimulate the brain in negative ways.
To overcome bias toward negativity, one needs to generate at least three positive thoughts and feelings for each negative expression.

If I were to put you into an fMRI scanner—a huge donut-shaped magnet that can take a video of the neural changes in your brain—and flash the word “no” for less than one second, you’d see a sudden release of dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters. These chemicals immediately interrupt the normal functioning of your brain, impairing logic, reason, language processing, and communication.

In fact, just seeing a list of negative words for a few seconds will make a highly anxious or depressed person feel worse, and the more you ruminate on them, the more you can actually damage key structures that regulate your memory, feelings, and emotions. [1] You’ll disrupt your sleep, your appetite, and your ability to experience long-term happiness and satisfaction.

If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say “no,” more stress chemicals will be released, not only in your brain but in the listener’s as well. [2] The listener will experience increased anxiety and irritability, thus undermining cooperation and trust. In fact, just hanging around negative people will make you more prejudiced toward others. [3]

Any form of negative rumination—for example, worrying about your financial future or health—will stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals. The same holds true for children: The more negative thoughts they have, the more likely they are to experience emotional turmoil. [4] But if you teach them to think positively, you can turn their lives around. [5]

Negative thinking is also self-perpetuating, and the more you engage in negative dialogue—at home or at work—the more difficult it becomes to stop. [6] But negative words, spoken with anger, do even more damage. They send alarm messages through the brain, interfering with the decision-making centers in the frontal lobe, and this increases a person’s propensity to act irrationally.

Fear-provoking words—like poverty, illness, and death—also stimulate the brain in negative ways. And even if these fearful thoughts are not real, other parts of the brain (like the thalamus and amygdala) react to negative fantasies as though they were actual threats occurring in the outside world. Curiously, we seem to be hardwired to worry, perhaps an artifact of old memories carried from ancestral times when there were countless threats to our survival. [7]

To interrupt this natural propensity to worry, several steps can be taken. First, ask yourself: “Is the situation really a threat to my personal survival?” Usually, it isn’t, and the faster you can interrupt the amygdala’s reaction to an imagined threat, the quicker you can take action to solve the problem. You’ll also reduce the possibility of burning a permanent negative memory into your brain. [8]

After you have identified the negative thought (which often operates just below the level of everyday consciousness), you can reframe it by choosing to focus on positive words and images. The result: Anxiety and depression decrease and the number of unconscious negative thoughts declines. [9]

The Power of Yes

When doctors and therapists teach patients to turn negative thoughts and worries into positive affirmations, the communication process improves and the patient regains self-control and confidence. [10] But there’s a problem: The brain barely responds to our positive words and thoughts. [11] They’re not a threat to our survival, so the brain doesn’t need to respond as rapidly as it does to negative thoughts and words. [12]

To overcome this neural bias for negativity, we must repetitiously and consciously generate as many positive thoughts as we can. Barbara Fredrickson, a founder of positive psychology, discovered that if we need to generate at least three positive thoughts and feelings for each expression of negativity. If you express fewer, personal and business relationships are likely to fail. This finding correlates with Marcial Losada’s research with corporate teams, [13] and John Gottman’s research with marital couples. [14]

Fredrickson, Losada, and Gottman realized that if you want your business or personal relationships to flourish, you’ll need to generate at least five positive messages for each negative utterance you make. (“I’m disappointed” or “That’s not what I had hoped for” count as expressions of negativity, as does a facial frown or nod of the head.)

It doesn’t matter if your positive thoughts are irrational; they’ll still enhance your sense of happiness, well-being, and satisfaction. [15] In fact, positive thinking can help anyone build a better and more optimistic attitude toward life. [16]

Positive words and thoughts propel the motivational centers of the brain into action [17] and help us build resilience when we are faced with problems. [18] According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leading happiness researcher, if you want to develop lifelong satisfaction, you should regularly engage in positive thinking about yourself, share your happiest events with others, and savor every positive experience. [19]

Our advice: Choose your words wisely and speak them slowly. This will allow you to interrupt the brain’s propensity to be negative, and, as recent research has shown, the mere repetition of positive words like love, peace, and compassion will turn on specific genes that lower your physical and emotional stress. [20] You’ll feel better, live longer, and build deeper and more trusting relationships with others, at home and at work.

As Fredrickson and Losada point out, when you generate a minimum of five positive thoughts for each negative one, you’ll experience “an optimal range of human functioning.” [21] That is the power of Yes.

References

[1] Some assessments of the amygdala role in suprahypothalamic neuroendocrine regulation: a minireview. Talarovicova A, Krskova L, Kiss A. Endocr Regul. 2007 Nov;41(4):155-62.

[2]HaririAR, Tessitore A, Mattay VS, Fera F,Weinberger DR.. The amygdala response to emotional stimuli: a comparison of faces and scenes. Neuroimage. 2002 Sep;17(1):317-23.

[3] Duhachek A, Zhang S, Krishnan S. Anticipated Group Interaction: Coping withValence Asymmetries in Attitude Shift. Journal Of Consumer Research. Vol. 34. October 2007.

[4] The Role of Repetitive Negative Thoughts in the Vulnerability for Emotional Problems in Non-Clinical Children. Broeren S, Muris P, Bouwmeester S, van der Heijden KB, Abee A. J Child Fam Stud. 2011 Apr;20(2):135-148.

[5] Protocol for a randomised controlled trial of a school based cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) intervention to prevent depression in high risk adolescents (PROMISE). Stallard P, Montgomery AA, Araya R, Anderson R, Lewis G, Sayal K, Buck R, Millings A,Taylor JA. Trials. 2010 Nov 29;11:114.

[6] What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Alia-Klein N, Goldstein RZ, Tomasi D, Zhang L, Fagin-Jones S, Telang F, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Volkow ND. Emotion. 2007 Aug;7(3):649-59.

[7] Wright, R. The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage, 1995.

[8] Erasing fear memories with extinction training. Quirk GJ, Paré D, Richardson R, Herry C, Monfils MH, Schiller D, Vicentic A. J Neurosci. 2010 Nov 10;30(45):14993-7.

[9] Generalized hypervigilance in fibromyalgia patients: an experimental analysis with the emotional Stroop paradigm. González JL, Mercado F, Barjola P, Carretero I, López-López A, Bullones MA, Fernández-Sánchez M, Alonso M. J Psychosom Res. 2010 Sep;69(3):279-87.

[10] [Negative and positive suggestions in anaesthesia : Improved communication with anxious surgical patients]. Hansen E, Bejenke C. Anaesthesist. 2010 Mar;59(3):199-202, 204-6, 208-9.

[11] Kisley MA, Wood S, Burrows CL. Looking at the sunny side of life: age-related change in an event-related potential measure of the negativity bias. Psychol Sci. 2007 Sep;18(9):838-43.

[12] May I have your attention, please: electrocortical responses to positive and negative stimuli. Smith NK, Cacioppo JT, Larsen JT, Chartrand TL. Neuropsychologia. 2003;41(2):171-83.

[13] Losada, M. & Heaphy, E. (2004). The role of positivity and connectivity in the performance of business teams: A nonlinear dynamics model. Losada M, Heaphy E. Am Behav Scientist. 2004 47 (6):740–765.

[14] Gottman J. What Predicts Divorce?: The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Psychology Press, 1993.

[15] On the incremental validity of irrational beliefs to predict subjective well-being while controlling for personality factors. Spörrle M, Strobel M, Tumasjan A. Psicothema. 2010 Nov;22(4):543-8.

[16] The value of positive psychology for health psychology: progress and pitfalls in examining the relation of positive phenomena to health. Aspinwall LG, Tedeschi RG. Ann Behav Med. 2010 Feb;39(1):4-15.

[17] What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Alia-Klein N, Goldstein RZ, Tomasi D, Zhang L, Fagin-Jones S, Telang F, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Volkow ND. Emotion. 2007 Aug;7(3):649-59.

[18] Happiness unpacked: positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience. Cohn MA, Fredrickson BL, Brown SL, Mikels JA,Conway AM. Emotion. 2009 Jun;9(3):361-8.

[19] Pursuing Happiness in Everyday Life: The Characteristics and Behaviors of Online Happiness Seekers. Parks AC, Della Porta MD, Pierce RS, Zilca R, Lyubomirsky S. Emotion. 2012 May 28.

[20] Genomic counter-stress changes induced by the relaxation response. Dusek JA, Otu HH, Wohlhueter AL, Bhasin M, Zerbini LF, Joseph MG, Benson H, Libermann TA. PLoS One. 2008 Jul 2;3(7):e2576.

[21] Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. Fredrickson BL, Losada MF. Am Psychol. 2005 Oct;60(7):678-86.

source

Goldfish taught to drive little land vehicle to desired targets

The Truth News — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 17:52:26 +0000

Can You Teach a Goldfish to Drive?

A new experiment suggests these household fish actually make good drivers.

While it may seem like fish will drive cars when pigs fly, in a new experiment scientists put goldfish’s sense of direction to the test.

Scientists at Ben-Gurion University in Israel taught several goldfish to drive a robotic “car”–essentially the opposite of a submarine, a tank of water on wheels–around a room. Teaching goldfish to navigate such unfamiliar terrain may seem like a fish-out-of-water idea, but they took to it like naturals.

The motorized fish tank was equipped with a camera to track the fish’s position. When the goldfish swam towards one of the walls, the fishmobile drove in that direction.

The researchers trained the fish over a dozen 30-minute sessions to drive to the center of a small room towards a pink board by giving the fish a treat whenever it arrived at its destination. In the first session, the goldfish averaged between 2-3 successful trips. By the end of the experiment, the fish were averaging between 17-18 successful trips per session.

As with humans, some of the fish took their driver’s ed quicker than others– taking faster and more direct paths to their target.

Throughout the experiment, researchers changed up the starting position of the fishmobiles. Even in different locations, the goldfish were still able to reach the pink board. This finding ruled out the possibility that the fish were just memorizing the pattern of movements to get to their reward. These marine animals were actually planning new routes to get to their destination.

From fish out of water to accomplished motorists.

“That was pretty conclusive that the fish actually navigate,” said Ohad Ben-Shahar, coauthor of the study. The animals’ sense of direction and orientation isn’t limited to the water.

After a successful bout of driving school, the team let one of the goldfish take a joyride throughout the entire building. “And it actually started to explore. It went down one of the corridors and started to sneak away,” said Ben-Shahar.

Maybe next they’ll teach a fish how to ride a bicycle. source

Fish Taught to Drive its Tank by Scientists at Israeli University

Scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have trained a fish to drive its own tank around. A camera mounted above the the animal’s water tracks its movement and steers the vehicle. The research was carried out to investigate how animals navigate.

Goldfish taught to drive little land vehicle to desired targets

The fish operated vehicle. A. The fish operated vehicle is composed of a chassis with 4 electric motors equipped with omni wheels, and a camera together with a LIDAR to collect data on fish position and vehicle position in space, respectively. B. View of a fish from the camera: fish contour (blue), tail (yellow), direction vector (green) are automatically extracted from the image and fed to the control system of the wheels. C. The fish operated robot and arena, bird’s eye view. The enclosure was created by the room walls and a curtain where the target was placed. D. Instance of fish quadrant location and direction correlating; as a result, the vehicle moves in the direction of the arrow. E. Fish location is far from the water tank wall; the vehicle motors do not generate movement. Credit: Behavioural Brain Research (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113711

A team of researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has taught goldfish to pilot a tiny land vehicle. In their paper published in the journal Behavioral Brain Research the group describes the vehicle, how the fish were taught to use it and the navigational skills they displayed.

Prior research has shown that some animals have surprising skills—rats, for example, are not only capable of driving around in little rat cars, but can use them to get to a desired destination. In this new effort, the researchers found that goldfish have similar abilities.

The work by the team in Israel was a means to learn more about navigational skills in general. More specifically, they wanted to know if goldfish, like other creatures, are able to use domain-transfer methodology by which a creature applies one set of navigational skills to multiple environments. To find out, they built a fish-operated vehicle (FOV): a small fish tank mounted on a wheeled frame. The team also fitted the FOV with a pole-mounted camera, processor and a LIDAR system pointed down at the fish in the tank. The LIDAR and camera were used to determine where the fish was in its tank and its orientation, and where the tank was in relation to its environment. The processor used the data to decide which direction to move the FOV. When a test fish pointed itself at a target, the FOV would drive in that direction.

The researchers then allowed the fish to meander around in their little fish tanks in random fashion and to note the impact of their actions on the movement of the FOV. Next, they added targets for the fish—if they reached one of them, the fish would get an immediate food reward. Over time, the researchers found that the fish came to understand that their actions could impact the movement of the FOV in desired ways, leading them to a tasty reward. Next, the team changed the environment—the fish drove their little FOV around both indoor and outdoor arenas and with changing targets and obstacles. They found the fish had no problems adapting; they drove straight for their reward, demonstrating their ability to use the FOV to navigate to desired locations. source

Scientists taught goldfish to drive – and it turns out they’re pretty good at it

Goldfish are capable of navigating on land, Israeli researchers have found, after training fish to drive.

The team at Ben-Gurion University developed an FOV – a fish-operated vehicle. The robotic car is fitted with lidar, a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed laser light to collect data on the vehicle’s ground location and the fish’s whereabouts inside a mounted water tank.

A researcher prepares a goldfish for its driving lesson.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

A computer, camera, electric motors and omni-wheels give the fish control of the vehicle.

“Surprisingly, it doesn’t take the fish a long time to learn how to drive the vehicle. They’re confused at first. They don’t know what’s going on but they’re very quick to realize that there is a correlation between their movement and the movement of the machine that they’re in,” said researcher Shachar Givon.

Six goldfish, each receiving around 10 driving lessons, took part in the study. Each time one of them reached a target set by the researchers, it was rewarded with food.

And some goldfish are better drivers than others.

A researcher adjusts a fish-operated vehicle navigated by a goldfish.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

“There were very good fish that were doing excellent and there were mediocre fish that showed control of the vehicle but were less proficient in driving it,” said biology professor and neuroscientist Ronen Segev.

Showing that a fish has the cognitive capability to navigate outside its natural environment of water can expand scientific knowledge of animals’ essential navigation skills.

“We humans think of ourselves as very special and many think of fish as primitive but this is not correct,” said Segev. “There are other very important and very smart creatures.” source

Watch This Goldfish Drive an Aquarium on Wheels

The car was designed to move depending on the fish’s location in its tank, showing animals can understand how to navigate foreign environments

A quote often misattributed to Albert Einstein states, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

By that logic, how smart is a fish that can learn to drive?

In a new study, researchers designed a souped-up aquarium on wheels to see if a goldfish can learn to navigate on dry land—and it worked. The experiment is meant to determine whether a fish’s navigation skills are universal regardless of their environment. The study will be published in the February 2022 issue of Behavioural Brain Research.

For survival, animals need navigation skills to find food, seek mates, migrate and more. However, researchers do not fully understand whether these navigation skills are specific to the environment an animal evolved to survive in. The ability to use navigation skills in unfamiliar settings is known as domain transfer methodology, reports Jonathan M. Gitlin for Ars Technica.

To determine whether a fish can navigate on dry land, the scientists used a fish-operated vehicle (FOV) with special software and a motion-sensing camera that can monitor where the fish is swimming in its rolling aquarium.

When the fish bumps into the tank’s walls or swims forward, for example, a camera above the tank tracks that movement. Based on the camera’s signalling, an algorithm moves the tank, allowing the fish to “drive” the car. The algorithm is powered by a small programming computer called Raspberry Pi,

Before the experimental tests could begin, the goldfish needed to learn how to drive the FOV. Six adventurous goldish were enrolled in “driving school” to learn how to move the FOV before the team collected the data. In 30-minute sessions conducted every two days, the fish were rewarded if they successfully directed the car to a pink-colored target in an enclosed space, Ars Technica reports.

The fish’s movement, orientation, and location were translated into instructions for the wheels of the FOV, allowing the car to move forward, backward, left or right. To move in a specific direction, the fish must be facing outside the tank in the direction it was moving towards. If a fish was oriented toward the middle of the tank, no movement would occur, reports Aristos Georgiou for Newsweek.

Once the goldfish were ready to speed off, the researchers tested their navigational skills by seeing if they could drive to a target. To check and see if the fish were actually navigating to targets and not just memorizing movements to earn a reward, the team changed the FOV’s starting position and added decoy targets in different colors.

All six fish successfully drove toward the visual target and even approached their mark from different angles, suggesting that the fishes understand the world around them, per Ars Technica. They all avoided dead-ends and corrected themselves throughout the trials, Vice reports.

All fish improved their time as the task was repeated. This finding suggests that the fish could learn from their environment and adjust accordingly. Not only does this show that fish can drive, but they can also adapt an ecosystem completely different from their own and move through it, reports Audrey Carleton for Vice.

“It shows that goldfish have the cognitive ability to learn a complex task in an environment completely unlike the one they evolved in. As anyone who has tried to learn how to ride a bike or to drive a car knows, it is challenging at first,” study author Shachar Givon, a graduate student at Ben-Gurion University, said in a statement. source

Goldfish who can drive: why scientists taught fish to navigate a watery tank on wheels

This article is more than 2 years old

Israeli researchers say their fish – named after characters from Pride and Prejudice – reveal navigation is a universal ability

It might be an imaginary character straight out of a Dr Seuss book: The goldfish who could drive. But it’s real. Incredibly, Israeli researchers created a robotic car and report that they taught six fish – named after characters from Pride and Prejudice – to navigate it on land.

It’s all in the name of science, of course. The team had been dreaming up ways to test fish navigation for a while, according to Shachar Givon from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, first author of a study published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research.

“Recently, we even ventured out to the coral reef of Eilat in an ongoing attempt to study navigation on a larger, more natural scale,” she says. “So we are always trying to challenge ourselves – and our fish. The idea of having the fish navigate on land seemed exactly like the impossible sort of challenge we like to tackle. Lucky for us it was not so impossible after all.”

The technical term for their challenge is “domain transfer methodology”, which means exploring whether a species can perform tasks outside its own environment. To pull it off, they drew inspiration from work that taught rodents and dogs to use an automated vehicle to reach a target and a previously designed contraption, “Fish on Wheels”.

First, the team, led by Prof Ronen Segev, created a watery tank on wheels that moved in response to the movements and orientation of the fish. Then they set about teaching the goldfish (Carassius auratus) how to drive it – much like humans learn to ride a bike or drive a car.

The fish first had to connect their own swimming movements to the movements of the vehicle so they could navigate it. Then they were given a destination: a pink target board in a foreign room that elicited a food reward when the vehicle touched it. A computerised camera system attached to this “fish operated vehicle” recorded and translated the fish’s swimming directions.

After several days of training, the fish successfully navigated the vehicle to the target from different starting positions in the room – even if they faced obstacles like false targets or hitting a wall. Some did particularly well. “Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley are the two fish featured in the different videos and were total rock stars,” Givon says.

Although previous studies have shown that fish can navigate within aquatic environments, the authors suggest this study shows the ability to navigate – which is essential for animal survival in many domains including for finding food, shelter and mates – is universal to all species and independent of the environment.

The watery tank on wheels created by Israeli scientists. Photograph: Samina Matan

“Since on the evolutionary scale our common ancestor is very, very far back,” Givon says, “finding that fish share navigational skills similar to our own really speaks volumes to the importance of these skills in the animal kingdom”.

By manipulating different variables, the team also showed that the fish used a combination of cues to navigate, including the target’s colour and location.

We clearly have a lot to learn from these unassuming little marine creatures. Although fish are the largest and most diverse group of vertebrates, Givon notes they receive relatively little attention from scientists – especially with regard to their cognitive skills.

However, there are suggestions that fish have rich capacities beyond our own for vision, hearing, tasting and smelling. They even appear to use electric signals to communicate with each other and may have self-awareness.

The new study has other ramifications for our perception of the maligned goldfish, Givon suggests. “Maybe, just maybe, we also managed to disprove the stigma around goldfish and three-second memory …”

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask if you would consider supporting the Guardian’s journalism as we enter one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes in 2024.

With the potential of another Trump presidency looming, there are countless angles to cover around this year’s election – and we’ll be there to shed light on each new development, with explainers, key takeaways and analysis of what it means for America, democracy and the world.

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And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media: the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. We always strive to be fair. But sometimes that means calling out the lies of powerful people and institutions – and making clear how misinformation and demagoguery can damage democracy.

From threats to election integrity, to the spiraling climate crisis, to complex foreign conflicts, our journalists contextualize, investigate and illuminate the critical stories of our time. As a global news organization with a robust US reporting staff, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective – one so often missing in the American media bubble.

Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not. source

Israeli scientists teach goldfish to drive a robotic car on land

The test subjects were successfully trained to navigate a “fish-operated vehicle” past obstacles and to a target at the opposite end of a room in return for a fish food reward.

An old joke goes like this: Two fish are in a tank and one says, “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

Israeli scientists appear to have found the answer.

A team from Ben-Gurion University has successfully taught goldfish to maneuver a robotic car on land, via a top-down camera that monitors their movements around a small fish tank.

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The camera in the “fish-operated vehicle” uses motion sensing technology to send a signal to one of its four wheels whenever a fish swims close to a side of the fish tank. Over time the fish learned that their movements would correspond to the movements of the vehicle.

The fish were successfully trained to reach a pink target at the opposite end of a room in return for a fish food reward — something they could do repeatedly and even with obstacles in their way.

A researcher prepares a goldfish to learn how to navigate with a fish-operated vehicle on land at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.Ronen Zvulin / Reuters

The researchers say their study, published this month in the peer-reviewed Behavioral Brain Research journal, shows that the navigational abilities of fish stay intact in a land-based environment.

The process is called domain transfer methodology, when one species is placed in another’s environment and carries out an otherwise familiar task — in this case navigation. source

How to incorporate chia seeds into your diet

The Truth News — Thu, 30 May 2024 14:11:40 +0000

How to incorporate chia seeds into your diet

It’s very easy to incorporate chia seeds into your diet. You can simply sprinkle a tablespoon or two on foods such as yogurt, cereal, or salads. You can add chia seeds to smoothies or soups, or mix them into pancake batter or another breakfast food. Chia seeds have a mild flavor, so they are not likely to affect the taste of your food.

Another popular way to get chia seeds into your diet is to make a simple chia pudding. When mixed with liquid, chia seeds develop a gelatinous coating, expanding in size and creating a pudding-like consistency,

Grocery stores stock a variety of chia seeds. Products that contain chia seeds include chia pudding, chia kombucha and granola with chia seeds.

Chia seeds have a mild flavor and can easily be added to many foods you already enjoy. Try adding whole or ground chia seeds to smoothies, juices, milk, yogurt, oatmeal, pancakes or a granola bar recipe. Try them sprinkled on salads or cereal, baked into muffins or breads, or made into chia pudding using the recipe below.

These recipes provide about one-third of your recommended daily amount of fiber:

Overnight chocolate chia seed pudding

Serves 4

1½ cups almond milk
⅓ cup chia seeds
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tablespoons maple syrup
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Add all ingredients except chia seeds to a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously to combine. Mix in chia seeds until well-combined. Let rest covered in the refrigerator overnight. The pudding can be stored covered in the refrigerator for 2–3 days. Serve chilled with desired toppings, such as fruit or a dollop of whipped topping.

Nutrition information per serving: 165 calories, 8 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 75 milligrams sodium, 25 grams carbohydrates, 9 grams fiber, 4 grams protein

Carrot cake overnight oats

Serves 1

This oatmeal is loaded with calcium, protein, fiber and vitamin A. The amount of carrot in this recipe provides 100% of your vitamin A for the day, which is good for your eyes and immune system.

½ cup rolled oats
⅔ cup skim milk
⅓ cup plain, nonfat Greek yogurt
¼ cup finely grated carrot
1½ teaspoons chia seeds
2 teaspoons maple syrup
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon pecans, chopped
1 tablespoon shredded coconut, unsweetened

Mix all ingredients, except for the pecans and coconut, in a bowl or Mason jar. Top with pecans and coconuts, and cover with lid. Refrigerate overnight and eat chilled.

Chia pudding recipe

Add 2 tablespoons of chia seeds into 1/2 cup of milk (almond, soy, and dairy all work). Use a mason jar or other container with a lid.
Close the lid tightly and shake well. Wait 10 minutes, then shake again, making sure there aren’t any clumps.
Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes, though overnight or for least four hours will allow the pudding to thicken better.
Add berries, nuts, cinnamon, and a touch of sweetener.

Chia seed pudding is one of those meals or snacks that not only tastes good, but is very good for you. Whether you’re looking to change up your breakfast game, or are searching for a healthier alternative to that nightly bowl of ice cream, chia seed pudding will get the job done, all while helping to keep your body in tip-top shape.

That’s because chia seeds—the titular ingredient in chia seed pudding—are tiny nutritional powerhouses. These edible seeds, which were a staple in ancient diets, are excellent sources of satiating fiber and calcium, which helps keep bones healthy and strong. Chia seeds also pack a solid amount of protein and omega-3 fatty acids in a small package, which may help reduce the risk of heart disease. Per a 2014 study, there is a link between chia seeds and reduced blood pressure in people with hypertension. Additionally, antioxidant-rich chia seeds have been scientifically proven to promote heart and liver health, and boast anti-cancer properties. If that’s not reason enough to add chia seeds to your diet, then we don’t know what is!

That’s where chia seed pudding comes in. The popular dish is one of the easiest ways to enjoy chia seeds in a meaningful quantity, which means you can really reap all of the nutritional benefits. And while it might seem difficult to make this trendy food yourself, whipping up a batch of chia seed pudding isn’t nearly as tricky as you might think.

How to Make a general Chia Seed Pudding

There are three main ingredients in chia seed pudding—chia seeds, milk of your choice, and a sweetener of your choice. However, you can also add some of your favorite spices and/or fresh fruit to kick things up a notch.

In a bowl, combine ¼ cup chia seeds with 1 cup of your favorite milk and stir. Make sure all of the chia seeds are completely coated in milk in order to ensure proper absorption.
Then, add about two teaspoons of your desired sweetener (such as agave, honey, or maple syrup) and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine. (Note: If you like vanilla, feel free to add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the mixture. You can also toss in a dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, or other go-to spices before stirring.)
Cover the mixture and place it in the refrigerator until it thickens. This should take about two hours, but you can also leave the mixture in the fridge overnight.
To serve, garnish the pudding with fresh fruit.

3-Ingredient Chia Seed Pudding, with a Compote

The classic chia seed pudding only requires three ingredients. On top of this pudding, you can add any kind of fruit, or this strawberry rhubarb compote.

INGREDIENTS

Chia Pudding Mixture:

3 cups coconut milk (full fat/canned)
¾ cup chia seeds
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Compote Mixture (Optional):

5–6 rhubarb stalks, chopped
1½ cups strawberries
2 tablespoons maple syrup
⅓ cup water
top with shredded coconut flakes/cacao nibs

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INSTRUCTIONS

Mix well the first 3 ingredients in a bowl and place in the refrigerator.
For the optional compote, chop up the fruit and add it to a small pot. Cook over medium heat or until rhubarb is tender, about 8 minutes.
Add mixture, maple syrup and water into a blender and blend until well combined.
Distribute chia seed pudding evenly into four glasses and top with the compote, once it has cooled. Place in refrigerator and allow to chill for up to 1 hour.
Serve topped with shredded coconut flakes and/or cacao nibs.

Chia seeds are a serious superfood. They’re full of fiber, so adding them to foods helps you feel full for longer. They’re great for digestion and can even boost your energy. While you can sneak them into smoothies or juices, chia seeds are also really tasty — not to mention fun — when you use them to make chia seed pudding.

See, when you add chia seeds to a liquid and let them soak in it, the chia seeds absorb the liquid and puff up in size, transforming from a seed-like texture to a gel consistency that’s reminiscent of pudding.

Best of all, this chia seed pudding can be eaten as breakfast, snack or dessert. You have to try it!

3-Ingredient Chia Seed Pudding

This is the classic chia seed pudding, with just three ingredients: a nondairy milk, chia seeds and vanilla extract. Each serving is roughly two tablespoons of chia seeds, a half-cup of nondairy milk (coconut or unsweetened almond milk work best) and a quarter teaspoon of vanilla.

Because of the fiber in chia seeds, this classic version also doubles as a keto chia seed pudding, with only 4 net carbs per serving. It’s also friendly to nearly any kind of diet, including vegan and Paleo.

Beyond the benefits of chia seeds, coconut milk adds great creamy texture, electrolytes and healthy fats. As an alternative, almond milk contains far fewer calories and contains half a day’s recommended intake of vitamin E, a significant amount of vitamin D and a hearty dose of calcium.

Optional Toppings

If you want to dress up this pudding, consider making a strawberry rhubarb compote.

Rhubarb does more than give the pudding a gorgeous color. The vegetable lowers inflammation and eases digestion while adding a tart taste to this chia seed pudding.

Add the rhubarb mixture plus maple syrup and water to a blender, and blend until all the ingredients are well combined.

Remove the chia seed pudding from the refrigerator and separate into four glasses, topping with the strawberry rhubarb compote once it has cooled.

Place the glasses in the fridge for about an hour to let them chill and set. Top them with coconut flakes, cacao nibs or both and serve! (This pudding will also last in the fridge for a week.)

This strawberry rhubarb chia seed pudding is easy to take on the go to work — just put in a portable container. It also doubles as a super healthy dessert that the entire family will enjoy.

Start by mixing the first three ingredients — coconut milk, chia seeds and vanilla — in a bowl and place in the refrigerator.

Next, chop up the rhubarb and strawberries, then add to a small pot over medium heat. Cook until the rhubarb is tender.

If you want to reduce the calories, use reduced fat coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk.
Rather than a compote, you can also simply add some fresh fruit: blueberries, strawberries, pineapples, cherries, etc.
Coconut flakes, raw sliced almonds, hemp seeds and cacao nibs all offer good toppings, with or without fruit.

NUTRITION

Serving Size: 1 serving (135g) of pudding only
Calories: 327
Sugar: 0.1g
Sodium: 18mg
Fat: 30.5g
Saturated Fat: 22.1g
Unsaturated Fat: 6.7g
Trans Fat: 0g
Carbohydrates: 12.1g
Fiber: 7.1g
Protein: 5.7g
Cholesterol: 0mg

Keto Smoothie Recipe with Avocado, Chia Seeds & Cacao

INGREDIENTS

1–1¼ cups full-fat coconut milk
½ frozen avocado
1 tablespoon nut butter of choice
1 tablespoon chia seeds, soaked in 3 tablespoons of water for 10 minutes
2 teaspoons cacao nibs, cacao powder or cocoa powder OR 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder made from bone broth
1 tablespoon coconut oil
ice (optional*)
for topping: cacao nibs and cinnamon
¼ cup water, if needed

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INSTRUCTIONS

Add contents into a high-powered blender, blending until well-combined.
Top with cacao nibs and cinnamon.

Have you heard about the keto diet? It’s possibly the best diet for weight loss, and it can even reverse insulin resistance and reduce cardiovascular risk factors, according to recent research. No wonder more and more people are starting to go “keto.”

This keto smoothie is an easy way to get started. It’s a perfect keto drink that includes protein foods and healthy fats, while being very low in carbohydrates. All of the ingredients in this smoothie are nutritious, heart healthy and keto-friendly — plus, they’re delicious!

What Does “Going Keto” Mean?

“Going keto” means putting your body into a state of ketosis, which is a metabolic state that occurs when most of the body’s energy comes from ketone bodies in the blood, rather than from glucose (or sugar).

On the keto diet, you are tricking your body into thinking it’s fasting by eliminating glucose that is found in carbohydrate foods. Your body begins burning fat for energy rather than carbohydrates, so after going keto, most people lose excess body fat rapidly, even when consuming lots of fats and adequate calories through their diet.

The ketogenic diet, like any other low-carb diet, works through the elimination of glucose. Our bodies normally run on glucose for energy, but once glucose is no longer available from food sources, we begin to burn stored fat for energy instead. This process will not only help you to shed those extra pounds, but it also helps to control the release of hormones like insulin, which plays a role in the development of diabetes and other health problems.

