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Happiness: Health & Nutrition

A guide to happiness, including information on the brain, religion, economics, environment, gratitude, children, and more.

Online Resources

Research

How the food you eat affects your brain

When it comes to what you bite, chew and swallow, your choices have a direct and long-lasting effect on the most powerful organ in your body: your brain. So which foods cause you to feel so tired after lunch? Or so restless at night? Mia Nacamulli takes you into the brain to find out.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyQY8a-ng6g

The brain-changing benefits of exercise

What's the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today? Exercise! says neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. Get inspired to go to the gym as Suzuki discusses the science of how working out boosts your mood and memory -- and protects your brain against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHY0FxzoKZE

Perspectives

The Great Life Diet

At the forefront of this American revolution in eating since 1969 has been health counselor and teacher Denny Waxman, founder of the Strengthening Health Institute and author of The Great Life Diet, which distills the wisdom of his thirty-five years of experience into a clear guide to a better, healthier, longer life. Essentially, Waxman's method weds a diet of whole grains, beans, vegetables, and soups to a lifestyle that nourishes the mind and the spirit.In seven steps, The Great Life Diet offers a balanced and orderly approach to an active, fulfilling daily life. The aim always is to strengthen health, however good or ill. Indeed, thousands of people, their ailments ranging widely from the common cold to chronic fatigue to heart disease and even to "incurable" cancers, have been helped, often dramatically, by espousing the dietary and lifestyle practices described in Waxman's instructive guide.With sound sense and flexible principles, this diet extends to its readers a means both to better their health and to significantly enhance the joy in their daily lives.

10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness

You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them. In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, our mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases--obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmunity afflictions, and even cancer--have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our personal colony of microbes. Many of the questions about modern diseases left unanswered by the Human Genome Project are illuminated by this new science. And the good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Collen's book is a revelatory and indispensable guide. It is science writing at its most relevant: life--and your body--will never seem the same again. There's more to being human than you think. Have you ever wondered why so many people are overweight? Or why nearly half of youngsters have allergies? Has it ever seemed strange that depression is so common? Or that more and more children are being diagnosed with autism? Using the latest scientific research, Alanna Collen reveals the link between ill health and the body's community of microbes. Many of the modern illnesses we accept as part of life are instead newly emerging conditions brought on by our failure to cherish the extension of our human cells: our microbes. In 10% Human, Collen explains how messing with your microbes can affect your metabolism, your mind, and your immune system; why antibiotics, C-sections, and infant formula can cause collateral damage; and how diet can restore a beneficial community of microbes. 10% Human is an alarm call on behalf of our most faithful companions.

The Little Book of Lykke

Join the happiness revolution! The author of the New York Times bestseller The Little Book of Hygge offers more inspiration and suggestions for achieving greater happiness, by practicing Lykke (LOO-ka)--pursuing and finding the good that exists in the world around us every day. While the Danes are the happiest people on the planet, happiness isn't exclusively Danish; cultures around the world have their own unique approaches to leading a contented, fulfilled life. For his work at the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik Wiking travels the globe from Dubai to Finland, Rio de Janeiro to Bhutan, South Korea to the United States, to discover the secrets of the very happiest people. In The Little Book of Lykke, Meik identifies the six factors that explain the majority of differences in happiness across the world--togetherness, money, health, freedom, trust, and kindness--and explores what actions we can take to become happier. As he reveals, we can deepen our blissfulness and contentment with little adjustments in our behavior, whether it's eating like the French (sitting around a table and savoring our time) or dancing the tango like Argentinians in Buenos Aires. With his trademark warmth and wit, Meik explores the happiness gap for parents, how much money you really need to buy happiness, how we can be healthier without having to go to the gym, how we can learn to build trust and collaboration, how we can help ourselves by helping others, and why our expectations often outweigh our reality. Weaving together original research and personal anecdotes, The Little Book of Lykke is a global roadmap for joy that offers a new approach to achieving everyday happiness that not only improve our own lives, but help us build better communities and a better world.

The Creativity Cure

From a premier hand surgeon and an accomplished psychiatrist comes an innovative, highly achievable five-part plan to unleash happiness and alleviate depression and anxiety by tapping into creative potential.

