Life Balance, Social Connection, Stress, Wellness, Laughter, Relaxation, Travel Stress
Brad Nieder
End-of-Year Advice from My Health and Wellness ...

… laughter is the best medicine … for its social benefits and its ability to help people relax and unwind from life’s stressors.
I applaud TakeCare’s inclusion of social interaction as a component of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Indeed, social interaction has been shown to be healthy (as long as people aren’t passing around the flu virus during their interactions!) People who are socially isolated tend to get sick more often and have worse mental health problems than people with good social networks. They take longer to recover from illness, too, and they die younger at a rate far greater than those who have strong social support.
And what is more social than laughter?!? …

End-of-Year Advice from My Health and Wellness Keynote on Guam: Be Social, Relax and Laugh!
Music, Deafness, Hearing Loss, Hearing Health, Cochlear Implants
Brad Nieder
Liner Notes, Karaoke & “The Little ...

… She was deaf. 

And so began the panicked weeks of seeing every pediatric hearing specialist in town and learning our options.  We wanted her to be Part of our Hearing World, so we got her cochlear implants (CIs).  I can joke about it now, but back than it was all pretty scary.  Over the ensuing months, we learned about these astonishing devices and began Molly’s journey to hearing with the help of terrific audiologists and auditory verbal therapists.  And while Molly advanced through her Ling sounds and her annunciation, we knew music would likely remain a challenge.  Cochlear implants are made for speech.  Music—despite my assertion that it’s quite healthy for most people—is often noisy and bothersome for CI recipients.

Still, when she was about seven, Molly took an interest in pop music (especially Taylor Swift).  It didn’t seem too noisy for her, but she often had trouble with the lyrics.  Now, let’s face it, pop and rock lyrics are often tough to decipher even for people with excellent hearing.  (Did the Beatles really sing, “The girl with colitis goes by …”?  Was John Fogerty alluding to a prostate problem when he seemed to croon, “There’s a bathroom on the right”?)  But the task was especially tough for …

Liner Notes, Karaoke & “The Little Mermaid”: How an 8-year-old deaf girl with cochlear implants became Part of the Singing World
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End-of-Year Advice from My Health and Wellness Keynote on Guam: Be Social, Relax and Laugh!

, , , , , ,
End-of-Year Advice from My Health and Wellness Keynote on Guam: Be Social, Relax and Laugh!

… laughter is the best medicine … for its social benefits and its ability to help people relax and unwind from life’s stressors.
I applaud TakeCare’s inclusion of social interaction as a component of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Indeed, social interaction has been shown to be healthy (as long as people aren’t passing around the flu virus during their interactions!) People who are socially isolated tend to get sick more often and have worse mental health problems than people with good social networks. They take longer to recover from illness, too, and they die younger at a rate far greater than those who have strong social support.
And what is more social than laughter?!? …

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Liner Notes, Karaoke & “The Little Mermaid”: How an 8-year-old deaf girl with cochlear implants became Part of the Singing World

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Liner Notes, Karaoke & “The Little Mermaid”: How an 8-year-old deaf girl with cochlear implants became Part of the Singing World

… She was deaf. 

And so began the panicked weeks of seeing every pediatric hearing specialist in town and learning our options.  We wanted her to be Part of our Hearing World, so we got her cochlear implants (CIs).  I can joke about it now, but back than it was all pretty scary.  Over the ensuing months, we learned about these astonishing devices and began Molly’s journey to hearing with the help of terrific audiologists and auditory verbal therapists.  And while Molly advanced through her Ling sounds and her annunciation, we knew music would likely remain a challenge.  Cochlear implants are made for speech.  Music—despite my assertion that it’s quite healthy for most people—is often noisy and bothersome for CI recipients.

Still, when she was about seven, Molly took an interest in pop music (especially Taylor Swift).  It didn’t seem too noisy for her, but she often had trouble with the lyrics.  Now, let’s face it, pop and rock lyrics are often tough to decipher even for people with excellent hearing.  (Did the Beatles really sing, “The girl with colitis goes by …”?  Was John Fogerty alluding to a prostate problem when he seemed to croon, “There’s a bathroom on the right”?)  But the task was especially tough for …

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The 12 (Unhealthy) Days of Christmas

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... Forty maids-a-milking means 40 potentially mad cows spreading disease!  And are you going to pasteurize that milk or risk a listeriosis outbreak?  What if your True Love is lactose-intolerant?  Or at the very least gets gassy when consuming dairy?  That eighth night of Christmas (and beyond) might be pretty unpleasant for both of you! ...

