Could Facebook Use Damage Your Health?

The more people use Facebook, like posts, share their own links and are exposed to the carefully crafted profiles of their friends, the worse they will feel, a study suggests.

Previous investigations into the use of social media have suggested that retreating online and away from face-to-face social relationships can lead to sedentary behavior and internet addiction.

However, a more in-depth study by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found that almost every form of interaction with Facebook can lead to diminished well-being.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Holly Shakya and Nicholas Christakis said the three Facebook behaviors they measured—liking, posting, and clicking links—all led to negative self-comparisons and made people feel worse about themselves.

The pair expected liking other people’s content to be the largest driver of decreased happiness but said overall the sheer quantity of time people spent interacting with the social media app led to the negative effects.

The results were particularly concerning for mental health. “Most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year,” Shakya and Christakis wrote.

“We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction,” they added.

The study, published by Oxford University Press, collected three sets of data from 5,208 U.S. adults over two years and measured how their mental health, reported physical health, and body-mass index changed over time relative to their use of Facebook.

It also collected information on the subjects’ real-world social interaction. While the numbers showed the use of the social network led to a lessened sense of well-being, how exactly that happened was unclear. “ We cannot definitively say how [it] occurs,” Shakya and Christakis wrote.

The researchers concluded: “What seems quite clear ... is that online social interactions are no substitute for the real thing.”

SOURCES: MSN

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How Much Sleep Do I Really Need?

We’ve all been told that we should get eight hours of sleep per night, but this information is an average and might not be a perfect fit for everyone. Some may need more sleep and others less, and our needs may actually change through the years. Thus, the oft-recited advice that every person needs eight hours of sleep a night is a myth.

Short Sleepers vs. Long Sleepers

Everyone has a sleep need that is likely determined by genes, or genetic information.

This need is the amount of sleep our body requires for us to wake up feeling refreshed. This difference likely occurs across a spectrum, with "short-sleepers" needing less than average and "long-sleepers" needing more.

Changing Needs Across a Lifetime

The average amount of sleep needed changes over our lifetime, especially during childhood and adolescence. Although there are averages, there will be individuals who fall both above and below these needs, including the following groups of people:

• Infants (3-11 months) need 14-15 hours
• Toddlers (12-35 months) need 12-14 hours
• Preschoolers (3-6 years) need 11-13 hours
• School age (6-10 years) need 10-11 hours
• Adolescents (11-18 years) need 9.25 hours
• Adults need an average of 8 hours
• Elderly adults may need less sleep

Sleep Debt

What happens if we don’t meet our sleep needs? By not getting enough sleep, we accumulate a sleep debt that we usually have to "pay off." This pay-off might involve extra sleep by napping, going to bed early, or sleeping in to catch up.

If we sleep less than our body needs to feel refreshed and don’t catch up we might experience:

• daytime sleepiness
• fatigue
• difficulty concentrating
• poor thinking
• increased risk of accidents
• other health complications (i.e., weight gain)

This need is the amount of sleep our body requires for us to wake up feeling refreshed. This difference likely occurs across a spectrum, with "short-sleepers" needing less than average and "long-sleepers" needing more.

How Can I Determine My Sleep Needs?

There is an easy way to determine how much sleep you need.

Follow these steps:

1. Set aside a week or two that you can focus on your sleep and not allow disruptions or changes to your sleep schedule.
2. Select a typical bedtime and stick with it, night after night.
3. Allow yourself to sleep in as long as you want, awakening without an alarm clock in the morning.
4. After a few days, you will have paid off your sleep debt, and you will begin to approach the average amount of sleep that you need.
5. Once you determine your need, try to set your bedtime at an hour that will allow you the sleep you need, while still waking up in time to start your day.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation

It's extremely important that your body gets the sleep it needs. Chronic, or long-term, sleep deprivation is linked to a variety of problems that impair your health, safety, productivity, mood, and more.

