 A dead easy, research-backed trick for gaining perspective and shutting down arguments. We've all been there. It starts with a forgotten chore or a snippy tone and then it escalates. Maybe you're stressed for other reasons. Maybe there are simmering resentments. Maybe it's the 67th time you've discussed the issue, but for whatever reason a tiny problem ends up flaming out of control and you find yourself in the middle of a heated argument with your significant other. Getting back to a healthier perspective is important. After all, science shows that happy relationships not only contribute hugely to career success, but are also the best predictor of life satisfaction and happiness. So how do you manage to tamp things down and see the conflict with cooler eyes again? Before you invest time and money in therapy, you might want to try out a simple trick recommended by a recent study first. The research revealed a straightforward question that can instantly derail most fights.
"How will I feel in one year about this current conflict? "We all know that when we get angry, minor problems suddenly seem hugely important. We also all know how hard it can be in the moment to rein in that emotion and be more rational. But according to research out of Yale and Canada's University of Waterloo, asking yourself this question can help: "How will I feel in one year about this current conflict?" When the researchers had people reflect on a recent fight in light of how they would feel about the argument a year in the future, they found participants both felt more positive about their relationships in general and expressed more reasonable and forgiving opinions about the conflict. "Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict--reflecting on how one might feel a year from now--may be a valuable coping tool for one's psychological happiness and relationship well-being," commented study co-author Alex Huynh. Now all you have to do is muster the presence of mind to remember to ask yourself this question in the midst of a heated argument. Your future self is smarter than your current self. Doing so is probably worth it though, and not just because one study suggests it helps stop arguments with your partner from flaming out of control. A whole body of research shows that your imagined future self is generally a whole lot wiser than your biased, emotional current self. For example, one Wharton study asked study subjects to imagine themselves in 20 years and then write their current self a letter from that perspective. After reading these letters participants were far less likely to engage in ethically dicey behavior, such as buying a computer they knew might be stolen. "If you have important goals, habits, and ideals you want to live by, the science is in," noted one write-up of this research. "You can help yourself stick to them by writing yourself a letter. And, just like the research has shown, thinking about the distant future works better than thinking about the near term." So next time you feel yourself drifting away from your ideals or your vision for your best self in your relationship or in general, try to remember this trick and ask what future you would make of your current behavior. You'll likely see things in a new and more measured light.
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This article was originally published by The Atlantic. Story by Ferris Jabr  It's much less scientific—and more prone to gratuitous procedures—than you may think. It’s much less scientific—and more prone to gratuitous procedures—than you may think.In the early 2000s Terry Mitchell’s dentist retired. For a while, Mitchell, an electrician in his 50s, stopped seeking dental care altogether. But when one of his wisdom teeth began to ache, he started looking for someone new. An acquaintance recommended John Roger Lund, whose practice was a convenient 10-minute walk from Mitchell’s home, in San Jose, California. Lund’s practice was situated in a one-story building with clay roof tiles that housed several dental offices. The interior was a little dated, but not dingy. The waiting room was small and the decor minimal: some plants and photos, no fish. Lund was a good-looking middle-aged guy with arched eyebrows, round glasses, and graying hair that framed a youthful face. He was charming, chatty, and upbeat. At the time, Mitchell and Lund both owned Chevrolet Chevelles, and they bonded over their mutual love of classic cars. Lund extracted the wisdom tooth with no complications, and Mitchell began seeing him regularly. He never had any pain or new complaints, but Lund encouraged many additional treatments nonetheless. A typical person might get one or two root canals in a lifetime. In the space of seven years, Lund gave Mitchell nine root canals and just as many crowns. Mitchell’s insurance covered only a small portion of each procedure, so he paid a total of about $50,000 out of pocket. The number and cost of the treatments did not trouble him. He had no idea that it was unusual to undergo so many root canals—he thought they were just as common as fillings. The payments were spread out over a relatively long period of time. And he trusted Lund completely. He figured that if he needed the treatments, then he might as well get them before things grew worse. Meanwhile, another of Lund’s patients was going through a similar experience. Joyce Cordi, a businesswoman in her 50s, had learned of Lund through 1-800-DENTIST. She remembers the service giving him an excellent rating. When she visited Lund for the first time, in 1999, she had never had so much as a cavity. To the best of her knowledge her teeth were perfectly healthy, although she’d had a small dental bridge installed to fix a rare congenital anomaly (she was born with one tooth trapped inside another and had had them extracted). Within a year, Lund was questioning the resilience of her bridge and telling her she needed root canals and crowns. Cordi was somewhat perplexed. Why the sudden need for so many procedures after decades of good dental health? When she expressed uncertainty, she says, Lund always had an answer ready. The cavity on this tooth was in the wrong position to treat with a typical filling, he told her on one occasion. Her gums were receding, which had resulted in tooth decay, he explained during another visit. Clearly she had been grinding her teeth. And, after all, she was getting older. As a doctor’s daughter, Cordi had been raised with an especially respectful view of medical professionals. Lund was insistent, so she agreed to the procedures. Over the course of a decade, Lund gave Cordi 10 root canals and 10 crowns. He also chiseled out her bridge, replacing it with two new ones that left a conspicuous gap in her front teeth. Altogether, the work cost her about $70,000. A masked figure looms over your recumbent body, wielding power tools and sharp metal instruments, doing things to your mouth you cannot see. In early 2012, Lund retired. Brendon Zeidler, a young dentist looking to expand his business, bought Lund’s practice and assumed responsibility for his patients. Within a few months, Zeidler began to suspect that something was amiss. Financial records indicated that Lund had been spectacularly successful, but Zeidler was making only 10 to 25 percent of Lund’s reported earnings each month. As Zeidler met more of Lund’s former patients, he noticed a disquieting trend: Many of them had undergone extensive dental work—a much larger proportion than he would have expected. When Zeidler told them, after routine exams or cleanings, that they didn’t need any additional procedures at that time, they tended to react with surprise and concern: Was he sure? Nothing at all? Had he checked thoroughly? In the summer, Zeidler decided to take a closer look at Lund’s career. He gathered years’ worth of dental records and bills for Lund’s patients and began to scrutinize them, one by one. The process took him months to complete. What he uncovered was appalling. We have a fraught relationship with dentists as authority figures. In casual conversation we often dismiss them as “not real doctors,” regarding them more as mechanics for the mouth. But that disdain is tempered by fear. For more than a century, dentistry has been half-jokingly compared to torture. Surveys suggest that up to 61 percent of people are apprehensive about seeing the dentist, perhaps 15 percent are so anxious that they avoid the dentist almost entirely, and a smaller percentage have a genuine phobia requiring psychiatric intervention. When you’re in the dentist’s chair, the power imbalance between practitioner and patient becomes palpable. A masked figure looms over your recumbent body, wielding power tools and sharp metal instruments, doing things to your mouth you cannot see, asking you questions you cannot properly answer, and judging you all the while. The experience simultaneously invokes physical danger, emotional vulnerability, and mental limpness. A cavity or receding gum line can suddenly feel like a personal failure. When a dentist declares that there is a problem, that something must be done before it’s too late, who has the courage or expertise to disagree? When he points at spectral smudges on an X-ray, how are we to know what’s true? In other medical contexts, such as a visit to a general practitioner or a cardiologist, we are fairly accustomed to seeking a second opinion before agreeing to surgery or an expensive regimen of pills with harsh side effects. But in the dentist’s office—perhaps because we both dread dental procedures and belittle their medical significance—the impulse is to comply without much consideration, to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. The uneasy relationship between dentist and patient is further complicated by an unfortunate reality: Common dental procedures are not always as safe, effective, or durable as we are meant to believe. As a profession, dentistry has not yet applied the same level of self-scrutiny as medicine, or embraced as sweeping an emphasis on scientific evidence. “We are isolated from the larger health-care system. So when evidence-based policies are being made, dentistry is often left out of the equation,” says Jane Gillette, a dentist in Bozeman, Montana, who works closely with the American Dental Association’s Center for Evidence-Based Dentistry, which was established in 2007. “We’re kind of behind the times, but increasingly we are trying to move the needle forward.” Consider the maxim that everyone should visit the dentist twice a year for cleanings. We hear it so often, and from such a young age, that we’ve internalized it as truth. But this supposed commandment of oral health has no scientific grounding. Scholars have traced its origins to a few potential sources, including a toothpaste advertisement from the 1930s and an illustrated pamphlet from 1849 that follows the travails of a man with a severe toothache. Today, an increasing number of dentists acknowledge that adults with good oral hygiene need to see a dentist only once every 12 to 16 months. Many standard dental treatments—to say nothing of all the recent innovations and cosmetic extravagances—are likewise not well substantiated by research. Many have never been tested in meticulous clinical trials. And the data that are available are not always reassuring. The Cochrane organization, a highly respected arbiter of evidence-based medicine, has conducted systematic reviews of oral-health studies since 1999. In these reviews, researchers analyze the scientific literature on a particular dental intervention, focusing on the most rigorous and well-designed studies. In some cases, the findings clearly justify a given procedure. For example, dental sealants—liquid plastics painted onto the pits and grooves of teeth like nail polish—reduce tooth decay in children and have no known risks. (Despite this, they are not widely used, possibly because they are too simple and inexpensive to earn dentists much money.) But most of the Cochrane reviews reach one of two disheartening conclusions: Either the available evidence fails to confirm the purported benefits of a given dental intervention, or there is simply not enough research to say anything substantive one way or another. Fluoridation of drinking water seems to help reduce tooth decay in children, but there is insufficient evidence that it does the same for adults. Some data suggest that regular flossing, in addition to brushing, mitigates gum disease, but there is only “weak, very unreliable” evidence that it combats plaque. As for common but invasive dental procedures, an increasing number of dentists question the tradition of prophylactic wisdom-teeth removal; often, the safer choice is to monitor unproblematic teeth for any worrying developments. Little medical evidence justifies the substitution of tooth-colored resins for typical metal amalgams to fill cavities. And what limited data we have don’t clearly indicate whether it’s better to repair a root-canaled tooth with a crown or a filling. When Cochrane researchers tried to determine whether faulty metal fillings should be repaired or replaced, they could not find a single study that met their standards. “The body of evidence for dentistry is disappointing,” says Derek Richards, the director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Dentistry at the University of Dundee, in Scotland. “Dentists tend to want to treat or intervene. They are more akin to surgeons than they are to physicians. We suffer a little from that. Everybody keeps fiddling with stuff, trying out the newest thing, but they don’t test them properly in a good-quality trial.” The general dearth of rigorous research on dental interventions gives dentists even more leverage over their patients. Should a patient somehow muster the gumption to question an initial diagnosis and consult the scientific literature, she would probably not find much to help her. When we submit to a dentist’s examination, we are putting a great deal of trust in that dentist’s experience and intuition—and, of course, integrity. When zeidler purchased lund’s practice, in February 2012, he inherited a massive collection of patients’ dental histories and bills, a mix of electronic documents, handwritten charts, and X‑rays. By August, Zeidler had decided that if anything could explain the alarmingly abundant dental work in the mouths of Lund’s patients, he would find it in those records. He spent every weekend for the next nine months examining the charts of hundreds of patients treated in the preceding five years. In a giant Excel spreadsheet, he logged every single procedure Lund had performed, so he could carry out some basic statistical analyses. The numbers spoke for themselves. Year after year, Lund had performed certain procedures at extraordinarily high rates. Whereas a typical dentist might perform root canals on previously crowned teeth in only 3 to 7 percent of cases, Lund was performing them in 90 percent of cases. As Zeidler later alleged in court documents, Lund had performed invasive, costly, and seemingly unnecessary procedures on dozens and dozens of patients, some of whom he had been seeing for decades. Terry Mitchell and Joyce Cordi were far from alone. In fact, they had not even endured the worst of it. Whereas medicine has reckoned with some of its own tendencies toward excessive and misguided