Well fret no more, chocoholic chums – a recent SparkPeople article has set about busting these and other chocolate-coated myths.

Now before you install chocolate at the base of your personal food pyramid, take note: the quantities you can savor before the guilt-free swing-tag falls off are not large. The article quotes 1.4 ounces or about 40 grams – somewhere between a fun size and regular size chocolate bar.

Here’s a paraphrased summary of the article:

Myth: Chocolate puts you in caffeine overdrive.
Busted! A 4-ounce chocolate bar and 8-ounce chocolate-milk drink each contain 6 mg of caffeine,  versus 65-135mg in a regular coffee.

Myth: Chocolate kicks up your cholesterol.
Busted! The saturated fat in milk chocolate doesn’t raise cholesterol the same way other fats do. Eating a 1.4 ounce chocolate bar can raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

Myth: Chocolate is nutritionally bankrupt.
Busted! Chocolate yields magnesium, copper, iron and zinc and has the same amount of antioxidants as a 5-ounce glass of red wine. A daily dose of the dark stuff can help lower blood pressure and improve insulin resistance (but don’t abandon medication!).

Myth: Chocolate rots your teeth.
Busted! Milk chocolate’s mouth-clearing fat content shortens sugar-tooth contact time and its protein, calcium and phosphate may actually protect tooth enamel.

Myth: Chocolate gives you migraines.
Busted!  Research findings say nope.

Myth: Chocolate causes zits.
Busted! Twenty years worth of studies say nuh-uh.

Myth: Chocolate makes you a fatty boombah.
Busted! The average chocolate bar contains 220 calories, not so high that you can’t enjoy it now and then.

With Cupid just behind us and the Easter Bunny hippity-hoppitying his way over, it’s good to know we can indulge ourselves, moderately, in the pleasures of chocolate.

Be wise and be happy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness life strategy,happiness,research,chocolate,myth busting

Image: Scyza

A new study, reported last month in the media and about to appear in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, looked at the way our bodies produce antibodies in response to infection.

(Flu vaccines were used as a proxy for pathogens because the body’s response is similar for the purposes of the study.)

Not everybody has fun flu fighting

In the first experiment, Two groups of women were given flu vaccines. The high self-discrepant group – women who were displeased with themselves and their progress toward goals – produced fewer antibodies in response to the vaccine than a second group of women who were satisfied with their lives and goal progress. The levels stayed low for more than a month post-vaccination.

In a second experiment high self-discrepant women were asked to write – one group wrote about goal-related concerns, a second wrote about daily activities. The first group reported fewer flu symptoms and showed higher antibody levels.

Happiness life strategy

To have a strong immune system it helps to be on track with our life goals, or at least to be at peace with our progress.

But if we can’t, there’s still hope for fighting the flu.

By getting our disappointments out of our head and onto the page, we can be more rational in examining our expectations, more clearheaded in questioning our approaches and more constructive in coming up with alternative ideas.

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, maybe we should eat it while writing.

Image: ppreacher

Now, for the readers among us, there’s more good news. This month The Guardian reported the use of experimental reading groups as a form of therapy. ‘Bibliotherapy’ is being tried across a range of problems – including anxiety and depressive disorders, Alzheimer’s, learning disabilities,  motor-neurone disease and neurological and psychiatric disorders. The idea is to see if reading helps reduce pain and mental distress.

So far, the anecdotal results are heartening – but the scientific jury on bibliotherapy is still out.

Still, even an emeritus professor  like Raymond Tallis of Manchester University is open to the possibilities. He concedes in the article that reading could be therapeutic, especially in easing depression:

“…The pleasure of escape into a parallel world; the sense of control one has as a reader; and the ability to distance one’s self from one’s own circumstances by seeing them from without, suffered by someone else and gathered up into a nicely worked-out plot – somewhere around here is the notion of the Aristotelian purgation and Sartre’s idea of ‘the purifying reflection’.”

