Few people know how to listen well. Even techniques like "active listening" can be counterproductive.  Well-intentioned responses may not meet the speakers' needs or address their concerns. For example, if a colleague says he needs a vacation and you respond with a place you recently visited, you may overlook that there are deeper unstated problems that are not addressed. However, with practice, we can all be more effective listeners.

Better listening

<ul><li>An analytical listener aims to analyze a problem from a neutral point.</li><li>A relational listener aims to build a connection and understand the emotions underlying message.</li><li>A critical listener aims to judge both the content of the conversation and the reliability of the speaker.</li><li>A task-focused listener shapes a conversation by efficiently passing along important information.</li></ul> The first step to improving your listening is to develop the ability to shift dynamically between these styles.

Four distinct listening styles

You may listen to be efficient, avoid conflict, gain attention, support, or entertain. In a conversation, consider what the goals of the conversation are and how best you can listen. For example, is the speaker seeking honest critique, an analytical reflection or an emotional connection?

Establish why you are listening

Our regular listening style may interfere with our goals. We may miss valuable opportunities to understand when using an inappropriate listening style. For example, in a time-pressured environment, we may require task-oriented or critical listening styles to make quick decisions. But at home, family and friends may need something different to rapid decision support. Child: "I don't want to go to school. I have no friends.”Parent: “Of course you have friends! You were just invited to Sally’s birthday party. At recess today, say hello to three new kids.”

Recognize how you usually listen

The way we insert ourselves into the speaker’s narrative shifts the focus of conversational attention. We may assume that interjecting our personal stories is an empathic and relationship-building move, but we should steer the conversation back to the speaker. Colleague A: “I really need a vacation.”Colleague B: “I just came back from a rustic resort in the mountains, and it was so refreshing. I’m curious about what’s going on with you. Feel like talking?”

Be aware of who is the focus of attention

You may find it difficult to adjust from your default listening style. Staying focused on the speaker and the goals will help you adapt to the situation's needs. Patient: "I'm scared about this procedure."Clinician: "Even though the complication rate is very low it's normal to be scared. It's a big procedure. What's scaring you the most?" The clinician may respond with reassurance, but also acknowledging and exploring the emotion expressed will help the patient feel heard and validated.

Adapt the listening style to achieve conversational goals

It may be hard to pinpoint the conversational goals if the speaker does not know what they are hoping to achieve. We should consider whether the conversation seems to be productive and what we may be missing. Taking a moment before an auto reply may help to reveal a subtler, important opportunity. Child: “I am not going to school today. I have no friends.”Parent: “That’s a tough feeling to have. Do you feel like talking about it?”

Ask: Am I missing something?

We may have learned that we need to let people speak without interrupting but taking turns talking does not truly denote listening. And unintentionally hijacking conversations to advise, inject humor, empathize, prioritize efficiency, or insert ourselves into the speaker’s narrative is often done with good intentions, but may instead disrupt the human connection we think we’re forging. Recognizing when to shift out of our habitual styles and consciously apply alternative styles of listening and responding may allow for more effective and meaningful interactions.

Stashed ideas

What’s Your Listening Style?

<ul><li>Virtually all of the Type II diabetics, 80% of all cardiovascular diseases and 33% of all cancers are linked to the western diet.</li><li>Populations who eat a wide range of foods (unrefined) do not suffer from these diseases.</li><li>If you get off the western diet, your health can improve.</li><li>Processing food removes nutrients, adds toxins and makes it more absorbable (causing insulin challenges).</li><li>We spend 2 Trillion dollars on health care each year in the United States.</li></ul>

Food Facts: What We Need To Know

Most people don’t eat enough raw fruits and vegetables. They eat ‘grab and go’ stuff that’s less messy but more high-calorie dense and they eat as they handle multiple tasks. This is not good.Populations that eat a so-called Western diet—generally defined as a diet consisting of lots of processed foods and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, fruits, and whole grains—invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The Western Lifestyle And Diet

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

<ul><li>Eat local, healthy food that your great-grandmother would have recognized.</li><li>Avoid anything processed.</li><li>Buy from your local farmer's market.</li><li> Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.</li><li>Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.</li><li>Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients.</li></ul>

Key Points

Populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don’t suffer from these chronic diseases. These diets run the gamut from ones very high in fat (the Inuit in Greenland subsist largely on seal blubber) to ones high in carbohydrate (Central American Indians subsist largely on maize and beans) to ones very high in protein (Masai tribesmen in Africa subsist chiefly on cattle blood, meat, and milk).

A Different Diet

There’s a lot of money in the Western diet. The more you process any food, the more profitable it becomes. You are mostly sold processed food as it is highly advantageous for the companies, even though it is an unhealthy diet. The healthcare industry makes more money treating chronic diseases (which account for three-quarters of the $2 trillion-plus we spend each year on health care in this country) than preventing them.

They Make You Sick And Then Charge To Make You Feel Better

Noncaloric sweeteners such as aspartame or Splenda, research (in both humans and animals) suggests that switching to artificial sweeteners does not lead to weight loss, for reasons not yet well understood. But it may be that deceiving the brain with the reward of sweetness stimulates a craving for even more sweetness.

The Sweeteners Are Not Working

<ul><li>Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients.</li><li>Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.</li><li>Avoid food products that make health claims.</li><li>Avoid food products with the wordoid “lite" or the terms "low-fat" or “nonfat" in their names.</li><li>Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not. Imitation butter—aka margarine—is a classic example.</li><li>Avoid foods you see advertised on television. If they have to spend millions to sell it, it's not worth eating.</li><li>Eat only foods that will eventually rot.</li></ul>

The Food Rules

If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

<ul><li>It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.</li><li>It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles.)</li><li>It's not food if it's not cooked by humans but came out of an industrial plant.</li></ul>

It's Not Food If..

Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants—the antioxidants? the fibre? the omega-3 fatty acids?—but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. There are scores of studies demonstrating that a diet rich in vegetables and fruits reduces the risk of dying from all Western diseases; in countries where people eat a pound or more of vegetables and fruits a day, the rate of cancer is half what it is in the United States.

Science Does Not Want To Get Into Why Plants Are So Good

By eating a diet that is primarily plant-based, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods—with the exception of seeds, including grains and nuts—are typically less "energy dense" than the other things you eat. (And consuming fewer calories protects against many chronic diseases.) Vegetarians are notably healthier than carnivores, and they live longer.

Fewer Calories

Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs, and other mammals].

Another bit of traditional wisdom with good science behind it: The water in which vegetables are cooked is rich in vitamins and other healthful plant chemicals. Save it for soup or add it to sauces.

Drink The Spinach Water

Two of the most nutritious plants in the world —lamb’s quarters and purslane—are weeds, and some of the healthiest traditional diets, like the Mediterranean, make frequent use of wild greens.The fields and forests are crowded with plants containing higher levels of various phytochemicals than their domesticated cousins.

The Wild Plants

Many traditional cultures swear by the health benefits of fermented foods—foods that have been transformed by live microorganisms, such as yoghurt, sauerkraut, soy sauce, kimchi, and sourdough bread. These foods can be a good source of vitamin B12, an essential nutrient you can’t get from plants. (B12 is produced by animals and bacteria.) Many fermented foods also contain probiotics—beneficial bacteria that improve the function of the digestive and immune systems and help reduce allergic reactions and inflammation.

Eat The Fermented Foods

The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.

We know that people who take supplements are generally healthier than the rest of us, and we also know that in controlled studies most of the supplements they take don’t appear to be effective. How can this be? Supplement takers are healthy for reasons that have nothing to do with the pills. They’re typically more health conscious, better educated, and more affluent. They’re also more likely to exercise and eat whole grains.

Those Supplements Are Not Working

<ul><li>People who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than those of us eating a modern Western diet of processed foods. </li><li>Any traditional diet will do: If it were not a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around.</li><li>In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats as well as to what it eats.</li><li>Pay attention, too, to the combinations of foods in traditional cultures: In Latin America, corn is traditionally cooked with lime and eaten with beans.</li></ul>

Go For Traditional Diets

There is now considerable scientific evidence for the health benefits of alcohol to go with a few centuries of traditional belief and anecdotal evidence. Mindful of the social and health effects of alcoholism, public health authorities are loath to recommend drinking, but the fact is that people who drink moderately and regularly live longer and suffer considerably less heart disease than teetotalers.

Red Wine Is Okay

<ul><li>How you eat may have as much bearing on your health (and your weight) as what you eat.</li><li>Pay more, eat less, or as grandmothers used to say, "Better to pay the grocer than the doctor."</li><li>Stop eating before you’re full.</li><li>Ask yourself not, Am I full? but, Is my hunger gone? That moment will arrive several bites sooner.</li><li>Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.</li><li>One old wives’ test: If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry.</li><li>Consult your gut.</li><li>Eat slowly and mindfully.</li><li>Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.</li><li>Cook your food yourself.</li></ul>

How To Eat

We have been eating wrong all our lives. This book shakes our belief patterns on food and diet.

An enhanced edition of Food Rules—beautifully illustrated and packed with additional food wisdom Michael Pollan’s Food Rules prompted a national discussion helping to change the way Americans approach eating. This new edition illustrated by celebrated artist Maira Kalman—and expanded with a new introduction and nineteen additional food rules—marks an advance in the national dialogue that Food Rules inspired. Many of the new rules, suggested by readers, underscore the central teachings of the original Food Rules, which are that eating doesn’t have to be so complicated and that food is as much about pleasure and community as it is about nutrition and health. A beautiful book to cherish and share, Food Rules guides us with humor, joy, and common sense toward a happier, healthier relationship to food.

Food Rules

The diet was created by Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist, and Donal O'Neill, who was an international athelete. They both advocate for the low-carb, high-fat diet plan.This diet encourages eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, and fish. It also includes lifestyle changes such as getting adequate sleep, regular socialization, and a weekly-24 hour fast.The diet discourages red meat, starchy carbs (bread and pasta), and sweet treats.

The Pioppi Diet

The Pioppi Diet claims to:<ul><li>Help lose excess body fat</li><li>Prevent and treat heart disease</li><li>Manage or even reverse impaired blood glucose conditions </li><li>Reduce the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, high medication loads, and the development of dementia and cancer</li></ul>Although various references have been cited by the creators of this diet, there is no specific research or evidence to support this version of the Pioppi diet.

Evidences On The Pioppi Diet

The Pioppi diet, when compared to the UK government guidelines, it shares a similarity to it. They both recommend eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, keeping the consumption of red meat to an average of 500g per week, and encourages a healthy lifestyle overall. However, the recommendations for total fat goes against NHS reference intakes.The Pioppi diet should not be done by the elderly, those under 18 years of age, those undergoing medication, have low BMIs, those who have emotional or psychological issues with food, and especially by those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or diabetic.

The Safeness of the Pioppi Diet

The Pioppi Diet does allow one to consume less food and calories. When we consume less calories the we will eventually lose weight, most especially when one decides to start incorporating an active lifestyle alongside the diet.However, this is still dependent on your starting weight and existing diet and lifestyle.Regarding its sustainability, it is debatable. For the Pioppi Diet to be done for more than 21-days is hard to maintain since it omits a whole food group.

The Pioppi Diet: Its Sustainability as a Diet

Which foods are allowed on the Pioppi diet and how does it differ from most Mediterranean eating plans? We look at whether it's safe, effective and sustainable.

Health

What is the Pioppi diet?

According to a new study, relying on caffeine to help you through your day can only get you so far.
Caffeine may help you stay awake to attend to a task, but it doesn't help to prevent procedural errors that can cause, for example, medical mistakes and car accidents.

Relying on caffeine is not always helpful

The study investigated the effect of caffeine on the completion of simple tasks as well as place-keeping tasks - tasks that need to be completed in a specific order without skipping or repeating steps.
The study looked at the effect of caffeine after a period of sleep deprivation.
<ul>
<li>They found sleep deprivation affected both types of tasks and that caffeine helped people achieve simple tasks.</li>
<li>But caffeine had little effect on the performance of place-keeping tasks.</li>
</ul>

The importance of prioritizing sleep

While many of us reach for coffee first thing in the morning or even an energy drink to get us through a long late-night drive, new research finds that caffeine is only going to get us so far. While caffeine intake improved people's ability to stay awake, it didn't help much with more complex placekeeping.

Caffeine isn't actually going to help you combat sleep deprivation

We often see similar facial appearances of family members in photo albums, observing how genes determine certain distinctive features in our bodies.
In-depth genetic knowledge and how our DNA is linked to facial appearance is a relatively new accomplishment by geneticists. 130 chromosomal regions which are associated with our facial shapes and features have been identified, in a comprehensive process involving scanning the DNA of 8000 participants.

How Genes Determine Our Facial Features

<ol>
<li>The nose is the most influenced DNA facial feature.</li>
<li>Genetic influence is not uniform or predictable, as certain genetic factors interact with the genome in complex ways, known as epistasis.</li>
<li>Certain facial features are linked with the probability of diseases like cancer.</li>
<li>Genetic understanding of this kind, previously unheard of, will advance personalised treatments and help in forecasting upcoming physical and mental health issues.</li>
</ol>

Genes And Our Facial Features: The Findings And Emerging Patterns

Scientists scanned the DNA of 8,000 people to figure out how genes control facial features. Here's what they found.

Here's how genes determine your facial features

<ul><li>We tend to forget that the liver is a part of the organs that respond first against viruses and bacteria. Our livers are filled with cells that help in defending our immune system;</li><li>There are certain times where the liver aids other organs such as the brain when a person's blood sugar level drops. Since the brain relies on sugar as a source of energy, the liver reserve then releases the nutrients needed.</li></ul>

The liver nourishes and protects other organs

<ul><li>The liver is the first organ to receive the nutrients that are being absorbed by the intestine;</li><li>The liver is also a gatekeeper because it senses the overall nourishment of the body and stores sugar, fat, and some vitamins;</li><li>An overabundance of food intake may cause the liver to get overwhelmed and affect its storage capability.</li></ul>

The liver stores nutrients

<ul><li>The liver makes cholesterol, an important structure, despite its bad reputation;</li><li>It also makes blood plasma proteins.</li></ul>

The liver makes nutrients

<ul><li>Alcohol cannot be directly excreted thus needing to be transformed in order to be eliminated;</li><li>The processing of alcohol involves the production of acetaldehyde which is a foreign, toxic molecule so it is quickly transformed into a non-toxic molecule;</li><li>The consumption of alcohol faster on a regular basis than what the liver can process may cause it to become inflamed which can lead to cirrhosis and permanently scar the liver.</li></ul>

The liver metabolizes alcohol and other bad molecules

In this year's subdued St. Patrick's Day celebrations, a biochemist suggests thanking our livers for going above and beyond their ability to metabolize alcohol.

Your liver does more than you give it credit for

Calories are the amount of energy in foods and beverages, or the amount of energy you burn exercising.
Energy is measured in Kilocalories (kcal) and kilojoules (kJ). If you&#39;re counting calories or comparing the calorie contents of foods, this can cause confusion.

Calories are a measure of energy

Calories can be small or large.
<ul>
<li>A large calorie estimates the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of water by 1°C (34°F).</li>
<li>A small calorie estimates the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram (0.035 ounces) of water by 1°C (34°F)</li>
</ul>
This means that 1 large calorie = 1,000 small calories, as 1 kg = 1,000 grams.

Small and large calories

The term kilocalorie (kilo meaning 1,000) was created to refer to a large calorie. The term small calorie is only used in physics and chemistry research.
This means that with nutrition, the terms calories and kcal equal the same amount of energy (1 kilokalorie = 1 calorie in nutrition.)

