The time has come to cut back. BY MARISSA LALIBERTE By now, you’ve probably heard of studies linking social media use to lower selfesteem and more jealousy—but that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to feel that way forever. Quitting Facebook for just a week could improve mental health, according to a study in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Almost 1,100 Danish adults either quit Facebook for a week or continued logging on as usual in the study. Before and after the study, participants answered questions about their well-being. They rated their life satisfaction and ranked their levels of emotions such as loneliness, happiness, worry, and enthusiasm. The study also looked into how people’s social media styles affected their results. The amount of time volunteers spent on Facebook and their number of friends gauged how heavily they used the site. Plus, the survey asked if Facebook made the volunteers jealous, and whether they actively posted or passively scrolled. After a week, those who had stayed off the site reported bigger improvements to life satisfaction and emotional life than those who hadn’t quit. Heavy social media users had the biggest mental health boosts, while those who rarely checked their pages before the study saw no changes. As for those who experienced the most feelings of jealously, their well-being saw improvement, too. Before you find Facebook’s Deactivate button, the study did have its limitations. Volunteers knew whether they were supposed to quit or continue on Facebook, so they might have felt boosts to their well -being simply because they expected to. Plus, it was impossible to track whether participants cheated. They could have logged on when they weren’t supposed to, or cut down on their social media scrolling because they were more aware of it. Still, if looking at others’ highlight-reel posts brings you down, you might want to consider cutting back. “Facebook-related envy is a widespread feeling among Facebook users because they are presented with loads of social information that invites social comparison,” writes study author Morten Tromholt of the University of Copenhagen. Even small tweaks could give you a healthier relationship with your social media feed. “It might not be necessary to quit Facebook for good to increase one’s well-being— instead an adjustment of one’s behavior on Facebook could potentially cause a change,” writes Tromholt. Avoid certain friends’ posts if you tend to get jealous, or cut down on the time you spend on Facebook every day, he suggests. And avoid making these social media mistakes, which can damage your relationships.
POTLOOT & UITVEËR DIALOOG Skrywer onbekend Potlood: Uitveër: Potlood:
Uitveer:
Ek's jammer! Waaroor? Jy't mos nie iets verkeerd gedoen nie! Ek's so jammer dat jy as gevolg van my seerkry. As ek 'n fout maak, is jy altyd daar om dit reg te maak. Maar namate jy my foute laat verdwyn, verloor jy 'n deel van jouself. Jy word net al hoe kleiner! Dis waar, maar ek gee nie regtig om nie. Ek is mos gemaak om dit te doen. Ek is gemaak om jou te help wanneer jy ook al iets verkeerd doen, en selfs al sal ek eendag heeltemal daar mee heen wees en jy my met 'n ander een vervang, is ek eintlik baie gelukkig in my werk! Hou nou maar op bekommerd wees. Ek hou nie daarvan as jy hartseer is nie!
