5 MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

Subject: 5 MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE


Lesson 1:


A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.


Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel."


After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob.



After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.

"Great!" the husband says, "did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.


Lesson 2:


A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"



The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest apologized "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak."

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, opportunities for advancement will pass right by you.


Lesson 3:


A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish."


"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone.


"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone.

"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."


Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.


Lesson 4:


An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?"

The eagle answered: "Sure , why not."

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.


Lesson 5:


A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.


Moral of the story:
Bull shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.


Lesson 6:


A little bird was flying south for the Winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and shit on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!


THIS CONCLUDES THE 5-MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

DISNEYLAND IN HONGKONG

Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana (17 December 1556 – 1627) (Hindi: अब्दुल रहीम ख़ान-ए-ख़ाना, Urdu: عبدالرحيم خانخان), also known as Rahim (रहीम, رحیم) is a renowned composer during the time of Mughal emperor Akbar. He was one of the main nine ministers (Diwan) in his court, also known as the Navaratnas. Rahim is famous for his Hindi couplets and his books on Astrology.^[1] The village of Khankhana, is named after him, which is located in the Nawanshahr district of the state of Punjab, India.

Although a Muslim by birth, Rahim was a devotee of Lord Krishna and wrote poetry dedicated to him. He was also an avid Astrolger, and the writer of two important works in Astrology Khet Kautukam and Dwawishd Yogavali are still popular.^[8]

He is well known for his strange manner of giving alms to the poor. He never looked at the person he was giving alms to, keeping his gaze downwards in all humility. When Tulsidas heard about Rahim's strange method of giving alms, he promptly wrote a couplet and sent it to Rahim:-

"ऐसी देनी देंन ज्यूँ, कित सीखे हो सैन
ज्यों ज्यों कर ऊंच्यो करो, त्यों त्यों निचे नैन"

"Sir, Why give alms like this? Where'd you learn that?, Your hands are as high as your eyes are low"

Realizing that Tulsidas was well aware of the truth behind creation, and was merely giving him an opportunity to say a few lines in reply, he wrote to Tulsidas in all humility:-

"देनहार कोई और है, भेजत जो दिन रैन
लोग भरम हम पर करे, तासो निचे नैन"

"The Giver is someone else, giving day and night. But the world gives me the credit, so I lower my eyes."

               OBSERVER/OBSERVED

The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself. There is the existence of the universe and there is the existence of the awareness of existence of the universe. Were it not for this awareness, even if the universe existed as an external reality, we would not be aware of its existence, so it would for all practical purpose not exist. Traditional science assumes, for the most part, that an objective observer independent reality exists; the universe, stars, galaxies, sun, moon and earth would still be there if no one was looking. However, modern quantum theory, the most successful of all scientific creations of the human mind, disagrees. The properties of a particle, quantum theory tells us, do not even exist until an observation takes place. Quantum theory disagrees with traditional, Newtonian physics. Most scientists, although respecting quantum theory, do not follow its implications. The result is a kind of schizophrenia between what scientists believe and what they practice. When we examine this hypothesis of traditional science, we find it more a metaphysical assumption than a scientific assertion.

How can we assert that an observer-independent reality exists if the assertion itself is dependent on the existence of a conscious observer? This raises the additional dilemma of who or what is the observer and where is this observer located? When scientists in general describe empirical facts and formulate scientific theories, they forget that neither facts nor theories are an insight into the true nature of fundamental reality apart from any observer. What we consider to be empirical facts are entirely dependent on observation, in agreement with quantum theory. The scientific observer in this case is an activity of the universe called Homo sapiens usually with a Ph.D. in physics. However, many scientists have never really asked the question "Who am I?"

Most neuroscientists who still don't believe that quantum theory has anything to do with the brain would assert that "I," the conscious observer, is solely an epiphenomenon of the brain, that consciousness is produced by the brain, just as gastric juices are produced by the stomach and bile is produced by the gall bladder. The problem with this of course, is that any neuroscientist worth his/her tenure will tell you that there is no satisfactory theory in neuroscience that explains how neurochemistry translates into conscious experience. How do electrochemical phenomena in the brain create the appreciation of the beauty of a red rose, the taste of garlic, the smell of onions, the feeling of love, compassion, joy, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, or awareness of existence of self and the universe? There is no physicalist theory based on classical physics to explain these subjective experiences. Nor is there any obvious means for coming up with one. 

