How to make New Year's resolutions work for you!

Every year millions of people commence new work out regiments, alter their diets and make ritualistic changes in bad behavior just in time for New Year's Day.



Studies show that guilty feelings from holiday spending, prolonged lack of exercise and overindulgence with festive treats leads to a guilt-ridden need for change.


© Copyright 2009-2010 Tomitheos Photography - All Rights Reserved.

These feelings seem to coincide with the beginning of the New Year marking a psychological timeline to start fresh with the underlined goal of becoming a better person in the future, inside and out. However, by the first week of February most New Year's resolutions are a distant memory for most..

So how does one make the leap to a new beginning work for them?

The shift for change may be a difficult one but psychologists claim that with a few pointers, success is possible.

Firstly, something to watch for is that most people fail in their attempt for change because the human mind will rationalize with excuses that are rooted deep inside individualistic psyches so that the physical discomfort can end.

Learn how to overcome this obstacle before you even get started by examining your motivation for change. Be realistic and be vocal to your friends and family about the changes you are ready to make so that they can support you, stay away from negative people that would like to see you fail at least until you are confident in your success and strong in your lifestyle change.

Make your tasks non-negotiable and do not rationalize with yourself, for example do not rationalize that it is too early to get up for exercise, yet if it was a work related obligation it would be a non-issue. Do it regardless of how you feel about it, be aware that one can almost always find an excuse not to do something. However, if you make a non-negotiable decision that is based on a sound realistic goal you set in the first place rather than on how you feel at the moment, you will be successful.

Write down your goals, studies show that University graduates have a higher success rate of accomplishing their career goals if they had written them down. Because of our educational system's training of reading and writing, the brain retains the information better and has a better memory when the time is taken to write it down. Focus on the positive changes as a result of your behavioral shift, for example with quitting smoking, focus on the improved breathing, a smoker feels bodily sensations when the nicotine levels drop but it is a choice as to how this symptom is interpreted: symptoms can be defined as extremely unpleasant and curable by reverting back to smoking or alternatively they can be interpreted as the physical discomfort of being permanently cleansed from the drug.

Do not quit your program for change for a minor set back. If you give in to temptation, do not further the damage by using this as an excuse to abandon the whole program. Allow yourself to be imperfect, perhaps you can make it a secondary goal to learn from your mistakes and move on as this will undoubtedly ensure your success.

Start now! If you are waiting for a better time to start a behavioral change, that in itself is a behavioral change that needs to be addressed. Procrastination means it likely will not happen. It is almost never convenient to change mentally fused habits. But your need for change is the mind's own cry for help that is usually heard very late in the game. Now is just as convenient as any time. Plan your resolution(s) in advance, instead of waiting until New Year's Eve.

If you begin today rather than later, you will have a better chance of maintaining your goal and sustaining your discipline in the new year. If you cannot find a reliable friend for support at your times of weakness, use a simple CD related to your goal that will talk you through your temporary set-back and you will find success in whatever you set your mind to.

Best of L.U.C.K. (Labor Under Correct Knowledge); successfully accomplishing your goals is not by chance, it is a Science.

Remember To:

Have a strong commitment for change.
Write down a program that will help to achieve your goal(s).
Have a coping strategy to deal with set-backs that will come up.
Tell your friends, the more monitoring and feedback you have the better you will do.

Science of Sex versus Love

© Copyright 2009 Tomitheos All Rights Reserved.

Is it is chance love or cold hard sex?

Science is proving that love, very much like sex, is in fact scientifically measurable:

The human brain looking for a compatible mate is predominately guided by the natural human evolutional cycle and this may remain a never changing constant in our psyche. Humans don't just mate with anyone, the human brain has a lot to do with the distinction of the overpowering passion for lustful sex and the potent emotion of romantic love.

The fact that both sexes of the intelligent human race want sex and love is well known but there is a third underlined notion in human sexuality that keeps it all together and it is usually camouflaged in law or disguised with cultural traditions: marriage (monogamous attachment). The natural urge to reproduce and populate the earth almost has no place in today's overpopulated planet making the quest for a monogamous relationship with a mate more complex and intertwined with social status, health, physical appearance and overall likability.

