10 tips to maintain good mental health

Taking care of your mental health is just as important as taking care of your physical health. Here are a few tips to help you maintain a good mental state.

1. Develop a good opinion of yourself.

According to mental health experts, high self-esteem is the best tool we can use against difficulties in life. Studies show that people with high self-esteem have more confidence in themselves and their capabilities.

2. Eat well.

Diet plays a crucial role in mental health; it’s important to have a healthy diet. If you need help with this, consult the Canadian Food Guide. You can also consult a nutritionist for a personalized guide adapted to your needs.

3. Exercise regularly.

Physical exercise plays a positive role in your mental health. It causes chemical reactions that are proven to reduce anxiety and stress and put you in a good mood.

4. Learn how to manage stress.

Stress is part of life, so you must learn how to deal with it in order to keep your sanity. Discover the source of your stress to find ways to better handle it.

5. Enjoy the present.

Learn how to focus on the present rather than being preoccupied with past or future events. This will help you savor life’s little pleasures that you would otherwise miss.

6. Find your work-life balance.

If you feel like you’re spending too much time and energy on one part of your life, your work-life balance may be off. Learn to do both! The best way to do this varies from a person to another. Find the strategy that works best for you.

7. Get enough sleep.

Lack of sleep affects your mental health as it can cause emotional and psychological problems. Go to bed at a reasonable hour and try to get 8 hours of sleep. It will help you achieve maximum recovery and face the next day with more vigor.

8. Develop relationships.

Developing and maintaining solid personal relationships is very beneficial to your mental health. So work on establishing good relationships with people around you, at home, at work or in your community. These contacts will enrich your life and provide you with great support.

9. Have fun!

Taking time to laugh and have fun will go a long way in staying mentally healthy. Laughter lifts moral, keeps you in a good mood and releases stress. Find ways to laugh: comic strips, funny videos or joking with friends.

10. Get help if you need it.

At some point in your life, you may need to ask for help. If so, don’t hesitate! It takes courage to seek help but it can really change your life. Know that there are many resources out there. Talk to your pharmacist. He will guide you in finding the best options.

Source: Brunet

 

This Woman Is Breaking The World’s Longest Hunger Strike After 16 Years

Irom Sharmila (center) Bullu Raj / AP

Irom Sharmila will be contesting Manipur’s assembly elections as an independent candidate next year. 

Nearly 16 years after starting a hunger strike, Irom Sharmila, who became a symbol of nonviolent resistance by protesting against a draconian law that allows India’s security forces sweeping powers, is breaking her fast on Tuesday.

 

Sharmila, 44, also referred to as the “Iron Lady of Manipur”, has been campaigning against India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) — the controversial law allows the country’s military special powers to use force in “disturbed areas” against suspected militants — since November 2000. Her hunger strike began after the reported killing of villagers by a paramilitary force in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. Since then, her nonviolent protest has gained international attention, with rights groups asking the Indian government to repeal the controversial act.

Following her hunger strike, Sharmila was taken to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal, the state capital, and held under judicial custody for “attempts to commit suicide”. She was being force-fed through a nasal tube for more than a decade.

During her judicial proceedings last week, Sharmila said her protest against AFSPA was not working and that she would try a different route — although it is unclear what that may look like. She has said she plans to contest the state assembly elections in Manipur as an independent candidate in 2017.

At the district court proceedings in Imphal on Tuesday, the judge wished her luck for her political career. The next hearing of this case will be held on 23 August, but she has been released on a bond of ₹10,000 (about $150).
Source: buzzfeed

 

 

Google Employee Vanessa Marcotte Is the Third Female Jogger Killed in 9 Days

On Sunday afternoon, 27-year-old Vanessa Marcotte left her mother's house to go for a run and never returned. She was found dead hours later in the woods of a quiet Massachusetts town. Her death marked the third killing of a female jogger in nine days, though police say the tragedies are unrelated.

Vanessa Marcotte was a Google account manager in New York and a graduate of Boston University. Last weekend she'd been visiting her mother for a few days in Princeton, Massachusetts, a small town about an hour's drive west of Boston. On Sunday at 1 p.m. she left the house to run along a two-lane road lined by trees. A police search began around 4 p.m. when she didn't return, and ended in the woods at 8:20 p.m., a half-mile from her mother’s house, where Marcotte was found dead.


