Archives for 2021

Extruder Products – How Healthy are Your Breakfast Cereals?

August 22, 2021 by Esther Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Licorice, peanut puffs, corn flakes, snack bars, breakfast cereals in all shapes and colors, pasta, crispbread, soy meat, cat and dog food, everything passes through the extruder. The extruder swallows almost everything and converts cheap raw materials into expensive products. But who knows this magic machine, responsible for a number of groceries that have found their way to the shelves of our supermarkets?

Extruder Products – How Healthy are Your Breakfast Cereals?

Slowly the semolina pulp sinks into the funnel of the extruder. Underneath, inside a metal sleeve, a steel spiral is turning, soaking up the nutritious mass and pushing it forward. It’s getting tighter. Huge shear and pressure forces mercilessly move the pulp forward. He’s getting hotter and hotter. At the end of the pipe, the mass is passing with high pressure through a nozzle. Suddenly the mass is released, water evaporates and the pulp puffs up. Rotating knives cut the airy mass into the desired shape. Vitamins that fell by the wayside during this procedure are injected from fine nozzles. Ready are your breakfast cereals!

History of the Extruder

According to the dictionary, extrusion means: “To express a product through a nozzle, a hole or a slot in order to obtain a certain shape.” The first products to come out of an extruder were seamless lead pipes. Today, a wide variety of plastic pipes and profiles are made, but also bricks, copper wires, coated wires, soaps and much more are pressed through the extruder.

Extruded aluminum profiles - Photo by Mike1024 from WikiMedia

It wasn’t long before the food industry discovered the extruder for its own purposes. In 1869, pieces of meat were squeezed through the machine and stuffed into sausage skins. The extruder is indeed reminiscent of the good old meat grinder. The extrusion principle has already for a long time been used in pasta processing. Hydraulically driven piston presses squeeze moistened semolina through perforated plates, forming spaghetti, macaroni, spirals, stars and letters. Roller extruders and piston presses also transform sugar masses in the confectionery industry into all conceivable shapes and forms.

With the introduction of the screw extruder in the pasta industry during the mid-1930s, began the modern age of the extrusion process in food technology.

Structure of the Cooking Extruder

In simple terms, each extruder can be divided into the following parts. First comes the feeding zone, comparable to a funnel. This is where the raw material, be it flour, semolina, a porridge, ground peanuts, starch or a sugar mass, is fed in. A screw, sometimes two co-rotating or counter-rotating screws, transport the mass forward.

This is followed by the conversion zone. This is where things are mixed, compressed, heated, melted, transformed. Mechanical and thermal reactions take place. That is why the extruder is sometimes referred to as a bioreactor.

Now the processed product comes to the discharge zone. A nozzle is the limit. The nozzle and subsequent rotating knives determine the shape of the product to a wide extent. When the heated mass is pressed through the nozzle, the water in the product evaporates abruptly due to the drop in pressure. It results in a blown-up product, giving it a porous, light an airy structure. In principle, extruding mimics the conventional production of popcorn. Popcorn puffs at around 9.5 bar and at a temperature of about 350⁰F (175⁰ Celsius).

The Result: Product Diversity

The extruder swallows almost everything, whether waste products or valuable raw materials. Depending on the process, dry raw materials, moistened or pulpy masses are processed. Often the heat generated by the shear forces and pressure alone is enough to transform the material into the desired shape. This is referred to as cold extrusion. The friction normally results in temperatures of 90 to 140⁰F (40 to 60⁰C). However, there are also processes where additional heat must be added. The warm extruder works with 160 to 270⁰F (70 – 130⁰C) and the hot extruder with 270 to 480⁰F (130 – 250⁰C). Most cooking extruders are based on combinations of frictional heat and externally supplied heat. The pressure is in the range up to 200 bar.

The variety of products from the extruder is overwhelming. Many conventional baking or cooking processes are replaced by the extruder. Today, almost all breakfast cereals come from the extruder. A new generation of crispbread has emerged. It has an airy, light, longitudinal fiber structure.

Crispbread - photo by Matthias Kabel from Wikimedia

Milling waste products such as bran and grinding meal are refined in the extruder, given new structures and afterwards are added to baked goods. Breadcrumbs and modified starch, as well as many instant foods, such as instant soups, are now produced in the extruder. Oil can be extracted. Chewing gum and even chocolates are made in the extruder. A lack of taste, due to the fast production or less valuable raw materials needs to be compensated by many tricks and trade secrets of the industry.

An interesting product is also the long egg. Boiled, sliced eggs are used a lot for garnishing. For practicality, egg yolk and egg white are separated and cleverly reassembled in the extruder. The end product is a meter-long rod, in which the yolk is always nicely placed in the middle of the egg white. There is no waste when slicing.

What Happens to the Nutrients?

The starch from raw products is almost completely broken down, so it becomes easily digestible. It comes to gelatinization and swelling, sometimes also to undesired roasting processes.

Little is known about the conversion of protein in the extruder. However, it is known that some important amino acids are destroyed. At the other hand, it has been shown that harmful enzymes in legumes, such as trypsin inhibitors in the soybean, are rendered harmless by the heat. The changes in extrusion are very versatile and can only be investigated in very complex and expensive processes. That is why there are not yet many independent results about adverse side effects of the extrusion process.

Losses are partially reduced because mass is only exposed to the high temperatures for a short time. Nevertheless, the high heat causes a substantial loss of vitamins. Cereal products provide us with the important vitamins of the B group and with folic acid. Depending on the process, there are losses of 50 – 80%. In comparison, with normal bread baking, the losses of B vitamins are between 5 and 30%. Nutrition experts recommend treating the raw materials as gently as possible. What happens in the extruder can certainly not be described as gentle. That’s why the breakfast cereals need to be subsequently enriched with vitamins.

Conclusion

Extruder products have become an integral part of our diet. Children especially demand them frequently. Be it in the form of snacks, sweets, snack bars, or breakfast cereals. But we would do well to limit it. In a nutshell, extruder products are mostly air that is sold with a lofty price tag. Expensive products are made from cheap raw materials. In case of doubt, the food industry will pay attention to the taste the consumer will crave for and less to the nutritional value that contributes to a healthy lifestyle.

A child with a bowl of extruded breakfast cereals - Photo by Tiago Pereira from Pexels

If we put extruder products on the table, we should definitely vary them with conventional cereal products, in addition to fresh, untreated fruits and vegetables, nuts, and seeds. They are the ones who provide our body with important nutrients for our health.

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Are You Stressed Out about Having no Time?

August 15, 2021 by Martin Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

You surely heard the phrase: Time is Money. We may agree, but in practical terms, are you one of those people who turn around any penny you spend, but you do not think much about how you are spending your time? Do you try to do everything at the same time, but at the end you are frustrated that there are not enough hours in the day, and you catch yourself saying: I have no time? I think it is on the time to think about budgeting our time.

Are You Stressed Out about Having no Time?

If you are successful, you are able to earn more money, but there is something that not even a millionaire has more than you, and this is time. Everybody has 24 hours a day. Time is a finite resource. If you think about your time, you need to think how you want to invest it the most effective way. Are you smart in investing your money? Now think about the return of investment you will get from your time. Where are you going to invest it the most sensible way? This phrase gets it to the point:

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
William Penn

Set Priorities

President Eisenhower had an interesting approach to time management. He organized all his tasks in four quadrants: urgent or not urgent, important or not important. The urgent and important quadrant is the one you should give your priority.

There are some tasks that are important but not urgent, like your continual education for example. They will be coming right next in the priority list, and you should schedule a regular time for them each week, so that you make continual progress on something that will give you a better position in the future.

Now the urgent but not important category, you need to evaluate carefully if they are worth your time. Some tasks you may be able to delegate. Others you may drop from your list. You need to learn to focus on items that make the biggest difference at the end. The list of neither urgent nor not important items, you better store away for a day that you have really nothing else to do, but do not let your mind dwell on them.

I have heard another approach that can be quite interesting as well. You define 2 or 3 projects that you want to work on for this week or the near future. Those are the things that need your full attention at this moment. Then you have 3 or 4 projects that you target as next on the list. You may do a little bit of preparation to get the ball rolling, or you may start to work on them if you have some time left, but they are not your top priority for now. Everything else will go into the Maybe Later list, and you do not need to even think about them. Whatever method you use, you need to have a clear criteria, what is the priority for you to tackle at this exact moment.

Invest your Time Wisely

Think about your time as an investment. You need to think, what investment will give you the best returns. Think about sleep for example. If you sleep the hours you need, you will be energized the next day to tackle the tasks at hand with efficiency. If your cut your corners on sleep, your performance will suffer.

Sleeping man - Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

It is actually a wise move to go to bed early and rise early, in order to start your most important tasks when your mind is fresh in the early morning hours. We know that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight. So it is a wise investment to go to bed with the chicken and get the greatest benefit from your sleep time.

Be sure to start your day right. When you wake up, spend some time in the presence with God, so He can give you some insights for the day. You will see that things will flow differently when you are doing that. Be sure to get a good breakfast without any rush, because a substantial meal in the morning will give you the energy you need to start the day right.

Exercise is another time investment that will pay you high dividends. If you put in half an hour of vigorous exercise every day, it will surely safe you an hour or two while you work with more efficiency, plus you will put some time in your savings account, since it can prolong your live for several years. Talk about a wise investment!

Automation can be another investment that can pay you high dividends. Why do you need to tackle your payments every month, when you can automate them? It takes you once to set it up, but then you will never need to think about it again!

Budget Your Time

Like you have a budget for your expenses, you should have a budget on your time. When making a purchase, many people will be out to search for the best deal, instead of reflecting first: Do I really need this?

The same is true for time management. Most people will teach you how you can do your tasks the most effective way in order to save a minute here and get done more in your day. Instead of this, you should look at your schedule fist and reflect if you should not simply stop many of the activities you are doing.

Any commitment you make, think first if it is really worth your investment. What are your fist priorities? Your family? Your friends? Making a difference in your community? And at your work, what can make the biggest impact? Cut out some activities that are not essential and do not contribute to the advancement of your priorities.

Every activity you are planning to do, you need to estimate how much time it will take you. If it is something you have done in the past, you will have a good indicator how long it will take you. If it is something you never did before, you need to break it down in different steps, and estimate every step how long it will take you. Your estimate will be more accurate this way.

After having quantified your time investment, you need to evaluate if it is worth it, the same way you look at a product in the store to think if it is worth that price. Next you need to schedule the time in your calendar. If you do not have the time available, you need to either decline the commitment, or you need to drop off some low priority activities you have already scheduled in your calendar. Doing your proper planning can help to avoid a lot of surprises on the way, and will maximize the impact you can achieve with your limited time.

Price tag for fruits - Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels

Track your Time

There are many ways you can track your time. Some apps can track your activities you do on the computer. Some people like a Fitbit watch that will track their sleep, their exercise and various other activities during the day. Some do a simple feedback on the end of your day, while others like to use an app to do a more sophisticated evaluations of their time. Tracking style can vary, but you should be conscious on how you are using your time.

It happens so often that we are just quickly looking something up on the internet, and before we realize, we have spent an hour surfing around without any purpose. Multitasking is another thing that was increasing greatly in the digital era. On average we are checking every 6 minutes on emails and instant messaging. That is draining your productivity. You need to get into the habit of being focused on one task, and when you are done, you can have a look whether somebody was writing you on messenger.

According to studies, an internet user is spending on average 2:25 hours a day on social media.((Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2020. Statistica)) You add to that almost 3 hours of TV time per day, and you see quickly why we have no time left.((Average daily time spent watching TV in the United States from 2014 to 2023. Statistica))

Start to reflect on your habits. Are the 2 hours of scrolling the infinite feed of Facebook really well spent? And when you watch a video on YouTube, how many suggested videos you end up binge watching afterwards? Is this time really well invested, or are there other activities that would be really worth your time?