Nutrition Facts

One serving of this keto smoothie recipe using cacao powder and without toppings contains the following, including only 6.1 net carbs (total carb grams minus fiber grams):

394.5 calories
40.1 grams fat
11.64 grams carbohydrates
5.5 grams fiber
3.68 grams protein
2.52 grams sugar
22 milligrams sodium
189.5 milligrams magnesium (45.1 percent DV)
6.85 milligrams iron (38.1 percent DV)
328.5 milligrams phosphorus (26.3 percent DV)
2.45 milligrams vitamin E (16.3 percent DV)
2.49 milligrams niacin (15.5 percent DV)
0.17 milligrams thiamin (14.2 percent DV)
0.16 milligrams riboflavin (12.3 percent DV)
36 micrograms folate (9 percent DV)
96 milligrams calcium (7.4 percent DV)
0.73 milligrams zinc (6.6 percent DV)
229 milligrams potassium (4.9 percent DV)
0.073 milligrams vitamin B6 (4.3 percent DV)
2.5 milligrams vitamin C (2.8 percent DV)

How to Make A Keto Smoothie

A keto smoothie is made up of healthy fats and protein, all foods that are naturally low in carbohydrates. Using a high-powered blender, add in these heart-healthy, keto diet–friendly foods.

My keto smoothie recipe starts with 1 to 1¼ cups of full-fat coconut milk as the base. Coconut milk contains a beneficial fat called lauric acid, a medium-chain fatty acid that’s easily absorbed and used by the body for energy. It serves as a great keto diet food.

Next add in 1 tablespoon of chia seeds (soaked in 3 tablespoons of water for 10 minutes), which contain essential fatty acids, plus vitamins A, B, E and D and minerals including iron, magnesium, niacin and thiamine. And then add 1 tablespoons of your favorite nut butter to the mix, whether it’s almond butter or even sunflower seed butter. (I recommend that you avoid peanut butter.)For the next ingredient for this keto smoothie, you have a choice of either 2 teaspoons of cacao nibs, cacao powder or cocoa powder, or 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder. Protein powder made from bone broth is packed with protein, low in carbs and low in sugar. You can get the benefits of bone broth easily by adding it to your keto smoothie.

Cacao nibs or powder is also healthful and packed with nutrients that fuel the body.

The last two ingredients for my keto smoothie are ½ frozen avocado and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Adding avocado to this smoothie will give it a delicious creamy texture and its an excellent source of healthy fats, which is especially important when you’re going keto.

Now all you have to do is blend the ingredients until they are well-combined, adding water if necessary, and you’re done! If you want to add some bulk to the texture of your keto smoothie, or if you don’t have a frozen avocado on hand, add in some ice, too.

Top your keto smoothie with cacao nibs and cinnamon, and enjoy!

My keto smoothie is an easy way to get started on the keto diet, or just as a great breakfast. It includes protein foods and healthy fats, while being very low in carbohydrates. All of the ingredients in this smoothie are nutritious, heart healthy and keto-friendly — plus, they’re delicious!

NUTRITION

Serving Size: 1 glass
Calories: 394
Sugar: 2.5g
Sodium: 22mg
Fat: 40.1g
Carbohydrates: 11.6g
Fiber: 5.5g
Protein: 3.7g

Berry Chia Seed Smoothie Bowl

Chia Seed Smoothie Bowl

No need to buy an overpriced smoothie bowl at a hip cafe. Instead, just get these lovely ingredients and whip up your own.

INGREDIENTS

2 bananas, sliced
4 dates, pitted and halved
2 cups coconut milk yogurt (or Greek yogurt)
¼ cup coconut water
1 cup blueberries
¼ cup chia seeds
optional toppings: hemp seeds, blackberries, raspberries, sliced strawberries

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INSTRUCTIONS

Place the first 6 ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.
Place in an airtight container and allow to chill for 20 minutes prior to serving.
Add to bowls and top with hemp seeds, sliced strawberries, blackberries and raspberries.

NUTRITION

Serving Size: 1 bowl (253g)
Calories: 239
Sugar: 20.3g
Sodium: 76mg (5% DV)
Fat: 8.7g
Saturated Fat: 3.1g
Unsaturated Fat: 5.1g
Trans Fat: 0g
Carbohydrates: 35.9g
Fiber: 8.7g
Protein: 7.5g
Cholesterol: 16mg

It’s the time of year when smoothie bowls become popular again. You know those breakfast bowls: They’re colorful, full of fruits and look like something you need to hit up a trendy cafe to enjoy.

Smoothie bowls — like the popular acai bowl recipes — are super easy to make right at home. This coconut yogurt chia seed smoothie bowl is the perfect way to kickstart your mornings, made in the comfort of your own cozy kitchen in just 5 minutes.

By using coconut yogurt in this recipe, I’ve kept it dairy free, but still packed with flavor and creamy texture.

Key Smoothie Bowl Ingredients

Yogurt is a must for a good smoothie bowl, as it adds creamy texture as well as fats. I prefer coconut milk in order to avoid dairy. It also contains natural fatty acids that provide extra energy. If you prefer dairy, go with Greek yogurt, which has the added advantage of being high in protein for a yogurt.

Coconut water is also included in this smoothie bowl, for it’s a great way to start the day. Why? Coconut water contains multiple vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals plus plenty of potassium, making it a high electrolyte beverage.

I’ve added chia seeds, one of my favorite sneaky superfoods, for extra nutrients plus crunch texture. Chia is rich in protein (amino acids), omega-3 fats, fiber, manganese, phosphorus and calcium.

Bananas are a great addition because they blend so well with the yogurt and add natural sweetness, plus they’re loaded with fiber.

Speaking of sweetness, rather than resorting to sugar or even honey or maple syrup, go with dates. They’re rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals.

I’ve used blueberries to add some color and a heap of antioxidants, but you can use your favorite berries. Let’s make this photo-worthy breakfast!

How to Make a Smoothie Bowl

Start by adding the first six ingredients to a blender or food processor and blending until nice and smooth. Those benefit-rich blueberries give this coconut yogurt smoothie bowl that lovely hue.

Place the blended mix in an airtight container and let it chill in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. Then add the smoothie mix to a bowl and go wild with the toppings.

I love adding berries, coconut flakes and hemp seeds for a dose of healthy fats. Don’t forget to take a photo of your awesome coconut yogurt chia seed smoothie bowl before serving and enjoying!

Grain-Free Oatmeal Recipe

Are you a fan of hot oatmeal? The dish is a wonderful, fiber-full breakfast — unless you’re not so hot on gluten. Fortunately, this Gluten-Free Oatmeal is for you! Honestly, whether you love oatmeal or are just getting used to the hot cereal, this gluten-free oatmeal recipe is for you. It’s so hearty that you won’t miss the grains in it one bit — all while providing oatmeal nutrition benefits.

We’ll kick things off by combining all the ingredients in a large bowl and mixing ’em together. This is a great point to personalize your “oatmeal,” by the way. Move the mix into a wide-mouth quart jar and store in the refrigerator.

Next, prepare a serving of oatmeal. Place 1/2 cup of the dry mix in the bowl and then 1 to 1–1/2 cups of almost-boiling water to the mix. Let the ingredients soak and sit for the next 3–5 minutes.

Next, add the 1 serving of oatmeal, 1/2 cup of dry mix and 1–1 1/2 cups of almost-boiling water. Mix it all up and allow it all to sit for 3–5 minutes.

Then take the gluten-free oatmeal and add in fresh fruits, chocolate, coconut milk or honey — whatever your tastebuds want to make the flavor pop! This “faux-meal” is super easy to customize to your family’s preferences, and you’ll love that there’s no gluten or grains in it.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups shredded coconut
½ –1 cup hemp seeds (less if you choose to add dried fruit to your base mix)
½ cup chia seeds
½ cup whole or coarsely ground flaxseeds
¼ teaspoon sea salt
OPTIONAL
½ cup chopped dried fruit
¼–½ teaspoon various spices. My favorite flavor combos are (1) cinnamon, cardamom, ginger; (2) cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, black pepper, coriander; (3) cloves, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon; (4) rosemary, garlic, sage, cayenne

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir together thoroughly.
Include any optional ingredients you like.
Transfer to a wide-mouth quart jar to store in the refrigerator.
To prepare 1 serving of oatmeal, place 1/2 cup of dry mix in a bowl and add 1–1½ cups very hot water (just shy of boiling).
Stir well and allow to sit for 3–5 minutes.
Add fresh fruits, nuts, unsweetened chocolate, bacon crumbles, chicken or turkey sausage, coconut or almond milk, honey, coconut oil, or grass-fed butter to make it exciting.

Chia seed benefits: What you need to know (click here)

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Chia seed benefits: What you need to know

The Truth News — Wed, 29 May 2024 18:11:26 +0000

Chia seed benefits: What you need to know

Packed with fiber, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants, tiny chia seeds pack a nutritional punch. From adding them to prepared dishes or as a topping on oatmeal, cereals, or smoothies, you can easily incorporate chia seeds into many foods to give them a nutritious boost.

Chia seeds are frequently featured as the star ingredient in many healthy eating recipes, ranging from baked goods to protein bars to smoothies and beyond.

Why are chia seeds good for you? Apart from offering a pop of flavor and texture to your favorite foods, they also provide health perks, such as helping balance blood sugar and support heart health.

Keep reading for a complete list of chia seeds benefits and potential side effects, as well as preparation instructions and simple ways to add them to your diet with some clever chia seed recipes.

What Are Chia Seeds?

Chia seeds (Salvia hispanica) are tiny superfoods that are grow on a species of flowering plant that’s in the mint family. They are native to areas of Mexico and Guatemala but are commonly cultivated in many areas in North and South America.

Chia is typically easy t digest when prepared properly and can be a very versatile ingredient that works well in a variety of recipes. Plus, the seeds offer a long list of important nutrients, including:

Chia seeds are tiny black or white seeds derived from the Salvia hispanica plant, a member of the mint family native to Central America. These small seeds have been a part of human diets for over 5,000 years. Chia seeds were a staple food for the Aztecs and Mayans.

Where Do Chia Seeds Come From?

Originally grown in Mexico, chia has long been highly valued for its medicinal properties and nutritional value. In fact, it was even used as currency at one point.

Chia means “strength” in the Mayan language, and chia seeds were known as “runners’ food” because runners and warriors would use them as fuel while running long distances or during battle. Aztec warriors ate them to give them energy and endurance, claiming that just one spoonful could sustain them for 24 hours.

Salvia hispanica has also been used for its potent healing properties in many branches of traditional medicine for centuries. According to Ayurveda, chia seeds can help nourish the blood and promote digestive regularity thanks to their ability to absorb water in the gastrointestinal tract, forming a gel-like substance.

They can also reduce inflammation, promote kidney health and support proper hydration.

Health benefits of chia seeds

Chia seeds are packed with nutrients that may support numerous health benefits. Among them:

reducing blood pressure
lowering cholesterol levels
supporting digestive health
aiding in weight management
reducing inflammation
helping to control diabetes
protecting against chronic disease
improving anxiety and depression.

When chia seeds are ingested, they form a gel-like substance in the stomach that can increase your feeling of fullness and decrease your appetite and calorie intake.

Nutrition Facts

Chia is rich in protein (amino acids), fiber, manganese, phosphorus and calcium. Plus, as mentioned above, it’s a good source of omega-3s (polyunsaturated fatty acids), such as α-linolenic and linoleic acids.

Additionally, it’s rich in polyphenols and antioxidants, such as caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid, myricetin, quercetin and others. It’s also considered a low-carb food because the net carbs (total carbohydrate grams minus fiber grams) are relatively low.

Chia seeds: Nutritional heavyweights

fiber
protein
manganese
calcium
antioxidants
omega-3 fatty acids

Chia seeds contain a variety of nutrients including fiber, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and various vitamins and minerals like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus that are beneficial to your health.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Chia seeds are a powerhouse of omega-3 fatty acids. This type of fatty acid is primarily found in fatty fish, nuts, and seeds.

Omega-3 fatty acids play an important role in brain function, heart health, and reducing inflammation in the body. Incorporating omega-3s into the diet promotes overall well-being, benefiting cardiovascular and cognitive functions.

Chia seeds are rich in a type of omega-3 fatty acid known as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). The body cannot produce ALA its own, so it must be obtained through food. Consuming ALA has been linked to a decreased heart disease risk.

Fiber

Incorporating chia seeds into your diet is also an excellent way to increase your intake of fiber. Just one ounce of chia seeds (two to three tablespoons) provides approximately 9.8 grams of dietary fiber.

Research has shown that adequate fiber intake is associated with a decreased risk of:

coronary heart disease
type 2 diabetes
several types of cancer
inflammation
digestive disorders.

On the heart health front, fiber helps lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and helps increase levels of heart-protective HDL cholesterol.

The fiber in chia seeds can also aid healthy digestion by softening the stool and providing bulk to it. This allows the stool to pass more quickly through the intestines and can help alleviate constipation.

Antioxidants

Chia seeds are packed with antioxidants including tocopherols, phytosterols, carotenoids, and polyphenolic compounds. Antioxidants play a crucial role in protecting the body from damage caused by free radicals, which can build up in the body and lead to cell damage and disease.

Thanks in part to their antioxidant content, chia seeds may help protect against:

inflammation
diabetes
cancer
heart disease
Alzheimer’s disease.

Protein

Chia seeds are also a valuable source of protein. Chia seeds contain all nine essential amino acids. The protein in chia seeds can help stabilize blood sugar levels and provide a steady source of energy.

Chia seeds pack nutritional punch

Chia seeds are small round seeds, and can be black, brown and white in color. They are harvested from a flowering plant in the mint family known as Salvia hispanica. It’s native to parts of Mexico and Guatemala. Edible chia seeds are closely related to the chia plants made popular by Chia Pets, but they are not the same seed.

A gel forms around the chia seed when mixed with liquid, which gives chia beverages their distinctive texture. Chia seeds can absorb up to 12 times their weight in liquid, which makes them useful in keeping baked goods moist.

Chia Seeds Benefits: The Omega-3, Protein-Packed Superfood

Chia seeds have many nutritional benefits. They are high in omega-3 fatty acids and fiber. Chia provides a similar amount of omega-3 fatty acids as ground flaxseed in the form of alpha linolenic acid, or ALA. They can help with weight loss.

Chia seeds are an excellent source of fiber, which can improve heart health, reduce cholesterol levels and promote intestinal health. Fiber takes longer to digest and makes you feel satisfied longer, which is how it can help with weight loss and decrease your risk of developing diabetes or heart disease. Eating a diet rich in fiber also is shown to protect against colorectal cancer.

One serving of dried chia seeds is about 2.5 tablespoons. This has 140 calories, 5 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, 12 grams of carbohydrate and 9 grams of fat, of which 8 grams are heart-healthy fats.

A one-ounce serving of dried chia seeds (about 28.4 grams) contains approximately:

Calories: 137
Total Carbohydrates: 11.9 g
Fiber: 9.8 g
Total Fat: 8.7 g
Saturated Fat: 0.9 g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 6.7 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 0.7 g
Trans Fat: 0.04 g
Protein: 4.7 g
Sodium: 4.5 mg (0.2% DV)
Manganese: 0.8 mg (35% DV)
Copper: 0.3 mg (33% DV)
Phosphorus: 244 mg (20% DV)
Calcium: 179 mg (14% DV)
Zinc: 1.3 mg (12% DV)
Potassium: 115 mg (2% DV)

*Daily Value: Percentages are based on a diet of 2,000 calories a day.

In addition to the nutrients listed above, chia contains some vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin E and vitamin D, plus minerals such as iron, iodine, magnesium, copper, niacin and thiamine.

Benefits

What are the benefits of eating chia seeds? Here are nine reasons to add more of them to your diet, including because they can decrease risk for several common diseases:

1. Support Healthy Skin

Chia is jam-packed with antioxidants, which are compounds that fight free radical damage and prevent oxidative stress while also promoting tissue repair and protecting against skin damage.

Interestingly enough, researchers from Mexico recently uncovered that they have a total antioxidant concentration nearly two times higher than previously reported. In fact, the antioxidant activity of Salvia hispanica seeds was shown to stop up to 70 percent of free radical activity.

As one of the most high-antioxidant foods on the planet, adding some to your diet may help fight premature aging and protect the skin cells from things like ultraviolet and environmental damage.