Purgation and purifying reflection notwithstanding, reading might offer respite from your daily ills. Whether you join a reading group, discuss books with friends or just lose yourself between the covers, why not add a little bibliotherapy to your repertoire of happiness strategies.

Textual healing

Here are a few books that have lifted my spirits. Feel free to share your own in the comments.

• Great Expectations by Charles DIckens
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

With thanks to my friend Kathy for letting me know about this interesting therapy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness,happiness strategies,reading,books,bibliotherapy,reading groups,books groups

If you need a little refresher on technique, Mary Poppins and friends have some notes

We all love to laugh (er, don’t we?). But ever since Norman Cousins extolled the therapeutic benefits of Marx Brothers-induced giggles, laughter has been lauded for its healthful effects as well as its pleasurable sensations.

According to the latest Fitness First magazine, laughter:

• transforms negative stress into wellbeing
• strengthens the immune system
• is anti-ageing
• reduces depression and anxiety
• develops confidence
• improves our sense of humour
• encourages creativity, imagination and problem-solving
• is an aerobic exercise, equivalent to cardiovascular exercise
• increases the body’s natural painkillers
• reduces stress-related hormones

(Fitness First, January/February 2008, page 42. Research sources not provided) .

Happiness life strategy

So it feels good to laugh and there are many great reasons to do it. The trick is to get those laughs happening more often.

Here are some ideas for raising your daily laughter load:

• Swap the tear jerker for some movie tomfoolery.
  Try Ground Hog Day, American Pie, Clueless – or ask like-minded friends for recommendations.
• Watch funny TV shows.
  Modern classics include Friends and Seinfeld.  My personal faves are Arrested Development, The Office (US version), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Get the DVDs and have them on hand for a regular dose of diversion.
• Lower your laughter threshold.
  Some people are determined not to laugh unless the joke is extremely worthy and all the stars are aligned. Be an easy laugher – have your funny bone exposed and ready for tickling.
• Avoid gloomy or overly serious people.
  It’s their choice to refuse to partake in silliness, but they’ll take the fun out of it for you. Instead…
• Spend time with laughers.
  Ever noticed how watching actors laugh on blooper reels makes you laugh too? Laughter is infectious – so hang out with easily amused friends and soon chortling will become second nature for you, too.
• Smile more.
  It looks good, it feels good, it makes others feel good – and it’ll help train those cheek muscles for all that laughter you’ll be doing.

If you think alcohol is a good way to feel good when things go bad, think again. A recent SMH article shed light on liquor’s little secret – it can lead to depression.

‘Compared to people who drink because they’re depressed, there are more people who get depressed because they regularly drink too much’, says Professor Sitharthan Thiagarajan of the Australian Centre for Addiction Research.

Why this is so is not clear. It may be that excessive alcohol affects mood centres in the brain. Or perhaps drinking too much causes distressing work or family problems.

The good news is that drinking less can reverse the problem.

‘We know that when people drink a lot over a long period, their mood goes down – yet when they start to drink less, their mood goes up’, says Thiagarajan.

In fact, a 2,500-person study of the Centre’s Controlled Drinking by Correspondence Program found that learning to drink less improved people’s mood. And we’re not talking intractable alcoholics, here – the participants were generally people with education, employment and relationships for whom alcohol had simply become a 6+ drinks-a-day habit.

Happiness life strategy

If you turn to booze as a daily staple, think about other ways to relax or feel good. I like watching comedies and reading fiction, and I have friends who enjoy a dip in the pool, walking, playing drums, cooking, dancing, chatting to friends on the phone or listening to music.

Opt for a little less hootch in your life and you just might find yourself with a little more happiness.

Technorati Tags: happiness,happines life strategy,alcohol,depression

Image: antoinedemorris under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.

Tuesday’s SMH ran a story on a new book telling us what to do, and what to avoid, to keep our brain cells firing at optimal levels.

Top brain gainers include copious sex, dark chocolate and cold meats for breakfast.

