Latest research indicates that meditation is more than an antidote to the stress of modern living; it’s an important tool for health and longevity.
Meditation may increase longevity. In a three year study carried out at an elderly care facility it was found that 80-year-olds who learned to meditate were not only happier, but were also much better adjusted and lived longer than non- meditators.
What is meditation?
Meditation is difficult to define because it has so many different forms and it is a very personal process and experience.
Broadly, it can be described as a mental practice in which you focus your attention on one particular subject or object. More specifically (and perhaps academic) the Collins dictionary describes it as, ‘to think about something deeply... to reflect deeply on spiritual matters...’
It has historically been associated with religion, but it can also be secular, and exactly what you focus your attention on is largely a matter of personal choice. It may be a mantra (repeated word or phrase), breathing patterns, or simply an awareness of being alive.
Some of the more common forms of meditative practices include Buddhist Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, Transcendental Meditation, and Zen Meditation.
The claims made for meditation range from increasing immunity, improving asthma and increasing fertility through to reducing the effects of ageing. There is also evidence in the efficacy of meditation in treating psoriasis, type 2 diabetes, eating disorders and symptoms associated with cancer.
Precisely why meditation is so beneficial for such a wide variety of cases is unclear; it may be related to stress hormones. Just four months of regular meditation reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol significantly.
Although the exact mechanism of meditation is unclear but it’s becoming more obvious that we all can benefit from this practise. Perhaps its time to ponder over the significance of meditation as part of the healing process.
Read more:
http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/natural-health-articles/healthy-living/meditation-tool-health-longevity-71456.html
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Living Too Long Now Considered a Problem: Beware of "Longevity Risk"
Don't live too long, or you might run out of money. That's the message from a Reuters article that documents the financial challenges of an 84-year-old woman who has lost half her life savings in the recent financial implosion.
What the story doesn't report, however, is that the party most concerned with Americans living too long is, in fact, the United States government, which must pay billions of dollars in benefits to people if they live long enough to collect social security and Medicare benefits.
How convenient, then, that deadly chemicals like synthetic fluoride are dripped into the water supply, huh? What a coincidence that the entire system of conventional medicine endorsed by the federal government is based on chemicals that kill people instead of nutritional therapies that extend life.
I'm not saying the government is trying to kill you. Then again, it can't exactly afford to keep you alive for too long. You're only useful to Washington as long as you work as a tax-paying wage slave. Once you stop earning an income from which taxes can be confiscated, you're no longer a useful member of society to the top bureaucrats, and you instead become a financial liability.
Ever wonder why they give out free vaccine shots to all the senior citizens every Winter? Because vaccines increase the death rate! (I dare you to try to refute this. Look at the studies and you'll see that vaccines are actually associated with a HIGHER death rate than placebo.)
Living a long time, you see, is now considered a problem. And for every such problem, the government has an answer: Die younger!
http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000539_longevity_social_security_senior_citizens.html
What the story doesn't report, however, is that the party most concerned with Americans living too long is, in fact, the United States government, which must pay billions of dollars in benefits to people if they live long enough to collect social security and Medicare benefits.
How convenient, then, that deadly chemicals like synthetic fluoride are dripped into the water supply, huh? What a coincidence that the entire system of conventional medicine endorsed by the federal government is based on chemicals that kill people instead of nutritional therapies that extend life.
I'm not saying the government is trying to kill you. Then again, it can't exactly afford to keep you alive for too long. You're only useful to Washington as long as you work as a tax-paying wage slave. Once you stop earning an income from which taxes can be confiscated, you're no longer a useful member of society to the top bureaucrats, and you instead become a financial liability.
Ever wonder why they give out free vaccine shots to all the senior citizens every Winter? Because vaccines increase the death rate! (I dare you to try to refute this. Look at the studies and you'll see that vaccines are actually associated with a HIGHER death rate than placebo.)
Living a long time, you see, is now considered a problem. And for every such problem, the government has an answer: Die younger!
http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000539_longevity_social_security_senior_citizens.html
An ageing population means a ticking timebomb for governments
Like it or not we are all getting older. Not just you and me as individuals, but the populations of pretty much every country in the world.
Since 1950, the median age, which marks the point at which half the global population is older and half is younger, has risen from 24 to 28. The United Nations expects that by 2050, half of all people in developed countries like Britain will be over 40.
One in every 14 people in the world today is over 65 but by the middle of the century it is likely that one in six of us will be. And don't even ask about geriatric wards like Italy and Japan, where a fifth of the population is already in retirement. This signals a profound economic and social change, with big implications for businesses and investors. I've seen the future and it's Florida.
There's no secret about what's driving this ageing process. We are living longer and having fewer children. On top of those two long-term trends, there's another factor at play – the 20-year baby boom that followed the Second World War has distorted demographic statistics like a pig passing through a python.
That bulge has reached a critical point now, because the first boomers are about to retire. We have reached a financial, economic and social watershed, according to John Llewellyn who has written an impressive analysis of The Business of Ageing for Nomura. "The challenges are substantial" he says, "yet curiously few companies are prepared for this."
