knowledge quiz: Answers 1 2 3 4

Answers:   1

1. Detroit
2. Reading
3. Glenda Jackson
4. The News of the World
5. The American Civil (by the Union)
6. Nepal
7. The Kalahari
8. Primus
9. Bromford Viaduc
10. Ronald Reagan

11. Answers: 2

    1. In trees
    2. Green
    3. Bradley Walsh
    4. Bertrand Russell
    5. The Labour Party
    6. The Maple Leaf
    7. Cohort
    8. Denmark
    9. Horse and Hound
    10. Martin Bell
                          

    Answers   3

    1. Oxford
    2. Hippopotamus
    3. South Africa
    4. China (Canada drops down to fourth if water is excluded)
    5. Donna Karan New York
    6. Equinox
    7. Two
    8. Hamburg
    9. Australia
    10. Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland
    
    
         

    Answers: 4

    1. Stefanie Powers
    2. Scotland
    3. Amanda Holden
    4. Steps
    5. Nicola Sturgeon
    6. Bram Stoker
    7. Lily Allen (now Cooper)
    8. Thomas Carlyle
    9. Ten
    10. Mary

What The 'Blue Zones' Can Teach Us About Living Longer

How long we will live is one of life's great unknowns, but many Americans are leading healthier lifestyles. Medical advances, too, have increased longevity. The overall improvements in life expectancy are pretty amazing, particularly when you look at how long people live compared with the past 100 years or so.

• Since 1900, the average life expectancy has increased by 31 years, so the average American can now expect to live past age 78.
• The number of Americans 100 or older has risen by an astounding 2,200 percent since 1950. More than 53,000 centenarians call the United States home.

But what can you do to increase your longevity? If you want to hit triple digits, what improves your odds? It's a question that's been on the mind of civilized society since before Ponce de Leon hit the Florida surf.
In the past 10 years, researchers have uncovered some clues, and they found them in areas of the world now called "Blue Zones." Blue Zones are demographic or geographic areas of the world where people live measurably longer. Researchers Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain first identified Sardinia's Nuoro province as the region of the world with the highest concentration of centenarians. National Geographic, AARP and the United Health Foundation have since embarked on physical and statistical journeys to uncover other Blue Zones, and educator and explorer Dan Buettner wrote a best-selling book about it.
So where are they? Can I go?
Buettner's book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest identifies and discusses five regions:

• The aforementioned area of Sardinia,
• The island of Okinawa, Japan,
• Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica,
• Icaria, Greece (where one out of three people reach their 90s and have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and practically no dementia),
• And Loma Linda, California where researchers studied a group of long-lived Seventh-Day Adventists.

Aside from where the Blue Zones were located, researchers found several common lifestyle characteristics among those who live longer.

• Put family ahead of other concerns
• Less smoking
• Semi-vegetarianism, with a primarily plant-based diet
• Ongoing moderate physical activity as an integral part of daily life
• Social engagement among people of all ages
• Consumption of legumes likes beans and lentils

The core elements of these characteristics are not new to most of us. No one who lives alone, sitting on the coach, smoking cigarettes and eating pork rinds, can expect to reach age 100. We know not to smoke and that we need exercise as well as social connections and a good diet to be healthier. (I will admit the bean thing surprised me.)
What the Blue Zones tell us is that we need to do more than just touch our healthy elements a few times a week. We need to embrace healthy habits in a more full-fledged manner.
Walk more -- a lot more.
Walking three times per week for a period of at least 30 minutes is a regular prescription from doctors to both reduce stress and help with weight control. However, people in the Blue Zones spend more time walking and moving around than three rounds on the treadmill each week. As part of its Blue Zones Vitality Project, AARP suggests creating regular, community activities centered around walking. For example, the "Walking School Bus Program" encourages parents and volunteers to walk groups of children to and from elementary schools. It gets you out and walking at least two times a day and encourages a greater sense of community. Seniors wanting to reach 100 should look at ways to do more walking.
Volunteer
Helping others builds a sense of self-worth and also provides opportunities to interact in your community. Both are key factors in living longer.
Embrace your community
We spend a lot of time indoors surfing the Internet and being entertained by technology. People in Blue Zones do the opposite. If you want to live longer, get out in your community and meet your neighbors. Consider hosting or organizing a community picnic or block party; or even start a community garden so you can plant those legumes!
Check your progress
Because you can't improve what you don't measure, consider checking out the numerous life expectancy calculators available online, including several at the Blue Zones website.
While we won't all live to age 100, we can make changes in our lives to improve our longevity with the added benefit of improving our current quality of life. Get out in your community, make exercise a key part of your life, and stay close with your family. Those contributions will pay off. And don't forget to eat your beans.