Do you have no time to play with your kids? Are you wanting to start a hobby for a long time? You are thinking to learn a new language? You want to learn an instrument that you desired to play since you were a kid? I have just freed you up 5 hours a day to do all of that if you want.

Be Realistic in Your Expectations

It is interesting to see how times have changed. When a hundred years ago, a farmer was plowing a field, it may have taken him a day or two, and another week for planting, but at the end he was looking back at his work and he was satisfied with his accomplishments.

A traditional farmer after plowing the field - Photo by Archie Binamira from Pexels

Nowadays things are going faster. A tractor will plow the field within an hour, and an email can go around the globe within seconds. Things are moving much faster. But with that we have also different expectations. If we have no time, because we have overcommitted ourselves.

Our changed expectations will also show up in our homes. While the farmer’s wife was not worried about the dirty kitchen floor while cooking lunch, our kitchen today needs to be sparkling clean. The house got bigger, consuming more time for cleaning and maintenance, and the yard needs to be perfectly cared as well. Think about this statement:

Life is a disappointment and a weariness to many persons because of the unnecessary labor with which they burden themselves in meeting the claims of custom. Their minds are continually harassed with anxiety as to supplying wants which are the offspring of pride and fashion…

The sweet word “Home” is perverted to mean “something with four walls, filled with elegant furniture and adornments,” while its inmates are on a continual strain to meet the requirements of custom in the different departments of life.((Ellen White, The Adventist Home p. 150))

I think it is time to make some adjustment on our expectations. Not everything needs to be perfect, and normally simpler is better.

Better Done than Perfect

We can roughly divide people in two groups: Maximisers and Satisficers. Maximizers are a tribe of perfectionists. If they buy a new phone, they will study all the available reviews for a week, and try to purchase the very best. And even then, they are still concerned whether they have made the right choice.

A satisficer at the other hand will walk into the store, look for the first phone that looks right, asks the dealer if it does what he is looking for and purchase it on the spot.

When it comes to answer an email, the maximiser will investigate the question he was asked, try to write a lengthy response, rewrite it three times to formulate it better, getting all the punctuation right and sending it out when he thinks it is perfect. The satisficer will simply throw in a quick response, maybe not even write a complete phrase, and hoping that it answers the question he was asked for, because if not, they will ask back anyways.

It is easy to see that the satisficer will get much more done in a shorter time, and he will feel more satisfaction on the end of the day. I guess it is important to find a healthy balance between the two. We need to learn to invest our time where it matters most. If my work can really have an impact, it is worthwhile to invest some more time, but when it comes to writing an email, we better get it over, so we can make time for things that really count. And even on the impactful projects, sometimes it is better to get it out and improve later, then to try to make it perfect and never get done.

Plan Your Week

When you are planning your week, you want to look at the bigger picture. You think about maybe 2 or 3 major projects to tackle and schedule their time. You also want to block out some time for essential goals that are not in the urgent category.

A Calendar - Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Then you look at your last week. You have scheduled anything that was left undone? Next look at the upcoming meetings and commitments that you have scheduled. Are they still your priorities? If not, you can decline or reschedule some of them.

And do not fill up your schedule to the maximum. Some tasks may take you longer than planned, and unexpected surprises are coming up all the time. Maybe keep some time open on Friday to catch up with things you could not get done during the week. This way you can get into the weekend with a satisfaction that you have accomplished your goals.

Daily Planning

When starting out in the morning, you need to spend a few minutes to get on track with your operating plan of the day. Is there anything left undone from the day before? What meetings do you have scheduled? Was there anything new coming up that needs to be treated with urgency? What are your top priorities?

Plans are important, but they are not set in stone, so you need to always recalibrate to reach your goals. But having something sketched out on paper, helps you to be more efficient in order to accomplish your priorities.

Get in Alignment with Your Passions

In a study of more than 3000 working people, researchers found out that those who were passionate about what they were doing, did feel less of a time pressure.((Jachimowicz J et.al. Why Passionate Employees Can Have It All: Passion Lowers Time Stress by Enhancing Goal Integration. https://psyarxiv.com/qd2zf/)) It is not so much about how long the activity takes, but more of how much you enjoy it. A sense of accomplishment did mean that they did not feel that their time was wasted.

A satisfied man - Photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels

Researchers found also that some people perceived activities as competing for their time. For example, they felt that engaging themselves in the company was conflicting with coming home in time for dinner. Passionate workers on the other hand felt that activities were complementing, since a healthy meal at home with family was giving them more energy for the next day’s work.

Get Divine Wisdom

You have done everything and you are still struggling to make ends meet in your schedule? Is there an emergency coming up and you don’t know how to handle it? James was giving us an interesting counsel many years ago:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.((The Bible, James 1:5, NKJV))

James 1:5

If you are on a tight spot, you can always turn to God, and He will give you wisdom on how to deal with your situation. So often He is able to show us the right priorities, or what to do to avoid being stressed out about our day. And He has promised to be on your side as your Heavenly Father. Jesus gave us another wonderful promise:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.((The Bible, Matthew 11:28.29))

Matthew 11:28.29

We do not need to resolve everything on our own. If there is something burdening you, then you can bring it to Jesus and he promised to help you. When you do not know whether you should take up a commitment, have a conversation with Jesus and ask him if he wants you to do this, or pass it on. Understand the purpose that God has for your life. Then you will have a clearer picture on how you can make really the best of every hour that God has given to you.

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Selenium – A Vital Trace Element

August 8, 2021 by Esther Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Selenium occurs only in traces in the human body. An adult weighing 70 kg has just about 7 milligrams on average. In medicine, selenium is considered a vital, essential trace element. It plays an important role in detoxifying the body, protects the membrane of our body cells, prevents red blood cells from oxidizing and is part of some important enzymes.

Occurrence

Selenium belongs to the semi-metals. It stands at the 59th place in the frequency of the elements in the Earth’s surface. It rarely occurs in nature in its pure form. We usually find it in compounds with sulfur. Selenium minerals are also rare. Clausthalite and naumannite are known examples. Selenides are found in copper gravel and zinc blend. Selenium is used in the semiconductor industry for the production of photodiodes, photocells, radar systems, solar cells and light meters. It is used in photocopiers because of its photoelectric property. Tiny additions to glass give it a bright red color. In the red traffic lights, we experience this color in daily life.

