Washing your hands can save you from infections and from weeks of misery. I wash my hands when out in public. It seems to work well. If you don’t already have a hygiene regime, consider washing your hands after arriving home, after riding the subway, and even before eating at a restaurant.

But don’t take it too far, your hands can dry out with too much washing.

The Atlanta based, Center for Disease Control takes it seriously enough, to list explicit tips on keeping your hands washed during the flu season. It’s kind of ridiculously detailed, but worth mentioning since its the most effective way to avoid rhinovirus infections.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Clean hands save lives — the best minds wash up before supper!

Wash Hands

in Health,
Holden Smith

Gender Bender

More women are drinking, and the women who drink are drinking more, in some cases matching their male peers. This is the kind of equality nobody was fighting for.

Stay safe my friends.

I will upgrade my primary blog with it soon.

HS

Google has created a disease / search term tool that correlates popular flu search terms with regional data to provide a short term predictive look at near future flu outbreaks. Check to see if you will be hit next by the flu. Sniff sniff. Oh it’s coming, just look at the graph.

Google Flu trends more graphalicious info

It has a nice spike in the graph for last February.

Let’s all try to keep freshening our commitments to ourselves this winter.

Peace,

Holden

At any rate, I hope that you and yours, also have a lot to be thankful for during this year.

I started this blog topic because I’ve had long-time interest in human health. And it has so much potential. I have a lot of ideas, from my readings and observations that I can share when I’m not dedicated to my client projects.

Think well, eat well, act well, Be well,
Holden Smith

But is all this Facebook time healthy?

And just like the rise of big tobacco or McDonalds, their products are designed to addict you. Each new facet of Facebook (the little game apps, the toy-like flirting, the wall and news feeds) fire up a desire to be a narcissist and return again and again. Some users know when they are taken for a rid and quit, like Carmen Joy King, who finally canceled her account on Facebook after it eroded much of her time trying to “become too clever on Facebook”. (1)

Many long time social web users feel the enthrall of being able to create a weblinks to friends, or post pictures of themselves that are humorous. Most users cannot actually set up their own websites or handle the extra complexities of writing HTML, the native format of the web. Facebook is an easy way to publish oneself as is youTube. You don’t need to know a whole lot about HTML formats, server issues, video encodings or player versions. You log in and post.

Problem is, you have to post in a rigid environment. A place designed to bring you back again and again, like that cigarette that tastes soo good. How did they design this Marlboro to be so smooth and warming? Why are you logging into Facebook everyday, obsessively tweaking your profile or other fake profiles? Looking full-blown Facebook addiction in the eye, is an ugly business.

Personally, while I believe that it maybe useful to have a Facebook page reserved, I do not use Facebook. It’s important to understand Facebook for in part for what it is– a company that wants to grow. And to do so they will inject additives into your psyche to keep you coming back for more. It’s stickiness is partial-attentive and works to addict, not to inform. While a larger, McDonalds ($65 Billion) would have loved to have the growth rate that the privately held Facebook ($15 Billion) has enjoyed in the past five years. Both have sticky products that make their users yearn. What is Facebook’s future? Have they predicted a few models, and are their managers are working hard to make it happen. Likewise, the managers at Rupert Murdoch’s little division MySpace – of News Corp. ($26 Billion) – have also envisioned a future for themselves (2.)

What are the costs to the pysche of a young person? The wise David Byrne has some thoughts on this. (3.)
And what is your vision for yourself, and your future? How are you moving your life forward?

Facebook matures, turns to addicting users

Facebook has seemed to learn some lessons from “Big Tobacco” and have is actively designing their products to be sticky and addictive. And the buzz is clear: “if everyone is doing it, you should be as well.”

