Skin Cancer – All you need to know

Posted on May 15, 2022May 15, 2022 by antonellovona

The article in one paragraph:

Skin cancer is one of the most common types of cancer that does not discriminate when it comes to age, gender, or skin type. Everyone can get it. Skin cancers are subdivided into two broad categories: Non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers.

There are multiple risk factors for skin cancers, with the most preventible one being exposure to Ultra-Violet Rays (UVR). They come in all shapes, colours and sizes and some are more aggressive than others. Early detection and diagnosis is crucial as some of them can be fatal for their potential to spread.

Article objectives:

Learn basic concepts about skin cancer;
Learn what to look out for when assessing a skin lesion;
Learn about what you can do to prevent skin cancer;

Questions answered in this article:

How do you get skin cancer?
What are the risk factors for skin cancer?
What can I do to prevent skin cancer?
How to know if a mole is cancerous?
Is skin cancer hereditary?
Can sunbeds cause skin cancer?
How to recognise skin cancer?
How to recognise melanoma?
Is melanoma deadly?

Lies and myths you keep telling yourself about skin cancer:

It’s just a mole!
It’s normal if it changes;
It’s normal if it crusts or bleeds;
Sunbeds are safe;
If I apply sunscreen it’s impossible to have skin cancer;

Disclaimer

All medical-related content and media on this website is created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.

Always seek the guidance of your doctor or other qualified health professional with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. Never disregard the advice of a medical professional, or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the nearest hospital emergency department, or call the emergency services immediately. If you choose to rely on any information provided by Antonello Vona, you do so solely at your own risk.

External (outbound) links to other websites or educational material (e.g. pdf’s, websites…) that are not explicitly created by Antonello Vona are followed at your own risk. Under no circumstances is Antonello Vona responsible for the claims of third party websites or educational providers.

Skin cancer can be very insidious since, in its early stages, it looks similar if not identical to an harmless mole (nevi). Moles change… that’s what they do. Up to the age of 40 years old new ones appear and existing ones tend to change. Since skin cancer can pose a real risk to health and life, it is crucial to be able to recognise and differentiate between a healthy, normal mole that it’s changing as per its physiological path, and a skin cancer.

Skin cancers are subdivided into two broad categories: Non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers. So, let’s dive into these two categories.

Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

Non melanoma skin cancer refers to all types of cancer affecting the skin that are not melanomas. Several skin cancers fall under this category, but in this article we will just focus on the two most common types: Basal Cell Carcinoma and Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of cancer in humans, which arises on sun-damaged skin. The good news about it is that it is a slow-growing tumour, metastases are rare and it’s rarely fatal. [1]

It can present itself as:

An open, non-healing sore – this is the most common warning sign of BCC. A persistent sore that oozes, bleeds, and crusts for weeks.
A pinkish growth – Growths often have an elevated and rounded border with an indentation in the centre.
Red patch or irritated area of skin – Sometimes patches can crust or itch and are located on the face, shoulders, chest, legs and arms.
A shiny nodule or bump – These are often pearly or translucent. Can be pink, red or white.
A scar-like patch – scar with undefined borders. They look white, pale and waxy.

Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common type of non-melanoma skin cancer. It occurs on sun exposed areas like face, head, ears and nose. If left untreated it can spread throughout the body and in extreme cases it can also be life-threatening. [2]

It can present itself as:

A persistent scaly patch – It is often red in colour with uneven borders. Often these patches will crust and bleed.
An elevated growth with central depression – These growths are raised with an indentation to the centre. They grow rapidly in size and can also bleed and crust.
Open sore – A sore that consistently crusts or bleeds and won’t heal over weeks.

Melanoma

Melanoma is no joke. In fact, it is the deadliest form of skin cancer. [3]. Survival rates are pretty high in its early stages as it can be successfully treated with surgery alone. However, survival rates can drastically drop once it metastasises. For this reason, early diagnosis and treatment are crucial for the best outcome. Melanoma has a sub-category known as Nodular Melanoma (NM), which behave and present themselves slightly differently than regular melanomas (read below in the section Nodular Melanoma to learn more).

What are the risk factors of melanoma?

The risk factors for melanoma re multi-factorial and shift between genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure.

Here’s a list of risk factors of melanoma [4]:

UV rays exposure;
History of sunburns;
Family history of skin cancer;
Personal history of melanoma or other skin cancers;
Fair skin, freckling and light hair;
Being male;
Xeroderma Pigmentosum;
Number of melanocytic nevi;

UV rays exposure

UV rays are an important, if not the most important, and modifiable environmental risk factor for developing malignant melanoma because of their genotoxic effect. [4].

Fun fact, the damage occurred as a consequence of uv exposure is cumulative and irreversible. It means that if you go out in the sun without SPF for one hour, the skin damage done in this one hour session will add up to the 30 minutes session you had yesterday, and to the 8 hours sunbathing session you had on holiday in Tenerife 3 years ago, and to the 2 hours session you had while you were learning to cycle in your childhood.

Studies concluded that intermittent sun exposure appears to be a major determinant of risk of melanoma [5].

History of sunburns

History of sunburns are associated with the highest risk of developing melanoma. [6] This may be due to the cumulative and irreversible sun damage caused by continues UV rays exposure, as discussed in the previous section.

Family history of skin cancer

Another strong risk factor for developing melanoma is a family history of melanoma. Studies have looked at the reasons as to why family history predisposes an individual to melanoma and they demonstrated the presence of a clear pattern of autosomal-dominant inheritance with multiple members affected in more than the first generation. [7].

The people who are mostly affected by melanoma that have an underlying genetic predisposition are usually young and up to 40 years old. [8].

Personal history of melanoma and other skin cancers

Previous melanomas, history of previous skin cancers or precursor lesions such as dysplastic skin nevi are all risk factors for developing melanoma. However, this category of risk factor seems to cause tumours that are superficially invasive and have a better prognosis. [8].

Fair skin, freckling and light hair

Red hair, fair skin, freckly skin, light eyes, inability to tan, and predisposition to burn all raise the risk of developing melanoma by approximately 50%; [9].

Being male

Studies show that males are approximately 1.5 times more lively to develop melanoma than female up to the age of 40 years old. After that, females seem to be more likely to develop melanoma than males. [10].

Xeroderma Pigmentosum

Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP) is a rare, inherited condition that affects skin cells’ ability to repair damage to their DNA. Therefore, skin cells will have a hard time repairing the DNA damaged by the UV rays. (XP reference)

Number of melanocytic nevi

A meta-analysis showed that patient with more than 100 nevi (moles) have a 7 fold increased risk of melanoma. (nevi). Also, the presence of atypical or dysplastic nevi are associated with an increased risk too.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of a melanoma is the result of a thorough medical history, which takes into account family medical history and sun exposure hygiene, and a physical examination with a magnification tool called Dermatoscope, which helps the clinical to appreciate the features of the mole in great details.

As a general screening tool, melanomas can be diagnosed with the simple mnemonic “A B C D E”.

A – (Asymmetry)

If you draw a line through the middle of the mole, the halves of a melanoma won’t match in size;

B – (Borders)

The borders of a melanoma tend to be irregular, crusty, uneven or notched.

C – (Color)

Healthy benign moles have an even homogenous colour. Watch out for discolouration that tend to the white or blue. That is bad.

D – (Diameter)

Melanomas can be larger than a pencil eraser (>5mm). Although they can also be smaller.

E – (Evolving)

When a mole changes in size, shape or colour or it begins to bleed or scab it is not a good sign.

Nodular Melanoma

Another category of melanoma is Nodular Melanoma (NM). They are the most aggressive type of melanoma. They can be a bit more tricky to detect as they do not follow the “ABCDE” screening rule and can look as benign lesions because they can appear more even in shape and colour. They are usually grey, blue, white, brown, tan, red or skin colour and often occurs in sun exposed areas. Because of its fast-growing nature in a downward direction, early detection is vital as it is usually invasive by the time of diagnosis.

How is Nodular Melanoma Diagnosed?

