Posts tagged with 'lifestyle'
Commitment contracts: a personal example
23rd March 2012
(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file). I've already written a couple of posts about commitment contracts - "Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals" and "Orientation, practicalities & use as therapeutic tools". I'd like to illustrate some points about setting …
Commitment contracts: orientation, practicalities & use as therapeutic tools
22nd March 2012
(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file). I wrote yesterday about "Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals". In today's post I'd like to look a bit more at the practicalities of setting up and using commitment contracts. I'll illustrate this …
Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals
21st March 2012
(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file). In a paper - "Commitment contracts as a way to health" - published a little earlier this year in the British Medical Journal, the authors (Halpern, Asch & Volpp from the University of Pennysylvania "Center for Health Incentives") …
Health crisis for Britain's middle-aged
10th September 2011
Ouch, a very interesting international health survey, that has just been released, reports: "Middle-aged Britons are experiencing a mid-life health crisis, according to new research from Bupa, which shows that those aged 45-54 are more likely to be obese, more likely to smoke and more likely to suffer from depression …
15 minutes of exercise daily reduces mortality by 14% - and each additional 15 minutes gives 4% additional mortality benefit
21st August 2011
There has been a ripple of media interest - and rightly so - in the recent Lancet article "Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study." The article's abstract reads "The health benefits of leisure-time physical activity are well known, but whether …
New meta-analysis tells it like it is: television viewing damages our health
14th July 2011
A new meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association tells it like it is: television viewing damages our health. The paper's title is "Television viewing and risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality" and its abstract reads: "Context: Prolonged television (TV) viewing is the most …
How much should I weigh if I don't want to die early?
8th June 2011
How does my weight affect my risk of dying? One of the best recent research papers to address this question is the 2010 New England Journal of Medicine article "Body-mass index and mortality among 1.46 million white adults". The paper's abstract reads: Background: A high body-mass index (BMI, the weight …
Mental contrasting: a way to boost our commitment to goals we care about
20th February 2011
This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file. What is ‘mental contrasting'? Mental contrasting (MC) is a way of boosting our energy and commitment for goals that are important to us. It helps us turn our hopes and dreams into realities. Interestingly, and …
Recent research: six lifestyle & health studies - two on sleep, two on smoking, one on diet & one on weight
13th January 2011
Here are half a dozen recent research papers on lifestyle and health - fuller details, abstracts & links to all studies mentioned are listed further down this post. The first couple are on sleep. I live a pretty healthy life, but I do "short change" myself a bit on sleep …
Strong relationships improve survival as much as quitting smoking
5th September 2010
The August 11th edition of the British Medical Journal reported: "Having strong social relationships seems to have an effect on survival comparable to that of quitting smoking and larger than controlling traditional risk factors, such as obesity or hypertension. A meta-analysis of social relationships and mortality looked at 308,849 participants …