April 11th is the birthday of the English physician Dr. James Parkinson. His 1817 essay, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, was the first to describe the condition later to become known as Parkinson's Disease.
World Parkinson's Day is a global public awareness campaign, so we are highlighting that today.
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Thursday, 28 February 2019
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT: Milestone 4 - The Finish Line!
We are coming up on the final milestone in our February wellness challenge. If you have ever been part of an endurance race - a triathlon comes to mind - you will know the surge of adrenaline you get when the finish line finally comes into view. You realize that you are almost done. You begin to hear the crowd cheering. Excitement builds. You pick up the pace for one final finishing kick.
February 28 marks the completion of the challenge. We have passed all of the mile markers, including the final one, and we are DONE! I hope you reached (or came close to) your wellness goals, but even more, I hope that investing in your own wellness has become more of a lifestyle habit for you. I would be lying if I said I "enjoy" swinging kettlebells, but I certainly enjoy how I feel after I've finished the workout.
This challenge, though, is not just about physical activities; it is about wellness activities. Now that February is finished, I hope that you will continue, or maybe even expand whatever you are doing to be more well. It is an investment with great returns!
My final thoughts as we wind down this year's challenge:
1. Congratulations on your wellness accomplishments!
2. Thank you for participating.
3. Please consider supporting Parkinson's research. We would love it if you would consider making a donation to the DR. ALI RAJPUT ENDOWMENT FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE AND MOVEMENT DISORDERS RESEARCH.. Click here for details.
February 28 marks the completion of the challenge. We have passed all of the mile markers, including the final one, and we are DONE! I hope you reached (or came close to) your wellness goals, but even more, I hope that investing in your own wellness has become more of a lifestyle habit for you. I would be lying if I said I "enjoy" swinging kettlebells, but I certainly enjoy how I feel after I've finished the workout.
This challenge, though, is not just about physical activities; it is about wellness activities. Now that February is finished, I hope that you will continue, or maybe even expand whatever you are doing to be more well. It is an investment with great returns!
My final thoughts as we wind down this year's challenge:
1. Congratulations on your wellness accomplishments!
2. Thank you for participating.
3. Please consider supporting Parkinson's research. We would love it if you would consider making a donation to the DR. ALI RAJPUT ENDOWMENT FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE AND MOVEMENT DISORDERS RESEARCH.. Click here for details.
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Attention Email Blog Recipients: If you receive the blog by email and want to comment, click here to visit the blog page. Select the post you want to comment on and add your comment there.Wednesday, 27 February 2019
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Disappointments and Setbacks, and Failure
It's one thing to make plans; it's quite another to execute them successfully. For a variety of reasons, plans don't always work out. Quite often, but not always, those reasons are completely outside of our control. At any rate, here is the question: if we made a plan, but it didn't work out, did we fail?
Be careful how you answer that.
Certainly, on one level, not executing a plan properly or complete is technically a failure, so there's that. That concept of failure is quite simple, and we can reduce it down to not succeeding, or not doing something we are/were expected to do.
If our idea of failure or success is binary, meaning we have either failure or not-failure (success, or not-success), then we sort of paint ourselves into a corner; if we didn't succeed at something 100%, then we failed 100%. There's not much room to draw anything positive from a new or challenging experience if that's our outlook.
I propose that we re-evaluate how we think of both success and failure. In my view, these are not binary, but fluid, and certainly not mutually exclusive. I am thinking about this today because I have spoken with a few folks who did not accomplish all they set out to. We may have only partially completed our February wellness challenge, but I would argue that we were still at least partially successful. The parts that did not get accomplished are data, no more, no less. They tell us that perhaps our targets were over-ambitious, or that our effort was "sub-optimal" (how's that for a euphemism!?). Or - none of the above! Life may have crashed in on us and, through no fault of our own, our opportunity to participate was taken away by a setback.
