October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The National Cancer Institute estimates that:
Based on current breast cancer incidence rates, about
one out of every eight women born today will be diagnosed with breast cancer at
some time during her life.
The strongest risk factor for breast cancer is age. A woman’s risk of
developing this disease increases as she gets older.
I am a 20-year breast cancer survivor and am grateful for research and treatments that enabled me to withstand its ravages.
For more information about breast cancer and its affects on both women and men and to learn about where to make financial donations click here.
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Did you know that humans are the only animals whose brains are known to atrophy as we get older?
Gretchen Rubin is a blogger and the bestselling author of The Happiness Project. She agreed to share the following post on a subject you will undoubtedly find interesting.
Dorothea Brande was an American writer and editor, well known for her books Wake Up and Live and Becoming a Writer (a useful resource for writers, by the way).
In 1936, in Wake Up and Live, Brande suggests several mental exercises to make your mind keener and more flexible. These exercises are meant to pull you out of your usual habits, give you a different perspective, and put you in situations that will demand resourcefulness and creative problem-solving. Brande argues that only by testing and stretching yourself can you develop mental strength.
Even apart from the goals of creativity and mental flexibility, Brande’s exercises make sense from a happiness perspective. One thing is clear: novelty and challenge bring happiness. People who stray from their routines, try new things, explore, and experiment tend to be happier than those who don’t. This is a challenge for me: I love familiarity and mastery.
Because, of course, as Brande herself points out, novelty and challenge can also bring frustration, anxiety, confusion, and annoyance along the way; it’s the process of facing those challenges that brings the “atmosphere of growth” so important to happiness. (It’s the First Splendid Truth: to be happy, you must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.)
Consider these exercises:
1. Spend an hour each day without saying anything
except in answer to direct questions, in the
midst of the usual group, without creating
the impression that you’re sulking or ill. Be as
ordinary as possible. But do not volunteer
remarks or try to draw out information.
2. Think for 30 minutes a day about one subject ex-
clusively. Start with five minutes.
3. Talk for 15 minutes a day without using I, me,
my, mine.
4. Pause on the threshold of any crowded room and
size it up.
5. Keep a new acquaintance talking about himself
or herself without allowing him to become
conscious of it. Turn back any courteous
reciprocal questions in a way that your auditor
doesn’t feel rebuffed.
6. Talk exclusively about yourself and your interests
without complaining, boasting, or boring your
companions.
7. Plan two hours of a day and stick to the plan.
8. Set yourself twelve tasks at random: e.g., go
twenty miles from home using ordinary con-
veyance; go 12 hours without food; go eat a
meal in the unlikeliest place you can find;
say nothing all day except in answer to
questions; stay up all night and work.
9. From time to time, give yourself a day when
you answer “yes” to any reasonable request.
Doing this kind of exercise can seem artificial, but it can also be a fun way to put a little challenge into your ordinary routine.