treatment, dentistry has lagged behind. Dental crowns were one of Lund’s most frequent treatments. A crown is a metal or ceramic cap that completely encases an injured or decayed tooth, which is first shaved to a peg so its new shell will fit. Crowns typically last 10 to 15 years. Lund not only gave his patients superfluous crowns; he also tended to replace them every five years—the minimum interval of time before insurance companies will cover the procedure again. More than 50 of Lund’s patients also had ludicrously high numbers of root canals: 15, 20, 24. (A typical adult mouth has 32 teeth.) According to one lawsuit that has since been settled, a woman in her late 50s came to Lund with only 10 natural teeth; from 2003 to 2010, he gave her nine root canals and 12 crowns. The American Association of Endodontists claims that a root canal is a “quick, comfortable procedure” that is “very similar to a routine filling.” In truth, a root canal is a much more radical operation than a filling. It takes longer, can cause significant discomfort, and may require multiple trips to a dentist or specialist. It’s also much more costly. Read: Americans are going to Juarez for cheap dental care Root canals are typically used to treat infections of the pulp—the soft living core of a tooth. A dentist drills a hole through a tooth in order to access the root canals: long, narrow channels containing nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue. The dentist then repeatedly twists skinny metal files in and out of the canals to scrape away all the living tissue, irrigates the canals with disinfectant, and packs them with a rubberlike material. The whole process usually takes one to two hours. Afterward, sometimes at a second visit, the dentist will strengthen the tooth with a filling or crown. In the rare case that infection returns, the patient must go through the whole ordeal again or consider more advanced surgery. Zeidler noticed that nearly every time Lund gave someone a root canal, he also charged for an incision and drainage, known as an I&D. During an I&D, a dentist lances an abscess in the mouth and drains the exudate, all while the patient is awake. In some cases the dentist slips a small rubber tube into the wound, which continues to drain fluids and remains in place for a few days. I&Ds are not routine adjuncts to root canals. They should be used only to treat severe infections, which occur in a minority of cases. Yet they were extremely common in Lund’s practice. In 2009, for example, Lund billed his patients for 109 I&Ds. Zeidler asked many of those patients about the treatments, but none of them recalled what would almost certainly have been a memorable experience. In addition to performing scores of seemingly unnecessary procedures that could result in chronic pain, medical complications, and further operations, Lund had apparently billed patients for treatments he had never administered. Zeidler was alarmed and distressed. “We go into this profession to care for patients,” he told me. “That is why we become doctors. To find, I felt, someone was doing the exact opposite of that—it was very hard, very hard to accept that someone was willing to do that.” Zeidler knew what he had to do next. As a dental professional, he had certain ethical obligations. He needed to confront Lund directly and give him the chance to account for all the anomalies. Even more daunting, in the absence of a credible explanation, he would have to divulge his discoveries to the patients Lund had bequeathed to him. He would have to tell them that the man to whom they had entrusted their care—some of them for two decades—had apparently deceived them for his own profit. The idea of the dentist as potential charlatan has a long and rich history. In medieval Europe, barbers didn’t just trim hair and shave beards; they were also surgeons, performing a range of minor operations including bloodletting, the administration of enemas, and tooth extraction. Barber surgeons, and the more specialized “tooth drawers,” would wrench, smash, and knock teeth out of people’s mouths with an intimidating metal instrument called a dental key: Imagine a chimera of a hook, a hammer, and forceps. Sometimes the results were disastrous. In the 1700s, Thomas Berdmore, King George III’s “Operator for the Teeth,” described one woman who lost “a piece of jawbone as big as a walnut and three neighbouring molars” at the hands of a local barber. Barber surgeons came to America as early as 1636. By the 18th century, dentistry was firmly established in the colonies as a trade akin to blacksmithing (Paul Revere was an early American craftsman of artisanal dentures). Itinerant dentists moved from town to town by carriage with carts of dreaded tools in tow, temporarily setting up shop in a tavern or town square. They yanked teeth or bored into them with hand drills, filling cavities with mercury, tin, gold, or molten lead. For anesthetic, they used arsenic, nutgalls, mustard seed, leeches. Mixed in with the honest tradesmen—who genuinely believed in the therapeutic power of bloodsucking worms—were swindlers who urged their customers to have numerous teeth removed in a single sitting or charged them extra to stuff their pitted molars with homemade gunk of dubious benefit. In the mid-19th century, a pair of American dentists began to elevate their trade to the level of a profession. From 1839 to 1840, Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris established dentistry’s first college, scientific journal, and national association. Some historical accounts claim that Hayden and Harris approached the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine about adding dental instruction to the curriculum, only to be rebuffed by the resident physicians, who declared that dentistry was of little consequence. But no definitive proof of this encounter has ever surfaced. Whatever happened, from that point on, “the professions of dentistry and medicine would develop along separate paths,” writes Mary Otto, a health journalist, in her recent book, Teeth. Becoming a practicing physician requires four years of medical school followed by a three-to-seven-year residency program, depending on the specialty. Dentists earn a degree in four years and, in most states, can immediately take the national board exams, get a license, and begin treating patients. (Some choose to continue training in a specialty, such as orthodontics or oral and maxillofacial surgery.) When physicians complete their residency, they typically work for a hospital, university, or large health-care organization with substantial oversight, strict ethical codes, and standardized treatment regimens. By contrast, about 80 percent of the nation’s 200,000 active dentists have individual practices, and although they are bound by a code of ethics, they typically don’t have the same level of oversight. Read: Why dentistry is separate from medicine Throughout history, many physicians have lamented the segregation of dentistry and medicine. Acting as though oral health is somehow divorced from one’s overall well-being is absurd; the two are inextricably linked. Oral bacteria and the toxins they produce can migrate through the bloodstream and airways, potentially damaging the heart and lungs. Poor oral health is associated with narrowing arteries, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and respiratory disease, possibly due to a complex interplay of oral microbes and the immune system. And some research suggests that gum disease can be an early sign of diabetes, indicating a relationship between sugar, oral bacteria, and chronic inflammation. Dentistry’s academic and professional isolation has been especially detrimental to its own scientific inquiry. Most major medical associations around the world have long endorsed evidence-based medicine. The idea is to shift focus away from intuition, anecdote, and received wisdom, and toward the conclusions of rigorous clinical research. Although the phrase evidence-based medicine was coined in 1991, the concept began taking shape in the 1960s, if not earlier (some scholars trace its origins all the way back to the 17th century). In contrast, the dental community did not begin having similar conversations until the mid-1990s. There are dozens of journals and organizations devoted to evidence-based medicine, but only a handful devoted to evidence-based dentistry. In the past decade, a small cohort of dentists has worked diligently to promote evidence-based dentistry, hosting workshops, publishing clinical-practice guidelines based on systematic reviews of research, and creating websites that curate useful resources. But its adoption “has been a relatively slow process,” as a 2016 commentary in the Contemporary Clinical Dentistry journal put it. Part of the problem is funding: Because dentistry is often sidelined from medicine at large, it simply does not receive as much money from the government and industry to tackle these issues. “At a recent conference, very few practitioners were even aware of the existence of evidence-based clinical guidelines,” says Elliot Abt, a professor of oral medicine at the University of Illinois. “You can publish a guideline in a journal, but passive dissemination of information is clearly not adequate for real change.” Among other problems, dentistry’s struggle to embrace scientific inquiry has left dentists with considerable latitude to advise unnecessary procedures—whether intentionally or not. The standard euphemism for this proclivity is overtreatment. Favored procedures, many of which are elaborate and steeply priced, include root canals, the application of crowns and veneers, teeth whitening and filing, deep cleaning, gum grafts, fillings for “microcavities”—incipient lesions that do not require immediate treatment—and superfluous restorations and replacements, such as swapping old metal fillings for modern resin ones. Whereas medicine has made progress in reckoning with at least some of its own tendencies toward excessive and misguided treatment, dentistry is lagging behind. It remains “largely focused upon surgical procedures to treat the symptoms of disease,” Mary Otto writes. “America’s dental care system continues to reward those surgical procedures far more than it does prevention.” “Excessive diagnosis and treatment are endemic,” says Jeffrey H. Camm, a dentist of more than 35 years who wryly described his peers’ penchant for “creative diagnosis” in a 2013 commentary published by the American Dental Association. “I don’t want to be damning. I think the majority of dentists are pretty good.” But many have “this attitude of ‘Oh, here’s a spot, I’ve got to do something.’ I’ve been contacted by all kinds of practitioners who are upset because patients come in and they already have three crowns, or 12 fillings, or another dentist told them that their 2-year-old child has several cavities and needs to be sedated for the procedure.” Trish Walraven, who worked as a dental hygienist for 25 years and now manages a dental-software company with her husband in Texas, recalls many troubling cases: “We would see patients seeking a second opinion, and they had treatment plans telling them they need eight fillings in virgin teeth. We would look at X-rays and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ It was blatantly overtreatment—drilling into teeth that did not need it whatsoever.” Joyce Cordi’s new dentist says her X-rays resemble those of someone who had reconstructive facial surgery following a car crash. Studies that explicitly focus on overtreatment in dentistry are rare, but a recent field experiment provides some clues about its pervasiveness. A team of researchers at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, asked a volunteer patient with three tiny, shallow cavities to visit 180 randomly selected dentists in Zurich. The Swiss Dental Guidelines state that such minor cavities do not require fillings; rather, the dentist should monitor the decay and encourage the patient to brush regularly, which can reverse the damage. Despite this, 50 of the 180 dentists suggested unnecessary treatment. Their recommendations were incongruous: Collectively, the overzealous dentists singled out 13 different teeth for drilling; each advised one to six fillings. Similarly, in an investigation for Reader’s Digest, the writer William Ecenbarger visited 50 dentists in 28 states in the U.S. and received prescriptions ranging from a single crown to a full-mouth reconstruction, with the price tag starting at about $500 and going up to nearly $30,000. A multitude of factors has conspired to create both the opportunity and the motive for widespread overtreatment in dentistry. In addition to dentistry’s seclusion from the greater medical community, its traditional emphasis on procedure rather than prevention, and its lack of rigorous self-evaluation, there are economic explanations. The financial burden of entering the profession is high and rising. In the U.S., the average debt of a dental-school graduate is more than $200,000. And then there’s the expense of finding an office, buying new equipment, and hiring staff to set up a private practice. A dentist’s income is entirely dependent on the number and type of procedures he or she performs; a routine cleaning and examination earns only a baseline fee of about $200. In parallel with the rising cost of dental school, the amount of tooth decay in many countries’ populations has declined dramatically over the past four decades, mostly thanks to the introduction of mass-produced fluoridated toothpaste in the 1950s and ’60s. In the 1980s, with fewer genuine problems to treat, some practitioners turned to the newly flourishing industry of cosmetic dentistry, promoting elective procedures such as bleaching, teeth filing and straightening, gum lifts, and veneers. It’s easy to see how dentists, hoping to buoy their income, would be tempted to recommend frequent exams and proactive treatments—a small filling here, a new crown there—even when waiting and watching would be better. It’s equally easy to imagine how that behavior might escalate. “If I were to sum it up, I really think the majority of dentists are great. But for some reason we seem to drift toward this attitude of ‘I’ve got tools so I’ve got to fix something’ much too often,” says Jeffrey Camm. “Maybe it’s greed, or paying off debt, or maybe it’s someone’s training. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that even something that seems minor, like a filling, involves removal of a human body part. It just adds to the whole idea that you go to a physician feeling bad and you walk out feeling better, but you go to a dentist feeling good and you walk out feeling bad.”  In the summer of 2013, Zeidler asked several other dentists to review Lund’s records. They all agreed with his conclusions. The likelihood that Lund’s patients genuinely needed that many treatments was extremely low. And there was no medical evidence to justify many of Lund’s decisions or to explain the phantom procedures. Zeidler confronted Lund about his discoveries in several face-to-face meetings. When I asked Zeidler how those meetings went, he offered a single sentence—“I decided shortly thereafter to take legal action”—and declined to comment further. (Repeated attempts were made to contact Lund and his lawyer for this story, but neither responded.)
