Eventually, we will all have to leave this earthly life behind us. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t maximize the time you have here. Backed by studies, here are some proven tips to extend your life:
1. Sleep Well. Don’t oversleep or be sleep deprived. According to a February 2002 study in the Archives of General Psychiatry people sleeping more than 8 hours per day had a significantly higher death rate than normal. That doesn’t mean that you deprive yourself either. People sleeping less than 4 hours also had a high death rate. People who slept between 6 and 7 hours lived the longest.
2. Be Positive. According to August 2002 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, people who had a positive outlook as appose to pessimists had a 50% decrease risk of early death. Those who are positive about life handle stress and life situations better. Optimists also have lower blood pressure which is the result how they react to stress and adversities.
3. Have More Spousal Sex. Couples who do are generally less stressed, happier, and better rested. All these factors contribute to a lower blood pressure reading. An April 2004 Journal of the American Medical Association found that “high ejaculation frequency was related to decreased risk of total prostate cancer.” Cheating has the opposite effect, as it will definitely add more stress to you life. Stress = shorter life so stay faithful.
4. Have a Pet. People with dogs were shown to require less visits to their physicians. This could be due to fact that owning pets tends to decrease loneliness and depression, encouraging laughing and exercise. According to a study lead be Erica Friedmann heart attack victims who have pets live 12% longer than the people that did not.
5. Get a VAP Test. Cholesterol tests to detect heart disease has shown to be not as reliable as you may think. Half of all heart attack victims shows normal levels of cholesterol. A better test to take is the VAP test developed by the Birmingham, Ala.-based lab Atherotech. They have shown to detect 90% of heart attack disease patients. It’s important to get this test early as heart disease is cumulative, and often could be managed or corrected more easily at early stages. This is a simple blood test that could be done at most doctors’ offices.
6. Be Rich. Easily said than done right? If you don’t fit this category, strive for it. Keep your finances in check and don’t overspend. Money problems will add stress, which will shorten your life. It will also limit your access to life extending tools. Never less, The National Center for Health Statistics shows that 24% of families with income below $20,000 are “limited” by chronic disease. Whereas, only 6% of families with an income above $75,000 are affected. Possible explanations could be the fact that the rich have better access to health care, food, housing, and safer neighborhoods.
7. Stop Smoking. This one is obvious. According to findings from a study that appeared in the July 2003 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, middle age men who are long term heavy smokers, are at a higher risk of developing aggressive forms of prostate cancer than men who have never smoked. The Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics study also states that cigarette smoking has been clearly linked to the most common causes of death in the elderly. The study states “Smoking is–for all but some exceptional subjects–incompatible with successful aging and compromises life expectancy even in extreme longevity,”.
8. Subdue Your Anger. Angry people live shorter lives. It’s due to the fact that they tend to have higher blood pressure which make them prone to heart disease. According to a 2002 study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, men who were classified as having the highest level of anger in response to stress were over three times more likely to develop premature heart disease when compared to men who reported lower anger responses. Additionally, angry men were over six times more likely to have a heart attack by the age of 55. With all that said, try to stay calm and collected and don’t sweat the small stuff. It could literally kill you.
9. Eat Your Antioxidants. Fruits and vegetables are a good source of antioxidants which help repair aging and damaged cells harmed by free radicals. Studies show that high levels of free radicals lead to degenerative diseases, including atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s and cancer. Some common foods with good levels of antioxidants are: cinnamon, cloves, blueberries, artichokes, and certain type of beans.
10. Exercise. Studies show that staying physically active and exercising regularly can help prevent or delay many diseases and disabilities. Even moderate exercise and physical activity can improve the health of people who are frail or who have diseases that accompany aging. Exercise is good for your body, mind and heart. If you’re not active start today.
1. I haven't spoken to my wife for 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.
2. Marriage is a 3-ring circus: Engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.
3. The last fight was my fault. My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" I said, "Dust!"
4. In the beginning, God created earth and rested. Then God created man and rested. Then God created woman. Since then, neither God nor man has rested.