Hierdie gesprek tussen die potlood en uitveer is so op ouers en kinders van toepassing! Ouers is die uitveërs en kinders die potlode! Ouers is altyd daar vir hulle kinders! Hulle hanteer die foute en somtyds kry hulleself as gevolg daarvan seer! In die proses word hulle kleiner, ouer en uiteindelik is hulle nie meer daar nie! Kinders vind mettertyd iemand in hulle ouers se plek (huweliksmaat),maar ouers is nog steeds daar vir hulle kinders en sal altyd alles in hulle vermoë doen om die kinders se kommer of hartseer minder te maak of te laat verdwyn! Ek was nog my hele lewe lank 'n potlood! Dit maak my baie seer om my ouers, wat my uitveer is, onder my oë te sien wegkrimp! Ek besef baie goed dat ek eendag net met die uitveërfrummels en herinneringe van wat ek gehad het sal sit! Ek wil hierdie n bietjie verder vat! Ons, die mense, is die potlode en ons fouteer daagliks. Die probleem is net, hoe maak ons daardie 'foute' reg? Deur jouself te gee aan ons Goddelike Uitveër - JESUS CHRISTUS! HY het aan die Kruis gesterf om ONS sondes uit te vee! HY maak ons nuut, gee ons die kans om n nuwe bladsy te begin. My vraag aan jou is: HET JY HOM AS JOU UITVEËR AANGENEEM? INDIEN NIE, DOEN DIT NOU. DIS NOOIT TE LAAT NIE! DANKIE JESUS DAT U OOK MY SONDES UITGEVEE HET MET U BLOED
Hint: It's a word you learned in preschool. BY BRANDON SPECKTOR It’s a well-worn stereotype that the great citizens of Canada apologize a lot—so much so, in fact, that there’s a law about it. The Apology Act, passed by the province of Ontario in 2009, reminds litigants that “a statement that a person is sorry” or any other “expression of sympathy or regret” following an incident should not be considered an admission of fault or liability by the apologizer. In other words, “I’m sorry you found spittle on your Tim Bits” does not legally mean, “I apologize for spitting on your Tim Bits.” Leave it to Canada to legalize sympathy. Ribbing aside, the Apology Act reminds us that there’s more to saying “I’m sorry” than simple guilt or regret. Recent research confirms that an apology—even for something completely out of the apologizer’s control, like nasty weather or heavy traffic—can also serve as the powerful foundation for building trust with strangers. Breaking the ice with “sorry,” it seems, might even help you get what you want. A few years ago, researchers from Harvard Business School and University of Pennsylvania tested the link between what they called “superfluous apologies” and trustworthiness in a series of four experiments. The study culminated in a field test that sent one student walking around a busy Northeastern train station on a rainy November day, asking strangers if he could borrow their phones. Throughout his 65 interactions with the strangers (30 male, 35 female), the student followed one of two scripts. To half the commuters, he simply asked, “Can I borrow your cell phone?” To the other half, he led with a superfluous apology: “I’m so sorry about the rain! Can I borrow your cell phone?” Now you may be rightly thinking, “what on earth does the weather have to do with handing over your beloved mobile device to a total stranger?” And the answer, of course, is nothing— that’s exactly why the researchers were interested in the scenario. By apologizing unnecessarily for the weather, the student in the station wasn’t trying to take responsibility for the rain, or even cite a reason for needing to borrow a phone (logical thinkers crave reason, after all). What he was doing was showing empathy‚ putting himself in the stranger’s presumably soggy shoes and saying, “I understand how you feel.” This snap gift of empathy, the researchers speculated, would make the phone-users instantly more trusting of the phone-borrower, and more likely to reciprocate with their help. Amazingly, the instant-empathy recipe worked. Of the 32 people the student delivered his superfluous apology to, 15 of them (or 47%) handed over their phones. Only three of the 33 strangers in the non-apology group (just 9%) did the same. That’s a huge shift in compliance, all thanks to a well-placed “sorry.” The researchers summarized their conclusions in the paper thusly: “Superfluous apologies represent a powerful and easy-to-use tool for social influence. Even in the absence of culpability, individuals can increase trust and liking by saying ‘I’m sorry’—even if they are merely ‘sorry’ about the rain.” Preschool teachers around the world, consider yourselves hereby vindicated: ‘Sorry’ really is a magic word.
