Mindconnection eNL, 2020-01-05

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In this issue:
Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

Item 1. Due to advocacy (with a big push from eBay), the US de minimis threshold will NOT be lowered as part of the new United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement. It would have hurt small businesses if this planned change had been made. It's nice when members of Congress don't solely serve their corporate sponsors and sometimes actually do what's right for the little guy (the 99%).

Item 2. The People's Republic of Virginia recently passed (mis)legistlation criminalizing many forms of self-defense, including empty-hand martial arts (e.g., karate, Kung Fu, etc.). The good news is 2nd Amendment sanctuaries are popping up all over that communist country, and there are now over 100 such sanctuaries. Perhaps President Trump will eventually be forced to order US Marshalls or the National Guard into the PRoV to protect civil liberties and arrest the miscreants who are passing these abhorrent laws. Or perhaps the people of the PRoV will pull their collective heads out of (you know where) and enforce the laws themselves. Demanding immediate retraction would be a good first step. Demanding the state Attorney General issue arrest warrants for the "elected" officials who are spewing the lawlessness would be another good measure.

Item 3. A century after Prohibition, alcohol consumption in the USA is on the decline. Not only are younger people drinking less once they start drinking, fewer of them are starting and those who do are starting at a later age. Considering that alcohol is a carcinogen, damages your liver, and wipes out brain cells permanently, this is very good news. It means a reduced load on our medical care system (such that it is), fewer cases of progressive brain disease, reduced load on long-term "care" facilities (nursing homes) and healthier, more enjoyable retirements a few decades from now.

Item 4. Puerto Ricans  are American citizens and as such are entitled to the same Constitutional rights as other Americans. Recently, the governor of Puerto Rico signed into law the Puerto Rico Weapons Act of 2020. This new law shows an increased respect for the Constitutional rights of these American citizens. Read the full story here: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20191223/puerto-rico-enacts-pro-gun-overhaul-of-firearms-laws. This is very good news. Perhaps the People's Republic of California or even the People's Republic of New Jersey will look at this and recognize that their citizens also have Constitutional rights.

Item 5. In North Korea, it's illegal to hire a tutor for your child. But many parents do it anyway. That's good news for those kids, not so good news for the regime.

Here in the USA, where our failure factories numb the minds of children for twelve years before releasing most of them as illiterate, innumerate, and incapable of basic reasoning, hiring a tutor is legal and most parents don't bother. That's why the USA ranks dead last among industrialized nations for literacy and nearly last for numeracy. That said, many parents in the USA do what it takes to imbue their children with self-motivation, a passion for learning, a solid foundation in the classic course work, and an undying natural curiosity. If you are such a parent, thank you!

Item 6. Lab-grown neurons are now capable of producing complex brainwaves, according to papers published in Nature Neuroscience (March, 2019) and Cell Stem Cell (August, 2019). This is a huge leap forward in finding a cure for libtardism.

• The Photo Backup Stick is an all-in-one picture and video backup and storage tool. It contains special software to back up from Windows computers, Mac computers, iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch, Android phones, and Android tablets.
• Keep your pictures safe without the need for expensive and complicated cloud services.
• Supports almost all picture and video formats.
• Backs Up from Windows. Run the Windows backup app to find and backup from the computer, storage device(s) connected to the computer, or even phones or tablets connected to the computer.
• Backs Up from Mac. Run the Mac backup app to find and backup from the computer, storage device(s) connected to the computer, or even phones or tablets connected to the computer.
• Backs Up from Androids. Plug the stick directly into Android phones or tablets and use the Android app to back up to the stick without using a computer.
  Backs Up From iPhones and iPads. Backup from iPhones & iPads by plugging them into a Windows or Mac computer and run the backup app from the stick.
• Removes Duplicates. Each photo and video will be backed up only once. Every time you backup, only new photos will be backed up. The Windows app also allows you to remove duplicates just in case you have multiple copies that have been backed up.
• You can back up from the default locations or select to scan the entire computer or specific drives or folders.
• You can also connect phones and tablets to the computer and back them up at the same time.
• The Windows app allows you to remove duplicates even if they were backed up from other devices. It also allows you to easily copy your backed-up files to a computer or drive.
• Choose to keep your photos organized in the same folder structure they are on your computer or have them saved to one single folder on the stick.
• For Android phones and tablets, download the free Photo Backup Stick DC app, plug the stick into your device using the included adapters, and back up directly to the stick without using a computer.
• For iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touch, plug your device into a Windows or Mac computer, unlock the screen and trust the computer, and run the backup app from the stick. All your pictures and videos will be backed up directly to the stick for safe keeping.

