by Fern Shaw | May 5, 2015 | water cooler
I’ve been hard at work here at work, so my water cooler station lurking has been at a bare minimum for the last few weeks. Whereas I doubt that my absence has had a detrimental effect on any of my colleagues (I had visions of said colleagues’ grey matter rapidly dwindling without my pearls of wisdom to sustain them), I felt it was high time to get back into ‘cruise the cooler’ mode so as to help them hydrate their brains.
To ensure that I had plenty of brain fodder on hand, I tripped the length and breadth of the Woah Woah (my pet name for the World Wide Web) and read up about debunking various myths. I wouldn’t call these Urban Legends, as Napoleon’s height certainly was most definitely pre the Urban Legend catch phrase – you’ll see what I’m on about further down:
Great Wall of China visible from space
It’s not. Stop saying it is.
Bananas grow on trees
They actually grow on massive herbs that resemble trees. Ja-ha!
Vikings Horned Helms
The horned helm was actually created for a 19th century Wagner opera. (Less of the sniggering about the title, you!)
Different Taste Sections on the Tongue
There are no different sections on the tongue for tasting sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury/meaty).
Black Holes
Black holes aren’t really holes but hugely dense objects with massive gravitational pull.
Three second Goldfish Memory
Apparently not true. While goldfish aren’t the smartest, they boast a memory span of 3 months.
and finally;
Napoleon was short
A tall tale. At 5.7 (1.7 metres) he was actually above average height for a Frenchman of the time.
Now you know. Can you feel your brain plumping up already – full of fascinating facts? Oh, good!
by Fern Shaw | Apr 24, 2015 | Health and Hydration
Last week, we spoke about us having 2 brains – the one in our head and the one in our stomach. This week we continue talking about stomach and digestive system health and how having a happy tummy is vital to your general health and well-being: It’s all about balance...
by Fern Shaw | Apr 2, 2015 | Health and Hydration
There’s long been debate about how best to maintain and prolong your body’s health. Now it turns out, you don’t have just one brain to take care of so it takes care of you, but two. Who knew?!
This is the case, apparently:
Brain 1 is the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) that controls almost all voluntary and involuntary activities within your body. For example, a voluntary action would be slicing your veggies, while an involuntary action would be blinking, breathing or falling in love. The involuntary actions carried out by your central nervous system are constantly at work taking care of you.
Brain 2 is in your stomach. Yup, it has a mind of its very own. Your stomach’s ‘brain’ is known as the enteric nervous system. This system is home to 100 million neurons within your intestinal wall. These little neurons transmit important information throughout your body. They also control digestion and send status updates to the brain, letting it know how things are going in your digestive system.
Your two nervous systems have an intricate relationship that’s just now being explored by scientists through the field of neurogastroenterology (try digesting that easily). While the enteric nervous system initiates and sustains digestion on its own, signals from the brain, such as stress and anxiety, can have dramatic effects on how well it works.
About sixty to seventy percent of your immune system lives in your stomach. When pathogenic bacteria (bacteria that can cause infection) visits your GA tract via food or your environment, specialised immune structures called Peyer’s patches that are filled with immune cells, such as B cells and T cells, trigger your immune response to prevent them from passing through the gastrointestinal wall.
Before you stress out (not good for your stomach health, by the by) worrying that you now have two brains to take care of, don’t.
The important thing here is to remember that both brains are very much connected, so that by eating a balanced diet (more about this in Part II), keeping hydrated and your good bacteria levels up, this should pretty much ensure two happy, healthy and balanced brains.
Oh, and because both of my brains are pretty scattered, the blog title stems from that rather catchy ‘It’s all about that Bass’ song. Do yourself a favour and go and have a listen – I guarantee that it’s happy brain food for both regions.
by Fern Shaw | Jan 8, 2015 | Water
Often we mistakenly assume that keeping hydrated during winter is less important than in summer. This is so not the case.
In winter, in an effort to keep warm, we rely on using heaters, hairdryers and hats (yep, hats) which quite literally suck the moisture and oils right out of our bodies, skin and hair. When we’re outside, low humidity and gusty winds don’t help much either.