When traditional science finds itself in such an impasse it might be time to question some of the basic assumptions about so-called independently-existing reality. We must revisit the idea that science is a methodology and not an ontology. Current science, however, is based on a physicalist ontology. This is the basic belief that reality is physical and mind is an epiphenomenon of matter (the nervous system). Nonetheless, we are baffled when asked to explain how matter becomes mind. We suggest here a fundamental revision in our most cherished scientific assumptions. We boldly suggest that matter, force fields, particles, waves, even the fabric of space and time are not denizens of fundamental reality, but that they are perceptual and cognitive experiences in consciousness. Actually, what we propose would be in agreement with what the great physicists who founded quantum theory almost 100 years ago would hold. But we are also going beyond, taking the statements of quantum theory to the next level: All of physical reality is a perceptual experience in consciousness alone. The experience may turn out to be different for different species.

What is physical reality to a bat, a honey bee, a nematode, a whale, a dolphin, an eagle, an insect with numerous eyes? There is no fixed physical reality, no single perception of the world, just numerous ways of interpreting world views as dictated by one's nervous system and the specific environment of our planetary existence. We propose that the worldview of current science as it is being practiced, which operates from the assumption that human perception and particularly facts emanating from observations made with human scientific methods are the only fundamental truth, is clearly flawed. Furthermore the subject/object split that is the basic premise of the current scientific methods has led to the creation of arguably detrimental technologies including mechanized death, petroleum products in our food, genetically-modified foods, global warming, extinction of species, and even the possible extinction of the human species. Building on the quantum view of the cosmos, which accepts a non-local, entangled reality that includes observers as fundamental, we suggest the next natural step, a new science rooted in consciousness, one that strives to interpret the entire universe, with all its observers, all modes of observation, and all objects observed as nothing other than consciousness and its manifestations!

MEDITATION

Meditation is an expansion of self-awareness.

BENIFITS

  Physical level- it is effective as an anti-stress process. It quiets the body, improves cardiovascular function, modulates the immune system and enhances self-repair mechanisms. There are thousands of studies that validate the physical benefits of meditation. Most recently there have been studies that show increased activities of the prefrontal cortex of the brain along with enhanced immune functions and increased levels of the enzyme telomeres which lengthen the telomeres at the end of chromosomes, suggesting increased longevity through the adjustment of our biological clock.

 Psycological- meditation enhances emotional wellbeing and is associated with a restfully alert mind.

 Spiritual - expanding self-awareness, meditation gives us access to the qualities of our consciousness such as insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, and freedom of choice. It also reveals to us the inseparability of everything in the universe and therefore shifts our identity to transpersonal to universal.

TYPES-

• Transcending meditations, which usually involve the use of a mantra or sound. However transcendence can also be achieved through any of the five senses and there are techniques for all the five senses.
• Contemplative meditations that involve self-reflection and self-inquiry.
• Mindfulness meditations (also referred to as vipasana) that make practitioners aware of various aspects of their experience. These include awareness of the environment; awareness of the body, including internal organs; experience of mental space, including sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts; and awareness of relationships. Mindfulness brings insight spontaneously and therefore mindfulness meditation is also referred to as insight meditation.
• There are also meditations for enhancing specific aspects of emotional and physical wellbeing and for increasing the experience of love, abundance, joy, equanimity, compassion, and empathy.
• In addition, there are meditations that enhance mind-body coordination, use breathing techniques, and specific gestures and interoception. These procedures -- frequently known as mudras and bandhas -- give us the ability to influence our internal organs including heart rate variability and blood pressure.

HOW OFTEN

A daily practice is best, and should be included as part of a normal routine that includes slicing up our time in various areas of life: sleep time, exercise time, focused work time, relationship time, mindful eating time, play and creative time.

So there is a personal benefit to meditation, is there a social or communal benefit?

When a large number of people reach expanded awareness through collective meditation, there is improvement in the quality of society. Some studies have indicated the following:

• Decreased crime rate.
• Decreased recidivism in prisoners.[1]
• Decreased hospital admissions.
• Increased economic and career wellbeing and productivity.
• Decreased absence in the workplace.
• Decreased incidence in alcoholism and other addictive behavior.
• Decreased domestic violence.

GOD PARTICLE

The possible discovery of the Higgs boson would not have been splashed across every major media if the tag "God particle" weren't attached to it. Physicists hate the term, but they love the publicity. There are huge government grants at stake as well as the prestige of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. After you read the headline, however, there's little doubt that a general reader cannot actually grasp what a Higgs boson is (or a large hadron accelerator, either).

