Hasta La Gadget!

By Men’s Journal

Whether it’s learning when to drink coffee, getting more sun or eating smaller meals, these nine tricks will help you make your sleep more efficient, effective and work harder for you during the daylight hours.

Have A Daily Bedtime
Pick a time to go to bed you can stick with on a consistent basis. Allow yourself 15 minutes to actually fall asleep and set your alarm for a time that gives you an amount as close as possible to your new prescribed quota and that will still coincide with the end of a full 90-minute sleep cycle (e.g., if you need seven hours of sleep and go to bed at 11:30, set the alarm for 7:15 a.m., for five complete cycles.)

Stop Sleeping In

Don’t sleep in if you can help it. Almost more than actual sleep, your body craves consistency and not being woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle. If you’re up late, set your alarm for your usual time and try to get as many uninterrupted cycles as possible; try to take a nap the afternoon before or after.

Embrace The Sun
In the morning, spend 10 minutes in direct sunlight to start your internal clock on schedule. This is key for setting a sleep schedule and, studies have shown, may help with sports performance, weight loss, and even cancer prevention.

Eat Smaller Meals

If you’re feeling fatigued during the day, consider eating smaller meals. Digestion is the top drain on energy, and nutritionists commonly report that grazers tend to have more energy.

Drink Coffee
If you’re tired after your morning routine, drink coffee. It’s the preferred alertness aid for presidents and generals, has a longer safety record than drugs like Provigil and numerous proven health benefits.

Exercise

A University of Washington study found that people who ran or walked at least 40 minutes three times a week experienced longer periods of deep sleep. And don’t worry about when you exercise: Another study from Arizona State University found that there was zero difference in sleep quality between people who worked out within four hours of going to bed and those who vegged out on the couch all evening.

Take A Power Nap
To take a classic 10-minute power nap, Kirsty Kerin, a sleep researcher with Circadian Technologies, suggests: Find a cool, dark place that has white noise, like a fan or computer hum. Set an alarm clock for 15 minutes later. Take deep, slow breaths and let your mind wander. If you don’t fall asleep within five minutes, you probably don’t need the nap.

Have a routine, like taking off your shoes and turning off the ringer on your phone, that you do every time before you nap. And remember, some researchers say napping is addictive, so you may not want to do this every day –- unless, like Churchill, you can plan your cabinet meetings around your naps.

Take A 90-Minute Nap

According to a recent Harvard study, a 90-minute nap can produce as much improvement in memory and learning as a full night’s sleep. Even very brief naps can be effective. (Just don’t wake up after 20 minutes and before 90, or you’ll be interrupting deep sleep.)

Embrace Darkness
This one’s simple: Keep your bedroom dark, quiet and cool, and try not to do anything else there but sleep and have sex.

More from Men’s Journal:
5 Ways to Get the Best Sleep
10 Products to Help You Sleep Better
9 Ways Lack of Sleep is Killing You

As a nutritionist, I counsel many clients who know what foods to eat to lose weight and be healthy. However, even the most educated of consumers may have trouble determining how much to eat of these foods. It is possible that eating too many of even the right foods can prevent you from losing weight. Hence, the need for a reality check and tips for portion control!

Here are five foods that are easy to overeat along with my suggestions.

1. Ready-to-eat cereal.

We know to stay away from sugar-sweetened cereals and choose a cereal where the first ingredient is a whole grain. However, pouring your healthy whole grain cereal into an oversize bowl can often spell disaster. It is a bigger problem for dense cereals like granola. In fact, it is easy to consume several hundred calories of granola in one sitting without realizing it.

As I discuss in my book The Portion Teller Plan, I advise clients watching their weight to eat approximately one ounce of ready-to-eat cereal. A one ounce serving of cereal can range in volume from ¼ cup of granola to approximately 1 cup cereal flakes to 2 cups puffed wheat.

My tip: It is important to read the food label and measure out the volume of cereal you plan to eat before pouring it in your bowl.

2. Nuts

Nuts are healthy. They contain healthy fats and also help us to feel full. However, it is easy to eat too many nuts. Especially if you are eating them straight from an oversize jar or at a bar when having a drink with a friend.

The recommended serving of nuts to eat is 1 ounce. That translates into a handful (a golf ball’s worth) or the amount that can fit into an Altoids tin.

My tip: When home, I suggest portioning out several servings worth and placing them in baggies to avoid over-nutting.

3. Olive oil.

We hear that a green salad drizzled in olive oil is healthy. This is true. After all, greens are super nutritious and olive oil contains monounsaturated heart healthy fat. But… olive oil still contains calories, at least 100 calorie per tablespoon.

The recommended serving of olive oil or an olive oil based salad dressing is 1-2 tablespoons, an amount that will fill a shot glass. When eating out, we are often served a salad with at least 4 tablespoons of salad dressing!

My tip: Next time you order a salad out, ask for the dressing on the side.

4. Hummus

Hummus, or chick pea dip, is a super healthy snack. Hummus contains protein and healthy fats. Fresh veggies dipped in hummus makes for a great snack. However, it is easy to overdo it, especially if you buy the jumbo tubs of hummus or if you are nibbling at a cocktail party.

I suggest eating approximately 2 tablespoons worth of hummus as a snack. This looks like a walnut in a shell.

My tip: Add baby carrots, celery, and red pepper for crunch, volume, and a boost of nutrients.

5. Fresh squeezed orange juice

I’ve written previously I suggest swapping a glass of juice for an orange. You will gain fiber and the mere fact that you are chewing your food helps you consume fewer calories. but fresh squeezed OJ can be healthy. However, it is easy to guzzle down a pint’s worth in the blink of an eye. Especially since it is hard to buy a smaller size.

The suggested serving size for juice is 4-6 ounces. That is approximately half a glass worth.

My tip: Next time you buy a pint of fresh squeezed juice, share it three ways or save the rest for another day.

For most smartphone users, one’s life is funneled through their handset in some manner, whether through searches or messages or other activities. In the grander scheme of things, the device also gathers behavioral data, including things like one’s call record and location. Using this information, startup Ginger.io envisions identifying mental illnesses and their related symptoms when they arise. Ginger.io’s idea … Continue reading

WASHINGTON — This year, for the first time since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling unleashed the unlimited-money super PAC, the majority of Senate races feature super PACs that focus on just one candidate.

These personalized super PACs had entered the presidential contest in a big way in 2012, as groups emerged to back President Barack Obama, GOP nominee Mitt Romney and practically every other Republican candidate running in the primaries. The groups also appeared in some Senate and House races that year — but it was nothing like their prevalence today.

The personalized super PAC has become the hot new weapon in 2014’s heavily contested Senate races and crucial in some House primary contests. With four months to go until the election, the amount of money raised by these groups is already closing in on the total they spent in the 2012 congressional races.

By the end of June, single-candidate super PACs had raised $35.6 million or slightly less than the $40 million such groups raised for all congressional races in 2012, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records by The Huffington Post. Twenty-two of the 36 Senate contests — which include both seats in Oklahoma and South Carolina — feature at least one single-candidate super PAC. Overall, there are 41 in play at the Senate level.

“It just shows you how quickly and dynamically things are changing,” said Daniel Tokaji, an election law professor at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and co-author of a recent report on super PACs and other independent political groups. “Evolution isn’t the right word for it. We’ve seen massive shifts.”

Back in 2011, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer issued a warning over the presidential-wannabe super PACs. “If these candidate super PACs are not shut down quickly, they will also spread like wildfire to Congress and come into routine use by senators and representatives and their political associates,” he said. The dean of campaign finance reformers was on target.

These groups are now fully deployed in every real Senate battle. They have been a little slower to spread to the lower chamber: In the 16 House contests featuring single-candidate super PACs, all but two of those groups have been entirely focused on a primary election.

Who fills for these war chests? Donors range from family and friends of the favored candidate, to loyal party contributors, local businesses and even ultimately undisclosed sources.

In some cases, these single-candidate super PACs, which are directing their efforts to one state, nonetheless receive significant funds from a larger super PAC with a national profile.

Put Alaska First, which supports Sen. Mark Begich (D), has raised $4.4 million, more money than any other single-candidate super PAC. Nearly of its funds have come from Senate Majority PAC, a national Democratic group, and not from Alaska donors.

In North Carolina, the Grow NC Strong group backing Republican Senate nominee Thom Tillis has received $170,000 — more than half its funding — from American Crossroads, the national super PAC founded by Karl Rove.

All Citizens for Mississippi, a super PAC run by Bishop Ronnie Crudup to help get out the African-American vote for Sen. Thad Cochran in the bitter GOP primary campaign, was fully funded by another pro-Cochran super PAC, Mississippi Conservatives. The latter group was, in turn, partially funded by American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is backed by a similarly connected super PAC. Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, which has raised $3.7 million, does not receive moneys from an umbrella group, but it is run by the head of American Crossroads, uses the same media team as American Crossroads and raises money from the same donors as American Crossroads.

