Women could collect a sample of urine at home to check their risk of cervical cancer, research suggests.
Urine test to end ‘smear fear’
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Category Archives: Mind Building
Social care: Homeowners urged to pay £30,000 towards care by downsizing
People who can afford it should pay up to £30,000 by downsizing or releasing equity, report says.
Creating the Peer Group I’ve Always Longed for
For more than a decade, I’ve tried in various ways to create the kind of conscious, growth-oriented community I envisioned being possible – a high-trust group of dozens (perhaps hundreds) of interesting, caring, ambitious, honorable, and creative people who’d love to connect with each other, share their paths of growth together, and basically encourage the heck out of each other every day. The idea is to have one unconditional support group for every type of personal growth challenge.
That’s the kind of group in which I feel most like me… a place where I can breathe… a place where everyone understands that we’re here to learn, grow, explore, and embrace the rich possibilities of existence.
I’ve belonged to some incredible growth-oriented groups over the years, such as Toastmasters, but I eventually moved on. Sometimes I just outgrew them. Other times I got bored with them because their focus was so narrow, and I wanted to shift my attention to other parts of life for a while. It’s always difficult to move on from an empowering peer group, knowing that I must do so in order to keep growing, even with the awareness that some great relationships will fade as a result. Those endings are always bittersweet. I get excited about the new path, but I still miss my friends from the old path.
Eventually I decided that I really want both. I want to be able to follow life’s many twists and turns while still being able to connect with a single, relatively stable peer group. I needed a peer group of like-minded people who are also dedicated to learning and growing across all areas of life, not just mono-focused on one.
I just can’t maintain decades of enthusiasm for a peer group that’s solely aligned around improving in one area, such as public speaking or entrepreneurship or marketing. Initially such groups are inspiring, but after a few years, I feel this mounting pressure to move on and explore elsewhere. And so I leave. And then I start again with a new inspiring group. And repeat. And I end up with a long trail of fascinating friends that I always miss.
Trying to maintain a strong social network one person at a time can be daunting as well. Good relationships with good people matter a lot to me. But trying to manage too many online connections via social media, email, phone calls, texting, Skype, and more is just so fragmented. Good relationships always fall through the cracks, and I can’t stay connected with all of the wonderful people I’d like to.
For many people the idea of connecting with interesting, ambitious, growth-oriented people every day seems extraordinary or unusual. Some can’t even fathom it, nor do they even understand why they’d want that. I think what scares some people is that when you have such a group, you feel a lot more accountable to doing your best, so you can feel worthy in that kind of peer group. In order to raise your social standards, you also have to raise your personal standards.
For me it’s just normal to have a strong peer group of growth-oriented friends. It’s been my reality for many years. I could move to a new city in a different country, and I’d get involved in such a group quickly. Sometimes that just happens automatically when traveling.
I recall many fond memories of an amazing 3-1/2 weeks in Bucharest in 2013 with a group of enthusiastic, growth-oriented friends, most of whom I’d just met when I got there. Even though I was just visiting friends and trying to be on vacation for a while, they convinced me to do a spontaneous live event with them while I was there. I kept saying no, and they kept moving it forward anyway, like they were just waiting for me to come around. I joked that the word “no” in English must somehow translate to “yes” in Romanian. But they completely out-goaled me, and we put on a delightful event for 50 people, giving them only 4 days advance notice that it was happening. We even had a few people attend from other countries, including Bulgaria and Denmark. I didn’t know that kind of speed was possible since I’d always started planning live events many months in advance. It was a potent lesson about the power of alignment.
Around the end of 2016, I had one of those moments of clarity where I decided to do whatever it takes to make this idea of a stable group of growth-oriented friends. I thought about what it would really take to overcome this challenge that’s been a part of my life for so many years. It dawned on me that such a group needs to exist – not just for me but for all of the other people who will benefit from it. I kept getting tastes of what such a group could be like through a long string of related experiences going back at least 25 years, almost like I was being groomed to finally put the pieces together properly.
