Can Two-Minute Exercises Improve Your Health and Longevity?

I hate exercise, it is sweaty and boring. Here are two 2-minute exercises you can do at your desk and improve your ability to learn and long-term memory. Start it now.

Can These Two-Minute Rituals Improve Your Health & Longevity?

This baby-easy anaerobic (no oxygen required) exercise at your desk can
reduce your waistline and improve your blood circulation. It requires 2-minutes
and works like a charm even for lazybones like me.

The Bear Claw: Shake-Hands With Yourself

1. Sit, feet flat, facing forward.
2. Center your passive hand under your jaw ? palm facing away from you.
3. Remember, your passive hand is the brace (unmoving).
4. Make a Claw of your left hand by folding-in your fingers.
5. Take your dominant-hand (palm facing you) and cover each finger of
your left-hand. It is a Shake-Hands grip.
6. Goal: use your dominant-hand to tug (pull) your passive-hand, without either hand moving.
7. Once you ''see'' the fingers-covering-the-fingers grip, you own the Bear Claw forever.
8. First 60 seconds ? Inhale a diaphragmatic breath, hold for 10
seconds as you pull your hands. Now exhale and relax. Repeat 6 times.
9. Second 60 seconds - Reverse your hands, Passive-Hand palm facing you. You will be pulling with your Passive-Hand, while Dominant-Hand (palm away from you) is unmoved and rigid.
10. Inhale deeply, hold for 10 seconds, and simultaneously pull using
your passive-hand. Repeat 6 times.

Infinity Symbol: Link Your Two-Brains

You see this infinity symbol used in science and math. It is the number 8, lying
on its back. The purpose of this exercise is to integrate your left and right
hemispheres to improve learning and long-term memory. Baby-easy and fun.

1. Sit facing forward. Do not move your eyes, look straight ahead. Lift your left hand on a level with your left-eye.
2. First 60 seconds: use the index finger of your left-hand to air-draw a large reclining figure 8. Size: 24 inches left-to-right, and 8-10 inches wide.
3. Think of it as an Air-Guitar. You are tracing an Infinity-Symbol in the
air in front of you. Half-the bell figure is on your left, and the other
half-bell figure is to your right.
4. Repeat the reclining number 8 about a dozen-times using your left
index finger.
5. Second 60 seconds: switch to using your right index finger to air-draw (trace) the reclining figure 8. Half the bell is left-of-center, and the other half of the bell is right-of-center. Repeat a dozen times.
Coda:

These two-exercises are health improving and release chronic
stress. The Bear-Claw is an isometric exercise pitting one set of muscles
against the other. You will feel it burn away tiredness.

The Infinity Symbols link your left and right brains (hemispheres) for
better attention, concentration, and improved long-term memory.

Both exercises are recommend by leading Indian gurus, and ten-years of personal experience with students and executives.

Ancient Knowledge

I am a proud Contrarian, skeptic, and miscreant (villain), with one or
two minor redeeming qualities. Never believed in the Old or New Testaments, and
forget about going to church. But there is one Bible guy who speaks my language.

Doubting Tom

He stands out as a disciple of American-style justice because he requires legal proof
and demonstrative evidence. Doubting Thomas rejects Hearsay (gossip, rumor,
scuttlebutt, and unverified word-of-mouth) for hard facts, truth and reality testing.

The Truth And Nothing But

Here is what happened: Three days after the Crucifixion, J.C. appeared to the other
eleven Disciples ? Tom a/k/a Didymus (< Gk the Twin) was not among them for
the resurrection < L to rise again.

The other eleven reported the good news to Tom ? "We have seen the Lord!"

["Yeah right, in-a-pig''s ear", he responds,] "unless I see the nail marks in his
hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side
[where the Roman spear entered] ? I-Will-Not-Believe It."

Next scene: eight days later all twelve disciples are together praying, dining and
playing pinochle. Suddenly and unannounced, J.C. appears.

"Peace be with you", he starts, "Thomas, put your finger here'' see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Punchline

"Because you have seen me you have believe; blessed are those who have NOT
seen and yet have believed," said J.C. (John 20: 26-29)

Hearsay v Verified Evidence

Was Tom behaving normally when he rejected the words of the eleven disciples?
Modern researchers say the Crucifixion occurred in the year 33.A.D. on Friday,
April 3. Is that a hard fact with incontrovertible proof? Nada, but it is a good
approximation based on historical records.

Back then (33 A.D.) and today, we know the difference between Hearsay ?
"unverified, unofficial information acquired from another, and not part of
one''s own direct knowledge, verses facts, truth, and reality a witness has
personally seen with his/her own eyes, sworn to under oath.

Two-thousand years later your local Small Claim does not accept gossip, rumor,
and phony-baloney testimony. Witnesses must have direct knowledge or their
testimony is inadmissible under the Hearsay rule. Some call it the Doubting Thomas
law.

Coda

Scientist Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs." What if Sagan said, "A fire-breathing dragon resides in my garage?"
Would you require extraordinary proofs, or rely on hearsay from four drunken sailors? Did you know Thomas was later known as Thomas-The-Believer?

Endwords

Would you want to own a competitive advantage by reading-and-remembering
three (3) books, articles, and reports in the time your peers can hardly read one?
Speed reading is a skill you can learn quickly (21 days), but lasts a lifetime.

Ask us how it works, and become more competitive now.

See ya,

copyright © 2009
H. Bernard Wechsler
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Author of Speed Reading For Professionals, published by
Barron''s; business partner of Evelyn Wood, creator of speed
reading, graduating 2 million including the White House
staffs of four U.S. Presidents. Legal background.

Director of Education, www.speedlearning.org [e-mail]
See interview by Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine.