The perception is that 20-somethings are youthful and robust, in the peak of their health.

But a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that young adults have their fair share of health woes.

A third of 18- to 29-year-olds, a demographic the insurance industry calls “young invincibles,” are cigarette smokers. A quarter are obese, as the rates among young adults have tripled in the past three decades. Nearly two-thirds of young adults reported not having regular leisure-time physical activity.

“At that age, people tend to be healthy but take it for granted,” said Dr. Jennifer Shu, CNNhealth’s Living Well expert. “Diabetes and heart disease start at much earlier ages now. The obesity and cigarettes can impact how young you might be when you get a serious illness.”

And when young adults get seriously ill, they can find themselves in a bind: A third of people ages 20 to 24 are uninsured. They are too old to qualify for their parents’ insurance, looking for work or in a job that doesn’t provide health insurance.

read full article…

Wesleyan Resources: Health Services offers Wesleyan students health care for illness, injury and well visits and coordinates the university’s student insurance plan. Call 860.685.2470 with questions.

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Time to Rest (artbywicks.com)

Now that final exams are winding down, the staff of WesWELL wishes all Wesleyan students a restful and restorative winter break.  Whether you are traveling, working or simply relaxing for the next five weeks, we hope you return to campus ready to tackle the spring semester with enthusiasm! 

Be well!

 If you suffer from low confidence and feel insecure about your own abilities, you may find it difficult to make even the simplest of decisions. Even the horrid choice of choosing where to go for dinner sends you into a frenzy. Insecurity occurs for several reasons. Perhaps at a young age your parents striped your ability to make any choices by choosing everything you ate, everything you wore, etc.

Now that you are grown and in the workforce, you find yourself suddenly having to make a lot more decisions. With little or no previous experience, it is no wonder that you start to fumble. Anxiety and worry are your constant companions during the decision making process. While trying to decide on your options, you spend hours playing out the possible scenarios of failure. You are nervous about what others may say and think, swearing that you can already hear the sounds of snickering in your head. read full article…

Wesleyan Resources: Office of Behavioral Health for Students

Discussion Questions: What helps you to improve your decision making ability?  

While we’d all like to rid ourselves of the daily brain-burn, most of us are not willing to extract ourselves from the professional and lifestyle circumstances that are creating that stress (though, I have to tell you, trading in my Ferragamo’s for bare feet has been pretty friggin sweet for me).

So, for those who choose to endure, rather than extract, here are 10 powerful practices that will help get you back to a calm, focused, relaxed and rejuvenated state of mind and allow you to take back body and health:

1. Mindfulness-based stress reduction™

Developed by acclaimed psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, more than 20,000 people, from all walks of life have now completed this 8-week mindfulness-based stress reductiontraining with remarkable results. And, the good news is, now you don’t have to live in Massachusetts to do it. There are many trained affiliates or you can do it at home with Kabat-Zinn’s book and audio CDs (or mp3s) with only 45-minutes a day.

2. Get lost in great music.

This is pretty intuitive, but there is actually significant research that reveals listening to the right music can actually be a powerful de-stressor and help get you back into a better state of mind relatively quickly. And, if you think listening to music drops you into the chill-zone, try learning or playing music. A fascinating study on the impact of playing music on stress reveals that keeping a guitar handy in the corner of your office and cranking out Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Little Wing on your lunch break will help you feel oh so much better!

read full article for more suggestions…

Strive to implement some of these now, continue with them throughout the year and you might just find yourself in better shape a year from now.

 Discussion Question:In addition to those techniques listed in the article, what helps you un-bake your brain?

Maybe that seems like something to worry about in the far-flung future, but new research indicates it may boil down to four simple things you can do that will prolong your life by an average of 14 years and improve your overall health in the meantime. The Mayo Clinic Health Letter reports on this research.

