Issue #2646
- WEALTHY: Your inflation-proof investment (Ted Peroulakis)
- HEALTHY: 2 keys to losing weight and staving off diabetes (James B. LaValle)
- WISE: Aldous Huxley on happiness
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How to become happier – and stay that way (Marci Shimoff)
- In disputes about language, don’t buy this flawed argument (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about more fun on the International Space Station
- Add “shibboleth” to your vocabulary
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Inflation is Coming – Protect Yourself With TIPS
The government is going to have to print up trillions of dollars worth of new money in an attempt to break out of this economic crisis. That excess supply of currency in circulation is going to lead to what’s known as “demand-pull inflation” – too much money chasing too few goods.
A good way to protect yourself from inflation is to purchase Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). They eliminate inflation risk – while providing a real rate of return guaranteed by the United States government.
Here’s how they work: The Treasury uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a guide to adjust the principal of a TIPS for inflation on a semiannual basis. A fixed interest rate is paid semiannually on the adjusted principal. In that way, both your interest payments and your principal are adjusted for inflation.
TIPS can be purchased directly from the government through its TreasuryDirect program and on the secondary market through banks and brokers.
My favorite way to invest in TIPS is to buy the iShares Barclays TIPS Bond-Exchange Traded Fund. It trades under the symbol TIP. This ETF has low fees, it is very liquid, and it holds a diversified portfolio of TIPS with varying maturity dates.
Bottom line: Protect yourself from inflation by having some of your portfolio in TIPS.
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“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”
Aldous Huxley
How to Stay Up When the Economy Is Down – With 5 Quick-Start Steps
“How can I be happy when the economy is tanking?” It’s a question I hear a lot lately. It seems that as the financial picture becomes more depressed, so do we. That’s why now, more than ever, we need to learn to be happy from the inside out – no matter what’s going on in our lives.
What would it take to make you happy? A fulfilling career? A big bank account? The perfect mate?
What if it didn’t take anything to make you happy?
Well, it’s possible.
Doing the research for my book, Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy From the Inside Out, I interviewed scores of scientists, as well as 100 unconditionally happy people. And I discovered a way to experience a state of inner peace and well-being that isn’t dependent on external circumstances.
When you’re Happy for No Reason, you don’t need to manipulate the world around you to make yourself happy. You bring happiness to your everyday experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them.
Here are a few strategies you can use to become happier – and stay that way:
1. People who are Happy for No Reason incline their minds toward joy.
Have you noticed that your mind tends to register the negative events in your life more than the positive? If you get 10 compliments in a day and one criticism, what do you remember? For most people, it’s the criticism. Scientists call this “negativity bias” – primitive survival wiring that causes us to pay more attention to the negative than the positive.
To reverse this bias, get into the habit of consciously registering the positive around you: the sun on your skin, the taste of a favorite food, a smile or kind word from a co-worker or friend. Then take a moment to savor it deeply and feel it. Make it more than a brief mental observation. Spend 20 seconds soaking up the happiness you feel.
2. People who are Happy for No Reason trust in a friendly universe.
Happy people believe that this is a friendly universe. When things don’t seem to be going their way, instead of feeling like a victim, they look for the lesson and the gift in the situation.
Try it: The next time you face a challenge, take a moment to reflect silently, asking yourself, “If this were happening for a higher purpose, what would it be?”
3. People who are Happy for No Reason let love lead in their life.
One way to power up your heart’s flow is by conveying a feeling of loving kindness to your friends and family, as well as strangers you pass on the street.
When you’re waiting for the elevator, stuck in a checkout line, or caught in traffic, send a silent wish to the people you see for their happiness and health. Simply wishing others well switches on the “pump” in your own heart that generates a strong current of happiness.
4. People who are Happy for No Reason make the cells in their body happy.
Your brain produces a veritable pharmacopeia of natural happiness-enhancing neurochemicals – endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine – just waiting to be released to every organ and cell in your body. The way you eat, move, and rest, and even your facial expression, can shift the balance of your body’s feel-good chemicals in your favor.
To dispense some extra Joy Juice – smile. Scientists have discovered that smiling decreases stress hormones and boosts happiness chemicals, which increase the body’s T-cells, reduce pain, and enhance relaxation. You may not feel like it, but smiling – even artificially to begin with – starts the ball rolling. It will turn into a real smile in short order.
5. People who are Happy for No Reason surround themselves with support.
We catch the emotions of those around us just like we catch their colds. It’s called emotional contagion. So it’s important to make wise choices about the company you keep.
Establish appropriate boundaries with emotional bullies and “happiness vampires” who suck the life out of you. Develop your happiness “dream team” – a mastermind or support group you meet with regularly to keep you steadily on the happiness path.
“Happily ever after” isn’t just for fairy tales or the lucky few. Imagine experiencing inner peace and well-being as the backdrop for everything else in your life. When you’re Happy for No Reason, it’s not that your life always looks perfect – it’s that however it looks, you’re still happy!
[Ed. Note: Marci Shimoff is the author of the New York Times bestseller Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out, a revolutionary approach to experiencing deep and lasting happiness. As the woman's face of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and a featured teacher in The Secret, Marci is an authority on success, happiness, and the law of attraction. To order Happy for No Reason, newly released in paperback, and receive free bonus gifts, go to.
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You Don’t Need a “Job” to Keep Your Financial Future Safe
“651,000 Jobs Lost in February” says the New York Times.
