Healthy Stress, You Say?

We all know by now I guess (hopefully you do) how damaging stress it to both your brain and you body. There is no worse "disease trigger" actually, well, except aging of course. It breaks your neurons down and shut don your immune and internal organ system and it has your cells age faster and even kill them. You can read more about that here.

For about 9 years now I've been allergic to stress. One day, I decided, I can not do this anymore. «This tears my body down too much in such a young age, how will this affect me in the long run? With this lifestyle I wont survive until I'm 100 (or longer which is my wish).» I just couldn't accept that kind of future and I couldn't bare with the present state of mind and physical body. I was so stressed out that I simply couldn't cope with life. I was completely handicapped. So I decided, stress is way too dangerous to keep carrying in my body and it will destroy me if I do. Most likely get me killed. And, I, I wont let it.
And from that day on, I took control. I became the captain of my mind, the editor or author if you wish(to give a visual image). I claimed full control and the CEO position of my mind, really. Of course it took sometime to change and develop new habits and thinking patterns to stop avoiding my body creating that poison and pumping it out through my veins. But in a few months I managed and it haven't entered since. If I can feel tendencies to it, something in my environment or mind is on the wrong track and I study everything in detail to figure it out. Most times it's an obvious cause, so I kinda know quite easily what it might be because both my gut and intuition has a good overview at this point. What I do then is the following, I take action to have it go away as quickly as possible and start questioning myself and observe my daily habits, body language, eating pattern. Am I exercising enough? Am I eating too much sugary foods? Is it work? Or a situation at work? Or is it personal? A new friend? Or lover? Sleeping enough? Have I've been seeing grateful and inspiring people lately? Had any meaningful conversations or have I been mostly alone the past days and weeks? What is really on my mind? I'm studying every thought passing by, if there is some negativity in there that causes it, its time to switch that up with a positive one. Whats the gift in this negative though or the cause of the negative thought? Whats the instructions it gives me? Why is it there in the first place? Whats the opposite thought of this, what really is the positive in this thing? You can always, always find a reason of why this thought or event is a gift. I assure you. And mostly it is the guidance towards a better you who is the answer, but you'll always find what it concerns if you just give it some thoughts. But, I mean, nervousness before you enter a stage to do some public speaking, or do a presentation, or before a date or such things to me that is not considered stress. Thats just actually a healthy adrenaline shot that makes you more alert and focused, really. Or, at sometimes it can also blank you out, like it did with me the other day when I had the presentation on stage in front of 250. Haha. So, nervousness is just good, it doesn't last for too long either. Of course, if you're constantly trembling of nervousness thats not too beneficial for the neither the brain nor the body.

So, No entry in this body, stress. Has always been my policy. Until lately. Ive been thinking is all kinds of stress really bad? It's been a question in the back of my mind for a few weeks now. But haven't given it much thought really, hasn't even occured to me to google it. But, all of a sudden, I click play on the most recent podcast episode by Shawn Stevenson at the Model Health show, and guess what. Here's the title to have you understand: 

Stress Activated Foods, Intermittent Fasting, & The Principles Of Stress - With Ori Hofmekler

Wtf, right there, on a silverspoon delivered straight into my mouth I got some answers to the question. Thanks universe!

"Stress can be ruthless. It’s a silent assassin that can break down your brain, screw up your internal organs, and pack fat onto your body. But… That’s only one face of stress. Stress can also be invigorating. It’s capable of making you more physically fit, biologically stronger, and literally keep your brain decades younger. So, how in the world can it be so good, yet so treacherous at the same time? Today we’re going to dissect the value of stress to maximize the benefits, and minimize the potential downfalls."

So it got me thinking, have I been missing out on something? Hm.. The right kind of stress is magically enough beneficial. I wish it was called something else though as I see stress as a relativily negative word. Excitement. Yeah, thats better. Not healthy stress but excitement. I am and always shall be excited to be alive.

What do you think about the concept of healthy stress? Is it really beneficial? Would you name it something else?