2. Promote Digestive Health

Chia is loaded with fiber, squeezing nearly 11 grams of fiber into a single ounce. This means that adding just one ounce to your daily meals my can supply a whopping 44 percent of your fiber needs for the entire day.

Because of their rich fiber content, chia seeds benefit digestive health by promoting regularity and increasing stool frequency to prevent constipation. The fiber also acts as a prebiotic to provide fuel for the beneficial bacteria in the gut, which plays a central role in many aspects of health and disease.

Fiber also absorbs a good amount of water and expands in the stomach, helping keep you feeling fuller for longer.

3. Improve Heart Health

Thanks to their high content of antioxidants, fiber and heart-healthy fats, chia seeds have been shown to help prevent cardiovascular disease in several ways.

One of the most powerful effects is it ability to reduce inflammation and decrease several risk factors of heart disease, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure. Inflammation can put extra strain on blood vessels and is thought to contribute to heart disease along with a slew of other chronic conditions.

Chia is high in omega-3 fatty acids, boasting even more omega-3s per gram than salmon. Omega-3s work to protect the heart by lowering blood pressure, cholesterol levels and inflammation. Meanwhile, the fiber found in chia seeds can help manage cholesterol levels and keep the arteries clear to minimize the risk of coronary heart disease.

A 2021 study also found that chia can help reduce high blood pressure/hypertension. In this study, adults with hypertension experienced significantly reduced blood pressure levels compared to a control group when they consumed 40 grams per day of chia seeds (about 1.5 ounces) for 12 weeks.

4. Balance Blood Sugar

Rich in both alpha-linolenic acid and fiber, evidence from several studies suggests that chia can help maintain normal blood sugar levels and fight development of type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance.

Animal and human studies have found that adding them to a high-sugar diet helps prevent changes in blood sugar and lipid levels. What’s more, human studies have also found that adding these seeds to white bread reduces the glycemic response and can help prevent spikes and crashes in blood sugar levels.

5. Boost Energy and Exercise Performance

Chia is often used by athletes for carb loading, a strategy that helps maximize the storage of glycogen in the muscles and liver to optimize endurance and boost exercise performance.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning concluded that consuming chia seeds enhanced exercise performance for workouts that lasted 90 minutes the same way a sugar-laden sports drink would but without all the unhealthy sugar. In the study, half of the athletes drank 100 percent Gatorade, while the others consumed half Gatorade and half chia drink.

In the end, the runners’ times were matched, but the chia group consumed far less sugar.

Plus, studies show the protein content of these seeds is among the highest of all seeds and grains, giving it the ability to help build muscle mass and increase strength. Research shows that consuming protein as a post-workout meal can aid in the repair of muscle tissues and can also build new muscle to speed up recovery time between workouts.

6. Build Stronger Bones

Chia can help strengthen bone health and preserve bone density while reducing the risk of serious conditions like osteoporosis. This is because the seeds are loaded with calcium and manganese, two minerals that are needed to maintain bone health.

With about 99 percent of the calcium in your body stored in your bones, calcium serves an important role in maintaining bone strength and density. Manganese is also involved in bone metabolism, with studies showing that a deficiency in this key nutrient can impair bone resorption and decrease bone formation.

Impressively enough, a single ounce of chia seeds contains 18 percent of the calcium you need in a day while also meeting 30 percent of your daily manganese requirements.

7. Aid in Weight Loss

Chia seeds rank among the top plant-based protein foods, which is why they are great to consume for those trying to put on lean muscle, burn fat, and manage hunger and appetite.

How can chia seeds help you lose weight? Studies show that increasing your intake of protein can help promote weight loss by curbing cravings and cutting caloric intake.

One study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, for example, showed that increasing protein intake by just 15 percent of daily calories led to significant decreases in energy intake and appetite. Other research shows that chia may help reduce levels of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for stimulating hunger.

8. Fight Cancer Growth

Chia is rich in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a type of omega-3 fatty acid that gives it the potential to act as a cancer-fighting food.

One in-vitro study published in the Journal of Molecular Biochemistry found that ALA helped limit the growth of both breast and cervical cancer cells. Researchers also found that it caused cell death of the cancer cells without harming the normal healthy cells in the body.

While more research still needs to be done to find out the deeper implications of ALA on other types of cancer, this is a great discovery for women struggling with these increasingly common types of cancer.

9. Enhance Oral Health

Because chia is full of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A and zinc, it helps promote dental and oral health.

Calcium is the building block of your teeth and necessary for maintaining oral health. Meanwhile, zinc prevents tartar by keeping plaque from mineralizing onto your teeth and has an antibacterial effect that keeps bad breath germs away.

Vitamin A and phosphorus are also important for strong teeth and a healthy mouth.

Risks and Side Effects

There are very few side effects associated with chia seeds when they’re eaten in moderation.

Occasionally, some people may experience stomach discomfort when consuming high amounts, mostly due to the high fiber content. As with any food, increase your intake slowly, and drink plenty of water.

If you have any concerns or experience any persistent side effects, consider decreasing your intake, and be sure to discuss with your doctor.

Can chia seeds make you gain weight? They shouldn’t, as long as you don’t eat too many. Stick to about two to three tablespoons daily.

Conclusion

The chia seed is a type of seed that comes from a flowering species in the mint family of plants and is native to Mexico and Guatemala.
The chia nutrition profile boasts a good amount of protein, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and important minerals like manganese, calcium and phosphorus — thus explaining why chia seeds benefits are so plentiful.
So what are chia seeds good for? Chia seeds benefits include increased weight loss, better blood sugar levels, improved heart health, enhanced regularity, increased weight loss and more.
From chia seed pudding to protein bars and baked goods, there are plenty of chia seeds recipe options that you can try to fit this nutrient-rich seed into your diet and get chia seeds benefits.
Soak, grind or enjoy whole for a nutritious and delicious way to boost the benefits of your diet and take advantage of the multitude of chia seeds benefits.

How to incorporate chia seeds into your diet (click here)

source source source

Everything You Need To Know About Magnesium And Sleep

The Truth News — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:31:33 +0000

Everything You Need To Know About Magnesium And Sleep

In the pecking order of natural sleep aids, magnesium seems to be steadily making its way to the top. This essential mineral plays multiple roles in the body, but what does it do for sleep? There is some evidence, both clinical and anecdotal, that magnesium may be helpful for better sleep, but details are still murky. To get a better idea of how exactly magnesium and sleep could be connected, we spoke with a certified sleep expert and a registered nutritionist.

What Is Magnesium?

“Magnesium is a mineral we need in our diet to stay healthy,” explains Dr. Chelsie Rohrscheib, a neuroscientist and the head sleep expert at Wesper. It’s classified as an electrolyte and involved in over 300 enzymatic processes in the body, including supporting bone health, regulating muscle function, and promoting energy production.

The body doesn’t make its own magnesium, which means we need to source sufficient amounts from the foods we eat or the supplements we take. The mineral is present in nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, fish, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains. Still, a 2018 review found that an estimated 50 percent of Americans may be deficient. While it’s not necessarily life threatening, a magnesium deficiency can have unpleasant symptoms, such as muscle cramps, tremors and twitches — none of which make it easy to fall or stay asleep.

How Does Magnesium Affect Sleep?

Susan Schachter, MSRDN, calls magnesium a smooth muscle relaxer, which means it can help calm the nervous system. “It has been shown to increase levels of the neurotransmitter GABA, which helps calm the brain and reduce anxiety,” she explains. “Because of this, research has suggested that magnesium may help improve sleep quality, reduce insomnia, and increase sleep time in people with some sleep disorders.”

In fact, it’s often recommended to people who struggle with muscle cramps at night or those with restless legs syndrome, says Rohrscheib. But that’s not all.

“In addition to its involvement in reducing anxiety, relaxing muscle and increasing levels of GABA, magnesium helps to regulate the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that’s important for sleep-wake cycles,” says Schachter.

While several small studies show a positive association between magnesium and improved sleep quality and duration, research about the actual impact of magnesium on sleep is still quite limited. What’s more, findings are mixed. A 2021 review of magnesium supplementation for insomnia in older adults found that sleep latency and total sleep time improved, but researchers called the results statistically insignificant and noted that outcomes were supported with poor quality of evidence.

How to Take Magnesium

As a potential sleep aid, magnesium can be taken as an oral supplement about 30 minutes to an hour before bed. It comes in several forms, including magnesium oxide, magnesium citrate and magnesium chloride, and absorption can vary based on the type used in a given supplement. Some studies have found that citrate and chloride forms of magnesium are more bioavailable than oxide — that means the body is able to more readily absorb those forms, which could mean greater efficacy.

Magnesium is also available in topical form, including lotions, sprays, and bath salts. While research is still needed to confirm the efficacy of topical magnesium as a sleep remedy, the application of a soothing magnesium lotion or a calming soak in a warm tub could still be a good addition to a bedtime routine.

How Much Magnesium Should I Take for Sleep?

Keep in mind that we get magnesium in our diets, and it’s an essential mineral for various bodily functions. The National Institutes of Health recommends that adults supplement with no more than 350 mg per day. That’s slightly at odds with dosages used in clinical studies of magnesium for sleep. “Some studies have shown that taking 200-400 mg before bed may help improve sleep quality and quantity, particularly in people who have difficulty falling asleep,” says Schachter.

Still, it’s best to err on the side of caution. “When supplementing one needs to be careful with dosing, as a high dose can cause diarrhea (because the intestines are smooth muscle) and/or upset stomach,” Schachter says.

Magnesium and Anxiety

There is research that suggests magnesium could be a viable treatment for anxiety, possibly because of the way it regulates neurotransmitters and brain function. Specifically, magnesium interacts with stress mediators like the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that manages stress and anxiety, by inhibiting the stress response. However, like magnesium as a sleep aid, more research is needed to clarify how exactly magnesium can help with anxiety.

How Can I Raise My Magnesium Levels Naturally?

Generally, you can increase magnesium levels through diet alone, because it’s present in a fairly wide range of foods. The federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans outlines a healthy diet as one that includes a mix of vegetables, fat and low-fat dairy, beans and legumes, and nuts and seeds, all of which include magnesium.

Foods High In Magnesium

Schachter says that the amount of magnesium in specific foods can vary depending on how they’re processed and prepared, but the following are great sources:

Dark leafy greens: spinach, kale, Swiss chard, collard greens
Nuts and seeds: almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds
Legumes: black beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils
Whole grains: brown rice, quinoa (actually a seed but used like a grain), whole wheat products
Fish: halibut, salmon, mackerel
Dairy products: milk, yogurt, cheese
Soy Products: soy milk, soy beans
Dark chocolate

Is Magnesium Better Than Melatonin?

Magnesium is inherently different from melatonin. One is an essential mineral that we need to source from the foods we eat, while the other is a hormone that we produce naturally. Schachter says they can both potentially help with sleep, and the two substances share a deeper connection as well. “Magnesium has the benefit of helping with melatonin production, as well as decreasing anxiety and relaxing muscles,” she says.

It isn’t that one is necessarily better than the other, but rather that they offer different benefits. Melatonin supplements help jumpstart your natural melatonin production, which can make it easier to fall asleep in certain scenarios, like if you’re dealing with jet lag, trying to sleep in a new environment, or navigating short-term insomnia. Magnesium can be a better option if you need to shut down an anxious mind so that your body can relax into sleep.

The Last Word from Sleepopolis

Magnesium rivals melatonin as a popular natural sleep aid, and there is promising research to support its role in better sleep. However, more studies are needed to pinpoint exactly how magnesium supports sleep. If you’re considering this supplement to help you get a better night’s sleep, make sure to speak with your doctor first. “It’s always important to check with a healthcare professional to be sure magnesium is safe for you if you have any health conditions or are taking medication,” says Schachter. source

Learn about how sound can help aid your sleep process:

Why Walnuts Are A Good Snack To Eat Before Bed

The Right Noise – Pink, White ,Brown, Blue, Black, and Red Noise: Your Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep

How to Sleep Better: Your Guide for Good ZZZ

Everything You Need To Know About Magnesium And Sleep

Optimizing the Sleep-Wake Cycle

How to Reset Your Sleep Cycle When You Live With Insomnia

The Importance of Sleep with Alzheimer’s

What You Eat Affects How You Sleep

GABA & L-theanine mix Improves REM Sleep, Stabilizes mood and helps with depression

What Happens When Circadian Rhythm Is Off? Learn More

Do You Wake Up Every Night At The Same Time? Learn More

How to Reset Your Sleep Cycle When You Live With Insomnia Learn More

What You Eat Affects How You Sleep? Learn More

GABA / L-theanine mixture Improves REM Sleep, Antidepressant, and Mood-stabilizing Study Says Learn More

Magnesium Introduction

Magnesium, an abundant mineral in the body, is naturally present in many foods, added to other food products, available as a dietary supplement, and present in some medicines (such as antacids and laxatives). Magnesium is a cofactor in more than 300 enzyme systems that regulate diverse biochemical reactions in the body, including protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, and blood pressure regulation [1-3]. Magnesium is required for energy production, oxidative phosphorylation, and glycolysis. It contributes to the structural development of bone and is required for the synthesis of DNA, RNA, and the antioxidant glutathione. Magnesium also plays a role in the active transport of calcium and potassium ions across cell membranes, a process that is important to nerve impulse conduction, muscle contraction, and normal heart rhythm [3].

An adult body contains approximately 25 g magnesium, with 50% to 60% present in the bones and most of the rest in soft tissues [4]. Less than 1% of total magnesium is in blood serum, and these levels are kept under tight control. Normal serum magnesium concentrations range between 0.75 and 0.95 millimoles (mmol)/L [1,5]. Hypomagnesemia is defined as a serum magnesium level less than 0.75 mmol/L [6]. Magnesium homeostasis is largely controlled by the kidney, which typically excretes about 120 mg magnesium into the urine each day [2]. Urinary excretion is reduced when magnesium status is low [1].

Assessing magnesium status is difficult because most magnesium is inside cells or in bone [3]. The most commonly used and readily available method for assessing magnesium status is measurement of serum magnesium concentration, even though serum levels have little correlation with total body magnesium levels or concentrations in specific tissues [6]. Other methods for assessing magnesium status include measuring magnesium concentrations in erythrocytes, saliva, and urine; measuring ionized magnesium concentrations in blood, plasma, or serum; and conducting a magnesium-loading (or tolerance) test. No single method is considered satisfactory [7]. Some experts [4] but not others [3] consider the tolerance test (in which urinary magnesium is measured after parenteral infusion of a dose of magnesium) to be the best method to assess magnesium status in adults. To comprehensively evaluate magnesium status, both laboratory tests and a clinical assessment might be required [6].

Recommended Intakes

Intake recommendations for magnesium and other nutrients are provided in the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) developed by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (formerly National Academy of Sciences) [1]. DRI is the general term for a set of reference values used to plan and assess nutrient intakes of healthy people. These values, which vary by age and sex, include the following:

Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA): Average daily level of intake sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97%–98%) healthy individuals; often used to plan nutritionally adequate diets for individuals
Adequate Intake (AI): Intake at this level is assumed to ensure nutritional adequacy; established when evidence is insufficient to develop an RDA
Estimated Average Requirement (EAR): Average daily level of intake estimated to meet the requirements of 50% of healthy individuals; usually used to assess the nutrient intakes of groups of people and to plan nutritionally adequate diets for them; can also be used to assess the nutrient intakes of individuals
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL): Maximum daily intake unlikely to cause adverse health effects

Table 1 lists the current RDAs for magnesium [1]. For infants from birth to 12 months, the FNB established an AI for magnesium that is equivalent to the mean intake of magnesium in healthy, breastfed infants, with added solid foods for ages 7–12 months.

Table 1: Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for Magnesium [1]
Age	Male	Female	Pregnancy	Lactation
Birth to 6 months	30 mg*	30 mg*
7–12 months	75 mg*	75 mg*
1–3 years	80 mg	80 mg
4–8 years	130 mg	130 mg
9–13 years	240 mg	240 mg
14–18 years	410 mg	360 mg	400 mg	360 mg
19–30 years	400 mg	310 mg	350 mg	310 mg
31–50 years	420 mg	320 mg	360 mg	320 mg
51+ years	420 mg	320 mg

Sources of Magnesium

Food

Magnesium is widely distributed in plant and animal foods and in beverages. Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, are good sources [1,3]. In general, foods containing dietary fiber provide magnesium. Magnesium is also added to some breakfast cereals and other fortified foods. Some types of food processing, such as refining grains in ways that remove the nutrient-rich germ and bran, lower magnesium content substantially [1]. Selected food sources of magnesium are listed in Table 2.

