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

food borne illness

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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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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! ...

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