Despite getting aligned with the idea, it still took months to figure out how to actually make it real. I knew it should be an online community, so people could stay connected to the group no matter where they travel or move. And I knew it would have to be outside of the usual social media channels, so we could maintain a pure space that aligns with our values – no outside distractions or incompatible energies intruding.
In April 2017 I was finally able to make this social group a reality, when Conscious Growth Club opened for early access, and dozens of people joined in the first few days. It’s been going very well ever since, evolving a lot during the past two years both in terms of structure and organic elements.
I love being a member of this group myself, and I’m active in our private forum pretty much every day. It sometimes stuns me to think about how we’ll continue to connect, explore, and grow together over the next several years and beyond.
I know that some members will come and go over the years, but I also sense that we have a strong enough core group that intends to stick around and keep investing it, especially since they’re personally gaining a lot from it.
For the past two years, Conscious Growth Club has been evolving and growing, almost like it has a mind and an intentional energy of its own now. I often feel like it directs me rather than the other way around.
Genuine friendships have formed. Members are connecting with each other daily. There are frequent group video hangouts. There’s a lot of excitement about our future directions together, especially as more members are now signing up during the launch that’s happening now. It was a long learning process to reach this point, but the group works, and it’s sustainable. I expect that it will continue for decades to come. What it will look like it 10 or 20 years from now, I can’t say, but I’m delighted to witness its continued evolution.
There’s something about this goal that just seems like I had to do it personally, like I was supposed to do it. When I think of the wide variety of skills I needed to make this happen, it all seems so strange. The pieces fit together a little too well. The skills I had to lean on from my past include: a wide variety of tech skills, programming, writing, speaking, coaching, community management, marketing, networking, and even game design and improv. And then there’s having a direct communication pathway to a big enough group of the right people all around the world, which stemmed from years of blogging about personal growth.
When I think about all of the skills that had to be woven together to make this happen in just the right way… and all the other ways this could have failed to work… it all seems a bit magical sometimes. One side effect is that it encourages me to trust this universe even more. I sense there’s some kind of energy working in the background, and when I really tune into it by following the path that feels aligned to me, no matter how difficult or impossible it seems initially, somehow life just works really well.
One of the hardest things in life is learning how to grow beyond the misaligned, so we can experience real alignment. That requires a lot of letting go of the old and stale, so we can invite something fresh and new.
It was an especially powerful realization to learn that I really needed a peer group that I wouldn’t outgrow, and the only way to accomplish that would be to form a peer group based on growth-oriented people.
It’s actually similar to the same reason I started my personal growth business in 2004. I’d previously been running a computer games business since 1994, but after 10 years, I felt like I’d outgrown it, and I wanted to explore something new. But I didn’t like the idea of being a serial entrepreneur, always starting over from scratch in a new field. I wanted to figure out some kind of business that I could invest in for decades, so I could get really good at it and make a meaningful contribution to my field over time. That’s when I realized that if I made personal growth the core of my business, I could never outgrow it since I can’t outgrow growth. I could always keep it feeling fresh and new. That worked. I’m in my 15th year now and still going strong, and I feel no loss of motivation for continuing to work in this field. It feels like home to me, if only because it’s a home that’s always shifting and evolving and keeping me on my toes.
I’m really glad I didn’t settle, both socially and in business. That would have been easier in the short term but so much harder in the long term. Oddly, in some ways the long term is actually harder for me now since I feel this huge responsibility for this thriving community, but it’s a good kind of challenge because I feel super supported in following this path. It was a powerful lesson to realize how good it can feel to take on a tremendous responsibility when you also know that a lot of good friends have your back, and you have smart people to turn to whenever you need help.
I wrote this post spontaneously… just in stream of consciousness style, not even having breakfast yet. I’ve noticed that when I tend to trust that kind of inspiration, somehow it provides value for other people too, often in ways that are beautifully synchronous for them as well.
Opioid painkillers ‘must carry prominent warnings’
The health secretary announces a plan to tackle a dramatic rise in the use of addictive prescription drugs.
Health24.com | How to live a fun, active life with urinary incontinence
Urinary incontinence is a condition that can severely affect many aspects of your life if left untreated.
Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be the case if the cause of your urinary incontinence is identified and effectively managed.
You don’t have to stop attending social events or playing your favourite sports because of urinary incontinence.
Here are some of our best articles on the topic:
1. How to handle incontinence at the gym
Incontinence doesn’t mean you need to stop exercising or avoid the gym. In fact, exercise can be very helpful, as carrying extra weight can weaken your pelvic floor muscles, leading to incontinence. This article contains tips on how to manage urinary incontinence at the gym.
2. 10 tips to manage incontinence at work.
Whether you have a job where you spend the entire day standing, or if you are in an out of meetings, incontinence can affect your work life and your overall performance. This guide can help you cope with the situation.
3. 8 tips on running with urinary incontinence
Urinary incontinence often affects female athletes. A previous Health24 article reported that women who participate in high-impact sports are more prone to developing urinary incontinence than those who don’t. If you are a keen runner, there is no need to hang up your trainers if you experience urinary incontinence. These tips can help you.
4. 5 avoidable triggers that can make urinary incontinence worse
Urinary incontinence can be aggravated by a number of factors. Here are the most common triggers that you should avoid if you want to manage urinary incontinence.
5. Yoga may be the right move against urinary incontinence
Previous research featured on Health24 shows that yoga can help older women fight frequent bouts of urinary incontinence. Yoga will not only help you strengthen your pelvic area, which can improve urinary incontinence, but has many other health benefits.
6. How to choose the best ‘discreet’ pad for your lifestyle
Urinary incontinence doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to wear an adult diaper. “Incontinence products” immediately makes you think of bulky adult diapers, stashed in the back aisles of your pharmacy. This is, however, not your only option, as there are many discreet options available to help you manage urinary incontinence while you go about your daily activities. Read more here.
7. 5 tips on managing urinary incontinence during sex
Urinary incontinence can unfortunately have far-reaching consequences on your self-esteem and intimacy. According to a study published in 2018 in BJU International, urinary incontinence is one of the main causes of a decline in sexual activity in older people. This doesn’t have to be the case, however. This article provides some tips.
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | 10 tips to keep your digestive health in tip-top shape
Digestion is an intricate bodily process that involves mixing food with digestive liquids, getting it to move through the digestive tract and breaking it down.
The digestive system starts at the mouth as you chew and swallow food, and ends in the intestines.
Unfortunately there are many things which could go wrong with the digestive system and many things that affect the function of the digestive system. Common digestive disorders include constipation, diarrhoea, Chrohn’s disease, diverticulosis, diverticulitis and cancers of the colon and bowels.
Digestive health can be affected by lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, but many digestive issues can also be genetic.
We rounded up our best tips in a series of articles to help you keep your digestive system healthy, and how to spot a problem.
Food is important to keep your digestive system going as it should, but not all foods are equally beneficial. Certain foods do not digest as well as others and can cause various symptoms of indigestion, such as bloating, gas and nausea. Here are a number of foods you should cut back on for good digestion.
Many digestive issues arise from foodborne parasites and bacteria that can make you seriously ill. Your risk of getting food poisoning can increase if food is exposed to higher temperatures, if you cook food in a large batch, or if you cross-contaminate raw meat and vegetables. Food poisoning can be avoided with the help of these tips.
Probiotics have become an important topic in health conversations as scientists and the public become more aware of the importance of a healthy digestive system. While a probiotic can’t cure a condition such as irritable bowel syndrome, it can still aid your digestive system. There are many things to consider when choosing a probiotic. Continue reading here if you want to know more.
4. Go to the doctor if something’s up
A stomach ache might not necessarily indicate something as serious as bowel cancer, but may still be a cause for concern. This article mentions the most important red flags that could signify cancer.
5. Don’t be scared of those screenings
As you grow older, a colonoscopy is a vital routine procedure to help rule out any colon issues. Unfortunately, this might be a daunting process for many and something they would rather avoid. If your doctor orders a colonoscopy, don’t put it off. Comfort and reassure yourself by reading this.
You don’t have to be a medical expert to separate fact from fallacy when it comes to your digestive system. There are many things you might believe that are simply not true at all (including that you need enemas to keep your digestive tract healthy). Don’t fall for these myths.