Nodular Melanoma do not follow the “ABCDE” screening tool like regular melanoma, but they can be detected with the “E F G” screening tool.

E – (Elevated)

Look out for an elevated bump that can vary in colour.

F – (Firm)

Nodular Melanoma are firm to touch and more even in shape.

G – (Growing)

Any lumps or bumps that is persistently growing.

How does the sun damage the skin?

This topic is discussed in depth here, where you can learn how ultraviolet rays (UVR) damage the skin leading to premature ageing and skin cancer.

Skin Cancer Prevention

Here’s what you can do to prevent skin cancer:

Speak to your GP or dermatologist about your concerns and get regularly checked;
Monitor any mole that looks suspicious by taking pictures every month with a measuring tape on the side – look out for any changes and promptly speak to your doctor if you notice any;
If you are concerned about a mole or skin lesion and cannot get an appointment with your GP or dermatologist, try online services like Skindoc. Answer to some questions and upload your pictures to get those skin lesions checked by a dermatologist. They will get in touch with your GP and will also provide professional advice and reassurance.
Apply sunscreen regularly. I cannot stress this point enough. Even on a cloudy day, even if you’re working in the office or at home and are close to a window, you need to apply it on regularly. To learn everything you need to know about sunscreens, go ahead and read this article.
Avoid sunbeds – yes! they may cause skin cancer.
Avoid sunbathing between 11am and 4pm.
Get educated and informed! This is a major issue. Lack of information will lead you to ignore that suspicious skin lesions because, after all, “it’s just a mole”, and will also keep you in the same, old, harmful habits that increase the risk of skin cancer.

References

[1]. Dai J, Lin K, Huang Y, Lu Y, Chen WQ, Zhang XR, He BS, Pan YQ, Wang SK, Fan WX. Identification of critically carcinogenesis-related genes in basal cell carcinoma. Onco Targets Ther. 2018;11:6957-6967

[2]. Weber P, Tschandl P, Sinz C, Kittler H. Dermatoscopy of Neoplastic Skin Lesions: Recent Advances, Updates, and Revisions. Curr Treat Options Oncol. 2018 Sep 20;19(11):56.

[3]. Lauren E. Davis, et al. Current State of melanoma diagnosis and treatment. 2019.Cancer Biol Ther. 2019;20(11):1366-1379. doi: 10.1080/15384047.2019.1640032. Epub 2019 Aug 1.

[4]. M. Rastrelli et al., Melanoma: Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Pathogenesis, Diagnosis and Classification. 2014. In Vivo, 28(6) 1005-1011;

[5]. Sera F, Gandini S, Cattaruzza MS, Pasquini P, Picconi O, Boyle P, Melchi CF: Meta-analysis of risk factors for cutaneous melanoma: II. Sun exposure. Eur J Cancer 41: 45-60, 2015.

[6]. Elwood JM, Jopson J: Melanoma and sun exposure: an overview of published studies. Int J Cancer 73: 198-203, 1997

[7]. Tsao H, Niendorf K: Genetic testing in hereditary melanoma. J Am Acad Dermatol 51: 803-808, 2004.

[8]. Veierød MB. et al.: A prospective study of pigmentation, sun exposure, and risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma in women. J Natl Cancer Inst 95: 1530-1538, 2003.

[9]. Friedman RJ, at al.: Early detection of malignant melanoma: the role of physician examination and self-examination of the skin. CA Cancer J Clin 35: 130-151, 1985.

[10]. Markovic SN, et al.: Melanoma Study Group of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center: Malignant melanoma in the 21st century, part 1: epidemiology, risk factors, screening, prevention, and diagnosis. Mayo Clin Proc 3: 364-380, 2007.

[11]. The American Cancer Society. Risk Factors for Melanoma Skin Cancer. 2019. Accessed on 14.05.2022. Available on: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/melanoma-skin-cancer/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html

[12]. Gandini S, et al.: Meta-analysis of risk factors for cutaneous melanoma: I. Common and atypical naevi. Eur J Cancer 41: 28-44, 2005.

Niacinamide – Worth The Hype?

Posted on January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by antonellovona

Niacinamide, also known as nicotinamide, is an essential nutrient belonging to the group B3 vitamin (niacin). It is often confused with its precursor nicotinic acid (or niacin), which is a low-cost, evidence-based oral treatment option for actinic keratosis, squamous cell carcinomas, basal cell carcinomas, and bullous pemphigoid (1). Niacin can be also transformed into niacinamide in our body.

Deficiency of vitamin B3 leads to a condition called Pellagra, a disease characterised by inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth (2). The treatment for this condition is… yep! You guessed it! Niacin or nicotinamide supplements. However, niacinamide is preferred over niacin as the former is way more tolerated, and the latter creates severe flushes and redness in the patient.

Despite the hype that it is receiving recently, Niacinamide is not new and it has been around in the medical field for a very long time. Specifically, it is particularly appreciated in the skincare industry for its proven anti-blemishes and rejuvenating effects, in fact, in multiple chronic clinical studies, topical niacinamide (vitamin B3) has been observed to be well tolerated by skin and to provide a broad array of improvements in the appearance of aging facial skin (eg, reduction in the appearance of hyperpigmentated spots and red blotchiness). (3)

Actions

Niacinamide increases the biosynthesis of ceramides, which are the main component of the stratum corneum of the epidermis layer of human skin, creating a water-impermeable, protective organ to prevent excessive water loss due to evaporation as well as a barrier against the entry of microorganisms. Given a sufficient bioavailability, niacinamide has antipruritic, antimicrobial, vasoactive, photo-protective, sebostatic and lightening effects depending on its concentration. (4).

Niacinamide In Topical Application

In simpler words, niacinamde plays an important role in preserving and restoring the protective layer of our skin that has the function of both preventing offending microorganism penetrating it, and preventing water-loss from the skin. As such it helps soothing itching, killing dangerous micro-organisms, fights acne, protects us from the sun, regulates the sebum production of our skin, treats and prevents skin cancer and it lightens discolourations caused by melasma and/or inflammation. For the desired results, the niacinamide strength that you want to use is 5%-10%.

Niacin In Food

Since niacin is an essential nutrient that our body needs in order to function properly, it is essential that we eat niacin-rich foods:

Liver, chicken breast, tuna, turkey, salmon, anchovies, pork, ground beef, peanuts, avocado, brown rice, whole meat, mushrooms, green peas, and potatoes.(5)(6)(7)

Conclusion

Yes! Niacinamide is indeed worth the hype. It’s benefits in skin care have been well proven and documented across the medical literature, and it’s commonly used to treat skin conditions such as acne, hyperpigmentation, skin cancer, eczema and psoriasis at a concentration of 5%-10%.

Disclaimer:

All medical-related content and media on the Antonello Vona Website is created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.

References:

1 Reed H., Aaron W., (2020). Nicotinamide: An Update and Review of Safety & Differences from Niacin. Skin Therapy Letter. STL Volume 25 Number 5.

2 Ngan, Vanessa (2003). “Pellagra”. DermNet New Zealand.

3 Donald L.B., et al. (2005). Niacinamide: A B vitamin that improves aging facial skin appearance. Dermatologic Surgery. Jul;31(7 Pt 2):860-5; discussion 865. doi: 10.1111/j.1524-4725.2005.31732.

4 Wohlrab J., Kreft D., (2014). Niacinamide – mechanisms of action and its topical use in dermatology. Skin pharmacology Physiology. 27(6):311-5. doi: 10.1159/000359974.

5 Jian R., et al. (2002). Nut and peanut butter consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in women. JAMA. 2002 Nov 27;288(20):2554-60. doi: 10.1001/jama.288.20.2554.

6 Joris P.J., Mensink R.P., (2016). Role of cisMonounsaturated Fatty Acids in the Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease. Current Artherosclerosis Report. 2016; 18: 38.

7 Kirkland J.B., Meyer-Ficca M., (2018). Advances in food and nutrition research. ;83:83-149. doi: 10.1016/bs.afnr.2017.11.003.