But, never fear, there are quite a few things you can incorporate into your daily routine that will snap you back into being bright eyed, clear skinned and bushy tailed – so to speak:
Use a humectant on your hair
Each week, condition with a treatment containing a *humectant like glycerine that attracts and locks in moisture, and in turn restores shine. If the humectant is water based, that’s the sort of thing to look for. *Humectants are ingredients in products that draw moisture in.
Body scrubs and oils
Frigid temperatures and dry indoor heat cause water to evaporate from your skin because there’s more moisture in it than in the air. Bundling up doesn’t help matters – all those layers keep skin from breathing. Fight back with a one-two punch of body scrub and moisturizing lotion or oil. Once a week, exfoliate with a body scrub to help slough off dead cells that make skin look dull. You’ll also find that giving your skin a brisk scrub (we’re not talking the priest in The Da Vinci Code movie standard of skin rubs here) will warm you right up too. When skin is freshly exfoliated, lotion and oil are better absorbed. To maintain hydration, smooth on the lotion daily after a shower.
Warm up your morning commute
Take a cosy tumbler full of tea with you when you leave the house for the day. Not only will it keep you warm and hydrated, but it’ll do a body good – black tea may even prevent your body from absorbing fat from food!
‘Eat’ your water
Fruits and veggies are packed with water, that high water content adds volume and keeps you satisfied without the calories. Soups are also a great way to sneak in some extra water. We offer a variety of in-cup drinks that can assist with this hydration.
Being fussy can help
A lot of us just don’t like drinking water, period. Try adopting a different approach. I, for example, don’t like ice cold water or ice for that matter. So, instead of thinking that cold water will ‘better’ replenish you (which isn’t true); try drinking your water at room temperature. If you’re into branded gear (this isn’t just a children’s domain), then use your favourite cartoon character branded water bottle to drink from if it makes your happy. Figure out what appeals to you. And since your ability to recognise your thirst worsens as you age, today, early in the New Year is a good a time to start as any getting into the keeping hydrated habit.
by Fern Shaw | Nov 21, 2014 | Water
We should all know by now that keeping hydrated is one of the givens whilst travelling – it really is one of the simplest ways to combat fatigue, puffiness (everywhere where it shouldn’t be), jet lag and generally feeling like you’ve partied with a roving band of Muscovites who’ve just been given furlough from their time in the Gulag.
But, as it happens, especially on those long haul trips, drinking sufficient water can often be the last thing on a traveller’s mind, as fatigue that stems from jet lag can take your common sense and twist it to the point that you can find yourself incapable of stringing together a legible sentence never mind remembering the R, K and E’s of healthy travel.
I myself have whigged out on occasion whilst in the air. An incident that I remember in particular was after almost 3 days of air travel with a crushing 6 hour layover in Dubai. I had very little money in the airport of bling and a pot of tea cost about £10. That was pretty much my only sustenance over the already 2 days of travel, so stretching the tea for 6 hours was asking a bit much.
By the time I landed at home I still had a final leg to do. The wonderful ground crew wouldn’t let me check-in early. Exhausted, grubby and with zero sense of humour, when I finally boarded the plane that was half empty, I was squished in next to 2 people and my claustrophobia rose to the surface kick-starting a panic attack of note. I barely managed to keep it together during take-off, then launched myself across my neighbours into the aisle and flung myself into an open row of seats further back, gasping like a guppy out of water, flight attendants peering at me all the while. All of this was done with much drama, drama, drama, but I was past caring.
I suppose that there are certain elements of modern travel that we just have to accept. This is something that I normally do with general aplomb. I Richard Scarry with the best of them; I’ve come up with ways to pretzel twist my rather long body so that I can get a bit of shut-eye (feet HAVE to be off the ground for me to sleep – I’m make a really poor soldier) but sooner or later (usually later) there’s a sense of humour failure that no amount of chugging water can prevent.
So, take it from me – rather drink your water as you should during the course of your travels and possibly avoid turning into that throw the toys out toddler that so many grown ‘uns seem to turn into – again, me being the case in point.