**Note; I might at some point write an in depth analytical post about this topic do not know when though so do not keep your expectations for that on default. **

Why I Am Vegan

Lots of people become vegan because they feel sorry for the animals. Me? Because I cherish my body too much and want to stay well and live as long as I possibly can (next to caring for the planet and animals of course)
I didn't even consider going vegan, it just happened. Due to allergies and stomach problems I was forced to change my eating habits 8 years ago. Animal milk, gluten and sugar had to leave my diet. To begin with it was such a struggle, cause I was used to eat yoghurt, lots of cheese and bread. Yes that typical Norwegian way of eating. But after a few weeks I started to get to know my body, I got this connection I never experienced, it started to tell me what it needed and what I should stay away from. Before I had just eaten everything and thought that feeling bloated and sick was how it was supposed to be. Like just 10 years ago the ignorance when it came to food was super high, its even lots of ignorance today but then.. gluten allergy? Milk allergi? Wtf is that? My dad, which is a doctor, didn't even believe that I could be intolerant to gluten and milk, that was too alien info for him. But what started to happen was that my body start telling me that all animal products wasn't good for me, I started to eat plant based and felt sick just if I ate some pieces of dead animals. I felt heavy, tired, foggy and my digestion became worse every time. So why should I continue eating it when health was not optimal? And the less I started eating it the better I felt both mentally and physically. I had energy, strength and clearity like never before, how come I hadn't done this yeaaars ago? I actually to be honest had abstinence for three weeks when I quit animal products, which I thought was crazy. How can something be healthy when I crave it like a drug? It did not at all feel good, and had me thinking even more about how this must be just a big joke forced upon us by society and big brands wanting to earn money. Yes, people argue that we always have been eating that, but as hunters we were never were able to catch a prey every day and eat in such huge amounts that we do today, perhaps we got met every once in a while but several times a day, no. And we had no choice but to eat it because there were not much else but now, we can access all of the worlds options of food just 500 meters a way to the closest grocery store. We can get all the vitamins and minerals we need from countless food items. Plants, fruits, nuts in abundance. Why should we then stick to meat who doesn't feed us with all the essentials of vitamins and minerals we need? Doesn't make sense. We live in a time of luxury, with a preventive pharmacy next door. Lets just start in that end of the circle right? Not actually eat meat and then having to go to the "real" business pharmacy to get drugs??

The environmental benefits of being vegan means a lot to me as well. Not only is it bad for our health but also for our planet. How come we do it? Such a fucked up species just thinking about ourselves in the moment. 

The movie "What the health" give us an accurate picture on whats going on, you should definitely watch it and perhaps consider being of service to yourself and the world?

Why not leave a legacy, make an impact and stay well? What the Health is the best documentary on this topic so far and leading scientists within this field are featured. Watch trailer below.

But first of all you should watch this, more than worth 15 min of your time.

Let me know what you think?

Should We Give The Health Care System An Upgrade?

How much longer can you stand this annoying fact of you paying thousands a month for someones self-imposed disease?

This post is mainly aimed at Norwegians and countries leading similar healthcare systems. It also questions the future of the health insurance companies and governance.

A background update: In Norway healthcare is free, our tax system covers healthcare for everyone. Only if Norwegians go abroad health insurance is needed.

Dearest Norwegians, isn’t it nice to know that your well earned tax money goes to helping people in need, developing the country and to educate your kids? 

Isn’t it nice to know that if something terrible happens to you or your loved ones, you will be taken care of? And isn’t it great to know that if your health strikes, you are insured?

Such a great structure of society, right? Yes, I’m sure you're nodding from within.

All of us can agree upon that Norway has a great way of dealing with health care. I think the citizens of our country are highly privileged and in such luck (thank you oil….)

We also know that our country, or our world for that matter, do not behold an endless fountain of money. Meaning, we can not throw our money at everyone and everywhere. Can we? We need a clear strategy. Don’t we?

You probably think that Norway has that all figured out already?

Well. I'm not so sure if I can entirely agree on that.

I'd like to challenge you a bit. Do you ever think in depth on the whole perspective on the heath care system?

Thousands of people are hit by illness every month and estimated nearly 2 million people check in to hospitals in Norway on a yearly basis. In all of these cases our governments opens its wallet and pay up whatever the cost.