So, to quote The Dread Pirate Roberts (or Westley, the farm boy), "Get used to disappointment..." It happens. We don't always accomplish our goals. We are often disappointed. What is most important is how we respond to it. My recommendation is to affirm what you have been able to accomplish, and be proud of that. As for the things you didn't accomplish - the empty checkboxes on your chart - we still need to acknowledge them, but is it really that big a deal? My advice: take down the chart! Immediately. Charts "motivate" us by pointing out what we have not yet accomplished. We might do better with a Success List, where all our small successes get posted.
I did say I think the things we didn't get done - our unaccomplishments - really serve as data. We can possibly use these data another time, in another challenge possibly, but we need to get over any tendency to feed and coddle our disappointment and see it as a failure. We should be honest and acknowledge our disappointment, but not focus on our unaccomplishments; we need to focus on and celebrate what we have accomplished.
February is almost over. My hamstrings have been at least a little bit sore since about January 25th. I'm looking forward to the calendar flipping over to March tomorrow at midnight, when 2019's 10,000 Kettlebells for Parkinsons challenge will be over. I'm proud of what we have accomplished, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over any unaccomplishments. They're over-rated.
Be careful how you answer that.
Certainly, on one level, not executing a plan properly or complete is technically a failure, so there's that. That concept of failure is quite simple, and we can reduce it down to not succeeding, or not doing something we are/were expected to do.
If our idea of failure or success is binary, meaning we have either failure or not-failure (success, or not-success), then we sort of paint ourselves into a corner; if we didn't succeed at something 100%, then we failed 100%. There's not much room to draw anything positive from a new or challenging experience if that's our outlook.
I propose that we re-evaluate how we think of both success and failure. In my view, these are not binary, but fluid, and certainly not mutually exclusive. I am thinking about this today because I have spoken with a few folks who did not accomplish all they set out to. We may have only partially completed our February wellness challenge, but I would argue that we were still at least partially successful. The parts that did not get accomplished are data, no more, no less. They tell us that perhaps our targets were over-ambitious, or that our effort was "sub-optimal" (how's that for a euphemism!?). Or - none of the above! Life may have crashed in on us and, through no fault of our own, our opportunity to participate was taken away by a setback.
So, to quote The Dread Pirate Roberts (or Westley, the farm boy), "Get used to disappointment..." It happens. We don't always accomplish our goals. We are often disappointed. What is most important is how we respond to it. My recommendation is to affirm what you have been able to accomplish, and be proud of that. As for the things you didn't accomplish - the empty checkboxes on your chart - we still need to acknowledge them, but is it really that big a deal? My advice: take down the chart! Immediately. Charts "motivate" us by pointing out what we have not yet accomplished. We might do better with a Success List, where all our small successes get posted.
I did say I think the things we didn't get done - our unaccomplishments - really serve as data. We can possibly use these data another time, in another challenge possibly, but we need to get over any tendency to feed and coddle our disappointment and see it as a failure. We should be honest and acknowledge our disappointment, but not focus on our unaccomplishments; we need to focus on and celebrate what we have accomplished.
February is almost over. My hamstrings have been at least a little bit sore since about January 25th. I'm looking forward to the calendar flipping over to March tomorrow at midnight, when 2019's 10,000 Kettlebells for Parkinsons challenge will be over. I'm proud of what we have accomplished, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over any unaccomplishments. They're over-rated.
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Attention Email Blog Recipients: If you receive the blog by email and want to comment, click here to visit the blog page. Select the post you want to comment on and add your comment there.Tuesday, 26 February 2019
DAY TWENTY-SIX: What I learned At University Besides How To Spin a Cafeteria Tray... (Part II)
...Continued from yesterday's blog
Neurotransmitters tend to follow their own specific pathways in the CNS, and this fact links directly to Parkinson's Disease. Parkinson's Disease is the result of a degradation of the Dopamine system. The actual cause of this breakdown is not known, but the effect is that Dopamine production and nerve transmission along the "Dopaminergic" pathways - nerve pathways which use Dopamine to communicate - decrease. As Dopamine levels drop, the coordinated and well-organized neural system begins to malfunction. In the case of Parkinson's Disease, motor-control is compromised, leading to symptoms such as tremor, slow movement, muscle rigidity, impaired posture and balance, loss of automatic movements and speech changes.