The Little Book of Hygge

New York Times Bestseller Embrace Hygge (pronounced hoo-ga) and become happier with this definitive guide to the Danish philosophy of comfort, togetherness, and well-being. Why are Danes the happiest people in the world? The answer, says Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, is Hygge. Loosely translated, Hygge--pronounced Hoo-ga--is a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being. "Hygge is about an atmosphere and an experience," Wiking explains. "It is about being with the people we love. A feeling of home. A feeling that we are safe." Hygge is the sensation you get when you're cuddled up on a sofa, in cozy socks under a soft throw, during a storm. It's that feeling when you're sharing comfort food and easy conversation with loved ones at a candlelit table. It is the warmth of morning light shining just right on a crisp blue-sky day. The Little Book of Hygge introduces you to this cornerstone of Danish life, and offers advice and ideas on incorporating it into your own life, such as: Get comfy. Take a break. Be here now. Turn off the phones. Turn down the lights. Bring out the candles. Build relationships. Spend time with your tribe. Give yourself a break from the demands of healthy living. Cake is most definitely Hygge. Live life today, like there is no coffee tomorrow. From picking the right lighting to organizing a Hygge get-together to dressing hygge, Wiking shows you how to experience more joy and contentment the Danish way.

Lifestyle Medicine

Lifestyle Medicine: Lifestyle, the Environment and Preventive Medicine in Health and Disease, Third Edition, is an adjunct approach to health practice that seeks to deal with the more complex modern determinants of chronic diseases--primarily lifestyle and the environments driving such lifestyles--in contrast to the microbial 'causes' of infectious disease. Our lifestyle choices have a profound effect on our health. As we live longer, one thing is clear: many of us will spend time living with injury and chronic illness due to our own choices. Changes in health patterns typically follow shifts in living conditions. Disease patterns have changed worldwide, from infectious to chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. This change has been so emphatic--nearly 70% of all presentations to a doctor in modern western societies are now chronic disease related--that medical services are being forced to change to accommodate this. New chapters in this third edition explain the link between energy intake and expenditure; consider how modern technology are determinants of chronic disease; show how environmental influences, such as endocrine disruptors, influence our health; and summarize recent research on early childhood experiences and chronic disease.

Fast Food Genocide

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live and The End of Diabetes, an unflinching, provocative exploration of how our food is killing us and the ways in which we are unwitting participants in an unprecedented and exploding health crisis. Fast food is far more than just the burgers, fries, and burritos served at chain restaurants; it is also the toxic, human-engineered products found in every grocery store across America. These include: cold breakfast cereals; commercial and preserved (deli) meats and cheeses; sandwich breads and buns; chips, pretzels, and crackers; fried foods; energy bars; and soft drinks. Fast foods have become the primary source of calories in the United States and consequently the most far-reaching and destructive influence on our population. The indisputable truth is that our highly processed diet is the source of a national health crisis that is exploding into a genocide with unseen tragic implications. Heart attacks, strokes, cancer, obesity, ADHD, autism, allergies, and autoimmune diseases all have the same root cause - our addiction to toxic ingredients. New York Times bestselling author, board-certified physician, nutritional researcher, and leading voice in the health field Joel Fuhrman, M.D., explains why the problem of poor nutrition is deeper, more serious, and more pervasive than anyone imagined. Fast Food Genocide draws on twenty-five years of clinical experience and research to confront our fundamental beliefs about the impact of what we eat. This book identifies issues at the heart of our country's most urgent problems. Fast food kills, but it also perpetuates bigotry and derails the American dream of equal opportunity and happiness for all. It leaves behind a wake of destruction creating millions of medically dependent and sickly people burdened with poor-quality lives. The solution hiding in plain sight -- a nutrientdense healthful diet -- can save lives and enable humans to reach their intellectual potential and achieve successful and fulfilling lives. Dr. Fuhrman offers a life-changing, scientifically sound approach that can alter American history and perhaps save your life in the process.

Health, Fitness and Happiness & rules to give you all 3

Tony is the creator behind P90X® - the best selling fitness program in America. Over the past 25 years, Tony has inspired and motivated people all over the world by sharing his fitness expertise with professional athletes, sports teams, television and film stars, recording artists and 4 million plus people. Tony changes lives with the perfect mix of physical fitness routines, encouragement, humor, discipline and fun. Tony is the author of "Bring It," and "Crush It," released through Rodale books. He recently launched his own meal delivery line, Tony Horton Kitchen after years of learning about food and fuel and how they're part of the whole equation when it comes to important things like longevity, energy and sound sleep

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQupiauyZYE