"Start each day with expectation"

Inc. recently published 9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier by Geoffrey James. Habit number 1:

Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.

Art & Community: Denver's new ArtHaus gallery & studio

Copyright: Michael Gadlin"Artists Michael Gadlin and Aliki McCain [Co-Owners], together, have begun creating a vision for their Art and community. Situated in the RINO district, ArtHaus was created to be an art studio, gallery, and place to learn. ArtHaus was built to be a place between art and community."

Body Rhythms: What is the best time to exercise ... and tweet?

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on biorhythms and their importance to our health. Columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes:

Most people organize their time around everything but the body's natural rhythms. Workday demands, commuting, social events and kids' schedules frequently dominate—inevitably clashing with the body's circadian rhythms of waking and sleeping.

As difficult as it may be to align schedules with the body clock, it may be worth it to try, because of significant potential health benefits. Disruption of circadian rhythms has been linked to such problems as diabetes, depression, dementia and obesity, says Steve Kay, a professor of molecular and computational biology at the University of Southern California. When the body's master clock can synchronize functioning of all its metabolic, cardiovascular and behavioral rhythms in response to light and other natural stimuli, it "gives us an edge in daily life," Dr. Kay says.

Here are a couple of biorhythms regarding physical activity:

• “Physical performance is usually best, and the risk of injury least, from about 3 p.m. to 6 p.m."
• “Muscle strength tends to peak between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. at levels as much as 6% above the day's lows ...” 

And a few rhythms not discussed in your biology or psychology class:

• Twitter messages are less likely to be “steeped in fear, distress, anger or guilt in the morning.”
• “… re-tweeting is best from 3-6 pm
• “… posts to Facebook at about 8 p.m. tend to get the most "likes." 

Learn more at The Peak Time for Everything

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• Dim lights at dusk for better sleep
• The end of night

Intermittent Euphoria

Image: CyberMed, LLC

"Euphoria, of course, isn’t something you can summon at will. It doesn’t lend itself to a handy checklist. In fact, it most often catches us unaware. Nonetheless, we can cultivate a mindset and lifestyle conducive to euphoria – one that seeks adventure, values awe, and relishes discovery."

Mark Sisson

Learn more here. 

Yoga: Correcting the Sedentary Lifestyle

II. 46 Posture should be steady and comfortable.

II. 47 [Such posture should be obtained] by the relaxation of effort and by absorption in the infinite.

II. 48 From this, one is not afflicted by the dualities of the opposites

 -From The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, by Edwin F. Bryant

In these three sutras, Patañjali summarizes the implementation of asanas, or postures, that aspect of the Indian discipline of yoga most readily recognized by non-practitioners. Originally developed to keep a yogi’s body fit and healthy so that he could spend the rest of his day seated in deep concentration, seeking with his mind the ultimate goal of his yogic practices, illumination, asanas are now performed by millions of Americans for their health benefits.

At the beginning of the yoga documentary Enlighten Up! a variety of opinions regarding yoga’s age is presented by prominent American yogis, with the range falling between 40,000 and 2,000 years old. But, according to the book Yoga in the Modern World, an excerpt of which is found at The Magazine of Yoga’s website, yoga as we know it in the United States is a relatively recent creation, which for most practitioners takes the form of Modern Postural Yoga (MPY). 

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Paleolithic Massage?

Swedish massage. Image: istockphoto.comI am currently on a weekend break in the mountains but no longer snowboarding since my cycling injury. I had a massage yesterday, probably the fourth in my life. The experience led me to consider the origin of this practice. While the written record of massage dates to around 3000 BC, what about massage itself? Could its origin much older and date back to the late Paleolithic?

My experience began at the “sanctuary”, a large dimly lit waiting area with a fireplace lending a cave-like atmosphere. The components of the massage (Swedish in this case) were music (specifically flute), oils, and human touch - each element available to humankind for millennia. In view of the millions of years of hominid grooming, it is reasonable to propose that this behavior became more structured with Homo sapiens, possibly at the time of Cro-Magnon, and led to massage or at least a massage-like practice. The flute is at least 40 thousand years old. Oil lamps were carried into the deep recesses of the Lascaux and Altamira caves by Cro-Magnon 13,000-18,000 years ago. Again, all the elements were there.

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Rejuvenation: Robbie Robertson and dopamine

Robbie Robertson with The Band, 1971. Image tSR - Nth Man

Rejuvenation has many faces. It can be a simple walk in park, reading a good book, meditation, yoga. It can result from a focused connection between the inner self and the outer world or between the inner self and the really inner self. Other mental activity fades into the background. 

A short burst can occur at any time. Last Saturday, I was driving to City Floral to get a new houseplant while listening to KBCO. A new song came on: Robbie Robertson’s He Don't Live Here No More (Radio Edit) and the rest was chemical. The “feel good” neurotransmitter dopamine was released.

According to at McGill University neuroscientist Valorie Salimpoor:

You're following these tunes and anticipating what's going to come next and whether it's going to confirm or surprise you, and all of these little cognitive nuances are what's giving you this amazing pleasure," said Valorie Salimpoor, a in Montreal. "The reinforcement or reward happens almost entirely because of dopamine."

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