So start your day with a daybreak dalliance, followed by cold, leftover BBQ chicken pizza and a Cherry Ripe chaser, and it’s goodbye Cletus-ville, hello Mensa. Sweet.

Also helpful, but way less fun, is cuddling babies (okay, that is fun), a business degree and reading aloud. No, I don’t think moving your lips as you read Where’s Wally counts. And no, neither does calling out the subtitles during a foreign movie.

If you want to mix it up, try narrating snippets from your business text during sex. You may need to periodically rouse your partner, but at least you’ll have super cognitive powers at the ready for a snide remark should they complain.

Brain drainers include TV soap operas, smoking cannabis and hanging with whiners.

I love TV shows, but to qualify for watching my proviso is they must make me (a) laugh (b) think or (c) feel happy – and soap operas masterfully sidestep all 3. (Ironically, the show Weeds is a triple scorer).

Drugs cause more trouble than they’re worth, so avoiding the lot is a no-brainer – oops anti-brain-drainer.

And as for whiners – I wish there was awards-speech music that welled up as a bout of whining approached 4 minutes. Or a whining download limit that shaped the whinge to an inaudible whisper as it went over 210 seconds. For chronic whiners who persevered beyond all deterrents, I’d like there to be a whiners’ island where they could be exiled to live with other whiners.

Authors Terry Horne and Simon Wootton say the ideas in their book Teach Yourself: Train Your Brain come from research by experts around the world, including findings that certain activities precipitate chemical reactions.

Their advice is excellent: “Mix with people who make you laugh, have a good sense of humour or who share the same interests as you and avoid people who whinge, whine and complain as people who are negative will make you depressed.”

Add a little sex, no drugs and some rocky road – and your brain’s golden.

Technorati Tags: happiness,brain,happiness strategies

Image by by f10n4 under a Creative Commons license.

December can be crazy – shopping crowds, stressful relatives, too much eating, drinking, and spending – too much everything!

When the end of the year is filled with excess it can really put the kibosh on your plans for a great start to a happy new year.

If you want to avoid falling into the same olds patterns as last year – and the year before – then download and print SparkPeople’s calendar of  31 daily tips for better choices through the holiday season (you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader).

These are excellent ideas for keeping this December sane – including how to:

• Splurge wisely
• Simplify gifts
• De-stress
• Just say no
• Give back
• Rest up
• Stop when full
• Stay active

Follow SparkPeople’s tips and you can ease into January with a mind, body and bank account ready to enjoy a fresh start and a happy 2008.

Technorati Tags: Christmas,New Year,life strategies,happiness strategies,money,health

Image by donut_p under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Founders of the registry, Dr Rena Wing and Dr James O. Hill offer ‘11 golden rules’ for long-term success.

Here’s my summary of the rules from the article.

1. Ditch the diet
Once weight is lost, it’s time for maintenance mode. Dieting doesn’t work long-term.

2. Embrace exercise
In Dr Hill’s opinion, ‘exercise is the single most important strategy’.

3. You can do less, if you do it more
Of the 91% of registry members who exercise 60-90 minutes daily, most break it down into 10-15-minute mini-workouts. They fit walks or resistance exercises in when and where they can.

4. Break the fast
Since breakfast helps prevent overindulgence later in the day, it’s a daily staple of 78% of registry members.

5. Be a dietary creature of habit
People who eat consistently through the week maintain their weight over a year better than strict-weekday, relaxed-weekend dieters.

6. Plan a naughty treat
A small dietary indulgence once a week or so can head off major temptation.

7. Less fat, more carbs
Fat is easy to overeat – it tastes good and doesn’t look like a lot of calories. Carbs are fuel. The average registry member’s diet is 25-30% fat, 15-20% protein and 50-60% carbohydrates.

8. Step up
Registry members walk 11,000-12,000 steps daily. That’s 6.4-8.8 km and more than twice the average Australian’s daily perambulation. For 28% of registry members walking is their sole exercise (delightfully witty pun unintended); 50% do other cardio as well as walking.