In a number of other cases, these super PACs, which are legally barred from coordinating with the candidates they support, are funded by family members of those candidates.

Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, who is running to oust Alaska’s Begich, is backed by a super PAC funded by his family and individuals connected to his family’s Ohio-based business. A super PAC supporting Democratic House candidate Gabriel Rothblatt, who is challenging Florida Rep. Bill Posey (R), is funded by the candidate’s mother, United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt.

Oklahoma Republican Mike Turner was helped in his failed primary bid for a House seat by a super PAC to which his family’s trust contributed. Maxey Scherr, a losing candidate in Texas’ Democratic Senate primary, was similarly boosted by a super PAC funded by her family members.

In one of the oddest pairings, Republican candidate George Demos, who ran (and lost in the primary) for a New York House seat as a tea party-type bomb-thrower, was supported by a super PAC that received more than $1.3 million from his father-in-law and major Democratic donor Angelo Tsakopoulos.

Friends and business associates of the candidates are also jumping in to boost these supposedly independent groups.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has even helped raise money for the WIN Minnesota PAC, which backs his re-election. (A candidate can legally raise money for a super PAC so long as he or she asks for no more than $5,200 per person.) Donors include Franken friends from Hollywood and New York like Larry David, Michael Douglas, Bette Midler, Mike Myers, Seth MacFarlane, Bill Maher and James Belushi.

New Hampshire Republican candidate Daniel Innis, who is challenging Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D), receives support from a super PAC funded by businessman Peter T. Paul. Innis had previously solicited $25 million from Paul for the University of New Hampshire business school where he served as dean.

In Nebraska Senate candidate Ben Sasse’s case, the GOP nominee received the backing of a super PAC funded by his great-uncle Robert Dunklau, who also had a business school named after him at Midland University, where Sasse was president. Sasse had solicited a super PAC contribution of $5,000 from Dunklau, who actually gave $100,000.

These kinds of close ties between super PAC donors and super PAC beneficiaries raise questions about the possibility of improper coordination. In a recent report based on interviews with former members of Congress and political operatives, Moritz College of Law professors Tokaji and Renata E.B. Strause found that the wall between super PACs and candidates is, in practice, incredibly thin and easily evaded.

“[A]t the end of the day, it’s all just kind of a fiction –- it’s just kind of a farce, the whole campaign finance non-coordination thing,” an unnamed campaign operative told the professors.

The single-candidate super PACs that do not rely on one larger super PAC or a friends-and-family connection often tap a mix of national party donors and local business interests. In fact, many single-candidate super PACs receive a larger share of their contributions from corporations than do their national, party-linked counterparts.

Southern Conservatives Fund, a super PAC supporting Republican candidate Jack Kingston — who is running for the Georgia seat being vacated by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) — has received more than half of its $748,000 from Georgia-based corporations. These include Medicare supplemental insurance seller State Mutual Insurance Company, real estate property owner Walters Management Company and elderly care facility operator PruittHealth.

The Mississippi Conservatives super PAC that helped Thad Cochran win the Republican nomination also received a big boost from business interests, including Bollinger Shipyards, a past recipient of Cochran’s directed appropriations, and Ergon, which operates an ethanol plant that receives subsidies supported by the senator.

Local businesses similarly aided Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) when he, like Cochran, faced a more conservative primary challenger. The pro-Simpson Gem State Prosperity Fund was run by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry and took contributions from J.R. Simplot Company, Potlatch, Micron Technology, Blue Cross of Idaho Health Service and the Idaho Association of Realtors.

A super PAC supporting Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) has raised money from Atlantic Cellular Investments, the hedge fund Blue Ridge Capital and a holding company for MicroStrategy stock named Alcantara LLC.

And then there are two single-candidate super PACs that are primarily funded by “dark money” nonprofits, which do not need to publicly disclose their donors.

In Georgia’s Republican Senate primary, the Citizens for a Working America PAC, which backs businessman David Perdue, has received nearly all of its $2.1 million from two non-disclosing nonprofits, the Jobs and Progress Fund Inc. and the Government Integrity Fund. The Government Integrity Fund has also pumped $1.05 million into the super PAC Government Integrity Fund Action Network, which supports Arkansas Republican nominee Tom Cotton in his challenge to Sen. Mark Pryor (D).

Because they must report their contributors to the FEC, the money pouring into single-candidate super PACs this year — and the links between that money and the candidates — can at least be tracked. Kentucky, Oklahoma and other states have also seen a rise in dark money groups focused on single candidates, and their donors are secret.