    source: huffington post

Building your own future -- 5 mindset that you must know by age 30 | Sco...

THE SHOCKING VALUE OF DEVELOPING MINDFULNESS

Solve this puzzle as quickly as you can: A man purchases a baseball bat and a ball for $1.10. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.  How much does the ball cost? Was your answer 10 cents? If so, you answered like 80% of college-educated individuals,and you also answered wrong. Check again. If the ball costs $0.10, then the bat would cost $1.10, bringing the total to $1.20. The correct answer is actually 5 cents. If the ball costs $0.05, then the bat would cost $1.05, bringing the total to $1.10. [1]WHY DO PEOPLE GET THIS PROBLEM WRONG? OUR DAILY DECISIONS BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESS HOW TO BECOME MORE MINDFUL 1.    MEDITATION2. SELF-MONITORING 3. FOCUS ON ONE TASK AT A TIMECONCLUSIONDo not feel bad if you answered this problem incorrectly the first time around. Even Ivy League graduates only answer correctly on this problem 50% of the time!So why do so many intelligent people get this problem wrong?The answer lies in the part of our brain that is doing the problem solving. When you were thinking about the problem the first time around, you were using a completely different part of your brain than when you thought about it the second time.Because you were asked to solve the problem quickly, you subconsciously delegated the task to your brain's limbic system; or as I call it the "primitive brain". The primitive brain is responsible for all of our automatic decision-making. It responds to traffic signs, reminds us to brush our teeth, and tells us to check our email when we get into the office. [2]It takes care of these easy tasks so that we do not use up as much mental energythinking about each trivial decision. This allows us to conserve our mental resources for more important thinking like planning, communicating and using our creativity. However, as you can see, the primitive brain is not very smart. It picks up bits of information (a total of $1.10 with $1.00 for the bat) and comes to the easiest answer (the ball must be $0.10!) without questioning other factors.Why does he want me to answer quickly?If the answer is this easy, why is he even asking me?Maybe I should add my prices for the ball and the bat to see what I get before deciding on my final answer.These questions call upon our modern brain. This part of our brain is responsible for a higher level of thinking. It is what we use for abstract thinking, creativity and exerting our willpower.We like to believe that our daily decisions are made from a process of well-informed decision-making. We believe that we are investigating every angle of the problem and choosing our best option.Unfortunately this is completely false. About 45% of the decisions that we make come from our primitive brain. We naturally want to conserve our mental energy, so we default to making the easiest decision whenever possible. [3]This works well when the task is simple, like remembering to brush your teeth, but problems occur when we start to use our automatic decision-making in pursuit of our higher goals. As you can see from the problem at the beginning of this article, our primitive brain’s decision-making is flawed. If we default to using the logic of our primitive brain to make decisions about what food to eat, when to exercise, or how to prioritize our to-do list, we will be thinking with the same logic as “the ball equals 10 cents”.We will make poor decisions without realizing it. We will not double-check to make sure we are on the right path, or question the consequences of our choices. This is a natural flaw in our genetic makeup, but one that can be easily corrected with a simple idea – becoming more mindful. Mindfulness is one of the most underrated skills in our society. Studies have shown that people who are more mindful of their decisions have: [4]·      More happiness·      More success in relationships·      More success in school·      More success in work·      Less stress·      Better physical health·      A better ability to adapt to change·      A better ability to deal with setbacksThe list goes on. The reason that people who are more mindful see this kind of success is because they use their modern brain for more of their daily decisions. They use the logic that the ball actually costs 5 cents when they decide what they will eat, what they will spend their money on, and what