Officials refused to reveal specific injuries at a news conference on Monday. The initial investigation shows Marcotte was killed — the town’s first murder in 30 years. Authorities are still working to determine if it was a random killing and if she was sexually assaulted.

Of several worried Princeton residents who spoke with the Boston Globe, one father said his two young daughters often jog in the same area. "People run all the time," he said. "This town is very safe."

In a statement, Google remembered Marcotte as "a much loved member of the Google team ... known for her ubiquitous smile, passion for volunteer work, and love of Boston sports."

The district attorney said there is "nothing at this point" to connect Marcotte’s murder to the killing of 30-year-old Karina Vetrano in New York last week. Vetrano was murdered on August 2, after leaving for an early evening jog, in a Queens park known as a "dumping ground" for bodies and a meeting place for teen dirt-biking, homeless camps, and religious-sect rituals. Vetrano’s father, who ultimately discovered her body, had previously warned her to not run there alone, according to the Daily Beast.

Three days before Vetrano's death, 31-year-old nurse Alexandra "Ally" Brueger was shot and killed in Michigan, on July 30, during an afternoon jog on a gravel road.

Police are still searching for suspects in all three unconnected murders. "There are some similarities — female, jogger. There are also major non-similarities to that case," NYPD deputy chief Michael Kemper, who is investigating Vetrano's murder, said of the Vanessa Marcotte investigation on Monday night. "We are comparing evidence, we are comparing notes; simply put ... we don't believe there is a connection. With that said we are going to continue to share notes and share evidence as both cases progress."

Sanders Condemns Efforts to Remove Brazil’s Democratically Elected President

BURLINGTON, Vt., August 8 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday issued the following statement calling on the United States to take a definitive stand against efforts to remove Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office:

“I am deeply concerned by the current effort to remove Brazil’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff. To many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d’état.

“After suspending Brazil’s first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern, the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights. They immediately replaced a diverse and representative administration with a cabinet made up entirely of white men. The new, unelected administration quickly announced plans to impose austerity, increase privatization and install a far right-wing social agenda.

“The effort to remove President Rousseff is not a legal trial but rather a political one. The United States cannot sit silently while the democratic institutions of one of our most important allies are undermined. We must stand up for the working families of Brazil and demand that this dispute be settled with democratic elections.”
Source: Senate website

Brazil Senate debates opening impeachment end game

Brasi­lia (AFP) - Brazil's Senate opened debate Tuesday ahead of a vote on sending suspended president Dilma Rousseff to an impeachment trial, bringing the Olympic host country's political crisis to a climax.

Rousseff's opponents only need a simple majority of the 81 senators' votes to open an impeachment trial. They look set to clear the threshold easily, although the debate is expected to be a marathon session stretching into the early hours of Wednesday.

It is the final vote before the one that will decide Rousseff's ultimate political fate, when a two-thirds majority would be needed to strip her of her power and end 13 years of leftist rule in Brazil. That vote is expected to take place around the end of August, just days after the Rio Olympics end.

The Senate suspended Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president, on May 12 over accusations of illegal accounting practices and fiddling the budget to mask the slump in the economy. She condemns the process as a coup.

The timing could hardly be more awkward for Brazil, which was meant to be showcasing its burgeoning economic clout and political stability with South America's first Olympic Games in full swing.

Instead, unpopular interim president Michel Temer -- formerly the vice president -- is struggling to drag the country out of its worst recession in decades as the Senate debates what to do with his former boss and bitter enemy.

Rousseff is accused of spending money without congressional approval and taking out unauthorized loans from state banks to make the national budget look better than it really was as she campaigned for re-election in 2014.

She says such maneuvers were common practice under previous administrations and do not amount to an impeachable offense.

Her allies from the Workers' Party point out that many of the lawmakers accusing her are implicated in corruption cases arguably far more serious than accounting tricks.

But her enemies say her fate is already sealed.

"The president is ever more isolated, a very pronounced isolation that has only gotten worse in recent weeks and now even includes her own party," said Senator Aloysio Nunes of the opposition party PSDB.

"I have no doubt that the vote will be in favor of impeachment, as it will be at the final trial," he told AFP.

- Messy end game -

The impeachment trial is set to open around August 25 -- four days after the Olympics closing ceremony -- and last five days before the judgment vote.

The political mess makes an unfortunate backdrop to the Olympics, awarded to Rio de Janeiro in 2009 when Rousseff's predecessor and political mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was hugely popular.