Many diseases appear out of the blue, in example leukemia, birth illnesses, malaria and pneumonia, infections etc. But, most people which is hospitalized or die from illness, are diagnosed with life style diseases like heart and vascular disease, lung cancer, overweight, and respiratory diseases etc.

And believe me, these costs are way from cheap.
So, here comes the golden question, how many of these cases could have been prevented if the people affected had an optimal lifestyle, with healthy habits? And how does this affect you?

What if the people with lung cancer simply never started to smoke? Or the people with hearth and vascular diseases didn't start eating a fatty and salty diet and were exercising on a regular basis? What if the people with diabetes type II stopped overeating on sugar and started to run everyday?

What if the mother didn't drink or smoke through pregnancy so that the kid entered the world in perfect shape, and not accompanied by a kidney disease or something like that.

What if all people stopped eating unhealthy, started to exercise and eat mindful, get enough sleep, and started spending lots of time with loved ones? 
(I wonder how much less doctors and nurses and hospitals that would be needed today..)

What if everyone took care of themselves and their own health and their children and parents health? Would we have to pay such high medical bills then?

Has it ever hit you that you pay for the side effects of someones consistent lifestyle choices?

That you pay for the hospitalization of the annoying neighbor that sits outside smoking everyday. Or eventually also for the smoking gang working for your company which you already are hating for how much time they spend smoking outside and not working, and having the offices smell nasty. Or the bothersome uncle who simply weighs way too much and always keeps eating.

Yes, you do pay for the expensive results of someones terrible choice. 

You have to pay the medical bill for the smokers diagnosed with lung cancer, you are the one paying for the operation and medicine to people with hearth attack when they could have prevented easily by eating less salty, fatty and sugary foods but the person chose not to.

To me, its a ridiculous irony that we actually pay our taxes so that we can pay for the people choosing to get sick.

Pay up whats needed for the people who has no choice but.. Should really our tax money go to pay for a persons hearth attack or diabetes caused by excessive eating of sugary and fatty foods, like meat, cheese, double lattes and drinking lots alcohol and no exercise or overeating?

Is that really fair? That we pay for the people who actually make themselves sick? How come this is actually allowed, how come politicians let this happen, that we, normal people choosing to live a healthy lifestyle going to work and pay our taxes have to pay for the silly ones? Actually we could pay less taxes if those people just reframed their habits and enjoy a higher salary or the tax money could go to better up the school system, innovation or elderly homes.. Wouldn't that be way more amazing?

What do you think about the future of health care and insurances when you think about all the smart things we will be surrounded with that will tell us the status of our health and how we can prevent it to get worse. Like the toilet, toothbrush, mirror, hairbrush, clothes and everything can keep track on your health. Lots of data will be available to tell you how you treat yourself, and this information could potentially go back to the health insurance company or the government where they actually can say, well, you had the choice and this is definitely self imposed, so in which case we won’t pay for you bad habits. Don't you think this should be the norm? That people actually took responsibility for themselves?

To me, this sounds fair. 

It might also motivate the people who is not at all motivated by just “having a high quality” life as long as possible. Meaning their motivation is money, and time. They have to take responsibility for their own life, the government can't be doing that no more after my opinion. To me its like throwing a lot of trash at the floor and just expecting someone to go clean up, and in which case we Norwegians have someone coming to clean up, hired by the government, so we dont have to care about the mess we make. We can make as much as we really want to.
We do not live in an ego world, our society are built up on trust and relying on each other, we have to stick together and serve each other to make it go round, so, how come so many of us still today just think about ourselves?

I do not mean that I'm for all full detailed surveillance but to some point I'm pro keeping track on peoples health to check if they actually had themselves get ill or if it could have been prevented.

What do you think about this, how should this be solved, and.. is it a problem at all, do you think? Do you gladly go to work to pay these peoples bills? Or perhaps you lead a health insurance company, are you willing to pay up for these cases forever, when we have the tools to check if the person chose to let it happen?