Does the bombardment of information on how to improve your health just leave you feeling confused? Try focusing on this straightforward advice:

1. Have no more than two alcoholic beverages a day.
2. Don’t smoke.
3. Get at least the equivalent of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day.
4. Eat five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

According to a recent study published in the January 2008 edition of Public Library of Science Medicine, people who follow those steps live an average of 14 years longer than those who don’t. Mayo Clinic experts would further recommend that women of all ages — and men over 65 — have no more than one drink a day.

For the study, researchers interviewed and examined over 20,000 reasonably healthy men and women aged 45 to 79, living in Norfolk County, United Kingdom. Their health status was checked again after many years.

Researchers found that regardless of sex, social status — or even body weight — those who followed none of the recommendations listed above had four times the risk of dying over the course of a decade than did those who followed all of the recommendations. Not smoking offered the greatest benefits in terms of survival.

Discussion Question: If you knew you could live longer by doing these four things, would you? Or if you are already doing these things, does it help motivate you to maintain these choices? And what would you do with the extra time?

Research has long shown that exercise can improve brainpower and hold off age-related memory loss. New studies show that adding strength training to your normal exercise routine may improve your memory by stimulating a hormone that protects brain cells. It’s easy! Lift hand weights, use resistance tubing, or do squats or push-ups. read full article…

Discussion Question: What benefit could this have to your academic performance?

I’ve not only learned a lot about what you should do when changing habits, but through my failures, I’ve learned about what not to do.

And trust me, I’ve had lots of failures.

I’ve found failures to be just as important as successes when trying to learn how to improve, especially when it comes to changing habits. It’s not an easy task, and I’m sure every one of us has tried to quit something and failed, or tried to do something positive and failed. The key, of course, is to not just give up after failure, but to reset your resolve, to analyze what went wrong and why, and to plan to overcome those obstacles the next time.

Failure often is our best teacher, even if it stings at the time. For example, it takes a typical cigarette smoker an average of eight attempts to stay quit. And each time you might feel like a complete failure, only to have that time you are successful be that much sweeter.

Read up on Leo’s suggestions for how to change habits. They may help you successful a bit sooner as you are striving to create change in your life. 

 Discussion Question: What helps you be more successful when you are trying to change a habit?

Must. Stay. Awake. Yes, it’s the 3 o’clock mantra. And who hasn’t mumbled it while fighting off midday yawns and drooping eyes?

Fatigue and flagging energy seem to be epidemics, especially among women who burn the candle at both ends (and who doesn’t?). Instead of moping, pump up your mojo with these 10 strategies from experts in sleep, fitness, nutrition, psychology, and alternative medicine.

1. See the light

Get the right light, and you’ll have lots more energy. But that can be a challenge, given the poorly lit offices we sit in and the scant doses of daily sunlight (which contains brain-activating short-wavelength blue light) we get. “Our circadian rhythms are more sensitive to blue light than any other kind,” says Mariana Figueiro, assistant professor at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

read full article…

About a week ago, I wrote an article concerning ten ways to turn your passion into additional income. This post, of course, begged the obvious question from several readers: “What do I do if I don’t know what my passion is?”

There isn’t a tried and true recipe for finding one’s passion. You can’t just sit down, take a test, and suddenly know where your passion and drive are. Instead, you have to find it, and that can be an amazing journey in and of itself.

Here are seven steps worth following if you’re trying to find your passion but haven’t quite discovered it yet.

1. Maximize your health
Before you even try to find your passion, make sure that you’re in good health and are dealing with things with plenty of energy, a healthy body, and a clear mind. If you can’t run through the following checklist without pause, focus on resolving these issues before going on.

Are you eating well? Is your diet basically healthy, meaning do you get plenty of vegetables and fruits? Are you not eating too much fat? Are you drinking plenty of water?

Are you exercising? Even a little bit of steady aerobic walking each day can make a world of difference in terms of your personal energy level.

Are you caught in any significant emotional entanglements? Are there personal relationships dragging you down and eating your focus? Get these resolved as soon as you possibly can – negative relationships drain from all aspects of your life.

Are you getting plenty of sleep and rest? If you’re constantly tired, you’ll have a hard time discovering things you’re passionate about. Look for a better way to manage your time and get caught up on your sleep.

