Midlife Wisdom For Men Issue #042, September 15, 2005

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· Generosity: Healing Through Giving

· Fight Macular Degeneration With Food

· Book Review: Deadly Emotions

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Written by Noel McNaughton Midlife-Men.com (c) copyright 2005 midlife-men.com

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Welcome to this issue of Midlife Wisdom for Men.

I believe one of our strongests urges is to make a contribution, help others, make the world a better place. It must be in our genes, because giving makes us healthier.

Hope you find this newsletter interesting and useful.

There are about 620 words in the articles in this newsletter, which may take about two minutes to read.

Noel

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Generosity: Healing Through Giving

In my conversations with midlife men, I have found many are interested in mentoring younger people, or volunteering their time to good causes. I think this is a normal desire as we get older, and it turns out it is also a healthy thing to do.

Here is an excerpt from The Lark Letter: A woman's Guide to Optimal Health & Balance, the April, 2004 edition. I found it interesting and thought you might too.

The philosopher Plato spent much time teaching his students that there was no healing of the body without simultaneous healing of the mind. Today we have psychoneuroimmunology, a fancy word for a field of study created in the 1970s to address the growing awareness in medicine that your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are inextricably intertwined.

In modern times, thousands of studies have been done, which give scientific validity to the age-old wisdom that what you do with your mind and emotions has a powerful effect on your health.

Harvard researchers studied the effects of altruism by taking before-and-after measurements of immune system markers in the saliva of volunteers who watched three films: the first on gardening, the second about the Nazis, and the third about Mother Teresa.

There was no change in immune markers before or after the first two films, but after the third one, a marker for improved immune function rose dramatically. In other words, just watching someone else be generous is good for your health.

In another landmark study, a researcher from the University of Michigan followed 2,700 people for more than a decade to determine how their social relationships affected their health. He found that more than any other activity, doing volunteer work improved health and increased life expectancy.

Psychologists Allan Luks and Howard Andrews collected surveys from more than 3,000 student volunteers and found that their "helper's high" was followed by a second stage they called the "healthy-helper syndrome." They defined this stage as "a longer-lasting sense of calm and heightened emotional well-being ... that is a powerful antidote to stress, a key to happiness and optimism, and a way to combat feelings of helplessness and depression."

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Why did Becks get excited when he finished a jigsaw in three weeks? Because the box said 2 - 4 years

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Fight Macular Degeneration With Food

Age-related Macular Degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss for people over age 60. In the US alone, about 13 million people have it. My mother has it, as does a good friend in Vancouver. Macular degeneration doesn't usually cause total blindness, but it does destroy your central vision so reading, watching TV and driving are impossible. There is no cure, and treatments are very limited.

However, it appears you can help prevent both it and cataracts by eating more foods rich in lutein and zeaxanthin. These include yellow and orange foods, such as corn, yams, yellow and orange peppers, as well as green leafy vegetables, especially spinach and collard greens.

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At the Electric Company: "We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you don't, you will be."

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