I am a firm believer that a positive attitude is a good trait to carry with you and that a positive mindset will take you far. You are more receptive to ideas, you get along better with others and you just have a more optimistic outlook on things in general.

I read an article once about someone who lived to an incredibly old age and they believe that the reason that they had lived as long as they did was because of their great outlook on life. I would like to believe that I could be that person one day.

Positive thinking can impact your life in a variety of ways. First, positive thinking helps manage stress and can improve your health.

According to the Mayo Clinic, there are quite a few health benefits that positive thinking may provide. Some of these benefits include increased life span, lower rates of depression and distress and greater resistance to the common cold.

That article states that it is unclear why people who are positive thinkers reap these benefits. It is thought that positive and optimistic people tend to live healthier lifestyles (ex. physical activity, healthier diets and not engaging in excess drinking or smoking).

In another article, Dr. Terry Grossman states, “Negative emotions are a natural part of normal living but, if prolonged, they can lead to increased risk of many disease processes and can even shorten your life.”

Another doctor, Dr. Howard S. Friedman, a psychologist who has studied personality traits that correlate with longevity said, “It is definitely the case that certain people who are psychologically healthier live longer, but the explanations are usually complicated.”

I don’t necessarily believe that people who smile daily will live longer, but I do think that these studies raise good points about happier people adopting healthier life choices which then results in them living longer.

Work Cited:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/grossman-a-healthy-longevity/positive-thinking-can-increase-your-longevity/

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/science/power-of-positive-thinking-extends-it-seems-to-aging.html?pagewanted=all

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-heart/201309/optimism-may-increase-longevity-0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-r-hamilton-phd/positive-people-live-long_b_774648.html

Ever since studying history in middle and high school, I have been fascinated by World War II. Not only do I think that it is such a remarkable part in history, but I wonder how a. some people to cease to believe/admit that it ever happened and b. how Hitler managed to get all of these people to follow these systematic mass murders and help him execute them.

There has been a lot of research done of conformity in society and I remember that being something that was talked about when I was younger. You dress like your friends, you talk like your friends, etc.

We also all have our own sets of beliefs; we believe what comforts us and prevents us from feeling pain.

Hitler, in WWII, developed large-scale propaganda that he thrust upon Germany and his allies. He also created youth camps, known as Hitler Youth, where young boys were brainwashed in training camps.

The propaganda played a large role in facilitating this brainwashing during both WWII as well as in the 1950s in Korea. At the camps, Hitler had boys of the Aryan race shave their heads, march and showed them all propaganda. The children in these youth camps were taught to focus on “enemies” such as Jews and communists.

In this article, peer pressure convinced people that they were wrong. I think that this may have been what occurred in WWII; Hitler told people that they everyone aside from the Aryan race did not deserve to live and people slowly started assimilating to that idea.

In that study, researchers stated that 70% of the time participants changed their recollection of the film to match others in the group. The researchers conducting this study called these “socially induced memory errors”.

Scientists in the study said that this is not always a bad thing (key word being always). If this is indeed what happened or a social explanation for what transpired during WWII then it certainly came at a cost.

Work Cited:

http://www.naturalnews.com/038716_brainwashing_social_conformity_peer_pressure.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/weekinreview/06weiner.html?_r=1&

http://www.master-of-education.org/10-disturbing-pieces-of-nazi-education-propaganda/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2558424/Inside-Hitler-Youth-camps-youngsters-brainwashed-Nazis.html

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/effectiveorganization.aspx

Unfortunately, as we see so often in the world, cancer affects far too many people and families in it’s various forms and stages and types.

Whether it is chemotherapy, radiation treatments or clinical trials, I have seen first hand how mentally and physically draining the treatments for cancer can be not only for the patient but also for the families and friends coping as well.

As a result of these horrible side effects of treatments, some people opt out of treatment so that they may live the remainder of their lives with a clear and somewhat health body without having to pump all of the toxins into their systems. Many of these people that opt out of treatments instead decide to choose a mental healing or natural healing procedure.

There are even times when people choose to incorporate both the medical treatments as well as the mental and natural healing to reap the benefits of both.

Although Western medicine is generally very good at treating illness and figuring these illnesses out, Eastern medicine has not become obsolete and is still researched today, as stated above, in order to reap the all benefits of treatment.

Some of these therapies include—diets, meditation and switching to all organic products.

Various organizations who do not push mental healing as a true treatment and cure for cancer have said that the disease is so draining so it is impossible to always remain positive and hopeful.

While I believe the above statement to be accurate, I also think that there is something to be said about people who can maintain a positive attitude throughout their treatments because I am a firm believer that a positive attitude will get one far in life.

There have been countless studies reported by the American Cancer Society that have stated that there have not been significant enough improvements for people with cancer solely based on the mental healing process. In spite of this, people remain hopeful.

Works Cited:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804629/

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/emotionalsideeffects/attitudes-and-cancer

http://www.asbestos.com/blog/2015/05/12/reiki-for-cancer-treatment/

http://www.cancercenterforhealing.com/cancer-treatments/emotional-counseling/

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/03/ep.seidler.cancer.mind.body/

When I was younger and couldn’t sleep I would try to count sheep, count backwards from 1,000 and much more. Now that I am in college, I know that I need my sleep whenever I can get it and hate wasting even a moment of it.

One day, while I was complaining to my parents about how exhausted I was, my dad recommended that I try meditation. I kind of laughed, not really having ever meditated before and shooed the idea away.

Well, a few days later there I was again restless and unable to sleep so I downloaded an app for guided sleep meditation. I woke up the next morning and realized that I hadn’t even made it through the entire meditation process. From that point on, I used it even on a normal night that I was exhausted just so that I could fall asleep quickly without being on my phone staring at the bright light.