tasks require their attention.Rather than being on autopilot, they have developed the natural ability to see problems through the lens of the modern brain, leading them to make better decisions.This trait is powerful. Think about the fact that if you simply approach the bat and ball problem in a mindful way, you will have answered the question with more logic and reasoning than 50% of the people at Harvard! [1]Powerful indeed. And, unlike Harvard, you won’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop this trait.So how do we become more mindful and develop the natural ability to apply our modern brain to our daily decisions? Researchers have found 3 simple ways to train your brain to become more mindful.Most of the time that we are on autopilot, our minds are completely lost in thought. We are thinking about what we’re going to do in the future, or reminiscing on something in the past. This means that our modern brain is lost in thought and not focusing on the present decision. So our primitive brain is called into duty.Meditation trains the modern brain to be present. Practicing meditation for as little as 10 minutes a day will help develop your natural ability to focus and let go of the worries of the future or past. Simply by training the brain to be present in the decision-making process, you will naturally begin to think about the decision with your modern brain. [5]To get started meditating, check out this article which will list all of the benefits of meditation and give you the step-by-step guide to getting started.Something odd happens in our brains when we look at ourselves in the mirror. The part of the brain that would say "hey, that's me in the mirror" is not activated. Instead it is a part of the brain that says "I wish I was taller, skinnier, more muscular, etc." [4]In other words, rather than seeing see who we are, we see who we want to be. This is not because we are shallow, it is because we all have an ideal self that we want to live up to. With this ideal self in our mind, we begin to think and act more like them. And, as you can probably guess, this ideal self is mindful and uses the modern brain to make its decisions. The best way to keep your ideal self in mind is through a process called Self-Monitoring. This involves keeping track of as much information on yourself as possible. Like with the mirror, you will look at the information on yourself and compare it to what you really want. This will turn on your modern brain and train it to take over in your decision-making process.To get started, check out the list of ways to begin self-monitoring at the bottom of this article.Ready for another puzzle? See if you can write down a list of all 50 states. When you have listed 10, see if you can continue writing them while also figuring out the answer to 17 x 24. Were you able to do it?Both of these problems require our modern brain to solve. If I were to ask you to write the 50 states and do a simple problem like 10 x 5, you would have had no problem doing it. 10 x 5 is easy. It only requires the primitive brain to solve, so we can successfully multi-task.The modern brain, however, does not like to multi-task. Because it requires a higher level of thought than the primitive brain, it works best when focused on one problem at a time.The more you try to multi-task in your life, the more you are training your primitive brain.Despite your best intentions, you will unknowingly be applying the primitive brain's flawed logic to your multi-tasking.So resist the temptation to multi-task and remain focused. This will train your modern brain and help you become more mindful. [1]There is a big difference in the intelligence of our primitive brain and our modern brain. Our primitive brain is lazy. It wants to get things done quickly and does not stop to make sure that it is making the right decision. And 45% of the time, we are naturally using this part of the brain to make our decisions!We can overcome this natural tendency by becoming more mindful. Simply by becoming more mindful of our daily decisions, we begin to use our modern brain. Our modern brain is intelligent. It applies logic, reasoning and questioning of possible consequences; leading to better decision-making.By practicing meditation, self-monitoring and focusing on one task at a time, you can train your modern brain to become the dominant decision-maker. This will lead to better decisions, better habits and a better chance of reaching your goals!