5. Why do men die before their wives? They want to.
6. What is the difference between a dog and a fox? About 5 drinks.
7. A beggar walked up to a well dressed woman shopping on Grafton Street and said "I haven't eaten anything in four days." She looked at him and said, "God, I wish I had your willpower."
8. Do you know the punishment for bigamy? Two mothers-in-law.
9. Young Son: "Is it true, Dad? I heard that in some parts of Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her." Dad: "That happens in every country, son!"
10. A man inserted an ad in the classifieds: WIFE WANTED. Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: YOU CAN HAVE MINE.
11. The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once.
12. First guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
13. How do most men define marriage? An expensive way to get laundry done for free.
14. Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.
15. If you want your wife to listen and pay undivided attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
16. Then there was a man who said, "I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; and then it was too late."
17. A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?" And the father replied, "I don't know son, I'm still paying!"
18. I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was "Always."
A man and a woman who have never met before find themselves in the same sleeping carriage of a train. After the initial embarrassment, they both manage to get to sleep; the woman on the top bunk, the man on the lower.
In the middle of the night the woman leans over and says, "I'm sorry to bother you but I'm awfully cold and I was wondering if you could possibly pass me another blanket."
The man leans out and, with a glint in his eye, says, "I've got a better idea... let's pretend we're married."
Joe was talking to his buddy at the bar, and he said, "I don't know what to get my wife for her birthday - she has everything, and besides, she can afford to buy anything she wants, so I'm stumped."
His buddy said, "I have an idea - why don't you make up a certificate saying she can have 60 minutes of great sex, any way she wants it - she'll probably be thrilled."
So the that's what Joe did.
The next day at the bar his buddy said, "Well? Did you take my suggestion?"
"Yes, I did," said Joe.
"Did she like it?" His buddy asked.
"Oh yes! she jumped up, thanked me, kissed me on the forehead and ran out the door, yelling 'I'll be back in an hour!!'"
A woman was sitting at a bar enjoying an after work cocktail with her girlfriends when an exceptionally tall, handsome, extremely sexy middle-aged man entered. He was so striking! that the woman could not take her eyes off him.
The young-at-heart man noticed her overly attentive stare and walked directly toward her (as all men will). Before she could offer her apologies for so rudely staring, he leaned over and whispered to her, "I'll do anything, absolutely anything, that you want me to do, no matter how kinky, for $20.00....! ..on one condition."
Flabbergasted, the woman asked what the condition was. The man replied, "You have to tell me what you want me to do in just three words."
The woman considered his proposition for a moment, and then slowly removed a $20 bill from her purse, which she pressed into the man's hand along with her address. She looked deeply into his eyes, and slowly and meaningfully said...
Admitting Mistakes: Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last man who admitted that he was wrong was Gen. George Custer.
Bathrooms: A man has six items in his bathroom -- a toothbrush, toothpastem, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items and what they are used for.
Cameras: Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4000 for state-of-the-art equipment, and build darkrooms, and take photography classes. Women purchase Kodak Instamatics, and often produce better-looking shots.
Cheerleaders: Female cheerleaders are cute, sexy, fresh, and all-American. Male cheerleaders are scary.
Comedy: Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room, watching television, and an episode of the Three Stooges comes on. Immediately, the men will get very excited; they will laugh uproariously, and even try to imitate the actions of Curly, man's favorite Stooge. The women will roll their eyes and groan and wait it out.
Conversation: Men need a good disagreement to get talking, e.g., "Wow, great movie.", "What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size.", "Well, maybe he got it because he knew about those Mafia guys", etc. Women, not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying something agreeable "That garden by the roadside looks lovely." "Mmhmm." Pause. "That was a good restaurant last night, wasn't it?" "Yeah." Pause. And so on.
Directions: If a woman is out driving and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. A man will never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like, "Looks like I've found a new way to get there," and, "I know I'm in the neighborhood. I recognize that 7-11 store."
