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Air Pollution Impairs Your Mind

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On June 7th, 2023, New Yorkers woke up to an unfamiliar scene: an orange-colored sky above New York City’s skyscrapers. New York Times reported that this was the historically worst air pollution in NYC. Other parts of the United States are experiencing similar air pollution due to the forest fires in Canada. Today, we will explore how exposure to air pollution could affect our cognitive health.

What is the Cause of Air Pollution?

The current air pollution was caused by forest fires in British Columbia and Alberta in the west side of Canada and Quebec on the east side of Canada, moving south towards the United States. Half of the forest fires are caused by humans, while the other half are ignited by lightning strikes. According to the Wall Street Journal, May of 2023 was the hottest May in British Columbia and Alberta.

Other types of air pollution include smog (a form of air pollution when combusted fossil fuels react with sunlight), pollen/mold (exposed within a residential apartment/house), and asbestos.

What Is In the Air Pollution?

Such wild forest fires produce gaseous pollutants (such as carbon monoxide), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) (such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]), water vapor, and particle pollution. Particle pollution is a term used to describe a mixture of solid and liquid droplets suspended in the air.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, particles in particle pollution can be made up of different elements, such as biological materials (e.g., pollen and mold spores), acids (e.g., sulfuric acid), inorganic compounds (e.g., ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, and sodium chloride), organic chemicals, soot, and metals.

You will often see in news articles notations such as PM10 or PM2.5. PM10 means particulate matter 10 micrometers or less in diameter, PM2.5 is particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. PM2.5 is generally described as fine particles. AQI is another acronym that is often used to indicate air pollution level. AQI stands for Air Quality Index. It was a range of values. For example, good air quality AQI ranges from 0 to 50, moderate air quality ranges between 51 and 100, and unhealthy for sensitive groups ranges between 101 and 150. There are more ranges with higher AQI values.

What are the Effects of Air Pollution on Cognitive Health?

A 2014 study conducted by Columbia University researchers showed that when pregnant mothers are exposured to PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons), the likelihood of the child developing Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder increased. A 2022 study in China showed similar results. Other types of disorders due to prenatal exposures to air pollution include lower birth weight, smaller brain size, autism spectrum disorder, and lower IQ score.

For older adults, exposure to air pollution may lead to cognitive decline, neurodegenerative diseases, and osteoporosis. Following about 4000 people from 1978 to 2018, a 2021 study found that higher 10-year average exposure to air pollution increases the risk of all types of dementia. Another study published in 2020 followed about 60 million people from 2000 to 2016 and found increased likelihood of having a Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease among those who had a higher exposure to air pollution. A 2023 study found that postmenstrual women who were exposed to air pollution were more likely to have osteoporosis.

A 2020 study cites multiple studies to explain why air pollution might be associated with cognitive decline. The authors explain that proteins such as Tau and beta-amyloid deposits in the brain, which have been found to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases, are also linked to hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. Cardiovascular diseases, in turn, are associated with stroke and cerebrovascular diseases. The author suggests that air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and ozone may cause inflammation in the brain and cause cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases. A 2014 study showed an association between exposure to nitrogen oxide and cognitive impairment among older adults in Los Angeles, California.

Exposure to air pollution may vary depending on the neighborhood socioeconomic status. A 2022 study that followed 12,000 participants for more than 50 years showed that living in a lower neighborhood socioeconomic status could increase the likelihood of cognitive impairment. A 2022 study with Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study between 2011 and 2015 found small effect of air pollution on cognitive decline.

If you would like to learn more about the effects of air pollution on your health, please feel free to visit the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’s web page.

What Can We Do to Prevent/Mitigate Exposure to Air Pollution?

In order to check the air quality in your area, you can utilize tools like the EPA’s air pollution monitor, AirNow. You can stay indoors, where the central air system has a higher quality air filters such as High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter.

  • Use electrostatic air cleaner: it works with static electricity to charge particles inside the air purifier, which can attract those charged particles to the sides of the internal filtration system and remove from the air.
  • Use portable filter-based air cleaners: these air cleaners can remove bacteria, viruses, and air pollutants. New York Times has a great list of air cleaner recommendations.
  • Avoid outdoors activities: in order to reduce the chance of inhaling air pollutants, avoid rigorous outdoors activities such as running and biking. Also, try to avoid traffic, which may have higher concentration of air pollutants.
  • Wear KN/N95 masks: wearing masks can reduce air pollutant inhalation like carbon monoxide.

A 2020 study showed that consuming omega-3-rich foods can have protective effect against brain shrinkage among older women.

