ALENA HALL, - The Huffington Post
Stephan: This essay is pretty superficial. Acupuncture for instance dates far earlier that the Chinese. Otzi the ice man a naturally preserved mummy dating to 3,300 BCE -- over 5,000 years ago -- has acupuncture point tattoos to guide his self-administration. And the research that supports the case about the veracity of ancient knowledge is actually much more extensive than suggested here. But I am using it, because it makes the important point that empirically derived healing insights, arising from generations of close observation, can be just as insightful as modern medicine.
The Earth may not be flat nor is it the center of the universe, but that doesn’t mean old-world intellectuals got everything wrong. In fact, in recent years, modern science has validated a number of teachings and beliefs rooted in ancient wisdom that, up until now, had been trusted but unproven empirically.
A full 55 pages of Arianna Huffington’s new book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, are dedicated to these scientific breakthroughs that often confirm the power of ancient psychology and contemplative practices. On an intuitive level, we’ve known for centuries that these lifestyle practices can help us lead happy, healthy and balanced lives. But now, with the support of hard science, we can embrace these pieces of ancient wisdom and start really living them.
Here are eight ancient beliefs and practices that have been confirmed by modern science.
Helping others can make you healthier.
helping others
In their never-ending search for the best way to live, Greek philosophers argued over the relative benefits of hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic well-being sees happiness as a factor of increased pleasure and decreased pain, while eudaimonic (“human flourishing”) happiness has more to do with having […]
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EDWARD LUCE, - Financial Times (U.K.)
Stephan: Here I think is a very good centrist assessment of the Republican Party. This is why pollsters are beginning to say the GOP may become the majority in the Senate and control both houses. That will assure the war of women and non-Whites will increase, the destruction of public schools will intensify, and climate change remediation will decline sharply.
It is all about voting, and Democrats seem to lack the ability to get out the vote. Citizens either support the Theocratic Right, or they either don't take it seriously, or are just uninterested in participating in democracy.
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For years people have predicted the Republican party’s demise. The decline of whites as a share of the US population and the spread of tolerant values, such as support for gay marriage, would gradually snuff out its appeal. Yet the Grand Old Party has a stubborn way of bouncing back. The coming midterm elections in November are unlikely to be an exception, while the Republican field for the next presidential election looks stronger than at any time since 2000. Tomorrow may indeed arrive at some point. But for the time being, today is going pretty well for the Republicans.
Take the fast-approaching congressional elections. President Barack Obama is giving everything he has in terms of fundraising to retain Democratic control of the Senate. The remainder of his presidency depends on it. Even diehard optimists doubt Democrats could regain control of the House. Yet the more Mr Obama throws at the Senate, the lower his poll numbers fall. Last week he hit a new low of 41 per cent approval versus 54 per cent disapproval. History says an unpopular […]
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Stephan: Elizabeth Kolbert in my opinion is one of the leading environmental writers in the country. Her assessments are data-based and cold-eyed. I take her quite seriously.
Somewhere around two hundred thousand years ago, a new primate emerges on Earth.
‘The members of the species are not particularly swift or strong or fertile,” the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert writes in her new book, ‘The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.” ‘They are, however, singularly resourceful.”
It is, of course, us – big-brained, small-browed genetic mutants clever enough to outcompete animals ten times our size and gradually fan out across the globe.
Eventually, humankind invents axes, engines, cities and strip malls. We tear down forests and dig up fuel from the ground.
Other times we excavate out of curiosity, traveling backward in time through the records of bones, fossils and rocks that eventually give up clues to mass tragedies in the ancient past. Huge portions of the world’s creatures disappeared in a geologic blink of the eye.
In fact, five blinks – so far. The reasons aren’t always settled in science, but strong possibilities for the various mass extinctions include a dramatic release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, climatic shifts that tipped the globe into prolonged ice ages and a gigantic asteroid strike that kicked up enormous clouds of dust.
The early part of Kolbert’s new book is an exploration of this exploration of […]
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JOANNA BLYTHMAN, - The Raw Story/The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: This is upsetting news but good news, and excellent science. The strength of science is its capacity for self-correction. And this is a good example. I completely agree with the observation: "The crucial phrase 'avoid processed food' appears nowhere in government nutritional guidelines, yet this is the most concise way to sum up in practical terms what is wholesome and healthy to eat. Until this awareness shapes dietetic advice, all government dietary guidance should come with a tobacco-style caution: Following this advice could seriously damage your health."
Could eating too much margarine be bad for your critical faculties? The ‘experts” who so confidently advised us to replace saturated fats, such as butter, with polyunsaturated spreads, people who presumably practise what they preach, have suddenly come over all uncertain and seem to be struggling through a mental fog to reformulate their script.
Last week it fell to a floundering professor, Jeremy Pearson, from the British Heart Foundation to explain why it still adheres to the nutrition establishment’s anti-saturated fat doctrine when evidence is stacking up to refute it. After examining 72 academic studies involving more than 600,000 participants, the study, funded by the foundation, found that saturated fat consumption was not associated with coronary disease risk. This assessment echoed a review in 2010 that concluded ‘there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease”.
Neither could the foundation’s research team find any evidence for the familiar assertion that trips off the tongue of margarine manufacturers and apostles of government health advice, that eating polyunsaturated fat offers heart protection. In fact, lead researcher Dr Rajiv Chowdhury spoke of the need for an urgent health check on the standard healthy eating script. ‘These are interesting results that potentially stimulate new […]
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Stephan: While the media, particularly cable media, has been locked in a fact free time warp, yet another oil spill has occurred. How many of these disasters do you think it is going to take before people wake up to the need to convert to non-carbon energy?
Click through to see the video.
Three cruise ships were among scores of boats trapped by an “extremely serious” oil spill that closed the shipping channel connecting Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico for a second day Sunday, the Coast Guard said.
On Saturday, a barge carrying almost 1 million gallons of heavy oil collided with a ship in the Houston Ship Channel at Texas City. A barge tank containing 168,000 gallons of oil was breached.
On Sunday, the barge was cleared of its remaining contents after about a fifth of its cargo leaked. Oil from the ruptured barge had been detected 12 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico as of Sunday afternoon.
Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Sam Danus said Sunday that crews were skimming up the thick, gooey oil, but that it was not clear when the channel could reopen. More than six miles of containment booms were being used to protect sensitive wetlands and wildlife habitats.
Two cruise ships and 25 other vessels were waiting to enter the channel from the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. One cruise ship and 34 other boats were waiting to leave Galveston Bay.
Coast Guard officials did allow two cruise ships to travel through the incident area by late Sunday afternoon […]
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