INGREDIENTS: 1 x 375 ml bottle Vodka (you can reduce it to 300 ml if you prefer less kick) 1 x 395 gram (300ml) tin of condensed milk (use up to two cans to make it thicker and sweeter) ½ x 375 ml tin evaporated milk Ground cinnamon to serve METHOD: Mix well, using a food processer or whisk, and bottle, or simply pour the ingredients into a 1-litre bottle and shake well. Keep in the fridge. Shake well before pouring into shooter or shot glasses. Sprinkle each melktertjie with ground cinnamon and serve chilled. Melktertjies is really worth it on a winters evening Makes approximately 860 ml SOURCE: Rainbow cooking recipe – Marietjie Swart PHOTO: Michelle Pottage
LIQUID HAND SOAP INGREDIENTS: 1 x c soap flakes 10 x c water 1 x Tbs glycerin DIRECTIONS: First, grate the soap. Get out your cheese grater, grab the soap, and get grating. I found this to be surprisingly easy, although the soap particles tend to float in the air as you grate. You can wear a mask to avoid breathing it in. When you’re done, the soap flakes look like grated Parmesan. One bar of soap yielded a little over 1.5 cups of flakes. The recipe only uses one cup of soap flakes, so I put the remaining soap in a jar for later use. In a large pot, combine 1 cup soap flakes, 10 cups water, and 1 Tbs glycerin. Turn on medium-low heat and stir until the soap dissolves. This happens fast, about a minute or two. Let the soap cool completely, then pour into containers using a funnel. That’s all there is to it! HOW TO TURN A BAR OF DOVE SOAP INTO LIQUID HAND SOAP: INGREDIENTS: 2 x bars of Dove Sensitive Soap 4 x c water DIRECTIONS: Using a box grater, grate both bars of soap. Transfer the soap flakes into a pot and add the 4 cups of water. Turn it on low heat and dissolve the soap slowly until it becomes smooth and you don’t see any lumps. Take off the heat and let sit overnight to cool completely. It will firm up a little, but should still be foamy and soap-like when you stir with a spoon. Using a funnel, transfer the soap to the hand pump.
BY CLAIRE NOWAK We all sneeze for the same reason. When irritants like dust, animal dander, and pollen get into our noses, the brain sends a signal to get rid of them. We take a deep breath, our chest muscles tighten, pressure pushes our tongues to the roof of the mouth, and then the air forcefully leaves through our noses. Voila, a sneeze. That doesn’t mean all sneezes are the same though. The way that a sneeze sounds is determined by multiple factors; the most basic one is anatomy. The noise a sneeze makes depends on how the air exists your nose and mouth, so the size of your nostrils can affect how loud it is. People with a larger lung capacity generally have bigger sneezes because they can take in and let out more air. If someone has multiple sneezes in succession, that just means a single sneeze couldn’t clear out all of the irritants. A more surprising influence on how people sneeze is their personalities. Patti Wood, a spokesperson for Benadryl, conducted a study of more than 500 people called the Benadryl Sneeze Analysis and determined that there are four types of sneezes, each linked to a certain personality. They are: The Nice or Sensitive Sneezer: This person typically sneezes only once and turns away from other people when it happens. He or she works to avoid conflict, values relationships, and has a nurturing, supportive attitude. The Be Right Sneezer: This person is more likely to cover his or her mouth during a sneeze than other sneezers. He or she is careful and precise, spending a lot of time thinking about what to say before actually saying it. The Get It Done Sneezer: This person holds in sneezes if possible (which is actually a very bad idea) and has especially loud sneezes. He or she is a decisive leader who works quickly to get things accomplished as fast and efficiently as possible. The Enthusiastic Sneezer: This person makes a big deal out of a sneeze so other people will notice, whether it’s extra loud, funny-sounding, or involves multiple sneezes. He or she is charismatic, spontaneous, and not afraid to vocalize his or her feelings. Our surroundings can also change how we sneeze. According to Wood’s findings, 45 percent of participants said their sneezes in public sound different from their sneezes in private, primarily because they don’t want to disturb anyone around them. Now that you know how and why you sneeze, don’t forget to say “Bless you”—or one of its international variants—when you hear one.
