According to Associated Press, life expectancy is up to an average of 78 years, but are you prepared, health and finance wise?
“ATLANTA — U.S. life expectancy has risen to a new high, now standing at nearly 78 years, the government said.
The increase is mainly a result of falling death rates in nearly all the leading causes of death. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2007 is nearly three months greater than for children born in 2006.
The new data are in a preliminary report based on about 90 percent of the death certificates collected in 2007. It comes from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
U.S. life expectancy has grown nearly 1 1/2 years in the last decade.
The U.S. trails about 30 other countries in estimated life span. Japan has the longest life expectancy — 83 years for children born in 2007, according to the World Health Organization.
The CDC report found that the number of deaths and the overall death rate dropped from 2006 — to about 760 deaths per 100,000 people from about 776. The death rate has fallen for eight straight years and is half of what it was 60 years ago.
Heart disease and cancer together are the cause of nearly half of all U.S. deaths. The death rate from heart disease dropped nearly 5 percent in 2007, and the cancer death rate fell nearly 2 percent, the report states.
The HIV death rate fell 10 percent, the biggest decline in 10 years.
The diabetes death rate fell about 4 percent, allowing 2003 (unknown) Alzheimer’s disease to surpass it to become the sixth- leading cause of death. Alzheimer’s has been climbing in recent years, although that might be partly because declines in other causes are enabling more people to live long enough to die from Alzheimer’s.”
It’s prime time to live a healthier life style, be active and so you can have the energy and stamina to move around and to travel.
Pachelbel’s Canon in D is one of my favorite piece of music.
In fact, for me it is “love at first listening!”
“Pachelbel’s Canon, also known as Canon in D major, or more formally Canon and Gigue in D major for three Violins and Basso Continuo (Kanon und Gigue in D-Dur für drei Violinen und Basso Continuo), is the most famous piece of music by Johann Pachelbel. It was written in or around 1680, during the Baroque period, as a piece of chamber music for three violins and basso continuo, but has since been arranged for a wide variety of ensembles.
The Canon was originally paired with a gigue in the same key. The piece, whose score was discovered and first published in the 1920s, and first recorded in 1940 by Arthur Fiedler, is particularly well known for its chord progression, and is played at weddings and included on classical music compilation CDs, along with other famous Baroque pieces such as Air on the G String by J. S. Bach.
It became very popular in the late 1970s through a famous recording by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra. A non-original viola pizzicato part is also commonly added (in a string orchestra or quartet setting) when a harpsichord or organ player is not used to improvise harmonies over the bass line. American film director Robert Redford used the piece as the main theme for his 1980 Academy Award-winning film Ordinary People.”
Over the years, I have listened to many different versions: original, piano, guitar and one even with the background sound of ocean waves.
The Original version:
Soothing Harp version:
The Upbeat Techno version:
The Stimulated Guitar version:
Baroque music, with its 60 beats per minute beat pattern, is said to simultaneously activate and engage both sides of the brain and thus would maximize learning, processing and retention of information
In fact, a renowned Bulgarian psychologist, Dr. George Lozanov, designed a program to teach foreign languages in a fraction of the normal time. Using his accelerated system, students could learn up to one half of the vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term in one day. In addition, the average retention rate of his students was a stunning 92%.
So, I have separate key holders for different purpose. One for home keys, one for car key and the third for keys to cabinets, luggage, etc.
If if you know me, I hate losing things. For it will bug me and bug me until that item is found.
And you all know, finding lost object is no fun matter. As you search here and there, thinking and recalling where did I last see or use that item, you are getting stressed out, frustrated and frantic.
Worst, it happens when you are late for an appointment, and you couldn’t find that darned car key or genie, and your blood pressure is shooting sky high.
Once I lost the keys to my locked cabinets and that was my only set of key. I ended up having to call a locksmith in and all he did was using some master key to open it, and viola, there went my $85 for his service. No fun.
So I really hate losing things.
The second time I misplaced my key holder for the cabinets, I was pretty mad at myself. Not again!
I looked up, looked down under the bed, at the corridor, down to my beaten path, thought back over and over as to where I had been and when I had seen it, my poor head was screaming with headache.
As a last resort, I changed strategy and forced myself to calm down, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes.
In my mind, in front of me I tried to visualize the best I could the key holder, which is in burgundy leather. In my mind I was touching and holding that leather, feeling the texture, smelling the aroma, and absorbing its essence in my hand. I held that feel for a few minutes.
Then I looked again.
After a few minutes, an idea struck me.
Hey I was wearing that Coach purse the other day. Although I did look inside the purse many times already, I nevertheless looked again.
There are two side compartments inside the purse, both are like a big pocket hanging down and sewn to the top of the purse. As the pockets are very deep, it runs almost the height of the purse, and when I flipped the pockets up to reveal what, if anything, is behind it, and would you believe it, the key holder was miraculously hidden from there!
You could well imagine how so happy and relieved I was.
So my key holder and me are united again, and it was a happy ending.
What did I learn from this incident?
Well, I have found what you think and what you intensively concentrate on will materialize.
People says that if you focus on lack, poverty, I don’t have enough, and sure enough, that is what you get and will get.
I know it is really hard to think otherwise where in reality you are lacking and do not have enough. How can you think abundance?
I guess in comparison, no matter how dire your situation is, if you compare yourself to people in very poor, undeveloped nations who are struggling to survive day-in-and-out, then you will feel very blessed to have so much in your life.