6 Reasons To Be Selfish

Posted on December 3, 2021December 3, 2021 by antonellovona

Being selfish has a bad reputation that is strictly associated to an excessive, self-centred attitude at the expenses of other people’s needs. After all, if we were to Google the word “selfish” this is what comes out:

Selfish

/ˈsɛlfɪʃ/

adjective

(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.

Whilst this is the most widely accepted and recognised form of selfishness, I think it is worth mentioning that there are two types of selfishness:

Bad Selfishness: That reflects the above definition;
Good Selfishness: Making yourself your first priority, but not necessarily at the expenses of other people’s needs nor it is a lack of consideration of other people.

In this article we will focus on the latter. So, here’s 6 reasons why you need to be selfish.

Put your own oxygen mask on first

Whenever you are flying on an airplane, during the safety instructions you will be told to put your own oxygen mask on first in case of a drop of pressure in the cabin.

This is because if you run out of oxygen first, you can’t help others with their oxygen mask.

This is a clear example of how it is extremely important to look after yourself first before you can look after other people, and this principle can be translated into everyday’s life too. How are you supposed to help others and take care of them if your energy and self-esteem are drained? In other words, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

You won’t live by the expectations of others

Being selfish means forcing yourself to reflect on your values, your priorities and identifying what makes you happy the most so you can live an happy life. This means to have integrity by living by your values and beliefs.

A lack of selfishness in these circumstances leads to a failure to identify your core values and setting your priorities straight, resulting in you having to live by someone else’s values and letting them take control over your priorities so that you have to live by their expectations. Some people will always prefer you to see you as the illusion they’ve created in their heads, rather than who you actually are. Don’t let their delusion disrupt your reality.

You’ll be more resilient

Resilience is the process of adapting to stressful situation or crises and recovering from them. A good example of resilience is the property of an elastic band to return to its original shape after being stretched.

Whenever life throws shit at you it is important to maintain your integrity and have self-control over that stressful event as this will allow you to carefully analyse the situation, process it in a healthy way and formulate an ‘exit plan’ to go back to normal. This is only possible when you process your feelings first and make sure you are in a good place before you start to take on other people’s problems.

You’ll improve your relationships

Whether it is friendship, love, family or even work, being a little bit selfish will improve these relationships as it enables you to trace some boundaries. It is fundamental to put yourself first in a relationship (to a certain degree), especially when you are dealing with obsessive and possessive people with whom you have some kind of relationship, who wants your full attention, tries to manipulate and brain wash you.

These kinds of toxic relationships can go as far as making you doubt about your self worth, your values and your desires.

So, be a bit selfish and enforce some boundaries. If something is affecting your well-being, it might be time to say goodbye.

Increases your self-worth

Another reason why it’s good to be selfish is that you get to live according to your values and gives you the opportunity to set a clear path to get to your goals. This will enable to discover why you matter and how worthy you are: worthy to have a better relationship, worthy to have a better job, worthy to love and be loved, but most of all worthy to be happy. It will help you make good decisions which are centred to you.

Once this becomes clear you will be able to easily identify all the things in your life that are simply not worth your attention.

Selfishness improves your mental health

When you add a little bit of selfishness in your life, you will become a better person as you will live by your own values, you hold yourself accountable for your decisions and emotions, you set clear boundaries with others so that don’t step in the way of your goals, you know how much you are worth and you become more aware that you deserve to be happy, and that happiness won’t come from anyone but yourself. This will greatly benefit your mental health and you will also be an inspiration for others, encouraging them to be a little bit selfish too, hence, helping them to take care of themselves.

Conclusion

Being selfish has a bad reputation, but the reality is that you can be a good selfish person. You can be that kind of selfish person that acknowledges that it is OK, if not fundamental, to consider and process your feelings and emotions first before helping others; it is OK to do what makes YOU happy; it is OK to quit a toxic environment that manipulates you for an advantage that is not yours; it is OK to say goodbye to people in your life that don’t respect you for who you are and what you are worth.

This is not a ticket to be on the extreme side of being selfish, but just an encouragement to be selflessly selfish.

Letter To A Little Goldfish

Posted on November 16, 2021November 16, 2021 by antonellovona

[Private & Confidential]

Dear Little Goldfish,

You might think that this letter is not for you and that you don’t know me. I need you to trust me on this and continue reading as you will soon realise that both your assumptions are wrong.

I know that you are both a day-dreamer and a highly pragmatic person, you are full of ambitions and dreams you keep wondering whether they will eventually come true or not. I also know that you feel different. You love to bits your origins, your family and your home but there is something inside you that just weighs you down, and you don’t know what it is. Let me tell you that I don’t have all of the answers, but I have some that clearly explain as to why you feel that way. The best part? I can’t spoiler them to you because I am afraid you might miss the point here, and you might not enjoy the journey that will give you all the answers to your questions.

I came across a really interesting fact recently, a fact that forced me to reflect and think about you. I also know for a fact that you often think about me, so here I am writing to you. Aren’t we so romantic? Anyway, the fun fact is this:

A goldfish will grow to a proportional size of their tank. This is because they secrete hormones such as aminobutyric acid and somatostatin, which act as a signal of how many other goldfish are in the tank and how much volume of water they occupy. In nature, this is a survival mechanism so that they all grow with a similar size and they don’t run out of resources. So essentially, if you put a goldfish in a small tank, it will stay relatively small; whereas, if you put it in a big tank, with the right conditions and care it will grow bigger to a proportional size of their tank. I know you love science, and you might not accept my words as an evidence for it, so you can find below some references.

I don’t know about you but this interesting fact reminded me of my little self as being a small goldfish forced to stay small in a narrow tank full of other little fishes. Do you know what is even more interesting? the fact that I didn’t realise I was in a small tank until I accidentally jumped in a bigger tank. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t fun and games! It was scary, challenging and nerve wracking trying to survive in a bigger tank with other fishes, but looking back I have soon realised that the jump made me stronger, bigger and more resilient. Since then, I have jumped in several other larger tanks, which challenged me even further and made me grow more and more. I sometimes try to go back to my original tiny tank, but the truth is that I don’t fit anymore and cannot survive in there.

Still think this letter is not for you? I know you are only small but I am sure you understand very well what I am talking about. The only thing I would like to tell is to DARE! Don’t get intimidated by other people’s perception of reality and don’t be daunted when you fail. There is only one way to succeed and get better, and it is through failure. So, look forward to fail as it is equal to say to look forward to learn, get better, grow and succeed. Yes, it will feel uncomfortable at first but it will help you grow and get you closer to your dreams.

Surround yourself with people who believe in your true potential and can support you throughout the process. The last thing you want is toxic people in your life trying to convince you that you are meant to stay small, just because they have never dared to jump into the bigger tank.

Dear little gold fish, I know you will soon realise that being alive is the greatest gift of all as you only get to live once, even though others might try to convince you that there is an “after-life”! So live your life to the fullest and play it with your rules. And most importantly: enjoy the process!

So, what are you waiting for? JUMP!

Love always,

The Big Goldfish.

Alcohol – All You Need To Know

Posted on November 15, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

Humans have a long and complicated relationship with alcohol. Whether it is part of a social moment, relaxing alone, as part of your meal, celebrating for a special achievements and occasion, alcohol is rarely missing and it is very sought after.

It is a psychoactive (mind-altering) substance with depressiveeffects (slows down heart rate, breathing, thoughts and actions). The common denominator of all the alcoholic beverages is a chemical component called ethylic alcohol or ethanol. This is the only type of alcohol we can ingest without being poisoned.

Ethanol is the bio-product of a process called alcoholic fermentation, a process that takes place when certain microorganisms called saccharomyces attack rotten fruits eating their sugar and releasing ethanol and CO2 as a waste product.