Colin Robertson 

 February 18, 2015

10 SIMPLE EXERCISES THAT WILL STRENGTHEN YOUR WILLPOWERS

“Is there a way to strengthen someone’s willpower?”
That was the question on researchers' minds as they learned more about how the science behind this human virtue. Through many tests, they had discovered thatwillpower is like a muscle - it gets tired from overuse and requires food to replenish.
So, if it does act like a muscle, can it also be strengthened?
After several studies, we have our answer! With the right practice, willpower can be strengthened just like any other muscle in the body.
Fair warning: like all practice, these workouts can be challenging. After all, you will be exerting your willpower in the same way that you would exert your legs on a run. Butthey are scientifically proven to get you results. 
So although it will be difficult in the short-term, eventually it will be easier to say no to temptations, make it to the gym and stick with your long-term goals!

1.    10 MINUTES OF MEDITATION

Meditation will give you the fastest results of all of the willpower workouts listed. Bymeditating you are training the brain to focus and resist the urge to wander. Research shows that after just 2-3 days of practicing meditation for 10 minutes, your brain will be able to focus better, you will have more energy, and you will be less stressed. [1]
To get started with 10 minutes of meditation, check out this article.  It will provide you with all of the benefits of mediation as well as simple exercise designed specifically for beginners.

2.    WORK ON YOUR POSTURE

When testing if willpower could be strengthened, researchers asked a group of participants to work on their posture for a 2-week period. Every time they caught themselves slouching, they were to correct themselves by sitting up straight. This simple practice vastly improved their perseverance on various willpower tests like this one. [2]
To get started, simply correct your posture every time you catch yourself slouching at work or at home. It sounds extremely simple, but it takes willpower to sit up straight. Every time you do, you’re essentially doing “one rep” with your willpower muscle.

3.    KEEP A FOOD DIARY 

The same study also found that those who kept a food diary improved their willpower. Most of us don’t log all of the food we eat, so it takes willpower to keep track of it all. Any similar logging of information will also work, but I recommend a food diary because of all of its benefits listed here. [2]
To get started, I recommend downloading the MyFitnessPal App. It’s a simple food diary app that has a huge database of foods and nutrition information. Just keep the diary for 2 weeks, and it will increase your ability to resist temptations!

4.    USE YOUR OPPOSITE HAND 

Using the same methodology as with posture, researchers conducted further studies that tested other corrective actions. One that worked particularly well was to use your opposite hand. Your brain is wired to use your dominant hand, so it takes willpower to use the opposite. [3]
To get started, select a chunk of the day to use your opposite hand. It doesn’t need to be any more than an hour in order to get results. And from personal experience, if you aim for more than an hour, you will unnecessarily tire out your willpower muscle.

5.    CORRECT YOUR SPEECH

Another test that the researchers conducted was to change subjects’ natural speech. This includes resisting the urge to use swear words, or to say “hello” instead of “hey”. Again, it takes willpower to consciously go against your instincts. It doesn’t matter how you correct your speech, as long as you change your natural speech habits. [3]
To get started, select a chunk of the day to practice and choose the words you will change. Personally, I tried not using contractions (using “do not” instead of “don’t”, etc.) during work hours and it worked very well. Like all exercises listed above, doing this for just 2 weeks can vastly improve your willpower!

6. CREATE AND MEET SELF-IMPOSED DEADLINES 

Anyone who remembers their college days, remembers what it was like cramming for a test or doing a last minute paper. Your willpower gets taxed as you try to tune out distractions and become hyper-productive. Using this same principle, researchers found that by creating self-imposed deadlines you can work your willpower in the same way.
To get started, simply pick a task on your to-do list that you may have been putting off. Set a deadline for accomplishing it, and make sure you adhere to it. The participants who followed this process for 2 weeks not only got their old to-dos done, but also improved their diets, exercised more, and cut back on cigarettes and alcohol. [3] 

7. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SPENDING

In the same way most of us don’t track the food that we eat, many of us don’t track our spending either. Even if you don’t cut back on spending – which would also be a willpower workout – researchers found that simply keeping track of where your money went will improve your willpower. [4] 
To get stated, try using a budgeting app like Mint. Mint can connect to your bank account, credit cards, etc. and automatically track your purchases. By simply reviewing this on a regular basis, you will see increases in your focus and ability to resist unrelated temptations like sweets.