The Photo Backup Stick works on Windows 7, 8, or 10 as well as Mac OS 10.12 or newer. For direct connection to Android devices, the device must support OTG connections of USB drives. If OTG is not supported, devices can be backed up using the Windows or Mac apps. For Apple iOS devices, you must connect the devices to a computer using a data cable and use the Windows or Mac app to backup.

Buy yours now.

Mindfulness is the normal state of high achievers. High achievers think, plan, and act instead of merely react. This person is in charge. Between the stimulus and the response is an active processing of the incoming information. A person of average intelligence who goes from mindlessness to mindfulness sees his or her effective IQ increase by 100 points.

To be mindful, you must decide to think. To be mindless, simply fail to do so.

Today's toilets, especially the so-called "water saving" variety, are incompatible with a healthy diet. They are designed for the disease diet culture, where tiny bowel movements are normal due to consuming about 10% of the necessary dietary fiber.

Many people find themselves flushing at least a dozen times over a few hours to clear the bowl. That's quite a bit of wasted water. Here are some solutions:

• Upgrade your toilet to one that is suitable for a food-eating human being who weighs more than 45 pounds. I found one online for $4,860. I am sure there are less expensive models. The problem here is you probably can't know if it works until you've installed it and tried it.
• Rather than enjoy a full relaxing bowel movement, stop and "pinch it off" after some comes out. Flush, wait, then go again. Repeat five or six times, as necessary. Practice to determine the limits of your toilet, and always drop "product" below those limits. This is laborious and wastes water, but it can work if you are not at home and don't wish to create a clog. It also means 5 or 6 flushes rather than 12 or 15.
• Keep a gallon of vinegar next to the toilet. Before going, pour about half a cup into the bowl. This will start dissolving the "product" right away.
• If the vinegar does not prevent the clog, pour about 1/8 cup of Borax into the bowl and let it sit for 30 minutes. This usually clears it.
• If the Borax does not work, pour half a cup of laundry detergent into the bowl and half a cup of vinegar into the tank. Let it sit for 30 minutes. When you flush, you will clean the jets and bowl sides with vinegar water; that will help clean up after the earlier failures and also help if you need to repeat this step.

My personal belief is we should not have to spend thousands of dollars per lifetime on dish soap, vinegar, Borax, and wasted water just because toilet manufacturers don't hire healthy people in their product development department. I'm going to start contacting toilet manufacturers about this problem and offer to send photos.

It's worth noting that Bill Gates has now dedicated his life to inventing a new type of toilet. Maybe he is trying to solve this problem also, but I would be more inclined to believe he's thinking of a toilet that connects to the could and reports all kinds of data on us based on what enters the bowl. As if we need even less privacy than we have already.

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/privacy-2/2019/10/growing-rate-of-robocalls-threatens-user-privacy

Photo taken a couple of weeks after my 59th birthday.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

Training. There are smart ways to train, and then there are the ways the vast majority of people use. While there is not one "correct" way to train, there are many counterproductive ways to train. If you avoid the counterproductive ways, you will probably get good results no matter how you train.

Some points on what's counterproductive:

• So-called whole body workouts. While this is all the rage right now, it means you reduce your intensity to get through it (thus reducing the adaptive response) while overtraining (thus elevating cortisol rather than testosterone).
• Throwing the weights. Using momentum allows you to lift more weight, but it doesn't put the muscle under much tension so it doesn't really build muscle. It does cause damage to joints and connective tissues though.
• Focusing on compound movements. While compound exercises are the foundation of many a successful training program, the guy who spends his chest workout bench-pressing is cheating himself. Remember, the more joints and muscles involved, the less concentrated the force is in the target muscles. Use compound movements as a base, not as "it".
• Using too heavy of a weight. This is very common. You can tell when someone is doing this because their range of motion is very short and/or they are recruiting other muscles.