Tap, mineral, and bottled waters can also be sources of magnesium, but the amount of magnesium in water varies by source and brand (ranging from 1 mg/L to more than 120 mg/L) [8].

Approximately 30% to 40% of the dietary magnesium consumed is typically absorbed by the body [2,9].

Table 2: Magnesium Content of Selected Foods [10]
Food	Milligrams (mg) per serving	Percent DV*
Pumpkin seeds, roasted, 1 ounce	156	37
Chia seeds, 1 ounce	111	26
Almonds, dry roasted, 1 ounce	80	19
Spinach, boiled, ½ cup	78	19
Cashews, dry roasted, 1 ounce	74	18
Peanuts, oil roasted, ¼ cup	63	15
Cereal, shredded wheat, 2 large biscuits	61	15
Soymilk, plain or vanilla, 1 cup	61	15
Black beans, cooked, ½ cup	60	14
Edamame, shelled, cooked, ½ cup	50	12
Peanut butter, smooth, 2 tablespoons	49	12
Potato, baked with skin, 3.5 ounces	43	10
Rice, brown, cooked, ½ cup	42	10
Yogurt, plain, low fat, 8 ounces	42	10
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 10% of the DV for magnesium, 1 serving	42	10
Oatmeal, instant, 1 packet	36	9
Kidney beans, canned, ½ cup	35	8
Banana, 1 medium	32	8
Salmon, Atlantic, farmed, cooked, 3 ounces	26	6
Milk, 1 cup	24–27	6
Halibut, cooked, 3 ounces	24	6
Raisins, ½ cup	23	5
Bread, whole wheat, 1 slice	23	5
Avocado, cubed, ½ cup	22	5
Chicken breast, roasted, 3 ounces	22	5
Beef, ground, 90% lean, pan broiled, 3 ounces	20	5
Broccoli, chopped and cooked, ½ cup	12	3
Rice, white, cooked, ½ cup	10	2
Apple, 1 medium	9	2
Carrot, raw, 1 medium	7	2

*DV = Daily Value. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developed DVs to help consumers compare the nutrient contents of foods and dietary supplements within the context of a total diet. The DV for magnesium is 420 mg for adults and children age 4 years and older [11]. FDA does not require food labels to list magnesium content unless magnesium has been added to the food. Foods providing 20% or more of the DV are considered to be high sources of a nutrient, but foods providing lower percentages of the DV also contribute to a healthful diet.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) FoodData Central [10] lists the nutrient content of many foods and provides comprehensive list of foods containing magnesium arranged by nutrient content and by food name.

Dietary supplements

Magnesium supplements are available in a variety of forms, including magnesium oxide, citrate, and chloride [2,3]. The Supplement Facts panel on a dietary supplement label declares the amount of elemental magnesium in the product, not the weight of the entire magnesium-containing compound.

Absorption of magnesium from different kinds of magnesium supplements varies. Forms of magnesium that dissolve well in liquid are more completely absorbed in the gut than less soluble forms [2,12]. Small studies have found that magnesium in the aspartate, citrate, lactate, and chloride forms is absorbed more completely and is more bioavailable than magnesium oxide and magnesium sulfate [12-16]. One study found that very high doses of zinc from supplements (142 mg/day) can interfere with magnesium absorption and disrupt the magnesium balance in the body [17].

Medicines

Magnesium is a primary ingredient in some laxatives [18]. Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia, for example, provides 500 mg elemental magnesium (as magnesium hydroxide) per tablespoon; the directions advise taking up to 4 tablespoons/day for adolescents and adults [19]. (Although such a dose of magnesium is well above the safe upper level, some of the magnesium is not absorbed because of the medication’s laxative effect.) Magnesium is also included in some remedies for heartburn and upset stomach due to acid indigestion [18]. Extra-strength Rolaids, for example, provides 55 mg elemental magnesium (as magnesium hydroxide) per tablet [20], although Tums is magnesium free [21].

Magnesium Intakes and Status

Dietary surveys of people in the United States consistently show that many people consume less than recommended amounts of magnesium. An analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of 2013–2016 found that 48% of Americans of all ages ingest less magnesium from food and beverages than their respective EARs; adult men age 71 years and older and adolescent males and females are most likely to have low intakes [22]. In a study using data from NHANES 2003–2006 to assess mineral intakes among adults, average intakes of magnesium from food alone were higher among users of dietary supplements (350 mg for men and 267 mg for women, equal to or slightly exceeding their respective EARs) than among nonusers (268 mg for men and 234 for women) [23]. When supplements were included, average total intakes of magnesium were 449 mg for men and 387 mg for women, well above EAR levels.

No current data on magnesium status in the United States are available. Determining dietary intake of magnesium is the usual proxy for assessing magnesium status. NHANES has not determined serum magnesium levels in its participants since 1974 [24], and magnesium is not evaluated in routine electrolyte testing in hospitals and clinics [2].

Magnesium Deficiency

Symptomatic magnesium deficiency due to low dietary intake in otherwise-healthy people is uncommon because the kidneys limit urinary excretion of this mineral [3]. However, habitually low intakes or excessive losses of magnesium due to certain health conditions, chronic alcoholism, and/or the use of certain medications can lead to magnesium deficiency.

Early signs of magnesium deficiency include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness. As magnesium deficiency worsens, numbness, tingling, muscle contractions and cramps, seizures, personality changes, abnormal heart rhythms, and coronary spasms can occur [1,2]. Severe magnesium deficiency can result in hypocalcemia or hypokalemia (low serum calcium or potassium levels, respectively) because mineral homeostasis is disrupted [2].

Groups at Risk of Magnesium Inadequacy

Magnesium inadequacy can occur when intakes fall below the RDA but are above the amount required to prevent overt deficiency. The following groups are more likely than others to be at risk of magnesium inadequacy because they typically consume insufficient amounts or they have medical conditions (or take medications) that reduce magnesium absorption from the gut or increase losses from the body.

People with gastrointestinal diseases

The chronic diarrhea and fat malabsorption resulting from Crohn’s disease, gluten-sensitive enteropathy (celiac disease), and regional enteritis can lead to magnesium depletion over time [2]. Resection or bypass of the small intestine, especially the ileum, typically leads to malabsorption and magnesium loss [2].

People with type 2 diabetes

Magnesium deficits and increased urinary magnesium excretion can occur in people with insulin resistance and/or type 2 diabetes [25,26]. The magnesium loss appears to be secondary to higher concentrations of glucose in the kidney that increase urine output [2].

People with alcohol dependence

Magnesium deficiency is common in people with chronic alcoholism [2]. In these individuals, poor dietary intake and nutritional status; gastrointestinal problems, including vomiting, diarrhea, and steatorrhea (fatty stools) resulting from pancreatitis; renal dysfunction with excess excretion of magnesium into the urine; phosphate depletion; vitamin D deficiency; acute alcoholic ketoacidosis; and hyperaldosteronism secondary to liver disease can all contribute to decreased magnesium status [2,27].

Older adults

Older adults have lower dietary intakes of magnesium than younger adults [21,28]. In addition, magnesium absorption from the gut decreases and renal magnesium excretion increases with age [29]. Older adults are also more likely to have chronic diseases or take medications that alter magnesium status, which can increase their risk of magnesium depletion [1,30].

Magnesium and Health

Habitually low intakes of magnesium induce changes in biochemical pathways that can increase the risk of illness over time. This section focuses on four diseases and disorders in which magnesium might be involved: hypertension and cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and migraine headaches.

Hypertension and cardiovascular disease

Hypertension is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Studies to date, however, have found that magnesium supplementation lowers blood pressure, at best, to only a small extent. A meta-analysis of 12 clinical trials found that magnesium supplementation for 8–26 weeks in 545 hypertensive participants resulted in only a small reduction (2.2 mmHg) in diastolic blood pressure [31]. The dose of magnesium ranged from approximately 243 to 973 mg/day. The authors of another meta-analysis of 22 studies with 1,173 normotensive and hypertensive adults concluded that magnesium supplementation for 3–24 weeks decreased systolic blood pressure by 3–4 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 2–3 mmHg [32]. The effects were somewhat larger when supplemental magnesium intakes of the participants in the nine crossover-design trials exceeded 370 mg/day. A diet containing more magnesium because of added fruits and vegetables, more low-fat or nonfat dairy products, and less fat overall was shown to lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure by an average of 5.5 and 3.0 mmHg, respectively [33]. However, this Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet also increases intakes of other nutrients, such as potassium and calcium, that are associated with reductions in blood pressure, so any independent contribution of magnesium cannot be determined.

In 2022, FDA approved a qualified health claim for conventional foods and dietary supplements that contain magnesium [34]. One example of this claim states, “Consuming diets with adequate magnesium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure (hypertension). However, FDA has concluded that the evidence is inconsistent and inconclusive.” FDA also specifies that foods and dietary supplements carrying this claim on their labels must provide at least 84 mg of magnesium per serving and, for dietary supplements, no more than 350 mg.

Several prospective studies have examined associations between magnesium intakes and heart disease. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study assessed heart disease risk factors and levels of serum magnesium in a cohort of 14,232 White and African-American men and women age 45 to 64 years at baseline [35]. Over an average of 12 years of follow-up, individuals in the highest quartile of the normal physiologic range of serum magnesium (at least 0.88 mmol/L) had a 38% reduced risk of sudden cardiac death compared with individuals in the lowest quartile (0.75 mmol/L or less). However, dietary magnesium intakes had no association with risk of sudden cardiac death. Another prospective study tracked 88,375 female nurses in the United States to determine whether serum magnesium levels measured early in the study and magnesium intakes from food and supplements assessed every 2 to 4 years were associated with sudden cardiac death over 26 years of follow-up [36]. Women in the highest compared with the lowest quartile of ingested and plasma magnesium concentrations had a 34% and 77% lower risk of sudden cardiac death, respectively. Another prospective population study of 7,664 adults age 20 to 75 years in the Netherlands who did not have cardiovascular disease found that low urinary magnesium excretion levels (a marker for low dietary magnesium intake) were associated with a higher risk of ischemic heart disease over a median follow-up period of 10.5 years. Plasma magnesium concentrations were not associated with risk of ischemic heart disease [37]. A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies found that higher serum levels of magnesium were significantly associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and higher dietary magnesium intakes (up to approximately 250 mg/day) were associated with a significantly lower risk of ischemic heart disease caused by a reduced blood supply to the heart muscle [38].

Higher magnesium intakes might reduce the risk of stroke. In a meta-analysis of seven prospective trials with a total of 241,378 participants, an additional 100 mg/day magnesium in the diet was associated with an 8% decreased risk of total stroke, especially ischemic rather than hemorrhagic stroke [39]. One limitation of such observational studies, however, is the possibility of confounding with other nutrients or dietary components that could also affect the risk of stroke.

A large, well-designed clinical trial is needed to better understand the contributions of magnesium from food and dietary supplements to heart health and the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease [40].

Type 2 diabetes

Diets with higher amounts of magnesium are associated with a significantly lower risk of diabetes, possibly because of the important role of magnesium in glucose metabolism [41,42]. Hypomagnesemia might worsen insulin resistance, a condition that often precedes diabetes, or it might be a consequence of insulin resistance [43]. Diabetes leads to increased urinary losses of magnesium, and the subsequent magnesium inadequacy might impair insulin secretion and action, thereby worsening diabetes control [3].

Most investigations of magnesium intake and risk of type 2 diabetes have been prospective cohort studies. A meta-analysis of seven of these studies, which included 286,668 patients and 10,912 cases of diabetes over 6 to 17 years of follow-up, found that a 100 mg/day increase in total magnesium intake decreased the risk of diabetes by a statistically significant 15% [41]. Another meta-analysis of eight prospective cohort studies that followed 271,869 men and women over 4 to 18 years found a significant inverse association between magnesium intake from food and risk of type 2 diabetes; the relative risk reduction was 23% when the highest to lowest intakes were compared [44].

A 2011 meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies of the association between magnesium intake and risk of type 2 diabetes included 13 studies with a total of 536,318 participants and 24,516 cases of diabetes [45]. The mean length of follow-up ranged from 4 to 20 years. Investigators found an inverse association between magnesium intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in a dose-responsive fashion, but this association achieved statistical significance only in individuals who were overweight (body mass index [BMI] 25 or higher) but not in normal-weight individuals (BMI less than 25). Again, a limitation of these observational studies is the possibility of confounding with other dietary components or lifestyle or environmental variables that are correlated with magnesium intake.

Only a few small, short-term clinical trials have examined the potential effects of supplemental magnesium on control of type 2 diabetes and the results are conflicting [42,46]. For example, 128 patients with poorly controlled diabetes in a Brazilian clinical trial received a placebo or a supplement containing either 500 mg/day or 1,000 mg/day magnesium oxide (providing 300 or 600 mg elemental magnesium, respectively) [47]. After 30 days of supplementation, plasma, cellular, and urine magnesium levels increased in participants receiving the larger dose of the supplement, and their glycemic control improved. In another small trial in Mexico, participants with type 2 diabetes and hypomagnesemia who received a liquid supplement of magnesium chloride (providing 300 mg/day elemental magnesium) for 16 weeks showed significant reductions in fasting glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin concentrations compared with participants receiving a placebo, and their serum magnesium levels became normal [48]. In contrast, neither a supplement of magnesium aspartate (providing 369 mg/day elemental magnesium) nor a placebo taken for 3 months had any effect on glycemic control in 50 patients with type 2 diabetes who were taking insulin [49].

The American Diabetes Association states that there is insufficient evidence to support the routine use of magnesium to improve glycemic control in people with diabetes [46]. It further notes that there is no clear scientific evidence that vitamin and mineral supplementation benefits people with diabetes who do not have underlying nutritional deficiencies.

Osteoporosis

Magnesium is involved in bone formation and influences the activities of osteoblasts and osteoclasts [50]. Magnesium also affects the concentrations of both parathyroid hormone and the active form of vitamin D, which are major regulators of bone homeostasis. Several population-based studies have found positive associations between magnesium intake and bone mineral density in both men and women [51]. Other research has found that women with osteoporosis have lower serum magnesium levels than women with osteopenia and those who do not have osteoporosis or osteopenia [52]. These and other findings indicate that magnesium deficiency might be a risk factor for osteoporosis [50].

Although limited in number, studies suggest that increasing magnesium intakes from food or supplements might increase bone mineral density in postmenopausal and elderly women [1]. For example, one short-term study found that 290 mg/day elemental magnesium (as magnesium citrate) for 30 days in 20 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis suppressed bone turnover compared with placebo, suggesting that bone loss decreased [53].

Diets that provide recommended levels of magnesium enhance bone health, but further research is needed to elucidate the role of magnesium in the prevention and management of osteoporosis.

Migraine headaches

Magnesium deficiency is related to factors that promote headaches, including neurotransmitter release and vasoconstriction [54]. People who experience migraine headaches have lower levels of serum and tissue magnesium than those who do not.

However, research on the use of magnesium supplements to prevent or reduce symptoms of migraine headaches is limited. Three of four small, short-term, placebo-controlled trials found modest reductions in the frequency of migraines in patients given up to 600 mg/day magnesium [54]. The authors of a review on migraine prophylaxis suggested that taking 300 mg magnesium twice a day, either alone or in combination with medication, can prevent migraines [55].

In their evidence-based guideline update, the American Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society concluded that magnesium therapy is probably effective for migraine prevention [56]. Because the typical dose of magnesium used for migraine prevention exceeds the UL, this treatment should be used only under the direction and supervision of a health care provider.

Health Risks from Excessive Magnesium

Too much magnesium from food does not pose a health risk in healthy individuals because the kidneys eliminate excess amounts in the urine [29]. However, high doses of magnesium from dietary supplements or medications often result in diarrhea that can be accompanied by nausea and abdominal cramping [1]. Forms of magnesium most commonly reported to cause diarrhea include magnesium carbonate, chloride, gluconate, and oxide [12]. The diarrhea and laxative effects of magnesium salts are due to the osmotic activity of unabsorbed salts in the intestine and colon and the stimulation of gastric motility [57].