8. SQUEEZE A HANDGRIP

For the truly determined who want to increase their perseverance, you can squeeze a handgrip until exhaustion. If you’ve ever squeezed one before, you know that it gives you a deep forearm burn. So it takes willpower to keep squeezing. [5]

To get started, simply get a handgrip like this one, and squeeze it with each hand until you’re exhausted. Willing yourself to continue squeezing even when it hurts will increase your perseverance on other challenging tasks.

9. CARRY AROUND SOMETHING TEMPTING

Again, for the truly determined out there, you can increase your ability to say "no" by carrying around something tempting with you all day. Researchers tried this with participants by teaching them how to resist cravings, then giving them a Hershey’s Kiss to carry around with them. Those who resisted the Kiss were much more capable of resisting other temptations in their lives as well! [6]

To get started, first learn how to resist a craving. This will be hard, so your will want to know how to deal with the craving. Then carry something small but tempting with you.It doesn’t need to be for an entire day, but for long enough that you will be truly tempted. By consistently saying "no", you will increase your ability to resist other temptations and ignore distractions!

10. BE MORE CONSCIOUS OF YOUR AUTOMATIC DECISIONS

A final exercise is to simply be more mindful of your decisions throughout the day. We are often so lost in thought, that our actions become automatic. Taking time to think about why you are making your daily decisions will increase your ability to focus and resist temptations. [3]
To get started, try to catch yourself in an automatic behavior and ask yourself why you are doing it. This may be questioning why you are eating cereal instead of eggs for breakfast, or it may be questioning why exactly you put 2 sugars in your coffee. Any way you can think consciously about a typical automatic behavior will increase your focus and self-control.

CONCLUSION

Like all muscles in the body, willpower can be strengthened with the right practice. Above you will find 10 practical and effective ways to strengthen your self-control, focus and perseverance. Do not try to do all 10 at once.
Think about training your willpower muscle like training for a marathon. Your first training run wouldn’t be the full 26 miles or even close to that. You would start small and gradually build up as your muscles got stronger. So choose just 1 of these workouts to add to your daily routine.

Determine which workout seems practical and effective for the goal you want to achieve and get to work. By simply following the steps laid out, you will be well on your way to becoming more mentally strong!

Colin Robertson 

 October 24, 2014

How to Search for knowledge

  As my blog title implies 'knowledge Quench' when you have a quench for knowledge search for it, since we live in a era of technically advanced  trending digital world as we name it. Finding  knowledge and information is on your finger tip if you know the typical road to it. Simply question yourself on simple actions, although it's rhetoric yet it's effective and immeasurably useful.

 yep! What do we do when when we feel thirsty? we resort the help of a fluid to satiate the need, particularly  glass of water or kind of juice that would quench our thirst. This is a simple fact that when we feel thirst, we look for any kind of potable fluid. Did we ever think why we became thirsty.. ? It's an undeniable fact that our body is becoming dehydrated and we need fluid to moisturise, this is the simple reason. But there are many medical conditions related to thirstiness. Your body needs water to function properly. For example, water helps to regulate your body temperature, lubricate your joints, and remove waste from your body. Adequate daily water intake is very important. Furthermore, it is important to increase your usual water intake when you are ill, exposed to hot temperatures, or engaged in physical activities. Thus if you find an answer for this question, you are somewhat knowledgeable. Apart from this, if you know  other elements or science of water you are infact really knowledgeable on the subject. 

In the similar manner seeking knowledge and know how solely depends on the individual person. When you know the real ways and means it's much easier in this digital world than our thoughts. Just click these words and find one of the ways.  Guacamol      potable  

The Science of a Meaningful Life Video Series