Insightful talk by Dimitris Achlioptas from the world's reputable TEDX conferences.
BRAIN (6)
Can you believe this! While the Japanese are moving ahead with technology that provides opportunity for mind-controlled robots, some clowns in Nigeria are still yapping about "zoning".
Wake up and smell the zobo jo!
Banana health benefits are comparable to any other type of fruit. In fact, bananas have several positive benefits that many other fruits do not have. These yellow-skinned fruits are ideal for health because they have a sweet taste that most people enjoy. Because of this, it is easy to implement bananas into a daily diet. Bananas are also convenient because you can carry them with you whenever you are in a hurry. Knowing the banana health benefits and the other positive things that bananas can be used for will likely give you a new appreciation for this popular fruit.
A Banana a Day… Instead of eating an apple each day for optimum health, the adage should state that a banana each day keeps the doctor away. The banana health benefits far outweigh those of the apple because it has many more vitamins and nutrients than their round counterparts. Bananas have two times as many carbohydrates as an apple, five times as much Vitamin A and iron and three times as much phosphorus. In addition, bananas are also rich in potassium and natural sugars. All of these factors combined make the banana a “super food” that is an integral part of a healthy daily regimen.
Bananas Provide Energy Because of the abundance of vitamins and minerals, bananas are a great source of natural energy. Eating only two bananas will give you enough energy to exercise or workout for an hour and a half. Bananas are also ideal for eating during that midday lull when you feel tired and sluggish.Instead of drinking caffeine or having a sugary snack, bananas provide a level of energy that lasts longer without the dramatic crash caused by caffeine. Potassium is Vital for Performance Because they are rich in potassium, bananas help the body’s circulatory system deliver oxygen to the brain. This also helps maintain a regular heartbeat and a proper balance of water in the body. Potassium is also helpful for reducing strokes and regulating blood pressure because of the way it promotes circulatory health.
Bananas Promote Bowel Health One of the banana health benefits is that they can help stop constipation. Bananas have a certain type of fiber that helps to restore and maintain regular bowel functions. Instead of using laxatives that might have chemicals or other synthetic substances, bananas are a natural source for lessening the effects of constipation without causing other bowel problems such as diarrhea.
Bananas Can Lift Your Spirits Bananas have a chemical called tryptophan – the same chemical that turkey contains. This mood regulating substance contains a level of protein that helps the mind relax so you feel happier. According to Bananasaver.com, people suffering from depression often report feeling better after eating a banana.
Eat a Banana during Your Monthly Visitor Instead of taking pills designed to reduce your menstrual pains, bananas can be a great help. As stated on Bananasaver.com, bananas have a level of vitamin B6 that helps to regulate blood glucose level and help your overall mood. Increase Your Brain Power with Bananas In addition to banana health benefits, they can also help you with your mind. Bananasaver.com discusses a study with 200 students who were asked to eat one banana three times a day - breakfast, recess and lunchtime – along with their normal meals. What they found was that the potassium in the bananas boosted their brainpower and made them more alert during their classes while they followed the regimen.
Eat Bananas after a Night of Partying The natural ingredients in bananas and their ability to replenish the body’s vitamins make them an ideal way to reduce the effects of a hangover. Put a couple bananas in the blender with some plain yogurt and add some honey to sweeten the taste. The fruit tends to calm the stomach and the honey helps to restore the blood sugar levels to normal. Similarly, bananas can help people who are trying to quit smoking. The B vitamins and other minerals that they contain reduce the physical and psychological effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Bananas are Great for Pregnant Women Because of their calming properties, pregnant women often eat bananas to combat their morning sickness. In addition, they also help to replenish the body and restore a healthy blood glucose level. In addition, they also help regulate a pregnant woman’s temperature, although this is mostly used in other cultures that rely more heavily on natural cures.
Rub the Peel on Mosquito Bites Before you throw those peels away, rubbing the inside of it along a mosquito bite will help reduce the itching and swelling that is normally associated with these types of bites. You might even find that it works better than the creams or medications you find at the drugstore.
Bananas Help Soothe Ulcers As a way to prevent and treat ulcers, bananas help to reduce the acidity that some foods can leave in the stomach. They help reduce the irritation of the digestive system by leaving a protective coating around the inner walls, making it a natural way to promote intestinal health as well. Since they help to neutralize acidity, they are also a great way to get rid of heartburn. They act as a natural antacid and they quickly soothe the burn.
Bananas are Rich in Iron For people suffering from a deficiency in iron, bananas help to give your body the iron that it needs. As a result, they help promote hemoglobin production so your blood can clot faster in case of a cut or serious injury.
Banana Peels are Good Fertilizer Bananas can also benefit your garden. Instead of throwing the peels away, banana peels are ideal fertilizer for gardens and soils. Rose bushes benefit a great deal from the peels. If you have a certain plant that you want to blossom, simply bury a few peels next to it by the roots. In a few weeks, the plant will be huge.
Peels Can Be Used to Treat Warts The outside of the banana peel also has healing and beneficial properties for the human body. If you have a wart on your foot, wrapping a banana peel around your foot so that the exterior of the peel rubs against the wart will help it go away in a matter of time. To keep the peel in place, you can wrap tape around it for better results.
With all of the banana health benefits, it is easy to see why they are such a popular fruit. In many ways, their benefits are far greater than that of other fruits. They not only have more vitamins and minerals than some other choices, they also taste great and are easy to eat. However, having a diet that consists of only bananas as your fruit each day is not healthy and it can even be harmful to your health. Try to include several of your favorite fruits throughout the week because each of them has different advantages for your body. If you do not normally include bananas or any other fruit in your daily routine, find some ways to include fruit in your diet in order to improve your health and overall well-being.
(Article extracted from http://www.lifescript.com/Body/Food/Good-foods/14_Banana_Health_Benefits_You_Might_Not_Know_About.aspx )
Dopamine
Dopamine transmits an impulse from a nerve cell to another nerve cell, organ or tissue. As such it is important for muscle activity. It is what sends the “message” of performing activity from the brain to the tissue. But, apart from this, Dopamine does another interesting job. It is responsible for feelings of pleasure, anger, excitement, motivation and euphoria.
A research conducted proved that dopamine levels are markedly high in individuals during their first days of “falling in love.” The “floating-on-air” or “everything is rosy” feeling most lovers have at the onset of a relationship is attributed to high levels of dopamine. Dopamine’s use in the treatment of Parkinson’s has long been discussed and proved, since one of its functions is to control and carry out movement. However, dopamine is increasingly being used to treat depression and bring about feelings of euphoria and excitement. Dopamine in various forms is a part of drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine that act as stimulants and thus are used and abused as drugs by humans. All the functions of dopamine are still to be mapped, currently researchers are of the opinion that is seems to be present almost everywhere in the brain.
Serotonin
Serotonin, again, is a neurotransmitter and controls and plays a major role in emotions such as anger and aggression as well as mood, sleep, sexuality and metabolism. People with higher levels of serotonin are known to be more aggressive and easily get flared up. Because it affects all the above aspects of the human body and life, serotonin is used in the treatment of disorders or conditions arising from the same like anxiety and panic related disorders, premature ejaculation, psychosis, insomnia and even some personality disorders. Serotonin in a specific form is a class of anti-depressants used to treat the above mentioned disorders. As an anti-depressant, serotonin can alter moods.
The latest research also points out that serotonin is instrumental in the creation of new brain cells. Depression is often attributed to suppression of production of new cells in the brain, hence anti depressants that stimulate production of serotonin, can help in generation of new cells. However the cause-effect relationship between Serotonin and Depression are yet to be ascertained. Doctors and researchers are yet to figure whether low levels of serotonin cause depression or depression leads to a drop in serotonin levels. A link has been established however that those who suffer from depression have low serotonin levels in the blood.
Although serotonin is not directly used in any drugs, drugs like LSD or Ecstasy are known to cause what is the Serotonin Syndrome, in which the levels of serotonin become too high. This can also be caused by an overdose of anti depressants belonging to the serotonin class. Serotonin Syndrome can cause symptoms of nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, increased heart rate, muscle spasms, etc. These symptoms show up within minutes or hours and the patient will need to be hospitalized with a medical emergency. If on medications like Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) or Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRI), then it is best not to doctor oneself and leave it to the experts.
Poets, novelists and songwriters have described it in countless turns of phrase, but at the level of biology, love is all about chemicals.
