Skype Effect

The Skype.....                                                                           Effect!

So, I've had long distance relationships in my past.  Who hasn't...?  And man is it amazing to live in a time and place where Skype exists.  I mean.... you get to see, talk, and travel anywhere with your computer or phone and communicate with the people you miss and love.  Some people sit down to dinner, sing songs, or even have sex over the Skype Network.  Although some people would argue that Skype takes the romance away from long distance phone calls and letters.  I would have to call BSSSSSSS, because much like Skype is taking the romance of calls and letters, I am sure that some amazing new technology will come along and steal the thunder from Skype chatting.

But let's get into the reason of this bloggity.  The Skype Effect, a phrase I have tried to coin over the years with little to no success, is when you spend months chatting on skype with your significant other and when you finally get to see them in person there facial features seem distorted.  Now, it might just be me..  But I think this Skype Effect is caused by the long term exposure of seeing someone on a 2D scale and then all of a sudden seeing them in person in 3D... This can confuse your brain and your eyes might have trouble focusing for the first hours of seeing someone after months of chatting over Skype.  Anyways, just thought I would share this interesting thought on such a great technology.

Tesla Tesla Tesla!

Now, if you know me personally you know that I am in love with Tesla.  And this all began long ago when people just thought I was speaking of a famous dead scientist.  But, these days people actually know that Tesla is a electric car company based in California and some people even know what the cars look like.  Yet, there are still many hurdles to be jumped by Tesla as it ventures into the main stream consumer market and tries to gain a larger share of the sedan and mid-size SUV market.

Tesla has been in the news consistently for both bad and good reasons.  Lately, consumer reports and other car survey sites have been highlighting some negative aspects on the Tesla's Model S and its reliability.  Although the reviews were overall positive, critics have touted about minor glitches that Tesla has already remedied quickly and free of charge for all of its customers. But that's not all!

Elon Musk made the announcement in a blog post on the company's website, saying that an 85kWh Model S now has an eight-year warranty for both the drive unit and the battery pack. Mileage won't matter as well because the warranties have been tagged to be of the "infinite mile" type. 

Elon Musk is a Boss#nowwhat

Cocoa Powder

Dark Chocolate and Cocoa Powder

I think its great that people are trying to eat healthier higher percentage dark chocolates instead of the traditional milk chocolate candies.  This is a great way to cut out most of the sugar associated with traditional consumption of chocolate in america.  Plus, by switching to dark chocolate you are also getting less milk consumption which means you are getting less exposure to growth hormones and the binding agents associated with animal milks that cancel out the good antioxidants found in cocoa. However, the best proven method of getting maximum benefits from chocolate is going right to the source, COCOA POWDER!

Consuming just a table spoon of Hershey's Cocoa powder in a glass of water or almond milk a day can dramatically improve brachial artery flow.  Basically, Cocoa powder improves endothelial function in humans, endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels .  Why is this good???  Because FMD and endothelial function is a powerful surrogate measure for cardiovascular-related mortality, in humans.

Its important to note that you can't just make a cup of cocoa powder drink with milk and sugar and expect it to be good for you.  Milk from animals directly binds with antioxidants found in the cocoa powder and completely destroy the benefits.  When I make my drink in the morning I use the following:

1. 1 1/2 table spoon of hershey's or trader joes cocoa powder

2.  4 oz of water

3.  8 oz unsweetened vanilla almond milk

NEW Recipe:     Better for the sweet tooth!

1.  2 oz of water

2.  2 oz of almond milk

3.  2 oz orange juice

4.  Hand full of spinach

6.  Table Spoon of Cocoa Powder

7.  Hand full of frozen strawberrys

8.  Hand full of frozen blueberrys

Check out the link below for other supplements and hemp protein powders from Onnit.com to add into your morning smoothies.

Onnit Supplements

Itch your ears for a healthy heart

Interesting news on heart health.

How often do you want to kill that itchy feeling in your ears? Well if we believe researchers, tickling your ears can actually improve the health of your heart! When they applied electrical pulses to the tragus – the small raised flap at the front of the ear immediately in front of the ear canal – they found that the stimulation changed the influence of the nervous system on the heart by reducing the nervous signals that can drive failing hearts too hard.

The technique works by stimulating a major nerve called the vagus that has an important role in regulating vital organs such as the heart. The researchers applied electrodes to the ears of 34 healthy people and switched on the standard TENS (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machines for 15-minute sessions. They monitored the variability of subjects’ heartbeats and the activity of the part of the nervous system that drives the heart.

‘The first positive effect we observed was increased variability in subjects’ heartbeats. We found that when you stimulate this nerve, you get about a 20 percent increase in heart rate variability,’ said lead researcher Jennifer Clancy from University of Leeds’ school of biomedical sciences. ‘You feel a bit of a tickling sensation in your ear when the TENS machine is on but it is painless. It does have the potential to improve the health of the heart and might even become part of the treatment for heart failure,’ claimed Jim Deuchars, a professor of systems neuroscience at University of Leeds.

The second positive effect was in suppressing the sympathetic nervous system, which drives heart activity using adrenaline. ‘We measured the nerve activity directly and found that it reduced by about 50 percent when we stimulated the ear. This is important because if you have heart disease or heart failure, you tend to have increased sympathetic activity,’ Clancy explained. A lot of treatments for heart failure try to stop that sympathetic activity – beta-blockers, for instance, block the action of the hormones that implement these signals. ‘Using the TENS, we saw a reduction of the nervous activity itself,’ researchers noted.

http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/tickle-your-ears-for-a-super-heart/