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Water, Water Everywhere But What the Heck to Drink?!

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... Instead of coffee houses we’ll have water houses where you can order a tall half reverse-osmosis-filtered vitamin E-infused sparkling Aquafina and half distilled Artesian kiwi-infused Deep Rock with 3 squirts of O2 and a double shot of Fiji with an Evian magnesium mineral boost all over Dasani ice cubes … nonfat … no whip.

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The Healthy Humorist on 3 Summer Health Hazards

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... The Rocky Mountains are not the most common location for Rocky Mountain spotted fever!  That’s true!  Who’s the idiot responsible for naming this disease?
Third, prevent food borne illness at barbecues by grilling at a temperature of 873 Kelvin until your meat turns into a solid carcinogenic rock.  Then deposit it into your neighbor’s rhododendron bush.  This lovely perennial will return next year with stunning vibrant colors!  And vertebrae! ...

Procreate with a Clown! It’s April Fool’s Day!

... 17th century physician Thomas Sydenham, who said “The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with drugs.”  Now, admittedly times have changed a bit, as these days you can’t get away with calling the drug reps “asses.”  Not if you want to keep receiving box lunches and free pens! ...

We Wear “Manning” Jerseys. Why Not “McStuffins” or “Kevorkian” Scrubs?

... several thousand “Manning”s running around town.  It’s curious, isn’t it, how we like to wear the jerseys of our favorite sports heroes?  It’s rare to see people wearing the uniform of another occupation.  Unless it’s Halloween.  Or Purim.  Get caught any other day in a cop outfit and you’ll be arrested for impersonating a police officer!  You just don’t see a chef’s hat unless it’s on a chef.  You don’t see a tutu unless it’s on a ballerina (or on my five-year-old daughter, I guess).  You don’t see sharkskin unless it’s on a lawyer ...

Music Therapy: Sing Along with the Healthy Humorist®

... Not to be outdone, the American Heart Association (AHA) has a song recommendation for you if you ever need to do CPR: The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”  It’s true!  It’s part of the CPR training now!  Just remember to avoid the Travolta moves!  You must keep both hands on the patient when doing chest compressions!  Obviously the song is easy to remember.  And it’s a good mantra to have when trying to save someone’s life.  But most important ...

The Healthy Humorist® Weighs In On Healthy Eating

... many of my friends swear by the Paleo diet.  They tell me that our caveman ancestors in the Paleolithic era did not develop heart disease or cancer despite eating a lot of animal protein and very few carbohydrates.  But what they don’t point out is that those same caveman ancestors didn’t live long enough to develop such diseases, as they all died in their mid-twenties via dinosaur trampling.

Anyway, if you’re trying to lose weight, here’s the plan I recommend:

AMERICANA IN LOS ANGELES & ATLANTA

... But the real winner of this L.A. story was an institution visible as you descend from the skies into LAX: Randy's Donuts.  If you haven't seen it from the air, you've seen it on screen, as it's shown up in a number of music videos and movies (most recently "2012").  It's the place with the giant 32-foot donut on the roof.  But it's not simply a geographical landmark; it's a great donut shop! ...

THE CHEESESTEAK FACTORY

... It was time, though, to revisit some old classics and finally answer the age-old question, "Who has the best cheesesteak in Philly, Pat's or Geno's?"  My unequivocal answer: neither!  I know, I know.  I'm supposed to take a stand.  So I will.  Pat's wins, hands down.  But neither one is even close to being the best.  Both are coasting on reputation and just going through the motions, as far as I'm concerned.  I've had better in Denver! ...

EATING HARD IN CHICAGO

... Portillo's was the spot.  Sure, it was a chain, they said, but it was authentic and consistently high quality.  So we went, I indulged ? and I loved it!  Tasty beef.  Great hot peppers (giardiniera for those in the know).  Just right on the gravy (more like au jus for you neophytes).  Delicious!  And here's the thing: maybe I'm rationalizing here, but it wasn't that big.  And the meat seemed pretty lean.  Not too deadly, I thought.  Not too big an indulgence.  I could eat more, I realized ...

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