When we drink alcohol, it flows from your mouth to your stomach where 20% of it will be absorbed entering into your blood. The rest of it will be absorbed by your small intestine. Once into the blood stream the ethanol will make its way to the liver which will try to get rid of it. To do so, the liver needs to break the ethanol molecules down using an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, which will oxydise ethanol that will then turn into a highly toxic component called acetaldehyde. The latter will then be metabolized by the liver using an enzyme called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase.

If the liver is exposed to more alcohol than its enzymes can handle in order to metabolize it safely, molecules of ethanol and acetaldehyde will continue their journey in the blood stream circulating in your whole body.

Photo by Andrey Zvyagintsev / Unsplash

The first sign of alcoholic effect is an increased blood flow to the skin, that’s why highly vascularized areas of your body (such as the face) turn red, as well as feeling hot resulting in sweating and stinking of alcohol.

Another effect is the decreased release of the hormone vasopressin, which helps the kidney to regulate the amount of water in your body. This leads to a failure to absorb the amount of water that the kidney receive resulting in an increased urination and contributing to dehydration.

When the alcohol reaches the heart it expands and relaxes blood vessels (a phenomenon called vasodilation), resulting in a drop of blood pressure.

The heart will also pump the alcohol to your lungs, where it will be expelled from your body together with the CO2, giving that lovely, distinct, stinging and appealing smell to your breath.

But the real fun starts when alcohol reaches the brain. As for all the drugs (Yes! Alcohol is a drug), alcohol alters the normal functioning of the neurotransmitters in the brain and this leads to all the classic behaviors of a drunk person.

It increases the production of a neurotransmitter called GABA, which causes sleepiness, slow movements and thoughts, and delayed reaction times.

It decreases the production of the neurotransmitter Glutammate, which is responsible for disinhibition and the exaggerated emotional response. It also decreases our attention and compromises our memory.

It increases the production of Dopamine, which causes a sense of happiness and gratitude, as well as hyperactivity and euphoria.

When you wake up the following morning the real fun starts: headache, dry mouth, clumsiness, upset stomach, nausea, and most importantly a huge sense of regret.

The Hangover

Photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash

As mentioned before, alcohol diminishes the production of vasopressin, which leads to dehydration. When our body is dehydrated, it tries to take water from whatever source possible, and one of the places where your body will source water is your brain. This leads the brain to shrink in size, creating a lot of tension between the membranes that line your brain and keep them attached to the skull (meninges). The dehydration is also made worse by vomiting, which is extremely common when people go way over the limits.

Also, alcohol il extremely aggressive for you stomach inner lining (mucosa) and can cause irritation. The following morning it is very possible that you wake up with an upset stomach, heartburn, andstomach pain. The intoxicating effects of the acetaldehyde will cause the sense of nausea.

The only remedy out there that is 100% effective against hungover is: TIME. There tons of fake remedies out there that will try to sell the best solution for an hangover: coffee, cold shower, eating, going for a walk, and God knows what else. They certainly help, but the truth is that there is no scientifically proven method that is valid against the hangover. All you can do is to take care of the symptoms: pain killers for headaches, plenty of water, eat something nutritive and not too demanding for your stomach.

The organ that is damaged the most for alcohol is your liver, and this damages can lead to conditions such as hepatic cirrhosis, cancer, or hepatitis. Cancer can also arise in the digestive tract as a result of alcohol consumption.

In the heart, it increases the chances of having hypertension, strokes and heart attack. It also affects the reproductive system with decreased sex drive, infertility and erectile dysfunctions (in men).

Alcohol can lead to addiction too, and it can give rise to mental health problems such as depression, psychosis, and eating disorders.

Can It Be Good For Your Health?

Photo by Kelsey Knight / Unsplash – Red Wine

Red wine, when consumed in moderation, is actually thought to be good for your heart and health in general. This is due to polyphenols, antioxidants present in red wine, specifically Resveratrol, an antioxidant which might help to prevent damage to blood vessels, reduce low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol and prevents blood clots.

The reason why Resveratrol is more present in red wine is because this antioxidant comes from the skin of grapes used to make wine, and red wine is fermented with grape skin longer than white wine, hence red wine contains more Resveratrol.

The scientific consensus on this is quite mixed and more research is needed to prove or disprove the positive effects of Resveratrol.

How Long Does it Take To Metabolize Alcohol

Photo by Ryan Parker / Unsplash

Your body generally takes one hour to process one standard drink, or more conveniently one unit, which equals to 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol.

In the table below you can find some references on what 1 standard drink can be equal to.

N. Of Standard Drink	Drink	oz/ounces	ml	% of Alcohol
1	Beer	12oz	340	5
1	Wine	5oz	147	12
1	Liquor	1.5 ounces	42	40

Units

It can be hard to keep track of the alcohol ingested, especially because it comes in different glasses and different servings. A simple way to measure alcohol is through units, which is usually expressed by the standard measure of alcohol by volume (ABV). It indicates the amount of pure alcohol as a percentage of the total volume of liquid in a drink.

It is simple to work out how many units of alcohol are there in a drink. You simply have to multiply the total volume of a drink (in ml) by its ABV (in %) and dividing the result by 1000.

               Strength (ABV) x volume (ml) / 1000 = units

For example, if I want to find out how many units of alcohol are contained in my small glass of red wine, knowing that it has a strength of 12% and I am drinking 140ml:

                    12 (%) x 140 (ml) / 1000 = 1.68 units

For How Long Alcohol Is Detectable In Your Body?

Photo by Hush Naidoo / Unsplash

Alcohol stays in your body longer than you think. You can find below how long alcohol can be detectable for with these different tests.

Type of test	Time After Consumption Alcohol is Detected
Urine Test	14-48hr
Breath Test	24hr
Hair Test	90 days

How much alcohol consumption is considered a safe limit?

According to the NHS, to keep health risks from alcohol to a low level if you drink most weeks, men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.

Parkinson’s Law

Posted on November 15, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

Parkinson’s law is one of those things that you have been applying over and over again in your life without knowing that it had a fancy name.

Before I go into its nitty gritty, I like to start with some real-life examples.

So, story time: a few years ago I was studying at Uni and it was that dreadful moment when students have to do their dissertation. It is everything but unexpected, in fact it is one of those things that you know is approaching and you tend to prepare or think about it well in advance, even before it is formally communicated that you need to start preparing one. At first the deadline seems to be so far away and you think that it is more than enough to complete it, even though you are aware that there is a lot of work to be done.

Weeks and months, precisely six months, went by and I have gradually got to a fairly satisfying point with it after what I thought it was a lot of work and effort been put into it.

Ten days prior to the submission deadline, my laptop decided to instantly die and that event announced the beginning of a period that could probably justify my receding hairline and my myopia. Long story short: I had no back-up of my work (smart as*); I had to send the laptop off to repair that would have taken up to one month to get it back; asked for an extension of the deadline but the mitigating circumstances form to do that did not have the relevant box to tick saying “due to my dumbas* skills of ruining six months worth of work” – the other available options were “illness”, or “death of a close relative”, both unjustifiable and unethical in my case; I did not want to accept a lower mark for a late submission.

After a quick realization that I had just put myself in a ridiculous situation, I needed to think of a plan straightaway! A late submission was not an option and I was actually wasting more time complaining and self-pitying than taking actions. So I went to the University library and started writing my dissertation again on the public computer. You can only imagine what an emotional trauma it was when opening Microsoft Word and start typing on a blank page is. The first thing I did though is to go on Apple.com and purchased a MacBook Pro with all the best parameters that I could select as well as buying a 1T external memory. That was expensive!! But it also gave me the possibility to work from home. At that point I only had one week to finish my dissertation. I set all the non-important stuff apart and concentrated all my energies in it.

Well, spoiler alert: I just made it in time. And I was very surprised to find out that it received a top mark with a great feedback.

This left me with a double feeling: a boost of self-esteem and being proud of myself for being so productive and disciplined to complete this task in time, and the realization that I had wrongly spent the time I allocated to complete that task with less relevant and time-consuming activities.

This is an extreme example, but I can talk about hundreds of other instances where setting up a deadline for a task led to its completion within that time. And I am sure you can think about some examples too.