Very large doses of magnesium-containing laxatives and antacids (typically providing more than 5,000 mg/day magnesium) have been associated with magnesium toxicity [58], including fatal hypermagnesemia in a 28-month-old boy [59] and an elderly man [60]. Symptoms of magnesium toxicity, which usually develop after serum concentrations exceed 1.74–2.61 mmol/L, can include hypotension, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing, retention of urine, ileus, depression, and lethargy before progressing to muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, extreme hypotension, irregular heartbeat, and cardiac arrest [29]. The risk of magnesium toxicity increases with impaired renal function or kidney failure because the ability to remove excess magnesium is reduced or lost [1,29].

The FNB has established ULs for supplemental magnesium for healthy infants, children, and adults (see Table 3) [1]. For many age groups, the UL appears to be lower than the RDA. This occurs because the RDAs include magnesium from all sources—food, beverages, dietary supplements, and medications. The ULs include magnesium from only dietary supplements and medications; they do not include magnesium found naturally in food and beverages.

Table 3: Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (ULs) for Supplemental Magnesium [1]
Age	Male	Female	Pregnant	Lactating
Birth to 12 months	None established	None established
1–3 years	65 mg	65 mg
4–8 years	110 mg	110 mg
9–18 years	350 mg	350 mg	350 mg	350 mg
19+ years	350 mg	350 mg	350 mg	350 mg

Interactions with Medications

Several types of medications have the potential to interact with magnesium supplements or affect magnesium status. A few examples are provided below. People taking these and other medications on a regular basis should discuss their magnesium intakes with their health care providers.

Bisphosphonates

Magnesium-rich supplements or medications can decrease the absorption of oral bisphosphonates, such as alendronate (Fosamax), used to treat osteoporosis [61]. Use of magnesium-rich supplements or medications and oral bisphosphonates should be separated by at least 2 hours [57].

Antibiotics

Magnesium can form insoluble complexes with tetracyclines, such as demeclocycline (Declomycin) and doxycycline (Vibramycin) as well as quinolone antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin (Cipro) and levofloxacin (Levaquin). These antibiotics should be taken at least 2 hours before or 4–6 hours after a magnesium-containing supplement [57,62].

Diuretics

Chronic treatment with loop diuretics, such as furosemide (Lasix) and bumetanide (Bumex), and thiazide diuretics, such as hydrochlorothiazide (Aquazide H) and ethacrynic acid (Edecrin), can increase the loss of magnesium in urine and lead to magnesium depletion [63]. In contrast, potassium-sparing diuretics, such as amiloride (Midamor) and spironolactone (Aldactone), reduce magnesium excretion [63].

Proton pump inhibitors

Prescription proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drugs, such as esomeprazole magnesium (Nexium) and lansoprazole (Prevacid), when taken for prolonged periods (typically more than a year) can cause hypomagnesemia [64]. In cases that FDA reviewed, magnesium supplements often raised the low serum magnesium levels caused by PPIs. However, in 25% of the cases, supplements did not raise magnesium levels and the patients had to discontinue the PPI. FDA advises health care professionals to consider measuring patients’ serum magnesium levels prior to initiating long-term PPI treatment and to check magnesium levels in these patients periodically [64].

Magnesium and Healthful Diets

The federal government’s 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans notes that “Because foods provide an array of nutrients and other components that have benefits for health, nutritional needs should be met primarily through foods. … In some cases, fortified foods and dietary supplements are useful when it is not possible otherwise to meet needs for one or more nutrients (e.g., during specific life stages such as pregnancy).”

For more information about building a healthy dietary pattern, refer to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the USDA’s MyPlate.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans describes a healthy dietary pattern as one that

Includes a variety of vegetables; fruits; grains (at least half whole grains); fat-free and low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese; and oils.
- Whole grains and dark-green, leafy vegetables are good sources of magnesium. Low-fat milk and yogurt contain magnesium as well. Some ready-to-eat breakfast cereals are fortified with magnesium.
Includes a variety of protein foods such as lean meats; poultry; eggs; seafood; beans, peas, and lentils; nuts and seeds; and soy products.
- Dried beans and legumes (such as soybeans, baked beans, lentils, and peanuts) and nuts (such as almonds and cashews) provide magnesium.
Limits foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium.
Limits alcoholic beverages.
Stays within your daily calorie needs.

References

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Why Walnuts Are A Good Snack To Eat Before Bed

The Truth News — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:23:49 +0000

Why Walnuts Are A Good Snack To Eat Before Bed

It’s no secret that getting sufficient sleep is essential to maintaining good health. Sleeping is how the body recovers and repairs itself, so a lack of quality shut-eye can increase the risk of developing many health problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, and depression, according to Medical News Today. However, all too often, people struggle with inadequate or poor quality sleep, leaving them tired, fatigued, and unable to perform at their best. While there are a lot of reasons behind this, diet actually plays a starring role in the quality of our sleep.

It turns out that eating the right foods before bed can actually help us fall asleep easier, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling more energized and refreshed. Meghan Dillon, a registered dietitian nutritionist and HelloFresh nutrition associate, recently explained to Mashed why walnuts are a particularly good food to snack on before hitting the hay. Walnuts’ long list of nutrients can help encourage a good night’s rest while satisfying a craving for crunchiness.

Walnuts contain lots of sleep-promoting magnesium

Walnuts contain a high amount of magnesium, a nutrient that has been shown to be beneficial for sleep. Dillon explained to Mashed that eating foods high in magnesium can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which Simply Psychology reports is also known as the “rest and digest” system. This system helps the body enter a relaxed state, slowing down our breathing, decreasing our heart rate, prompting digestion, and lowering activity in the eyes, blood vessels, and other areas. If the parasympathetic nervous system is not activated, “we may feel stressed and tense, causing us to experience difficulty falling asleep as our body fails to relax properly,” Dillon said.

Magnesium also helps send the brain signals that calm down the nervous system, according to Healthline. Additionally, magnesium may aid in the production of melatonin, the hormone that controls the body’s sleep-wake cycle. According to Dillon, “Magnesium deficiency is associated with low serum melatonin, whereas sufficient serum magnesium is associated with adequate serum melatonin.” Therefore, she recommends eating walnuts, as well as other magnesium-rich foods, like pumpkin seeds, peanuts, and cashews, to help promote healthy sleep.

Walnuts are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids

Dillon elaborated that walnuts are also a good choice for sleep because they contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. These healthy fats have not only been shown to improve heart health and protect against certain cancers, but also to aid the body in sleeping better and longer (via The Sleep Doctor). This is because omega-3s have anti-inflammatory properties and can help decrease levels of a stress hormone called norepinephrine, which disrupts REM sleep. “The standard American diet contains a greater prevalence of pro-inflammatory foods,” Dillon said, adding that consuming foods rich in omega-3s can “balance the inflammation in our body, which may in turn improve our sleep quality.”

Omega-3 fatty acids, along with magnesium, can also help stimulate melatonin production, meaning walnuts pack a double-punch when it comes to this important sleep hormone. “One study found that low levels of the omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, are linked with lower levels of melatonin. Increasing the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids in those with low serum DHA may increase melatonin production, which is essential for restful sleep,” Dillon explained to Mashed.

Some foods can disrupt sleep quality

Though walnuts are a great snack choice for those looking to improve their sleep, other nutritious foods can have the opposite effect. Dillon warns against pre-bedtime consumption of snacks that contain tyramine, an amino acid that is commonly found in pickled and fermented foods like sauerkraut. Although these items are full of beneficial probiotics, which aid in digestion, they also stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. While the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for slowing the body down, the sympathetic nervous system revs up the body’s rapid involuntary response, or “fight or flight,” per Live Science. This speeds up the heart rate and makes the body feel alert and awake — not exactly a good recipe for drifting off to a restful sleep.

Of course, many of us already know that any food or beverages that contain caffeine can keep us awake at night. Dillon said that though caffeinated teas have helpful antioxidants, their caffeine content may cause us to “spend an extended amount of time in the ‘REM cycle’ stage of sleep, too much of which can make us feel groggy the next day.” If you’re peckish before bed, put down the kombucha and caffeinated tea in favor of walnuts.source

Learn about how sound can help aid your sleep process:

Why Walnuts Are A Good Snack To Eat Before Bed

The Right Noise – Pink, White ,Brown, Blue, Black, and Red Noise: Your Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep

How to Sleep Better: Your Guide for Good ZZZ

Everything You Need To Know About Magnesium And Sleep

Optimizing the Sleep-Wake Cycle

How to Reset Your Sleep Cycle When You Live With Insomnia

The Importance of Sleep with Alzheimer’s

What You Eat Affects How You Sleep

GABA & L-theanine mix Improves REM Sleep, Stabilizes mood and helps with depression

What Happens When Circadian Rhythm Is Off? Learn More

Do You Wake Up Every Night At The Same Time? Learn More

How to Reset Your Sleep Cycle When You Live With Insomnia Learn More

What You Eat Affects How You Sleep? Learn More

GABA / L-theanine mixture Improves REM Sleep, Antidepressant, and Mood-stabilizing Study Says Learn More

How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind

The Truth News — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 09:23:59 +0000

How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind

Dominate Yourself, All Others Now Defeated!

One of the most profound knowledge quests you will ever undertake is learning how to reprogram your subconscious mind. The power of your subconscious mind defines who you are in the deepest levels of your being.

Unfortunately, most people will spend their entire life trapped by their subconscious programs. We’ll explore exactly how to move into conscious awareness, retrain your neural pathways and build the life of your dreams.

This is your ultimate guide on how to reprogram your subconscious mind. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What Is The Subconscious Mind?

As Joe Dispenza, leading neuroscience lecturer, puts it:

“The subconscious is where all your bad habits and behaviors that you want to change reside.”

Your subconscious mind seeks to follow and play out programs.

Over and over again.

This is also known as a homeostatic impulse and is a good chunk of why so many people are stuck in lives that feel largely underwhelming and predictable.

The subconscious mind resists the unknown. Even if the known, and the accompanying patterns, are limiting and prevent you from moving forward.

Judgment and criticisms do not exist here. Instead, all that is processed here is black and white. So, you can’t communicate with the subconscious the same as the conscious mind.

The step-by-step guide you’re about to read will instill new beliefs and create subconscious programming that will drastically improve your inner world.

What’s The Best Way To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind?

If you’re ready to start reprogramming by creating new neural pathways, here are the different techniques to transform your life.

Here are the 10 best ways to reprogram your subconscious mind:

Remove blind spots and limiting beliefs
Break the habits of the old self
Remap the mind
Strip back your personality
Expose and transpose emotions
Ditch the victim mentality
Brain and heart coherence
Recondition your body
Unravel your past, redesign your future
Elevate emotional states

1. Remove blind spots and limiting beliefs

Most books on masculinity will tell you what women want and how you can be a strong stereotypical man that gets everyone’s approval. The first thing you have to do is unlearn these beliefs. You need to clear your mind of all these notions society has built around what men should be like and what women want from men. Explore yourself, and become your own person!

2. Break the habits of the old self

There’s no skipping this step. First, you must be honest about who you choose to be through your habits.

And let me tell you why.

Becoming aware of your habits is the only way to make real and lasting change.

Otherwise, your life is a redundant group of automatic, unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions played out in a repetitive cycle.

Your body becomes so familiar with these patterns that it becomes stagnant. Every encounter, every place, and every person you meet reaffirms the same responses. To change, you need to:

Become aware of how you are responding to life’s events.
Find time in your day to detach from the world.
Gain back free will from the program of your life.
Start the day with a vision of how you want to live. To do this, you need to go beyond the analytical mind. This is what’s between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

3. Remap the mind

For this third way, you need to know that we’re not built to be one way our whole life— neuroplasticity research tells us this.

Humans have an extraordinary capacity to change and adapt.

Ask yourself this question right now:

“What would it be like to be happy?”

Close your eyes and visualize the answer in your mind.

What your brain has just undergone during that exercise is incredible. It called up different networks of neurons using your knowledge and experience. By piecing this visual together, it has created an intention.

Rehearse in your mind how your life is becoming, and it will build a map to the future.

Do this for an even longer timeframe and install the circuits that create this new future. So when understanding how to reprogram your subconscious mind, there’s a crucial hack you need to know…

The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between an experience and the emotions made by thought alone.

That’s why the internal process of rehearsing and imagining is so transformative.

4. Strip back your personality

In a nutshell, you need your personal reality to affect your personality.

Definitely not the other way around.

For far too many people, their environment controls their thoughts and feelings.

To create lasting change in the subconscious minds, people need to be greater than their environment. And also greater than the conditions that surround them in the world.

So how do we go beyond the environment?

We have to let go of the concept of linear time and drop into pure consciousness.

Even a couple of minutes of meditation every day can begin this process. However, to stop identifying with your personality, there are three tantric yoga steps to understand:

Dharana— concentrate the mind.
Dhyanam— uninterrupted contemplation.
Samadhi— intense concentration where union with the divine is reached.

And once we drop into this state, we move into the limitless consciousness of the quantum field around us. Scarcity falls away, and abundance exists in every aspect of life.

5. Expose and transpose emotions

Know that the stronger the emotional reaction, the more people pay attention to the cause. Long-term memory and emotions are highly linked. Let’s look into how the subconscious causes this:

An emotional reaction occurs when you think you can’t control your thoughts.
If this lasts any longer, it becomes a mood.
Let this happen for an extended period. It becomes your temperament.
And longer again, it evolves into a part of your personality.

So you can see then that one negative experience can create lasting damage to your whole bring— if you let it.

In the limitless potential of the universe, it’s a shame to focus solely on the worst-case scenario.

We keep firing and wiring those circuits. Like operating on autopilot, a thought enters, and the program runs. You need to step into the river of change and get comfortable with discomfort.

Realize that the best way to create your future is from the unknown, not the known. Close your eyes and rehearse the action of what you want. The body doesn’t know the difference and stops replaying the past. Instead, it designs a map of the future.

You can’t wait for your healing to feel whole.

6. Ditch the victim mentality

Another toxic trait that can affect your dating and love life experiences is playing the victim. Most people start playing the victim in tough situations to find an easy way out— the same people practice this in romantic relationships too.

Various relationship consultants have emphasized the importance of owning up to your mistakes. Then, you can move forward and solve the problem instead of resorting to the blame game.

7. Brain and heart coherence

Having the brain and heart in coherence creates a magnificent state of wholeness.

The alignment means that you stop looking outside yourself for more. Now, that bicycle that overtook you on the way to work has little effect on your happiness. You also begin to finetune your ambitions to create the life you want.

The power of the subconscious mind is the link between the heart and the brain.

A heart-centered meditation such as a Metta meditation allows you to develop this connection.

Once the heart and mind move in conjunction, and not a game of following the leader, your emotions and thoughts no longer define your day-to-day life. And once you step out of the battleground of the thought-mind war, you are liberated and internally at peace. In turn, this opens your system up to lasting transformation.

8. Recondition your body

The body stores emotions, past experiences, and trauma.

All of these dramatically influence your thoughts, so reconditioning the body allows you to control how the subconscious mind responds in the present.

Tantra yoga is an ancient practice that improves focus and creates a deep connection to the body. Through Tantra, you will become adept at sending a message to the body to enter into a relaxed state when subconscious beliefs try push you back into negative thoughts and old ways of being.

It’s easy to tell someone to stay positive when facing their fears and to shatter old beliefs. But, having a Tantra practice brings you closer to your developing your masculine energy and resilience and builds confidence that you can attract and manifest a life of liberation.

9. Unravel your past, redesign your future

You’ve heard of cause and effect, but know that there’s a different way.

Enter: causing effect.

Feel abundance and self-worth, and you will start to feel and experience success.

Once you love yourself, you’ll find an equal in your romantic life. Your masculine energy amplifies, and you are more receptive to harnessing and learning sexual mastery.

All of this is about emerging out of the role of the victim. You’re switching the cards of your life and becoming the creator of your world.

How can you make this shift?

It’s time to start defining yourself with visions of the future.
Meditation, which;
- Disconnects you from your outer environment
- Reduces sensory information
- Orders your mind and body to obey your will. Essentially, becoming master of your mind and body.

