Laughing is the best way to feel good

Everyone knows that to laugh is contagious.
Even if most scientists hate it, the psychologists think that the laugh is something like insane or crazy and the Holy Bible makes everything to discourage it.
It's important to know that to laugh contribute to change the mood and to eliminate stress and tiredness. In time of H1N1, the laughter helps the immune system to work better.
Why we should not laugh? It's free!

This is the phylosophy which is built "Laughology", the documentary-movie released last week about the laughter's phenomenon in the world. The director is Albert Nerenberg, a Canadian indipendent film-maker, who would tell to the audience the facility and the utility of the laugh.
The movie borns from a real life's episode. Albert and his partner Shannon were deeply sad by family losses when they received the birth of their first child. This event changes totally their lives.
One day, suddenly, their daughter started to laugh unfettered and naturally during the second month and she spreaded the laugh to everything and everyone near her.

This event in Albert's life brought himself to travel discovering the different way to laugh in the world.
He will meet the "Holy laughters", people who think God laughs through them, and the "Tanzanian laughter epidemic", villagers suffering from a curious 'laughing disease'.
Then Albert will know the Inuit, indigenous people who live in the Artic regions of Canada, that use laughter to resist to their cold climate.
At the end, he will analyze the case of a man who recovered himself from a fatal disease through laughter.

To remember to the people to laugh there is also an official event, the "World Laughter Day" that happens on the first Sunday on May. It is a positive manifestation for world peace and it is a way to build friendship through laughter.
The first celebration was on January 1998 in Mumbai, India, and was created by Madan Kataria, founder of the worldwide "Laughter Yoga" movement. It is an aspect of Yoga that uses laughter as an exercise to get the blood flowing.

Laughter is innate and is an excellent way to feel good, gaining health benefits, now and always.
So you can start to laugh out loud watching this video... :D

Snacks at the Cinema: worse than fast food

The worst habit during the movies is to cruch popcorn and to consume sugary soft drinks.
The warning comes from a new laboratory analysis, realized by the "Centre for Science in the Public Interest", and it explains how this food and drink's couple could be more dangerous than a whole lunch on the fast food.

According to the nutritionist, one medium bag of popcorn and a soft drink have the same caloric intake of 3 cheeseburgers with 12 pats of butter.
This test takes by comparison the meals offered by three big cinema's chain among U.S.A. and Canada.

The "$12 popcorn combo" served at Regal, the largest movie theatre in the US, totalized 1600 calories and 60 grams of saturated fats. This kind of fats could cause cancer, cardiovascular diseases and could raise the cholesterol's level in the blood. The above size of saturated fats is pair to the people's needs for 3 days.
The "large popcorn" sold at Cineplex, a big cinema's chain in Canada, reaches 1.100 calories and 5 grams of saturated fats, while the AMC's "large popped snacks" contains 'only' 940 calories and 38 grams of saturated fats, but the last one is cooked with coconut oil, the worst thing ever, which has about 90 per cent of saturated fats.

But don't despair! There are some advice to go to the cinema, remaining healthy.
First of all, it is better to skip the "Value Combo" because the only thing that you could gain by this packing is more fat on your waistline. It's advisable to order the smallest size possible.
Remember that popcorn is considered "whole grain" and it contains many beneficial nutriments like B vitamins and fiber. It's one of the healthiest snack available at the cinema, but without sugar, caramel or butter.
Then, if you need to crunch something during the movie remember to bring with you the most useful chewing gum. In this way you won't have time to take anything else.
At the end, if you are truly hungry, you could try to eat small fruit or muesli snack and to drink juice or water.

It is important to take care about own health, without to overemphasize with fat meal, because now you know the ending of your life's movie!

No privacy in the virtual social network, but real consequences

The privacy on the Net is one of the most controversial topic because there is the risk not to know what should remain just personal from what we could release in the wide ocean of Internet.

In the last days, it is hit the honours the news of the Canadian woman who lost her insurance's benefits because of her pictures were appeared on Facebook. Nothing in the web is truly private.
Nathalue Blanchard, 29 years old, live in Quebec. She left her job in IBM on Febrary 2008 because of a severe depression. The insurance company, called "Manulife", gave her economic benefits to regain fully her health.
The monthly cheque has been interrupted because Manulife saw the woman's pictures on Facebook, where she was smiling on the beach with her friend and during a men's striptease in a club. This score means, for the insurance company, that the woman is cured of her illness.

The decision to cancel the cheque is ambiguous for two reason. First of all, Manulife couldn't know that this holiday was a medical prescription for the depression. Then the company couldn't see the pictures because they were set on private condition, except if it used an illegal way, like the hacker's help. In addiction, it is superficial to judge as past the depression by a smile. because it is a temporary illness and could change day by day.

Maybe, in these cases, could be useful to make a distinction between the civil identity of a person and his virtual identity.
The social network's use seems become a drug who could cause addiction, not allowing to distinguish what we could do from what we couldn't do.
The virtuality will replace the real life in the future?
I don't know, but the present is before our very eyes.