2. Ask questions
Basically, revert to being a three year old. Whenever you observe something that you don’t understand, ask questions. Find out about how things work around you. Be curious. Make a genuine effort to learn how things work in the world around you. Even if you don’t understand at first, keep trying.

A truly curious mind is the first step to discovering your passion. If you don’t bother to investigate the many mysteries and exciting questions around you, you’ll have a very hard time finding that particular area that fills you with excitement and interest.

Try reading a wide variety of things, too. Spend an hour a day just doing a “Wikipedia stumble” – start by entering a term you’ve always wanted to know about, then follow the links within Wikipedia from there, just reading articles and seeing what you can learn.

3. Ignore what’s “cool”
Many people are hindered right off the bat by some sense of what’s “cool” and “not cool.” Most people try to prescribe such behavior to adolescents, high schoolers, and college students, but it persists throughout adult life. Think of people that you meet that you think of as “weird.” For example, I know a person that lives nearby who likes to raise bees – a lot of people view that family as “weird” and nearly ostracize them.

If you let these types of perspectives influence you, you’re again missing out on a lot of things. Don’t worry about what others think when you’re learning about a topic. Don’t be embarrassed to go to the library and check out a book on raising worms. Don’t worry about what others might think if you start a compost bin in the backyard.

4. Dabble in everything
Not only should you learn about lots of things, you should try them out, too. If you’re learning about painting, for example, go to an art store and ask if there are any “complete beginners” classes. If you’re learning about woodworking, try making a box. If you’re learning about the guitar, borrow an old one from someone.

Remember, though, at first you will be really bad at whatever you try. Don’t worry if you try for a few hours and can’t get things to turn out like you want. The real question is whether you enjoyed the process. Did you really enjoy doing it, even if it didn’t work out? Can you see new things you’re going to try next time?

5. When something piques your interest, try it again – and again
If you try something out and you find yourself strongly desiring another stab at it, that’s a good sign. Give it a second try – and a third. Again, don’t worry about failures – only worry about the process itself. Are you learning something each time? Are you enjoying that learning? Afterwards, are you yearning to try again? Those are the things you should be looking for.

This is also a good time to start looking at technique. If you’ve had fun stumbling around with a guitar, pick up a book on teaching yourself guitar and learn a basic chord or two. Practice it over and over – if you find the practice fun, you’re probably on to something!

6. Associate with people who share this burgeoning interest of yours
The next step is to find people who are interested in this area, particularly people with a much higher skill level than you. Go to these people with humility and open yourself to learning from them and “talking shop.” Spend time with them and learn what you can from them. Seek out a mentor of sorts.

If you’ve found your passion, these people will seem quite fascinating to you and you’ll naturally be drawn to them through a shared interest, even if you might not have given them the time of day before. These people will do more to help you develop and channel your passion than anyone else – work on cultivating friendships with the people who share your newfound passion and click with you.

7. Don’t keep pushing it if the passion dries up quickly
Quite often, you’ll have an initial flare of interest in something, but that flare will quickly subside as you discover aspects that you don’t like. Don’t fret – just be willing to recognize this and move on to other things. I’ve had flares of passion for all sorts of activities in my life, from woodworking to playing the banjo.

The real trick is to realize when the passion is actually dying out versus when you’ve hit a learning plateau. The real question to ask yourself is whether you still enjoy the basics of it – go back and do something very basic and see if it still gives you a tingle. That’s the difference.

You’ll know when you’ve found it.
When you finally discover a passion, you’ll know it – maybe not at first, but when you start digging in a bit. You’ll have this deep craving to do it again and again. You’ll want to learn more and more about it, and you’ll find yourself thinking about it and talking about it to others. Let this passion run wild and free for a while, then seek ways to channel it and ride the flow of that passion. If you can figure out how to ride the passion to some sort of financial destination, you’ll be living a life many dream of but few actually reach – and it’s something definitely worth fighting for.