But there is also another level to this, how about the people who simply are uneducated and not curious about figuring out that what they actually put in their body mirrors their health? Whos responsibility should that be, since its the governments responsibility giving us education? And how about the people with no discipline, going through the store and closest to the cashier they find all these chocolates and cookies.. why didn't the government make a law where this is not allowed since they have to pay for the medical bill of people with no discipline. And why do they allow smoking at all? And allow the stores and big companies to sell and make such sugary and salty foods? Its so much mess here which the government should be able to fix, yes, simply put their foot down.

What is your thoughts?

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For your mess.

Lets Put An End To Aging Together

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Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are also on a quest to end aging and disease. And just invested 3 billion dollars in research.

"Yes! Together we can cure disease by the end of the century. Are you in?"
- Mark Zuckerberg, Chan Zuckerberg Foundation

As you can see from Zuckerbergs quote, Silicon Valley has begin its war on disease; Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Microsoft, Peter Thiel among others are all on a quest to end it. Is there a reason for you and me not to join forces and hack biology with them? If you think about it, would you like to get sick tomorrow and die a slow death, or that your loved one got ill and died? Do you really want that to manifest? Rationalize it.. You'd rather stay young and healthy forever, if you had the chance, wouldn't you? 

To get a picture of what they are up to, following is a short overview

• Mark and his wife just started the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation to fight it. They've hired top scientific leaders to oversee 3 Billion dollars to help cure, prevent and manage all diseases in our children's lifetime. 
   
• Both of the Google Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page has said that they hope to someday cure death. Together with Bill Maris, the president and managing partner of Google Ventures, they invest millions in companies that can slow aging, improve longevity, and possibly reverse disease.  "If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes," Maris told Bloomberg Markets. Google has also started a project called Google Calico (short for The California Life Company), a multi-million dollar project that's studying how to reverse aging. Google alone reportedly has invested $240 million in the project, where Arthur Levinson is the Chief Executive.
   
• Microsofts main focus at the moment within the field of disease is fighting cancer, this they do this by using computer science such as machine learning and algorithms.
   
• The billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel has invested millions in companies trying to solve aging. Thiel gave anti-aging researcher Aubrey de Grey $3.5 million to co-found the Methuselah Foundation with Davel Gobel. Thiel  has also made strategic investments through his venture capital firm Founders Fund into at least 14 health and biotech companies that are focused on extending life through regenerative medicine.The organization's goal is to make "90 the new 50 by 2030." 
   
• Craig Venter founded the well known company Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), a genomics-based biotechnology company, with the intention of extending and enhancing the "healthy, high-performance lifespan and change the face of aging." The company has reportedly raised at least $70 million in venture capital.
   

• Martine Rothblatt, is a woman thinking the way I do which makes me super excited to follow her projects. She is taking a unique approach to the anti-aging trend. Rather than keeping humans alive in their current bodily forms, she believes that immortality could come through a unique blend of technology and biology. The founder of Sirius Satellite Radio and CEO of United Therapeutics is betting that one of the first stages in this process may be uploading the "data" of a human brain into a software program, essentially keeping their being alive in a different, high-tech form.
  She's created a nonprofit called Terasem Movement where people can already store their "mind files," the digital records of a person's life spread across email, social media, and computer files, so that when technology does catch up those files can be used to essentially bring that person back to life.

• Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov said he plans to live to 10,000 and he wants you to be able to, also. He has founded Global Future 2045 conference and started the Avatar Project.  In a press release, the Dalai Lama said about Dmitrys aging projects, “We should carry out these experiments with a full sense of responsibility and respect for life that will only benefit humanity, benefit others.”
   
• The Palo Alto Prize is a newly established Silicon Valley-based initiative of the Race Against Time Foundation. The Paolo Alto Longevity Prize is all about creating engagement and encourage people and companies to join in and help hack the code of aging. The prize is 1 ,000,000 Dollars with hedge fund manager Joon Yun in the front.
  
  So, the tech titans are donating billions or personally leading the research into longevity solutions.

What I'd like to focus on in this post is aging, the worst disease of them all that attacks us humans.
You might be thinking, aging? Is that a disease? Well, more and more scientists believe in the fact and research shows that it is. 

