Sometimes it takes a little work to have joy

I posted earlier on Facebook as we get older, we need to re-examine our home to prevent falls. An ounce of prevention here could mean volumes in regard to your health. 

Two articles from the Chicago Tribune may help.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sc-fall-prevention-tips-health-1123-20161122-story.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sc-fall-prevention-health-1123-20161121-story.html

Politics rarely gives satisfaction. This is a specially true to diehards invested every day with hours of detailed study. “Vanity is vanity”

If negative emotions out of control are harmful to life? How can we move the dial a bit to the positive? Perpetual happiness or delirium may be unattainable, but having joy, experienced in our day I think is entirely possible. 

For my friends who are political junkies consider for a moment how the media plays with your emotions. I think it's similar to the local news drawing you to a dramatic soundbite that in December we may have a snowfall. Snowfalls brings challenges but they're not unusual. The same is true in political stories. Whatever you're sensitive to the media has you hooked. Somehow consider the phenomenon that you may be manipulated. Right or left it happens all of us. We have that in common.

Chuck Swindoll from Insight for living shares 7 ideas to improve the beneficial effects of joy.

http://www.crosswalkmail.com/ViewMessage.do?m=qdwmdvwdmw&r=ibmmhnvddvzm&s=cphjdqtljhjtmlngrzkvktqmprrmhctkddn&q=1480501513&a=view

Last week I was reading an article that shared a heart attack can happened when we work harder and carry along a negative emotion like anger. It seems work and anger are two stressors that don’t go together. 

Joy can occur in an outcome from a life trial or battle. We may not feel it when we are in the middle of it, but it will happen afterwards. Somehow God uses bad things for our ultimate benefit. 

Psychologists tell us the ultimate loss is our own lives. We experienced the fear of losing from the temporal things, pets, friends, family, spouse, to the ultimate personal loss of our own life. Can we say the bad things happen to good people?  Resoundingly yes. 

Okay I started this article with politics and then I moved on to the old ultimate bummer, death. As Fred Sanford would say, “I’m a coming Elizabeth!”

How can we develop joy? Psalms 103:2 “My soul, praise the Lord, and do not forget all His benefits.”

Skyler Joy

In Swindell's article I like the idea of keeping a journal and putting peoples photographs in the Journal that give you joy. Don't put everybody there because some people are sourpuss’s. 

Surround yourself with happy people. Include music that helps you worship God. Over the years I've had many people tell me how much the songs that they learn when they were kids encourage them.

If you never learned to appreciate hymns, take time to hear them played well or sang well. Give yourself time to get an ear for it.

Each night come up with something that gave you joy. If you can’t think of something, you can laugh at yourself for becoming a grumpy old man or woman. Picture your favorite grumpy person. Something there will make you smile.

Go for a walk when is known to boost moods and take a deep breathe and enjoy it. Keep walking

In the News stress keys our fight or flight response

http://www.wsj.com/articles/stress-raises-cholesterol-more-than-you-think-1454958788

Every day in my social media connections I get a flow of information about health. Many times it's just a repeat I'll things I've already heard or read. At least once a week I take a look at what's in the health knows in the papers. They're also very good sources on the Internet. But there are a lot of stories on the Internet that need fact checking and can be misleading. 

Most major newspapers now have a video reports that go along with the written articles. If you'd like to see you here your news this can be very good. In health articles many of these reports contained reporters questions any answers from experts. 

I was reading an article in Wall Street Journal concerning stress and cholesterol levels. Stress triggers sugar in our blood that will increase the cholesterol level. The doctor interviewed suggest two things that we can to lower our stress and cholesterol levels.

Thanks to Dee Moore I learned to like the WSJ. I also follow the Tribune, NYT, LA Times and Washington Post. 

“Dr. Kopecky, of the Mayo Clinic, advises patients to think of three things they are thankful for when they go to bed or wake up in the morning, to help reduce stress. 

(In interview he said every 30 minutes get up and move for 30 seconds. This will help improve your blood sugar and help reduced the cholesterol in your blood. A third thing he said in the interview was to find some time in the day several times to relax.”)

The interview information that he gave was not in the article, but it was in the video portion. I know from personal experience that a reporter will not give you verbatim what you may have said an interview, but if you could hear a tape of it, you as a reader could hear the whole thing. I don't think it's a misquote that happens in a friendly article, just a human difficulty of recalling. We tend to write what we think we hear. 