9. Weigh in regularly
More than 75% of registry members weigh themselves more than once a week. They aren’t slavish about daily fluctuations, but take increased weight over several days as a call to remedial action.

10. If at first you don’t succeed…
Nine out of ten registry members failed to keep weight off on previous tries. This time they had greater commitment – they slipped up, but they got back on track.

11. It gets easier
The longer the weight is off, the better the chance it will stay off.

If ditching those pesky homing kilos once and for all is one of your happiness strategies for 2008, then why not follow the example of these long-term losers.

I will be, starting with Rule #6. And to show my commitment, I’m gonna do it every day!

Image by Thinking Tree under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Here’s a quick summary of the 7 strategies from the article:

Happiness Strategy # 1: Don’t Worry, Choose Happy

First, make a decision to be happy. Then you can select the strategies to help you. The remaining strategies are the sorts of things psychologists suggest.

Happiness Strategy #2: Cultivate Gratitude

It can dispel bitterness and despair.

Happiness Strategy #3: Foster Forgiveness

Grudges can affect physical and mental health, and ruminating is stressful.

Happiness Strategy #4: Counteract Negative Thoughts and Feelings

Valeo suggests meditation, rhythmic breathing, yoga, or relaxation techniques as well as learning to identify and dispute thoughts of inadequacy and helplessness.

Happiness Strategy #5: Remember, Money Can’t Buy Happiness

Readers of this blog know all about this one! See the recent Happiness Strategy How to be happy – 10. Don’t keep up with the Joneses.

Happiness Strategy #6: Foster Friendship

Valeo mentions that an Australian study found people over 70 with rich friendship networks enjoyed greater longevity.

Happiness Strategy #7: Engage in Meaningful Activities

Do more of what means more to get more out of life.

My 2 cents

In his introduction to the strategies Valeo says ‘your talent for happiness is, to a large degree, determined by your genes’. I say puh-huh! In fact, as we saw in a recent Happiness Strategy – How to be happy – 11. Focus on what you can do to be happier – research suggests that only between 25% and 52% of happiness variance is related to genes. And these figures reflect potential – environment (what you experience) and volition (what you choose to think and do) also contribute to whether and how genetic dispositions are expressed.

Apart from that quibble, the list of 7 strategies is an excellent one.

Valeo sums up by noting ‘happiness can be a matter of choice — not just luck’.

I’d add — and not just money, genes, or life circumstances either.

Technorati Tags: Strategies , money , relationships , forgiveness , gratitude , meaning

It reports on the very latest findings from the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, which have been distilled into 10 ways to avoid cancer. It seems these are 10 life changes that could have a real pay-off in terms of reducing the risk of both cancer and heart-disease.

If you find yourself ruminating unproductively on your health concerns then you might like to make a start with just one item from the list.

10 ways to avoid cancer

1. Body Fat
Aim for a body mass index (BMI) of 21 to 23, and avoid weight gain during adulthood.

2. Physical Activity
Aim for 30 to 60 minutes of moderate physical activity, like brisk walking, every day.

3. Junk Food
Avoid sugary drinks and energy-dense fast food.

4. Meat
Eat no more than 500 grams of red meat per week and avoid processed meats.

5. Alcohol
Limit daily intake to one drink for women, two drinks for men. Do not binge drink.

6. Fruit and Vegetables
Eat five portions of non-starchy vegetables each day and limit refined starchy food.

7. Preservatives
Avoid salt-preserved foods. Limit salt intake to 6 grams per day.

8. Dietary Supplements
Avoid them, except in special cases such as folic acid during pregnancy.

9. Breastfeeding
Try to breastfeed for six months.

10. Cancer survivors
Seek professional nutritional advice.

Source: Obesity increases the risk of cancer, by Collin Barras and Linda Geddes. NewScientist.com news service, 31 October 2007.

They’re not all easy – especially breastfeeding if you’re a guy or don’t have a baby.

But focusing on making one change each month could drastically alter your health profile within a year.