I can only imagine the horror in Gaza today as Israel intensifies its assault of that overcrowded, impoverished strip. It is a continuing nightmare story of pain and loss, of trauma and devastation. The heartbreaking numbers by themselves tell part of the story– with hundreds killed, thousands wounded, tens of thousands without homes, and now 600,000 without water. But the story of Gaza is more than these numbers and this current assault.

Even in earlier times, Gaza could be a nightmare. In the early 1990’s I spent time in Jabalia– a sprawling refugee camp that is home to more than 80,000. During 25 years of Israeli occupation, nothing had been done to improve the infrastructure of the camp. The roads were unpaved, sewage ran into puddles in the streets and flowed directly into the sea, leaving the beaches polluted. The defining characteristic of the place was grinding poverty. In 1994, the then Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, visited Gaza after completing a tour of South Africa. Upon his return, he told an audience that what he saw in Jabalia was worse than Soweto.

During the years of direct occupation, Israel treated Gaza as one might a prison camp. Palestinians were seen as nothing more than cheap labor, with restricted rights and severe constraints on their movements. When they resisted, the results were horrifying brutality. During this period, thousands of homes were destroyed, hundreds were illegally deported, prisoners were tortured, and daily life was filled with fear of the occupier.

During the occupation, Jewish-only settlements built in the heart of Gaza had access to land and water that was denied to Palestinians, as was access to some of the Mediterranean’s loveliest beaches. I will never forget the pictures after Oslo of the joy on the faces of young Palestinians frolicking for the first time on these once forbidden beaches.

From 1967 to 1994, Israel had de-developed the West Bank and Gaza making the economies of both territories largely dependent on Israeli imports, exports, and employment. As a result, the single largest source of wealth for Palestinians in Gaza was day labor work in Israel. These were low-paying jobs in construction, agriculture, and service– but since Israel did not allow an independent Palestinian economy to develop, they provided the only means of support for hundreds of thousands of people.

If the work was demeaning, getting to work proved to be an even more humiliating experience. Because Israeli law prohibited Palestinians from spending the night in Israel, prospective laborers had to gather near the border each morning by 6:00 a.m. to see if they would be selected. Once selected, they went through security. I visited the cattle chute security screening structures erected at the border and watched an unbelievable scene unfold before me as Palestinians were herded through the chutes holding their ID’s over their heads as young armed Israeli soldiers straddled the chutes above them shouting at Palestinian men to hold their papers higher and “don’t look up at me, keep your head down.”

When Israel decided to close the borders in the mid-1990’s, tens of thousands of Palestinians lost access to employment. And because Israel did not allow Palestinians to freely import raw materials and export finished products, there were no new jobs created in Gaza for those who lost their access to day-labor work in Israel. Throughout the next decade, youth unemployment in Gaza hovered between 70-80 percent– meaning that for three-quarters of all young men under the age of 30, there was no work and no prospect of work, no income and no chance of a normal life.

When Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005, it replaced its direct control with indirect control, making it complete with the total blockade they later imposed on the Strip. Since then, Israeli bombardments of and incursions into Gaza have become biannual affairs. The current assault is the fifth since 2006. Israelis euphemistically call these onslaughts “mowing the lawn”, as in, “putting the natives back in their place.” Each time, the devastation has taken a horrendous toll in human life and the psyches of the once again traumatized Palestinians.

I recently read two separate “smart” papers produced by Washington think tanks about ISIS. The authors were arguing against U.S. involvement making the case that we should use caution lest our intervention reinforce or reward either the Iraqi or Syrian strongmen (Maliki or Assad) who were responsible for the emergence of this extremist group that now controls sections of both countries. ISIS, they argued, is the product of these regimes– their brutal repression and systematic denial of rights, their dehumanization of their subjects and the despair that change might be possible that they have created by their hard-headed resistance to reform.

As I read these pieces, I thought of the decades-long nightmare that is Gaza and its despairing people. I thought of Hamas and its extremism and use of terror. Like ISIS, Hamas owes its lineage to the brutality of the occupation and despair of the Palestinian people. Like average Syrians and Iraqis, Palestinians want to live normal lives. They want to be able to provide for their children and see their children’s children grow and prosper. But for decades now, they have been denied the fulfillment of these simple human aspirations. It is not, as the Israelis would say, that the Palestinians have chosen death. Rather, it is that the Israelis have never allowed them the chance to choose life. Like people everywhere, give Palestinians hope and freedom, independence and peace and they will choose life.