Does working hard have to be painful?

It is often said that in order for a fitness workout to be successful, it is necessary to endure pain. I'm sure that all of you have heard of the saying, "No pain, no gain," which is a popular belief among both men and women in terms of exercising. However, the necessity of pain during a workout is put into question in this article, Feeling Pain written by Pirkko Markula.  Markula focuses on the feminine aspect of the issue, in which he says that women have adopted male principles in that they often ignore and endure the pain they experience while exercising because they feel as if pain is an essential element of fitness. Many women think of pain as just being "part of the game," such as in running and other physically demanding sports. However, this article addresses the fact that women athletes must learn to differentiate between the different types of pain that one may endure.

There are two different types of pain that one may experience while exercising -- good pain and bad pain. Good pain refers to the everyday "hurt" that is associated with muscles  whereas pain in joints, ligaments, and bones indicate bad pain. One must have the ability to stop when they realize that they are enduring bad pain and when it becomes too much for his or her body to handle. While pain is considered an essential aspect of many sport women's experiences, it can become a problem when the female chooses to ignore pain and allow it to become "numb" to their bodily feelings, such as in dancing. In the article, the author talks about a study that he conducted of dancers and their experiences with pain. He found that dancers are known to accept pain as a necessary part of their culture and many have said that they need to be in pain in order to know that they are pushing their limits. They have some difficulty, however, trying to distinguish between pain and injury and thus, do not always realize when they pass from feeling pain to actually injuring their bodies. They have the determined mindset that as long as they have the ability to move, the pain can be ignored.

While exercising, it may be difficult to feel as if you are really working hard without enduring some kind of pain. However, this article supports that the most important part of exercising is learning when the pain has the capability of passing from just a simple "hurt" to a possible injury. Pain is an expected and accepted aspect of exercise culture. During physical activities, bodily pain is usually a sign that something is wrong. While dancers and athletes are aware of this fact, they feel as if they cannot afford to stop due to the requirements of their performance culture. So now, I am asking you for your thoughts. Does working hard have to be painful? Do you think that exercise needs to hurt in order to attain maximum performance? How can you distinguish between good and bad pain during an exercise? How is an exerciser to know when to push his or her body or when to stop?

Is being grateful the gateway to happiness?

With Thanksgiving just past the corner, I'm sure some of us all remember exactly what we said we were thankful for around the table. Family, friends, college acceptance- I think it's a pretty safe bet that we all took a moment to remember the things we're grateful for before digging into whatever kind of turkey and potatoes you had on the menu.

This really only happens once a year, though, we need a specific day to remember what we're thankful for, and oftentimes with some prompting. But what if we took time out of every day to remember what we're grateful for? This article by Mary MacVean says there's long lasting evidence that, if we took a second to stop and allow ourselves to feel grateful for what we have, we'd greatly decrease our chances of depression and stress-related illnesses.

The article says that being grateful leads to acknowledging that humanity is, in essence, good, and that thought alone can lead to a reduction of stress. Gratefulness allows us to remember that we have people in our lives to help us out if we need it, and that we wouldn't be the person we are if we'd been completely alone, that other people help to shape us.

But is taking time our of our daily lives to be grateful too much of a stretch? While Thanksgiving is a specific day meant to be used to express our thanks, even it is being pushed under the rug in favor of consumeristic events, like Black Friday, and the rush to Christmas. Is it really feasible for us to use this idea of taking time out of our days to think of what we're thankful? Or are we always going to be too caught up in the here and now than to stop and think.

What do you think? Could you see yourself doing it, or is being grateful always going to be overshadowed by thoughts of the things we need or want, rather than what people have already helped us achieve? Even simpler than that- do you think it makes sense that being grateful could help relieve stress and ward off depression?

Can Eight Minutes Change Your Day?

           I’m almost positive that everyone has had one of those horrible days when it seems like your world is close to ending. You might think that there’s no possible way you could be happy after failing a test, forgetting a project or just having too much to do after school. Think again, according to psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky, forty percent of our happiness may be within our power to control. In the article “The Happiness Diet,” she explains a recent study, she found that found people who thought about happy life events for eight minutes every day for three days felt increased life satisfaction four weeks later than they had prior to the study. She calls this theory the “40 Percent Solution. In her book, "The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want,” she lists various activities to make yourself happy. Psychologists have been using these “happiness activities” to help their clients achieve true happiness in their lives.