If you watch enough PBS programs and listen to a few physicists, some clarity emerges that a non-physicist can understand. The Higgs boson discovery adds validation to a mathematical model of force fields in the universe. It attaches a real particle to an expectation, the expectation that buried inside force fields was the key to why subatomic particles have mass. Mass would be acquired as a particle meets with resistance when it moves through the vacuum of space, a kind of "molasses" that slows it down.

This molasses is very elusive. It took many billions of colliding protons in the huge CERN accelerator, backed up by 100,000 computers around the world, to analyze the data before the discovery seemed real. Even then, most physicists are guarded about whether this new particle actually is a Higgs boson. They are equally guarded about whether its properties will uphold the Standard Model of force fields or in fact create more problems.

But behind all the hoopla and uncertainty, the news flew around the world that a basic building block of the universe has been uncovered, bringing quantum physics closer to its triumphant goal of explaining creation -- hence the inflated and rather silly label of God particle. Yet from another perspective, nothing like an explanation of the universe is emerging at all. Physics may be getting closer to the day, in fact, when the way it views the universe classically reaches a dead end.

Here we will refer to some technical matters, but stick with us. The preliminary discovery comes as a culmination of many years of both theoretical and experimental work, since 1964 when the British physicist Peter Higgs, along with Robert Brout, François Englert, Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble, hypothesized the existence of a field, filling all vacuum. They used symmetry breaking (which would allow particles to acquire their masses without violating other aspects of theory that were correct). This ubiquitous Higgs field would allow all particles in the universe to acquire mass through interactions with it, through a kind of dragging as they move in space. High energy proton collisions at the LHC should, in principle, reveal the elusive Higgs. The Higgs, unlike the photon, has a mass, expected to be in the approximate range of 125 (or more) times the mass of the proton.

The Higgs boson is the last, missing link in the highly successful quantum theory of particles, called the Standard Model. It is also highly unstable, very elusive. To detect it, one has to observe many, many high energy collisions of protons and build up the statistics. In the LHC collider, particles are accelerated through a tunnel, brought together at speeds close to the speed of light, producing showers of particles, with high energies, capable to generate the Higgs particle. It exists for only a tiny fraction of a second before breaking up into many other particles and can be detected only indirectly by identifying the results of its immediate decay and analyzing them to show they were probably produced from a Higgs boson.

Even in its lowest energy state, the Higgs field filling all vacuum has non-zero values everywhere. In fact, ripples or waves in the quantum Higgs field, create for fleeting moments the Higgs particles. The Higgs boson is itself very massive, and it must interact with itself. It itself mediates interactions with the Higgs field and is itself an excitation of the Higgs field.

The full properties of the Higgs (or whatever was observed by the teams) are not yet known. In fact, the signature of what they observed may be multiple Higgs bosons with the properties required by the next theory that the Standard Model would extend into supersymmetry.

Particle physicists are not the only ones excited by the prospect of finding the missing link in the theory: Cosmologists seem to agree that all the luminous matter in the universe makes up only 4 percent of whatever there is in the universe. All the hundreds of billions of galaxies composed of many billions of stars make up just 4 percent of everything! The rest of it may be in the form of dark matter and even more exotic (but unknown) dark energy. So if the "Higgs-like" particle discovered at CERN turns out to be more exotic form, it could help us understand at least dark energy.

These possible future developments could get us closer to what particle physicists call the Theory of Everything, a rather particle-centered view of the cosmos, because their theory of everything, as envisaged, says nothing and in fact cannot say anything about life, evolution and the phenomena of mind and awareness. It is not even clear how gravity, the last of the four forces of nature, will fit into Standard Model, developing into supersymmetry and perhaps developing into superstring theory. But it would be a start.

VANISHING WORLD

Out of sight, and for most people out of mind, the physical world has been vanishing.  For over a hundred years quantum theory has shown that the solid objects of the physical world are made of invisible energy clouds. Atoms have no fixed physical properties until they are measured; therefore, it remains to be shown why our world of everyday experience feels solid in the first place. At the same time, other properties we take for granted are dissolving. Einstein described time as dependent on frames of observation. Now it seems that in the world of quantum phenomena it can appear to move backwards.