One by one, Zeidler began to write, call, or sit down with patients who had previously been in Lund’s care, explaining what he had uncovered. They were shocked and angry. Lund had been charismatic and professional. They had assumed that his diagnoses and treatments were meant to keep them healthy. Isn’t that what doctors do? “It makes you feel like you have been violated,” Terry Mitchell says—“somebody performing stuff on your body that doesn’t need to be done.” Joyce Cordi recalls a “moment of absolute fury” when she first learned of Lund’s deceit. On top of all the needless operations, “there were all kinds of drains and things that I paid for and the insurance company paid for that never happened,” she says. “But you can’t read the dentalese.” “A lot of them felt, How can I be so stupid? Or Why didn’t I go elsewhere?” Zeidler says. “But this is not about intellect. It’s about betrayal of trust.” In October 2013, Zeidler sued Lund for misrepresenting his practice and breaching their contract. In the lawsuit, Zeidler and his lawyers argued that Lund’s reported practice income of $729,000 to $988,000 a year was “a result of fraudulent billing activity, billing for treatment that was unnecessary and billing for treatment which was never performed.” The suit was settled for a confidential amount. From 2014 to 2017, 10 of Lund’s former patients, including Mitchell and Cordi, sued him for a mix of fraud, deceit, battery, financial elder abuse, and dental malpractice. They collectively reached a nearly $3 million settlement, paid out by Lund’s insurance company. (Lund did not admit to any wrongdoing.) Lund was arrested in May 2016 and released on $250,000 bail. The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office is prosecuting a criminal case against him based on 26 counts of insurance fraud. At the time of his arraignment, he said he was innocent of all charges. The Dental Board of California is seeking to revoke or suspend Lund’s license, which is currently inactive. Many of Lund’s former patients worry about their future health. A root canal is not a permanent fix. It requires maintenance and, in the long run, may need to be replaced with a dental implant. One of Mitchell’s root canals has already failed: The tooth fractured, and an infection developed. He said that in order to treat the infection, the tooth was extracted and he underwent a multistage procedure involving a bone graft and months of healing before an implant and a crown were fixed in place. “I don’t know how much these root canals are going to cost me down the line,” Mitchell says. “Six thousand dollars a pop for an implant—it adds up pretty quick.” Joyce Cordi’s new dentist says her X‑rays resemble those of someone who had reconstructive facial surgery following a car crash. Because Lund installed her new dental bridges improperly, one of her teeth is continually damaged by everyday chewing. “It hurts like hell,” she says. She has to wear a mouth guard every night. What some of Lund’s former patients regret most are the psychological repercussions of his alleged duplicity: the erosion of the covenant between practitioner and patient, the germ of doubt that infects the mind. “You lose your trust,” Mitchell says. “You become cynical. I have become more that way, and I don’t like it.” “He damaged the trust I need to have in the people who take care of me,” Cordi says. “He damaged my trust in mankind. That’s an unforgivable crime.” This article appears in the May 2019 print edition with the headline “The Trouble With Dentistry.” FERRIS JABR is a writer based in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Scientific American.  By Laura Garnett. Performance strategist and author,
Ready for Spring? The weather will start warming up soon, birds will be chirping, and my bare arms will finally be making an appearance for the first time since October. The change in seasons always seems to bring about a change in moods, as well. And it's no wonder. Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health found evidence of seasonal differences in dopamine -- the chemical messenger involved in motivation, pleasure, and learning. The average dopamine signal for those scanned in the fall and winter was 4.3 percent greater than for those scanned in the spring. Which means that there was less dopamine present in the colder months. One theory is that dopamine increases with more exposure to sunlight. With the newfound energy and motivation that spring brings, it's a perfect time to dive into some of the great inspirational books that can keep you on track with your success goals. Below are 10 books that are perfect to read this season. 1. Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach Based on her inspiring, viral 2018 commencement speech to Barnard College's graduates in New York City, New York Times best-selling author, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and FIFA World Cup champion Abby Wambach shows women how to unleash their power, unite with their pack, and come out victorious together. 2. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you, and that's what Carl Newport shows readers how to do in this book. 3. Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose by Jean Case Jean Case shares the five Be Fearless principles common to the people and organizations that change the world so you can spark the same kinds of breakthroughs in your life. 4. The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Is You: Command an Audience and Sell Your Way to Success by Lydia FenetIn this book, Lydia Fenet shares her 20-year journey from intern to managing director and global head of strategic partnerships at Christie's Auction House and the revolutionary sales approach she crafted. This book will show you how to take your career to the next level, whether it's overcoming your fear of asking for something or bridging a wage gap. 5. The Genius Habit: How One Habit Can Radically Change Your Work and Your Life by Laura Garnett The Genius Habit shows you how the path to finding long-lasting professional happiness starts with building the habit that makes extraordinary accomplishment all but guaranteed. 6. Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall This book shares the faulty assumptions and distortions we encounter every time we show up to work and reveals the few core truths that will help you show just how good you are to those who truly rely on you. 7. Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. 8. Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder by Reshma Saujani In a book inspired by her popular TED talk, New York Times best-selling author Reshma Saujani empowers women to embrace imperfection and bravery. 9. Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less by Michael Hyatt Michael Hyatt has created a total productivity system that's much more than endless box checking. Proven by more than 25,000 professionals, this system helps overwhelmed leaders achieve what matters most so they can succeed at both work and life. 10. The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo Whether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.  By J.T. O'Donnell Founder and CEO, WorkItDaily.com
It's been over 15 years since I became a career coach. Back then, it was still "taboo" to work with one. People assumed there was something wrong with you if you needed to seek a career coach's help. Thank goodness for Millennials. They were raised on coaching. They don't see coaching as a sign of weakness. They view it as a path to greatness. As a result, I think they will ultimately be happier with their careers in the long run. Here's why.... Millennials Expect More--and Will Likely Get It. With Millennials making up over half the workforce today, I'm seeing a strong surge in the request for career coaching. Millennials are digging deeper to figure out what a satisfying career means to them. They want success and happiness. In my experience, this starts with recognizing when you're in a career situation that isn't playing to your strengths and preferences. That sounds so simple and obvious, yet you'd be amazed at how many people stay in jobs that are a poor fit for them because they don't realize it's time to make a change. In my experience, there are seven signs it's time to start looking for a new job: 1. The company's mission doesn't align with your core beliefs. It doesn't matter how much money you're making. If you don't believe in your employer's products or services, you're essentially taking a bribe. Deep down, you feel like a sell-out. And it will slowly eat at you until you are disengaged and resentful. You'll find yourself feeling held hostage by the pay. Sadly, you may also find yourself fired eventually for having an attitude or being a less-than-stellar performer. 2. You don't share any hobbies, passions, or common interests with your co-workers. Having friends at work matters. You don't have to like everyone, but you do have to feel a sense of connection. Being part of a tribe is a human instinct. When you get along with your co-workers, it's easier to solve problems, address concerns, give feedback, and work together to get rewarding results. A lack of bonding with teammates leads to mistakes, finger-pointing, and job loss. 3. You have no respect for your boss. If you don't value the contributions of management, then you won't trust their guidance. You may not like your boss, but if her or his work is productive and useful, then you can tolerate their personality. However, if you feel they're hurting the business more than helping it, then you're going to find it difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment. Working for someone you don't respect is the ultimate career-satisfaction killer. 4. You can't explain how your current job is supporting your ultimate career goals. Today, every job is temporary. The rate of change in the world means we can't spend our entire lives with one employer. In reality, we are businesses-of-one that must always be thinking about our next career move. If you can't explain how your current job is helping to position you for your next career move, then it's time to look for one that supports the growth and sustainability of your business-of-one! 5. You walk out the door right at 5 p.m. When your goal in life is to not spend a minute more than you have to at work, you're in the wrong job. Enough said. 6. You find yourself reacting negatively every day to something that happens at work. If you find yourself calling friends and family each night to recap the drama and agony that you endured at the office that day, it's time to move on. We attract what we pay attention to. If all you can see and feel at your current job is bad vibes, then it's time for some new, better energy. 7. You self-medicate with booze, food, binge-watching, or some other coping mechanism several nights (or more!) each week. If you spend many nights trying to recover from work, something is wrong. Jobs are tiring, but they shouldn't be so mentally and physically detrimental that you feel the need to self-medicate constantly. If you can't muster the energy to engage in healthy self-care and self-development after work, it's time to look closely at what's draining you daily. P.S. Got a case of the blahs? Shake things up before you can't shake it. Sometimes people say to me, "I don't have any of the warning signs, but something still feels off about work. I've got a case of the blahs." If this is you, then I beg you to take some time right now to analyze what triggered it. Burying your feelings about this won't work. It won't pass. Identifying what's causing the lack of enthusiasm is vital. Having an off day is one thing, but if you find yourself having a string of them, it's time to take action. When it comes to work, mindset matters. The more you understand what triggers you, the easier it is to find ways to rebound without getting to the point that you need to change jobs.  Meditation does more than just calm you down; it literally reverse-ages your brain. In the past, I've written that Steve Jobs used Zen mindfulness to train his brain, and that neuroscientists recently validated Jobs's theory about the business benefits of meditation. There was one thing, however, that Jobs didn't know, although he might have guessed it to be true. Meditation does more than just calm you down and make you a better manager. Meditation literally causes your brain to age backwards. Under normal circumstances, brains deteriorate as they age. According to Psychology Today: "Brain-scan technology reveals aging can cause the brain to shrink. Nerve tracts in the brain shrivel, making the cerebrospinal fluid cavities larger and even leaving gaping holes in the brain. Shriveling occurs in the neuron terminal branches that form the contact points among neurons. People may lose 40 percent or more of dopamine neurons causing Parkinson's disease." The deterioration of the brain has many symptoms. Reflexes become slower. Memory starts to fail. It becomes harder to learn new things. Thinking becomes brittle. Mental stamina declines.