            Lyubomirsky mainly focuses on the differences between happy people and unhappy people and how to increase the number of the happy ones. She looks at happiness as a diet. You can’t eat healthy one day and expect to lose ten pounds; you have to work at it. Just like a diet, you need to work on your happiness all the time as well. You can’t do one happiness exercise and expect to be happy for the rest of your life. You have to do it every day and really put effort into boosting your own happiness. I know you may be thinking that you barely have time to breathe during the day…where are you supposed to find the time to make yourself happy. Just remember it only takes about eight minutes of your day and it will probably help make you motivate and more productive with your work.

            Many people believe the myth that weather can add to your happiness. That people in Florida where it is always warm and sunny are happier than people in Maine where it is usually cold. Weather actually has nothing to do with it because you become adapted to the weather wherever you live. However, if you move to Florida you may have an increase in your happiness for a little bit because the warm and sunny weather is new to you. But after a while you will adapt to it and that happiness will return to normal. This is one reason why people like to go on vacation so much: change of scenery. Variety changes the way we look at things and that helps us to truly enjoy what we have.

            Happiness not only will give you a new outlook on life but it can improve relationships, creativity, social life and leadership skills. Happiness has so many benefits to it, why live a life controlled by all the negatives. So I challenge you to ask yourself: What makes you happy? Do you think that eight minutes can change your whole day? How can you change up your everyday routine? Would you look at things differently if you were in a better mood?

Shop 'til You Drop

As Christmas approaches, most of us will be spending more and more time shopping and in this article, "Consuming Passion: Human psychology shapes the shopping experience" Kay Randall explains the tendencies of shoppers. Randall also describes the different types of products and methods used my different groups of people based on age and gender.

Randall differentiates the two methods based on gender. Men are more goal-orientated thinkers who decide what they need before going to the store, as soon as they arrive they find it and check out. Women, however, shop for the experience and usually for nothing in particular, they are waiting for an item to spark their interest. And females tend to take much longer shopping than men because we love to try things on.

Not only are women better at coordinating outfits from items throughout the store, but they are quite more capable than men. Men have difficulty pairing a shirt and pant together unless it is displayed for them, otherwise they will purchase only one of the products and move on. That is why it is important for retailers to place outfits in the same display for men while women do not need that aid. Also, stores tend to place candy and gum on the lower shelves, like at the check out at pharmacies, so children are tempted to grab it and beg their parents to purchase it. Even elderly people are targeted in stores, by sales on certain products at certain times of the day because most elderly people do not work and have a fixed income, they also spend time shopping because of their retirement.

Randall also presents the different types of products in a store, such as pain killers or cough medicine have minimal display because people will purchase these utilitarian products when necessary and will not leave a store without it. But luxury items like Godiva chocolate or fancy electronics are displayed to attract attention and interest. If successful, these displays will draw people to purchase these hedonic items, but people will take in to consideration the price and quality of the good more so than if it were a necessity.

There are a lot of factors that draw people to purchase goods: the store ambiance and aroma and customer service are just two examples. Retailers know how to get your attention and mainly your money, especially during the holiday season.

Do you agree with Randall's research? How do you complete your Christmas shopping? What process works best for you? Do you find yourself easily tempted by the candy and gum at the cash register of CVS, do you think this method is productive in business? 

Is there a wrong way to promote fitness?

As a response to the rising obesity rates, the media has recently been making more efforts to promote exercise and fitness to encourage healthy lifestyles. Whether it’s a commercial on the radio or a talk show on T.V., we never stop hearing doctors, celebrity icons, and fitness experts talk about the benefits exercise has for both the mind and body. However, for decades research has shown that a solid 40% of Americans never exercise, as reported in the article “Updating the Message to Get Americans Moving.” 

Why is it then that people are still not taking the initiative to work out? Why is it so difficult for Americans to find the drive to get moving, knowing it will make them feel better, happier, and more energetic? 

The NY times article suggests that the reason is routed in the way fitness messages are delivered; they are taken to heart by people who already enjoy exercise, but go over the heads of people who don’t know how to exercise. Simply telling sedentary people that jogging 20 minutes a day will make them feel good isn’t going to make them stop being a couch potato, and advertisements for intense fitness programs are clearly not any more motivating. 

Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s research has found that people only remember the parts of their workout that made them feel best, which are the climax, when the endorphin production is at its peak, and the end, when it’s all over. Because everyone is at different fitness levels, it’s impossible to just give people an exercise prescription and expect them to stick with it. Doctors such as Dr. Ekkekakis are therefore suggesting that the key to motivating Americans to get active is to help them find the intensity level that makes them feel best, rather than just telling them to do a certain exercise. 

