Everyone knows it’s important to keep our heart healthy, but here are a few facts to inspire you to do so: • The average heart beats about 115,000 times a day, or 42 million times a year. • It pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood a day through about 60,000
The great novelist Gabriel García Márquez once said of his wife Mercedes, “I know her so well, she is completely and utterly unknown to me.” After 56 years of marriage, that’s a curious thing to say. The gist is this: Human beings are constantly changing and evolving. Retirement is a
If you love a good laugh, scientists can now explain why. According to a recent study by the Maryland School of Medicine, laughter could literally save your life. Researchers found that laughter expands the endothelium—the protective barrier lining our blood vessels—and increases blood flow. This process reduces the risk of
2020 is the year to think about 20/20 vision. However, according to Dr. Chris Marquardt, former president of the Wisconsin Optometric Association, good vision doesn’t necessarily equal good health. “There are a lot of conditions that can be detected in regular exam,” he points out. “You may go years without
If you like hot peppers, a new study by the Mediterranean Neurological Institute in Italy could give you reason to love them wholeheartedly. Among 25,000 participants monitored over eight years, the risk of dying from a heart attack was 40% lower among those eating chili peppers at least four times
With hits like “The Closer I Get to You,” “Killing Me Softly,” “Where Is the Love,” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” Roberta Flack has captured the hearts of hopeless romantics since 1969. But her first success, as she remembers, was not in the recording studio but
The media coverage on nursing homes these days is disturbing to say the least. Directly or indirectly, the issue affects us all. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than half of Americans turning 65 will need long-term care and services. Whether it’s you or a family member
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify!” —Thoreau Over time, many of us have accumulated things we rarely, if ever, use. When we finally wise up, we come to see that all that stuff—along with the house in which it’s been collecting dust—no longer makes sense. Many
Eyelid myokymia, or twitching, is caused by involuntary contractions triggered by tiny bundles of nerve fibers in the orbicularis oculi, the muscle that surrounds your eye socket and closes the lids. As irritating as twitching can get, let’s all be thankful that typically only one eye is affected, and the
One of the perks of grandparenting is an education in how to smile. Babies are the experts. They smile in the womb and continue after they’re born. Smiling is innate, not learned; this we know because even blind babies smile. Children smile as many as 400 times a day. That’s a