Ageing gets a bad press, although as the folksy title of a book I stumbled on recently puts it "Getting Old Sucks: But It Sure Beats the Alternative". Indeed, there's probably something to those annoying claims that 80 is the new 65. Studies of longevity and health show that the onset of chronic diseases is coming later in life even as our life-spans are extending. If age is measured in terms of health rather than years, then it is right to compare a 65-year-old in 1950 with an 80-year-old today.
That fact on its own explodes a number of myths about ageing and the economy and means that the usual pessimism about demographic changes might be somewhat unfounded. It means, for example, that increasing longevity will not necessarily lead to unsustainable healthcare budgets. Yes, healthcare spending will rise because an ageing population means more people are, by definition, in their final years, in which health costs often soar. But because the additional years are generally healthy ones, longevity itself is not a problem.
Conventional wisdom also says that ageing populations lead to slower economic growth and stretched pension schemes. Again there's truth in this, but likely policy changes mean it might overstate the problem.
The UN predicts that by 2050 the working-age population in developed countries will have fallen by almost 100m from 820m today. If that were to happen, GDP growth would indeed slump below the recent average and there would be a massive rise in the tax burden on those in work or a huge fall in the real value of spending on public pensions and health.
Neither will be politically acceptable, however, so we can expect policy-makers to encourage more of us to stay in the workplace for longer and remove incentives, such as those implicit in final salary pension schemes, for us to stop working even earlier than the official retirement age.
When the US Social Security Program started in 1935, the retirement age was set at 65 but the average life expectancy was 61. Today, if an American woman is still alive at 65 she can expect to live for another 20 years or more, so someone soon is going to have to bite the bullet.
If we are living longer and having to work longer (or indeed choosing to), then businesses face a challenge that few have yet grasped. The fact that everyone mentions B&Q's championing of older workers in this context shows how it is the exception not the rule. But if the proportion of over-60s in the workplace soars as predicted – from 2pc to 20pc in France, for example – then companies will face a long list of age-related issues.
Inter alia, they will need to rethink their work schedules to meet a desire for more flexibility, develop different training programmes and rewrite their compensation schemes. It will no longer be the case that everyone retires abruptly on their peak salary. A move to part-time working and lower salaries to reflect declining productivity may become the norm.
Spotting the companies that can grow old as gracefully as their workforces is one challenge for investors. Another will be assessing which can also rise to the challenge of ageing customers. Baby boomers represent a third of the populations of many developed countries. Against this backdrop, the cult of youth among marketers looks ever more anomalous. Especially as this is probably the first generation in history to be simultaneously old and wealthy.
Picking the winners in this ageing world will be doubly important if, as some economists believe, demographics provide an overall headwind for investors in developed markets. As the boomers shift their attention from accumulating assets to liquidating them in retirement, markets will find it harder to make progress than in the post-war generation's highest-earning and asset-gathering years in the 1980s and 1990s.
It's another reason why, this year's carnage notwithstanding, the young markets in the developing world are where the investment action will be.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/3526700/An-ageing-population-means-a-ticking-timebomb-for-governments.html
Since 1950, the median age, which marks the point at which half the global population is older and half is younger, has risen from 24 to 28. The United Nations expects that by 2050, half of all people in developed countries like Britain will be over 40.
One in every 14 people in the world today is over 65 but by the middle of the century it is likely that one in six of us will be. And don't even ask about geriatric wards like Italy and Japan, where a fifth of the population is already in retirement. This signals a profound economic and social change, with big implications for businesses and investors. I've seen the future and it's Florida.
There's no secret about what's driving this ageing process. We are living longer and having fewer children. On top of those two long-term trends, there's another factor at play – the 20-year baby boom that followed the Second World War has distorted demographic statistics like a pig passing through a python.
That bulge has reached a critical point now, because the first boomers are about to retire. We have reached a financial, economic and social watershed, according to John Llewellyn who has written an impressive analysis of The Business of Ageing for Nomura. "The challenges are substantial" he says, "yet curiously few companies are prepared for this."
Ageing gets a bad press, although as the folksy title of a book I stumbled on recently puts it "Getting Old Sucks: But It Sure Beats the Alternative". Indeed, there's probably something to those annoying claims that 80 is the new 65. Studies of longevity and health show that the onset of chronic diseases is coming later in life even as our life-spans are extending. If age is measured in terms of health rather than years, then it is right to compare a 65-year-old in 1950 with an 80-year-old today.
That fact on its own explodes a number of myths about ageing and the economy and means that the usual pessimism about demographic changes might be somewhat unfounded. It means, for example, that increasing longevity will not necessarily lead to unsustainable healthcare budgets. Yes, healthcare spending will rise because an ageing population means more people are, by definition, in their final years, in which health costs often soar. But because the additional years are generally healthy ones, longevity itself is not a problem.