Now, not only is Rousseff facing oblivion, but Lula is set to go on trial for obstruction of justice charges. He also faces corruption allegations that could sink his hopes of returning to power in the 2018 elections.

Rousseff, 68, is a former leftist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured by the country's military regime in the 1970s.

She rode Lula's coattails to power when term limits forced him to step down in 2011.

But the buoyant national mood soon deflated as Brazil's booming economy sank into its worst recession in 80 years and a huge corruption scandal erupted at state oil giant Petrobras.

Rousseff is not facing corruption charges in the wide-ranging scandal. But she has been tainted by its stain on her Workers' Party, which is accused of lining its coffers with some of the missing billions.

If Rousseff is removed from office, Temer, her center-right running mate turned opponent, will become the full-fledged president until the next presidential election in 2018.

He has urged the Senate to move quickly, saying "people need to know who the president is."
Disgust with the entire political class is widespread in Brazil.

Temer, 75, presided over the Olympics opening ceremony Friday, drawing boos from the crowd -- just as Rousseff did at the opener of the 2014 World Cup.
Source: yahoo

Michael Jordan makes record gift to national African American museum

Basketball legend Michael Jordan made news in July when he announced that he would give $1 million each to the Institute for Community-Police Relations and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Jordan explained the donation as an effort to heal divisions between police and black communities throughout the United States, reversing years of reluctance to speak out publicly on social issues. With Jordan also having fully supported the NBA’s decision to move the All-Star Game from North Carolina in his capacity as Charlotte Hornets owner, it appeared as if the Hall of Famer was warming to the idea of speaking out when necessary.

Jordan’s latest publicly announced donation should add to that impression, although this gift figures to be quite uncontroversial. Museum officials announced Monday that Jordan has given $5 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, set to open in Washington, D.C. in late September. From Peggy McGlone for The Washington Post:

The gift, the largest from a sports figure to the 19th Smithsonian museum, pushes private donations to the museum to $278 million. Including federal aid, the museum, which President Obama will open on Sept. 24, has raised more than $548 million.

The Chicago Bulls also gave a jersey that Jordan wore during the 1996 NBA Finals to the museum’s permanent collection. In recognition of the gifts, the museum will name a section of its sports gallery the Michael Jordan Hall.

The inaugural exhibition in that space will feature artifacts associated with 17 “game-changing” athletes, including tennis player Althea Gibson and track-and-field great Jesse Owens. Jordan is among those spotlighted. […]

“I am grateful for the opportunity to support this museum,” Jordan said in a statement. “I also am indebted to the historic contributions of community leaders and athletes such as Jesse Owens, whose talent, commitment and perseverance broke racial barriers and laid the groundwork for the successful careers of so many African Americans in athletics and beyond.”
Museum Founding Director Lonnie Bunch expressed gratitude for Jordan’s contribution. “His gift will enable our visitors to explore how sports were used to break barriers as a way to gain full participation in American society,” Bunch said in a statement.

Again, Jordan’s donation is far less controversial than his fairly conservative statement on police brutality and his support for the NBA’s broadly popular stand against North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ House Bill 2. The new Smithsonian museum has been anticipated for some time and figures to be a popular tourist attraction this fall and for years to come. Jordan is one of the greatest athletes in the history of the world and a natural fit for this sports gallery.

The donation also continues Jordan’s evolution from global superstar to genuine cultural institution. As a massively popular athlete, pro sports owner, sports apparel businessman, and persistent media subject, Jordan will be in the public eye for some time. This museum gift ensures that his name will be identified with the American experience for even longer.

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Source: Yahoo

by Eric Freeman, a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

Haiti Named 3rd Best-Dressed Team at the 2016 Olympic Opening Ceremony

Every country has its own unique style and they were all put on display during Rio’s Parade of Nations. But according to Yahoo, Haiti was the third best-dressed team and had the most on-trend looks in the Olympic Opening Ceremony which took place on the evening of Friday 5 August 2016 in the Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro.


Burkina Faso was named the #1 best-dressed team, and The Cook Islands came second.
“The ruffles, the off-the-shoulder styles and the tiered skirts might just be the most on-trend looks in the Opening Ceremony,” said Yahoo about Haiti’s Olympic Opening Ceremony outfits.

You can see all “The Best- (and Worst-) Dressed Teams at the Olympic Opening Ceremony” in this article.
Source: sawpanse