This is a fascinating topic, and one that raises more questions about things we take for granted. Quantum physicists at the University of Vienna were looking at particles of light that are either entangled or separable. These are technical terms going back to the era of Einstein and Schrodinger. If two particles are entangled, they will exhibit synchronized behavior no matter how far apart they are in space. As soon as one particle is measured, its exact counterpart will show up in the entangled twin state, even if they are far, far away from each other. In other words, this "action at a distance" defies the speed of light.  Einstein could not accept the consequences of quantum entanglement, and so he added the word "spooky" to action at a distance.

Yet quantum behavior is frequently spooky, and experiments have validated entanglement very soundly. In a recent article a useful analogy was given. Two entangled particles are like a pair of tumbling dice. If you stop one to see which number comes up, the other dice must show the same number; it has no other choice. If the two dice are separable, then the measurement of one doesn't affect the other. Being separable seems normal to us. We never expect two dice to exactly match. If they did, Las Vegas would go out of business, since chance would disappear.

Now on to time. We expect time to move forward, the so-called arrow of time. Past, present, and future constitute the normal progression of events. For the same reason, cause precedes effect. It would be bizarre to bleed before you cut yourself shaving or to hear a car crash before the two vehicles collided. In the quantum world, however, certain phenomena have arisen known as retro causation, and exactly as it sounds, a future measurement appears as if it is affecting a past event. This would be a form of entanglement that reaches backward in time, a new form of spookiness.

Physics has depended for decades on "thought experiments," where a new concept predicts what will happen before a physical experiment proves or disproves the predicted result. In this case, the Viennese team was working to prove "delayed-choice entanglement swaps."  As a thought experiment, this has existed for over a decade.  Let us follow the team's description closely:

Four photons, made of two entangled pairs, are produced (think of them as four tumbling dice waiting to be measured). One photon from each pair is sent to a physicist named Victor. He will be assigned the task of measuring them. The two remaining photons are put in separate packages, one sent to a physicist named Alice, the other to a physicist named Bob. The three physicists now have their sealed packages of photons that have not been measured yet.

Victor can choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then Alice's and Bob's two photons also become entangled. But if Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photons end up in a separable state.  This is a point that Einstein was stuck on. He couldn't believe the assertion made by Bohr and Heisenberg that the mere act of measurement by an observer determines where a particle will be. But accepted quantum theory has shown that particles have no physical characteristics until they are measured. For a long time this has been true for position in space. Now it seems that where a particle is in time also depends on measurement.

Modern quantum optics allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. As the lead author in Vienna describes it, "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations, can be decided after they have been measured." In layman's terms, what you do today can affect what happened yesterday.  Or, perhaps, to put it in better way, the future and the past are entangled, in a way that classical physics could not explain it. The experimenters are working on a quantum scale billions of times smaller than everyday events, and rather than claiming to change the past, they say that their experiment "mimics" the effect of turning time's arrow around.

So no one is saying -- yet -- that present causes can change past effects. The mystery still remains over how entanglement, defying the speed of light and now the arrow of time, actually relates to the "naive classical world," which is to say, the everyday things we take for granted. Our own bias is for expanding the observer effect more and more, until science accepts that awareness is key to everything. We are making reality through our role as conscious agents. But that's an argument for another day -- perhaps yesterday if we get around to it.

Role of observer is very important ,for example we know for sure thar Sun rises in east and sets in west, but the truth is that Sun neither rises nor sets, since we are observing it from a revolving earth it seems to arise from east.

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT

EQ is as important as IQ. Increase ur EQ and see the diffrence. What EQ does is-

• Better management of your body’s reactions
• Improved regulation of fear
• Greater emotional resilience
• Increased response flexibility
• Improved insight (self-knowing)
• Deeper and clearer empathy and attunement—within yourself and with others
• Perspective shift from “me” to “we”
•                 

PERCEPTION

we don’t respond to “the world out there.” We respond to our perception of the world. Perception is formed by beliefs, cultural norms, religious affiliation, genetic factors, life experience, sense of right and wrong, and so much more.

All of these factors combine to filter the information that passes through our senses, allowing us to figure out what things mean. In other words, we don’t ever directly experience anything outside of ourselves. We only experience ourselves.

HOTEL VANATIA,MACAU

HIGHER HEALTH

MIND HEALING-

So far, the breakthrough hasn't occurred, not on a completely reliable basis, secure enough so that using the mind as healer becomes more predictable and efficacious than drugs and surgery. The reason that we don't have mind-based therapies at every hospital are complicated. Rather than go into them, let's ask the most salient question. What can you and I do to promote wellness based first and foremost on consciousness?