It might be difficult to grasp as the world is currently in a “pro-aging trance”, meaning we are happy to accept that aging is unavoidable., when the reality is that it’s simply a “medical problem” that science can solve.

The definition of aging is unclear and most of us do not have a full understanding of what it really is. Here is the usual explanation: 

“Ageing, also spelled aging, is the process of becoming older. The term refers especially to human beings, many animals, and fungi, whereas for example bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially immortal”

Unclear? Yes, it doesn’t explain much really. To give the scientific overview one can explain it like this. 

“Its the life-long accumulation of “damage” to the body that occurs as intrinsic side-effects of the body’s normal operation.  

Damage: Changes in structure and composition that the body cannot automatically reverse. The body can tolerate some damage, but too much of it causes disease and disability. Hence aging.”  

So basically aging is a gene causing cell damage, to give you a visual input;  think of a car, when buying a new one you dont expect it to stay brand new and in perfect shape forever? Do you? No, we all know that by using our cars it slowly gets teared down unless you repair it, pure physics, so every now and then you have to drive to the service station for an upgrade. We humans do not have such a service station, yet.
Therefore, aging kills 100.000 people every day, and will end yours too eventually, if we don't find a cure before your time is up.  

I'm really passionate about this topic as I believe that we are the first generation that can cure aging. This is because of our knowledge and equipment for advanced computing, AI, machine learning, genomics, DNA engineering, biotech and nanotech.

 “We’re now at the point where it’s easy to extend the lifespan of a mouse. That’s not the question any more, it’s can we do this in humans? And I don’t see any reason why we can’t,” says David Sinclair, a researcher based at Harvard.

So, we are not far away thanks to the magic of the Genetic Engineering and the stem cell revolution. Gene editing are getting more advanced and way cheaper. Over night the cost has shrunk by 99 %. Instead of a year it now takes a few weeks to conduct experiments, and basically everyone with a lab can do it.

Remember, if we target an aging process and slow it down then we will slow down all the diseases and pathology of aging as well. That’s revolutionary and has never happened before. Hence, the global market for healthy human longevity is enormous well over $7 trillion.

Aubry De Grey a British researcher is the most famous spoke person and pioneer on aging as a disease and has done several TED talks, one is added below. He has also written this book, which you should definitely consider checking out. He says that aging is curable and he claims has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological aging. According to him humans age in seven basic ways, all of which can be averted. He says that we have known about aging as a disease for two centuries but it has up to this date mostly been ignored by scientists because its been to difficult to grasp. He provocatively proposes that the first human beings who will live to 1,000 years old have already been born.
 “There is an increasing number of people realising that the concept of anti-ageing medicine that actually works is going to be the biggest industry that ever existed by some huge margin and that it just might be foreseeable.” 

Another person who is deeply involved with this cause is the successful internet entrepreneur Michael Greve who just donated 10 million dollars to the Sens Foundation and also founded his own foundation to battle it, Forever Healthy Foundation. Watch a talk by him on aging below.

How come I am obsessed about this and why do I look at it as a highly important first priority cause?

Obviously, I've been hit by a storm off questions on why. What the heck do I want to do on earth forever? And why should we mess with the "natural" cycle of life? And isn't it gonna be great fun to check out where death will take us?

Well, first of all, this is not the "natural cycle" of biology, there are at this day several species, bacteria and plants that do not have any signs of aging even though they have been living for 500 years (shark), jelly fish, lobsters, alligators ie just die if an accident happens to them, or if they get a disease(not aging) etc.. So, we are just the unlucky ones hit by the aging gene and no restoration one.

And the other things, is of course I'd never ever be interested in living on planet earth in a physical humanly body for eternity, which I know is not gonna be the case. What will happen within the next century is to us incomprehensible as our human brain is made to think linear. But you see, nano tech, biotech, quantum computing and AI can take us anywhere, really.  Soon we will be able to live on other planets, in different galaxies and universes and so on. We will probably be able to manipulate ourselves into literally anything. Upload our consciousness to a nano boots and go anywhere.. and transform ourselves to anything whenever wanted and needed.

