p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b1. Set productivity targets/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Be clear on what exactly you want to achieve./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b2. Maintain a work environment conducive to productivity/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"If you feel at home, you will be more inspired to get things done./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b3. Have an organized workspace/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"If you have a messy workspace, you will feel disorganized and sluggish. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b4. Put first things first/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Put the important things first before anything else. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b5. Time box your tasks/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Time boxing refers to putting your tasks within fixed time slots. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b6. Have a separate list for incoming tasks/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Use a single list for urgent tasks, and another for other tasks./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b7. Upgrade your skills/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Your limitations in output come from limitations in your skill level./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b8. Know your motivation triggers/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"When were the times when you felt inspired? How can you integrate this into your daily life to reinforce your motivation?/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b9. Utilize time pockets/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Time pockets are the little bits of time you have in between one event to the next -- waiting for buses, waiting for appointments to start. Have some ready activities for these./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b10. Hold yourself accountable/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Progress tracking is essential to know how you are doing./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b11. Wake up early/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"If you are up before most of the world, you will be motivated to maintain that lead. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"b12. Remember To Rest/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"It’s about quality of work produced, not quantity of hours spent.img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267855" width="1" height="1"

pBreast and prostate cancer patients who regularly exercise, both during and after cancer treatment, report having a better quality of life and being less fatigued./p pTo study how exercise impacts cancer patients, researchers have developed a program called ExCITE (Exercise and Cancer Integrative Therapies and Education). ExCITE creates individualized exercise programs for cancer patients./p pAccording to Eurekalert:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“Exercise and diet recommendation for each patient were based on their baseline exercise tolerances, weight, overall health, and type of cancer treatment they would receive. Acupuncture was used for patients who experienced hot flashes, pain, nausea/vomiting, insomnia and neuropathy as the result of cancer treatment.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267856" width="1" height="1"