Summary

We looked into what are components of air pollution. We then explored what could be health effects of inhaling air pollutants. Although it is unfortunate that there is limited activities we can do to immediately reduce the air pollution, we can take steps to prevent deteriorative health effects. If you have health concerns, please contant your physicians for concrete evidence and detail of your care.

Disclaimer: This web post is for information purposes. If you have medical needs, please contact your primary care physician

Benefits of Walking

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During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, most of us would admit to gaining a pound or two because of staying at home and restrictions on going to the gym. But did you realize that just taking a walk around your neighborhood can have a beneficial effect on your health? This post will describe the health effects of simple walking.

  1. What is Walking?
  2. How Do You Walk?
  3. What are the Benefits of Walking?
  4. Summary

What is Walking?

Walking is a type of cardiovascular activity that increases blood flow and reduces blood pressure. With increased blood flow, oxygen and hormones like endorphins can circulate throughout the body.

Walking is different from standing still. A 2020 study comparing quasi-static standing and walking found that while standing increases the likelihood of lower leg swelling and muscle fatigue, walking did not.

Walking is different from running. A 2006 study investigating the physiological and kinematic difference between the two forms of location found the key difference is that of the timing of each phase of locomotion.

The appropriate walking pace is a metabolic equivalent (MET) of 3.0 – 6.0, or 2.5 – 4.2 mph.

How Do You Walk?

Before the walk: before you set out to walk, a few steps of preparation can make your walk more enjoyable.

  1. Plan your route. Before you head out, planning ahead of time where you want to visit will make your walk more rewarding. If you want to walk without a plan, remember that disappointments are part of the process! Keep walking, and you will find the enjoyable journey of walking. Also, make sure that the neighborhood is safe. If you have a reward at the end of your trip, such as ice cream at the end of the walk, it will make your journey more rewarding! Sidewalks are generally recommended; if there is a school, a public park, or even a shopping mall nearby, give them a try!
  2. Protect yourself. Make sure to wear sunscreen and sunglasses if it is hot outside. Bringing a small backpack to pack your sanitary items and water bottle can be helpful!
  3. Wear your gear. Wear comfortable shoes wear. If it is hot outside, wearing shoes has a soft cushion and ventilation can be helpful! If it is cold outside, make sure to wear something that will help you prevent from slipping. Wear a smartwatch that can track your walk progress if you’d like.
  4. Stretch. Before you head out, stretching can help you prevent injuries such as falls and slipping.

During the walk: Mayo Clinic outlines simple tips on how to walk effectively:

  1. Keep your head up. Look forward, not towards the ground.
  2. Keep your neck, shoulders, and back relaxed, not stiff.
  3. Tighten your stomach muscle slightly to keep your back straight.
  4. Start each step rolling from hill to toe.

After the walk, rehydrate or have a light snack, such as a banana, to refuel. Write about any thoughts that you had during your walk.

What are the Benefits of Walking?

Improving Cognitive Level & Mood

Walking, in general, is more beneficial than not walking. However, walking outdoors is recommended compared to walking indoors. An ECG study conducted in 2018 showed that walking outdoors instead of indoors has a higher likelihood and more extended period of “meditative state.” In 2020, another study compared physical exercise with walking in nature and found that walking in nature lowered cortisol (stress hormone) levels and improved mood.

Preventative Effect

Studies have found protective effects of walking by reducing the risk of diabetes, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. The 2018 Physical Activity Guideline for Americans recommends walking at least 150-300 minutes(2.5h-5h)/week. Walking can help improve body weight, teeth cavities, and diabetes by lowering cravings for sweet things like chocolate. It can even influence the gene expressions related to obesity to reduce the likelihood of obesity, according to a 2006 study. American Cancer Society found that women who walked> 7 hours per week had a 14% lower risk of breast cancer than those who walked < 3 hours per week. Another study showed that those who walked 20 minutes daily for at least 5 days a week had 43% lower sick days.

Summary

Walking is a simple activity that many people can engage in. There are a few steps that you can take to make this experience more efficient and pleasurable. It is one of the examples where you can find significant health effects with gradual effort. Try taking a walk today!

Disclaimer: This web post is for information purposes. If you have medical needs, please contact your primary care physician.

Types of Meditation

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You may have heard about the benefits of meditation. But what exactly is a meditation and where does it come from? In this post, we will explore types of meditation and their roots.

  1. Meditation Type – Format
  2. Meditation Type – How To
  3. Meditation Type – Origin
  4. Summary

Meditation Type – Format

There are two large types of meditation: guided vs. unguided meditations. It is recommended that beginners try guided meditation with an experienced teacher that can be trusted. Meditation can be done 1:1 or in a group.

  • Guided meditation: a teacher guides you through the basic steps of the practice
  • Unguided meditation: meditate alone, without someone else explaining the process, paying attention to the body and thoughts for a set period.