There must be some research on the types of addictive personalities that Facebook and youTube profile and cater to their needs. I would be interested in any links to these. And i’d be interested in learning how these sites, encourage obsessive compulsive behaviors. For example, if a new user begins to learn Facebook/youTube, what changes do they undergo? How does their usage patterns change int eh first few months of being a member? What are the trends? How does Facebook attack the problem of user attrition? They must understand why people leave the site, and it would be pragmatic for them to address this with a tool or tickler email to encourage users to come back. For example, a user must log in to get a Facebook message sent to you, it will not be forwarded directly to your email. Talk about inconvenient.

Facebook and the hip alerts

And it must be the perfect storm of clicking and updating, for an addictive user that owns a web enabled phone. Imagine getting a fresh update on your phone while sitting on a shitter, or in a meeting or on a bus. Fast phone updates, could just interrupt your private thoughts and bring you back to you Facebook profile in no time. That’s progress.

This summer, I recently checked out Facebook’s growth and a few other social sites, mostly for abusive behaviors and to quietly acquire a lot of evidence for a police report. But I’ve no real need to use these sites on a regular basis.

Surely some of technology on Facebook is liberating. Smoking tobacco is also relaxing, and while I don’t smoke, I can understand that drug’s affect on people that I know who do smoke. Facebook online chatter is a freeing format for people, but also addictive to a narcissistic generation.

To post information of yourself and to share it is clearly human nature. We all wish to be known. But the Facebook model is devolving into a miniature CIA-like human reification program. Profiles are profiles, data is data, and forever it shall be. And this encourages its users to see people in a similar objectively fashion.

However, and hopefully, we are also witnessing a general change to this human sophistication as well, The more people use these technologies, the more we understand that behind those hard looking profiles thrum fluctuating humans– difficult to reify and to even track in a real-sense. Many people are also gaining the ability to read these profiles for what they are.

Well. There are too many other technologies that are better suited to a normal non-intrusive relationship with the people I know. Face to face — being my absolute favorite.

I would suggest to those people suffering from addictions to Facebook, youTube and other tweaky sites that you start experimenting with limiting your TV-time to a few hours a week. You can do so much better things for this world, than log back into Facebook.

Soo….
Eat fresh foods, and curb or eliminate your McDonalds food intake.
Likewise, limit your Facebook/MySpace/YouTube online time and start socializing with people face to face.
You are more powerful than your compulsive clicking, and you can make a difference in this world.
Remember, that life can get better… and is better f2f than online.

Until next time,
Holden Smith

I’ve recently become interested in what drives people to obsessively use certain web sites night and day. Is there a general growing obsession with the web and the endless links that it provides? When can one reach a point that she knows that their browsing time has become too much?

Video game addiction is much the same, players get sucked in to playing a new video game and play for hours and hours, trying to achieve the next level, or battle the boss, and gain a prize. I’m interested in know how video game playing and web addiction interact and overlap? Has web addiction replaced TV addiction for some sub-groups? These are often solo-activities, which is interesting as well. I’d like to find more writing on this topic. and will report back when I’ve learned more.

I think that with any obsessive/compulsive activity however there is hope that one can gain control over their compulsions. I’ve mentioned on of the older books on this topic already, but a new PBS series has turned me on to this author and his book: “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness”. I’ll have to buy it when I’m done with some other reading, but I’m particularly interested in what he is saying about these points. There are too many people that are baseline irritable or obsessive that may benefit from his book in their search for peace.

To Curb Anger:
- Follow the Amen anti-anger diet and learn the nutrients that calm rage

To Conquer Impulsiveness and Learn to Focus:
- Develop total focus with the “One-Page Miracle”

To Stop Obsessive Worrying:
- Follow the “get unstuck” writing exercise and learn other problem-solving exercises

more later

Peace
Holden Smith

Basically the Inflammation zone is your body under stress, caused more so by poor nutrients and foods that are hard to digest. By balancing the diet your body becomes more relaxed and able to deal with other pathogens and ages more gracefully. A really interesting book and a good addition to the discussion regarding nutrients, diet choices and aging.

Your should check it out. You can also read it for free, online, at Google books.
The Anti-Inflammation Zone — on Google books

Also here:
The Anti-Inflammation Zone — paper bound