To answer that question, you need specific goals, as with any long-range project.

Goal #1: Free yourself from the past.
Goal #2: Address bad habits and addictions.
Goal #3: Find the core of the self.
Goal #4: Maintain a program for personal growth and evolution.
Goal #5: Become aware of how your environment -- at work, at home, in your closest relationships -- mirrors who you are inside.

I've tried to state these goals as objectively as possible, without leaning toward one method or another. There are countless techniques available in the American supermarket of medical and health advice. But the reason that people come away frustrated and confused is that the specifics of what they are doing today -- going to yoga class, drinking wheat grass juice, reading Buddhist sermons -- becomes haphazard without an overall vision. These five goals give you the bare outline of a vision, which you can fill in by turning each into a question:

1. What am I doing to free myself from my past?
2. Am I honestly confronting my bad habits and addictive tendencies?
3. Do I make choices from a secure center, knowing who I really am?
4. Do I have confidence that I am evolving and will continue to evolve?
5. Looking around, how does my world, including everyone I relate to, reflect what's going on inside?

These should be approached as medical questions, because even if you aren't asking them -- especially if you aren't asking them -- your body is eavesdropping all the time. There are three levels of reflection that give feedback to you: your thoughts, your physical condition and the external world. They are linked and fused, which is what makes holism possible. If you could ignore your thoughts, your body or your circumstances, letting one or two go while concentrating only on what's left, holistic medicine, or holistic living, would be a delusion. Consciousness isn't compartmentalized; it is whole. Your self is the hub from which everything emanates. All experience, physical, mental and spiritual, occur in consciousness.

I think we've outlined a good beginning for switching the mind-body polarity. (Readers who wish to approach these issues in depth may want to look at my book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul.) We are immersed in a materialistic worldview, and although skepticism has been quieted somewhat by the flood of research confirming the mind-body connection, there will be resistance to seeing consciousness as central to well-being. But even if you decide to put your faith entirely in mainstream medicine and its focus on drugs and surgery -- a choice that fewer informed people make nowadays -- there is no doubt that positive lifestyle changes are unassailable for preventing more and more illnesses. You can't make such changes without confronting most if not all the goals I've outlined. They are key if you want to send the best messages from mind to body.

EFFORTLESS LIFE

1. Do less. This is my productivity mantra, and it’s counterintuitive. I actually don’t believe in productivity, but instead believe in doing the important things. Do less, and you’ll force yourself to choose between what’s just busywork, and what really matters. Life then becomes effortless, as you accomplish big things while being less busy.

2. Having less is lighter. Start asking yourself if you really need everything you have, or if you just have it out of fear. Start to let go of what you have, so it doesn’t own you. And then, as you have less, you feel lighter. It’s wonderful.

3. Let the little things go. People who struggle often fight over little things. We obsess over things that don’t really matter. We create resistance instead of letting things glide off us. Let the little things go, breathe, and move on to the important things.

4. Clean as you go. I haven’t written about this for a long time, but early in the life of Zen Habits I wrote about the habit of cleaning as you go. Instead of letting the cleaning pile up, put things away when you’re done. Wash your bowl. Wipe the counters clean as you pass them. Sweep up dirt when you notice it. By cleaning a little bit at a time, as you make messes, cleaning up becomes a breeze, and it’s never difficult. By the way, this applies to everything in life, not just cleaning.

5. Make small, gradual changes. Most people are too impatient to follow this advice — they want to do everything at once. We have so many changes to make, but we don’t want to wait a year for it all to happen. As a result, we often fail, and then feel crappy about it. Or we don’t start at all, because so many big changes is intimidating and overwhelming. I’ve learned the hard way that small changes are incredibly powerful, and they last longer. Gradual change leads to huge change, but slowly, and in a way that sticks. And it’s effortless.

6. Learn to focus on the things that matter. This is implied in the items above, but it’s so important I have to emphasize it. Swimming (or any physical activity for that matter) is best done when you do only the motions that matter, and eliminate the extraneous motions. Stop thrashing, start becoming more efficient and fluid. You do this by learning what matters, and cutting out the wasted activity.

7. Be compassionate. This makes dealing with others much more effortless. It also makes you feel better about yourself. People like you more, and you improve the lives of others. Make every dealing with another human being one where you practice compassion.