These symptoms become measurable as early as age 45, at which point most people have already experienced a 3-4 percent decline in mental agility, and it's all downhill from there. By age 60, the changes are usually obvious; by age 70 they're often debilitating. Studies have shown that eating well, exercising, and learning new things can ameliorate these difficult symptoms. However, it appears that even when you manage your symptoms, your brain continues deteriorate. There is, however, apparently at least one way to not just stop the deterioration process but to put it in reverse. A study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School found that meditating for 30 minutes each day for eight weeks:
Since Steve Jobs was a regular meditator, when he died at 56 of pancreatic cancer, his brain would have been as healthy, active, and creative as when he was much younger. This shows in the quality of his work, which continued to be superlative right up to his untimely end.  If you don’t have trust, you don’t have much…especially when it comes to the relationships with your people. Trust the connective tissue that keeps the beauty deepening. It’s how you find new levels of knowing each other. Of loving each other. Of supporting. I’m starting to sniff out those but I totally can’t trust you vibes a mile away. Mainly because I want to be around people who teach me how to be better. Who teach me how to be more there…to be more trusting…to be more supportive…to be more of the person you can count on. I won’t be perfect at those things. I’ll screw it up for sure (I have before, and I will again). But being around people who exemplify trust alongside their love – time and tiny time again – shows us how to be more of the same. Here’s what I’ve noticed. Here’s where I’m trying:
Trust is built in tiny moments. It’s also eroded in small moments, too. But our people are so core to our lives. And our trust is so core to our people.  Nobody will tell you that’s why you didn’t get the job. But an apparent lack of interpersonal skills is often the underlying reason candidates get passed over.
You may be well versed in interview skills, but it’s easy to let drop a phrase or a comment that inadvertently signals you may not “fit in.” Nobody will tell you that’s why you didn’t get the job. Yet, an apparent lack of interpersonal skills is often the underlying reason candidates get passed over. People skills are in fact one of the top requirements of most jobs today–and interviewers listen hard for any telltale sign that you may not work well with people. To avoid ruining your chances of getting that second interview or coveted job, be careful not to use the following six expressions that may betray a poor relationship with others. 1. “MY TALENTS WERE NOT BEING PUT TO GOOD USE ”When talking about your last job, beware of dissing your employer by saying your talents were not fully used. It’s easy to fall into this trap, because you’ll want to give a reason for your departure. But saying your employer didn’t put your skills to good use signals more than a touch of resentment. In the same vein, avoid saying your contribution was not recognized, or your skills were not a good fit with the job. Even saying nothing about your last job but simply that you are “looking for a company that can make use of your talents” conveys the impression that your last company let you down. So avoid the undertow of such comparisons. 2. “I DIDN’T FEEL CHALLENGED BY MY LAST JOB” You won’t impress a future employer, either, by saying your last job was boring. If you weren’t challenged, it’s your fault. Employers expect candidates to take the initiative and create opportunities for themselves. Saying you didn’t feel “challenged” essentially puts the onus on your last employer to provide you with a stimulating, fully curated experience. That’s not realistic. Any recruiter will see such a comment as reflecting an “attitude” and poor people skills. 3. “I’M LOOKING FOR A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE” It may be true that you want your next job to offer you something “different” than your previous job had provided, but making a statement like this will send up red flares. The interviewer may think, “Wow, this candidate was miserable where she worked, that doesn’t bode well for hiring her.” Instead of making such an implicit comparison that casts a shadow on your previous job, tell the interviewer in positive terms what you are looking for in your future role. 4. “I LIKED MY MANAGER, BUT . . . ”You might think you’re being generous by offering up this positive comment about your boss. The only problem is that the rest of the sentence beginning with “but” will undercut anything positive you’ve said. The “but” may be followed by “we didn’t see eye to eye,” or “the job was less than satisfying,” or “management didn’t show the kind of leadership an organization should have.” Whatever the next part of the sentence is, it won’t work for you. It’s a negative that shows you didn’t fit in for some reason. So stick to positives by avoiding the word “but” altogether. 5. “I’M A HARD WORKER WHO GETS THINGS DONE ”This may seem like a positive self-affirming statement, but if you use these words, your interviewer will likely see you as a loner who focuses on work rather than on people. The “worker” syndrome is no longer an asset, because in today’s companies, things get done by teams, by collaboration, by shared goals. So don’t focus on yourself as a good worker, or your interviewer will hear your comment as a self-revelation that does not suggest an ability or comfort with people. Instead, you might say that you lead a team or are part of a team that has done great things in your specific area. 6. “I’M AMBITIOUS: I’D LIKE YOUR JOB ONE DAY ”Recently, I’ve been told by a few VPs of HR that they are hearing this expression more frequently from job candidates, and they don’t like it. Imagine a 20-something newly minted graduate who gets a coveted interview with a senior executive, and when the executive asks where the candidate sees himself in 10 years, the young person replies, “I want your job.” Whew! It may seem to be a statement that smacks of confidence or boldness. But unfortunately, it shows a lack of people skills, because the comment implies that the young person thinks he is capable of taking on the senior leader’s role and knows what that executive does. A senior vice president I know responds to such statements with, “What is it that I do?” And rarely does the job candidate know. Save such showmanship for less critical conversations, and instead provide an answer that is more realistic, and yes, humble. These six expressions are frequently used in interview situations and should be avoided if you want to present a positive profile of yourself as someone who works well with people. After all, jobs will increasingly go to those who have strong people skills. This article originally appeared on KBBonline.com  It might be a dark time for the global population, but for the natural world it’s springtime. Usually this time of year has most of us feeling more energetic and productive, so why not reflect this in the heart of the home? To help people stay on top of their spring trend game while staying at home – and designing remotely – Wren Kitchens in Milford, Conn., has revealed the spring kitchen trends for 2020. Pick ‘n Mix Style Pretty pastels paired with crisp whites are the perfect combination to shake up the kitchen. Cotton candy pink is a sweet and sophisticated shade to add a pop of color to your design while subtly highlighting your fun and fashionable personality.  Here Comes the Sun A burst of color will guarantee to bring the sunshine into your client’s kitchen. The bright, bold yellow with subtle orange undertones creates a real buzz to the room and leaves the space feeling fresh and vibrant. Plus, with a shade this sunny, it will provide sun all year round!  Tropical Blend For the perfect pick-me-up kitchen, add a slice of citrus with zesty tones such as lemon and lime. Bright and colorful tones work exceptionally well with an ultra-modern, sleek design, and don’t forget you can make a real impact by focusing on certain areas such as islands and upper cabinets.  Dusk and Dawn
Bring a warm, welcoming glow and create a real luxe look for a showstopping party kitchen. Go for gold with a contrasting profile to create a touch of luxury to your kitchen space. Inspired by natural patinas, you can bring the outside in with elements in metallic gold, copper or bronze. To complete the look, pair it with a stunning quartz worktop that will shimmer all day long, especially when the sun bounces off it. Darius Foroux for Bergen Review Media You can achieve almost anything in life…As long as you focus on achieving one thing at a time. It’s a time-tested strategy that’s been shared by many successful people.  Gary Keller and Jay Papasan even wrote a whole book about this simple idea. But don’t let the simplicity of this idea fool you. It’s one of the hardest things to implement in your life. Last year, I published an article about focusing on one thing called “The Power Of Compounding.” I’ve received dozens of questions about it like, “I get the idea. But I struggle with putting it into practice.”
