I hope you are all well despite the extremely challenging environment in which we are all currently operating.
No Communication these days is absent of a comment, reaction or opinion about the dreaded “COVID 19”
My humble advice is, let's not resort to rumours and mindless ‘forwards' from non experts. Identify the best way to safeguard yourselves from the possibility of contracting this deadly virus and take a moment to think about the eventuality, if you did get infected.
Take advice from the experts: John Hopkins Centre
This is a short newsletter of concise bullet points, and it’s the only COVID-19 newsletter that I’m subscribed to. It’s not the end-all and be-all, but it’s more reliable than 99.9% of the noise being circulated.
John Hopkins Centre for Health Security will be analyzing and providing updates on the emerging novel coronavirus. If you would like to receive these daily updates, please sign up here and select COVID-19. Additional resources are also available on our website.
Panic is bad, but overreaction is good.
When a scenario so deadly presents itself to us, my take is overreacting is better than nonchalance.
Most importantly, let's not sit back and pretend this virus can’t happen to us! Its somebody else’s problem! Or let's wait and see what happens! At the very least minimise unnecessary contact with others and highly populated areas.
Here are the latest recommendations from the CDC, which is to minimize contact with everyone else.
Economic concerns from COVID-19
Consider economic disruption that will be caused as a result of implications from the COVID-19 disease.
There is going to be a definite economic slowdown, effects on supply chains and workplaces. The gravity of the situation depends on how prolonged the effects of the virus are and how much constraint to daily activities this will place on businesses globally. Nonetheless we must all brace ourselves for unprecedented times.
Pondering...
Minimalism
When you have health happiness and love the rest is all mere stuff.
The truth is, many of us know we own too much stuff, and if we’re honest – really honest – we know that things rarely result in greater happiness . Instead, constant acquisition simply results in a desire for more, and redirects our time, energy, and focus to things that can never be fulfilling.
If you believe in living a more deliberate life with less, then this is a must-read minimalism book thats for you.
Thought-provoking...
Essentialism
The Way of the Essentialist is about living with a deliberate purpose, saying NO to more than you say yes to. It’s about Living by design, not default. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so you can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy.
The Essentialist approach:
Explore and Evaluate: spend as much time as possible exploring, listening, debating, questioning, and thinking. Exploration is not an end in itself, but a way to discern the vital few from the trivial many
Eliminate: actively eliminate activities and efforts that don’t make the highest possible contribution
Execute: invest the time you saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible
These three elements are not separate events but a cyclical process. Apply them consistently to reap greater and greater benefits.
The Power of Extreme Criteria
Put decisions to an extreme test: if you feel a total conviction to do something, say “HELL YES!”:
“If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”
The 90 Percent Rule: think about the single most important criterion for a decision and give it a score between 0 and 100. If it’s any lower than 90 percent, then automatically change the rating to 0 and simply reject it. This helps you avoid getting caught up in indecision, or worse, getting stuck with the 60s or 70s.
Whatever decision or challenge or crossroads you face in your life, simply ask yourself, “What is essential?” Eliminate everything else. Start by changing one routine or task today.
The Important Things...
by Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, 2016
How might your life be better with less? Minimalism:
A Documentary About the Important Things examines the many flavours of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from all walks of life-families, entrepreneurs, architects, artists, journalists, scientists, and even a former Wall Street broker-all of whom are striving to live a meaningful life with less
Click here to watch:
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Vitamin C
One of the most potent immunity boosters known to us is Vitamin C, vitamin C is a powerful antioxidBut not all Vitamin C is made equal.
Vitamin C is water soluble and hence is difficult to absorb into cells.
Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C, is basically vitamin C bound in a layer of fat to enhance absorption
The way we absorb vitamins and minerals depends on a lot of factors, the ingestion mode, through food, through a capsule, or intravenously. By encasing a medication or a nutrient in liposomes, we alter the way it is released, absorbed, distributed, used, and eliminated. As soon as you take “normal” vitamin C, it gets destroyed in the gut because the stomach is very acidic. Cell membranes are made up of phospholipids, so when vitamin C embeds in phospholipids, it’s going to enter the cells at a higher rate. Vitamin C doesn’t get absorbed into the bloodstream, or get into cells, half of it is wasted by your body [in the gut]. The human body doesn’t produce vitamin C on its own.
What makes up liposomal Vitamin C?
The aforementioned bubble is known as a liposome. It’s made of dietary phospholipids that are critical to our overall health, but that our bodies do not produce. The phospholipids are compounds with phosphate heads and fatty acid tails. The phosphate heads are attracted to water while the fatty acid tails are repelled by water. When phospholipids are in water, the tails turn away while the heads turn toward the water. The phospholipids form a double layered sphere that is nearly identical to the membranes that surround each of your cells.
When you put a water-soluble nutrient, like Vitamin C, into the water (or water-based solution), the phospholipids form this double-layered bubble around the nutrient, encapsulating it. Thus the term liposomal encapsulation.
The liposomes give liposomal vitamin c a liquid or gel-like consistency.
How liposomal Vitamin C works
Because of this composition, liposomal Vitamin C can pass from the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. The liposomes then carry the Vitamin C to the cells. Due to their composition nearly matching that of the cell membrane, the liposome can assimilate into the cell membrane and drop off the Vitamin C in the cell where it is needed.
Why liposomal Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is difficult to absorb in high doses. It’s water-soluble, so your body can’t store it. You just excrete any excess. When you take traditional Vitamin C supplements, you need transporter proteins (SCVT) to carry the Vitamin C from the small intestine to the bloodstream. Then you need more transporter proteins to carry it from the bloodstream to the cells. The problem is that you don’t always have a lot of these transporter proteins, so when you take a large dose of Vitamin C from a regular supplement, most of the Vitamin C cannot get rides on the transporter proteins. The Vitamin C gets stuck in the intestines and gets excreted, which is why many people who take large doses of Vitamin C experience gastric upset. Much of the rest of the Vitamin C gets left behind in the bloodstream from where it is excreted, leading to the “vitamins are just expensive urine” comment.