Well, this is Parkinson’s law, which states that

A given task will swell to fill the time allocated to it.

It simply means that if you give yourself a month to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that month. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.

So, for example, if you decide that you have to moan the loan (usually a one-hour job) within the next 3 days, chances are that you will spend the first two days procrastinating, leaving the task on the last available day, or even on the last available hour.

Likewise, if you give yourself one week to write a blog post with the publishing day being on Monday, chances are that you haven’t done anything the whole week, it is Sunday night and you are sat on the sofa writing it – just like me now.

Parkinson’s law helps you manage your time more efficiently in order to be more productive and it will work if there is a perceived importance assigned to that task.

When reading “Mastery” by Robert Greene, I came across an interesting concept when he said :

Edison deliberately talked to the press about an idea before it was ready. This would create some publicity and excitement in the public. If he dropped the ball or let too much time pass, his reputation would suffer. So his mind would spark into high gear and make it happen.

Parkinson’s law might be seen as procrastination, and you might think “Can’t be bothered with this task now, Parkinson’s Law will save my as* as always.” Instead, it has to be seen as a powerful time-management tool to be totally focused in what you do.

So, here are my top 7 tips to implement Parkinson’s Law at your advantage effectively:

Always assign a deadline

Having a list of things to tick off on your list is good, but if you want to take your productivity habit to the next level, start to assign a deadline to each task. Also, sort them by their importance, with the most important ones being on top of the list and the least important being placed at the bottom.

Challenge your time limits

If you know that with no distractions you can clean your house in three hours, try to narrow this deadline down to two hours or less. Try to train your brain to function within clear and set deadline. If you assign a three hours space to clean your house your brain will automatically spread the tasks evenly to fill these three hours, like wise when you shrink it down to two hours the brain will apply the same mechanism.

Be realistic

By now you might think that Parkinson’s Law is pure magic, and that you can be more productive than you have every been my completing 100 tasks a day assigning 5 minutes to each of them.

The truth is that you still have to be realistic when assigning a task. You can’t build a skyscraper in one day, nor cooking Lasagna in 5 minutes. The more you consciously apply Parkinson’s Law, the more you become aware of the realistic time that certain tasks will take, and this will help you to budget your time more efficiently and realistically in the future.

Make it measurable

How do you know when something is done and can be ticked off your list? Well, it is difficult to tell if the task is too vague. For example, if there is a huge difference between “work on web development” and “work on the responsiveness of the website”. The former one is too vague and it is difficult to tell when I would be done with it; the latter instead, allows me to tick the task off once I know that I have made the website responsive and it also helps me to assign a more realistic time frame to it.

What’s next?

Don’t fall into this trap. Once you reach the last task on your list, always set a task to do next.

Even though you have set your last task to take ten minutes, it is very likely that one hour goes by and you still haven’t finished the last task. This is because your brain starts to think that there is nothing else coming next, and that the last task, as simple as it can be, it has no time limit.

Break down big tasks.

If you are at Uni and you are assigned a coursework to be delivered in three months, try to break down this big task in multiple little tasks and assign a deadline to each of them.

So, instead of having “Finish your coursework” on your list with the deadline being in three months, try to write down:

“Research Topic and write down resources – Deadline 3 days”

“Write Introduction Draft- Deadline: 1 Week”

“Write Main Body Draft – Deadline – 3 weeks”

And you can even break it down even further, so for example “write 300 words of the body – Deadline: 30 minutes”.

This will make sure you will be always on it, working with manageable bite sizes mini tasks.

Short time is not equal to less quality.

Sometimes we wrongly think that the shorter the time we have to complete a task the lesser the quality will be. We think that the longer it takes to complete something the more perfect the end result will be. This is not true because if we have more time than we actually need, we will probably fill that extra time with non-related activities, unnecessary anxiety, and unnecessary extra effort.

Tim Ferris in his book “the 4-hour work week” states:

The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to a greater focus.

Vitamin D – All You Need To Know

Posted on May 16, 2021November 16, 2021 by antonellovona

Vitamin D (also referred to as “calciferol“) is a nutrient you need for good health. It is one of the four fat soluble vitamins (Vitamin A, D, E, and K), which are nutrients absorbed along with fats in the diet, and stored in the body’s fatty tissue and in the liver.

Vitamin D is necessary for the absorption of minerals (calcium, magnesium and phosphate), and it is also important for many other biological functions.

Apart from being present in a few foods and being available as a dietary supplement, Vitamin D is also produced endogenously when ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight strike the skin triggering vitamin D synthesis. The two most important forms of vitamin D in humans are vitamin D3 (also known as colecalciferol) and D2 (also known as ergacalciferol). However, the form of vitamin D obtained from foods, supplements and sun exposure is pretty much useless in its actual form, as it is inert and must undergo an activation process that will turn the inactive form of calciferol in its active hormonal form called calcitriol.

Disclaimer:

Photo by Lidya Nada / Unsplash

Why is vitamin D important?

Once activated, the vitamin D (calcitriol) circulates in the bloodstream as a hormone, playing a crucial role in homeostasis, calcium and phosphate metabolism, bone health, regulation of the immune system to fight off invading bacteria and viruses, neuromuscular functions, and reduction of inflammation.

To date, researches have shown that vitamin D can have a lot of health benefits. Studies have found links between low blood levels of vitamin D and increased risk of depression, multiple sclerosis, and osteoporosis. The latter happens when long-term shortages of vitamin D and calcium cause your bones to become fragile and break more easily.

Levels of vitamin D in the blood

To know whether you are getting enough vitamin D you need to have a blood test to measure a form of vitamin D known as 25-hydroxyvitamin D. This is measured in either nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) or nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). One nmol/L is the same as 0.4 ng/mL.

Levels below 30 nmol/L (12 ng/mL) are too low and can be classified as a deficiency.

Levels of 50 nmol/L (20 ng/mL) or above are considered as being normal for most people.

Levels of 125 nmol/L (50 ng/mL) are too high and can be considered as being too high and hence they are toxic.

Not everybody is the same, and some people are more likely to struggle to get enough vitamin D. These include:

Older adults;
People who never go out in the sun;
People with dark skin;
People with conditions that limit fat absorption, such as Crohn’s disease, celiac disease and ulcerative colitis;
Obese people or people who have undergone gastric bypass surgery;
Pregnant women;
Menopausal women;
Breastfed infants;

Photo by Hush Naidoo / Unsplash

What are consequences of too little vitamin D?

Too little vitamin D can lead to a bunch of health problems, these include:

Serum reduction of calcium and phosphorus;
Secondary hyperparathyroidism;
Inappropriate mineralization of the bones (leading to rickets in children, and osteomalacia in adults);
Muscular weakness;
Abdominal pain;

What are consequences of too much vitamin D?

As anything in life, all the excesses can have a negative impact, and getting too much vitamin D is no exception to this rule, and it can be harmful.

Vitamin D blood levels (greater than 375 nmol/L or 150 ng/mL) can cause nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness, confusion, loss of appetite, weight loss and anorexia, hypercalcaemia (increased levels of calcium in the blood) and hypercalciuria (increased level of calcium in the urines), pain, soft tissue calcification, dehydration, kidney stone, and excessive urination and thirst. This can lead to kidney failure, irregular heartbeat, and even death!

You cannot get too much Vitamin D from sunlight because your skin limits the amount of Vitamin D it takes.

Photo by Micheile Henderson / Unsplash

What are the sources of vitamin D?

As mentioned above, vitamin D is found in supplements and a few foods. These include:

Fatty fish (mackerel, tuna, trout and salmon) and fish liver oils are the best source natural source of vitamin D;
Beef liver, cheese, and egg yolks – provide small amounts of vitamin D;
Mushrooms – minimal amounts of vitamin D;

In young and healthy adults, ten minutes of daily sun exposure is enough to get the amount of vitamin D that you need on a daily basis.

How much is the recommended dose of vitamin D?

The amount of vitamin D that you need daily depends on many factors (age, underlying medical conditions, etc.).