7. Consider working with a nutritionist
Do you experience irritable bowel syndrome or simply have general digestive difficulties? A nutritionist can play a key role in helping you follow a healthy diet and adopt healthy habits. Our experts at Nutritional Solutions put together this guide on how to manage IBS.
8. Stop bad habits in their tracks
Are you jeopardising your own digestive health without even being aware if it? There are many things we do on a daily basis that may negatively affect our digestion. Read more here.
Love it or hate it, according to research this veggie is good for your gut health. It’s a prebiotic food, meaning that it feeds the good bacteria that live in your gut. Not sure how to incorporate it into your diet? Read more here.
If you are struggling with poor digestion, these yoga poses may help.
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | These are the dynamic warm-up stretches you should do before any workout
It’s easy to skip a warm-up and jump straight to the workout. I mean is it not enough that you’re already exercising? Short answer, not really. Sure you can get away with skipping a warm-up a couple of times but you’re more likely to hurt yourself if you don’t get your body ready. You’re simply prepping the body for exercise.
Seugnet of Ballet on Kloof and Women’s Health Chase The Sun trainer loves a good warm-up, here’s why…
Roll up, warm-up
“The healthiest way to start any kind of workout is to make sure your body is ready for it,” Seugnet begins. “Making sure your joints are warm is vital to prevent injury.” Therefore you should activate the muscles and mobilize the joints that you are about to use.
“In my warm-ups, I make sure to do movements that raise my heart rate and breathing rate,” she continues. “This allows more oxygen to travel throughout the body which will make you feel less tired during your workout.” Don’t treat it as a chore, it’s simply preparing your muscles to do their job properly. Makes sense right?
Seugnet’s go-to stretches
The type of warm-up your body requires depends on the type of exercise that is to follow. “For my typical [warm-up] session I usually start with shoulder and neck stretches,” Seugnet explains. “This will be followed by spinal movements, for example, side stretches and forward folds. These will wake up the spine and open the hamstrings.”
In addition, incorporate a squat into the forward folds. “This is a great way to warm up and stretch the hip flexors and hamstrings,” Seugnet continues. “Runners and surfers lunges are also great hip flexor stretches.” Just really loosen everything up. “I usually do arm swings, small jumps or running on the spot. From this into lunges to elevate my heart rate,” she concludes.
Read more: The common warm-up mistake you could be making
Skip it today, pay tomorrow
“Warming up is crucial for heating up muscle tissue,” Seugnet says. “The risk of skipping this step is injuring a muscle or a joint. Often people tear a muscle which could have been prevented if the warm-up was done properly.”
But that’s not all, your body will thank you for stretching. “You will also feel less sore the next day if you stretched properly,” she adds. “Our joints have a fluid called Synovial fluid. This is found in the cavities of our joints. The main function is to lubricate our joints so there’s less friction during movement.” Through warming-up, the Synovial fluid is activated and able to do its job.
Read more: Become a better runner with this warm-up workout
Experience the warm-up up at Chase The Sun
This year, Women’s Health is bringing you a brand new workout – Chase The Sun – dedicated to stretching and toning. This stunning new session will be taking place outdoors on the manicured polo fields of Val de Vie. Seugnet will be leading us all through some stretching and mobility work. “You can expect a great start to the day by connecting with yourself through breath and awareness,” she explains. “Using mobility moves and stretches, we’ll get the heart rates up.” It’s the perfect way to get the body ready for a morning of movement.
Women’s Health is upgrading one lucky ticket holder. That means overnight accommodation, dinner with the team and spoils from all our sponsors. Make sure you get your hands on a ticket now to go into the draw. Click here to get yours now!
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthsa.co.za
Image credit: iStock
NEXT ON HEALTH24X
Children, their parents, and health professionals often underestimate children’s higher weight status
More than half of parents underestimated their children’s classification as overweight or obese — children themselves and health professionals also share this misperception, according to new research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Glasgow, UK (28 April-1 May).