The vital necessity of selenium for plants, humans and animals was only discovered in 1957. With selenium deficiency, young animals do not gain weight properly. In humans occur very specific deficiency diseases.

Functions in the body

Selenium fulfills its most important function as a component of the enzyme glutathione peroxidase. This important enzyme is mainly found in red blood cells. It protects them from attack by harmful oxygen radicals that are produced in normal metabolic processes, but also by smoking, alcohol, ozone, smog and ionizing radiation.

Together with vitamin E, the enzyme also protects all cell membranes. Various fats are built into the membrane, which are wafer-thin boundary layers, that must be particularly protected. If such biological membranes are destroyed, premature cell death or genetic damage to the DNA occurs.

However, the body uses this selenium-containing enzyme very sparingly. If it is consumed, it is regenerated by vitamins C and E. Vitamin B2, carotenoids and anthocyanins also play an important role in this metabolic process. So we see the importance of a diet rich in vitamin-packed unprocessed plants.

Selenium is also contained in another enzyme, iodinethyronine-5-deiodase. Here it controls the conversion of the thyroid hormone thyroxine into the biologically active form. It therefore has an influence on the basal metabolic rate, cell differentiation, cell growth and the rate of cell division.

Selenium also plays a role in the detoxification of heavy metals. It binds cadmium, lead and mercury, so that these toxic metals can no longer bind to vital proteins.

Selenium also stimulates the immune system. Research in recent years also suggests that selenium plays an important role in cancer prevention. In cancer patients, a much lower selenium levels are found in the blood.

Deficiencies

Some soils are very low in selenium. This affects Central and Northern Europe but also large parts of China. An increased incidence of the so-called Keshan’s disease has also been found there. In its chronic form, this disease manifests itself as cardiac insufficiency with simultaneous enlargement of the heart muscle. In the area where this disease has occurred more frequently, the salt has been enriched with selenium and has thus been able to be suppressed.

The first symptoms of selenium deficiency include myopathies, which are muscle weaknesses. Metabolic disorders of the liver and pancreas are often associated with a selenium deficiency. Low levels of selenium in tissues have also been found in various forms of arthritis and degenerative joint diseases.

It is interested to notice that in those areas of China where the soil is selenium deficient, mortality of COVID-19 was much higher than in other parts o the country. That stresses again the importance of Selenium for the immune system.

Chemotherapy of cancer as well as oxygen therapies lead to increased formation of free radicals, which can be intercepted by selenium and other antioxidants.

Selenium-rich Foods

Animal foods generally contain higher amounts of selenium than plant foods. But selenium from the plant is more bioavailable, so it is more easily absorbed by the body. High amounts of vitamin C, being still in the physiological range, improve the absorption from the gastrointestinal tract.

Nuts and seeds have high amounts of selenium. The Brazil nut has by far the highest selenium content, even multiple times more than animal products. Chia and sunflower seeds have moderate amounts of selenium, Soybeans and white beans are also good sources. Substantial amounts are also found in whole grain, millet and rice, but this depends on the selenium content of the soil. Finland is a very selenium-poor area. The soils there are enriched with selenium. Other countries in Central and Northern Europe are also discussing enrichment.

An assortment of nuts - Photo by Marta Branco from Pexels

Those who live in areas with selenium-poor soils should not eat exclusively products from their own garden or the farmers from the surrounding area. Supplementing your diet with some nuts and seeds grown in tropical areas can help to balance this deficiency. Brazil nuts tend to be especially high in selenium, but can vary greatly depending on soil conditions. Eating just two Brazil nuts normally gives you more than your daily need. Since Brazil Nuts are so high in selenium, you should be cautious to not overuse them, though eating up to 4 nuts daily on a regular basis you should be still in the safe zone.

Overdosage and Poisoning

Before it was discovered that selenium is vital for humans, the trace element was considered one of the most toxic elements. However, acute selenium poisoning has occurred very rarely. In the production of glass and paints and in electronics, where selenium is used, however, protection of employees is necessary.

An overdosage is highly unlikely via food alone. However, supplementation with selenium is increasingly popular. Corresponding preparations are already on the shelves of supermarkets and drugstores. Whether a general supplementation can be recommended is controversial because the knowledge about the trace element is still insufficient. Therefore, an independent intake of selenium-containing supplements should be discouraged. They belong in the hands of an experienced doctor. It is certain that the additional intake of selenium is recommended for cancer, special forms of arthritis and certain cardiovascular diseases. However, the amounts to be taken vary depending on the respective course of treatment. This again shows that only the attending physician should decide on selenium supplementation.

A doctor consulting a patient - Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Varied Diet

To avoid a selenium deficiency, a balanced diet is key. Problems are only likely to arise in areas with selenium-poor soils and limited food choices at the same time. With the exception of the Brazil nut, plant products have lower selenium levels, but this is made up by better absorption and better recycling of selenium containing enzymes. Once again it has been shown that a varied diet with a high proportion of plant-based food is the right way to go.

Dealing with OCD – Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

July 28, 2021 by Dr. Cesar Vasconcellos de Souza - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD is a very unpleasant mental suffering, that can have a drastic impact on somebody’s life. What is OCD, and what can somebody do to deal with it?

Dealing with OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OCD affects 0.7 to 2.5% of the population. So, for example, in a city with 100,000 inhabitants, there should be between 700 to 2500 people with this mental disorder. It is a suffering which bothers a lot, and can become so serious in certain situations, that it disturbs the studies, professional, social and family life of the person.

Famous and rich people also have OCD. For example, a Brazilian singer of popular romantic music, Roberto Carlos has obsessive-compulsive disorder. If you go to his official website, he published information about this suffering. Another example is actress Luciana Vendramini, who also suffers from OCD. Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who played the role of Harry Potter, discovered that he had OCD at the age of five. He said: “I had to repeat every sentence I said quietly again. And I would like to encourage everyone with this problem to go through therapy. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy or weak.”