Her husband's kidney failure turned into a life-saving Facebook campaign BY MARISSA LALIBERTE In 2014, Kristi Callaway found out her husband’s kidneys were failing. If he didn’t find a donor, he could die. On average, a person will wait three to five years for a kidney transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Instead of waiting for the kidney registry to find a deceased donor kidney for her husband, Callaway took matters into her own hands. She gathered her husband and two daughters for a family portrait, with her older daughter holding a sign that said “Our Daddy needs a Kidney!” Callaway created a Facebook page to share the photo, and the post went viral. When a stranger more than 900 miles away saw the story about the Georgia family’s search on foxnews.com, he leapt into action. Tests revealed he was a match, and the Texas man successfully donated his kidney to Raleigh Callaway, just ten weeks after his wife called on social media for help. Seeing how social media sped up the process for her husband, Kristi Callaway wondered if she could help the more than 100,000 other people in need of a kidney. She decided to use her Facebook page, “Our Daddy Needs a KidneyTeam Callaway,” to help others on the national transplant waiting list. “I just knew there were so many people following our page that were willing to help us,” Callaway told Fox 5 Atlanta. “Why not give them the opportunity to help others?” Other families and individuals can now post their own kidney needs on the page. The photos contain the people’s names, blood types, ages, and contact information, and the descriptions give them a chance to tell their story. So far, Callaway’s page has saved at least 23 lives by connecting donors to those in need. “We didn’t know it was going to do what it’s done,” Raleigh Callaway told ABC News, which featured his wife on Good Morning America’s “We Are GMA” campaign. “It just touches my heart.” One of the donors to turn up through Kristi Callaway’s efforts? Her mom, Kathryn Sorrells. She’d been tested to find out if she could give her kidney to her son-in-law or another Georgia man, but neither was a match. Then Debra Phillips, who’d been on kidney dialysis for almost two years after both her organs shut down, submitted her story to the Facebook page. Tests confirmed the women were a match, and Sorrells donated her kidney to Phillips. The Callaways encourage even more people to donate healthy kidneys. “If anyone out there can help someone else, help change someone’s life, I just hope and pray that they will,” Raleigh Callaway told Fox5. Visit the National Kidney Foundation to learn more about organ donations.
When she was 10, she never wanted to get married. Then, a handsome young man asked her to a Sunday school party. BY ELIZABETH PULLIAM My mother was a quiet, beautiful woman who loved God more than anything. She taught us about love, kindness, giving to others and sharing. All 12 of us kids attended the little Methodist church down the road every time its doors were open. When I was 13, my sister took me in to live with her and her husband. She told me that I didn’t have to go to church anymore, and at the time I thought that was great. Not many months had passed, however, before I knew in my heart I needed to go to church. So I asked my friend Janice if I could go with her family. She said yes, and I started attending Highview Baptist in 1951. About a year went by. My Sunday school class was planning a skating party at our favorite skating rink. The following Sunday, as I was walking down the hall to class, I looked up to see the most handsome young man watching me. He was in the boys’ class. I smiled at him, and he smiled at me as I ducked into my classroom. After Sunday school, Janice and I went into church and sat down on the front pew. The boys’ class filed into the pew behind us, and he was there. I received a call the next day. How he got my number, I don’t know, but it was Lee, the handsome young man. He asked if I would go to the skating party with him. He couldn’t skate— but it didn’t matter, because I had fallen for him the first time I saw him. We dated for a year, went to church every Sunday and always held hands. And then we were married on October 23, 1953. Four years after marriage we had twin girls, four years later another girl, and later a boy. We adopted another son in 1982. When I was about 10, I prayed, “God, please don’t let me get married, and if I have to, you pick him out; I don’t want to.” I know that He did! I never knew you could hold so much love in your heart for God, a husband, five children, 13 grandchildren and 12 greatgrandchildren. Lee and I have been married over 60 years. We still attend Highview Baptist Church. And we hold hands every Sunday.
BY MARISSA LALIBERTE After having her first child eight years ago, Kristin Benton weighed 223 pounds and wanted to lose some of that baby weight. Slaving away at the gym sounded boring and expensive, so she was anxious to figure out another option. When one of Benton’s friends mentioned his wife had taken up hula hooping, the new mom was intrigued. A cheap hoop wouldn’t require a pricey gym membership or for her to spend her rare free time at a fitness center.
