About Themselves Are Consumed With Themselves!
Humans Need to Feel in Order to Learn
O God, support us all the day long,
Until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then in your mercy grant us a safe lodging,
and a holy rest, and peace at the last,
through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Amen.
James O’Keefe, 58, is a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, MO.
A self-proclaimed “exercise enthusiast,” O’Keefe says there was a time—decades, in fact—when he would routinely spend 2 to 3 hours a day running and working out vigorously. “I rarely took a day off,” he recalls.
But if you see O’Keefe exercising today, you’ll likely spot the MD on a post dinner stroll with his family.
He also enjoys practicing yoga or doing some gentle backstrokes in the swimming pool.
What changed?
O’Keefe investigated the effects of intense physical activity on the human heart and body. The fruits of his and others’ research inspired him to dial down his own routine. “If your goal is exercising for overall health and to improve your longevity, then walking is ideal,” he says.
Running Is Hard On Your Heart!!!
In one of his studies, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, O’Keefe and his colleagues found that people who run most days of the week at a pace faster than 7 miles per hour have the same risk of death as sedentary individuals. Another study, presented at the EuroPRevent2012 meeting in Dublin, Ireland, found that those who run more than 25 miles per week have no mortality benefit,
compared with nonrunners.
Both studies suggest that moving at a gentler pace—such as a brisk walk or a slow jog—for 1 to 2.5 hours every week lowers your risk of death by 25%. “We’re not meant for sustained levels of exercise for long periods of time,” O’Keefe explains. “After 60 minutes of intense physical activity, like running, the chambers of your heart begin to stretch and overwhelm the muscle’s ability to adapt.” He also says levels of harmful free radicals rise, adrenaline increases, and inflammation occurs inside your coronary arteries.
Intense training over the course of many years can also lead to permanent changes in your heart—changes that can set the stage for serious cardiovascular problems, he says. “The increase in blood flow to your heart leads to microtears,” he explains. “It’s not a big deal if you do it once or twice. They’ll heal in a few days. But when you do this over and over again for many years, it causes stiffness and scarring in the heart that can accelerate aging and contribute to congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation.”
Run Harder, Get Sicker?
Your heart isn’t the only part of you that might suffer from vigorous exercise.
Excessive endurance training may also dampen your immune system and increase your risk for illness.
Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign found that prolonged intense activity increases levels of certain inflammatory proteins that can allow viruses—such as the common cold—to thrive.
That means you might get sick more frequently, and feel worse during bouts of illness,
if you’re taxing your body with vigorous exercise on a regular basis.
What About Weight Loss?
Despite common assumptions that exercise “torches” body fat, vigorous workouts aren’t often linked
with dramatic weight loss. A close look at the medical literature reveals that diet changes, not exercise,
are the big drivers of dropped pounds.
One example: A recent study in the journal Obesity found that after a full year of aerobic exercise—
5 days a week for 45 minutes—overweight or obese women lost just over 2% of their body weight.
That leaped to 11% among women who combined exercise with diet changes.
Another study, this one in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that an intense workout boosts women’s appetites so much that they tend to eat enough calories to entirely replace the ones they burned.
Exercise is undeniably healthy for you—and in countless ways. But if you think you need to run hard in order
to lose weight, there’s not much data to back that up…
MORE: 4 Foods That Burn Belly Fat
Walking For Wellness
So should you scrap your plans for your upcoming event or marathon? Not necessarily.
“I don’t think that short-term training for marathons or another singular event is deleterious to our health,” says Todd Astorino, PhD, professor of kinesiology at California State University, San Marcos. “What becomes problematic is chronic training over a long period of time with inadequate recovery.” This, he says, makes you more susceptible to overtraining, injury, and illness. (Try one of these new walking workouts that blast fat.)
But if you struggle to find motivation to run, and you’ve always assumed walking isn’t hard-core enough to improve your health, set those fears aside; walking appears to bestow all the same health benefits
as running—without the risks.
MORE: The 8 Most Effective Exercises For Weight Loss
In a new study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, regular walkers turned out
to be healthier than their running counterparts. Risk for hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease all dropped more significantly among walkers, compared with runners.
Both O’Keefe and Astorino advise embracing the CDC’s physical activity guidelines, which recommend 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise—such as brisk walking—most days of the week, combined with a couple of days of strength training. O’Keefe adds: “As important as exercise is, it’s important to get the right dose.
“Sometimes less is more and more isn’t necessarily better.”
You Can’t Control Who Enters Your Life, But You Can Control Who Stays?
The insula is a region of the brain as mysterious as it is crucial to understanding
human behavior. Some say it’s where our “conscience” is located. Currently, neurologists can only
say that this structure functions more like the source of our emotions.
It’s where our empathy and intuition live.