That’s because we, human beings, are fickle. Our desires are constantly changing. We pursue new things before we finish our old goals. We’re dealing with an invisible force that is always trying to confuse us. Instead of focusing on one thing at a time, we set multiple goals, and think we can multitask ourselves to achieving them. There’s a discrepancy between what we know ( to focus on one thing at a time) and what we do (focusing on everything at the same time). The question is not whether focusing on one thing is a good strategy (just look at the image at the top of this article); it’s HOW can we stick to it? In this article, I share how I apply this strategy to my life. But first, let’s define the “One Thing” strategy. One thing per AREA of your lifeToo often people assume that you should only focus on one thing in your life, period. But that’s not what this strategy is about. It’s about being smart about what you pursue. Yes, you can achieve a lot of things…But just not at the same time. You can’t build a career, get in shape, compete in marathons, write a book, invest in business, get kids, and travel the world. But you can do all those things in a lifetime. I stick to one major priority per area of my life. I’ve categorized my life as follows: Career, health, learning, money, and relationships. That means I never work on more than one major project. I either write a book or create an online course. I also learn only one skill at a time. And I am either saving my money or am looking to invest it (naturally, I’m saving most of the time). For my health, I’m either building strength or endurance. And so forth. These categories are not based on anything but my own perspective on life. You can categorize your life any way you want. And you don’t need to criticize how others compartmentalize their lives. What matters is that we understand how we categorize our own lives. Otherwise, there’s no structure. And when there’s no structure. There’s chaos. And when there’s chaos, there’s no one thing: There’s everything. That’s bad. Manage your desiresThe natural thing to do for most people is to start setting goals or picking one priority they want to focus on. But unless you have trained your mind to focus on one thing, it’s not a smart thing to do. You must improve your focus muscle first. Otherwise, you set a goal, focus on one thing, and get back to your old behavior within a week. You want to change your mindset. Go from “I want everything” to “I accept what I have.” That’s the only way to live this “one thing” idea. In other words, control your desires. I recommend practicing Mindfulness or Stoicism for that. Both philosophies talk extensively about detaching ourselves from our desires. I think our excessive desire for more is the reason we can’t focus on one thing. Remove your desires, and you will have true freedom. The Stoic Epictetus said it best in one of his classes (as captured by his student, Arian): “Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.” If you manage your desire, you attack the problem at the core. In my experience, you CAN’T live a calm and focused life if you’re always desiring more and new things. I have an article in which I share Zen Buddhism principles, and I have created a podcast series about Stoic ideas. Look into those if you want to take control of your desires. All this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t desire to improve our lives. On the contrary, the whole purpose of life is to move forward. So don’t be afraid to set goals and aim for great things. Just achieve one thing after the other. Practice single-tasking Now, it’s time to practice. For the next week, only do ONE thing at a time. If you’re a modern human being that is used to technology, that will be very hard. But I guess you like the challenge, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. So try this:
Time to set 1 goal per area of your lifeOnly after you have controlled your desires and practiced doing one thing at a time are you ready to apply the “One Thing” strategy to your life. The reason you want to practice is that life is long. If you take the time to become less distracted by desires, the more reliable you will become. You will become a person who does what they say. You will become a person who achieves what they set out. And after you start achieving one thing after the other, you will get momentum. Your job is to keep the momentum. This is how people become happy and wealthy. Both those things add up over time. Remember to keep the bigger picture in mind. You WILL achieve all your goals. Who cares whether you achieve them now or in the future? What matters is that you are not influenced by desire or outside forces. You are the maker of your own life. Samantha Reed for Bergen Review Media Here is a new study of the best and worst cities for living an active lifestyle in 2020. To determine where Americans have the best chance of balancing a healthy diet with ample physical activity, WalletHub compared the 100 biggest U.S. cities across 38 key metrics. The data set ranges from average monthly fitness-club fee to bike score to share of physically inactive adults. Check out more details on the findings below. You can read the whole study here.   A compelling study has found that just five 20-minute magnetic stimulation sessions restored an older person's memory to the level of a younger control group. Researchers at Northwestern University have used a non-invasive form of magnetic brain stimulation to improve the memory of older adults. After just five short sessions the older adults scored as well as a younger cohort on a variety of memory tasks. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is one of the more promising brain stimulation techniques currently being explored by scientists. Unlike other methods, which often involve invasive surgical implantation of electrodes, TMS is non-invasive, simply firing painless magnetic pulses into specific regions of the brain. The idea is that these magnetic pulses can alter neuronal activity, and recent technological advances have allowed researchers to target regions of the brain with incredible precision and specificity. The new Northwestern research focused on improving age-related memory loss, a common kind of cognitive decline associated with normal aging. To do this the scientists first homed in on the hippocampus, a region of the brain responsible for memory and known to atrophy as we age. "It's the part of the brain that links two unrelated things together into a memory, like the place you left your keys or your new neighbor's name," explains lead on the study, Joel Voss. "Older adults often complain about having trouble with this."
Because the hippocampus was found to be too deep to be affected by the magnetic pulses of TMS, the researchers focused on the parietal lobe. This brain region is generally located behind a person's left ear, and is known to be highly connected to the hippocampus. The hypothesis was that stimulating the parietal lobe would synchronously stimulate the hippocampus, and subsequently improve neural activity in these brain regions responsible for memory. The cohort studied was small, 16 adults aged between 64 and 80, but the results were reasonably conclusive. All subjects were first tested on an array of different memory tasks. The older cohort were, on average, only correct around 40 percent of the time, compared to a control group of younger subjects that scored an average of around 55 percent. For each of the next five days the older subjects underwent a 20-minute session consisting of either a fake placebo stimulation or the targeted TMS. Each subject was then again tested on a series of memory tasks. Those older subjects receiving the TMS displayed significant improvements in the memory tests compared to the placebo group. Using fMRI imaging the researchers found the TMS subjects showed increased neural signaling in the hippocampal-cortical network. And, perhaps most impressively, the older cohort's results on the memory tasks had improved to the point they were similar to the younger control group. "Older people's memory got better up to the level that we could no longer tell them apart from younger people," says Voss. "They got substantially better." This exciting new study somewhat resembles recent work from a team at Boston University using non-invasive electrical stimulation to improve working memory in 70-year-old subjects to the point they functioned like healthy 20-year-olds. That research used electrodes on the scalp to send mild electrical pulses through the frontotemporal cortex, designed to increase neural synchronization patterns, and subsequently improve working memory function. It is early days for this kind of brain stimulation research, and for the TMS work at Northwestern there are many unresolved questions that still need to be answered. How long do the memory improvements last? Are there other brain regions that can be stimulated for better results? And, does this technique work for dementia or early-stage Alzheimer's? Voss and his Northwestern team are determined to try to answer all these questions in the near future. The new study was published in the journal Neurology. Source: Northwestern University  Erin Lowry of "Broke Millennial" shares her advice on how to take your first steps toward financial freedom.Before you look to invest, you need enough money in an emergency fund to cover three months of your expenses as well as your short-term goals. Want to be wealthy? You’ll need to invest, says Erin Lowry, the personal finance expert behind Broke Millennial and author of "Broke Millennial Takes on Investing: A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up Your Money".Millennials are in a good position to invest, because they can tap into investing’s biggest asset — time. “Time enables you to weather the ups and downs of the market. It lets you take advantage of compound interest for a longer period of time. And that’s what’s going to get you to your long-term goal of living comfortably and achieving financial freedom and independence,” Lowry says.
Step 1: Set Your Financial Goals You need to get your financial life in order before you dive into investing. “It’s really important to write down your goals,” Lowry says. Then you can figure out when it makes sense to save v. when to invest. For your short-term goals, like moving or replacing your car, you might to save. That’s because investments in the stock market can rise and fall, and you won’t want to pull out your money when the market is down. For long-term goals like funding a child’s education, starting a business, or buying a house, investing might make more sense.
Step 2: Start with a retirement fund Have money in a retirement fund? You’re probably already investing. Lowry is on a campaign to change the way we talk about the money we put away for retirement. “We say ‘save for retirement’ but we are investing for retirement. People don’t think of themselves as investors, but they are. It’s important, because it can build confidence,” she says. Most employers offer either a 401k or 403b plan, and many will match part of your contributions. “If you can take advantage of the full match, that’s wonderful. If you can’t, start with 1 percent and every three to six months add another 1 percent,” Lowry says. If you’re self-employed, you can invest for retirement in an IRA, a SEP IRA, or a solo 401k. Lowry recommends putting aside 35 to 45 percent of your income to cover your taxes and your retirement investments if you work for yourself. She follows her own advice, putting 45 percent of every paycheck into a savings account. From that account, she pays her quarterly taxes and uses the money left over to invest in her SEP IRA. “This ensures I’m still prioritizing my future and investing for retirement instead of just putting it on the back burner,” she says. We say ‘save for retirement’ but we are investing for retirement. People don’t think of themselves as investors, but they are. It’s important, because it can build confidence. You don’t necessarily need to max out your retirement investments — it depends on how much money you think you’ll need in retirement, and what your other goals are. You can’t easily pull money out of your retirement investments, so if you have goals that are 10 to 15 years away, it might make sense to invest for those in tandem with retirement. In that case, you might not be able to max out your retirement savings. For 2018, Lowry didn’t max out her SEP IRA contributions, but she invested more than what a 401k would have allowed, since 401ks have lower limits. She feels comfortable with a high level of risk for these investments, since she’s 35 or more years away from retirement. So she invests about 90 percent of her portfolio in index funds. She and her husband also invest less than 5 percent of their monthly income into taxable investments they may use for a down payment on a house — a long-term goal for them. “It’s a modest sum because we’re focused on paying off my husband’s student loans right now, but I still like to balance in some investing,” she says. Step 3: Take the plunge Once you’ve organized your financial life and you’re saving for retirement, you’re poised to start investing on your own. Here’s what to do next: 1. Educate yourself Lowry says there’s plenty of credible information out there, no matter how you like to consume content — podcasts, books, blogs, magazines, or TV shows. She thinks the educational portals the brokerages provide are great tools, and you don’t have to be a customer to access them. “And I say this with a huge caveat — Reddit is always a place to go. The advice is worth exactly what you paid for it, but it’s a good jumping-off point for resources and a variety of opinions,” she says. 2. Decide how much you want to invest Some funds have minimum initial investments, so if you know you want a certain fund at a certain brokerage, check to see how much money you need to get started. If you don’t have much money to start with, microinvesting — investing small amounts of money — is an option. But Lowry says to watch out for fees. “A lot of apps only charge $1 a month. That sounds like such a bargain, and frankly it is,” she says. But if you’re only investing a couple of dollars a month, the fees can eat up all your returns. She recommends that you put in at least $25 to $50 a month. 3. Understand fees “Every dollar you pay in fees is a dollar less that’s compounding for the future,” Lowry says. The expense ratio, for example, is a common fee. But it can range from .04 percent to 1 percent. It’s not necessarily bad to pay a higher fee, but you need to be sure you’re truly getting value out of it. “I compare prices on different funds to ensure I’m getting the best value for my money,” Lowry says. 4. Do your research To find the right fit for your investments, ask friends, parents, and coworkers what they recommend, and look at online reviews. From that list, play around with the web sites and apps. “Especially for millennials, the user experience of the site can be make it or break it,” Lowry says. And make sure your investments are secure — look for two-factor authentication. Make sure whoever is working for you has your best interest in mind. That’s called the fiduciary standard. Another standard, the suitability standard, simply means that investments are suitable for you — they aren’t necessarily the best choices for you. 5. Contact your top choices “When you’re starting out, the process can feel really intimidating,” Lowry says. “Pick up the phone and call someone who works at the brokerage.” They can talk you through the nitty-gritty like how you’ll connect your bank account to your brokerage account. Plus, it will show you what their customer service is like. Not sure if investing is right for you? If you’ve followed all these steps you’ve likely overcome the biggest barrier to investing: fear. Still, if you’re just not comfortable with investing, that’s okay, Lowry says. She shares something she learned: You don’t have to invest. You just have to understand that when you do invest, your money does the heavy lifting for you. If you don’t invest, you’ll have to save a lot more to meet your goals. Google Launches a Series of Blog Posts Highlighting the Value of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)4/9/2020
 Google has published the first in what will be a series of blog posts dedicated to SEO case studies. The aim of this series is to share success stories that demonstrate the value of SEO. Google says the intended audience for these case studies are people who may need some extra convincing that SEO is a good investment. “We want people to hear about these success stories, so we’re starting a new blog post series that features case studies. "They may, for example, help with convincing a boss’ boss that investing in SEO or implementing structured data can be good for the business.” Google’s inaugural blog post in this series focuses on the basics of investing in SEO and how it has been utilized to help a company. How SEO Lead to A 93% Increase in New Signups The first case study in this series was shared by none other than Google’s Gary Illyes. Illyes spoke to an SEO manager named Moon Tae Sung following a presentation at a Google Webmaster Conference in Seoul. Tae Sung manages SEO for Saramin, which is one of the largest job platforms in Korea. Saramin offers services such as:
Early Success With Google Search Console Saramin’s SEO efforts date back to 2015 using nothing but Google Search Console. An entire year was dedicated to finding and fixing crawling errors identified by Search Console. This alone lead to a 15% increase in organic search traffic. Satisfied with their early success, Saramin decided to invest more into SEO. Gradual Changes for Big Gains The next step in the process was studying the Google Search developer’s guide and help center articles. Illyes acknowledges that “SEO is a process that may take time to bear fruit.” To that end, Saramin focused on implementing gradual changes such as:
Saramin relied on the Structured Data Testing Tool, Mobile Friendly Test, AMP Test, and PageSpeed Insights. Eventually, the errors in Search Console’s Index Coverage report turned from red to green. Even more than, Saramin saw an accelerated increase in organic traffic. “The incremental changes reached a tipping point and the traffic continued to rise at a more remarkable speed. In the peak hiring season of September 2019, traffic doubled compared to the previous year.“ The Results
Along with the increase in organic traffic, the quality of traffic also went up. Saramin achieved a 93% increase in the number of new sign ups and a 9% increase in conversions. The work doesn’t end there, however, as Saramin’s SEO manager says “this is only the beginning of our story.” If you have an interesting case study you want to share, and potentially get featured in an upcoming blog post, Google is accepting submissions. You can contribute a case study by signing up for a Google Webmaster Conference near you and submitting a talk proposal. This article was originally posted at Google Webmaster Central blog  Sit on your knees, lower your forehead to your mat, walk your finger tips forward, and send your weight into your heels. Voilà, you’re in child’s pose. The magic of this asana is in its simplicity, which is why I always feel so dumb when I can’t do it right. No matter how hard I press, my butt kind of just hovers above my heels. And all that pushing diminishes the bliss.