Dressing Up: A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail... A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals. Women dress up, not to be attractive to men, but so they will be noticed by other women. Ask a man what color dress a woman wore last night. He won't remember.
Eating Out: When the check comes, Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack will each throw in $20 bills, even though it's only for $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.
Friends: Women on a girls' night out talk the whole time. Men on a boys' night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are "Pass the Doritos" or "Got any more beer?"
Garages: Women use garages to park their cars and to store their lawnmowers. Men use garages for many things. They hang license plates in garages, they watch TV in garages, and they build useless wooden things in garages.
Getting Ready To Go Out: Women will try on several outfits to make sure they are the right color. Men smell their clothes before putting them on.
Going Out: When a man says he's ready to go out, it means he's ready to go out. When a woman says she's ready to go out, it means that she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her other earring, finishes putting on her makeup...
Groceries: A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane. A woman will buy enough food for a week. A man will buy enough food for less than a day.
Handwriting: To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot their "i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their "p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.
Hemlines: A man will remember how short a woman's dress was, for years. A woman will remember what color it was.
Jewelry: Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with wearing one ring and that's it. Any more than that and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic. Men would wear earrings if they could remember "is it the left ear that means you're gay and the right ear that means you are heterosexual, or..."
Laundry: Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat, and expect to meet a beautiful woman while he is there.
Low Blows: Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on television, and one of the fighters is felled by a low blow. The woman says "Oh, gee, that must hurt." The man doubles over and actually feels pain.
Maturity: Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out. A woman is fully capable of running a family or holding a job at age 18. Men start growing up sometime after age 40.
Menopause: When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of the changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction. He buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for an expensive foreign sports car and a mistress half his age.
Mirrors: Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface - mirrors, spoons, store windows, toasters, Joe Garagiola's head...
Movies: For women, their favorite movie scene is when Clark Gable kisses Vivien Leigh for the first time in "Gone With The Wind." For men, it's when Jimmy Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clark's face in "Public Enemy."
Mustaches: Some men look good with mustaches: Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds. There are no women who look good with mustaches.
Nicknames: With the exception of female body-builders, who call each other names like "Ultimate Pecs" and "Big Turk," women eschew the use of nicknames. If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle get together for lunch, they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle. But if Mike, Dave, and Jack go out for a brewski, they will affectionately refer to each other as Bullet-Head, Peanut-Brain, and Useless.
Offspring: Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. A man has to be reminded of his kids' birthdays.
Plants: A woman will ask a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man will water the plants. The woman returns five days later, to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.
Restrooms: Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restrooms will never speak a word to each other. Women who've never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends.
Shoes: When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, then slip on Reebok sneakers. She wil carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk. A man will wear the same pair of shoes all day.
Socks: Men wear sensible socks. They wear standard white sweatsocks. Women wear strange socks. They are cut way below the ankles, have pictures of clouds on them, and have a big fuzzy ball on the back.
Sport Arenas: Simply put, men can always find their way around stadiums and arenas. The women usually end up following men.
The Telephone: Men see the telephone as a communications tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.
Time: When a woman says she'll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she's using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football games's just got five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.
Toys: Little girls love to play with toys. Then, when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and impractical. Examples of mens toys: miniature TV's, car phones, complicated juicers and blenders, graphic equalizers, small robots that serve cocktails on command, and anything that blinks, beeps and requires at least six "D" batteries to operate.
* Maternity leave would last for two years...with full pay. * There'd be a cure for stretch marks * Natural childbirth would become obsolete * Morning sickness would rank as the nation's number one health problem * All methods of birth control would be improved 100 percent effectiveness * Children would be kept in the hospital until they were toilet trained * Men would be EAGER to talk about commitment * They wouldn't think twins were quite so cute * Fathers would demand that their SONS be home from dates by 10: 00pm * Men could use THEIR briefcases as diaper bags * They'd have to stop saying, "I'm afraid I'll drop him." * Paternity suits would be a line of clothes * They'd stay in bed for the entire nine months * Menus at most restaurants would list ice cream and pickles as an entree * Women would rule the world!