The systematic review and meta-analysis, synthesising the available evidence from the scientific literature, included 87 studies conducted worldwide between 2000 and 2018, involving 24,774 children aged 0-19 years old and their parents.
“Despite attempts to raise public awareness of the obesity problem, our findings indicate that underestimation of child higher weight status is very common,” says Abrar Alshahrani from the University of Nottingham, UK, who led the research.
“This misperception is important because the first step for a health professional in supporting families is a mutual recognition of higher weight status. This is particularly important for the child themselves, the parents, and the health professionals who look after them. Our study also found a tendency for health professionals to underestimate weight which suggests that overweight children may not be offered the support they need to ensure good health.”
Worldwide, there has been a more than 10-fold increase in the number of children and adolescents with obesity in the past four decades, increasing from 5 million girls in 1975 to 50 million in 2016, and from 6 million to 74 million boys. In Europe, 19-49% of boys and 18-43% of girls are overweight or have obesity, representing approximately 12-16 million overweight youth, very few of whom receive adequate treatment.
Previous research in adults has shown that accuracy of body weight perception is associated with lifestyle behaviours, efforts to lose weight, and medical visits.
In this study, Alshahrani and colleagues from the University of Nottingham investigated the prevalence of, and risk factors associated with, underestimation of children’s higher weight status. They conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of qualitative and quantitative studies that assessed caregivers, children, and healthcare professional’s perceptions of children’s weight and compared this with recognised medical standards for defining overweight including the International Obesity Task Force cut-offs based on anthropometric measurements (height, weight, and circumference of waist and hip).
Results showed that over half (55%) of parents underestimated the degree of overweight in their children, whilst over a third (34%) of children and adolescents also underestimated their own weight status. Healthcare professionals shared this misperception, but limited studies prevented quantification.
Parents of younger children were less likely to perceive their child as overweight, and were less accurate at judging the weight of boys than girls.
Additionally, parents who were overweight themselves, and with less education, were also less likely to accurately assess their child’s higher weight. The authors note that ethnicity and cultural norms may also have an effect on parental misperception, as some cultures prefer a larger body type and may not identify their child as overweight.
Interestingly, in qualitative studies, parents commonly described their children as “big boned,” “thick,” or “solid” rather than using the medical term obese, and expressed a strong desire to avoid labelling their child with medical terminology.
“Identifying weight problems in childhood and adolescence is a unique window of opportunity to have a lifetime impact on health,” says Alshahrani. “The results suggest that underestimation of child overweight status is highly prevalent. Addressing the factors which lead to inaccuracy in assessing child weight will have a positive impact on communication between children, parents, and health professionals, and aid the mutual recognition of children’s higher weight status.”
The authors acknowledge that their findings show observational associations, so conclusions about cause and effect cannot be drawn. They point to several limitations, including the lack of statistical examination of healthcare professionals’ perceptions due to the scarcity of relevant studies, and potential gender bias as the majority of studies only examined mother-child body weight perceptions.
New record of quantum memory efficiency
Like memories in computers, quantum memories are essential components for quantum computers — a new generation of data processors that obey quantum mechanics laws and can overcome the limitations of classical computers. They may push boundaries of fundamental science and help create new drugs, explain cosmological mysteries, or enhance accuracy of forecasts and optimization plans with their potent computational power. Quantum computers are expected to be much faster and more powerful than their traditional counterparts as information is calculated in qubits — which unlike the older units (bits) used in classical computers, can represent both 0 and 1 at the same time.
Photonic quantum memories allow for the storage and retrieval of flying single-photon quantum states. However, production of such highly-efficient quantum memories remains a major challenge as it requires perfectly matched photon-matter quantum interface. Meanwhile, the energy of a single photon is too weak and can be easily lost into the noisy sea of stray light background. For a long time, these problems suppressed quantum memory efficiencies to below 50% — a threshold value crucial for practical applications.
Now for the first time in history, a joint research team led by Prof. DU Shengwang from the Department of Physics and William Mong Institute of Nano Science and Technology at HKUST; Prof. ZHANG Shanchao from SCNU who graduated his PhD study at HKUST; Prof. YAN Hui from SCNU and a former postdoctoral fellow at HKUST; as well as Prof. ZHU Shi-Liang from SCNU and Nanjing University, has found a way to boost the efficiency of photonic quantum memories to over 85% with a fidelity of over 99%.