Also David Beckham, famous English football player has always admitted that he suffers from OCD, and that in his life this mental illness manifests itself in the constant need for cleanliness and perfection of everything around him. Anything out of order produces tension in him, everything for him has to be in pairs. If there are three glasses in the sink, you have to add one more to make two pairs, or you have to remove one to make only one pair. There can’t be three pairs of soccer boots in his closet. He has to have either two pairs or four pairs, always an even number, that’s an example of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

David Beckham playing for Real Madrid - By David Cornejo, CC 2.0 Wikipedia

Another famous person with OCD was the singer Michael Jackson. In addition, it seems that he also suffered from a disorder called BDD body dysmorphic disorder, which is a mental illness that is characterized by disturbing the person’s perception of their own body image, leading to irrational concerns about defects in some part of their body, and this would then explain the countless plastic surgeries he had in his short life. His ex-wife Lisa Presley said he never took off makeup. Many who suffer from this suffering from body dysmorphic disorder are at greater risk of becoming addicted to plastic surgery.

What is OCD?

The name of this disease called OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder already says: obsession and compulsion. A person with this mental suffering has intrusive thoughts, which he doesn’t want to have and are disturbing his conscience. Examples of these thoughts could be like: Did I lock the door at home? Or: Did I germs from touching that object? Those are thoughts that don’t stop, don’t give peace, and the person feels a compulsion to do what the thoughts say.

In the first case I mentioned, in which obsessive thoughts are questioning if he really closed the door, this person has the compulsion to check several times if he really did lock the door. In the second case where thoughts obsessively say that he may have been contaminated, he will compulsively wash his hands over and over again, ten, fifteen or twenty times.

Door lock - Photo by Henry & Co. from Pexels

Compulsive thoughts keep telling the person with OCD to practice the compulsive acts, because if they don’t do it, anxiety arises that disturbs a lot, and if the person doesn’t practice what obsession says, he will be very restless. So, obsession in the case of obsessive-compulsive disease, obsession has to do with repetitive thoughts in the individual’s consciousness, and compulsion has to do with the repetition of attitudes, of acts that have the purpose of alleviating those disturbing thoughts. So obsession is thinking, compulsion is doing.

Former model and actress Luciana Vendramini, in an interview she gave to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, she spoke about the problem, saying that she had what I call synchronized intrusive thoughts, that is, she needed to imagine something good along with an action. For example, while washing hands she needed to think about nice things. When she had a bad thought, she had to wash her hand again, so she commented that she spent 24 hours repeating quirks. She used to spend 8 hours taking a bath. What suffering, right?

There are various types of obsessive thoughts, such as the thought that the person has committed an unforgivable sin, or that they have to tidy their closet perfectly, or that they have to fix a picture on the wall that is a little crooked, or that they have to do three-taps on the wall whenever they think of a word, or have to skip the lines on a sidewalk and other things of this nature. In fact, in the film: “As Good as It Gets”, actor Jack Nicholson plays the role of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Pictures on the wall - Photo by Medhat Ayad from Pexels

Normal people can have thoughts that repeat themselves in the mind, but it’s temporary and it’s not chronic, it passes, it ends, but in individuals with OCD thoughts become recurrent or obsessive, they persist and it becomes the pattern of thinking. This causes a lot of anxiety, and a lot of anxiety makes things to appear worse.

In OCD, the attempt to alleviate the anxiety produced by obsessive thoughts is to practice compulsive acts. For example, if in the mind of a person with OCD, obsessive thinking is about contamination, he may try to alleviate this through the ritual of washing his hands exaggeratedly dozens of times a day. If the obsessive thinking is about whether he really turned off the light in a room at home or at work, he can check if he did it dozens of times, one after another.

How to treat OCD?

Some scientists believe that OCD has to do with brain changes and that it’s necessary to use medication to treat it, but it’s not just that. There are other emotional complications that create a lot of anxiety, and the mind uses obsessive thoughts and compulsive acts as a defense against deep emotional pain. So in the cause of OCD there are physical factors, emotional factors, and even spiritual factors.

It helps to fight OCD by telling yourself that obsessive thoughts have no moral value but are the result of neurochemical changes, perhaps due to excess anxiety. That’s why the person with OCD needs to devalue obsessive thoughts as much as they can and tell themselves that they don’t have to do what they say.

Thinking - Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels

It’s also important to struggle to think of something else to replace obsessive thinking. This is difficult at first, it’s true, but with time a person may be able to avoid concentrating on obsessive thoughts, choosing to think about other things. This will be difficult at first because there is a strong anxiety that drives the person to these thoughts, and they in turn lead to repetitive compulsive acts. This means that when a person struggles to prevent obsessive thoughts from continuing in their mind to disturb them, they may feel more anxiety, they may be restless, distressed, but with time this anxiety may begin to diminish, without the person needing to practice compulsion to get relief from those obsessive thoughts.

So an exercise that can help, is when obsessive thoughts come, instead of just practicing the compulsive act, say to yourself: I will wait about 20 minutes without getting carried away by the need to act compulsively. After a few days or weeks, this waiting time can increase a little more. If somebody has the compulsion to wash hands for several minutes, the person can reduce the time spent washing their hands. He might decide to wash it using less time, instead of spending 15 minutes washing his hands, he might decide maybe it’ll be just ten minutes. Then further shorten this time and get busy with another task.

Don’t be ashamed to talk about this suffering to anyone. If you are unable to gradually stop compulsive acts, even trying hard to do so, then seek professional help with a psychiatrist or psychologist. It is because when obsessive-compulsive disorder becomes severe enough to disrupt the person’s social and work life, temporary medication prescribed by the psychiatrist may be necessary, in addition to psychotherapy with a clinical psychologist.

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Small but Important – The Spleen

July 25, 2021 by Esther Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

If everything is going well in the bloodstream, it is not even palpable. The doctor can only palpate it when it is enlarged. It has very important tasks in the defense against diseases and in the red blood cell turnover. But if necessary, you can live without it.