In the table below you can find the daily recommended amounts of vitamin D according to the age range. These are expressed in mg (micrograms) and IU (International Units).

1 UI = 0.025µg of calciferol

1µg of calciferol = 40 UI of vitamin D.

0 – 1 year = 10 µg (400 IU)
1 -70 years = 15 µg (600 IU)
71+ years = 20 µg (800 IU)
Pregnant and breastfeeling teens and women = 15 µg (600 IU)

Can vitamin D interfere with other medications?

Vitamin D can indeed interact with some medications:

Steroids such as prednisone – can lower your blood levels of vitamin D;
Orlistat is a weight loss medication – It can reduce the amount of calciferol your body absorbs from food and supplements;
Cholesterol-lowering statins such as atorvastatin, simvastatin etc., might not work as well if you take a high dose of vitamin D supplements.
Thiazide diuretics could raise your blood calcium level too high if you take vitamin D supplements.

Take-home points

Vitamin D (calciferol) is an important nutrient that we need in order to have a good bone health, metabolism, immune system and overall health;
Vitamin D can be found in certain foods, supplements and it is also produced by the body when the ultraviolet rays strike the skin;
Optimum levels of vitamin D vary between different age groups and its absorption can be affected by many factors;
Low levels and high levels of vitamin D can cause serious health problems;
In normal circumstances, you can get your optimal amount of vitamin D with 10 minutes daily sun exposure.

7 Tips To Be More Productive

Posted on March 15, 2021November 16, 2021 by antonellovona

Being productive is a skill that requires a lot of experimenting and practicing. It is about demolishing your bad habits that make you waste a lot of time and energy, as well as fine tuning the ones that make you prone to be more efficient with less time and energy.

Over the years I have always tried to experiment habits that would help me to be more productive, as most of the times I was finding myself with an endless list of things to do, but at the end of the day very few of them were completed.

These are my top 7 proven tips that I have tested over the years in order to be more productive.

Be Productive, Not Busy.

The number one point I want to get across is a reformulation of your vocabulary. I fall into this trap very often and it took me a while to actually realize that most of the times I was busy but not productive at all. This is because I used to be very disorganized, jumping from one task to the other without completing it, not concentrating on the major tasks I had to complete first.

Being productive means to be smartly busy, this leads to more fulfilment and having more tasks done.

Make A Sensible List

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash

Making a list is crucial when it comes to be more productive. Try to generate a list of clear and specific tasks to get them done.

One of the fundamental skills of productivity is time-management. This means that every task needs to have a specific time-to-complete attribute, as we will discuss later on in this article. So, be as specific as you can, otherwise it is difficult to tell if you have actually completed the task and it will also be challenging to allocate a specific time to it.

For example, if I were to write down “Work on new project”, you can tell that it is highly generic and vague, making it extremely difficult to allocate a time-to-complete attribute to it. This will mess up all the other tasks and the prioritization process too. Instead, try to reformulate it to a much simpler sub-task, like “Write down proposal” or “Set objectives of the project”. Likewise, the generic task of “Sort Out Life Admin” can be reformulated as “organize receipts for tax return” or similar related tasks.

Keep your list nice and short, it should not have more than two major tasks and no more than 5 total tasks in it. If you finish your list before you can always add tasks in there, but the more there are the more overwhelming it gets.

Parkinson’s Law

Photo by Aron Visuals / Unsplash

Parkinson’s law states that a given task takes the time that you allocate to it. I am not going into great details on how it works and how to use it in this article. If you are interested to read more about it, you can find the detailed article here.

Long story short, assign the time that you think it will take you in order to complete that task. Try to challenge this time, make it shorter. You will be amazed on what your brain can achieve under strict deadlines.

Prioritize

Now that you have generated a list and you know approximately how much time you need for each task, it is now time to prioritize the tasks listed in it. My personal trick is to set a quick and easy task at the very top. Usually it is a task that doesn’t usually take more than 5-8 minutes to complete and it can be something like “Reply to Dr X about patient Y” or “Update calendar with confirmed meetings”. This will give me the chance to quickly tick something off my list and it will fuel my brain with motivation for having already completed a task. Also, it will give you the chance to switch to “work mode”.

After your “warm-up” task, place one of the major tasks after that. Ideally try to cram the major tasks before your lunch break placing the ones that require more time to complete on the top of the list and the ones that require less time to complete at the bottom.

Learn To Rest

Photo by Elizabeth Tsung / Unsplash

It is a very common misconception that productive people do not rest and that they work with no break all they long. It is actually counterproductive and shifts the equation from productive to just busy.

Take short, regular coffee/walk breaks in between tasks, this will help to reset the brain and get ready for the next task.

2 Minutes Rule

Some tasks take more time than others, and you might be tempted to write them all down, regardless of how much time they will take. As I have said above, you ideally want to aim for a short and concise list without flooding it with non-related, easy tasks that take up too much space.

Try to allocate a slot of 20 minutes for all the tasks that take 2 minutes or less in order to complete them, like washing your cup of coffee, or brushing your teeth, or tidy up your desk.

In other scenarios and if you are not working with a list, try to complete there and then those small tasks that take 2 minutes or less, instead of procrastinating.

Work Smart

Photo by Austin Distel / Unsplash

Productivity is all about working smart and optimization, and this also mean foreseeing and avoiding repetitive, and time consuming activities.

The first example that comes into my mind is when writing/replying to emails. Email conversation can be quite time-consuming, especially when your first email is not self-explanatory and does not have an algorithm with a clear plan of action. Let’s consider these scenarios when writing an email for a business meeting.

Scenario 1

Me: Dear X, can we please have a catch-up meeting? When would that best suits you? Kind Regards, A.

X: Dear A, thank you for your email. Sounds good, should we do this week? Kind Regards, X.

Me: Dear X, thank you for you reply. Sure. I am free Wednesday afternoon? Would that suits you? Kind Regards. A

X: Dear A, Wednesday afternoon I am free from 5-7. Kind Regards X.

Me: Dear X, I have another personal meeting around that time, could we do earlier? Kind Regards, A.

X: Hey A, how about 13:00? Kind Regards, A.

Me: Could we make 14:00 just to be sure I can make it on time? KR A.

X: In that case it is better if we move it to Thursday, would 14:00 be OK? X.

Me: On Thursday I can only do 10 am. Would that work. A.

X: 10 am it is. Should I prepare any particular document? X.

Me: If you could present spreadsheet Z would be great, as we need to discuss XYZ. A

X: All set. Will see you there. A.

This conversation would actually take at least 20 to 30 minutes, which is way too time consuming and there is a better way to to that. See Scenario 2.

Scenario 2

Me: Dear X, hope this email finds you well. I was wondering if we could have a 20 minutes catch-up meeting to discuss XYZ. To do that I need you to have spreadsheet Z ready.

If you want to have the meeting this week I am available at the following times: Wednesday at 14:00, Thursday at 7:30 or 10:00. If those times are not suitable for you next week I am available on Monday at 13:00 and Friday at 20:00. If those times are still not good for you, please get in touch with co-worker P (CCed in this email) and arrange a meeting with him, he will then write and forward to me a summary of the meeting with the outcomes.

Let me know if any of those times are good, if not get in touch directly with co-worker P.

Kind Regards

As you can see this is clear, concise, self-explanatory, with a clear algorithm of steps to follow and it only takes 2 minutes to write. This principle can be applied to pretty much every aspects of your life, and it is a huge time saver.

Positive Thinking & Law Of Attraction

Posted on February 15, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

Being positive is not about sugar coating the sour events that happen in our lives, being overly optimistic and thinking to achieve the unreachable, giving a pretty pathetic version of ourselves. Instead, it is about believing in yourself and in your skills, it is about accepting failures and do better next time, it is about being resilient and overcome difficulties with a calm and proactive state of mind.

I think that positive thinking goes hand in hand with the attraction law. The attraction law states you will likely attract to you whatever you will put your energy and time on.

Essentially what happens to you is the result of what you actively think about during the day. If you think positively, than you will attract positive things in your life; if you practice negative thinking, then you’ll get crap.

There are many philosophical and psychological theories that widely accept the power of positive thinking and how this influence the law of attraction.

Paulo Coelho in his book “The Alchemist” describes the positive thinking and the law of attraction as a “mysterious force”:

“It’s a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. […] The Soul of the World is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation. All things are one. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Hence, if we focus on positive thoughts and emotions, we will likely attract people and things that make us happy. Likewise, if we think negatively and put ourselves down we will attract negativity and misery in our life, setting us apart from what we truly want.

This is also highlighted in the buddhism, which states that every thing is subject to change, and that we are part of an eternal flow of energy, and as such we can decide at what frequency we can vibrate so that we can attract to us things that vibrate with our same frequency.

When we have a positive attitude we start to focus on what really matters in order to make our goal happen. At this point our brain acts as a filter, ignoring all the superfluous and unnecessary thoughts that would held us back from our goals. When we think positively we are able to pick up opportunities that present to us in very subtle ways, sometimes under the form of a person you know, under the form of a person you don’t know, an event, a meeting, an advertisement online, or a dream.

On the other hand, when we have negative thoughts we are soaked in a sense of self pity and we tend to concentrate on all the negative emotions that will only set us apart from our goal. Also, it doesn’t let us have an open mind to pick us favorable opportunities that may present to us in less obvious ways as described above.

Get Your Sh*t Together And Make It Happen

I can think of a plethora of examples in my life where positivity led to joy and happiness, and negativity led to misery and disappointment.

Of course thinking positive helps you to achieve your goals, but it is not the only factor. You also need to work for it! It is pretty useless to have positive thoughts but sitting on the sofa sipping your coffee and watching Netflix waiting for something amazing to happen in your life. You have to work for it! A positive mindset helps you to make the whole journey much easier, helping you to have your eyes fixed on your goal.

When I was younger I used to be religious, shifting from catholic to evangelist, but always believing in God and thinking that I was part of a plan and a bigger picture. I am not going into the nitty gritty about how I have realized that I was atheist the whole time, I will probably leave this story for another article. I used to work hard, and I was also pretty successful too. It was like I could achieve anything I wanted because I was asking for help in my prayers: admission to the music conservatoire? Bang, Pass!; finding seasonal jobs that could fund my summer trips abroad to learn English? Yes, here you have it!, my admission to medical school in Italy? Poof, admitted! Mind you, I wasn’t just praying and expecting Jesus to knock at my door giving me what I have asked him for, instead I worked my a*s off too: practicing endless hours playing piano, helping my brother out in the construction industry for paid, seasonal work, practicing admission tests over and over again. OK, that was easy as it was something partially within my control. However, believing in something really helped me in things that were out of my control: cancer diagnosis, deaths, and earthquakes that knocked our roof down. Even though in those circumstances I had all the reasons to be down, negative, sad and angry, these emotions lasted a very briefly because I knew that someone else (God) was already taking care of these things, and that something good was about to happen.

Today I don’t believe in God anymore, and looking back I am nothing but thankful to have believed in it because it has been a good way to get in the habit of being positive: believe that it will happen and work hard for it. It is extremely comforting to think that things will eventually work out the way you want because you believe that they will.

The Problem Is The Solution

In Italy we say

“Not all bad things come to hurt you“.

Negative things can and will happen, and this is not because you haven’t believed in yourself hard enough. Sometimes the problem is the solution! Can you think of any example when things didn’t work out the way you wanted and eventually (months or years later) realized that it was actually a good thing for you? Or when they didn’t happen when you were hoping for, and started to meet new people or developed new skills and more resilience that made it happen? I can think of at least a dozen of examples.

Sometimes life turns its back on you because this is its own way to help you.

Why is it difficult to think positive?

We as human beings have a predisposition towards negative thoughts. By default we are programmed to see the glass half-empty and this is something that we have been carrying ever since we were apes and it was once related to our survival instinct: running away from a branch on the ground that looked like a snake, and the avoidance of dark environment to avoid predators we could not see clearly – just to mention a few. Although many centuries have gone by and our ape brain has developed (hopefully) this predisposition towards negative thinking stayed with us, so we are more prone to give more attention to dark emotions like anger, sadness, disappointment, and jealousy than to bright emotions like happiness, joy, and thankfulness.

Dark emotions and negative thoughts stay with us far longer than positive thoughts or events. Just to put thing into perspective, consider the following examples:

Your boss just gave you a promotion, you start to feel happy, kind, proud – time to celebrate! But chances are that tomorrow you will feel as though nothing ever happened; Now consider the opposite, your boss made you redundant, you start to feel sad, angry, disappointed, been let down, do you think that tomorrow you will feel as though nothing ever happened? I don’t think so! It’s highly likely that you will feel the same dark emotions even though you are starting a new job and you will look at the company that made you redundant with a sour taste in your mouth, overriding the memory of joy and happiness you had when you received the promotion.

The negatives stay with us far longer than the positives do. More amazingly, it seems like we can easily switch from good to bad, but we can hardly switch from bad to good. There is an interesting research done in social psychology that took two groups of participants who were talked through a surgical procedure they had to do. Group 1 was told that the surgery had a 70% success rate, and Group 2 was told that the same procedure had 30% of failure. At this point Group 1 was happy to go for the procedure, and Group 2 declined.

But here’s the twist: participants in Group 1 were told that the procedure had a 30% chance of failure, and Group 2 were told that it would have a 70% rate of success. Whilst participants in Group 2 sticked with their original opinion (declining the operation), Group 1 changed their idea and decided to opt out.

Another theory of why we are more prone to think negatively is because there is always a sense of self pity associated with it. We like others to feel sorry for us and we also like to feel sorry for ourselves. We like to be heard, understood, and acknowledged that we are going through a (sometimes self-induced) tough time.

How to start thinking positively

Thinking positively is a habit, and as such it needs practice… a lot of practice since we have to overcome out primitive negative instinct. If you naturally have a negative attitude, don’t expect to become a positive and resilient person out of the blue. It needs patience, practice and… positivity.

Study show that simply writing a list of things that you are grateful for everyday drags you out of the negativity.

Try to train your mind to see the glass half full, and extrapolate the positives out of a negative outcome (there are always some positives!).

Also, surround yourself with positive people that can inspire and encourage you to be the best version of yourself. Negative people are well known to suck the energy out of you, and those are the ones that have a problem to every solution. Politely trace a line between you and them and learn to be immune to their negative aura and their stubbornness of not wanting to change.

Be kind! Remember, you harvest what you sow. If you practice hate, and jealousy it will hit you back in life in one way or the other. If you learn to be kind, gentle, and helpful then your hart will be filled with positive emotions and you will receive nothing else but good outcomes.

Caffeine & Productivity

Posted on January 30, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

C8H10N4O2 , or also known as caffeine, is a bitter, white crystalline purine, a methylxanthine alkaloid, and is chemically related to the adenine and guanine bases of our double-stranded genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and single-stranded genetic material ribonucleic acid (RNA).

OK, enough with the biochemical mouthfuls needed for proper introduction. Now let’s talk about some interesting staff.

Caffeine is psychoactive drug that stimulates the Central Nervous System (CNS). In fact, it is the most common psychoactive drug consumed in the world as it is legal and unregulated, unlike other psychoactive substances. It is found in the seeds, leaves, or nuts of a number of plants native to Africa, South America and East Asia, but the well known source of caffeine is in the coffee bean, seed of Coffea plant.

It has a number of uses in the medical world to help treat and prevent a number of medical conditions, but we all know it for its energy boost that it gives us when we drink beverages containing it.