Neuroscience is a fascinating discipline that never ceases to amaze.
A few years ago, it was discovered that some people are able to quit smoking overnight with no withdrawal problems. Why? When they had an MRI, researchers found a small lesion in the insula.
They also found that alexithymia is related to a problem in this very same region. Alexithymia is when a person has significant difficulty empathizing with the emotions of others. In essence, they have trouble recognizing their emotions and expressing a feeling verbally.
And it turns out it’s intimately linked to this particular little spot.
Indeed, the insula is like a magical fountain infusing every structure of the brain with sensations and emotions. These, in turn, allow us to react, whether positively or negatively. Because the insula is what gives us feelings like disgust, pride, and lust. It’s also the structure that helps us understand people and even respond emotionally to music…
The insula, a multifunctional structure | the Source of Our Emotions and Empathy!
To reach it, you’d have to dive into the deep fissure separating the frontal and parietal lobes from the
temporal lobe. The insula is a small region of the cerebral cortex located inside the lateral groove.
Interestingly, if this were the 80’s,
the only thing we could say is that it’s a dark area of the brain.
A structure with unknown functions, the subject of hundreds of hypotheses over the years.
However, the 90’s shed some light on it. Thanks to advances in analytical and diagnostic techniques,
this theoretical spot is dark no more. Amazing discoveries were made.
Multiple studies were done on patients with brain damage in the insula.
They showed that the insula actually plays a very large role in many of our daily activities.
Thus, if we were to ask scientists now what processes this area carries out, they could give a full, interesting response. It’s involved in so much: pain, love, emotions, cravings, addictions, musical enjoyment, decision-making, wine tasting, and the conscience. Incredible, isn’t it?
The insula, is the Cornerstone of our consciousness!!!
Neuropsychologists tell us that we must be very careful when attributing a function as huge and important as consciousness to any region of the brain. However, given the involvement of the insula in a large part of our social and emotional behavior, it’s not hard to come to this hypothesis.
First, because it’s an attractive term. Second, because of how complicated defining with total accuracy which tasks, functions, and processes this area carries out.
As a side note, something else that’s been proven is that people who suffer severe damage to the insula are completely disconnected from their environment and even themselves. They’re characterized by deep apathy and a lack of empathy. They’re unable to enjoy any aspect of life, even unable to experience disgust. That is, they couldn’t differentiate fresh food from rotten.
The insula just well may be our soul and plays into our self-image!!!
Scientists tell us that the insula is where our being comes together. In other words, where you become aware of your body and mind. However, to understand it better, let’s clear one thing up.
No brain structure works independently.
When we make the mistake — common as it may be — of saying that a certain person uses the right hemisphere because they’re very creative, we’re forgetting that the brain is “a whole.”
Every part of the brain is connected to all the others.
The organ works in perfect harmony.
The same thing happens with the insula. It’s physiologically connected to the body, plays a role in your sense of smell, and generates subjective feelings. The insula is involved in the feeling of hunger and even receives information from skin receptors and other organs. This structure helps us react when we’re cold or hot, or when something stings or itches. It’s the instinct that tells us things like “get out of here.
You need air to clear your mind…”
That said, animals also have this amazing structure in their brains. Therefore, they also have that sense of physical and emotional awareness. So when a cat, a dog, a Tasmanian devil, or a lemur is hot, it will look for shade. When it finds food, it’ll choose the fresh over the rotten.When an animal comes across another animal, its intuition will tell it whether the other animal has good or bad intentions. It’ll know instinctively whether it’s going to become prey. Or if, on the contrary, it is someone they can socially relate to.
Also, neurobiologists say that human beings, large primates, whales, and elephants have much more
complex and sophisticated insulae.
The insula, in turn, can be broken down into different areas.
For example, the frontal insula is related to our emotions.
Love and hate, gratitude and resentment, shame and distrust, empathy and contempt.
There’s a certain point between the frontal area and the anterior cingulate cortex.
This is where processes associated with addictions are located.
When a person tries to quit smoking, certain stimuli increase the desire and withdrawal symptoms.
Certain scents, social situations, and scenarios intensify the anxiety that secretly governs the insula.
All of this because the insula is intimately connected to the limbic system.
There are many studies that show how this small structure plays into addictive behavior.
It has to do with what is known as the “craving“ phenomenon, or an intense desire to consume.
In conclusion, the insula can help us humans be the best we can be; it gives us empathy and positive feelings. But it can also bring out our negative, addictive side. Perhaps soon new discoveries
will be made about this complex little area of the brain that makes us human.
Here’s a final thought.
Whenever you enjoy music or a glass of wine,
remember what allows you to enjoy such pleasures.
Thank your insula 🙂 Leslie Krusinski Thanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDUUWcto1ng