Although the physiology of romantic love has not been extensively studied, scientists can trace the symptoms of deep attraction to their logical sources.
"Part of the whole attraction process is strongly linked to physiological arousal as a whole," said Timothy Loving (his real name), assistant professor of
human ecology at the University of Texas, Austin. "Typically, that's
going to start with things like increased heart rate, sweatiness and so
on,"
When you catch sight of your beloved and your heart starts racing, that's because of an adrenaline rush, said Dr. Reginald Ho, a cardiac electrophysiologist and associate professor of medicine
at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Here's how it works: The brain sends signals to the adrenal gland, which secretes hormones such as adrenaline, epinephrine and norepinephrine.
They flow through the blood and cause the heart to beat faster and
stronger, Ho said.
The response is somewhat similar to a fast heartbeat while running on a treadmill, although exercise has other benefits, he said.
For people with serious heart problems, love could actually be dangerous, Ho said. That's because when the heart rate goes up, the heart uses more oxygen, which can be risky for
an older person with blood vessel blockages or who has had a prior
heart attack. But good medicines such as beta blockers help curb the
adrenaline response, Ho said.
It is also likely that norepinephrine, a stress hormone that governs attention and responding actions, makes you feel weak in the knees, said Helen Fisher, professor
at Rutgers University and author of the book "Why Him? Why Her? Finding
Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type."
Fisher's research team did brain imaging of people who said they were "madly in love" and found activity in the area of the brain that produces the
neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine and norepinephrine are closely
related.
"What dopamine does is it gives you that focused attention, the craving, the euphoria, the energy and the motivation, in this case the motivation to win life's greatest prize," she said.
This norepinephrine response has never been precisely studied in relation to romantic love, but the system seems to be more activated in people in love, she said..
Also likely involved is the serotonin system, she said. Some data from an Italian study indicate that a drop in serotonin levels is associated with obsessive thinking.
The stress hormone cortisol has also been shown to have implications for love, Loving said. His lab showed study participants who had recently
fallen in love a picture of a romantic partner or friend, and had them
describe or "relive" the moment of falling in love or wanting to be
friends, respectively. Those who recalled falling in love showed an
increase in stress hormones such as cortisol even 30 minutes after they
were asked to think about it.
Generally, there are three brain systems involved in romantic love: sex drive, love and attachment, Fisher said. The sex drive evolved to get you to look for a lot of partners, the "love" portion is for focusing mating energy on one specific person at a time, and
attachment is for allowing you to tolerate the partner -- at least,
long enough to have children with him or her.
These systems are often connected, but can operate separately, she said. That means you can start out with one of them -- casual sex, or an intense feeling of
love, or an emotional connection -- and move on to the others. For
example, what may start out as a one-night stand may feel like more
because the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, released during orgasm,
make you feel deeply attached to someone. You may feel in love after
that, or instead feel somehow responsible for the person, because of
these hormones.
Fisher's team has found that romantic love doesn't have to die -- they found the same activity in the brains of people who said they were in love after 20 years of marriage as in
people who had just fallen in love. This brain area makes dopamine and
sends it to other areas.
In the days of early humans, in hunting-and-gathering societies, these qualities were especially advantageous for finding a person to bear and raise children with, she
said.
Why, then, do small children fall in love if they are not trying to reproduce? Fisher hypothesizes that kids -- even 4-year-olds -- practice at love and learning more about themselves
before it begins to become important to them.
Love also has health benefits for people who have aged beyond their reproductive years, she said. Being in love makes people feel optimistic, energetic,
focused and motivated, which were all positive for health and societal
contribution in the early days of humans, she said. So, it makes sense
evolutionarily that people can still fall in love after their
childbearing period.
Romance also is good for you. Studies have shown that people who have frequent sex are generally healthier, with a longer life, fewer coronary events and lower blood pressure. A 1995
study in the journal Demography found that marriage adds seven years to
a man's life and two years to a woman's.
Loving's team is studying how people who have recently fallen in love respond to stressful situations. They hypothesize that people for whom the love is
still new will respond to the stress and recover from it quicker than
those who have recently been in a breakup or have been in a relationship for a long time.
"The guess is that when individuals are falling in love, they are walking around with rose-colored glasses," he said.