Small but Important - The Spleen — Spleen Illustration by scientificanimations.com CC BY 4.0

The spleen is a soft, small, spongy organ just 3 inch wide and 4 inch long (7×11 cm). It is located in the left upper abdomen at about the level of the tenth rib. It is limited by the stomach, the left bend of the colon and the left kidney. A healthy spleen weighs between 5 to 7 ounces (150 – 200 grams) and is only palpable when it swells. Then it can weigh up to 4 pounds (2 kg).

If you cut through the spleen, you can see a framework of connective tissue and whitish and reddish areas. The white pulp is made up of the lymphoid follicles and the periarterial lymphatic sheaths. The color of the red pulp is due to the presence of the many red blood cells in the spleen capillaries. About a quarter of the tissue consists of white pulp and three quarters of red pulp.

Two Important Tasks

The spleen is one of the lymphatic organs, so it plays an important role in defense against disease and thus has a similar task to the lymph nodes. The individual lymph nodes only filter the lymph from a certain region of the body. But the spleen is responsible for the entire bloodstream. With a local infection, individual lymph nodes become inflamed. However, if many pathogens are washed into the bloodstream, the spleen swells, a sign that it has to work harder. The white pulp takes on this task of defense against disease. There are around 20 times as many lymphocytes in the spleen as in all lymph nodes combined. Lymphocytes are small, white blood cells that play a major role in the specific immunity.

Red blood cell and lymphocyte - Electron Microscopy Facility at The National Cancer Institute at Frederick (NCI-Frederick), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — Red blood cell and lymphocyte

The red pulp has completely different tasks. It appears so red because there are so many red blood cells swimming around in it. The aged corpuscles are broken down in the spleen. The red blood cells have to squeeze through a tight network. Young blood cells can deform themselves very well and easily squeeze through the narrow blood vessels. Old blood cells can no longer be deformed as easily. They get stuck in the tight network and are broken down by the phagocytes. During this cell turnover of the blood, the red blood pigment hemoglobin is released.

The body uses its breakdown products very sparingly and recycles a lot, including hemoglobin. It is converted into bile pigments and released into the bile by the liver. This is why jaundice can occur with an increased breakdown of blood cells. Neonatal jaundice is particularly well known.

The spleen also has other functions. In babies, it makes red blood cells. In adults, this task is performed by the bone marrow. It also stores platelets, which are released to help blood clot when bleeding. But it also recognizes small thrombi and breaks them down. It also produces some of the macrophages, the phagocytes that flow around and digest foreign bodies in the blood and play an important role in the immune system.

Anthrax

Anthrax is a zoonosis, a disease that affects animals and can be transmitted to humans, but not from person to person. It occurs mainly in people who deal with animals a lot, such as farmers or butchers. In our latitudes it is rare today, but it is more common in warm regions such as South Africa. It is a reportable infectious disease. It is transmitted by the Bacillus anthracis, hence the name anthrax. The bacilli form spores. In this inactive form, they are very stable against heat, dehydration, radiation and disinfectants. They can remain in a pasture for a long time before they are ingested by animals.

A butcher cuts meat - Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels

The disease can appear as skin, lung, or intestinal anthrax. The spleen is enlarged, darkly colored and looks like it has been burned. The symptoms of the disease are like those of an infection. If it is recognized quickly, it is easy to treat. If treatment is delayed, it is difficult. There may be a high fever, lung failure and shock.

Anthrax was picked up by the media as a biological weapon. A few years ago, a lot of unrest was created when some real and some ineffective white powder was sent by post. There is no need to be afraid of this biological weapon. Though it is possible to use it in a very targeted way, it involves some complicated procedures. You have to pack the spores correctly and spray them in the right size so that they can be picked up.

Spleen Removal

The spleen is not essential for life. You can live without it. In adults, the lymphatic function can be taken over by the lymph nodes. The liver steps in to break down blood. Even so, the spleen should not be removed lightly. For example the risk of blood poisoning is much greater without a spleen. Immediately after removal of the spleen, patients are also much more at risk of developing pneumococcal pneumonia. It takes time for other organs to take over the task of the spleen and protect the body from disease.

An important reason for removal is, for example, a capsule tear. The spleen is surrounded by a capsule that is very well supplied with blood. In the event of bruises, it easily bursts. There is profuse bleeding. In the past, the spleen was simply removed in such cases. Today a surgeon may try to glue the crack because the spleen is such an important organ in defense against disease. During operations, the surgeon has to work very carefully around the spleen. If he injures the capsule, the bleeding is hard to be stopped.

An operation - Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. from Pexels

In the case of increased blood breakdown, special forms of anemia or leukemia and malignant tumors, it often has to be removed.

After the spleen has been removed, the patient is monitored very closely in the hospital. The blood count is continuously monitored. In this phase no inflammation or any other disease is permitted, because an important part of the immune system was removed. Even after the hospital stay, the immune system must be strengthened through a vitamin-rich diet and plenty of exercise in the fresh air.

The spleen, however small the organ, has an important function. It can be replaced in an emergency, as we have seen. But as long as we have it, we want to protect and preserve it through a sensible, immune-boosting lifestyle. This not only benefits our physical health, but also our spirit and soul. We can think better and communicate better with others and with our Creator.

We have a special opportunity just for you. If you want to receive practical and up to date advice on how to implement an immunity-boosting lifestyle, simply join the Coronavirus Immunity Challenge and prepare yourself to face the pandemic with a bullet-proof immune system.

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9 Rules for Improving Sleep to Reduce Stress

July 17, 2021 by Martin Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

There’s a strong correlation between how much sleep you get and how stressed you are. It’s a vicious cycle that can cause mental distress and even wreak havoc on your physical well-being.

9 Rules for Improving Sleep to Reduce Stress

It’s a well-known fact that people who don’t get enough sleep are lethargic and constantly experiencing an energy slump. This causes irritability, which also makes it hard to fall asleep. The reverse is also true. When you experience an exorbitant amount of stress during the day, it causes you to lie there awake – and that piles on more stress for the upcoming day. In many cases, this is leading to a vicious cycle that is complicating your stress more and more.

