I read

Books are so fascinating. I would want to think that everyone reads a bit here and there.

How cool isn't it that I can pick up a book and find out in a few days what it took some really smart person a lifetime to figure out!! 

It's like when the internet came and you can look things up on wikipedia instead of having to use an encyclopaedia. It's almost like cheating but BIGtime cheating.

Six years ago I heard this quote by Jim Rohn: "you're the average of the five people you spend time with and the books you read".

Since then I've read about 25 books a year and I've written them down. A few I haven't liked at all but others have really resonated with me.

Lots of books I've read since I started Uni has been on motivation and how to stop procrastinating and just do what's in front of you. These are five really good books you want to read if you want to take the step to becoming a PRO. In no particular order.

Driven from within - Michael Jordan

This was kind of the first book I read on the subject that changed of I thought about studies. It's a book that describes Michael Jordan's life from a teenager up to now. Before I read it I had a distorted vision on what it took to be good and that to be good on something does not equal boring.

The power of full engagement -Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

This was a ground breaking book on how we humans work and why some people seem to have all the energy whilst having a very busy life and why others burn out very easily. Easy to understand and apply with relevant and interesting research that backs it up.

Mastery - George Leonard

When I was done with the last word I went online and ordered another 3 copies and gave them away. I often go back and think about the concepts in this book. Its a thin book of a 180 pg's and is worth is weight in gold. He talks about the process of learning new skills and how the world we're living in impacts on this.

Art of War and Turning PRO - Steven Pressfield

These books are pretty short and so cool. It's fascinating to feel that little bit of resistance in yourself that wants you to put the book down and burn it but you know it's too late. You've already taken the red pill  and there is no going back. 

Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman -Richard Feynman

Guys like him are the solution. He didn't care about what should be right or what people said. He only wanted to find out how things worked. Not to brag about but just because he was so curious in how things really worked. Truly an inspirational character that stands as a contrast to various people who present their subjective opinion as absolute objective facts by using voice tonality and authority to get it through. Remember that whatever they say - it still moves

The need to be right

I thought Universities was a place were knowledge, even common knowledge was supposed to be questioned. Only a minority of lecturers operate like this, you find them if you listen closely because from time to time they say things like...

- Do not blindly believe in what anyone says and do not believe what I say, go and look it up yourself and only after meticulous research place it on a scale of certainty in your head. Because in the future only 50% of what you learn here will be shown to be true. Be comfortable with doubtful facts and realise that most facts sits on a scale of certainty from 1-100 and most things do not sit at a hundred.

And then we have the majority of lecturers AND students. They don't care what the fact is, it can be anything they've read out of a ding ding newspaper as long as they said it, it's true and they will defend it to their death.
Their need to be right, to look good, to have respect is so much greater then their thirst for truth.

Can you now imagine how bad this yucky characteristic is in a politician?!
It makes me sick to the core.

5th year syndrome

Something I observed quickly when I came to Uni was that the 5th years were so distant.

They were not happy it seemed like. They never spoke to anyone and if they did it was very formal.

They didn't joke around and it seemed like they really tried to suppress that kid inside of them whilst trying to look really important.

It's a fact that after five years of Uni you're probably very tired of studying and so on but I think there is another factor to it.

The University is trying to develop a proffessional side to you and that is just great. I agree that it is super important to have that professional side. But I do think that many people lose the other side of life, the fun relaxed side. 

Many people form strong opinions and they become very sure of themselves and a bit closed minded but in my view they are just building their own prison. I think this is a shame and I don't think this applies to just Chiropractic, I've heard that Law is supposedly really bad, yuck!

We study for five years and learn heaps of stuff but if the person can't enjoy life after Uni something is just not right. I think it has something to do with the fact that people feel that from now on they can not risk looking like a fool. It's a shame because then you fit in and feed to the illusion that to get somewhere you have to look and act important and work long days and never enjoy yourself. 

That is bad, studying for 5 years is something we should be proud over and subsequently we should be role-models to younger people. Show them that you can work hard AND have lots of fun and relax.

Aww shit, no more toilet paper...

- KellybaNOAAAAA

My room mate

My room mate Kellibanoa is one of a kind.
Don't think this is something that happens every once in a while, this happens EVERY DAY.