Here are some possible repercussions secondary to sleep deprivation:

• decreased alertness
• decreased performance
• memory impairment
• cognitive impairment
• injury on the job
• injuries due to automobile crash or other heavy machinery

Oftentimes, people who experience chronic sleep deprivation write off their condition as a "normal" experience, and chalk their fatigue up to the stress of life, work, and kids.

These people don't realize that not getting enough sleep is very unhealthy, and they can go on for years without correcting the problem or seeking help.

_Source:

_{National Sleep FoundationVERYWELL}

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7 Crazy Ways to Grow Your Hair Faster

If growing your hair out faster is a top priority, then you've probably looked high and low for miracle ideas. Here are the five craziest ideas that people swear to work. Crazy or not, if you're desperate to grow your hair out right now, it never hurts to try.

1.  The Inversion Method

If you google "inversion method" for hair growth, you'll find some pretty wild claims. Some people swear that they can grow their hair 4-inches in a week, while others have more reasonable claims. I'll be honest, I've never tried hanging upside down to grow my hair, but I might give this one a try. It certainly won't hurt, and let's face it; a little extra blood to the brain just might do me some good as well.

2.  Scalp Massage with Oil

Oil, oil, and more oil seem to be a universal hair growth tip all over the world wide web. From castor oil to coconut oil, frequent massage of oil into your scalp make claims of growing your hair faster and stronger. I'm personally a big fan of coconut oil for many reasons, but you can pick your oil of choice by flipping through your kitchen cabinets. Weekly oil treatments can be done by massaging oil directly into your scalp and letting it sit for 30-60 minutes before shampooing out. You'll want to shampoo the oil out very well as oil can leave your hair greasy.

If you really want to increase the scalp stimulation and get even weirder, try adding some hot pepper or hot sauce to your oil massage. People all over the internet swear by it, and scalp stimulation has long been touted as a hair growth accelerator. Nothing quite as stimulating as hot peppers, right? Just be careful because your scalp may not like the heat.

3.  Healthy Diet

If you are what you eat, and you're eating a healthy diet your hair just might benefit. Experts claim that a proper hair enriching diet will make your hair healthier, shiny, and make it grow longer faster. If you're looking for hair healthy foods that will enhance your hair growth, I've put together a list here. Lucky for you, hair growing nutrients are also great for a healthier body altogether, so you win from head to toe.

4.  De-Stressing

Did you know that stress can cause your hair to stop growing or even make it fall out? As if the stress in your life wasn't causing you enough problems, if your stress level is out of control, it's doing no favors to your hair growth either. It's time to minimize the stress, ladies and let your hair benefit by growing longer and healthier. Whether you need to enroll in a regular yoga class, see a therapist, or look into a career change, let's make this year the year that stress didn't destroy your hair.

5.  Anti-Fungal Cream

Not just any anti-fungal cream, Monistat, to be exact. Yep, massaging your head with Monistat can actually help your hair grow faster. How you ask? Well, the anti-fungal cream can help balance the natural fungus on your scalp, creating a healthier scalp, and allowing your hair to grow faster. This one really tops the weird list for me, so don't ask me for personal experience on this method. Women all over the World Wide Web swear by this method but warn you to wash the cream out very, very well. It can be a greasy (and smelly) mess if you don't get it all out.

6.  Bull Leavings

Some people claim that bull semen and fecal matter are great treatments to make your hair grow faster. I'm just going to go ahead and trust the internet on this one. I didn't try it, and I don't intend to, but you're here because you're willing to try anything, right? Yikes. 

7.  Protein Infused Shampoo

There are shampoos that have big claims to grow your hair faster. F.A.S.T Shampoo and Conditioner actually showed some improvement in my ultra-slow-growing hair when I grew my pixie cute out a while back. I've also had people claim this shampoo/conditioner will grow your hair faster. I'm convinced that it's the protein enriched formulas that do the trick.

Sources:- about.com

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