CARE FOR HEALTH

A basic outline for prevention has existed for more than 30 years, but wellness has had a hard time making real headway. Old habits are hard to break. Our society has a magic bullet fixation, waiting for the next miracle drug to cure us of every ill. Doctors receive no economic benefit from pushing prevention over drugs and surgery. For all these reasons, compliance with prevention falls far below what is needed for maximum wellness.

Rather than feeling gloomy, my focus has been on getting the individual to take charge of their own wellness. This can be a considerable challenge, since we are each unique in our bodies but also unique in our pattern of bad habits and poor lifestyle choices. More than 40 percent of American adults make a resolution to live a better life each year, and fewer than half keep their promise to themselves for longer than six months. Conditioning is hard to break, but the key is that the power to break a habit belongs to the same person who made it -- the turnaround amounts to giving up unconscious behavior and adopting conscious new patterns.

Once your mind begins to pay attention, your brain can build new neural pathways to reinforce what you learn. Much is made of the brain's ability to change and adapt -- the general term is neuroplasticity -- but I think science has been slow to catch up with wise experience. It has always been true that applying awareness in any form, through such things as resolve, discipline, good intentions, and mindfulness, has the power to create change. The practical dilemma is how to use your strengths and motivation to help yourself remain committed to wellness as a lifetime pattern.

Step 1: Set Goals by Baselining Your Health

The first step in taking control of your well-being is to set goals, and a sensible way to do this is to "baseline" your health. Gather some basic facts that realistically inform you about your body: weight, height, family history, exercise habits, general diet, and a self-assessment of your stress levels at work and in your home life.

Some experts would add medical measures that only a doctor can fully determine, such as blood pressure, cholesterol and other lipids levels, and bone density. My difficulty with these tests is that they encourage worry. Being in an anxious state is a bad motivator for most people. It can motivate you for as long as you remember to be afraid, but after that, people tend to give in to impulses, make erratic choices, and increase their own stress levels. With that in mind, I go against the grain of standard medical advice, at least partially, by saying that heeding these medical markers should come second, after you have already set yourself on a good wellness program for at least six months. Give consciousness a chance before you undermine it with potential anxiety.

How do you actually set your goals? Start thinking about the big picture. Changing poor lifestyle habits is rarely easy, especially if they comfort you, as smoking or overeating do for many people. You need a strong vision of what you want to achieve in order to succeed. I'd say the strongest vision comes from knowing about a simple trend: The latest research shows that more and more disorders, including most cancers, are preventable through a good wellness program. The benefits are increasing with every new study.

Step 2: Set Priorities

Making lists of your hot spots and your sweet spots will help you to set your personal priorities. The hot spots are weaknesses, the sweet spots strengths that crop up during an ordinary day. You can't attack every bad pattern all at once; it's good to achieve a series of small victories at first.

Hot spots: List the times you feel unhappy or most agitated -- fighting a futile battle to get a good night's sleep, perhaps, or recriminating yourself for ordering dessert when you were already full. Identify with clear sights your biggest challenges, such as getting to bed on time, reducing food portions, resisting sweets, choosing the couch over the treadmill, and so on. Doing this will help your mission take shape and direction.

Sweet spots: List the things that give you joy and satisfaction, for instance, spending time with your family or enjoying a favorite hobby. Recapture in your mind what it feels like to resist ordering dessert or to spend half an hour walking outdoors. Appreciating the sweet spots in your life is a source of strength as you embark on your habit-changing mission.

Step 3: Identify Harmful Patterns

To change your negative habits, you have to know what they are. Some bad habits, like smoking and excessive drinking, are obvious, but others may be less so. Sitting all day is damaging to your health, even if you get half an hour of exercise or more before or after work. Depriving yourself of eight hours' sleep for even a short period is also hard on the body in ways that sleep researchers are just beginning to fully recognize.

Forming a new habit takes repetition and focus, and if your attention is elsewhere you may have a harder time adjusting to new behaviors. For that reason, some experts advise against planning big changes if you are going through a particularly stressful period. I think that reasoning is wrong. Although it's true that you are likely to have more setbacks at such times, it's just as true that people change as a result of meeting challenges and crises: "Aha" moments occur quite often when somebody hits bottom.

Visualizing your desired outcome is a useful tool in your journey. "Seeing" yourself as you wish to be has helped smokers quit, obese people lose weight, and sports champions achieve their goals. In order to change the printout of the body, you must learn to rewrite the software of the mind. This truism is reinforced by brain scans that show a decrease in certain higher functions (making good decisions, following reason over impulse, resisting temptation) when a person falls into a pattern of giving in to a wide range of lower impulses, such as fear, anger, or simply physical hunger. You need to implement a healing regimen that encourages and rewards your good choices if you want brain pathways to follow suit.

