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Longevity

Best Podcasts for People Over 50

While it may seem most podcasts are for younger folks, you couldn’t be more wrong! So we decided to put together a list of of the best podcasts in 2022 for Canadians over 50. Check them out, have a listen on your smartphone, smart speaker, tablet or wherever. Listen to them at home in your car or out for a nice stroll. Stuff You Should Know Curious about how things work? One day it’s hang g;iding and the next it’s knife throwing! You never know what you’ll find but it’s an awesome podcast. Check it our here. The Better Health While Aging Podcast Hosted by practising geriatrics specialist Dr. Leslie Kernisan brings on a range of brilliant guests to discuss ailments and health issues affecting people over 60. Packed full of great insights and lots of episodes. Check it out here. Not Old – Better Award winning journalist Paul Vogelzang

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Longevity

Canadian Fiction: Tommy tomorrow

I have so many pretend situations going on you wouldn’t believe it. Documents open on my desktop that say things like Uncle Norm wasn’t Ted’s real father and everybody knew it andPenny liked to say that I saved her life that time when all I did was tell her to go home and When we didn’t have much, Carrie would throw a couple of coffee beans on the stove. The smoke would coil around the room and I’d catch a whiff and smile at her and she’d pretend not to notice. She’d fry one piece of bacon every day so the kids would wake up and come into the kitchen excited. I don’t think they noticed they only got a third of a piece each. That’s not what was important. It was all about hope, Carrie said. Getting out of bed happy, with expectations. I worked at Safeway and brought dinner home every

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Longevity

Keeping your cool in the age of unreason

Christoper J. (Chris) Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida, is interested in madness, especially among the influential. His latest book is “How Madness Shaped History: An Eccentric Array of Maniacal Rulers, Raving narcissists, and Psychotic visionaries.” He uses “madness,” loosely defined, to mean personality disorders and other ailments that allow a certain effectiveness, and often ruthlessness, that is not possible for those with major illnesses like untreated schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder. These strange people – consider Alexander the Great, Caligula, and Hitler, as extreme examples – sometimes exploit difficult times. They provide simple and simplistic solutions to difficult issues and are often adept at persuasion. Some modern leaders may not be as extreme, or maybe they are still waiting their turn. For a variety of reasons, these oddballs attract followers. Eventually, chaos ensues and they fall from grace. But in the meantime… Today, in

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Travel

Mood Boost: Your old travel pics

With the winter blahs upon us and with the pandemic putting the kybosh on pretty much any travel this year, things can seem glum. One way to boost your mood a little bit and feel more relaxed is to look at past pictures from your travel adventures.  Leading UK behavioral psychologist Jo Hemmings says: “Taking the time to look back on our treasured memories can be truly beneficial for our wellbeing as it can help to evoke feelings of positivity and happiness.” He did some research into looking at old pictures and while for some, it can evoke feelings of sadness, for most, they bring back good memories. Especially when we look at them with the person we went on holiday with or had some great adventure. Research has shown that the place in the home with the most pictures immediately triggers a happier sense of wellbeing and is often

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Mind

How to curb your anxiety

The feeling of excessive worry, negative thoughts, and fear are all common in people. But too much of these kinds of thoughts could be affecting your well-being. Give your mind a break with these stress-busting tips. Stress is a common, natural response to daily life circumstances. However, when symptoms start reoccurring and get difficult to control, anxiety might be creeping in. Anxiety is a feeling of nervousness, worry or fear about a situation and/or event that can cause many emotional and physical symptoms to occur. However, if it becomes debilitating and interfering with daily life, therein lies the problem. The feeling of panic, excessive worrying, negative thoughts, inability to concentrate, catastrophizing, accelerated heart rate, and lightheadedness are just some of the symptoms that could be hijacking your well-being. It’s an evolutionary response to fear, one that can consume your mind and tackle your body, bringing you on a downward spiral. According to the National

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Longevity

The art of courage and longevity

Longevity is about time: Somewhere between a detached focus on the long term and an obsession with the present lies the sweet spot. THE concept of longevity speaks about living—and doing so for a long time. Most people would say it is all about how long we live; not many would offer that longevity is about quality of life. I wonder why that is. They might be stuck in the familiar approach of “that does not apply to me.” Few believe they will get in a car accident, especially one that would put them into a wheelchair for the rest of their days. That is one reason some people drive like it does not matter; because, for them, it does not matter. So what is the state of mind of someone who seems detached from most of the rest of the world? The quality of their life seems to be independent

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Longevity

What can viruses teach us?

Viruses may be primitive—but they do a lot of experiments and adapt fast. Could we learn a thing or two from them? The biosphere is a fancy word for the container that contains all the life on Earth. After 4.5 billion years of evolution, it’s unimaginably complex. So far, a total of 1.3 million species have been identified, out of a basket of between 5.3 million to 1 trillion. This extreme range exists partly because the border between life and non-life is not so clear—and so is the definition of species. Microbes alone can be divided into six major types: bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, and viruses. Most scientists don’t consider viruses a life form. Others disagree. We humans lie at the other end of the evolutionary scale. We’re pretty smart, up to a point. Tools have made us apex predators, but physically we’re not that imposing. As the historian

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