If you haven’t subscribed to electronic newspaper, consider it. Listen to the video reports that you want. The total experience is pretty cool. Keep walking

Where we live can affect our DNA.

my kind of neighborhood

Where we live may make us old? We know that having stress makes us old. Having depression and anxiety ages us. We see these factors as we measure the ends of our DNA or telomere length, our TL. Each time ourselves reproduce our cells the TL gets shorter. It is one of the measures of aging and death.

I am primarily looked at lifestyle changes and battling cancer, diabetes in cardiovascular diseases which includes strokes. To have a balanced hea

lth perspective we have to keep growing mentally, spiritually, socially and physically basically having a heart health lifestyle. In our relationships with people and God when they are positive and good we are healthier. When we are mentally active we are directly impacting how we age. Stress related to mental illness,  work, and at home effects are health. So health is always more then diet and exercise. How we experience life emotionally is a very big factor.

I think this is the first time I am writing about where we live as a factor. 

The Netherlands study of depression and anxiety is a long-term study still going on. They wanted to look at neighborhood quality and how it affected our TL. This stated their hypothesis was “a poor neighborhood quality would be associated with shortened TL.” Their study factored in many stressors which we already know change our TL. Other studies will have to be done to verify their hypothesis. They cited a couple studies done in the United States that supported their conclusions.

Neighborhoods that experienced vandalism and where people felt unsafe walking aged in their DNA 8.7-11.9 years then people who have good neighborhoods with little vandalism and felt safe walking. Security and a place where you feel good is huge concerning the health. 

We are up to date in our battle for health and lifestyle changes. Many people if they are able move to favorable locations. But there are many people who either are unable or unaware of the impact a neighborhood on our health. Do you feel safe? Are there a lot of dangerous activity around you? How does this affect you?

When you're thinking about a healthy lifestyle you have to factor stress. Other studies that I've looked at suggest 25% of us experience depression that is severe enough to be hospitalized at the age 63. Proverbs 21:9 “Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop,

than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Stress of a mate can be draining regardless of the sex of the mate. Stress in relationships have been shown to shorten the TL in our DNA. If our neighborhood is causing stress then we must do what we can to address it. 

Noise apparently was not a factor. Be safe walking by walking the dog or with a friend. Walk in safe locations. If you don’t feel secure in your homethen do what you can to relocate. Write politicians about your concerns and the impact on your health. With health there is always something that we can work on. Keep walking

see: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/bad-neighborhoods-may-be-bad-for-your-dna/?ref=health&_r=0

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128460

Aging Graceful sometimes we have to be "Mad as Hell"

Peter Finch portrays the angry Howard Beale in the 1976
movie “Network.” Have you ever been "Mad as Hell"

Working through some arthritic pain right now. Lots of studies show how moving helps. Sometimes we have to take time to move right with skilled therapy. Often it comes down to little moves you wouldn't think of. I have a few weeks before I measure waist again. Each day I try to do the right thing in regard to eating and moving. here I am just saying I am working on it.
Several articles I linked happiness and faster walking to graceful aging. There are reason why we may not walk as fast as we should. But here is a goal for you this year - walk a little faster than what you can do right now. If you walk 1/2 hour miles, a stroll try to walk 20-25 minutes miles. If add the end of the year you walk 26 minutes per mile, give yourself a hug. If you are walking 20 minute mile, try to reach 16-18 minute mile. Your getting in the aerobic area and based on age and conditioning you may be there. Somehow this all makes a difference.
Are you a a happy person or a grump? Apparently it matters in healthy aging. If you are a grump how do you get happy? Think about it because I am not sure myself how to change. In the movie "Grumpy Old Men" They were always in a bad mood toward each other. The bright spot was they saw humor in playing tricks on each other. They also had joy with their kids. Problems came where they actually cared about each other. It is a movie, but maybe we are not grumpy about everything. Finding things we can find joy or good feelings about may be what we should look for each day. Get a notebook, use a notebook or program on phone or computer. Write down each day something that makes you happy, smile, feel good about. Do have somebody when you gripe with can laugh about it? Write it down. Some of my favorite conversations are mutual complaining. Barb is not very good at it. She is a happy person. Keep walking