Step 4: Make Steady Changes

Even though you are working on the big picture, for psychological reasons a series of small victories is desirable. In essence, you are training your brain to succeed. Most of us, having been defeated by old conditioning, take the course of least resistance, not realizing that we are training our brains into pathways that rob us of free will over time.

So begin with a victory you can define and which means something to you. Skip red meat for a week. Take the stairs, not the elevator. If you're very out of shape, walk 10 minutes every day and gradually build up your time. Put down your fork halfway through your meal, take a few deep breaths, and ask yourself if you're still hungry. If you work at a desk, make it a rule to always stand or pace when you're on the phone. Over time, what seem like baby steps produce new physiological changes in every cell of the body. Trillions of cells are eavesdropping on your every thought and action. Instead of pretending that your body doesn't know what you're doing, make yourself the gift of delivering good news to your cells.

In my view, the most important victories occur in awareness, however. If you tend to procrastinate, be aware of the reasons you do it. We get comfortable in our warm, fuzzy old routines, and making changes, even small ones, feels threatening psychologically, as if even a positive change is a risk. Predict when you will procrastinate and invent a strategy to outmaneuver your future self. For example, if you know you'll be tempted to hit the snooze button instead of getting up for an early morning jog, put your exercise clothes across the room from your bed -- with your alarm clock on top.

Step 5: Reinforce Good Decisions

Sometimes brain research underlines the obvious, but it is a breakthrough to observe MRI scans and see for yourself that good decisions light up the brain in ways that are different from bad decisions. In the larger scheme, when you undertake a wellness program, you will be faced every day with the choice to stay the course or abandon your mission. How does your brain make choices, then?

Executive control, which means choosing a thought or action to meet an internal goal, is managed by the brain's prefrontal cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala play roles in regulating decision-making based on the memory of feelings. Regions of the midbrain, in which the neurotransmitter dopamine is predominant, also influence decision-making. Some of the choices that trigger dopamine's release: eating sweet foods, taking drugs, having sex.

We may overindulge in chocolate cake because we tend to value the short-term outcome we know (deliciousness) over the long-term outcome we have never experienced (weight loss and increased energy from better nutrition). One way to break that cycle is to reward ourselves in a different way. Instead of eating cake, we can go play a game or listen to music.

How long does it take to form a new habit? An average of 66 days, according to a 2009 study from University College, London. Repetition and giving yourself time to adjust are the main factors in forming a new behavior pattern.

NEW VACCINATION GUIDELINES-2012

Human Papillomavirus: HPV vaccine, which is no longer just for girls. The new HPV recommendation: routine vaccination for males aged 11 through 21 years. (Routine vaccination for females is recommended for those aged 11 through 26 years). Female vaccination rates are now low, which makes male vaccination more cost-effective. Routine HPV vaccination in men who have sex with men is recommended through age 26 years; it is cost-effective, regardless of coverage rates in females.
Hepatitis B: Hepatitis B vaccination is now recommended routinely for adults with diabetes who are younger than age 60 years. Those with diabetes age 23 through 59 years have more than twice the risk for contracting hepatitis B compared with people without diabetes. Those with diabetes who are age 60 years or older may be vaccinated at physician discretion.
Tdap and Pertussis Protection: Recommendations for adult tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccination concern pertussis protection and, specifically, cocooning infants and young children by vaccinating family and household contacts, including those over age 65 years. The new change is when to vaccinate pregnant mothers, which should be during pregnancy, after 20 weeks’ gestation. Timing the vaccination this way will allow the mother’s antibodies to pass on to the fetus.
Influenza: Egg allergy is no longer a contraindication to the influenza vaccination, although egg-allergic patients must get the inactivated shot because that is what has been studied. In addition, the new intradermal influenza vaccine, with its microinjector apparatus and ultrafine needle, is an option for adults aged 18 through 64 years. Everyone over 6 months old should be vaccinated for flu, and this includes healthcare workers.

