How to Practice Self-Love and Be Happier.

The process of self-awareness includes loving ourselves enough to live our dreams and create our own reality. We are “pure love” when we are born. Early conditioning and life experiences cause us to believe we are unlovable; there is something wrong with us. The more we work on integrating past experiences and improving our self-esteem, the stronger our self-concept becomes. The more we love ourselves, the more enthusiastic we become about life. We develop the courage to be authentic and true to our ideals. And yet, self-love is one of our biggest challenges. Loving ourselves has negative connotations because people often confuse it with selfishness, self-absorption and egocentric behavior. It is often easier to love another person than our self. We don’t realize that, when we take care of ourselves and treat ourselves in a loving manner, we have more love to give. The biblical expression “my cup runneth over,” means I have more than enough for my needs. We love our self in some of the following ways: 1) Accept and own all parts of ourselves. Being true to ourselves, and living our lives authentically, includes recognizing our strengths and weaknesses; our good qualities and faults; our suffering and joy; our fears and courageous acts; etc. These dualities coexist in all of us. Recognizing and accepting them helps us integrate them into the totality of who we are. 2) Believe we have the ability to change any aspect of ourselves. self-awareness means taking an inventory of our personalities, behaviors, attitudes and principles we live our lives by. We have the ability to change any aspect that does not conform to our self image. We empower ourselves by making the commitment to do so, having patience for our process, and looking at ourselves with the eyes of understanding and love. continue

AGRIBUSINESS: Veggies for livestock.

AGRIBUSINESS: Veggies for livestock. AGRIBUSINESS: Veggies for livestock. These cattle get a home delivery three times a week from the local supermarket, fruit, vegetables and breads that don't make the grade for two legged customers.Turning waste to food for cattle.source

Yellow fever killing people and monkeys in Brazil.

Brazil has ramped up an emergency yellow fever vaccination campaign as the worst outbreak in decades spreads towards major population centres, killing dozens of people and decimating wild monkey populations. The uptick comes exactly a year after the Zika virus – another mosquito-borne disease – was declared a global health emergency, and as during the previous epidemic Brazilian authorities are struggling to calibrate an appropriate response. Because there is a vaccine, yellow fever should, in theory, not cause as much of a panic but global vaccine stocks are dwindling, and the disease is far more deadly than Zika. Of the 107 confirmed cases in the state of Minas Gerais, 40 ended in death. Three patients have also died in São Paulo state and one in Espírito Santo. Although the disease has a more than 200-year history in Brazil, concern has picked up steadily in recent months as it moved to areas of the south-east, such as Espírito Santo, where it is not normally found. As a precaution, the health ministry has expanded production of vaccines and administered 3.3m doses in Minas Gerais, where the outbreak is concentrated. So far, it has been spread by Haemagogus and Sabethes mosquitoes in rural areas. Monkeys have also suffered. More than 400 were found dead in Espírito Santo after farmers reported an unusual silence in the forest. Biologists warn that endangered species, such as the muriqui, could be wiped out as the vaccination only works on humans. continue

Clean energy, air-powered bike.

Meet the 14-year-old girl from Odisha who has invented a fuel-free bike. The increasing levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the air, big cities in India have been suffocating with harmful pollutants. In these times, 14-year-old Odisha girl Tejaswini Priyadarshini has invented an ‘air bike’ which runs at up to 60 km per hour. A cylinder with 10 kg of compressed air is mounted to the back of a bicycle with no pedals. Tejaswini got this thought when she was visiting a cycle-repair shop. Fascinated by how the mechanics made use of air guns to remove the knots in the tyres, she applied the same concept of an air gun which runs on air pressure continue

Low socioeconomic status reduces life expectancy and should be counted as a major risk factor in health policy.

A study published in the Lancet that evaluated 1.7 million people shows that low socioeconomic status is linked to significant reductions in life expectancy and should be considered a major risk factor for ill health and early death in national and global health policies. The study, using data from the UK, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, USA and Australia, is the first to compare the impact of low socioeconomic status with other major risk factors on health, such as physical inactivity, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and high alcohol intake. Although socioeconomic status is one of the strongest predictors of illness and early death worldwide, it is often overlooked in health policies.In the study, researchers compared socioeconomic status against six of the main risk factors defined by the World Health Organisation in its Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases. The plan aims to reduce non-communicable diseases by 25% by 2025, but omits socioeconomic status as a risk factor for these diseases. The study included data from 48 studies comprising more than 1.7 million people. It used a person's job title to estimate their socioeconomic status and looked at whether they died early.When compared with their wealthier counterparts, people with low socioeconomic status were almost 1.5 times (46%) more likely to die before they were 85 years old. Among people with low socioeconomic status, 55,600 (15.2% of men and 9.4% of women) died before the age of 85, compared with 25,452 (11.5% of men and 6.8% of women) of people with high socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status is important because it is a summary measure of lifetime exposures to hazardous circumstances and behaviours, that goes beyond the risk factors for non-communicable diseases that policies usually address

Survey reveals low awareness on cause of cervical cancer among Kenyan women .

As Kenya joins the world in marking World Cancer Day , a new survey has revealed that majority of Kenyan women are not aware of the main cause of cervical cancer, despite the disease being a top killer. The survey, involving women in Kenya’s major cities of Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu indicates that 97 per cent are not aware of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) - the sexually transmitted virus that has been established to cause virtually all cases of cervical cancer. Instead, the survey reveals widespread misconceptions about the causes of the disease with many women attributing it to frequent abortions. The survey, conducted in October 2016, was commissioned by Lancet Group of Labs and Alison Productions, and was conducted by the research firm Consumer Options Limited. It involved 327 women in the three cities aged 18 to 60 years. continue

Sedative in dog food; Evanger’s issues recall after dog dies.

At least five dogs have been sickened and one has died after eating Evanger’s “Hunk of Beef” canned food. A barbiturate, Pentobarbital, has been confirmed in one lot of the food and the company is concerned people may still have unused cans in their homes. Recalled Evangers dog food canEvanger’s Dog & Cat Food of Wheeling, IL, is recalling five lots of 12-ounce cans of “Hunk of Beef” dog food that have expiration dates of June 2020, according to the recall notice posted on the Food and Drug Administration The barbiturate Pentobarbital is a sedative and if ingested by animals it can cause drowsiness, dizziness, excitement, loss of balance, nausea and, in extreme cases, death. The implicated beef was not used in any other Evanger’s products. continue