Life Coach Canberra

Improving Brain Capacity For Seniors

2011-02-04T11:25:00.001+11:00

via futurity.org

Here is yet another great reason to exercise that has nothing to do with your heart, circulation system or resistance to disease etc:

University of Pittsburg researchers recruited 120 sedentary older people without dementia and randomly placed them in one of two groups—those who began an exercise regimen of walking around a track for 40 minutes a day, three days a week, or those limited to stretching and toning exercises.

Magnetic resonance images were collected before the intervention, after six months, and at the end of the one-year study.

Brain images show that the aerobic exercise group demonstrated an increase in volume of the left and right hippocampus of 2.12 percent and 1.97 percent, respectively. The same regions of the brain in those who did stretching exercises decreased in volume by 1.40 and 1.43 percent, respectively.

So, no matter what age you are, if you are doing nothing, you should get up off your backside and get outdoors before it is too late.

Don't Start with Goal Setting

2010-12-30T13:00:00.001+11:00

via chris-edwards.com

If you want to change your fortune, you shouldn't start by setting goals. First you need to benchmark.

Before you consider setting goals for 2011, you should first be honest with yourself and benchmark your strengths, weaknesses etc (SWOT)

Male and Female brains react differently to stress

2010-12-05T11:07:00.001+11:00

via futurity.org

Fascinating new research helps explain why women are far more sensitive to stress and suffer from stress related illness such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder than males.

The female brains relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala impairs their ability to learn from the experience and 'move on'.

In experiments with mice, when the connection between these two areas of the brain are cut, the female mouse will learn from a stimulus association.

Supermarket v Farmer's Market?

2010-11-30T08:56:00.001+11:00

via chris-edwards.com

In suburbia, most people have no idea when fruit and vegetables are in season. We just go to the supermarket and get what we want. We buy all sorts of produce with no idea about how it was produced, where it came from or in many cases, the best way to prepare it.

The supermarket is a cold place where we are all just consumers. In fact, in many supermarkets we even have to scan our own items and pay the machine. It is all about input and output.

A farmer's market is a nice reminder that we don't have to be a number in a supermarket cue. Here you talk to the person who makes the food you eat. They care about you because you are their livelihood, and they take pride in the produce they are selling you.

I, for one, will be voting with my feet.

Earth from the window of a space station

2010-11-18T10:06:00.001+11:00

via dailymail.co.uk

When it comes to a view, this one is hard to top!

Tracy Caldwell Dyson looks relaxed in a moment of contemplation 350 km above the earth.

If you have ever done a meditation, one of the standard ways of beginning is to imagine yourself in a peaceful scene. I can't imagine it being much more peaceful than this!

This image was taken in late September 2010 from the International Space Station's Cupola window bay.

Drinking coffee makes you easier to persuade

2010-11-11T07:46:00.001+11:00

via spring.org.uk

I'd never heard this before, but apparently apart from keeping us awake, caffeine also makes us more susceptible to persuasion.

Experiments done at the University of Queensland showed that people who drank caffeine were more influenced by persuasive messages than those who had had the placebo.

Immerse the kids in education

2010-11-09T09:17:00.001+11:00

via chris-edwards.com

What a great idea, instead of just teaching these kids in a classroom, they are actually living their version of history.

Children from three schools come together for two days of Olympic Games as part of their studies of ancient Greece.

Competition includes wrestling, javelin, discus, running events and a standing long jump.

The children study ancient city states and then compete for their city state.

Full story http://chris-edwards.com/they-will-never-forget/

Five secrets to getting a better job | Leadership Coaching

2010-11-09T09:11:00.001+11:00

via life7.com.au

There are a lot of tips about making your way up the ladder, but these five are actually the keys to living your life, as well as getting a better career.

In fact, if you did nothing else but focused on these five tips to improve your career prospects, you'd also improve your relationships and many other aspects of your life.

1. Learn to adapt and expect change
2. Live with integrity
3. Take ownership
4. Focus on reliability
5. Learn to communicate well

Full story at Life7 Leadership Coaching http://life7.com.au/secrets-job/

5 Things anyone can do to get a better job

2010-11-03T20:38:00.001+11:00

Everything changes so quickly these days. How many jobs can you think of that existed 20 years ago that no longer exist today?

If you want to improve your career prospects, personal coach Chris Edwards recommends five key things you can do to make sure you get the best career opportunities:

Learn to adapt
Live with integrity
Take ownership
Focus on reliability
Learn to communicate

Read the full story at Five secrets to getting a better job

Bacteria in mouth, gut bad for heart?

2010-10-22T17:05:00.001+11:00

via futurity.org

This is a very interesting article.
Another good argument for regularly cleaning your teeth!

The power of the web to change lives

2010-02-14T11:28:00.001+11:00

It is interesting that while we live in a time when everyone seems to be creating masses of duplicate information, the success of a site like I Wrote this for You is in it's minimalist messages.

This is a great example of the power of the Internet to change people's lives:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Relay for Life

2009-11-16T08:31:00.001+11:00

When I checked my email this morning, I was moved to tears by this little gesture.

On November 6th, I put a post on my blog about the death of our guide dog Buddy, who had finally succumbed to lung cancer.

This morning I got this email with these photos from Sonya:

"These are a few pictures from the Relay for Life mother and I were at today. They had a candle hope ceremony so we lit a candle for Buddy. I hope you like them."

Central Railway Station Sydney

2009-10-08T16:29:00.001+11:00

We just got back from Sydney at 3am this morning. We had been up there for business, and the trip was good, but man are we tired.

Ok, so it is partly my fault because we left Sydney at midnight, but what really took it out of us was the hotel we had stayed in the night before.

We had stayed in this hotel a few times before and it wasn't bad, so when we arrived at the hotel and were very kindly upgraded to a bigger room, it sounded good. Unfortunately the room was on the opposite side of the hotel to where we had stayed before, and it overlooked central railway station.

Do you have any idea how many noisy trains there are in the wee small hours of the morning!

Central Railway Station from hotel window

Memories of the Tsunami in Thailand

2009-10-01T16:34:00.001+10:00

As the relief teams from New Zealand, Australia and the US head for the Pacific in the wake of the latest Tsunami, I recall the last devastating tsunami as thought it was just the other day.

I was on holiday in Thailand a few weeks before the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2005. And because of my very recent trip, I was very focused on getting any news I could at the time.

I found four photos from news coverage that were taken at the identical spots where I had taken photos only weeks before.

My before shot of this spot, you'll find it on my blog at Memories of a Tsunami

On this spot there was a small food trolly, tended by a very nice old lady with the help of a small girl. To the right of the photo is a school yard. The school was destroyed along with the village. 90% of the population were lost to the sea.

My thoughts and best wishes are with those in the Samoa and Indonesia now.

Billy McMahon at Concord Bowling Club

2009-09-28T13:08:00.001+10:00

I found this old photo of my grandfather Jack Edwards, shaking hands with Prime Minister Billy McMahon at Concord Bowling Club.

It would have been in 1971 or 1972.

Maybe someone knows when Billy McMahon visited the club?

Why use an axe?

2009-09-28T09:51:00.001+10:00

I spent a few hours last Friday watching 100 boys breaking lots of lumber at Tae Kwon Do