My Learning Notes
Home Index Posts Categories Tags About
My Learning Notes

Paolo's learning notes

About Telomeres

 published on  included in Health

Definition

The telomere is a part of a chromosome and in particular the part that is at the end of a chromosome. Telomere.png

Characteristics

Some characteristics of the telomeres are:

  • they protect the end region of the chromosome from degradation and from mistake during the DNA repair process.
  • they shorten at each cells division.
  • thanks to the activity of an enzyme called telomerase that has the function to create and replace telomeres, they lengthen.
  • they can help to understand how quickly a cells age and die based on how quickly they shorten.

In the book The Telomere Effect is reported that the length of the telomeres and how quickly they shorten are indicators of the health of a person. Others articles suggest that these correlations are not clear.

Read More
 Health

What is a chromosome

 published on  included in Health

The chromosome is a structure that is formed, after the duplication of a cell, to be transmitted to the daughter cells. It contains the genic information that have to be transmitted to the daughter cells.

Related Questions:

Related Topics:

References

Read More
 Health

What are the main principles about happiness

 published on  included in Happiness

Happiness is a complex concepts and there are various elements that contribute and influence happiness. However if I should say what are the main principles about happiness, they would be:

  • Reduce the impact of negative thoughts:
    • focusing on what we are feeling in the present moment with our senses and letting go all the thoughts.
    • learning how to react to thoughts in a way that allow us to behave coherently to our values.
    • acknowledging that thoughts are not necessarily true.
  • Find your values and needs and act coherently to satisfy them.
  • Be self-compassionate
  • Develop good relationships with the people that are important in your life.
  • Be healthy
  • Think about your life with gratitude considering what you have instead what you do not have.

Related Questions:

Related Topics:

References

Read More
 Happiness

What are the most useful techniques to improve happiness

 published on  included in Happiness
When… then…
you are experiencing negative thoughts, stress and anxiety - use cognitive defusion techniques like I notice I’m having a thought (see Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
- practice mindfulness
- use reasoning and rationality to see if the negative thoughts are likely or not.
you are setting a goal Break goals in smaller and more achievable goals and accept the errors
you do not know how to behave review your values and goals and find what behaviour is aligned with your values.
you are having a pain or a tension in some part of your body due to a negative thought use expansion exercise (see Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
you are experiencing resistance to change - find your limiting and inaccurate beliefs and try to change them (see Beliefs)
- practice little continuous changes
you are failing to reach your goals - practice self compassion
- reduce the friction that are impeding to reach your goals (see Environment (Behaviour context))
- acquire new competences
- improve your problem solving skills
you are feeling you are not satisfying your needs or you behaved in a wrong way - find your needs analysing your behaviour and your emotions
- define more effective behaviours and habits to satisfying your needs.
- balance your hedonistic needs with your eudaimonic needs
you are criticising too much yourself practice self compassion
you do not what to do in life find your values and define habits and projects that contribute to satisfy them.
you do not feel healthy change your habits to live a healthier lifestyle and in particular:
- do physical exercise
- sleep at least 7 hours per night
- maintain a healthy diet.
you feel unhappy - show gratitude to what you have
- savoring experiences you live

Related Questions:

Related Topics:

References

Read More
 Happiness

Why pursuing happiness

 published on  included in Happiness

Why pursuing happiness

Because when we experience happiness, we feel good. Moreover what are the alternatives?

  • Not acting or doing nothing. It is like to be dead. We have all the time to be dead during the lifetime of the universe. During our relatively short lifespan compared to the lifespan of the universe, it is better to try something different than to act as if we were dead.
  • Simply acting without considering if what we do bring us happiness or not. In this case, sometimes we may feel good and sometimes not. Isn’t it better to actively search for activities that are likely to bring us happiness? Moreover as suggested by Alex Lickerman in the article Why We Must Actively Pursue Happiness if we don’t make happiness our explicit goal, why would we ever ask ourselves which activities we should choose? Why would we ever wonder if one path might be better than another, and therefore choose it?

Why not

Some articles and researches however suggest that it is better not:

Read More
 Happiness