LIVING HEALTHY

1. Practice prevention -- you already know what this means in terms of diet, exercise, and not smoking.
2. Keep in mind a vision of living an active, healthy life well into your 80s.
3. Work first and foremost on your inner sense of well-being.
4. Actively take measures to reduce stress. This includes getting eight hours of sleep a night without fail.
5. Find out who you really are -- a secure, flexible sense of self is a great preventive of illness.
6. Be easy about diet but head toward less fat, red meat, processed food, refined sugar and carbohydrates, along with a balance of food groups that favors fruits and vegetables.
7. Learn to meditate. If that's not possible, take two breaks a day where you sit silently and alone to collect yourself.
8. Associate with people who share your positive outlook, uphold your spiritual ideals, and delve into the world's wisdom traditions.
9. Express and share your emotions. Take steps to get rid of toxic emotions.
10. Find an outlet for love, which means both being loved and showing love.
THINGS TO AVOID
1. Don't obsess about diet and exercise.
2. Don't wait for others to cure you after you've failed to practice prevention.
3. Don't attach hope to miracle cures as a reason to avoid lifestyle changes.
4. Don't do what you know to be wrong.
5. On the whole, don't bother with vitamins and supplements unless there is a good medical reason behind what you're taking.
6. Don't take unneeded medications, and reduce those you must take to a sensible minimum.
7. Don't wait to correct hypertension and overweight, which cause long-term damage even though they are slow-acting.
8.  Don't put yourself in high-stress situations thinking that you can handle them. In the same vein, don't fool yourself that you can go short on sleep for more than two nights.

YUVI ILLNESS-MEDIASTINAL SEMINOMA

According to sources, Yuvraj Singh had earlier been diagnosed as Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and later confirmed to be a case of mediastinal seminoma.

• Mediastinal seminomas constitute 33% of malignant mediastinal germ cell tumors (GCTs) and 2 to 4 percent of mediastinal masses.
• They occur predominantly in men between the ages of 20 and 40
• It is uncommon for testicular seminoma to metastasize to the mediastinum in the absence of retroperitoneal lymph node involvement. But the same should be ruled out in all cases. Testes are removed if that is the case.
• Primary mediastinal seminomas are typically slow growing and can be very bulky by the time they cause discomfort.
• 75% are symptomatic at the time of diagnosis.
• Symptoms include chest pain (39%), dyspnea (29%), cough (22%), weight loss (19%), superior vena cava syndrome (12%), fever (6%) and nausea (6%).
• Serum beta-hCG is elevated in approximately one-third of patients.
• These tumors do not secrete AFP.
• Majority of mediastinal seminomas have metastasized by the time they are detected, most often to the lymph nodes and less commonly to lungs, bone, and/or liver.
• Presence of nonpulmonary visceral metastases is associated with a poorer prognosis.
• Seminomas are exquisitely sensitive to both cisplatin-based chemotherapy and RT, regardless of location.
• Mediastinal seminomas are classified as good-risk GCTs by the International Germ Cell Consensus Classification unless nonpulmonary visceral metastases are present.
• They have a five-year survival rate of greater than 90%.
• Most prefer chemotherapy to RT for patients with mediastinal seminoma.
• Recommended chemotherapy regimen for patients with mediastinal seminomas and no nonpulmonary visceral metastases is three cycles of cisplatin, etoposide, plus bleomycin (BEP) chemotherapy or four cycles of etoposide plus cisplatin.
• Following chemotherapy, many patients are left with a residual mass. (Source Uptodate.com)

WALK FASTER TO OUTRUN GRIM REAPER

The Grim Reaper is a famous mythological and literary figure personifying death. According to a study published in the Christmas issue on bmj.com, men of 70 years and older can elude the Grim Reaper by walking at speeds of at least 3 miles (or 5 km) an hour. Researchers say that for the first time, they have estimated the usual walking speed of the Grim Reaper at 1.8 miles per hour, saying he never walked faster than 3 miles per hour.


A team of researchers based at Concord Hospital in Sydney, Australia, decided to examine the association between mortality and walking speed. Between January 2005 to June 2007, they recruited 1,705 men aged 70 years and older, who lived in the inner city and suburbs of Sydney and who participated in The Concord Health and Ageing in Men Project (CHAMP). The study included a high proportion of immigrants, only 50% of the participants were born Australians, 20% were born Italians with remainder of the participants originating from Great Britain, Greece and China. Participants’ walking speeds were evaluated at baseline and survival assessed over the five–year study period. The researchers noted a total of 266 deaths during the follow–up. The findings reveal that the average walking speed of the deceased was 0.88 meters per second (m/s), and that none of the men with walking speeds of 1.36 m/s or 3 miles (5km) per hour or more had contact with the Grim Reaper.