“U.S. Jobless Rate Soars to 8.1%” says MSNBC.
“Recession Job Losses Top Four Million” says the Wall Street Journal.
You may have a job today – but tomorrow could bring the news you’ve been dreading.
Instead of waiting in panic for that pink slip, do something to protect your financial future.
Big Health News Flew Under the Radar
I read a study recently that could be some of the most important health news I’ve seen in a long time, especially for you “apple” shapes out there. Yet there have been no headlines – at least not yet.
The study – published in the Journal of Nutrition – found that taking in plenty of non-starchy vegetables and more magnesium helped increase the production of adiponectin, a hormone found in fat cells. The researchers were careful to look for any other factors that could have affected the results, but found none.
Adiponectin increases the effectiveness of insulin. In other words, it helps your cells absorb glucose. If you have plenty of adiponectin, your insulin production is lower, your blood sugar is better controlled… and that adds up to a lower risk of diabetes and heart disease. But it may also mean you would have a much easier time controlling your weight.
Unfortunately, when we gain weight – especially in the waist or belly – adiponectin production goes down. (This is one reason belly fat is so harmful for your health.) And, indeed, the researchers found that the higher the subject’s adiponectin level, the lower the subject’s weight. The lower the adiponectin, the higher the weight.
So the big news is that simply by increasing your intake of non-starchy vegetables and supplementing with magnesium, you can increase a hormone that will help you lose that belly fat and decrease your insulin resistance.
Reduce your intake of starchy carbs – especially refined flours and sugars. And eat eight to 10 servings of non-starchy vegetables every day. Non-starchy vegetables are very low in carb grams and calories. They are nutrient-dense foods – loaded with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and other beneficial phytochemicals in a very low-sugar, high-fiber package.
A little extra magnesium helps too. The best food sources are nuts, seeds, and beans. However, I recommend taking in at least an extra 300 mg per day, especially if you show any signs of being low in magnesium (e.g., tense and tight muscles, constipation, or restless leg syndrome). The best forms are magnesium malate or amino acid chelates like magnesium glycinate or magnesium taurate.
[Ed. Note: Sometimes it can be overwhelming to try to sort through the massive amounts of information coming out about your health. Let ETR's health experts make it easy for you. You can get advice from fitness and nutrition experts - and their interpretations of the latest breakthroughs - in ETR's free natural health e-letter. Sign up today.
It truly is possible to improve your health just by making a few simple changes to your diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted. Learn how to feel better and live longer right here.]
The Language Perfectionist: The “Great Writers” Fallacy
By Don Hauptman
Is it okay to split an infinitive? How about beginning a sentence with however? Must words such as disinterested, enormity, and hopefully be used only in their strict senses?
Such matters of English usage are open to discussion. But one often-presented argument in favor of taking a more lenient approach to the hard-core “rules” is fallacious. The problem with it is so obvious that I find its frequent use irritating, especially when the error is committed by people who should know better.
Recently, The New York Times ran two op-ed columns by prominent language experts. Both hauled out this myth:
• “Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths… that have been defied by great writers….”
• “For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either ‘I’ or ‘me’ as the object of a verb or preposition…. Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice: ‘All debts are cleared between you and I.’”
I call this the “Even great writers did it” excuse. What’s wrong with it? Theodore M. Bernstein gives us an excellent rebuttal in his 1965 usage guide The Careful Writer. Almost eerily, he cites the same example quoted by the writer of the second passage above:
“It is idle to pretend that between you and I must be a legitimate construction because Shakespeare used it in The Merchant of Venice…. The greatest writer may have committed a grammatical offense because he was preoccupied, or because he was negligent, or because he had in mind a reason that is obscure to his readers now, or merely because he had a bellyache.”
Bernstein could have added that language changes, especially over the course of centuries. But here’s the important point: If you want to resolve, or argue about, a particular issue of grammar or usage, you need to have a better justification than “Shakespeare [or whatever famous author] did it that way.”
Ironically, Bernstein was a distinguished New York Times editor for more than 35 years. The paper’s current staffers and contributors might benefit by consulting his book more often.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
It’s Fun to Know: More Fun on the International Space Station
There’s plenty of fun to be had by scientists on the International Space Station. For example, they throw paper airplanes and boomerangs, and brew beer. And now there’s the story of the toilet facilities…
Apparently, the Americans’ toilet (bought from the Russians for $19 million, by the way) is quite fancy: More privacy and individual urine funnels are just two of its luxurious features… and the Russian cosmonauts have been forbidden to use it.
Russia started charging for use of their resources back in 2003. And the space agencies of other nations invested in the station followed suit. But crew members are taking all these rules from their Earthbound superiors with a grain of salt. As they say, “What happens in space, stays in space.”
(Source: Discover Magazine)
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Word to the Wise: Shibboleth
A “shibboleth” (SHIH-buh-lith) – from the Hebrew – is a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.
Example (as quoted from The New York Times by Don Hauptman today): “Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths… that have been defied by great writers….”
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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Hi ETR Team,
I would like to point my followers on Twitter to today’s article by James B. LaValle. It would be helpful to have a separate url for that, even if it is an extended one that I could shrink with tinyurl. Have you considered anything like that? I don’t want to point them to the entire newsletter because they might not sift through it enough to find the article I’m talking about. It would benefit ETR by sending more potential subscribers your way. If you already have a way for me to point out today’s article, please let me know. I checked your website, but this article isn’t there yet. Thanks for all the great info!