When your body seeks to relive the familiar past, that’s when you need to step into unpredictability and rewrite the mind’s programming. Do this over and over again, and the subconscious mind becomes an agent of change within.

10. Make it last

Too many people shrink back into mediocrity.

To tap into the power of insight for self-empowerment, you have to leave behind the mind frame of scarcity and the emotion of stress.

All creatures can endure short-term stress. For example, a rabbit chased by a fox is designed to feel the stress response in the body, reach its warren, and let its body return to homeostasis.

When the brain and body are knocked out of balance, homeostasis brings you back.

However, for us, the coworker constantly gives us a rough time at work, and the stress persists. Our body struggles with the flood of stress responses.

Because no organism can live in stress mode long term. We’re talking about the downregulation of genes and the creation of disease.

It means our thoughts can make us sick.

But it also means that they can make us well.

Having a supportive group of men committed to creating an amazing life is the turning point for many guys. It gives lasting accountability and inspiration to reach your maximum potential. source

Joe Dispenza on How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind

Joe Dispenza on How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind – Transcript.

People wake up in the morning, they begin to think about their problems. Those problems are circuits, memories in the brain. Each one of those memories are connected to people and things at certain times and places. And if the brain is a record of the past, the moment they start their day, they’re already thinking in the past.

Each one of those memories has an emotion. Emotions are the end product of past experiences. So the moment they recall those memories of their problems, they all of a sudden feel unhappy, they feel sad, they feel pain. Now, how you think and how you feel creates your state of being. So the person’s entire state of being when they start their day is in the past. So what does that mean?

The familiar past will sooner or later be predictable future. So if you believe that your thoughts have something to do with your destiny, and you can’t think greater than how you feel or feelings have become the means of thinking, by very definition of emotions you’re thinking in the past. And for the most part you’re going to keep creating the same life.

So then people grab their cell phone, they check their WhatsApp, they check their texts, they check their emails, they check Facebook, they take a picture of their feet, they post it on Facebook, they tweet something, they do Instagram, they check the news, and now they feel really connected to everything that’s known in their life. And then they go through a series of routine behaviors. They get out of bed on the same side, they go to the toilet, they get a cup of coffee, they take a shower, they get dressed, they drive to work the same way.

They do the same things, They see the same people that push the same emotional buttons, and that becomes the routine and it becomes like a program. So now they’ve lost their free will to a program and there’s no unseen hand doing it to them. So when it comes time to change, the redundancy of that cycle becomes a subconscious program. So, now 95% of who we are by the time we’re 35 years old is a memorized set of behaviors, emotional reactions, unconscious habits, hardwired attitudes, beliefs and perceptions that function like a computer program.

So then a person can say with 5% of their conscious mind, “I want to be healthy, I want to be happy, I want to be free.” But the body’s on a whole different program. So then how do you begin to make those changes? Well, you have to get beyond the analytical mind, because what separates the conscious mind from the subconscious mind is the analytical mind. And that’s where meditation comes in, because you can teach people through practice how to change their brainwaves, slow them down. And when they do that properly, they do enter the operating system where they can begin to make some really important changes.

So most people then wait for a crisis or trauma or disease or diagnosis and they wait for loss, some tragedy to make up their mind to change. And my message is, “Why wait?” You can learn and change in a state of pain and suffering, or you can learn and change in a state of joy and inspiration. I think right now the cool thing is that people are waking up. Most people spend 70% of their life living in survival and living in stress.

They’re always anticipating the worst case scenario based on a past experience, and they’re literally out of the infinite potentials in the quantum field, they’re selecting the worst possible outcome and they’re beginning to emotionally embrace it with fear. And they’re conditioning their body into a state of fear. Do that enough times, body has a panic attack without you. You can’t even predict it, because it’s programmed subconsciously.

So people become addicted to the rush of those emotions and they use the problems and conditions in their life to reaffirm their limitation, so at least they can feel something. So now when it comes time to change, you say to the person, “Why are you this way?” Well, every time they recall the event, they’re producing the same chemistry in their brain and body as if the event is occurring, firing and wiring the same circuits and sending the same emotional signature to the body.

Well, what’s the relevance behind that? Well, your body is the unconscious mind. In a sense, if you’re sitting down and you start thinking about some future worst case scenario that you’re conjuring up in your mind, and you begin to feel the emotion of that event, your body doesn’t know the difference between the event that’s taking place in your world, outer world, and what you’re creating by emotion or thought alone.

So most people then, they’re constantly reaffirming their emotional states. So when it comes time to give up that emotion, they can say, “I really want to do it.” But really the body is stronger than the mind because it’s been conditioned that way. So the servant, now has become the master and the person all of a sudden, once they step into that unknown, they’d rather feel guilt and suffering because at least they can predict it.

Being in the unknown is a scary place for most people because the unknown is uncertain. People say to me, “Well, I can’t predict my future. I’m in the unknown.” And I always say, The best way to predict your future is to create it. Not from the known, but from the unknown. What thoughts do you want to fire and wire in your brain? What behaviors you want to demonstrate in one day?

The act of rehearsing, them mentally closing your eyes and rehearsing the action-

[Tom Bilyeu] Rehearsing the reaction of what you want or the actual-

Yeah, the action of what you want, by closing your eyes and mentally rehearsing some action. If you’re truly present, the brain does not know the difference between what you’re imaging and what your experiencing in 3D world. So then you begin to install the neurological hardware in your brain to look like the event has already occurred. Now your brain is no longer a record of the past, now it’s a map to the future.

And if you keep doing it, priming it that way, the hardware becomes a software program and who knows, you just may start acting like a happy person. Then I think the hardest part is to teach our body emotionally what the future will feel like ahead of the actual experience. So what does that mean? You can’t wait for your success to feel empowered. You can’t wait for your wealth to feel abundant. You can’t wait for your new relationship to feel love or your healing to feel whole.

I mean, that’s the old model of reality of cause and effect, waiting for something outside of us to change how we feel inside of us and when we feel better inside of us, we pay attention to whoever or whatever caused it. But what that means then is that from the Newtonian world is that most people spend their whole life living in lack, waiting for something to change out there.

[Tom Bilyeu] What do you mean the Newtonian world?

Newtonian world is all about the predictable. It’s all about predicting the future, but the quantum model of reality is about causing an effect. The moment you start feeling abundant and worthy, you are generating wealth. The moment you’re empowered and feel it, you’re beginning to step towards your success. The moment you start feeling whole, your healing begins.

And when you love yourself and you love all of life, you’ll create an equal, and now you’re causing an effect. I think that’s the difference between living as a victim in your world saying, “I am this way because of this person or that thing or this experience. They made me think and feel this way.” When you switch that around, you become a creator of your world and you start saying, “My thinking and my feeling is changing an outcome in my life.”.

And now, that’s a whole different game, and we start believing more that we’re creators of reality. And most people, when they have a thought, they just think that that’s the truth. I think one of my greatest realizations in my own journey was just because you have a thought, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. So if you think 60 to 70,000 thoughts in one day, and we do, and 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before.

And you believe that your thoughts have something to do with your destiny, your life’s not going to change very much because the same thought leads to the same choice, the same choice leads to the same behavior, the same behavior creates the same experience, and the same experience produces the same emotion. And so then the act of becoming conscious of this process, to begin to become more aware of how you think, how you act, and how you feel is called metacognition.

And so then why is that important? Because the more conscious you become of those unconscious states of mind and body, the less likely you’re going to go unconscious during the day. And that thought is not going to slip by your awareness unchecked, because you’re… It means to know thyself. The word meditation means to become familiar with. So as you become familiar with the thoughts, the behaviors, and the emotions of the old self, you’re retiring that old self as you fire and wire new thoughts and condition the body into a new emotional state.

If you do that enough times, it’ll begin to become familiar to you. So it’s so important. Just like a garden, if you’re planting a garden, you got to get rid of the weeds. You got to take the plants from the past year and you’ve got to pull them out. The rocks that sift to the top that are like our emotional blocks, they have to be removed. It’s soil has to be tenderized and broken down. We have to make room to plant the new garden. So primarily we learn the most about ourselves and others when we’re uncomfortable, because the moment you move into that uncomfortable state, normally a program jumps in.

When that program jumps in, it’s because the person doesn’t want to be in the present moment and engage it consciously. So if you’re not being defined by a vision of the future, then you’re left with the old memories of the past and you will be predictable in your life. And if you wake up in the morning and you’re not being defined by a vision in the future, as you see the same people and you go to the same places and you do the exact same thing at the exact same time, it’s no longer that your personality is creating your personal reality.

Now your personal reality is affecting or creating your personality. Your environment is really controlling how you think and feel unconsciously. Because every person, every thing, every place, every experience has a neurological network in your brain. Every experience that you have with every person produces an emotion. So some people will use their boss to reaffirm their addiction to judgment. They’ll use their enemy to reaffirm their addiction to hatred. They’ll use their friends to reaffirm their addiction to suffering.

So now they need the outer world to feel something. So to change then, is to be greater than your environment, to be greater than the conditions in your world and the environment is that seductive. So then why is meditation the tool? Well, let’s sit down. Let’s close our eyes. Let’s disconnect from your outer environment. So if you’re seeing less things, there’s less stimulation going to your brain. If you’re playing soft music or you have earplugs in, less sensory information come into your brain.

So you’re disconnecting from your environment. If you can sit your body down and tell it to stay like an animal, “Stay right here. I’m going to feed you when we’re done. You can get up and check your emails, you can do all your texts, but right now you’re going to sit there and obey me.” So then when you do that properly and you’re not eating anything or smelling anything or tasting anything, you’re not up experiencing and feeling anything, you would have to agree with me that you’re being defined by a thought, right?

So when the body wants to go back to its emotional past and you become aware that your attention is on that emotion, and where you place your attention is where you place your energy, you’re siphoning your energy out of the present moment into the past, and you become aware of that, and you settle your body back down in the present moment. Because it’s saying, “Well, it’s eight o’clock. You normally get upset because you’re in traffic around this time, and here you are sitting and we’re used to feeling anger and you’re off schedule.”

“Oh, it’s 11 o’clock and usually check your emails and judge everybody.” Well, the body’s looking for that predictable chemical state. Every time you become aware that you’re doing that and your body is craving those emotions, and you settle it back down into the present moment, you’re telling the body it’s no longer the mind, that you’re the mind, and now your will is getting greater than the program.

And if you keep doing this over and over again, over and over again, over and over again, just like training a stallion or a dog, it’s just going to say, “I’m going to sit.” And the moment that happens, when the body’s no longer the mind, when it finally surrenders, there’s a liberation of energy. We go from particle to wave, from matter to energy, and we free ourselves from the chains of those emotions that keep us in the familiar past. We’ve seen this thousands of times. In fact, we can actually predict it now on a brain scan. source

Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself

Check out the video by Neuroscientist and meditation expert Dr. Joe Dispenza who explains how to reprogram your mind:

Transcription

How many people actually believe in the idea that the way you think has some effect on your life.

The way you think has some effect on your life?

How many people actually believe in the idea that the way you think has some effect on your life. So how many people actually woke up this morning and consciously created a future? You know the biggest reason why people don’t do it is that you don’t really believe it’s true. You see if you knew on a gut level that it was absolutely true.

Would you ever miss a day? And would you ever let any thought slip by your awareness that you didn’t want to experience?

So your brain, according to neuroscience, is organized to reflect everything you know in your life. Your brain is a record of your environment. So record an artefact of your past. So if you believe this then, then does your environment control your thinking? Or does your thinking control your environment?

Environment

“Or does your thinking control your environment?”

So if you wake up in the morning and you get out of bed on the same exact side as you did the day before.

You shut the alarm clock off with the same finger.

You slip into your favourite slippers, you shuffle into the bathroom and you use the toilet like you always do.

Then you walk over to the mirror and you look at yourself to remember who you are.

Then you get into the shower and you wash yourself in the same routine way.

You then groom yourself to look like everybody expects you to look and you go downstairs and you drink coffee at of your favourite mug.

Then you drive the work the same way as you did the day before.

You see the same people that push the same emotional buttons.

You do the exact things that you know how to do and you memorize and can do so well that you’re an expert at.

Then you hurry up and rush home so you can hurry up and check your emails so you could hurry up and go to bed.

So you’re going to hurry up and do it all over again.

Did your brain change at all that day

Now here’s my question. Did your brain change at all that day? We could say that you were thinking the same thoughts, performing the same actions that create the same experiences, that produce the same emotions, but secretly expecting something to change in your life.

So then as the environment turns on different circuits in your brain, you begin to think equal to your environment as you see the same people and go to the same places and do the same things at the same time.

It’s the external environment that’s turning on different circuits in your brain, causing you to think equal to everything that you know and as long as you think equal to everything that’s familiar or known to you, what do you keep creating more of? Same life.

Now the quantum laws still applying to you. You’re just thinking equal to everything that you know and you keep creating more of the same.

“To truly change is to think greater than your environment”

To change to truly change is to think greater than your environment, and every great person in history knew this. Whether it was William or Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King or queen Elizabeth, the first or Joan of arc.

They all had a vision. They all had an idea, couldn’t see it, couldn’t smell it, couldn’t taste it, couldn’t feel it, but it was alive in their mind. It was so alive in their mind that they began to live as if that reality was actually happening now.

Personality

So can you believe in a future that you can’t see or experience with your senses yet, but you’ve thought about enough times in your mind that your brain is literally changed to look like the event has already happened? Neuroscience says it’s absolutely possible now your personality, your personality creates your personal reality.

That’s it. It’s that simple. And your personality is made up of how you think, how you act and how you feel.

“Your personality creates your personal reality”

So the present personality, who’s sitting here today, you, has created the present personal reality called your life. Would you agree? Would you also agree then if you wanted to create a new personal reality that on a fundamental level you would have to change the thoughts that you’re thinking, the behaviours and habits that you’re demonstrating and the emotions that you’ve memorized, that’s become part of your identity?

And most people try to create a new personal reality as the same personality and it never works. We have to become somebody else.

So then as you keep thinking the same thoughts, performing the same actions and living by the same experiences that produce the same emotions. There’s a principle in neuroscience that says nerve cells that fire together wire together.

And if you keep repeating the same States of mind-body over and over again, your brain begins to fire in the same sequences, in the same patterns and same combinations.

nerve cells that fire together wire together

Mind

And whenever you make your brain work in a certain way, that’s called mind. The mind is the brain in action.

So as you remind yourself every day who you think you are, you’re causing your brain to fire in the exact same ways. And as they fire and wire in the same patterns over time, the brain moves into a very finite signature. And that’s called your personality.

Now that box in your brain isn’t literally a box, but it’s the most commonly wired neurologically fired programs that run redundantly because we keep doing the same things over and over again.

To change your mind then is to make the brain work and new sequences and new patterns and new combinations to begin to make the brain work differently. And the one ingredient that allows us to do that is knowledge or information because every time you learn something new, you make a new connection in your brain.

Learning

That’s what learning is. Learning is forging new connections. Remembering is maintaining or sustaining those connections, so now every time you have a thought, you make a chemical and a few have a great thought or an unlimited thought or a joyful thought, you turn on a set of circuits in your brain that fires in a very specific sequence, pattern and combination that produces a level of mind that turns on another part of the brain that makes a chemical for you to begin to feel exactly the way you are just thinking great or unlimited or joyful.

Now if you have a negative thought or an unhappy thought or a self-deprecating thought, you turn on a different set of circuits and a different combination, a different sequence in a different pattern that produces a different level of mind and the brain then begins to make a different batch of chemicals that signals the body for you to begin to feel exactly the way you were just thinking negative or unhappy or unworthy.

So the moment you begin to feel the way you think because the brain is in constant communication with your body, you begin to think the way you feel, which makes more chemicals for you to feel the way you think. Then you think the way you feel and then you feel the way you think. And then you think the way you feel. And some people do this for 20 or 30 or 40 years.

State of being

Now, the redundancy of that cycle over time creates what I call a state of being, in a state of being is when your mind and body are working together or your thoughts and feelings are aligned to a concept.

So thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. And as people get caught in this cycle of thinking and feeling and feeling and thinking over time, they condition their body to memorize that emotion as well as the conscious mind.

“So thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body”

Habits

And whenever the body knows as well as the mind, that’s called a habit. A habit is when your body is the mind. Now, 95% of who you are by the time you’re 35 years old is a set of memorized behaviours, set of emotional reactions, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes that run just like a computer program.