pGinger root, long used as a folk remedy, can reduce muscle pain caused by exercise./p pGinger had already been shown to exert anti-inflammatory effects in rodents, but a recent study looked at its effect on experimentally-induced human muscle pain./p pLive Science reports:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“The studies showed that daily ginger supplementation reduced the exercise-induced pain by 25 percent, and the effect was not enhanced by heat-treating the ginger. The study involved a small number of individuals, however, and further study would be needed to confirm the results.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267851" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Yahoo Finance lists 6 problems anyone with a desk job should be on the lookout for:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bCarpal Tunnel Syndrome/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Repeated motion can cause injury or pain. Stretching and other exercises may help release tension in your wrist./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bLower-Back Pain/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Sitting for hours on end can be harmful to your body over time. Abdominal strengthening activities should relieve some of the pressure on your lower back./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bJoint Problems/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Staying in one position for too long can make joints tight. There are a number of stretches that can help loosen up your hips./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bEyestrain/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"If you spend hours a day staring at a computer screen, your vision gets blurry and your eyes become more sensitive. Increase your font size and  rest your eyes frequently./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bBacteria/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Your desk, in terms of bacteria, is 400 times more dirty than your toilet. Make sure to clean it, especially if you frequently eat your lunch at your desk./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"bStressful Situations/b/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Stress can always be a problem at work. Some stressors can be handled with breathing and relaxation techniques, but some conflicts may call for mediation.img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267850" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Doctors are being warned to think more carefully about prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs by researchers who have found a wide range of "unintended" side effects./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Some doses and types of statins are linked with effects that include liver problems and kidney failure./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"BBC News reports:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"i“Researchers looked at data from more than two million 30-84 year-olds from GP practices in /iiEngland/ii and /iiWales/ii over a six-year period.  Adverse effects identified in the study, published in the British Medical Journal, include liver problems, acute kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267848" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"People who carry extra weight around their middle are at increased risk of developing dementia. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"A study showed that being overweight is linked to smaller brain volume, a condition that is associated with dementia. The link was particularly strong in those with high levels of visceral fat -- fatty tissue around the organs. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"According to BBC News:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"i“[Researchers] measured body mass index, waist circumference and used scans to look at the amount of abdominal fat. The results showed that as BMI increased, brain volume decreased ... But ... the link between visceral fat around the central organs and smaller brain volume was independent of overall weight.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267849" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Patients who are over-prescribed antibiotics may develop drug resistance that lasts up to a year. This puts both them and the larger population at risk./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"The more antibiotics are prescribed for coughs and flu-like illnesses, the more bacteria become resistant in a vicious cycle./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"According to Reuters:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"i“Medical experts say overuse of antibiotics in /iiEurope/ii, the /iiUnited States/ii and other wealthy regions is building widespread resistance in and threatening vital medical treatments from hip replacements and cancer therapies, to intensive care.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267666" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"The Interphone Study Group did finally acknowledge the increased risk of brain cancer among long-term, heavy users of cell phones. However, the International EMF Collaborative argues that the study still seriously underestimated the brain cancer risk./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"They found 11 key design flaws -- for example, individuals using cordless phones but not cell phones were considered ‘unexposed’ for purposes of the Interphone analysis, though exposed to the same radiation. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"According to Electromagnetic Health, other issues with the Interphone study include: /p ul style="list-style-type: disc; margin-top: 0in;" li style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"iResults were only provided for brain cancers (gliomas) and meningiomas, but not tumors within the 20 percent of the brain’s volume irradiated by cell phones/i/li li style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"iRisk was not broken down by gender, which may have obfuscated even higher risk of meningiomas in women/i/li li style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"iThe 5-year old results are woefully inadequate as a gauge of risk today, as adults and children now speak on cell phones many hours a day compared to only /ii2 to 2/ii ½ hours a month at that time/i/li /ul p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Eileen O’Connor, Director of the Radiation Research Trust and member of the International EMF Collaborativei,/i says:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"i“Four billion people own mobile phones worldwide, many of those users are children. Responsible governments must advocate for public transparency of risks so that an informed public may have more options to exercise precaution”. /iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267672" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Every parent has heard their child begging for their favorite story, song or movie for the 100th time. They are actually teaching you a huge lesson about how they want and need to be parented./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"strongThey ask so many times because they have an innate interest in ‘mastery’./strong Children set out to ‘master’ the things that interest them the most./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"Children also test their parents because they are trying to figure out how their world works.  They consciously and unconsciously investigate their world and it’s limits so that they are able to ‘master’ it./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"According to Lifehack:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"strongi“The best thing parents can do is to learn a simple methodology for discipline, get trained to use it and then apply it consistently/i/strongi.  This will decrease the number of times their child needs to test and will diminish the intensity of the testing ... When limits are unclear or inconsistent, children often steer off course and get into trouble, thus making mastery of acceptable behavior very difficult and unsettling.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=267663" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Drugmaker AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $520 million to settle federal investigations into marketing practices for its schizophrenia drug Seroquel. This makes AstraZeneca the fourth big drug company in the last three years to admit to federal charges of illegal marketing of antipsychotic drugs./p pThe company was accused of misleading doctors and patients by spotlighting favorable research while failing to adequately disclose studies showing that Seroquel increases the risk of diabetes. /p pThe New York Times reports that:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“AstraZeneca still faces more than 25,000 civil lawsuits filed on behalf of patients contending that the company did not disclose the drug’s risks. “/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263942" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Tuna sushi from a supermarket may be safer to eat than sushi from a high-end restaurant.br / /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"A new study using fish DNA suggests shows that some species of tuna, particularly those used by restaurants, have higher mercury levels./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"However, Live Science reports:br / /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"i“Overall, however, all the tuna had pretty high mercury levels. The levels were, on average, greater than the concentrations considered safe to consume in one day by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and higher than the concentrations allowed in Japan.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263951" width="1" height="1"