Turns out, you can make a tiny tweak to really sink into balasana: Stop worrying about it. We push ourselves in so many areas of our lives, and child’s pose is about reaping the benefits of the work you’ve already done. Positioning your body in this manner is an intentional call for rest, reflection, and relaxation. “A common cue is hips to heels, but it doesn’t have to be that,” says Beth Cooke, celebrity yoga instructor at Sky Ting. “I grew up as a dancer and still when I made it to my yoga mat I was super uncomfortable in the shapes because I was constantly thinking I wasn’t doing it right. Isn’t it so much cooler if you can just pay attention to what feels good and what doesn’t?” Cooke says the inability to sit on your heels is often due to injury, tight hips, a tight low back, or tight calves, among other causes. With time and practice, you’ll be able to sit further back. Finding the ability to sit back deeply into child’s pose measures the progress of everything else you’ve accomplished. “This is why a common adjustment is to traction the hips back,” says Cooke. “My hips didn’t used to sit as far back as they do now.” And while child’s pose is a great way to get connected and take your attention inward, it’s not for everyone. “If child’s pose doesn’t feel good altogether, don’t do it, start on your back instead,” Cooke says. “There’s a difference between uncomfortable and painful. If there’s a little discomfort, that probably means you’re growing, you’re stretching—that’s what we learn to breathe through. If it’s painful, switch it up.” Welp, yoga just got much more relaxing. Here’s to embracing an imperfectly perfect child’s pose. While we’re getting the most out of our yoga practice, try this child’s pose variation for period pain  "Just once I’d like to wake up with more time on my hand than hours in the day.” — Will Salas In the Science Fiction film, “In Time,” Justin Timberlake portrays a character named Will Salas, who lives in the ghetto.In the movie, there is no “money.” Instead, time is the only currency, and everyone has a digital clock embedded into their arms.  Until the age of 25, your clock doesn’t start ticking. Once you hit your 25th birthday, you have just one year of life that starts ticking down immediately. Everything costs time. For example, in the movie, a cup of coffee doesn’t cost 4 dollars, but rather, 4 minutes. There are small devices, similar to the devices we plug our credit cards into, that add or take away time when scanned on a person’s arm clock. After age 25, you stop physically aging. Whether you’re 28, 49, or 302, you look as you did when your clock started ticking. You live as long as you have time. The people living in the ghetto are living day-to-day, while those in the highest “Time Zone” can conceivably live forever. In the ghetto, people literally are living day-to-day. They get time added to their “clocks” at the end of every shift — enough to get them to the end of the next shift. They rarely have more than 24 hours on their clocks. As a result, they can’t stop thinking about or “checking” their time. They are required to work, every single day, in order to survive. As soon as your clock runs out, you die. Changing time zones In the movie, Economic Status is portrayed as “Time Zones,” which are not easy to transfer one for another. You have to pay a great deal of time to get from one zone to the next. Here’s the break-down: To get out of the ghetto and into the lower-middle class Time Zone costs One month’s Time To get from the lower-middle-class Time Zone into the middle-class costs Two month’s Time To get from the middle-class Time Zone into the upper-middle-class costs Six month’s Time To get from the upper-middle-class Time Zone into “New Grenich,” which represents the mega-wealthy (i.e., 1% of 1%) costs One Year‘s Time To cross a Time Zone, you are required to pay a great deal of money. For someone living in the ghetto, the system is not designed to ever have a full month saved-up. Thus, ever getting out the ghetto is practically impossible. Time slows down in the higher zones. When you’re living day-to-day, time goes very quickly. You have no future to look forward to. You don’t have time to vacation and think. You’re in survival mode. Hence, time goes very quickly. Will Salas (played by Timberlake) finds his way out of the ghetto and into New Grenich and despite his best acting, is clearly perceived by others as being from somewhere else. “You’re not from here are you, Mr. Salas?” the waitress asks him. “What gives you that impression?” Will responds. “You do everything too quickly,” she responds back. As you go up in “Time Zones,” life slows down. You’re no longer living day-to-day, perhaps now you’re living month-to-month. You have a little more time to waste on entertainment and, perhaps, if you’re one of the smart ones, you begin investing a little here and a little there into your future. But even still, the cost of living goes up with each Time Zone you’re in. So it’s not exactly easy to save up. You have to keep up with your neighbors, for example. You’re required, socially, to have a car and home that fits the culture. The food costs just a little bit more, and so do your clothes. Life is driven by marketing and social acceptance for most people. Making money is one thing, managing it is entirely different. In New Grenich, it can cost a few month’s of “Time” to stay in a hotel and several weeks to eat a fancy meal. Money, or in this case, “Time,” doesn’t mean the same in different zones. Spending 8 weeks for a meal can, strangely, make complete sense in one situation, where that much “Time” is enough to get you killed in the ghetto. Those 8 weeks could change the entire trajectory of a family living in the ghetto…if they knew what to do with it. To even get into New Grenich (i.e., among the mega-wealthy) costs One Year of Time. Once you’re in, everything costs a fortune. However, the ability to make money in that Zone is also completely skewed as well. Although the ideas from In Time is science-fiction in nature, they actually have real life application based on Harvard Economics. Economic mobility in America A few economists at Harvard began a project known as “The Equality Of Opportunities Project,” several years ago. The research was so revolutionary and important that it has since expanded into something much bigger and more global. The goal of the project, “Is to develop scalable policy solutions that will empower families throughout the United States to rise out of poverty and achieve better life outcomes.” One of the fundamental outcomes they’ve discovered in their research is that location matters, a lot. As it states on the website: Children’s lives are shaped by the neighborhood they grow up in. As part of the research, each county within each state was measured for its “social mobility,” which is a term that explains the chances of someone advancing in economic status within their lifetime. As they state on the website: In a series of studies beginning in 2014, we have shown how the neighborhoods in which children grow up shape children’s outcomes in adulthood… Social mobility varies widely both across cities and across neighborhoods within cities in the U.S. On average, a child from a low-income family raised in San Jose or Salt Lake City has a much greater chance of reaching the top than a low-income child raised in Baltimore or Charlotte. However, the Opportunity Atlas shows that there are neighborhoods within Baltimore and Charlotte that have higher rates of upward mobility than the average neighborhood in San Jose or Salt Lake City. Put simply, proximity matters. Environment matters. Where you are born matters. Where you choose to stay matters. The reason is very simple; within any given environment or “system,” are a set of options. You can only make choices if you have options. Let me repeat that, you can only make choices if you have options. This idea became starkly real to me when my wife and I moved from Orem, Utah, a county in the 90th percentile for upward social mobility, to Clemson, South Carolina where I began my PhD research in Organizational Psychology. Shortly after moving to Clemson, my wife and I became foster parents of three children who were from a county bordering Clemson, Oconee, which happens to be in the 9% percentile of upward social mobility. Put simply, if you’re born poor in Oconee County, your chances of breaking out of poverty are slim to none if you stay in Oconee County. As economic strategists and analyst, Mark Caine, has said, “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” It was clear when we got our children that they came from a different world than we did. They didn’t really know how to act in our environment, and we had to learn patience, empathy, and love beyond anything we’d previously been exposed to. As they say, you can’t develop courage without the lion. You can’t develop empathy and love without being required to give it. Life, then, becomes the ultimate context for growth if you’re willing to put yourself in situations that force you out of your comfort zone. Our three kids were incredibly limited by their prior environment. They didn’t have many options. They had parents who were generally high on drugs and didn’t have the capacity to provide a good life, let alone healthy food and a ride to school, to their children. When our kids were placed in our care, their availability of options radically expanded. Because they had more and better options to choose from, they then had a different set of choices. In other words, their ability to exercise their “free-will” was expanded. Again, you cannot make choices without options. And options are context-dependent, which means every environment or “context” provides different options. Because no two people have the same context, no two people have the same “free-will.” Instead, we all have what social psychologist, Jeffrey Reber, calls, “Contextual Agency” — which is to say, our ability to make choices is shaped by the context we are in. For instance, you wouldn’t be able to read these words on your computer or smartphone if you were living 30+ years ago. The technology didn’t exist. You’d be reading on a newspaper or through some other means. If you lived 150 years ago, you wouldn’t be able to fly across the world. That simply wasn’t an option given the situation. Thus, there are many things we take for granted, which are purely based on the situation we find ourselves. According to Dr. Ellen Langer, a prominent Harvard psychologist: “Social psychologists argue that who we are at any one time depends mostly on the context in which we find ourselves.” But then, Langer takes this idea a step further by asking a key question and then providing the solution (emphasis mine): “But who creates the context? The more mindful we are, the more we can create the contexts we are in. When we create the context, we are more likely to be authentic. Mindfulness lets us see things in a new light and believe in the possibility of change.” It is our greatest responsibility to shape our individual and collective environments to match our values and ambitions. Or, as Dr. Marshall Goldmish said in his book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts — Becoming the Person You Want to Be, “If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.” 5 stages of tribal culture There is a brilliant book, Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright share their expansive research on different cultural groups in America. They break-down “Tribal Culture” into 5 levels, similar to how “In Time” breaks-down Time Zones.  The 5 stages of tribal culture
