Health benefits of Gratitude – not only to Thanksgiving

Written on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 9:12 pm by Christiane

Though most of us live better than our parents and grandparents, we often forget to appreciate the abundance we enjoy.

That’s a pity because learning to be grateful for even small joys could improve many areas in our life. As it turns out, people who are grateful – not only to Thanksgiving, rather on a daily basis- sleep better, feel less stress and depression, have more energy, feel more alert, alive and positive. People with high blood pressure could even lower their blood pressure.

Grateful people focus more on the positive things in life and are less focused on pain and problems.

A few strategies help learning to become more aware of one’s own blessings:

  1. Start a gratitude journal and list daily or weekly the positive things that happened; whether you met an old friend, you cooked a delicious meal or the bus was on time……There is something to be grateful for on even the worst days.
  2.  For the coming holidays: List all the people in your life who you take for granted. Then picture your life without these people. How would it be? What would you be missing? In your holiday cards to these people thank them for being in your life and for the difference they are making.
  3. Make a sign for your fridge or bathroom mirror: This week, I’m grateful for…..

I’m grateful for being healthy. I’m now cancer free for 10 years. In addition, I’m thankful for my family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christiane is a professional Life & Career Coach (coach4u.net). In addition, she teaches Psychology at a Community College near Boston.


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Credit Card 101

Written on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 6:34 pm by Christiane

The other day, I heard in the news that the average American household owns 10 credit cards and owes more than $ 10 000 to credit card companies. Now, many lenders are pulling back by curtailing credit card offers and credit lines. At the same time, lenders are also increasing the APR of many credit cards. The APR of one of our cards for example was recently increased to 28 %! If we had debt on this card, it would be extremely tough to pay it off.

Lenders are pulling back because they fear that more people will default on their loans. In the first half of 2008, they had to write off about $ 21 billion in bad credit card loans.

For consumers, it’s therefore most important to increase their knowledge about credit card management and how to use them more wisely. Texas public accountants offer 5 tips for consumer squeezed by credit crunch:

Tip No. 1: Check your credit limit (because it may have been lowered recently).
Tip No. 2: Call your credit card issuer and negotiate for lower rates.
Tip No. 3: Read the fine print on future offers.
Tip No. 4: Consider using year-end bonuses and holiday gift money to pay down credit card balances.
Tip No. 5: Stick to your holiday shopping list and pay for gifts with cash.

Read more details
If you would like a crash course in Credit Card 101, read the Federal Reserve information on Credit Cards. There you will get excellent information about APRs, finance charges, or grace period, to name a few tems.


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Brain, Food and Weight

Written on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 10:50 am by Christiane

Overweight people just enjoy food more than people of normal weight and that’s the reason why they eat more and gain weight!

You think so? Think again!

Scientists at the Oregon Research Institute compared the brain responses of skinny and overweight people while drinking a milkshake. It turned out that a brain region called dorsal striatum, which the scientists describe as “a dopamine-rich pleasure center” became active. However, that brain region was less active in overweight people than in lean people.

Previous brain scans have already shown that overweight people have fewer dopamine receptors that normal weight people. This difference seems to be caused by genetics.

One of the senior scientists at the Oregon Research Institute concludes, based on the study results, that opposed to common belief obese people get in fact LESS satisfaction from food and to compensate for that they eat more.

More: Oregon Research Institute


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Optimism key to White House?

Written on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm by Christiane

Researchers at the Positive Psychology Center at Penn University have determined that in the past 100 years, the most optimistic candidates have won more than 80 percent of presidential elections. The reason why voters prefer optimistic candidates could be that they inspire hope.

With regard to the current candidates, the psychologists find Barack Obama and John McCain to be equally optimistic and Sarah Palin slightly more optimistic than Joseph Biden.

To read more about the study go to: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1452




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Fortune Cookie Wisdom

Written on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm by Christiane


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Study shows: A laugh a day makes employees stay

Written on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 pm by Christiane

According to a new study, employers have no reason to be concerned if they hear occasional laughter coming from the work areas. On the contrary, they may even want to encourage the use of humor at the workplace, because it increases job satisfaction.

The Australian psychologist Maren Rawlings surveyed 300 workers from 20 different countries. She found that employees, who worked in a humor climate, were more satisfied with their jobs than those, who worked in a humor free climate or in a climate with negative humor like making fun of co-workers to put them down.

Previous studies have demonstrated that employees with high job satisfaction are more likely to stay in their company and are more productive.

Rawlings concludes: “If employers take measures to encourage a positive humor climate in the workplace, they are more likely to retain their staff. And with an ageing workforce it is vital for companies to keep good people.”
(from http://www.swinburne.edu.au)


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Balancing Work and Life

Written on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm by Christiane

If you are like me, then there is always too much to do and never enough time to do it all. In consequence, many of us are controlled by their daily “to do list”.

On a weekly basis, how much time do you have left for some fun in your life? If you don’t know for sure, maybe you will find the work-life balance calculator useful that I recently found on cnn.com


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End of summer blues?

Written on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 5:20 pm by Christiane

Four days until Labor day and I’m affected by end of summer blues. The summer went by way too fast. It seems like we were either on the road or -in between trips- I was working in the garden, doing laundry etc to get ready for our next departure. First, we were for two weeks in Texas and then another two weeks on our annual family visit in Austria. If I had only two more weeks before school starts….

I know that I’m not the only one who wishes for a longer summer. Many people are returning this weekend from vacation and would love to have more time to get adjusted before their usual crazy-busy life starts again. A few tricks might help to ease the re-entry:

Don’t return on the last minute. Give yourself one extra day at home to relax from the travel itself, catch up on emails and do the laundry.
Back home, don’t look right away at the bills. Do pleasant things first, like calling your family and friends.
Keep the first day at the office meeting free and – if possible – keep the ‘out-of-office’ email for one more day. This buys you time to catch up on other backlogged work.
If you suffer from jet lag, don’t pack too much into the week. It takes time to adjust- in average, one time zone per day.

And if you are reading this while still on vacation: don’t forget to buy some food as mementos, like chocolate or spices. You will feel like on vacation when savoring these delicacies at home.


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Rising happiness around world

Written on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 11:15 am by Christiane

Good news: the level of happiness is rising around the world. People are happier these days than 25 years ago. This is the result of a study published by the University of Michigan. The United States ranks 16th on the list of 97 countries. Denmark seems to be the happiest nation in the world and Zimbabwe the unhappiest. Read more: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/uom-hir063008.php

Researchers at the University Of Leicester, England published last year a world map of subjective well-being. They came to almost the same result: Denmark received the top score for happiness. More: http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html


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Overtime at Work could cause Anxiety and Depression

Written on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am by Christiane

Do you belong to the lucky ones who still can put in overtime? Well, as it turns out now, it may be good for your paycheck but not as good for your psyche.

According to a recently published study by Norway researchers, people who put in more than 40 work hours per week have a higher risk for anxiety and depression.

The researchers compared about 9,000 people, who work 40 hours or less with 1,350, who worked regularly overtime. “Results: Overtime workers of both genders had significantly higher anxiety and depression levels and higher prevalences of anxiety and depressive disorders compared with those working normal hours.” (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, http://www.joem.org/ )

According to the United States Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov, )
full time worker spend just under 43 hours at work per week. In 2006, about 18 % of full time workers put in more than 50 hours per week. Currently, about 3 % of the workforce has a part time job because they can’t find a full time job or their companies cut the work hours because of the economic downturn and about 5 % of the workforce holds more than one job.


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