Fun Legend

Legend has it that, in the 19th century, a goat herder called Kaldi found out that his goats were hyperactive and behaving weirdly after eating some berries from a tree. Kaldi was eager to find out what was making his goats so energetic, and he decided to eat some of those berries. His heart started to beat faster, he felt more energized and he could not sleep at night. He then decided to tell the abbot of the local monastery about this, and the abbot came up with an idea: drying and boiling the berries to make a beverage. He soon found out that drinking that beverage kept him and his monks awake, and this was particularly useful when they had to pray at night. Those berries are what today we know as coffee beans.

How Does it Work

The longer we are awake the more a substance called “Adenosine” accumulates in our brain. Adenosine is the waste product of the breakdown of the energy molecules called ATP (Adenosine-Tri-Phosphate).

Adenosine then binds to the adenosine receptors and slows down our brain activity. This will make us feel more tired as we go through the day as more adenosine will accumulate the longer we stay awake.

Caffeine shares a similar molecular structure with adenosine, and this will help caffeine fit perfectly in the adenosine receptor, hence preventing the adenosine to slow down brain activity. It also prevents the reabsorption of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, and this makes you feel happy. This is probably why coffee can be so addictive, just like cocaine (but to a lesser degree).

Caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline, which plays an important role in the fight or flight response. This will result in an increased heart rate, boost in energy, as well as opening up your airways, dilating your blood vessels, increasing your blood pressure.

The more you are exposed to caffeine the more adenosine receptors your body will create over time, meaning that you will need more caffeine to have the same results. Likewise, if you would abstain from caffeine for a few weeks, the adenosine receptors in excess will disappear.

The Timeline

Once ingested, 99% of the caffeine will be absorbed in your small intestine within 45 minutes entering your blood stream. Peak plasma concentration is reached within 1-2 hours.

In medicine we use the term “half-life” to indicate the time that the body takes to reduce by half the amount of an ingested drug. In case of caffeine, its half-life is approximately 5 hours – so, if you were to ingest 150mg of caffeine, it would take 5 hours for your body to eliminate 75mg of caffeine, and after 5 hours it will eliminate 50% of 75mg, which is 37.5mg, and so on and so forth.

Know the difference

For those of you looking to cut down or cut off their caffeine intake, it is very convenient to go for decaffeinated drinks thinking that they contain no caffeine at all, right? Wrong. Decaffeination process removes around 97% of the caffeine leaving that 3% the chance to still take an effect on your body. This is not really convenient if, like me, you like an after-dinner coffee, and you go for the decaf thinking that it has no caffeine to keep you awake. So, we blame our partner snoring like a tractor if we can’t fall asleep. Whenever you see on the label “decaf“, remember that it still contains caffeine and it carries its potential to knock out the adenosine molecules in your brain If you want to be certain that it does not contain caffeine, then you have to look for “caffeine-free” on the label of the beverage.

Can a caffeine overdose kill you?

Theoretically, the lethal dose of caffeine is 150mg/kg, which means that for an individual weighing 80kg it would take 12000mg of caffeine to kill him/her. A cup of coffee contains approximately 150mg of caffeine, which means that someone would have to drink at least 80 cups of coffee all at once for it to be lethal. It is impossible, because the stomach does not have the capacity to contain 80 cups of coffee, and you would experience delirium and hallucination way before it can kill you. So, the short answer to this question is: No!

Side-Effects of Caffeine

Consuming caffeine within moderate and recommended ranges is good for your productivity and general health. However, as per any other drug, excessive consumption can lead to some side effects:

Insomnia: One of the main reasons of taking caffeine is because it helps us to stay awake and alert when we need to be productive and focused. But too much caffeine can lead to insomnia, which is difficulty in getting enough restorative sleep. This can result in an increased time to fall asleep, disturbed sleep, and either waking up early angry and sleepy, or waking up late angry and sleepy.

Anxiety: The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) includes caffeine-induced anxiety as one of the four caffeine-induced syndromes. In fact, continuous and elevated doses of caffeine can make you feel nervous or jittery and it can well lead to anxiety.

Digestive problems: Some people find their morning coffee a blessing because of its indirect effect to promote bowel movement. This laxative effect might be due to the release of the hormone “gastrin”, which is secreted by the stomach to speed up activity in the colon. High doses of caffeine though can lead to an excessive peristalsis (the bowel motion that permits the ingested food to move along the digestive tract), that could result in loose stools or diarrhea. Also, it can worsen a condition called gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). It is also important to know that drinking caffeine on a empty stomach is a bad idea as it stimulates the acid productions (which are usually used to digest food) which are too aggressive for the gastric mucosa (internal lining of the stomach).

Addiction: As stated before, caffeine prevents the reabsorption of dopamine, which makes you feel happy – this also happens with cocaine and amphetamines too. This is why caffeine can cause a degree of psychological and physical addiction, but not like the other recreational drugs do.

Hypertension: Albeit temporary, caffeine does have an effect on blood pressure due to its effects on the nervous system. This results in a temporary rise of the blood pressure, which is not really ideal in people who suffer from high blood pressure, and are at risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Tachycardia: One of the many effects of caffeine is to make your heart beat faster. Again, in high doses this can lead to a condition called tachycardia and, as a study shows, it is linked to atrial fibrillation in young individual consuming energy drinks with high doses of caffeine. This effect does not occur in everyone, some people can be exposed to high doses of caffeine with no effect on the heart.

Fatigue: This is quite a paradox since we use caffeine to beat fatigue and boost our energy. However, excessive doses of caffeine can create a rebound fatigue effect that can make you feel more tired than usual the following day.

How to use caffeine to boost productivity

Caffeine can be a great friend when you need a boost of energy to be productive during the day. However, if you don’t know what you are doing and plan your caffeine consumption wrongly, it can be your worst enemy at night, preventing your sleep and affecting your productivity the following day.

So, my advice is: be strategic and do your math.

Try to delay your first caffeinated drink first thing in the morning. High cortisol levels and a good night sleep should make caffein obsolete as soon as you wake up, even though you feel like no one should dare to talk to you before you have finished your coffee. Instead, start your day with a full glass of water to re-hydrate yourself, as well as eating a well-balanced breakfast to start activating your metabolism, this already will give you enough energy to cope with people.

Try not to have high doses of caffeine past 3pm. Remember, your body will get rid of half of the amount ingested in 5 hours, and the last thing you want to happen is caffeine to interfere with the quality of your sleep. You can always choose decaffeinated or small doses of caffeine to maintain the levels of alertness, in this case green tea is a great option. Three cups of green tea replaces one cup of coffee in terms of quantity of caffeine.

You also need to identify when you need to be productive the most. I know that after lunch my energy levels drop drastically and I crave for a nap, but at the same time lunch time is a peak-time for my full-time job and I need all my energies and focus to in order to function. For this reason I try to have a cup of coffee between 11:00am and 1:00pm to keep my energy levels and productivity up for the rest of the afternoon.

How much caffeine is considered “moderate”?

If you made it to this point you have come across some statements like “moderate consumption of caffeine is good for you”, or “moderate consumption of caffeine is not associated with side effects”, and you might righteously starts to wonder “what the heck is moderate?”, “how much is it?”.

Well, the Food and Drug Administrator (FDA), the European Food Safety Authority, and Health Canada reached the unanimous consensus that 400mg/day of caffeine is considered as a moderate consumption, which is not associated with side effects in healthy adults. You can get this amount of caffeine with 4 cups of coffee.

Caffeine containing drinks

Here is a list of some drinks and their caffeine value. The first value in round brackets indicates the serving size, the second value in square brackets indicates the amount of caffeine expressed in mg.

                                            For example: Caffeinated products (ml) [mg]

Starbucks Coffee, Blonde Roast – Grande (470) [360]

Americano – Grande (470) [225]

Mocha – Grande (470) [175]

Espresso (25) [75]

Chai Latte – Grande (470) [95]

Green Tea (236) [35]

Herbal Tea (236) [0]

Pepsi Zero Sugar (590) [115]

Diet Coke (590) [76]

Red Bull (236) [80]

Conclusion

As for everything in life, moderation is the key, and caffeine consumption is not an exception to it. Know how to use it and it can be your greatest friend to help you out, abuse it and it will be your greatest enemy.

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