What do you think: what’s wrong with the media’s fitness messages and why aren’t they getting across to Americans? If people knew the level at which they get that “runner’s high” feeling, would they be more enthusiastic about working out? How do you find the motivation to exercise? 

Re-learning How to Eat

I'm pretty positive that if I said that America is the most obese country in the world, it would not come as a surprise to anyone. I'm also sure that if I said that our portions are out of control, we are surrounded by tempting food advertisements and we no longer eat to fulfill hunger, most of you would agree. Well, we individually can not change the portions we get when we order at a restaurant or the food commercials and shows that we see on the TV. However, we CAN control our own eating habits.

Clinical psychologist Jean Kristeller  started a program called Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training  to help binge eaters develop mature eating habits. It is important to strengthen and draw attention to  mindful habits because the problem that many people face is that we are not aware of our overeating until the "food coma" hits. Some Mindful Habits are being aware of hunger, chewing food slowly, tuning in to taste, noticing fullness, and being aware of negative emotions, cravings and impulsivity.

 Kristeller stresses eating to satisfy hunger and stopping once that is completed. It is proven that our taste buds get tired after the first few bites  and after eating large amounts of food, we no longer  taste the food  to its fully capacity anymore.  Once we become aware of this, we can learn to leave food on the plate when the taste no longer satisfies us. This technique can help us deal with the large portions we are served at restaurants. Since Kristeller's program does not put any particular food in an "off-limits" category, this technique will also allow us to enjoy a few bites of chocolate cake, for example, but then put it down and walk away. Another valuable technique is chewing slowly which helps us to realize when we are full and stop so we do not go beyond that point. Remember, eating food is about quality not quantity.

Kristeller also puts a great emphasis on getting out of the routine of eating.  She states that, "We eat when it's time to eat, when food is put in front of us or because we need to handle feelings of anger, anxiety, depression or simple boredom ". We wake up in the morning and make breakfast regardless of what time you wake up at or if you are even hungry or not. Another bad habit is eating while watching TV, doing homework or surfing the internet. While eating, our body must be our main focus. We need to close ourselves off from distractions so we do not accidentally over eat. For those of us you "eat our emotions", a good technique to control this is meditation. By calming our mind, we become les stressed and can zone in on our priorities and tasks at hand.

So….. How do you control binge eating? What do you think of these techniques? What other exercises can you think of to control overeating? When do you find yourself overeating? Why do you find yourself bingeing? Are these practices enough to positively affect the obesity epidemic? 

I Want To Be Famous

Admit it, at least in one point of your life you wanted to be famous. We have all longed to live the rich and glamorous lifestyle of a celebrity. Everyone knows your name and everyone wants to be your friend. You get to live in a multi-million dollar mansion, wear the most beautiful clothes and date the most beautiful people. Sounds perfect, right? However, thanks to numerous tabloids, we know that celebrities are normal people just like the rest of us.  They have their struggles, fears, insecurities, and failures just like everyone else. To make it worse, they deal with the problems we have to deal with while being scrutinized under the public eye. Their seemingly perfect lifestyle is not as great as it appears and those who live this lifestyle aren't that much happier or better off than we are. Then what is with all this hoopla about celebrities? Why do we crave fame?

 You could blame the media for this widespread fascination. However, In Carlina Flora's article, "Seeing by Starlight: Celebrity Obsession", Flora explains that our minds are responsible for our obsession with celebrities. She says that "Celebrities tap into powerful motivational systems designed to foster romantic love and to urge us to find a mate. Stars summon our most human yearnings: to love, admire, copy and, of course, to gossip and to jeer. It's only natural that we get pulled into their gravitational field."

Flora also suggests that our love and idolization for celebrities is a modern form of ritualized idol worship and  that celebrity culture is taking the place of religion. Psychologist James Houran speculates that "nonreligious people tend to be more interested in celebrity culture" because celebrities fill "some of the same roles the church fills for believers, like the desire to admire the powerful and the drive to fit into a community of people with shared values." In the secular society we live into, our longing for ritualized idol worship can be placed onto stars.

Flora also suggests that we adore celebrities because they give us the inspiration to tackle our own problems. Anthropologist Helen Fisher explains that "celebrities motivate us to make it". We are inspired by Demi Lovato who made it through her breakdown and bipolar disorder and Oprah Winfrey who made it through poverty, sexual abuse and racial discrimination to become wealthy and successful stars. If they can make it through their struggles with success, why can't the rest of us?

So do you agree with Flora? Do you think that celebrity culture could take the place of religion? Do you find comfort in engaging in the lives of the rich and famous? What do you think is behind all the hoopla about celebrities?