A few weeks ago, I decided to really look into meditation and the science behind it when it comes to insomnia.

A randomized clinical trial was conducted in April of this year “To determine the efficacy of a mind-body medicine intervention, called mindfulness meditation, to promote sleep quality in older adults with moderate sleep disturbances.” This was published in JAMA International Medicine.

According to the study, the groups met six times once a week for two hours and when compared with the people in the sleep education group, the study showed that those in the mindfulness group had less insomnia, fatigue and depression.

Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, was not surprised by the findings and said, “Mindfulness meditation is just one of the smorgasbord of techniques that evoke the relaxations response.”

Mindfulness meditation is an approach that has been linked to regulating emotions and reducing stress.

Mindfulness has also been applied to cognitive therapy to help with depression and eating awareness therapy to help people with eating disorders and weight management.

Works Cited:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mindfulness-meditation-helps-fight-insomnia-improves-sleep-201502187726

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2110998

http://www.insomnia.net/natural-remedies/meditation/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3060715/

TV shows glamourize surgeries and crimes and medical mysteries. Oftentimes on CSI and even in real life cases are presented where black market organ harvesting is involved.

We previously talked in class about if cancer trails with children were ethical. The children involved in these trails weren’t being made sicker; however, they sometimes were not receiving the treatments that could potentially make them healthier again.

In today’s day in age, human trafficking is a large issue especially in third world countries and sometimes even in our own backyards. People are taken for a multitude of reasons ranging from sex purposes to organ donations.

I am going to go ahead and say that black market organ harvesting is not ethical. This is it is not like people are going on the national registry to get a new organ because they are terminally ill; it is people who are hoping to make a large sum of money at the expense of someone else’s life. The other shocking part is that sometimes you hear stories of doctors and surgeons who do not know or care where the organs that they are transplanting are coming from. In some U.S. cities and organ can be sold for transplant for $150,000.

On the black market others are selling their organs to pay off debts, like in this article. On the black market, some involving hospital staff set up full surgical theatres whereas in other areas of the market some people set up poorly cleaned areas where infection could be common.

Organ donations are also regulated very differently depending on the country. In the U.S. generally, donations are very highly regulated as stated in this article. In other countries they encourage public donation.

Works Cited:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201311/body-snatchers-organ-harvesting-profit

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844080

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3031784/Inside-illegal-hospitals-performing-thousands-black-market-organ-transplants-year-200-000-time.html

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/26/world/asia/freedom-project-nepals-organ-trail/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/kidneys-sold-online-facebook-organ-donors_n_4936216.html

Society has mentioned before that a broken heart could kill you. If you love someone so much and invest so much of your time and effort into a relationship and then that relationship ends or your significant other dies, it is completely crushing. Certainly, sadness takes over your body post breakup but could it really have health affects? In the past, my friends and I have just taken to a container of ice cream and a sad rom-com movie or a comedy.

After looking into this, scientists and researchers have discovered “Broken Heart Syndrome”.

This is most frequently caused by the death of a loved one. Researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have discovered that in the first 24 hours after losing a loved one, the person who is suffering from the loss is 21 times more likely to suffer from a heart attack. In the week following the loss a person is still 8 times more likely and the risk continues to stay higher for at least a month.

Researchers interviewed 2,000 patients who had suffered from cardiac episodes. The researchers inquired if anything/what had triggered these events. The results of the study were published in the journal, Circulation. This would fall under the category of an observational study.

There have also been studies conducted by Japanese researchers in 1991 as well as research from the Minneapolis Heart Institute.

Researchers have also associated depression, anxiety and anger with the increased risk because the feelings generally lead to increased blood pressure rates.

“Broken Heart Syndrome” is clinically referred to as stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takostsubo cardiomyopathy.

This type of strain on the heart does not just happen post death of a loved one however; it can be triggered by an emotionally stressful event such as a divorce, romantic rejection or could even happen following something good like winning the lottery.

It has also been noted that “broken heart syndrome” is different from a heart attack. With “broken heart syndrome” there are usually no warning signs that can be seen in blood tests or EKGs.

If I have learned anything after reading these articles and discovering that a broken heart could potentially kill you, it is that I am definitely glad that I have not suffered a break up this traumatic.

Works Cited:

http://www.yourtango.com/2012128420/heartbreak-real-says-new-research

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#

http://www.medicaldaily.com/broken-hearts-can-be-matter-life-and-death-real-dangers-heartbreak-325888

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25660245

This week, I was thinking that the most interesting topic to explore would be about competition in the workplace. With the career fair this week and thousands of students vying for the same internships and job opportunities, it was only natural to be curious about the subject.

I believe that there are both positive and negative sides to this debate. On one side, competition in the workplace has shown to increase motivation which then boosts productivity and performance. Not only will this increase in performance and productivity look good to your boss, but it will also be self-validating for you. Another positive aspect of competition is that it is often rewarded by incentives within the company– which can also create a  positive, feel-good feeling after getting your job done.

On the flip side, these incentives could also cause anxiety. For instance, some companies cut a percentage of the  lowest performers. Loss of jobs in that instance could lead to a whole other set of side effects and consequences; not to mention, who wants to constantly be fearing that they may or may not have a job next quarter? One of the articles that I looked at also pointed out, that there will always be people performing less well than you, but there will generally be a few people who are out performing you as well. If you’re constantly comparing yourself to others, that could lead to feelings of inadequacy. One last point that I researched was, competitiveness in the workplace may hinder teamwork.

So, at the end of the day, is the office cut-throat behavior worth it?

Sites referenced: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2012/05/01/is-competition-among-co-workers-a-good-thing

http://patch.com/california/lakeelsinore-wildomar/jobs