He's out drinking, coming home at 3 o'clock, super drunk (I had to open).
He goes to bed and wakes up the next day. Does a gym session around lunchtime feeling like shit.
comes home and have a nap, wakes up and goes for a 3 hour bicycle ride in the dark rainy weather.
The next morning he's got a time trial race in tornado winds plus rain.

I let him have some respect.

It feels so good

To run...
To ace exams...
To help others...
To feel that you know it...
To study till you can hardly speak...
To challenge yourself...
To improve...
To grow...

Cortisol (hydrocortisol)

Cortisol and why it's important to you!

I'll try to keep this simple and easy to follow.
Your adrenal gland releases cortisol into your bloodstream after receiving signals from the hypothalamus.

• Cortisol acts to suppress your immune system.

This sounds boring but it's actually really important. You get more prone to bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Nasty stuff.

• Aids in glucogenesis

A.k.a raises your blood sugar (amount of sugar in your blood). This is bad, it leads to insulin resistance which is diabetes type 2.

It is released in response to stress to restore homeostasis in your body but in excess it's bad bad bad for you. The syndrome is called Cushing's syndromeSo, in essence you get all the stuff that you don't want. You can get this syndrome from either pro-longed intake of corticosteroid drugs or by a tumor on any of the gland in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adreno pathway which upregulates their secretion.
But that's bad stuff!

So I hope it's clear now that cortisol is in most cases bad.
It's not all bad though because would god have "planted" cortisol in us if it ain't did us good?
Don't think so, in small doses it's good in response to stress.
* It can give you a sugar kick when needed
* Increase your blood pressure in a flight or fight response
* Increases your short memory function
* After strenuous exercise it can act to inhibit excessive inflammation.

However after we've returned to homeostasis it needs to go away which it doesn't always do in our high stress society. So if we keep our levels high

Most of the time you want to keep your cortisol levels low because prolonged high levels may cause...
* Destruction of cells in the hippocampus area, responsible for memory
* Decrease in muscle tissue
* High blood pressure
* Depressed immune system and slower wound healing
* Increased abdominal fat (which is where you defenitively not should have your fat)

Increased cortisol levels have been seen in..
* Depression/stress
* Illness/fever
* Trauma, fear, pain
* Physical exertion/ temp extremes
* Too much caffeine
* Sleep deprivation
* Burnout
* Cortisone levels may be altered in people with Autism and Asperger's

Pain is an interesting one, so there is a correlation with being in pain and a suppressed immune system! Especially if it's chronic pain. What if you walked around with back-pain all the time, for years? Your cortisol levels would most probably be elevated and your immune system suppressed.

I cant believe it's such a big no-no to talk about these things. It seems like a sensitive topic to talk about but I don't care. This is a real thing and people are afraid of talking about it?
This shouldn't be something hidden away from people.
It's cool that what the old time Chiropractors claimed to be able to do, science is now on it's way to explain parts of it.

And now for the good stuff that you want to bring in to your life
* Magnesium supplement after aerobic training (Unfortunately not seen with weight training)
* Omega-3 intake
* Music therapy
* Massage therapy
* Laughing, humor
* Crying
* Vitamin C intake
* Black tea
* Regular dancing (Argentine tango)
* Regular sexual intercourse
* Meditation

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The above may be completely off since it's not referenced at all.
Just be critical to everything you see or hear because there's is probably a lot of stuff out there that's not right. Even though I try to make sure the stuff I'm writing about is 100% right you should be critical. This is just a good way for me to express what I'm reading about at the moment and things might be completely off since I don't have the time or feel the need to reference things when I'm just free writing like this.
Stay critical and don't believe anything that is not referenced.
Not even what your lecturers tell you and especially not me.

But hopefully you have a better understanding of what cortisol does to you by now.

Fremantle

Such a nice day today, sun is shining, 25 degrees. Me and my room mates have just cleaned out the garden and everyone is just happy. Weights in the gym felt like peanuts this morning. Also Caroline the girl I used to gym with came along today, was really good to see her again.

It's working out well at uni, getting some grades that I'm pleased with so far. Next year looks tougher thou. All the 4th years are complaining but hey everyone always have something to whine about I think it'll be just fine. We have such a good team in our class that we'll do just fine.

In a couple of weeks Linda will be coming down, I'm so so so looking forward to that. We'll stay in my tiny room so that will be a challenge, especially since I got my exams coming up but I'm sure everything will work out since both of us are so cool.

This is the view from my window, pretty awesome!