The Huffington Post conducted a poll where they asked people what their #1 stressor was. Lack of sleep was one thing that dominated the results. Stress and a lack of sleep combined can cause you to lose mental clarity and they can put more pressure on your body to perform at less than optimal standards.

For this reason it’s vital that you learn how to implement stress relief measures that also work to lull you to sleep at night. When you wake up fully refreshed, you’ll be able to tackle the world and anything it throws at you!

Rule #1 – Implement a Bedtime Technology Ban

If you want to toss and turn and have trouble to wake up in the morning, just keep your cell phone right by your bed. For some of you, that won’t be a problem – but for many people, it’s become an addiction that disrupts their sleep routine and causes a lack of sleep.

Some people have their computer right beside the bed and the glow of it lights up the room at night. The same is true for notifications that come in on cell phones – sometimes with lights and sometimes with the inclusion of sounds.

Not only is it a physical factor, but it causes a certain amount of mental unrest when you’re constantly checking emails or looking to see who posted what on Facebook.

Man using cellphone in bed - Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

The physical distraction of the computer glow tricks your body into thinking it’s time for you to be awake. Your body won’t produce the melatonin it needs and help you get (and stay) asleep, so you toss and turn all night.

Technology doesn’t just have to be left out of the bedroom – it needs to be shut down quite awhile before you go to bed. Your mind needs time to disconnect and wind down itself, and it can’t do that if you’re constantly feeding it information. If you go to bed at 10 PM, try disconnecting around 8:30 PM. Let your stress melt away and your mind relax. By the time you go to bed, all technology should be switched off or transferred to a different room. This isn’t an easy habit to break, but by having a plan you’ll be able to implement it.

Rule #2 – Create an Environment Conducive for Sleep

Your bedroom can do a lot to improve your sleep quality. First of all, it should be completely dark at night. Our sleep cycles are influenced by the dark light cycle, and a good night’s rest requires a completely dark bedroom. No lights on, and no electronic gadgets that are emitting light. If you have street lights out of your window, invest in a good curtain to block them off. Your sleep quality will appreciate it.

Next, your bedroom should be quiet. Some people got used to sleeping with radio or TV at night, and it seems to give them a certain sense of security. Just the sleep quality suffers from that, and in the long run, it might be better to find ways to overcome this habit. If you are impacted by street noise right outside your bedroom window, you may want to invest in double or triple glass sound blocking windows for your home. Your mind needs to be able to fully relax overnight and refresh your energies for the next day.

Be sure to also avoid any distractions inside your bedroom. This room should be designed for sleep, and not for continuing the frenzy you are suffering already all day long. The TV can stay in the living room where it belongs. And the less clutter you have in the room, the more your mind will feel at rest.

What can help a lot in the quality of your sleep is a good mattress. At the end of the day, you are spending one-third of your time in bed, and you should make sure that this time will be comfortable. A good mattress will be comfortable, but still firm, in order to give proper support to your spine. A pillow that is right for you can complement the comfort of your bed.

If you have trouble falling asleep, you can use a branch of lavender and put it below your pillow. As an alternative, you can purchase a lavender extract and sprinkle a few drops on your bed, just enough that you can smell it, but does not annoy you. For more severe sleep deficiencies you can try out to take some capsules of Valerian or Passion Flower, which are good options to induce you to sleep, giving you better conditions to resolve the underlying stress that may have caused your sleep deficiency.

Rule #3 – Wind Down Your Day With Exercise

It sounds almost backwards – putting forth extra exertion when you really need to be relaxing and calming down. But that’s just what exercise does for you! Exercise is a great stress reliever because it helps you release endorphins.

That’s why you sometimes hear of athlete’s bragging about their “runner’s high” – because although they may start out fatigued, they hit a point in their regimen where the endorphins are released and they feel good.

Feeling good is one of the first steps to you being able to sleep well tonight! Your body has probably been tensed and knotted up all day while you were at work. Allowing it to exercise gives you some relief – somewhere to pour all of that tension into. If you were sitting down all day long, this is exactly what your body needs.

Exercise also helps you sleep better at night. We joke as parents about letting our kids wear themselves out so they’re ready for a good, long nap – but the same goes for us as adults!

When the Huffington Post conducted a poll for people who exercise in terms of how they sleep, they discovered that people who exercise don’t just get more sleep – they get better sleep.

As you might suspect, the better your work out, the better you snooze each night! If you’re not used to exercising, start out slow and work your way up. You can start off with a simple 10-minute-a-day plan and increase it a bit each week.

Another good side effect of exercising is that you might shed some extra pounds! Poor sleep makes people gain weight according to recent studies – and stress definitely leads you to consume extra calories.

Try to exercise after work – but still plenty of time before going to bed. Making a strenuous workout just before bedtime will hype up your hormones. But if you do half an hour walk around 2 hours before going to bed, it will have a relaxing effect. If you exercise too close to bedtime and you discover that you still feel restless, just move your exercise up to an earlier time.

Rule #4 – Get a Soothing Bath

For some people, bath time is their only time of the day when they unwind and kick stress to the curb. There are no clocks ticking, no technology vying for your attention, and nobody talking to you.

It’s just you, your warm, soothing water, and whatever environment you’ve created to help you relax. The environment for your bath is just as important as the sleeping environment you create.

If it’s off, then you can’t relax. A cold, sterile bathroom won’t lend itself to a calming environment. Some people like to invest in a bubble bath or a lavender smell, while others put up candles to create a relaxing ambiance. Soft and relaxing music might be another option to get you into a tranquil mode.

Just as you’ve made the commitment to turn off technology at bedtime, do the same for your bath time, too. You can’t really relax if your smartphone is ringing off the hook. Just enjoy the moment, and forget about everything that was stressing you out during the day.

Rule #5 – Take a Light Supper

Eating a heavy meal late at night is a surefire recipe for troubled sleep. There is an old saying that we all know: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper. There is much truth in that.