Benton started hula hooping for just half an hour each night while her husband watched TV. She figured it would be healthier than just sitting on the couch, but she didn’t expect the pounds to melt away. Within two weeks, Benton already noticed results, and she kept shedding about two to three more pounds every week. After about six months of nightly hula hoop sessions, she’d lost 40 pounds. “I thought, ‘This is an activity and a way to be active’ but didn’t go into it thinking I’d lose all my weight,” says Benton. “I didn’t know it would change my life.”
Chef Devwrat Anand Jategaonkar is known for creating extraordinary food sculptures on India’s popular television cooking show Mejwani Paripoorna Kitchen. However, he wanted to raise the bar and decided use his impressive culinary skills to attempt an official Guinness World Records title for the Largest margarine sculpture. “I love new challenges and I wanted to showcase Indian art through my work,” he said. Devwrat set out to build a replica of the Trimurti of Elephanta – a famous statue located on Elephanta Island in Mumbai Harbour. Devwrat’s attempt was four years in planning and the sculpture took ten whole days to build. As you can imagine, margarine is not an easy medium to work with and the Guinness World Records rules for this challenge state that the sculpture must not have any internal or external supporting structure. At one point Devwrat’s Trimurti began to crack and almost collapsed, but luckily the expert food sculptor managed to patch it up and achieve the record. When the chef had finally finished carving the enormous margarine sculpture it weighed a staggering 1506.800 kg. The record-breaking artwork measured 8 ft 2 in long, 3 ft 8 in wide and 6 ft 1 in tall. Afterwards it was put on display in an air conditioned room at the Santacruz Airport’s Domestic Terminal, where it became a temporary tourist attraction for visitors.
Seeing what a difference one lifestyle tweak could make, she decided to make even more healthy changes. She started paying attention to what she ate and hitting the gym to tone up even more—but she never gave up her love for hula hoops. “Hooping has remained part of my active lifestyle and fitness routine,” she says. “It was a gateway exercise and opened the door to so much.” When Benton got pregnant with her second daughter, she regained some of that weight. But this time, she had a plan. With the help of hooping, she shed those pounds, and has lost a grand total of 48 pounds since her first pregnancy. Whenever friends asked her secret to losing the post-baby weight, she was eager to share the answer: hula hooping. Hoping to share her fun workout with other women, Benton started a hula hoop fitness class. After five years as owner of Happy Hoops in Nashville, she closed those doors to pair up with a business partner and create FXP Fitness. The company has classes in 42 states, plus a series of workout DVDs. FXP Fitness uses hula hoops, but at two pounds and 41 inches in diameter, they’re not the wimpy little ones you’ll find at Toys “R” Us. And Benton has spread beyond the traditional hip-swinging movement too. She uses the bigger, heavier hoops a program that has elements of yoga, pilates, and barre. “You use the hoop for balance and support, and use it for resistance,” she says. “It strengthens muscles through resistance training and for stretches to create long, lean muscles.” Her routine has changed form, but Benton still swears by hula hooping for keeping her in shape. “I’m mostly muscle at this point and feel really healthy and strong,” she says.
MEI & JUNIE 20/05/2017
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DIY Balloon Chocolate Bowls Great for Parties You can create your very own chocolate bowls to fill with candy, ice cream or anything else and it’s really easy to do. You will need melted chocolate and a few relatively small balloons. Just wash and then blow up the balloons and then dip them into melted chocolate. Once the chocolate sets up and dries, you just pop the balloon and you have perfect little chocolate bowls. You can do these in different sizes and use white chocolate with food coloring if you want a bit more color. Imagine the things that you can use to fill up these yummy chocolate bowls! Use them for your next party or just make a few and keep them in the freezer for those cold nights when you want something warm and yummy for dessert. Kids will love helping you to create these bowls as well.
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