In the first beginning stages of attraction, it is believed, and often publicly displayed in society, that males are 'visually aroused' and that females are 'personality and character inclined'. Even though modern society has somewhat changed the mating ritual rules with the passing of time, and continues to do so, one thing is certain in the quest to psycho analyze sexual behavior: the basis of attraction still stems from a primitive urge to reproduce. The need to create healthy offspring and all the social conditions people perceive as normal may simply be a cumulative evolution from this innate instinct embedded in the wiring of the human behavioral brain. In psychology experiments with children, beauty (the basis of attraction) was defined with balanced facial symmetry and also body measurements seemed to play a crucial role in defining someone as pretty or handsome. In studies with adult men, the balanced size ratio of a waist and breasts ranked very high in the preferability choice where in studies with adult women a deep voice and broad shoulders were popular factors of finding someone attractive.

The statistical data supports scientific research that the hormonal development of the female body promotes features that males find favorable in their quest to reproduce; women whose oestrogen hormones helped produce pronounced hips and breast also physically have the likelihood of bearing healthy children and the ability to provide ample breast milk to feed them. Men whose testosterone have favored them with a masculine voice and muscular physiques statistically have stronger immune systems that promotes them to their females counterparts as a wise choice for a mate with a promise of a plausible ability to give them healthy strong children.

For this reason the human body is determined by hormones making the human physique, in essence, an upright walking billboard for reproductive sex but it doesn't stop there, scientists conducted several experiments on University student athletes to determine if the smell of a mate also plays a contributing factor. It was determined that on a subconscious level, the human nose can detect compatible genes and even body symmetry simply by the scent of another which may explain the mysterious physical attraction to someone. The research shows that as the nose is trying to decipher the airborne molecules exuding from sweaty armpit glands (pheromones) the deciphering brain sparks its own coded signals to attract the sought out partner thus making an innate histocompatibility connection (a distinct realization of having the same or similar sets of genes) whereas the human brain plays an integral role in the evolutionary quest for the perfect mate.

So this may explain the sexual attraction of a mate but what holds the relationship together, can science explain love?

As the logical brain settles its neurotransmitters produced in sexual arousal and orgasm between two lovers, it is believed that a need for a bond is also triggered like a secondary evolutionary sense that ensures more of the same pleasurable experience. Theories vary that it is manifested in the need to cuddle after love making or when offspring are born the need to help raise them creating an unbreakable family bond based on fondness. This emotion acts like a reward and stimulates the same part of the brain chemistry in needing or wanting something similar to an appetite, hunger or addiction.

The romantic love chemicals that overwhelm the human brain and even trigger the human physiology all seem to serve the purpose of the continuation of the human species. These chemicals may even alter accordingly to encourage lust to turn into sex and evolve into love.

In conclusion, the human reproduction process may be very intoxicating. The next time you are out for drinks looking for the perfect mate, even though the alcohol may be to blame for releasing the natural sexual urges you are feeling and for increasing your social confidence.. remember that ultimately it is the 'hormonal cocktail' in the human brain that will determine the one you fall in love with.

Intensive exercise may be bad for your lungs

Respiratory pandemics set off several new trends..
Photography by Tomitheos©

'It is believed that in the winter there is nothing like sports and exercise to improve your health and breathing.. yet this advice may be wrong as it is recently being proven that intensive exercise may be bad for your lungs; many top Oylympic athletes' health statistics are showing there is no longer any doubt that an alarming proportion of athletes with rigorous cold-air training end up having problems with their breathing' (Science Daily)

With the winter Olympics in Vancouver Canada merging with many countries worldwide the potential for a problem is already becoming a concern as the pandemic H1N1 influenza surges with the onset of a cold winter, the nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union appear particularly vulnerable to a new black lung virus surfacing in the Ukraine, according to their government statistics, 1.5 million of its 46 million people have had diagnoses of the new flu and related respiratory sicknesses since the start of the outbreak. In scientific studies conducted by the Olympic Committee of Colorado (USA) were able to show that over a quarter of the athletes on the American team suffered from spasmodic contractions of the bronchi (bronchospasms) and these respiratory problems appeared more among cross-country skiers.

Physical activity is more likely to cause asthmatic type illnesses in winter because air temperature plays a crucial role. Cold air is also saturated with vapor therefore major water and heat loss occurs through the heavier breathing required by the athlete's activity. In a temperate environment of 27° Celsius the air breathed by an athlete undergoing intensive training is gently warmed as it enters the airways but when ice-cold air is breathed in the air inhaled (due to increased concentration of ionic components in the fluids of the airway mucosa) a mediator release occurs from certain cells in the respiratory tract resulting in airway inflammation.