So 5% of your conscious mind begins to work against 95% of what you’ve memorized. So the person wants to think positively, but they’re feeling negatively. They want to create their dream board, you know, and put up their future life. But they feel unworthy. That’s mind and body in opposition. We have to recondition the body to a new mind.

So how many people know someone who’s memorized suffering and you say to that person, Hey, did you read the book I gave you? What do they say? No. Hey listen, we’re going to go out to dinner. We’re going to go see some standup comedy and go for a walk along the water. Do you want to come? No. What do they say?

I’m insisting on this neurochemical order that no person, no thing, no experience can move us from it.

New state of being

And we have these three brains to allow us to move into a new state of being. And the quantum field, universal mind, whatever you want to call it, responds to who you’re being, not what you’re thinking, not what you’re feeling, but the combination of how you’re thinking and how you’re feeling called a state of being.

Now, most people wait for what crisis or trauma or disease or loss or, or a diagnosis to really want to change. They wait to the point where the ego’s brought to such a low level that they cannot go on business, as usual, any longer.

That’s when we begin to look at how we’re thinking or what we believe or how we act or attitude or what emotions we’re living by.

And my message is, why wait? We can learn and change in a state of pain and suffering, which tends to be the human model. Or we can learn and change in a state of joy and inspiration. source

10 Best Ways to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind – Tips by Dr. Joe Dispenza

Guided Meditations
Building Better Habits
Shifting Your Focus, Energy, and Attention
Entering Theta Brain Wave State
Positive Affirmations
Visualization Exercises
Mindfulness Practice
Thinking Greater Than Your Emotions
Build Your Self-Awareness
Become More Present

https://youtu.be/yZE2Ct1EdUA?si=i4Hq7Q-adTVI46Z4

How to Reprogram Your Brain to Make You Superhuman – Dr. Joe Dispenza

I am so beyond grateful for today’s guest, Dr. Joe Dispenza. His books and teachings were at the very beginning of my journey and completely shifted everything for me. I believe there are moments in life that impact you so deeply and you’re never the same. In this episode, I talk about that moment and how everything I looked at changed forever.

As an international lecturer, researcher, author and educator, Dr. Joe believes that each of us has the potential for greatness and unlimited abilities. This is why his passion has led him to educate thousands of people on how they can rewire their brains and recondition their bodies to make lasting changes. I can tell you firsthand that this is what he did for me. I truly believe his teachings were the beginning of rewiring the way I think. With a passion for neuroscience, epigenetics and quantum physics to explore the science behind spontaneous remissions and evolved consciousness. You will be blown away by Dr. Joe’s miraculous stories!

So please, get comfortable and listen to every single word of our incredible conversation and if this hooks you, I encourage you to go grab one of his books and read it!

Question Highlights:

Did you always have this mind-body connection or do you feeling like it got awakened after your accident?
What advice do you give people who are in an environment that isn’t helpful for where they want to go?
How do you not take things personally or navigate that world of reflection?
Can you paint a picture of what it looks like when a person knows what to do but can’t quite visualize it?
What’s the connection between moving your body and getting into a new environment and accelerating that change?
Can you tell me about your events?

Quotes

“It’s so much easier to forget our vision than it is to remember it.”

“We’re innately wired to be creators.”

“The power that made the body heals the body.”

“Your personality creates your personal reality.”

“If you’re not being defined by a vision of the future, then all you’re left with are memories of the past.”

“Wisdom is the memory without the emotional charge.”

“The unknown has never let me down.”

“My definition of the creative moment is when I forget myself.”

Joe Dispenza, D.C. is an international lecturer, researcher, corporate consultant, author, and educator who has been invited to speak in more than 32 countries on five continents. As a lecturer and educator, he is driven by the conviction that each of us has the potential for greatness and unlimited abilities. In his easy-to-understand, encouraging, and compassionate style, he has educated thousands of people, detailing how they can rewire their brains and recondition their bodies to make lasting changes.

In addition to offering a variety of online courses and teleclasses, he has personally taught three-day progressive workshops and five-day advanced workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Starting in 2018, his workshops will become week-long offerings, and the content of the progressive and advanced workshops will be available online. (To learn more, please visit the events section at: www.drjoedispenza.com.) Dr. Joe is also a faculty member at Quantum University in Honolulu, Hawaii; the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York; and Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He’s also an invited chair of the research committee at Life University in Atlanta, Georgia.

As a researcher, Dr. Joe’s passion can be found at the intersection of the latest findings from the fields of neuroscience, epigenetics, and quantum physics to explore the science behind spontaneous remissions. He uses that knowledge to help people heal themselves of illnesses, chronic conditions, and even terminal diseases so they can enjoy a more fulfilled and happy life, as well as evolve their consciousness.

https://youtu.be/L2xSzHn0ps4?si=fzBrstgIFpVwhqLg

Illegal medical lab containing Covid, HIV,herpes and bioengineered mice discovered in California

The Truth News — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:42:45 +0000

Illegal medical lab containing Covid, HIV,herpes and bioengineered mice discovered in California

Mysterious Chinese COVID Lab Uncovered in City of Reedley CA

Code enforcement check uncovers illegal lab making COVID-19 and pregnancy test kits, bacterial and viral agents and 900 white mice

Why would a COVID lab run by a shady Chinese company be operating in Reedley, CA in the central San Joaquin Valley? The lab, which was supposed to be an empty building, was discovered by Reedley city code enforcement officers when they saw a garden hose attached to the building and investigated.

Darren Fraser at the MidValley Times reported earlier this week that the building has been illegally operated since October 2022 by Wang Zhaolin of Prestige Biotech, and the lab was used to produce COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests.

City of Reedley officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the State Department of Health, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Fresno County Department of Public Health (FCDPH).

“Reedley officials and personnel from CDPH and FCDPH executed a warrant on March 16 to inspect the warehouse at 850 I Street,” MidValley Times reported. “According to a declaration from Humero Prado, Assistant Director of Fresno County Public Health, which was filed in superior court, investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests. In other rooms, investigators found blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples. They also found thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.”

And they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions. 773 of the mice had to be euthanized, and officials found another 178 mice already dead.

We have a few questions:

Why was a Chinese company making COVID-19 tests in California?

Where were these tests to be used? California public health agencies? Medical groups and hospitals?

Is the California Department of Public Health involved?

Who authorized this lab?

What does the Newsom administration know about this?

Mid Valley Times further reports:

“From May 2 through May 4, the CDC’s Division of Select Agents and Toxins inspected 850 I Street. Court documents confirm the CDC found potentially infectious agents at the location. These included both bacterial and viral agents, including: chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5 and rubella. The CDC also found samples of malaria.”

“Court documents identify Xiuquin Yao as the alleged president of Prestige. Neither Reedley nor FCDPH was able to obtain from Yao any substantive information regarding Prestige or why infectious agents and mice were being stored at 850 I Street other than to say that the company was developing diagnostic testing kits.”

“Court documents include copies of an email exchange Prado conducted with David He, who identified himself as a representative of Prestige, beginning May 31 and continuing through June 13. Over the course of numerous emails, Prado repeatedly asks He to provide documentation regarding licensed medical waste disposal, Prestige’s reasons for storing infectious agents and how the company will respond to the biological abatement orders handed down by FCDPH.”

“They (Prestige) completely avoided the questions,” Prado said. “This individual (He) was either unaware or was intentionally trying to mislead us.”

As a start, the Globe made Public records requests to the City of Reedly and the Fresno County Department of Public Health for information and communications between the all of the agencies, as well as any documents and materials found at the illegal lab location. Read the entire article at MidValleyTimes.com.

As we reported in February 2021 about the thousands of inconclusive test results coming out of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $100 million COVID-19 testing lab with the $1.7 billion contract with PerkinElmer, “Is anything about the COVID-19 virus true, or is this the biggest political manipulation this country has ever seen?” source

CDC detects coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes at unlicensed California lab

The CDC found at least 20 potentially infectious agents at the warehouse in Fresno County.

Local and federal authorities spent months investigating a warehouse in Fresno County, California, that they suspect was home to an illegal, unlicensed laboratory full of lab mice, medical waste and hazardous materials.

The Fresno County Public Health Department has been “evaluating and assessing the activities of an unlicensed laboratory” in Reedley, the health department’s assistant director, Joe Prado, said in a statement Thursday. All of the biological agents were destroyed by July 7 following a legal abatement process by the agency.

“The evaluation required coordination and collaboration with multiple federal and state agencies to determine and classify biological and chemical contents onsite, in addition to assessing jurisdictional authority under this unique situation,” Prado said.

A warehouse in Reedley, Calif.Google Maps

According to court documents, city officials inspected the location at 850 I St. on March 3 for building violations and found various chemicals being stored. On March 16, an inspection by county public health officials allegedly turned up medical devices thought to have been developed on-site, such as Covid and pregnancy tests.

“Certain rooms of the warehouse were found to contain several vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” court documents said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.”

Hundreds of mice at the warehouse were kept in inhumane conditions, court documents said. The city took possession of the animals in April, euthanizing 773 of them; more than 175 were found dead.

Furniture, chemicals and devices were improperly stored.Superior Court of the State of California

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the substances and detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes, according to a Health and Human Services letter dated June 6.

An investigation found the tenant was Prestige BioTech, a company registered in Nevada and unlicensed for business in California. City officials spoke with Xiuquin Yao, who was identified as the company president, through emails included in the court documents.

Yao told officials that Prestige BioTech moved assets belonging to a defunct company, Universal Meditech Inc., to the Reedley warehouse from Fresno after UMI went under. Prestige Biotech was a creditor to UMI and identified as its successor, according to court documents.

Officials were unable to get any California-based address for either company except for the previous Fresno location from which UMI had been evicted.

“The other addresses provided for identified authorized agents were either empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified,” court documents said.

Prestige BioTech is accused of failing to comply with orders, including providing a plan for biological abatement and disposal of the materials. Emails sent to Yao and Prestige BioTech requesting comment were not immediately answered Thursday.

Prado told NBC affiliate KSEE of Fresno that those associated with Prestige BioTech were not forthcoming with information. Court documents say they failed to provide any licensing or permit that allows experimentation or other laboratory activity.

Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba told KSEE that officials have cleared the area of hazardous materials but are still working to empty the warehouse.

“Some of our federal partners still have active investigations going. I can only speak to the building side of it,” Zieba said. source

Illegal medical lab containing bioengineered mice and infectious agents including HIV and herpes discovered in California

A zootechnician holds a laboratory rat.FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

An illegal medical lab was discovered by investigators in a warehouse in Fresno, California.
The lab was full of bioengineered mice and samples of diseases like COVID-19, HIV, and herpes.
Roughly 1,000 mice were found, with nearly 200 already dead. The rest were euthanized.

An illegal lab in California containing nearly 1,000 bioengineered mice has officials concerned after improperly stored tissue samples were tested and discovered to contain infectious diseases including HIV and Hepatitis.

“This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in government for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba said, per local news outlet

The makeshift lab contained roughly 30 refrigerators and freezers — some of which were non-operational — as well as incubators, medical testing supplies, and hundreds of mice. Several disease samples tested from the lab included infectious agents like herpes, coronavirus, E. Coli, and malaria, SFist reported.

Wang Zhaolin, a representative of the company operating the lab, Prestige Biotech, told investigators that the mice inside the warehouse had been genetically engineered to catch and spread the COVID-19 virus, according to The San Joaquin Valley Sun.

The warehouse came under investigation in March after a local code enforcement officer discovered a garden hose attached to a back wall of the building. As officials searched, medical devices that appeared to have been created on-site, such as COVID-19 and pregnancy tests, were also discovered, NBC News reported.

“Certain rooms of the warehouse were found to contain several vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” NBC reported court documents related to the incident said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.”

Nearly 800 of the mice found inside the warehouse were euthanized by officials, per NBC. An additional approximately 175 mice were already dead when they were discovered.

“There was over 800 different chemicals on site in different bottles of different acids,” KRON4 reported the assistant director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health, Joe Prado, said. “Unfortunately, a lot of these are being categorized under unknown chemicals.”

All of the biohazard material within the lab has been destroyed as of July 7, NBC reported, though an investigation into the lab’s origins and activity remains ongoing.

The CDC and Fresno County Department of Public Health did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment. source

The CIA Files: Hemi-Sync – Increase Brain Activity!

The Truth News — Sat, 27 May 2023 17:11:45 +0000

The CIA Files: Hemi-Sync – Increase Brain Activity!

The global awakening of human consciousness!

Hemi-Sync

In 1975, Monroe registered the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres became synchronized. Monroe held that this state, dubbed Hemi-Sync (hemispherical synchronization), could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness. Monroe’s concept was based on an earlier hypothesis known as binaural beats and has since been expanded upon a commercial basis by the self-help industry.

Hemi-Sync is a trademarked brand name for a patented process used to create audio patterns containing binaural beats, which are commercialized in the form of audio CDs. Interstate Industries Inc., created by Hemi-Sync founder Robert Monroe, is the owner of the Hemi-Sync technology.

Hemi-Sync is short for Hemispheric Synchronization, also known as brainwave synchronization. Monroe indicated that the technique synchronizes the two hemispheres of one’s brain, thereby creating a ‘frequency-following response’ designed to evoke certain effects. Hemi-Sync has been used for many purposes, including relaxation and sleep induction, learning and memory aids, helping those with physical and mental difficulties, and reaching altered states of consciousness through the use of sound.

The technique involves using sound waves to entrain brain waves. Wearing headphones, Monroe claimed that brains respond by producing a third sound (called binaural beats) that encouraged various brainwave activity changes.^[19]^[24] In 2002, a University of Virginia presentation at the Society for Psychophysiologial Research examined Monroe’s claim. The presentation demonstrated that EEG changes did not occur when the standard electromagnetic headphones of Monroe’s setup were replaced by air conduction headphones, which were connected to a remote transducer by rubber tubes. This suggests that the basis for the entrainment effects is electromagnetic rather than acoustical.

Replicated, double-blind, randomized trials on anesthetized patients have found Hemi-Sync effective as a partial replacement for fentanyl during surgery. A similar study found it ineffective at replacing propofol, however. source

https://youtu.be/f1dXyRyz_aY

The Monroe Institute

The Monroe Institute is the world leader in human consciousness exploration. Founded in the early 1970s as an educational and research organization by Robert A. Monroe, our experiential programs are offered on our main campus in Faber, Virginia USA as well as 12 additional countries and online.

Using specially designed binaural beat audio-guided technology, originally developed by Bob Monroe, you will learn valuable tools to explore, navigate and use non-physical aspects of your own higher consciousness.

Join the tens of thousands of people who have attended our retreats and awaken your consciousness to discover a new more compassionate perspective about yourself and others—what and who you are and why you are here.

Born October 30, 1915, Bob spent his childhood in Kentucky and Indiana. After graduating Ohio State University in 1937 with a BA in English, he worked as a writer and director at two Ohio radio stations. Two years later he moved to New York and expanded his broadcasting career, producing and directing weekly radio programs and eventually forming his own radio production company.

In 1956 his production company set up a research and development division to study the effects of various sound patterns on human consciousness, including the feasibility of learning during sleep. Monroe often used himself as a test subject for this research and in 1958 he began experiencing what he described as an “out-of-body experience,” the term popularized by Charles T. Tart, PhD, a leader in the area of consciousness studies. These spontaneous experiences altered the course of Monroe’s life and the direction of his professional efforts.

Throughout the next twenty years, Monroe continued to explore, research, and teach others about practical methods of attaining and using expanded consciousness. He developed a series of multi-day workshops, built a campus for education and research, and created a portfolio of binaural beat audio-guided technology. He chronicled his early explorations with a reporter’s objectivity and eye for detail in a groundbreaking book, “Journeys Out of the Body,” which was published in 1971.

In 1985 he wrote a second book, titled “Far Journeys,” which expanded upon his personal investigations of nonphysical reality. In 1994 he followed suit with a third book, “Ultimate Journey,” which explores basic truths about the meaning and purpose of life and what lies beyond the limits of our physical world. Monroe died in 1995, at the age of seventy-nine. His legacy continues today and has touched the lives of literally millions of people all around the world.

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