Think for supper on something that is lightweight. This applies not only for quantity, but also the quality of our foods. What you should cut out as much as possible are fats, since they are very difficult to digest. So keep your fries for lunch and your nuts for breakfast. You should also go easy on proteins and focus more on carbohydrates for supper. So fruits together with a toast bread is a really good option, that will digest in a snap.

If you work all day long with your mind, you may even find that skipping supper altogether will improve your sleep. At night your body does not need this energy, and skipping supper helps you to wake up the next morning with appetite to face a substantial breakfast. Besides improving your sleep, this habit will help you a lot in your weight control, and controls your excessive sugar levels if you are diabetic. It may take you a few weeks to get used to it, but after that, you will feel the full benefit in your sleep quality.

For those who do not want to skip supper altogether, it should be lightweight and early enough to be completely digested before going to bed. A light supper should still be placed 2-3 hours before bedtime, to guarantee that digestion is done before you hit the bed. You do not want your stomach to work extra hours while you are at sleep. This will impact not only your health, but also sleep quality and your mood the next day you get up.

Rule #6 – Sleep at Regular Times

An alarm clock - Photo by Aphiwat from Pexels

Have a regular time for going to bed and a regular time to rise that allows you 8-9 hours of good sleep. Cutting corners on sleep does not help your productivity. You will be running around like crazy, thinking you cannot afford to go to bed on time and let your work be undone. The truth is, that the next morning you will be irritated and with a foggy mind, not being able to think straight on what your next step should be to get you to the goal you are looking for. More than often you will realize that you will work more hours and accomplish less.

If you are really on a tight deadline, you may be better off to go to bed an hour earlier than normal, but wake up two hours earlier and get some undistracted work time early morning, while everyone else is still asleep.

Our body is adjusting its daily hormonal cycle according to the light and dark cycle of the sun. For this reason, one hour of sleep before midnight is just as refreshing as two hours of sleep after midnight.

Getting into the habit of going to bed before 9:30 PM will help you a lot to wake up refreshed and full of energy the next day. If you have created the habit of burning the midnight candle, it may take you some time to adjust to the new schedule, but after a few weeks you surely will start to feel the benefits.

Many people created the habit to get by on a minimal sleep time during the week, but at the weekends they sleep in as much as they can. This is detrimental in two ways. First, there is no way that you can make up for sleep that you have lost during the week. You cannot recuperate the lost productivity you had during the week, nor can you make up the toll that sleep deficiency had on your health.

Second, the body gets used to a regular rhythm of activities you do during the day. If you totally change your sleeping routine on the weekend, your body gets out of sync and you cannot enjoy completely the free time you have. So if you have the habit of getting up at 6 o clock during the week, and on the weekends you can’t get out of bed before 10, this is a sure sign that you were sleep deficient on your weekday schedule. If you aim for a regular time to go to bed and a regular time to wake up, ideally even on the weekends, you help your body a lot to optimize the circadian rhythm for peak productivity.

Rule #7 – Become a Master at Time Management

During the Huffington Post surveys about sleep and stress, they noticed that most people started with phrases like, “Not enough time to…” Time is one thing we need more of and have less of in this day and age.

We have no time to relax. We push ourselves from the time our feet hit the floor in the morning right up until we go to bed – and we never get to bed on time. Instead, we give ourselves a minimal amount of sleep hours – and much of that is spent tossing and turning due to the stress of what all we couldn’t accomplish this day.

If you’ll get firm with yourself and look at how much time you waste during the day, or how much time you’re not as productive as you should be, then you’ll free up more time for sleep.

Notice that didn’t say, “free up more time to get tasks done.” Many of you will learn new time management skills and forget to learn your lesson about sleep. Instead, you’ll pack in more on your to-do list.

Make the exercise to journal for a week your daily routine. Notice all the times when you’re surfing the web or standing around chatting with co-workers. That’s time that you could be spending really accomplishing things so that once your day is done, you are rewarded with free time – “me time” – to pamper and nurture your body and mind.

A blank journal - Photo by Jessica Lewis from Pexels

You might also find that when you implement the other rules here to accomplish proper sleep hygiene, you’ll be able to get more done throughout the day. That’s because your mental clarity improves and you tend to have more energy to tackle whatever the day may bring for you.

Rule #8 – Allow Deep Breathing to Replace Naps

There are some people who get in the habit of taking a daily nap – primarily because they’ve heard that power napping can help them achieve their goals for the day.

This might be true for many people. But if sleep eludes you, then naps could be causing the problem. A 10-minute power nap where you’re basically just shutting your eyes and deep breathing is beneficial. Going to bed for 2-4 hours in the middle of the day is a recipe for disaster. You’ll never be able to go to bed at a regular bedtime and you’ll lie there frustrated and annoyed that you can’t go to sleep. It’s a hard habit to break.

Try using deep breathing to energize yourself whenever you’re in an afternoon slump. Breathe from your diaphragm and try to watch how often you’re using shallow breaths throughout the day.

Rule #9 – Resolve Your Worries Before Going to Bed

If you find yourself troubled or upset make an effort to solve the problem as best you can before bedtime. If you had an argument with your spouse, or whether you were getting wrapped up with your coworker, if you are able to resolve it before bedtime, sleep will be so much sweeter. The Apostle Paul was saying already many years ago: “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”((The Bible, Ephesians 4:26 NKJV))

Sometimes you find that worries are wanting to creep up on you and be your companion at bed in order to rob your sleep. Some worries are good in order to get us into action. But more often we are worried about things that we can do nothing to resolve. At this moment, we need to turn our worries over to your Heavenly Father, trusting that He is well able to take care of your needs. This experience of peace can do much more for a sweet night of rest than anything else. This is exactly what Solomon was speaking about:

When you lie down, you will not be afraid; yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Proverbs 3:24

I wish you can make this experience for yourself. Because if you are able to turn over your troubles into the Hand of God, then your sleep with a peace of mind that you maybe did not now for a long time. You want to try this out in your life?

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