Some points on what's productive:

• Train one muscle group per workout, dividing this across at least four sessions per week (I prefer six sessions). This allows you to train more frequently and more efficiently, but you rest the target muscle group until the next time it's in the rotation (typically a week).
• It's not moving the weights that matters, it's how much tension you develop in the muscle that matters. If you're doing, for example, a biceps curl, you should be squeezing the biceps as you lift rather than just passively letting the weight produce the tension. If you've been prone to throwing the weights, cut your weight in half and do super slow reps for your first set or two. That would be 10 seconds up, 30 seconds down. Feel the muscle(s) as you do this. Once you have that feeling established, increase the tempo for the next set to 4 seconds up and 10 seconds down. Then on the next set, try 2 seconds up and 4 seconds down.
• Use super strict form with your isolation exercises. After all, that isolation is what allows you to truly work the target muscle. If, for example, you are doing side lateral shoulder raises don't recruit your upper back to help with the movement. Round your shoulders forward to take your back out of the exercise; you should really feel this in your side delts now.
• There is nothing wrong with using "baby weights". It may not look macho to use 8lbs when doing side lateral shoulder raises, but if you have to cheat to use 20lbs why bother doing the exercise at all? Use the appropriate weight. Don't worry about what someone else might think while you are training. Worry about whether your training will get the intended results.

Now as for hormones, training plays a big role. The key is to get the adaptive response, part of which is a rise in testosterone. You produce a momentary overload on the body and it responds adaptively. The sharper the overload, the sharper the response; which is why we don't want to involve too many muscles in a given workout (the overload is dissipated, not sharp). While individual compound exercises such as squats are noted for stimulating that response, you also stimulate it with a coordinated set of isolation exercises.

Three ways this stimulation happens:

1. Progressive overload. When we do a single rep, we get X strain on the muscle. With each successive rep, the muscle moves toward overload. Maybe you hit it at rep 10 on the first set. But rep 8 on the second set, rep 6 on the third set, and rep 4 on the fourth set. See the progression, there? You should be able to feel the overload; each rep feels really hard. It's a feeling that's hard to explain, but you know it if you train enough.
2. Time under tension. It's the total amount of work you place on a muscle during a training session. It's why we do more than one rep and more than one set. Generally, the standard is 8 to 12 reps per set and 3 to 4 sets. But this is not a hard and fast rule. For example, performing hanging leg raises is very difficult and few people can crank out 12 at a time. Or even 8. If you could do 8 reps for 3 sets, that would be 24. But suppose you can comfortably do 4 in good form. Do 6 sets of 4, and you get the same time under tension as doing 3 sets of 8.
3. Metabolic damage. The more intense the exercise, the more metabolic damage you do in a given time. You want to do just enough metabolic damage to stimulate the adaptive response. Too much metabolic damage, and you mute the adaptive response. As Lee Haney says, "You want to stimulate, not annihilate."

Many different training regimens can accomplish the right amount of overload for a given individual. Don't get stuck on finding some secret technique or the ideal workout. If you stimulate the adaptive response, your workout is a success. Yes, maybe you could have stimulated more of that response the last time; but don't assume that means working out more. It could mean altering any of the three ways that overload happens. Maybe you need less time under tension so you can increase your intensity for greater metabolic damage. Or maybe you need less intensity so you can increase your time under tension. Or maybe you need less rest between sets so you can increase your progressive overload.

Pay attention to how you feel before, during, and after a workout. Adjust those factors accordingly. If, for example, you are sore for three days after your previous workout of this muscle group (or you feel sore going in now), then you want to minimize metabolic damage. If you are cranking through your reps and they just don't seem to be getting harder, you need to add weight or something.

Be totally focused during your workout. Set this time aside so your full attention is on what you are doing. If your mind is wandering, your form will suffer and you risk not just an unproductive workout but serious injury. This isn't the time for chit chat with others, it's the time to communicate with the muscles you are trying to stimulate so you can achieve the goals of your training. If you do this right, one result of your training will be elevated testosterone after each session. That might take a couple of hours to kick in, but it should last for several days. Other "positive" hormones will be elevated also. And if training is a core value in your life, then a job well done will elevate serotonin (the happiness hormone).

Upcoming installments:

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 4
Rest. Recuperation from training requires time. You also need to get adequate sleep every day.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 5
Consistency. Don't skip meals and don't skip workouts. Skipping arguments is fine, however.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 6
Mental focus. People who lack focus tend to fail at everything, rather than succeed at anything. This can become depressing. Concentrate on the task at hand.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 7
Positive mental attitude. That glass isn't half full, it's overflowing!

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 8
Supplements. How to sort scams from the good stuff.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 9
Chemicals to avoid. Many commonly-used chemicals adversely affect endocrine health.
 

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 10
Handling social pressure. Rather than use willpower to fight social pressure from the disease-embracing, health-averse culture, follow these tips to use social pressure to your advantage.

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

Health care costs far less than medical care. People seem to have forgotten that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Poverty among the elderly is rampant due to medical bills, and now there's a new saying: "The real reason you can't take it with you is that it goes before you do."