The Wall of the Words: an alternative way to learn English

When you arrive in a new country, you have to learn quickly the language and the mind thinks about all the solutions to make it effectively.

You can study the different meaning of the million of words that you can meet in one day or you can open the dictionary at one casual page to discover new expressions, but instead to do a lot of useless work, there is an original and special way to learn English: the Wall’s Words.

A Wall’s Words is just an interactive collection of words, parts of words or expressions that you could make in your house, in your office and place of work or in your classroom. It is very easy to create.

You can use it to remember vocabulary, spelling, letter-sound correspondence and more else. The words could promote memory and knowledge, better if it happens with other people.
Words should be added to the wall with the English part in the front and the sense in your language (Italian in my case) in the back. In this way you can focus on the English use, inserting these words in your future sentences.

You can choose all the words that you think will be important to remember, but also those one curious or with a special meaning for you in your language. The words could be taken from the outside life, from the newspapers, the book or from the TV.

A great challenge could be to put on the wall five words each day and then to make a questioning about all the words on the weekend. It will be a game to share with your friends.
It’s very important to repeat more is possible to get entry them in your quotidian life.

Now, you can create your Wall’s Words too. You need only a pen, paper, scotch, a free wall and a lot of fantasy.

Good luck for your new experience and for the learning of the language.

How To Learn To Wake Up Early

Simple advices to put into practice and to get up early.

a) Don’t make drastic changes. It’s useful to begin slowly, waking up 15-30 minutes before your habits: some days are required to accustom your body and your mind. Then you could set the alarm again 15 minutes before, so many times you need, until the realization of your target time!

b) Go to the bed earlier. My advice is to go to the bed early, you haven’t to waste your time in front of TV or in internet, but it’s better to read under the blankets. And if you are tired, you fall asleep instantly.

c) Put the alarm clock far from the bed. If it is close to the bed, you will turn off it within 3 seconds. But if the alarm clock is far, you have to wake up to turn off it. And now that you are up, you have only to remain up.

d) Go out from the bedroom as soon as turn off the alarm. You can go to the bathroom or to the kitchen, but you can’t run again to the bed.

e) Don’t razionalize. If you allow your mind to persuade you to come back to the bed, you will never do it. To get again to the bed isn’t a contemplated option.

f) Have a good reason. You could plan something important to do on the morning. This reason will motivate you to get up. For example, I love to write on the morning.

g) Like a reward. At the beginning could seem that you are forcing yourself to do something too difficult, but if you make it nice, soon you can do without it. For me, a good reward is a tea or coffee’s cup or an amusing book. You have to find something pleasant and do it like a morning routine.

h) Enjoy all the extra time. Don’t wake up early to waste your extra time. You have to speed away and to do everything cross your mind, it’s your time.

…from an article of Leo Babauta.

8 Good Reasons to Wake Up Early

“Early to bed and early to rise makes
a man healthy,
wealthy and wise”
(B. Franklin)

There are a lot of benefits to get up early, at least eight.

1) Give welcome to a new day. My advice is to create some morning rituals. I’m inspired by the Dalai Lama, who said:

“Everyday, think as you wake up:
today I am fortunate to have woken up,
I am alive, I have a precious human life,
I am not going to waste it.
I am going to use all my energies to develop myself,
to expand my heart out to others,
to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings,
I am going to have kind thoughts towards others,
I am not going to get angry or think badly about others,
I am going to benefit others as much as I can”.

2) A wonderful start. It is possible to do a lot of things in the morning. When almost people wake up few minutes before 8 am, just few minutes before to go to the work; it is important to get up early to enjoy the morning and to do a lot of things before 8 am, to have a good start of a new day.

3) Silence. The early morning hours are so calm, so quiet. It’s my favorite time of day. I really enjoy this time of peace, when I can think, when I can read, when I can breathe.



4) Sunrise. Who wakes up late will lose one of greatest show of nature: the rise of the sun.

5) Breakfast. I you get up early, you will have the time to have a rich breakfast. It is one of the most important meals of the day. Without breakfast the body loses power and if you are hungry, it’s easier to take something rich of fat or of sugar. To have breakfast slowly and in the quiet is the better thing to start the day in the right way.



6) Productivity. The morning, for me at least, is the most productive time of the day. I love to write, without distractions. When I begin a work on the morning, I can finish it better than if I begin it in the evening.

7) Goal time. Doesn’t exist a best moment as the morning to check again my aims, to plan them and to do the little steps toward the complete realization.

8) Appointments. It’s easier to arrive on time at the appointments of the morning if you wake up early. Arrive late is a bad indication. If you come on ahead of time, you could surprise the person you will meet. In addition, you will have time to get dressed and to prepare very well for the occasion.



In the next post, I will show you some easy and useful advices to learn to wake up early on the morning!!

…from an article published by Leo Babauta.