pResearchers performing a “routine” study to determine wither Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy could cause problems in growth or reproduction found an answer that could bring down a multi-billion dollar industry./p pThree generations of hamsters who ate the soy suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups. By the third generation, most of the hamsters lost the ability to have babies./p pMonsanto's GM soy is grown on 91 percent of U.S. soybean fields,/p pJeffrey Smith, writing in the Huffington Post, writes that:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“... if this isn't shocking enough, some [hamsters] in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths -- a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263947" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Artificial trans fat is nothing more than an adulterant, and it has no place in the global food supply. /p pIn Europe, efforts to remove trans fats from the food supply have been effective, but many food manufacturers have not done so. Current trans fat bans only encompass about 20 percent of the U.S. population./p pNutraIngredients notes that:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“In /iiDenmark/ii, where it has been illegal for foods to contain more than two percent trans fats since 2004, deaths from heart disease have dropped by 20 percent.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263946" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"People who suffer from a rare form of insomnia can die from lack of sleep./p pA genetic disease called fatal familial insomnia, or FFI, causes people to fall into a state in which they are neither asleep nor awake. Since they cannot fully sleep, they suffer from exhaustion, dementia and eventually death. There is no cure. /p pAccording to ABC News:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“The genetic mutation for FFI runs in families. Only 40 families are known to have this disease in the world, but most people have had at least one night where it seems impossible to fall asleep.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263945" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Researchers measured the hormone levels of volunteers before and after they watched an amusing video clip. They took a special look at ghrelin, which spurs hunger, and leptin, which gives your brain the cue that you are full. /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"After the clip, hormone levels changed as if the participant had engaged in moderate physical exercise -- ghrelin levels rose and leptin levels fell./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Live Science notes that:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"em“Although changes in appetite were not directly assessed, by, say, recording what people ate, the finding could help doctors treat patients who are suffering from loss of appetite but are too ill to exercise.”img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263950" width="1" height="1"

pBuddhist philosophy suggests that you can, as a conscious choice, simply let go of the things which make you unhappy. Actively chasing happiness has a sense of urgency about it, and with urgency comes anxiety, illness, and unhappiness./p pThe desire for perfection arises out of fear -- fear of not being good enough. Fear is at the source of unhappiness./p pMaybe it’s time to simply let go.  What do you need to let go of?img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263943" width="1" height="1"

p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"A study has shown that people who score high on a screening test for depression consume more chocolate. The connection seems to be for chocolate only; there was no association between depression and caffeine, fat, or carbohydrates.br / /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"The participants were not followed over time, so the researchers don't know the effect chocolate has on depression. Chocolate could be a natural antidepressant or, conversely, a it might have a role in keeping depression going. br / /p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"Live Science notes that:/p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"ibr / “Those with scores that indicated they were possibly depressed ate an average of 8.4 one-ounce servings of chocolate per month, while those with lower scores ate an average of 5.4 servings per month. And those with the highest scores, possibly an indication of major depression, ate an average of 11.8 servings per month.” /iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263813" width="1" height="1"

pHigher levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) may decrease your bone mineral density by increasing cytokines, which are regulatory proteins produced by white blood cells./p pResearchers measured FSH and bone mineral density in 36 women between the ages of 20 to 50. They found that higher FSH levels were correlated with lower bone mineral density./p pHowever, they also found that study participants who exercised more than 3 hours a week retained greater bone density.img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263814" width="1" height="1"

pOptimal vitamin D levels might help keep your muscles strong and preserve physical function into old age. Researchers looked at  the relationship between vitamin D status and physical function in a group of relatively healthy seniors.. /p pThose with the highest levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D had better physical function -- and over the course of the 4-year study, those with they highest vitamin D levels maintained significantly higher physical function./p pEurekalert reports that:/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"i“The scientists were not surprised to learn that, in general, vitamin D consumption was very low in this group of otherwise healthy seniors ... many were relying on dietary supplements.”/iimg src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263809" width="1" height="1"

pHere’s the latest crazy attempt to give tanning a bad name -- a study claims to have linked indoor tanning among college students to addiction, anxiety and drug abuse!/p pThe authors of the study apparently noted that "repeated exposure to UV light” may have results similar to those often cited by substance abusers: relaxation, increased socialization and improved moods./p p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"You read that right -- if you enjoy anything which is relaxing or improves your mood, you are clearly a drug addict.img src="http://blogs.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=263817" width="1" height="1"