In order to get out of Stage 3 and into Stage 4, you need to start working with other people. As a friend of mine and near billionaire has said, “You go from ‘I do it,’ to ‘We do it,’ to ‘They do it.’” Most people never get beyond “I do it,” in their work. They never learn to delegate or collaborate. They have their own jobs and they get paid to do them. Even most entrepreneurs and freelance creative people never get beyond Stage 3 thinking. Very few realize that the skills that get you out of Egypt are not the same skills that get you into the Promised Land (to use a Biblical analogy I learned from Dan Sullivan). In other words, what got you here won’t get you there. The thinking that got you here won’t get you there. As Albert Einstein has said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Your thinking fundamentally needs to change as you upgrade environments, or else you won’t stay in those environments for long. In the important book, The Lessons of History, famed historians Will and Ariel Durrant explain the key lessons they gleaned while studying the history of the world for several decades. One of those key lessons is that, as a society has an increase in freedoms, they must simultaneously increase their intelligence to match the level of their freedom, or their freedom will eventually be lost. This is one of the key themes influencing the rise and fall of nations. There is a surge of energy and enthusiasm which generally comes in the form of revolting against an existing system. There are a new law and order created and particular Stage 4 group band together and becomes a Stage 5 Phenom that changes the world. However, according to the Durrants, when a social group experiences an intense increase of social freedoms — wherein they have an abundance of freedom and choice — their level of intelligence needs to increase to match their level of freedom, or else that freedom will be squandered, which is often the case. Hence, America has a high potential of collapsing as the world superpower. The Durrants expect that the American fall will occur sometime in the next 200–300 years. However, they may not have accounted for globalization and the internet and exponential technologies. The important point here is that, in order to thrive in a higher-level environment, your level of intelligence needs to rise to meet the new rules and demands of the higher-level environment. Otherwise, you won’t remain in that environment for long. The skills that got you out of the ghetto are not the skills that will allow you to thrive in New Grenich. The rugged individualist mindset that got you out of the ghetto won’t get you very far among the super-wealthy, where connections and mutual trust are everything. It’s been very interesting to observe these social principles within the walls of my own home. When we brought our beautiful children into our home, they had no comprehension of the “rules” they needed to understand to thrive in our middle-class to upper-middle-class environment. They needed to be taught the rules. They’re still learning the rules. And these rules aren’t meant to stamp out individuality. Rather, they are social and economic rules for not destroying themselves and going back into the ghetto, their principles for thriving and succeeding in society, in work, and with people. In other words, we attempt to teach correct principles and let them govern themselves. At some point, it will be their choice to live what we taught them, to revert back to their native environment, or to advance beyond what we’ve taught them. Conclusion Getting from one “Time Zone” to another isn’t necessarily easy. The movie, In Time, makes that abundantly clear. The system isn’t set up for people to advance easily. Social cultures make it even harder. By very nature, human beings are the social product of their environments. We develop bonds and those bonds keep us from wanting to advance ourselves and potentially destroy those bonds. The hardest leap from one economic status to another is likely from Stage 1 to Stage 2 — getting out of the ghettos and living from day-to-day to lower-middle-class where you’re living month-to-month. The easiest jump is likely from Stage 2 to Stage 3 — getting out of the victim mindset and developing a sense of responsibility for the outcomes you create in your life. One reason this isn’t that hard of a leap is that you can generally maintain the same peer and social groups, even though a disconnect will develop. You can generally get into Stage 3 by getting educated, reading some books, and having a little bit of personal ambition. Without question, making any one of these jumps is difficult — even going from lower-middle-class to middle-class. The fastest way to make a jump is through proximity. You want to get yourself around people who are in higher-level systems and learn from them. You want to understand the laws and principles that generate their success. You need to understand how they operate socially. Because socially, there are fundamentally different rules at each stage for thriving. Again, the skills that got you out of Egypt will keep you stuck in the desert. Dr. David Hawkins explains, “The unconscious will only allow us to have what we believe we deserve. If we have a small view of ourselves, then what we deserve is poverty. And our unconscious will see to it that we have that actuality.” Every culture has an embedded mindset and belief system. Hence, 95% of all behavior is unconscious and outsourced to the environment. Your environment is the ultimate feedback loop, demonstrating where you are at the subconscious level. Your environment is a pretty accurate mirror reflecting back to you your subconscious belief system. How you behave and treat other people is a reflection of your current situation. Different thinking, different behaviors, and relating differently to others will create a fundamentally different situation around you. You can definitely jump from one Time Zone or Economic Status to another. However, you can never get out of one and stay in another on your own. You always need help from other people and other sources. The most help is needed in getting people from Stage 1 to Stage 2. Radical interventions, extreme separation from family and friends, and economic help from outside parties is almost always required Another extremely difficult leap is from Stage 3 thinking and cultures to Stage 4. In order to make this leap, you have to unlearn all of the rules that made you relatively successful in the first place. You have to put off your rugged individuality and begin thinking much, much bigger. You need to realize that individuality can actually be a poison. As Dr. David Hawkins explains in his book, LETTING GO, “It is the illusion of individuality that is the origin of all suffering.” Instead of seeing yourself as a lone individual, you recognize yourself as a single factor within a larger system. You realize that your possibilities are shaped by context and that self-made is an illusion. Rather than trying to see what you can do alone, you now recognize that you could go 100X further and faster by collaborating with other people. According to Harvard psychologist, Robert Kegan, only 8% of the population reaches this level of “conscious evolution,” wherein they move from an individual to a part of a collective. But not just any collective. You become a part of collaborative and synergistic groups where highly creative and innovative thinking occurs. This is where “mission” and the desire to do real good happens — where all parties are completely secure in their own ability to survive and take care of their base needs. Abundance, giving, creativity, gratitude, and growth are the focus of these groups. Always learning and upgrading. The third most difficult leap is from Stage 4 to Stage 5. This is basically going from the top 3–5% of the population to the top 1%, and more accurately, the 1% of the 1% — Those who are the best in the world at what they do, and are the highest paid. This is equivalent to going from college to professional athletics. It’s much easier to go from High School (Stage 3) to College (Stage 4), but much much harder going from Stage 4 to Stage 5. Be → Do → Have You have to ‘Be’ the right kind of person first, then you must ‘Do’ the right things before you can expect to ‘Have.’” — Zig Ziglar Making any of these jumps is completely possible. Perhaps the most fundamental decision any person can ever make is this one:
Do you believe you can choose what you become? Or do you believe your course is set for you at birth? Do you “discover” yourself or do you “create” yourself? You can’t change nature…. or, nature is change….Which side of the coin do you choose? Whichever perspective you choose, your brain will go about finding any and all information it can to support that bias. As Dan Sullivan has said, “Your eyes can only see and your ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.” Psychologists call this “selective attention.” What you focus on expands. You see what you believe is real — and then it becomes real for you in a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Dr. Stephen Covey said, “You see the world, not as it is, but as you’ve been conditioned to see it.” Making this shift starts by recognizing that for quite a while, you’ve been going through the motions. Your thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and even desires are the product of your environment. Thanks to a global world that makes information abundant, it isn’t hard to become exposed to other ways of life. However, you must realize quickly that most of the information online is complete trash. Which is why Basecamp Founder, Jason Fried, has said, “I’m pretty oblivious to a lot of things intentionally. I don’t want to be influenced that much.” Once you begin upgrading your mindset and environment, and once your priorities and goals are clear — then you don’t want to be swayed or distracted by most of the low-level information out there. You must realize that most of the information produced is from Stage 2 and Stage 3 cultures. Therefore, if you consume that level of information, then those mindsets will be embedded into your subconscious thinking. People in Stage 4 and Stage 5 cultures do not consume the same information as do people in Stage 2 and 3 cultures. For example, I recently spoke at a mastermind done by Bo Eason, who used to be a professional football player and is now a very highly paid public speaker. Bo’s son, Axel, intends on being the first person to go pro in both football and basketball. Therefore, Bo doesn’t allow Axel to watch the NFL on public television. According to Bo, sports on TV is made for fans and consumers, not the players. “The pro’s don’t want that crap,” Bo told me. Pro’s study film, practice, and play the game. When you’re a real pro, you don’t consume how fans consume. You do the work. You’re too busy creating and learning and growing and living your life. Are you a fan or a pro? Are you a consumer or creator? A key strategy for making any jump is to, “Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled,” meaning, you assume the posture, attitude, and emotions of the people operating at the higher level. You affirm to yourself who you are and then operate from that affirmation. This may sound like “acting as if,” and it actually is. But it’s important to realize that we are always “acting” in a role. All of life is acting. In every situation, you are assuming a character. You’re playing a role based on the other people around you. In some situations, your role may be an employee, while in others it may be a parent, or child, or friend. In all cases, you are acting a part. You can change your role. You can change the stage. You can choose to be different. But it must start in your state of being. Rather than operating subconsciously as the majority of people do, you must make a conscious decision about who you intend to be and where you intend to go. You must then BEHAVE from that decision. When you act from that decision, then you create the outcomes you are seeking. You will become the person you intend to be, rather than the person your circumstances led you to be. Ready to upgrade? I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly. Get the cheat sheet here!  By Taylor Tobin for Bergen Review Media A popular phrase “older and wiser” refers to the fact that we as human beings gather more life experience and more valuable lessons as we age. But unfortunately, our neurological systems don’t always cooperate. Individuals entering middle age and their senior years frequently seek out ways to keep their memories keen and their mental instincts sharp. And according to neuroscientist Sara Lazar of Mass General and Harvard Medical School, one “New Age-y” practice could help mature adults recapture the quick-thinking abilities of their youths. Lazar tells Inc. that mindfulness meditation (a category of practices that includes yoga) has neurological properties that can restore the brain to a youthful level of agility. She reached her conclusions after a series of experiments in which she tested the brain functions of dedicated meditators and compared them to a random control group. In addition to noting meditation’s capacity for “decreasing stress, depression, and anxiety, reducing pain and insomnia, and increasing quality of life,” Lazar discovered that the 50-year-olds with a long (6-9 years minimum) history of meditation had the same amount of gray matter in their frontal cortexes (the area of the brain responsible for memory and decision-making) as individuals half their age. However, Lazar found herself curious about whether briefer exposure to meditation practices could make a difference in cognitive development. So, she conducted a second study, this time using volunteers with no meditation experience.
