Unfinished Business Can Be an Opportunity for Personal Growth

All of us have felt the sense of loss when we lose someone close to us. Depending on the type of relationship and depending on the type of loss, we each will experience different feelings. The absence of someone’s companionship may leave us feeling regret, anger, sadness and emptiness.

The loss of someone who was a big part of our life can be the end of a romantic relationship. It can also be the tragic loss of a family member. The pain from these transitions can be very painful and last a very long time. Life’s ups and down are meaningless if we do not use them as an opportunity for personal growth. Many movie scripts portray the hero or heroine who at first seems to be drawn into relationships that for one reason or another always turn out to be a new version of a previously failed relationship.

It could be that there was some unfinished business between you and a family member. There may have been the apology that you wanted to make, or some words of appreciation that you wanted to give. Maybe the opportunity for those things passed. Sometimes the loss of someone close to us, no matter the reason, leaves us with these feelings of missed opportunities. Sometimes we wish that we had one more chance to say a kind word or to behave differently. This sense of a missed opportunity can sometimes leave us confused, angry and disappointed over the past relationship.

The point is, we can’t go back and change things. But we can make the past have an impact on our future. The good news is that a failed relationship can be used as an opportunity for emotional growth. These missed opportunities can be used as object lessons that guide us to maturity and a greater awareness of who we are. These experiences can also be used as a way to identify what we need to learn as we go forward to face life’s continuing challenges.

Filed Under: Off Topic | Tagged:

Are First Born Children Smarter and More Outgoing?

Did you know that most NASA astronauts, Nobel Laureates, and past presidents of the United States, were overwhelmingly first born children?

A study by LiveScience confirms our long suspected intuitions on the impact of birth order on personality and intelligence. The study was conducted at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York. The lead scientist was Tiffany L. Frank, a doctoral candidate. The study’s bottom line is that the younger brothers and sisters get better grades and are more outgoing. The first-borns, however, tend to be more intelligent.

In previous studies, it was found that that younger brothers and sister were more carefree while children born in the middle tended to show more inventiveness and independence.

The subjects of the Adelphi study were 90 pairs of high school student from Long Island, New York. The students were asked to judge themselves against their brothers and sisters on intelligence and work ethic. The results were verified against with the real hard data of test scores and academic records.

In math and verbal ability, the first-borns had the higher test scores. In English and math, it was the children who were born later on that had the stronger academic results.

A different set of 76 subjects were asked to answer questions that rated them on various personality characteristics. The study found that the older siblings were more likely to be perfectionists. The younger brothers and sisters tended to be more forgiving and sentimental.

One thing to keep in mind is that the first born children can serve as mentors and tutors to their young brothers and sisters. The study’s lead scientist says that this is probably a factor also. The younger born will benefit from having seen the successes and failures of their older siblings. This will make them more open to new challenges and also may make the younger siblings more confident in overcoming obstacles and also more secure in achieving their goals.

While the first born may receive more attention from their parents, the younger siblings benefit from the interaction with their older siblings.

Filed Under: Off Topic, Society | Tagged:

You Don’t Need to Lift Heavy Weights to Put on Muscles

Pectoral Muscles Superficial
Image via Wikipedia

Many of us want a nicely built body but are afraid to even think about being in the gym lifting heavy weights. Now there’s good news. You don’t really need to lift heavy weights. You just have to be willing to do some lifting, as light weight will work just as well for you.

Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario say you don’t need to strain with very heavy weights to build up muscle mass. The study is published in the journal of Public Library of Science, also known as PLoS One.
Most body builders lift very heavy weights for a short number of repetitions so that they can build large muscles. But you can achieve the same results, the new study says, if you lift light weights a large number of times.
The bottom line is to keep pumping iron until your muscles are totally fatigued. This is according to Stuart Phillips, PhD, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University.

The study involved 15 subjects, fifteen healthy young adults with an average age of 21. Each subject was required to exercise with light and heavy weights and heavy weights with varying repetitions. As it turns out, for building muscle mass, it didn’t matter much if you used heavier or lighter weights.

The research findings will benefit people who have low levels of skeletal muscle mass and are unable to lift heavy weights. This group includes the elderly and others who suffer from a variety of medical conditions. Some of these conditions are cancer, stroke or accidental trauma. The research findings will also benefit patients recovering from surgery and victims of an accident who are undergoing rehabilitation.

The researchers said that their findings weren’t conclusive but promising as they did’t measure actual muscle mass. Instead the study relied on biological markers for muscle exhaustion. The researchers say that further work needs to be done in the area and that their findings need to be replicated.

Filed Under: Off Topic | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

A Good Argument May Be Beneficial to Your Health

New research finding suggest that having a good verbal joust every now and then may be beneficial to your health. And we don’t just mean your mental health, it’s good for your physical health as well. It is good for you to have constructive arguments with the people who are close to you, no matter the type of relationship. If you constantly try to avoid all arguments, it may be actually have a negative impact on your health. The research was conducted at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The head researcher is Kira Birditt.

Birditt’s research found that that if you avoid clashes all the time, this caused an increase of health symptoms the next day. There was lower likelihood of measured physical symptoms for those who were actually involved in a debate. The study also found that avoiding confrontation caused an imbalance in the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Not speaking your mind in a tense situation could cause this hormonal imbalance to last for more than one day. Cortisol is an important and helpful part of the body’s response to stress. However, high levels of the hormone or prolonged periods with high levels of cortisol in the bloodstream create a host of symptons from high blood pressure to impaired cognitive functioning.

We all know that being able to effectively deal with challenging people and difficult situations is a life skill worth having. Many of us, however, are not aware that a healthy confrontation is actually good for your health. The research examined assessments from 1,842 adults between the ages of 33 and 84 who participated in the study. Ironically, Birditt’s previous research revealed that the most common way that people cope with their problems in all types of relationships is to simply avoid them. Now we know better! A healthy debate is a good for you.

The only question that remains now is whether the extra confrontation will also benefit our relationships.

The study’s findings were presented on August 12, 2010 at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

Filed Under: Off Topic, Society | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

A Good Argument May Be Beneficial to Your Health

Health care

New research finding suggest that having a good verbal joust every now and then may be beneficial to your health. And we don’t just mean your mental health, it’s good for your physical health as well. It is good for you to have constructive arguments with the people who are close to you, no matter the type of relationship. If you constantly try to avoid all arguments, it may be actually have a negative impact on your health. The research was conducted at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The head researcher is Kira Birditt.

Birditt’s research found that that if you avoid clashes all the time, this caused an increase of health symptoms the next day. There was lower likelihood of measured physical symptoms for those who were actually involved in a debate. The study also found that avoiding confrontation caused an imbalance in the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Not speaking your mind in a tense situation could cause this hormonal imbalance to last for more than one day. Cortisol is an important and helpful part of the body’s response to stress. However, high levels of the hormone or prolonged periods with high levels of cortisol in the bloodstream create a host of symptons from high blood pressure to impaired cognitive functioning.

We all know that being able to effectively deal with challenging people and difficult situations is a life skill worth having. Many of us, however, are not aware that a healthy confrontation is actually good for your health. The research examined assessments from 1,842 adults between the ages of 33 and 84 who participated in the study. Ironically, Birditt’s previous research revealed that the most common way that people cope with their problems in all types of relationships is to simply avoid them. Now we know better! A healthy debate is a good for you.

The only question that remains now is whether the extra confrontation will also benefit our relationships.

The study’s findings were presented on August 12, 2010 at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

Filed Under: Off Topic, Society | Tagged: Tagged With: