I read a fair amount of research and thought some people might be interested in recent studies that I've found helpful.  I plan to write an approximately 1,200 word (5 minutes to read) blog post pretty much every week, highlighting helpful material that has emerged in the previous couple of months.  I'll rotate through six topic areas ... Lifestyle, Positive Psychology, Relationships, Ageing, Psychedelics, and Meditation.  I also plan to write occasional posts where I go into more detail about particular related subject areas. 

Poor muscle strength predicts increased vulnerability to both physical & psychological health problems and earlier death, in addition to the contribution of poor aerobic, heart-lung fitness.  This is true for both men & women and for all assessed age ranges.  Mechanisms underlying these effects are probably multifactorial, including metabolic/biochemical, neurological & psychological factors.  Research studies have assessed overall muscular strength in a variety of ways including grip strength, push-ups, chair-stands, and squat weight-lifts.  Happily, muscle strengthening interventions can yield major benefits across multiple health domains.  Here are a dozen interesting papers addressing these areas published in the last few years:

This month the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on "Physical advice: brief advice for adults in primary care".  NICE state "The guidance is for ... anyone ... whose remit includes offering lifestyle advice. Examples include: exercise professionals, GPs, health trainers, health visitors, mental health professionals, midwives, pharmacists, practice nurses, physiotherapists.  It may also be of interest to others with a role in encouraging physical activity and members of the public." 

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Do you want to hear my favourite procrastination joke?  I'll tell you later.

” - Piers Steel

This post is also downloadable as a Word format handout. 

I blogged a couple of weeks ago on "Exercise 3: US Department of Health & Human Services, resources for assessment & advice" and quoted the fine 2008 "Physical activity guidelines for Americans" with its recommendation that - besides regular aerobic exercise - "People are encouraged - on at least two days per week - to strengthen the major muscle groups involving legs, hips, back, chest, stomach and shoulders.  Exercises for each muscle group should be repeated for 8 to 12 repetitions per session."

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The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness.  This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being.  It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant.

” - Sam Harris

This section links to resources for exercise and for using light therapy.  Exercise is an absolutely key component of what this website is primarily about - achieving improvements in our stress, health and wellbeing.  Try, for example, clicking on this exercise tag to see a series of relevant blog posts.  The gains from exercising more are so huge that they have major implications for government health budgets - unfit populations get sicker and cost much more to look after.  It's no surprise then to find that there are many excellent, nationally developed, internet sites giving high quality exercise information.