She exposed this group to an eight-week mindfulness program, and at the end of the practice, she found that the subjects experienced thickening in several regions of their brains, including the hippocampus (which manages learning and memory), the TPJ (which controls empathy and the ability to see things from multiple perspectives) and the pons (which generates neurotransmitters). She also discovered a shrinking in the amygdalas — the part of the brain responsible for stress and aggression — of the subjects. During her second study, Lazar determined that a meditation practice consisting of less than 30 minutes of mindfulness per day can make a difference in mental fitness. She encourages readers to take whatever time they can manage to focus on their own wellness, claiming that meditation is “a lot like exercise. Exercising three times a week is great. But if all you can do is just a little bit every day, that’s a good thing, too.” I Suffered From Back Pain For 2 Years — These Are the 8 Exercises That Got Rid of It For Good4/5/2020
 by Tamara Pridgett for Bergen Review Sometimes it takes an injury to remind you just how important every bone and muscle in your body is. For me, I didn't realize just how important my back, core, and glutes were until I experienced lower back pain. For a good seven months, I got spasms daily, I could barely walk, and bodyweight exercises were too difficult to perform, which all led to me feeling depressed and like I was never going to get better. I had gone from being a Division 1, All-American sprinter to barely being able to do bodyweight lunges without pain. After spending entirely too much money and two years looking for a physical therapist, I finally found a group of therapists who figured out the root of my back pain and helped me get rid of it for good. What Caused My Back Pain Long story short: my scoliosis has caused structural imbalances for most of my life, and as a result, I had muscular weakness and imbalances on the left side of my body. Not to mention, I learned that my L4 and L5 discs were herniated. My therapists also found that my glutes and core weren't firing like they should, which meant that every time I ran, lifted, and did anything that involved a heavy load, my back was absorbing a majority of that load instead of the appropriate muscle groups. The Exercises I Did to Get Rid of Lower Back Pain In order to get rid of back pain, I went to physical therapy religiously two times a week for about three months. During those sessions, I didn't do anything intense. I simply worked on glute activation and core activation exercises. I'm talking doing glute bridge variations and plank variations, and focusing on little details like making sure my spine was in a neutral position at all times and that I wasn't compensating on one side of my body. It was boring, extremely boring, but it was absolutely necessary. Not only did I have to focus on my glute and core strength during physical therapy, but I also had to change my workouts to apply everything I had been practicing. How I Changed My Workouts Once the physical therapists were able to pinpoint the cause of my back pain, it was time to get to work. I had made the mistake of trying to do too much, too soon multiple times, which only set me back in the long run. Another mistake I had made before finding my team of therapists was doing intense workouts on the rare days that my back felt good. This didn't work in my favor because I never addressed the true issue, which was glute and core weakness. With the advice of my therapists, I started out with bodyweight exercises and gradually increased the complexity of the movements and weight. Regardless of the exercise, I always made sure that my glutes and core were actually firing and to check my form in the mirror. Ultimately, I had to relearn how to move with and without weight, but it was worth it. I know a lot of different things can cause back pain, so you'll definitely want to speak to a pro to figure out what is causing your pain. One thing I can say for sure, especially as a trainer, is that everyone can benefit from doing more glute- and core-activating exercises. I wouldn't do every single move from the ahead list at once. Instead, choose two to three core exercises (e.g. plank with knee tap, side bridge, and bird dog) and two to three glute exercises (e.g. glute bridge, fire hydrants, and donkey kicks) and complete them before every workout and at least two times a week. You shouldn't feel any pain while performing the exercises, and if you do, stop immediately! If you are suffering from back pain, I highly recommend speaking to an expert, such as a physical therapist, who can come up with an individualized plan to help you become pain-free. In the meantime, check out the 12 exercises that helped me get rid of back pain ahead.
 A combination of sleeping more than nine hours a night plus midday naps lasting more than 90 minutes increased a person's risk for stroke by 85 percent. A new epidemiological study from a team of Chinese researchers is suggesting sleeping more than nine hours a night, and/or taking long midday naps, can significantly increase a person’s risk of stroke. The research does not highlight a particular causal connection between stroke and too much sleep but does add to a growing body of work finding deleterious health effects from excessive sleep.
The research involved analyzing data from a longitudinal research project called the Dongfeng-Tongji cohort study. This study is following a cohort of over 30,000 people, with an average age of 62 at the time of enrollment, and has been running for almost 10 years. The new article, published in the journal Neurology, examines the relationship between sleep patterns and incidence of stroke. Across six years of follow-up, the cohort reported around 1,500 cases of stroke. The study identified a reasonably striking correlation linking long sleeping duration with increased rates of stroke. People reporting regular midday naps lasting more than 90 minutes were 25 percent more likely to suffer from a stroke, compared to those reporting daily naps of 60 minutes or less. Sleeping more than nine hours every night also correlated with a 23 percent increase in stroke risk. This increase in the incidence of stroke was not seen in those sleeping less than nine hours a night. Interestingly, even those reporting nightly sleep duration of less than seven hours did not display higher incidence of stroke. Combining long midday naps with excessive nightly sleep resulted in the highest stroke risk, with those individuals displaying 85 percent higher rates of stroke than short nappers with average nightly sleep patterns. At this stage it is unclear if there is a causal link between excessive sleep and stroke. The researchers are clear in pointing out the study only identifies an association. Xiaomin Zhang, an author on the new study from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, suggests while excessive sleep may hypothetically result in negative physiological outcomes, it is just as reasonable to consider these longer sleep patterns to be symptoms of other unhealthy lifestyle behaviors that may be increasing a person’s stroke risk. "More research is needed to understand how taking long naps and sleeping longer hours at night may be tied to an increased risk of stroke, but previous studies have shown that long nappers and sleepers have unfavorable changes in their cholesterol levels and increased waist circumferences, both of which are risk factors for stroke," says Zhang. "In addition, long napping and sleeping may suggest an overall inactive lifestyle, which is also related to increased risk of stroke." The general limitation most of these large epidemiological sleep studies face is they primary rely on self-reported questionnaire data, often only recorded at a single point in time. Sleep quality and duration can be inconsistent so it is certainly difficult to ascertain long-term trends from subjective self-reporting. However, as researchers inevitably gather more and more data, certain trends can become apparent. The results of a massive sleep study published last year, tracking over 10,000 people, discovered an intriguing correlation between cognitive deficits and irregular sleep duration. That study found individuals who reported sleeping more than eight hours each night performed as poorly on several cognitive tests as those sleeping less than six hours each night. The optimal sleep duration recommended in that study was between seven and eight hours each night. It is not unreasonable to assume excessive sleep is merely a symptom, and not a cause, of a condition that could increase a person’s risk for stroke. But, at the very least, the new research can point to excessive sleep patterns as a valid warning sign of increased stroke risk in middle-aged and older adults. The new research was published in the journal Neurology.  Some of the sage's best advice applies to our most important asset--our kids. It's not too shabby for us, either.
When we think of all that we want for our children, for them to be successful, to do well in school, or to just be happy, it can feel lofty and even daunting. But there are plenty of practical, everyday things we can do to help them thrive in simple, but powerful ways. Like teaching them how to be good with money. Instilling them early with good financial habits is a gift that keeps on giving. It's an understandably de-prioritized or even overlooked part of parenting, but I've enrolled the help of the very best to make it an easy add-on. Warren Buffett seems to know a thing or two about finances and his best advice on managing money is fantastic for children to ingrain now (and for mom and dad to learn too). 1. How you are with money is just as much a moldable habit as anything else. We try to teach our kids to be polite, kind, and respectful. We want to teach them good manners and develop habits of punctuality and hard work. Their mindset towards money is a habit too, one that can lead to always having enough money on hand or living paycheck to paycheck. The problem with developing bad habits with money is that they are quieter and more insidious than your average, daily bad habit. Buffett eloquently describes it this way: Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken--you can have any habits, any patterns of behavior that you wish. It's a matter of what you decide. So step one is to view money management as a habit that needs to be built, early. I know, it's hard to prioritize when you're still trying to teach the importance of not waiting until the last possible minute for every single homework assignment to be done. But remember, this is a gift that keeps on giving. Let's go to the next point to get started. 2. A great financial habit comes from lots of little ones. Start small. First, teach the basics and secure little victories. Our 16-year old daughter had her own savings account and credit card pretty early on and is set up to talk to our financial advisor when she wants to. She just got her first paycheck for a summer job and is learning about taxes. After the basics, it starts with basic choices. If you buy this now, you won't have enough to buy that later. Buffett believes the key is to start with a small habit, a series of consistent choices, and keep at it until the impact becomes noticeable. How is it that child A was able to save up enough to buy her own car by high school while child B can't swing that? From choosing to ask for tap water at lunch instead of buying a triple-sugar frappe-whatever. We certainly haven't mastered this in our household yet, but we're making progress and the story's heroine is starting to see the difference it makes. 3. "Don't save what's left after spending; spend what's left after saving". This is a quote from Mr. Buffett, one that speaks to the need to "save from the top", or to set aside a percentage that comes right out of your paycheck and goes into savings (before you pay a single bill or buy a single thing). Start with a small goal of saving, say, 2 percent of every paycheck, develop a budget that tracks every cent spent, make little choices and keep adding to them to get to 3 percent saved a month, and so on. Of course, this requires living within your means, at a level that's comfortable but that challenges the definition of what's really needed to be comfortable. Let your kids see you role modeling this, calling it out when you're choosing a cheaper alternative or are choosing to not spend on something at all. 4. From day one, know the difference between bad debt and good debt. You can never start too early here because you can quickly get too far behind. Your child might soon be taking out student loans or maybe a business loan to get their budding business idea off the ground. While Buffett says no debt is always preferred, at least loans like this are investments in the future, as opposed to maxed out credit cards or cash advances. Sit down with your child to make sure they understand the difference to help prevent them from making a bad first move that soon becomes an albatross. So while you're working on helping to form all those other habits, don't forget the one that will literally pay dividends someday. |
Written, Compiled & Edited byThe Bergen Review Media Team Archives
October 2024
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The Bergen Review is Bergen county's concierge for the best businesses, restaurants & venues in New Jersey. Our agency has over 10 years experience in web branding, online media and marketing. Our team of experts scour every nook and cranny of New Jerseys best businesses, restaurants & venues to present our clients the full scoop of where best deals & experiences are. Even after researching & looking at reviews, finding the REAL scoop on what Businesses, restaurants or venues best fit your interest can be a challenge. Bergen Review Media has a team that researches & visits various establishments. Making sure the consumer gets the best experience.
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