Meditation Type – How To

For non-religious purpose, there are common meditation techniques you can use.

  • Focused breathing:
    1. Close your eyes and keep your spine straight
    2. Notice the inhalation and exhalation of your breath
    3. Pay attention to the end of each breath
    4. Count 1 to 10, inhaling at odd numbers, exhaling at even numbers
    5. If your mind wanders com back to observing breath
  • Box breathing: helps with mind and body relaxation in stressful times
    1. inhale for 4 seconds
    2. hold breath for 4 seconds
    3. exhale for 4 seconds
    4. hold breath for 4 seconds
    5. repeat 12-15 times
  • Body scan: helps with syncing mind and body by performing a mental scan from top of the head to the end of the toes. Bringing attention to any sensations, tensions, aches, or discomforts as they are.
  • Noting: during breathing technique or visualization technique, you can “note” your distraction. Labeling the distraction as a thought or emotion can help restore awareness, and helps you letting go of distractions.
  • Visualization: this technique can help you maintain a certain type of emotion such as warmth and kindness. An example involves mentally visualizing a bright warm light at a certain body point and spreading the feeling throughout the body.
  • Loving kindness: is used to strengthen feeling of kidness, compassion, and acceptance. Kindness is wishing good things to happen to the person. It starts first with self and the spreading the loving kindness to others. It involves visualizing a person and mentally visualizing a warm and good emotion.
  • Compassion: similar to kindness, compassion is hoping bad things will not happen to the person. It involves focosing on the person and paying attention to the sesations that arises.
  • Reflection: this technique involves asking questions using the second person perspective such as “what are you most grateful for?” and reflecting on the question while paying attention to the feelings that arise in response to the question.

Meditation Type – Origin

Although most people will recognize what meditation involves – closing eyes and sitting still – there is no concrete definition of what “meditation” is. There is an ongoing debate within the scientific community on the definition of meditation. The roots of meditative practices can be traced back to religious origins.

  • Buddhist traditional meditations: Buddhists have diverse meditative practices varying by each school for their goal of awakening and nirvana. Their main practices focused on body contemplations and mindful breathing. Some of the main/popular Buddhist school of meditation are as following:
    • Theravāda tradition: focuses on Vipassana and Samantha techniques (later explained)
    • Tibetan tradition: focuses on visualization techniques
    • Sarvastivada-tradition: turns the attention away from the objects of experience to the nature of mind. Zen-tradition meditation draws from Sarvastivada-tradition meditation.
  • Secular meditation practices often use the following two types of Buddhist meditation (Theravāda tradition):
    • Vipassana (insightful) meditation: this type of meditation aims to develop wisdom and compassion. It involves focusing on the breath and awareness of all the physical and mental sensations that arise.
    • Samantha (calming) meditation: this type of meditation aims to create a quieter and more peaceful state of mind. Calming meditation involves focusing on the breath, a mantra, a visualization, a physical object, or a sensation in the body and returning to this sensation when the mind starts to wander.
  • Hinduism traditional meditation: Hinduism meditation also has many schools. Studies on various types of yoga meditation such as Ananda Marga yoga, Tantric yoga, and Kundalini yoga have been shown physiological effects on relaxations. Chakra meditation, which focuses on seven points of center of energy, also draws from hinduism and Buddhism tradition.
  • Tao traditional meditation: includes qiqong meditation, a Chinese meditation that involves harnessing energy in the body to either send the energy inward for self healing or outward to help heal another person.
  • Christian (Contemplative Prayer): One of the Christian prayers includes Roman Catholic church’s rosary prayer.
  • Judaism (kabbalistic practice): kabbalah is a range of Jewish mystical activity to gain a deeper religious understanding
  • Islam (Sufi dhikr) traditional meditation: dhikr is incorporated as a formal technique that also seeks to gain a focused attention for deeper religious undertsanding.
  • Transcendental meditation: was founded by Maharishi Mahesh in 1950s. It is taught one-on-one by instructors trained and licensed by Maharishi foundation. It involves twice a day 20 minute meditation.

Summary

We explored the traditional roots and types of meditations. While this is not an exhaustive list of meditation descriptions, we hope that this post has helped understand and explore where meditation practices come from, and which meditation type to choose for your needs! We also encourage double-checking our sources!

Disclaimer: This web post is for information purposes. If you have medical needs, please contact your primary care physicia

Shyness: What We Can Do About It

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Socialization plays an important role in maintaining physical health as well as mental health. However, socialization can be challenging for some people who have particular difficulty with meeting new people. In this post, we will discuss what shyness is, what we can do to overcome shyness, and what are benefits to overcoming shyness.