Sporting a designer face mask in public that covers the nose and mouth may be one possible measure that may also become a new feature in our modern society. Surgical quality masks are designed to protect against airborne contaminants where hand washing only deters from germs from surfaces that were touched. In the case of cold air hindering breathing, a health mask can be altered accordingly whereas air exhaled at a temperature of 37°C enters a hollow metal grid where it can be momentarily encapsulated which will then help raise the temperature of the air breathed in thereby relieving the possible damage from the cold air and coinciding vulnerability from foreign contagious agents.

Other solutions may include anti-viral vaccinations supplemented with an inclusive anti-inflammatory prophylactic drug treatment (steroid-based remedies often given to asthmatics) whereas the steroid may effectively block the bronchial constriction and the vaccine may prevent the onset of severe respiratory flu symptoms.

Virologists investigating transmission say beware of cross-country skiing, the cold dry weather conditions pull moisture out of droplets released by coughs and sneezes which allows the virus to linger in the air making viral contamination worse in the winter. The lung experts warn against undertaking winter endurance training as nasal passages dry out making transmission more likely vulnerable and subject to viral related respiratory infections triggered by the H1N1 swine flu virus or lung respiratory type of illnesses like the one that is starting to recently surface in Europe.

Atom Supernova

The name atom comes from the Greek (ἄτομος) which means something that is undivided. Photography by Tomitheos©
All rights reserved

Although the name means 'one of' or something that cannot be divided further, very recently in the modern 20th century age with the principles of Quantum Mechanics physicists and scientists discovered the subatomic components / structure inside the atom and from this demonstrated that the atom was in fact divisible!

The atom is surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons and is fundamentally a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central nucleus . Bound with electromagnetic force to the nucleus are the electrons of an atom, forming together what is called a molecule. If an atom contains an equal number of protons and electrons it is electrically neutral, otherwise it is an ion that has either a positive or negative charge depending on the balance.


ART GRAPHICS ABOVE
My attempt to mimic the popnetic art graphics to resemble a degenerating dwarf star (that is very densely composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter with mass comparable to the Sun and its volume comparable to that of the Earth) expanding to a red giant, resonating thermal energy luminosity while approaching its mass transfer limit and going supernova via a process known as carbon detonation as its shedding its outer nebula energy layers from its collapsing hydrogen infused core.

Eucalyptus Martini - Alternative Medicine

Eucalyptus tea made from the leaves' oil is a powerful cough medicine and used as preventive medicine.
Photography by Tomitheos©

Did you know of the Eucalyptus Martini?

The Eucalyptus Martini cocktail is the creation of Humberto Marques, mixologist at Oloroso is Edinburgh, Scotland. Using eucalyptus syrup from the flower herb oil makes the drink refreshing in its sweetness.

Tomitheos' Floating Flower Purple Petals Drink:
Using my own Herbs and Spices in the Cocktail Mixology, I've created my own concoction with a unique recipe using Tanqueray Gin (believed to be the purest alcohol) and by adding the following ingredients:

in every 75 ml Tanqueray Gin add..
30 ml homemade eucalyptus syrup
15 ml lime juice
Cinnamon Stick
and Crushed Ice

Preparation:
Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with the crushed ice.
Shake well.
Double strain into a large martini glass.
Garnish with cinnamon stick and floating eucalyptus flower or leaf.

Color Psychology or Eye Spectrum Discrimination?

The Psychology of how color relates to the body and mind outlines that a growing child's brain is stimulated more by the black and white contrast than that of any color.

Therefore, for optimal brain stimulus results, a brightly colored newborn baby's room may need a 'black and white' geometric infusion integrated in the design!

Photography by Tomitheos©

However, colors also play an important role in the human brain's healthy development. Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that light travels in waves, when he shone white light through a triangular prism the different wavelengths refracted at different angles, enabling him to see the colors of the rainbow (the spectrum).

When light strikes any colored object, the object will absorb only the wavelengths that exactly match its own atomic structure and reflect the rest - which is what we see. In essence, we don't see the object but rather the light reflecting off of it.

As light enters the human eye, the wavelengths do so in different ways ultimately influencing our perceptions; in the eye's retina they are converted into electrical impulses that pass to the hypothalamus (the part of the brain governing our hormones and our endocrine system).

The color blue is the color of our bright sky and vast oceans, because of this it is embedded in our psyche to experience serenity at the sight of the color blue. Studies show that depression follows when we lack seeing the color blue for extended periods of time.

As we interact in our color speckled modern world, although we are unaware of it, our eyes and our bodies are constantly adapting to these wavelengths of light and being influenced by them on a subconscious level.