When professional cyclists were told they were racing against their own best times, they tended to match those times, even when the times were faster than they had ever raced. I wonder how useful that sort of influence would be if we applied it to other areas.

In a few years it will be feasible to create a CGI version of yourself – an avatar – that lives a better lifestyle in the digital world than you do in the real world. The avatar would have a healthier diet, exercises more, be less shy in social settings, more assertive at work, and perhaps have a more perfect golf game. If you spent a few minutes every day observing your avatar doing what you wished you could do, would the peer pressure motivate you to higher achievement? I think it might. In a way, this would be the high tech version of writing down your goals every day and visualizing success. The avatar would simply make the visualization easier.

I think living healthier is the single biggest accelerator we could apply to improving society today. But here I am, falling prey to the same excuses – too much work, not enough time, too tired, too hard, tomorrow.

So I made a decision. I decided to re-prioritise.

For the last month, my number one priority every single day has been to exercise. I have done this to the exclusion of meetings, work tasks and leisure time.

In doing this, I realised how absurd it was to live any other way. Exercise:

• increases productivity and focus
• improves physical health
• balances your mental state
• makes you a better worker, boss, employee, brother, son, husband, lover, parent, mentor and friend.

An 8 hour work day with exercise is more valuable than an 10 hour work day without.

Justifying daily exercise as your number one priority is such an easy thing to do.

If exercise isn’t your number one priority, your priorities are wrong.

I completely agree with this.

From Sept. 2010 to August 2011, 115 children under 18 died from flu-related complications, according to the latest CDC report. Nearly half of the deaths were in children who were previously healthy, with no underlying medical conditions that would put them at greater risk for severe disease. And nearly half of the kids were younger than 5 (most were younger than 2). “[Y]oung age in itself is a risk factor” for severe flu, the CDC said in a press release.

The official number of deaths may be small, but it’s likely an underestimate, the CDC said, because the agency’s surveillance method includes only those patients who are tested for influenza and then reported to the CDC. Left out are the majority of children and teens who die from flu, but are never tested.

There’s an easy way to reduce pediatric deaths from flu: vaccination. The CDC’s report shows that based on available vaccination data 77% of the 74 kids who died from flu and were eligible for the flu shot were never fully vaccinated.

Science, bitches.

The theory goes like this: Metabolism in all mammals is not 100% efficient. Oxygen is actually a very toxic chemical that produces free radicals, which can be very destructive. Same goes for sugar. When we break down sugar and use oxygen to generate energy (ATP), our cells inevitably generate free radicals, which is a waste/unwanted substance. The main defense mechanism against free radicals are antioxidants. If the cell lacks antioxidants (usually it does), these free radicals attack lipids, proteins, and more importantly, DNA. The cell tries to repair DNA, but the process is not perfect. Over the years, due to our own metabolism, we acquire cumulative DNA damage, and the longer we live, the more chances that some key proteins are mutated, and we get cancer. Apart from antioxidants, cell cycle regulation, DNA repair, another mechanism exists to protect us from inevitable cancer: aging.

As we get older, and accumulate DNA damage, our stem cells sense this happening, and put limits on their own reproductive potential. They slow their own cell replication to move themselves as far back from cancer as possible (fast replication). As a result, our tissue does not turnover as fast, hence our skin gets wrinkled, our immune system weakens, etc… Whether we remain young and have a high risk of cancer, or age very fast and be protected from cancer is a balance intrinsic to each and every one of us. Dogs get cancers at a very early age because their metabolic rate is incredibly fast, and they develop DNA damage much faster. However, your lifestyle can edit that balance. If you have a healthy diet low in sugar, high in antioxidants, in theory you can reduce DNA damage, keeping your DNA looking younger, and reducing risk of cancer when you are older, and prevent aging at a young age. Other things you can do is a long topic of discussion, but generally eat less sugars, eat “healthy”, have a low basal metabolic rate, avoid radiation exposure, have good DNA repair genes, and don’t stress (cell stress response).

Scientists at MIT are developing a new drug that may fight viruses as effectively as antibiotics like penicillin dispatch bacteria. The broad-spectrum treatment is designed to trigger cell-suicide in cells that have been invaded by any virus, thereby halting infection, while leaving healthy cells alone.

This is phenomenal. I guess gauging whether someone has too many infected cells is pretty important.

People with celiac disease are sensitive to gluten, which is a protein found in wheat.

Less than 1% of the American population has even the mildest form of this disease, but at least 20% of SWPLs think they have this disease and demand gluten-free products.

Half Sigma is often wrong in my opinion, but I think he’s hit this one pretty squarely. It’s SWPL-nutrition-fashion.

The mushroom-derived hallucinogen, called psilocybin, is known to trigger transformative spiritual states, but at high doses it can also result in “bad trips” marked by terror and panic. The trick is to get the dose just right, which the Johns Hopkins researchers report having accomplished.

In their study, the Hopkins scientists were able to reliably induce transcendental experiences in volunteers, which offered long-lasting psychological growth and helped people find peace in their lives — without the negative effects.

If this goes legit I’m likely to give it a go.

The mushroom-derived hallucinogen, called psilocybin, is known to trigger transformative spiritual states, but at high doses it can also result in “bad trips” marked by terror and panic. The trick is to get the dose just right, which the Johns Hopkins researchers report having accomplished.

In their study, the Hopkins scientists were able to reliably induce transcendental experiences in volunteers, which offered long-lasting psychological growth and helped people find peace in their lives — without the negative effects.

If this goes legit I’m likely to give it a go.