  1. What Is Shyness?
  2. Where Does Shyness Come From?
  3. What Can We Do About Shyness?
  4. Summary

What Is Shyness?

Shyness is defined as a predisposition to be concerned about others’ social evaluation. This predisposition leads to being sensitive to rejection, avoiding any potential for criticism, and keeping a low profile from initiating actions that may call attention to themselves.

Shyness differs from social anxiety disorder and social anxiety by the intensity of stress one gets in a social situation. Social anxiety disorder is a mental health condition involving persistent fear of rejection and criticism from others in its most intense form. Social anxiety has less to the extent intensity but more than regular shyness.

Where Does Shyness Come From?

While some shy individuals may attribute their shyness to their natural predisposition, it may stem from a social environment. For example, living in a strict environment for orderliness and enforcing vertical relationships may lead to shaming those who do not follow conventional mannerisms, make mistakes, or defy orders from superiors. Or, an individual simply may not have had the opportunity to learn social skills because of their busy academic or career life.

Whether shyness comes from an innate tendency or is learned from the environment is unclear. Jerome Kagan, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, found that the tendency for shyness is an inherited biological trait that can be detected in infants at 4 months of age. Some argue both genetic inheritance and learning from the environment play partial roles.

Carl Jung, a founding figure of analytical psychology, is attributed to defining introversion and extroversion, characteristics incorporated in a widely popular metric called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator created by Isabel Briggs Myers. The description of introversion and extroversion has helped create a perception that both are healthy variations of personality styles.

What Can We Do About Shyness?

Even though being shy is nothing to be shy about, you may be interested in overcoming shyness. There are a few easy steps that you can take to face your shyness.

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy. A study on group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBGT) has shown short-to-medium-term efficacy for social anxiety disorder (SAD), anxiety, and depression. A study on internet-based CBT programs to address shyness program has shown to be cost-effective.
  • Reduce alcohol intake. Some individuals may try to mask their shyness with the help of alcohol intoxication. However, a study has shown that individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD) have a higher tendency to be shy during hangovers, which may lead to more alcohol use.
  • Reduce adolescent caffeine consumption. A study has shown that caffeine consumption during adolescence increases the expression of mRNA in the amygdala, which may increase the likelihood of anxiety-related disorders through dysregulation of the neuroendocrine stress response system.
  • Try a healthy diet. According to a systematic review study, there are benefits to taking probiotics for anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and memory disorders.

Summary

While it is okay to be shy, there are multiple ways that you can overcome your shyness. It takes an incremental effort to change, but little by bit, you can explore more social relationships and have higher self-confidence in interpersonal relationships by taking these measures.

This post was inspired by Health Life Guru and Health Tips Now. Please check them out!

Disclaimer: This web post is for information purposes. If you have medical needs, please contact your primary care physician.

Symphony

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blinded by vast horizon full of minuscule particles

lying beneath abysmally dark night sky,

I close my eyes and feel for the passing breeze,

carrying a scent, a dream-like hint, slipping into my eyes,

closed yet listening, tracing threads, weaving

a multivariate symphony of breaths,

humming and purring comfortably into the mystery.

9.24.2020

Reminiscence 1

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it was the first snow.
no, it was lumps of molten snow
falling from the grey sky
through the Uber ride, there were no words
just a long glance through a foggy window
arrived at an old French town
toured around like black crows
in vintage shops and bakeries barely warm
and tried a fancy magician’s hat
but no trick — or was there a trick then? —
tucked under an brown brick jewelry store
a petit château — gaslight restaurant opened
— and greeted cold and shriveled souls
I don’t remember what went through my guts;
it was a blur; all the dancing lights
and the smiles — yes, there were smiles
and I felt — or I thought — a little warmth
in the cold darkness.
The one that would, in the end, shine very, very brightly.

9.5.2022

Looking ahead

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I hope to keep my eyes towards a brighter future
keeping my head above the busy water
taking one step at a time progressively
making sure things are done the right way

I hope to bring goodness to the world
of course there will be obstacles
and it appears to be the general rule
plans often don’t work out its way

but I’d be happy to see a quiet sunset
from a hill where I’d see a better world
if I lay in shadows, not seeing before it rises
I hope to be content knowing we gave it all.

진인사 대천명이라고
좋은 세상이 만들어지기 위해
일하고 있다는걸 잊지 않았으면 한다.
물론 진화론적인면도 고려해야하지만.

8.26.2022

Embrace

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can’t we embrace it all
the joy, pain, and tears;
slowly grooving,
humming,
loving all of each step
towards the final doorstep
falling melodically to embrace
this journey’s majestic grace

조금씩, 이 여정의
아주 작으마한 부분까지도
우린 사랑할 수 있을까

8.16.2022