Conventional wisdom also says that ageing populations lead to slower economic growth and stretched pension schemes. Again there's truth in this, but likely policy changes mean it might overstate the problem.
The UN predicts that by 2050 the working-age population in developed countries will have fallen by almost 100m from 820m today. If that were to happen, GDP growth would indeed slump below the recent average and there would be a massive rise in the tax burden on those in work or a huge fall in the real value of spending on public pensions and health.
Neither will be politically acceptable, however, so we can expect policy-makers to encourage more of us to stay in the workplace for longer and remove incentives, such as those implicit in final salary pension schemes, for us to stop working even earlier than the official retirement age.
When the US Social Security Program started in 1935, the retirement age was set at 65 but the average life expectancy was 61. Today, if an American woman is still alive at 65 she can expect to live for another 20 years or more, so someone soon is going to have to bite the bullet.
If we are living longer and having to work longer (or indeed choosing to), then businesses face a challenge that few have yet grasped. The fact that everyone mentions B&Q's championing of older workers in this context shows how it is the exception not the rule. But if the proportion of over-60s in the workplace soars as predicted – from 2pc to 20pc in France, for example – then companies will face a long list of age-related issues.
Inter alia, they will need to rethink their work schedules to meet a desire for more flexibility, develop different training programmes and rewrite their compensation schemes. It will no longer be the case that everyone retires abruptly on their peak salary. A move to part-time working and lower salaries to reflect declining productivity may become the norm.
Spotting the companies that can grow old as gracefully as their workforces is one challenge for investors. Another will be assessing which can also rise to the challenge of ageing customers. Baby boomers represent a third of the populations of many developed countries. Against this backdrop, the cult of youth among marketers looks ever more anomalous. Especially as this is probably the first generation in history to be simultaneously old and wealthy.
Picking the winners in this ageing world will be doubly important if, as some economists believe, demographics provide an overall headwind for investors in developed markets. As the boomers shift their attention from accumulating assets to liquidating them in retirement, markets will find it harder to make progress than in the post-war generation's highest-earning and asset-gathering years in the 1980s and 1990s.
It's another reason why, this year's carnage notwithstanding, the young markets in the developing world are where the investment action will be.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/3526700/An-ageing-population-means-a-ticking-timebomb-for-governments.html
Caregiving Linked to Improved Longevity
New evidence suggests that caregivers may derive health benefits from their altruistic efforts. In a recent study, older people who spent at least 14 hours a week taking care of their disabled spouses lived longer than those who did not.
The study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, supports earlier findings that altruistic actions may improve health and longevity.
Researchers from the University of Michigan reviewed seven years of data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study. The analysis included 1,688 couples who were 70 years of age or older and living unassisted.
At the beginning of the study, participants reported how many hours a week their partners helped with everyday activities such as eating, dressing and preparing meals.
Most participants (about 81 percent) did not provide any living assistance to their spouses. Nine percent provided less than 14 hours of help per week, and 10 percent provided 14 hours or more of help per week.
By the end of the study, 909 people died. After controlling for health, age, race, gender, education, employment status and net worth, the authors found that those who provided at least 14 hours of care a week were significantly less likely to have died during the study than those who did not provide any care.
"These findings suggest that caregivers may actually benefit from providing care under some circumstances," said University of Michigan researcher Stephanie Brown, lead author of the study report. "Previous studies have documented negative health effects of caregiving. But the current results show that it is time to disentangle the presumed stress of providing help from the stress of witnessing a loved one suffer."
In 2009, Brown plans to conduct a new study that will examine how altruistic behavior affects well-being. This research, funded by the National Science Foundation, will focus on the neurological effects of altruistic behavior.
For more information about caregiviging, please visit Natural Standard's Medical Conditions database.
The study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, supports earlier findings that altruistic actions may improve health and longevity.
Researchers from the University of Michigan reviewed seven years of data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study. The analysis included 1,688 couples who were 70 years of age or older and living unassisted.
At the beginning of the study, participants reported how many hours a week their partners helped with everyday activities such as eating, dressing and preparing meals.
Most participants (about 81 percent) did not provide any living assistance to their spouses. Nine percent provided less than 14 hours of help per week, and 10 percent provided 14 hours or more of help per week.
By the end of the study, 909 people died. After controlling for health, age, race, gender, education, employment status and net worth, the authors found that those who provided at least 14 hours of care a week were significantly less likely to have died during the study than those who did not provide any care.
"These findings suggest that caregivers may actually benefit from providing care under some circumstances," said University of Michigan researcher Stephanie Brown, lead author of the study report. "Previous studies have documented negative health effects of caregiving. But the current results show that it is time to disentangle the presumed stress of providing help from the stress of witnessing a loved one suffer."
In 2009, Brown plans to conduct a new study that will examine how altruistic behavior affects well-being. This research, funded by the National Science Foundation, will focus on the neurological effects of altruistic behavior.
For more information about caregiviging, please visit Natural Standard's Medical Conditions database.
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