For me, personally, the "Aha!" moment came when I first heard the words "Parkinson's-like symptoms" in my university class... Compromised dopaminergic pathway → gradual loss of motor control → Parkinson's symptoms. I realized that I was studying EXACTLY the neural mechanisms underlying Parkinson's Disease. I began to understand what, at a neurological level, some of was happening for the gentleman I had been working with.
The not-so-good news is that treating a disease like Parkinson's is not a simple matter of a pill which kills a "bug". The problem is a loss of Dopamine resulting from deteriorating dopaminergic neural pathways; the nerve cells are dying and the pathways losing their ability to transmit information. As yet, there is no reliable way to rebuild a broken neural pathway. Medications can boost the amount of Dopamine, but if the pathway is not functioning, eventually even that no longer helps.
The good news is that researchers around the globe are working to better understand the causes of this disease in order to develop more effective treatments and, ultimately, preventative measures or even the ability to reverse the damage.
I hope this blog will be your "Aha!" moment, when you think of someone you know who has Parkinson's Disease, and you realize there IS something you can do to help: you can learn more about Parkinson's Disease, and you can contribute to Parkinson's research. I am personally grateful to Drs. Rajput (there are TWO of them - father and son). They have not only made a world-class contribution to the global understanding of Parkinson's Disease and other movement disorders, but they have also provided very kind and professional medical support to my mother who, as you know, also struggles with Parkinson's Disease.
Here are a few of the reasons I am asking you to financially support the Royal University Hospital Foundation:
1. There are people you know who have, or who will develop, Parkinson's Disease
2. This funding supports world-class researchers
3. I have completed my 10,000 Kettlebell swings (actually, I'm at 11200) 😀
Neurotransmitters tend to follow their own specific pathways in the CNS, and this fact links directly to Parkinson's Disease. Parkinson's Disease is the result of a degradation of the Dopamine system. The actual cause of this breakdown is not known, but the effect is that Dopamine production and nerve transmission along the "Dopaminergic" pathways - nerve pathways which use Dopamine to communicate - decrease. As Dopamine levels drop, the coordinated and well-organized neural system begins to malfunction. In the case of Parkinson's Disease, motor-control is compromised, leading to symptoms such as tremor, slow movement, muscle rigidity, impaired posture and balance, loss of automatic movements and speech changes.
For me, personally, the "Aha!" moment came when I first heard the words "Parkinson's-like symptoms" in my university class... Compromised dopaminergic pathway → gradual loss of motor control → Parkinson's symptoms. I realized that I was studying EXACTLY the neural mechanisms underlying Parkinson's Disease. I began to understand what, at a neurological level, some of was happening for the gentleman I had been working with.
The not-so-good news is that treating a disease like Parkinson's is not a simple matter of a pill which kills a "bug". The problem is a loss of Dopamine resulting from deteriorating dopaminergic neural pathways; the nerve cells are dying and the pathways losing their ability to transmit information. As yet, there is no reliable way to rebuild a broken neural pathway. Medications can boost the amount of Dopamine, but if the pathway is not functioning, eventually even that no longer helps.
The good news is that researchers around the globe are working to better understand the causes of this disease in order to develop more effective treatments and, ultimately, preventative measures or even the ability to reverse the damage.
I hope this blog will be your "Aha!" moment, when you think of someone you know who has Parkinson's Disease, and you realize there IS something you can do to help: you can learn more about Parkinson's Disease, and you can contribute to Parkinson's research. I am personally grateful to Drs. Rajput (there are TWO of them - father and son). They have not only made a world-class contribution to the global understanding of Parkinson's Disease and other movement disorders, but they have also provided very kind and professional medical support to my mother who, as you know, also struggles with Parkinson's Disease.
Here are a few of the reasons I am asking you to financially support the Royal University Hospital Foundation:
1. There are people you know who have, or who will develop, Parkinson's Disease
2. This funding supports world-class researchers
3. I have completed my 10,000 Kettlebell swings (actually, I'm at 11200) 😀
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Attention Email Blog Recipients: If you receive the blog by email and want to comment, click here to visit the blog page. Select the post you want to comment on and add your comment there.
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