Stupidity is Worse for us than Either Sugar or Saturated Fat

Stupidity is worse for us than either sugar or saturated fat.

Read this article and you’ll encounter a well reasoned rant with lots of links for further reading enjoyment.  My personal journey includes a significant weight loss experience in my early 20’s.  Over the years I’ve gained back some of the 200 plus pounds lost.  Over the years I’ve also gotten lazy with my dietary habits.  Too many calories and an aging metabolism is not a combination for staying trim.  So I got serious (again) and have dropped 12 pounds the past three months.  I’ve always known what to do but failed to do what needed to be done.

And so it goes.  Change. Adapt. Repeat.

How Does Music Benefit the Brain? – Medical News Today

I work from a home office located in Edmond, OK.  At the AHOU meeting several years ago in San Antonio, I met up with an underwriting professional whom I hadn’t seen in years.  He asked what I was doing.  I told him I worked from home.

I’m not surprised.  You always talked about working from home.

I listen to music all day long while working.  The music is mostly classical, occasionally acoustic guitar, sometimes jazz.  I didn’t realize I was feeding my brain.

How does music benefit the brain? – Medical News Today.

But music can do so much more, notes Michael Huckabee, professor and director of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Division of Physician Assistant Education.

In an article about the benefits of music on human health, he writes:


”Music does something beyond our understanding. We can call it an endorphin release or a distraction, but it goes much deeper than that. Somehow music just does us good. And the good it does was just proven to be better.”

He speaks of a finding from researchers in Taiwan, who recently reviewed over 360 published studies on music therapy and concluded the data from these studies suggest cancer patients who routinely listen to music exhibit significantly fewer symptoms of depression, pain, fatigue and anxiety.

America’s Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted – The Atlantic

I asked Peter Senge about that. How to try to live and work in a sane way when you’re in the middle of insanity: a voracious workplace that will eat you alive, friends and neighbors who raise eyebrows if you pull your kids out of some competitive activity. He gave some important advice: Create your own community, a network of like-minded people. Humans are wired to conform—that’s why these cultural pressures, however silly they may seem, wield such power over us. So find a group that fits your values that would make you happier to conform to.

via America’s Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted – Rebecca J. Rosen – The Atlantic.

CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST- Administrators and Part-Timers: Changes in U.S. Higher Education Workforce

I’ll only add that institutions are defined by their people. As the full-time and tenured faculty become a smaller share of the employees of the institution and the professional administrators become a larger share, the nature and character of the institution inevitably changes. In this case, colleges and universities have become less about faculty, teaching, and research, and more about the provision of professional services to students and faculty. As far as I know, this shift was not planned or chosen, and the costs and benefits of such a shift were not analyzed in advance. It just happened.

via CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: Administrators and Part-Timers: Changes in U.S. Higher Education Workforce.

$700 or $915 per credit hour, depending on degree.

The numbers above are pulled directly from a university website.  The campus sits just a mile from my house.  The work is part time and I don’t qualify for either pay level.  To work part time teaching at a university you need a minimum of a Masters degree.  So someone who busts their butt to earn a Doctorate can make $915.00 per credit hour.

I’m speechless.

 

The Science Behind What Naps Do For Your Brain–And Why You Should Have One Today | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Studies of napping have shown improvement in cognitive function, creative thinking, and memory performance

via The Science Behind What Naps Do For Your Brain–And Why You Should Have One Today | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.

I work from home.  This article link is for all the times I’ve been accused of napping in lieu of working.

Gotcha.

How Coursera, A Free Online Education Service, Will School Us All | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Coursera courses are 6 to 10 weeks long, with an hour or two of videos per week. In addition to the snap quizzes, they feature weekly exercises, ranging from problem sets to spreadsheets to design projects or essays, and sometimes a final project or exam. For all quantitative courses, the platform uses artificial intelligence to evaluate each longer exercise, with instant results. Students can keep trying until they get the right answer. For humanities courses, Coursera is testing a form of peer grading.

via How Coursera, A Free Online Education Service, Will School Us All | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.

Great article about a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).  HT – Mish.

How do I live longer? (get a plant)

In a study of nursing home patients by researchers Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin, residents on one floor were given a plant for which they themselves were expected to care (the experimental group) while residents on another floor were given a plant for which their nurses would care (the control group). After three weeks, 93 percent of residents in the experimental group showed an overall improvement in socialization, alertness, and general function; in contrast, for 71 percent of residents in the control group functioning actually declined. And in a follow-up study eighteen months later, half as many of the residents who’d received plants for which they were expected to care by themselves had died as the residents who’d been given plants for which their nurses cared.

via How do I live longer? Here are 10 ways backed by evidence.

Great post.  To sum up: exercise, be happy, be optimistic, tell yourself aging is a good thing, and get a plant.

Change This – Art Is Freedom

Change This – Art Is Freedom.

I believe Art represents the extraordinary form of genetic talent each of us are born with, as well as the ongoing fuel to declare this distinct expression every day. The nature of this primitive desire is so strong that when we use our artistic capacity we feel a strange empowering sense of completeness, of being at home within ourselves. You start to crave more of it, realizing this task is the single thing that makes you feel truly alive.