Thats why I want to stay alive. I'm so curious about all this, existence and consciousness and the nature of reality. So I just want to understand it all and explore. I’d love to experience living in different shapes and formes, not just in this body of flesh and bones limited by gravity. Thats why Im so eager to continue my spiritual journey.

You might be thinking that us regular people won't be able to afford such a cure but believe me, you will. The prices will shrink as low as the pills you nibble today. Over night. Due to our exponential growth within the fields as of nanotech, biotech, AI and quantum computing. So no reason to not keep your head up.

A side note:
Then there is an interesting question which I also like pondering about; what will happen to the medical industry now when we are developing organic ways to solve and cure diseases? Will it die completely? And how fast? I've been longing for a better solution than this synthetic madness which we accept within medicine cause we got no where else to go. I think its be quite an interesting collapse. The pharmaceutical industry  have been dominant for the past century and has basically been doing whatever they want to the world and to the people in order to earn money by "saving" peoples lives. Yes, its a good thing but after what Ive been reading after digging into it too me it seems quite shady and corrupt. I think that within 100 years or sooner people (and computers) will laugh at us hysterically, in many ways because of our ignorance and stupidity. They will pity us. The same way we do when we think about solutions and way of doing things back in the old days when they were without the knowledge of today.
Think about it, its so stupid how we do it today, so fake, synthetic, its dangerous, literally, we have no idea what we are doing. 

Even though billions of dollars are being invested there is still need for support as this is extremely expensive research and it is nothing that the governments are funding, yet. I guess they will do eventually when they see how much of a benefit it will be to our society. Unless they are corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.. Think about what disease cost our society every year? That's a loooot of money and  way too many lives.

I just came across that the Sens Foundation who is using biotech to research the cure of aging had a donate button on their webpage and without thinking I went in and hit monthly subscribe. (join us? Click here)

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If you have a wish for becoming fragile and die thats ok, but perhaps a person you really love doesn't want it? So, support her or him.. I encourage you to activate yourself and help save peoples life. You can always kill yourself when you're tired from living your life. No pressure.

The more money they collect the faster we all can see an end to this. They need great brains and equipment. Seriously, every dollar counts. So only donating one dollar is of huge value.
The last golden question is the following..

What keeps you from participating?  

The people who will figure out how to reverse and cure aging will go down in the history books and cash in loads of money. Hey, it could be you. 

Remember, you can always kill yourself when you're tired from living your life.


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My personal take on living forever?
I'd love to, hopefully being stuck in this biological body is one of many options. I could be a quantum particle, with my consciousness onboard and be able to transform myself into anything I wanted. Whatever was suitable for living on venus, whatever suitable for living in other galaxies and whatever suitable living in space and outside our universe.
Thats why I wanna stay alive, to explore the vastness of it all, and figure out what this is all about. The theory of everything.

A Promising Future For People With Disabilities

One of the things that really fires me up about technology is how much it can transform the lives of people with disabilities. We are heading towards a diseaseless world for us all but where we first can see a glimpse of what yet to come is in the inventions for people that until now in many ways have been disconnected from society. I can't wait for these inventions to become affordable enough to reach the masses.
Researches, scientists, neuroscientists and programmers are doing incredible work thanks to neural networks, machine learning, robotics, nanotech, biotech, stem cells etc for instance now the blind can see  (read more here and here, ", the deaf can "hear"(read more here and here), the paralyzed can walk(read more here,  here,  here, and here  and the completely paralyzed can communicate.
Noisolation a norwegian startup, helps sick kids in hospitals, or home,  keep up with school and stay connected to their classmates and friends.

Brain Implants makes walking possible

I believe that if we crack the code with Neural Networks and Quantum Physics nothing is impossible. If you set your mind into long term thinking mode, what comes to mind?

For further reading:

• Huffington Post How technology is transforming disabled peoples lives
• University students with special needs
• Bloomberg story, how technology is besting my blindness
• The "Walk Again Project" based in Brazil
• Development of gesture control technologies
• Life Changing Technologies
• Machine Learning