The team created such a quantum memory by trapping billions of rubidium atoms into a hair-like tiny space — those atoms are cooled down to nearly absolute zero temperature (about 0.00001 K) using lasers and magnetic field. The team also found a smart way to distinguish the single photon from the noisy background light sea. The finding brought the dream of an ‘universal’ quantum computer a step closer to reality. Such quantum memories can also be used as repeaters in a quantum network, laying the foundation for a new generation of quantum-based internet.
“In this work, we code a flying qubit onto the polarization of a single photon and store it into the laser-cooled atoms,” said Prof Du. “Although the quantum memory demonstrated in this work is only for one qubit operation, it opens the possibility for emerging quantum technology and engineering in the future.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Weight-loss surgery and risk of pregnancy and birth complications
Women who have undergone weight-loss surgery appear to be at higher risk of developing complications during pregnancy, and their babies seem more likely to be born prematurely, small for gestational age, have congenital anomalies and be admitted to intensive care, according to the most comprehensive assessment of how bariatric surgery affects pregnancy outcomes, being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Glasgow, UK (28 April-1 May).
The systematic review and meta-analysis, synthesising all the available evidence from the scientific literature, compared over 14,800 pregnancies in women who had previously undergone weight-loss surgery with almost 4 million pregnancies in mothers who had not.
The authors say that pregnant women with a history of weight-loss surgery should be considered as high-risk, be provided additional support throughout pregnancy, and mother and baby should be monitored closely.
“Our findings indicate that women with a history of bariatric surgery, and in particular gastric bypass surgery, are at much greater risk of several adverse perinatal outcomes,” says Zainab Akhter, a PhD student from Newcastle University, UK who led the research. “These women require specific preconception and pregnancy nutritional support. This highlights the importance of dietary supplements, and extra monitoring of fetal growth and development. Health professionals also need training and guidance to be able to provide the right advice.”
Pregnant women with obesity are at higher risk of developing complications such as gestational diabetes and hypertension. Weight-loss surgery before pregnancy improves these outcomes, but some bariatric procedures, such as gastric bypass, affect the absorption of micronutrients and may impair fetal development. In the UK, 3 out of every 4 bariatric surgery patients are women, and the majority of them are of childbearing age.
In this study, the researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies comparing adverse perinatal outcomes after bariatric surgery to pregnancies without prior weight-loss surgery up to December 2018. Data from 33 articles were analysed, comparing 14,880 pregnancies after bariatric surgery with almost 4 million pregnancies in women who had not undergone surgery.
The meta-analyses were dependent on the quality of the included studies, sample sizes, and whether they adjusted for factors which can affect perinatal outcomes such as age, smoking status, and diabetes.
Results showed that babies born after weight-loss surgery were 57% more likely to be born premature, 29% more likely to have congenital anomalies, and 41% more likely to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit compared to the control group. Moreover, babies born after obesity surgery were also at a 38% greater risk of perinatal death, defined as being stillborn or dying within 7 days of birth.
Additionally, babies born after bariatric surgery were on average over 200g lighter than those born to mothers without a history of weight-loss surgery. However, the pregnancies of women with a history of weight-loss surgery were of shorter duration.
Further analyses showed that women who had a gastric bypass were 2.7 times more likely to have babies that were small for gestational age, and but had a quarter of the risk (or a 76% reduced risk) of giving birth to large for gestational age babies.
“It is not clear how weight-loss surgery may influence fetal development, but we know that people who have bariatric surgery are more likely to have micronutrient deficiencies,” says Zainab. “More work needs to be done to better understand the causes of these differences, so that steps can be taken to support women to achieve the best possible pregnancy outcomes for themselves and their babies.”
The authors acknowledge that their findings show observational differences, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, and they point to several limitations, including that unmeasured confounding (ie, differences in unmeasured factors which may have affected the health outcomes of the study) may have influenced the results.
