(and ways to help sort it out)
1) Headphones plugged into a phone with wifi or a phone signal.
There is reasons to believe that the above common scenario might be concentrating radiation (from your device and other signals in the air) into your ear which is obviously very close to your brain. Some people are at more risk than others. Children with thinner skulls than adults are particularly susceptible.
That said, there are studies suggesting that this is not the case, but my logic is that by putting a phone or earphones inside my ear while there is an electrical signal being received and or sent, I would be increasing my risk.
How to help reduce the impact:
- Turn your phone on airplane mode when listening to music / using earphones
- Try Air Tube earphones (mine arrived this morning) which have been shown to reduce the radiation because the last few inches of the earpiece is air (like a doctors stethoscope)
(Thanks Kyle Vialli for the inspiration on this one)
2) Your Car, the plastics and chemical components released into the air.
When heated (by the sun for example) the materials inside a car may release toxic components into the air.
Put simply: Stuff in the car melt and you breath it in.
How to help reduce the impact:
- Park in the shade.
- Open the windows and doors before turning on the air con to help remove the nasties in the air. Simply putting on the air con does not really help the situation.
- Eat broccoli sprouts, chlorella and seaweeds (studied for heaping remove toxins from the body). Broccoli sprouts in particular have been studied for their sulforaphane content, which is thought to protect against chemical carcinogens.
3) Not doing the thing that sparks your heart and soul.
I know you have a creative, exciting and wild soul inside of you, and that thing you LOVE to do, wether its dancing, martial arts, pottery, music, your art, it’s something that can literally have a physically beneficial impact on your body.
When we are having fun and being creative we get a dump of beneficial feel good hormones. This is REAL and it is well studied. The hormones include dopamine and oxytocin. These can also be released when you’re with certain people.
I’m pretty sensitive can literally feel them or the effects of them when I drum and when I chat with some people. I actually used to get this beautiful buzzy feeling in my stomach when my friends dog would eat crunchy biscuits in front of me. It was so odd in a good way, but similar to that feeling of love and connection I have with certain people. You know the feeling?
How to get more of those feel good hormones?
- Do that thing you know you love doing and makes you feel good and improve at it, share it, live it… (I’m not saying quit your job, just give yourself the time to do the things you love doing)
- Build or shape your life to REGULARLY include those things you love doing.
4) Dumb thoughts.
The Nocebo effect, as defined by a 2011 study “Negative expectations deriving from the clinical encounter can produce negative outcomes, known as nocebo effects”
In our forthcoming book F**K Dieting, we explore the difference between negative thoughts and a negative mindset. Negative thoughts are common and probably completely benign, but a negative mindset, when someone focuses solely on the negative aspect of something, always expecting the undesirable outcome, that may actually really make a mess of life. Both the internal torment and the physical outcome (health).
What to do about it?
- See if you can observe your thoughts. What’s your perspective most of the time? If that really how you want to look at life and the World (maybe so) or could you perhaps shift that perspective?
- Are you even thinking your thoughts? Might sound a bit odd, but humans tend to play out programs they were given by parents or grandparents.
See if you can see where you may have inherited a way of looking at a certain subject in life (work, relationships, money, health tend to be the key ones). Maybe it was granddad that was a bit of a misery guts and he taught that way of thinking? When you become aware of those habits or patterns you might just be able to unpick them.
References:
Broccoli sprouts: An exceptionally rich source of inducers of enzymes that protect against chemical carcinogens
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC23369/
The nocebo effect and its relevance for clinical practice
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3167012/
Long-term use of cellular phones and brain tumours: increased risk associated with use for > or =10 years.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17409179