1 kilocalorie = 1 calorie in nutrition

One calorie (kcal) = 4.18 kJ
To convert from calories to kJ, multiply calories by 4.18.
For example, a medium-sized banana (118 grams) provides 105 calories (kcal). 105 x 4.18 = 439 kJ.

To convert from calories to kJ

Calories refer to the amount of energy in foods or drinks or the amount of energy you burn exercising, but you may be confused by seeing different units used to describe them. This article explains what calories are and how they compare with kcal and kJ.

Kcal vs. Calories: Differences and How to Convert

<ol>
<li>The central nervous system (CNS). It includes the brain and spinal cord.</li>
<li>The peripheral nervous system (PNS). It includes all the nerves that branch out from the brain and spinal cord and extends to other parts of the body, including muscles and organs.</li>
</ol>

The nervous system consists of two parts

The PNS's primary role is to connect the CNS to the organs, limbs, and skin. The peripheral nervous system is divided into two parts:
<ol>
<li>The somatic nervous system. It is responsible for carrying sensory and motor information to and from the CNS. </li>
<li>The automatic nervous system. It is responsible for regulating involuntary body functions, such as heartbeat, digestion, breathing, and blood flow.</li>
</ol>

The main role of the PNS

The somatic system is responsible for transmitting sensory information as well as voluntary movement. The system contains two major types of neurons:
<ol>
<li>Motor neurons. They carry information from the brain and spinal cord to muscle fibers throughout the body. They allow us to take physical action.</li>
<li>Sensory neurons. They allow us to take in sensory information and then carry the information from the nerves to the central nervous system.</li>
</ol>

The Somatic Nervous System

The autonomic system controls aspects of the body that are usually not under voluntary control. The autonomic system is divided into two branches:
<ol>
<li>Parasympathetic system: It helps maintain normal body functions and conserve physical resources. Once a threat is over, this system will slow the heart rate, slow the breathing, reduce blood flow to muscles, and constrict the pupils.</li>
<li>Sympathetic system: This system prepares the body to expend energy to respond to environmental threats - the flight or fight response.</li>
</ol>

The Autonomic Nervous System

The peripheral nervous system (PNS) includes all the nerves that lie outside of the central nervous system. Learn more about how the PNS works.

What You Should Know About the Peripheral Nervous System

At the beginning of the year, we usually overcommit with our fitness schedule, we hurt ourselves and then never return.
We rarely reach our new year&#39;s fitness goals. But not because we don’t try hard enough - quite the opposite. We are going too hard, too fast in January; we burn out and injure ourselves, then we fully quit.

We rarely achieve our fitness goals

Every year, at the very beginning, we start working on our fitness habits too hard, too quickly, in an unsustainable way, and expect instant gratification.
The instant commitment and expectation of instant gratification go together.

When we expect immediate results

With resolutions, it tends to be pretty black-and-white: doing workouts seven times a week or doing nothing at all. We have to get used with living into the gray area.
This area can mean choosing a softer, less intimidating goal: moving more, instead of committing to work out seven times a week, for example.

Setting realistic goals

The Way We Make Fitness Resolutions Is All Wrong

Whenever you're doing something that does not require use of your hands, turn them so that they're palm-side up. You also can do it while standing or walking, leaving your arms down at your sides and turning your palms so that they face outward in the direction you're facing.Doing the palms up consistently helps your body to correct the posture by itself.

Turn Up Your Palms

Want to improve your posture quickly, for free, with almost zero effort? I recently did it. So can you. I don't deserve any credit for this accomplishment. I didn't invent the technique, nor, as I mentioned, did implementing it ask much of me. I can, however, vouch for its effectiveness.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Jade R.
@jade_r

What’s Your Listening Style?

Food Rules

What is the Pioppi diet?

Caffeine isn't actually going to help you combat sleep deprivation

Here's how genes determine your facial features

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Jade R.@jade_r

What’s Your Listening Style?

Food Rules

What is the Pioppi diet?

Caffeine isn't actually going to help you combat sleep deprivation

Here's how genes determine your facial features

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Jade R.
@jade_r