Living Skillfully: Your Mind and Health

Two interesting articles on BBC Health recently.
The first talks about a University of Toronto study which claims that one death in 25 is linked to alcohol consumption – one in 10 in Europe and one in seven in the former Soviet Union. The researchers say, “Globally, the effect of alcohol on burden of disease is [...]

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My British colleagues Adam Eason and Sophie Nicholls have both featured this story from the Independent on their blogs this week: Less is More: How to cut down on drink.
photo credit: Bohman
I always enjoy reading spontaneous testimonies from ordinary people who have been helped by hypnotherapy. This one is fairly typical. “I didn’t ‘go [...]

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Building Self-EfficacyNew Zealand has a new government in place, one with, I hope, quite a different philosophy of social change to the previous one. I don’t think my health blog is necessarily the place to talk politics, but I do want to talk about different [...]

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I received an email response to my post on the possible health benefits of alcohol from a lady in Canada who had experienced severe negative health effects from alcohol – notably seizures. Her late husband had been similarly afflicted and had in fact died as a result.
I asked her about their alcohol consumption, and she [...]

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This entry is part 10 of 15 in the series Health BehaviorsIf health was the sole consideration being used to make alcohol policy, the drinking age would be set at 35.
Startling, but true. Most of the harm done by alcohol is done to young people, while no health benefits have ever been identified to people [...]

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This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Health BehaviorsAlcohol is in the news at the moment here for a couple of reasons. First is the fatal shooting of liquor store owner Navtej Singh, which is focussing attention on the high density of liquor outlets in some areas – most commonly, low-income areas. [...]

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This entry is part 7 of 15 in the series Health BehaviorsDespite many years of research, nobody is sure yet why we sleep. The smart money is on it being at least partly to do with the needs of maintaining a complex brain. Insects don’t appear to sleep at all, some fish and amphibians reduce [...]

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This entry is part 1 of 15 in the series Health BehaviorsThis is the first in a series of posts about maximising your health with lifestyle changes. Over and over in study after study, these seven health behaviors are associated with improved health and longer life. First, I’ll summarize the seven, in no particular order, [...]

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The American Journal of Medicine has published a study entitled Adopting Moderate Alcohol Consumption in Middle Age: Subsequent Cardiovascular Events which seems to show a benefit to heart health from starting to drink alcohol – moderately – in middle age.

Image by Photogen

According to the Reuters story, the leader of the study, Dr Dana King, [...]

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Two recent articles in TVNZ’s Health News highlight the two aspects of alcohol: killer and potential health aid.

rubins vase sharp 150 by masterymistery
The first is “Alcohol as bad as drugs say international experts“, in which a drug expert unfortunately named Professor Nutt claims that “If someone was to invent alcohol today and we didn’t [...]

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