Brainstorm

Do you have a teenager at home?  I have a 12-year-old who’s acting more and more like one.  She is moody, less willing to go out with us, but becomes wild and silly when she’s with her best friend.  It is sometimes frustrating and challenging living with her, yet rewarding and fun at other times.

I recently read a book, Brainstorm, by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, and gained some insights into the developing brain and mind of adolescent years.  It helps me adjust my way and attitude when interacting with my preteen daughter.  I’ll share some of my learning with you in the following paragraphs,

 

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that drives us for rewards.  During adolescent years, the baseline level of dopamine is lower but its release after stimulating experiences or food is much higher.  That is why teenagers often seem bored and seek to be engaged in some thrilling and new activities.

This change in dopamine level and amount makes the teenagers more susceptible to addiction because addictive substance such as alcohol, drugs, and even sugar, often involves the release of and the level of dopamine.  Think about caffeine or sugar.  As we are drinking coffee or eating a piece of cake, we feel happy and excited.  After a period of time, when the effect wears off, we feel down and want to drink/eat more to get back to the “high”.  This is very similar to the mechanism of alcohol/drug addiction.

Another characteristic of adolescent called, hyperrationality, often renders the type of advice such as, “just don’t do it” useless.   The teenagers often know the pros and cons of a behavior and are usually rational about it.  Yet, when they are evaluating those pros and cons, they put too much weight on pros and frequently feel the risk is worth taking.  They need to learn to see the big picture, to trust their gut feelings.  Dr. Siegel gave an example of public health advocates’ efforts in using hyperrationality to promote anti smoking campaign.  Instead of providing medical information and scary images of how smoking destroy your health, it’s more effective to teach the teens to recognize how the cigarettes companies profit by brainwashing them and getting them hooked on smoking.  You are appealing to the teens’ preference over “defiance” (against the adults in the cigarettes companies) and using it to their advantage in this case.

In addition to information on brain development, Dr. Siegel also examines the attachment models that we establish with our parents and/or other significant adults and how that impacts our future relationship with others and ourselves.  What I like best, though, is that he provides detailed instructions on how to develop what he calls, “Mindsight Tools”.  These are daily practices that you could do to improve your insight into yourself and your empathy to others, to integrate all our learning and to better all our relationships, including the ones with your teenage children.

Have you read Brainstorm?  If not, check out the book from your local library and start reading!

Five Ways to Look at Your Finance--part 2

In one of my past blog posts, I used 5 categories to look at a family’s financial situation: emergency funds, protection, retirement, education, and investment.  I raised some questions in those 5 categories and I’ll try to answer some of them here.  Please bear in mind, though, that every family’s financial situation is different and whatever advices you receive here should be taken in as a grain of salt.  You have to look at your own circumstance and implement what suits you.

 

(1) Emergency funds-If you don’t know the living expense your household has each month, you need to start tracking it now.  Once you have an idea on how much your family spends in each month, multiply that amount by 6, and then that number could be the amount for your emergency funds.  Why 6 times?  Well, that’s assuming if you lose your primary income, it might take you 6 to 12 months to find another source of income.  Some people may think that they need less emergency funds while others might want more.  You can discuss with your family to decide on the amount.

 

(2) Insurance-When looking at the premiums of the term and whole life insurances, people usually think that term life insurance is much cheaper than whole life and they go for the term life.  Yet, there are more to consider when you compare these two types of insurance.  For example, you bought a 20 years term life insurance at a cheaper rate at your thirtieth birthday.  When your term life expires in your 50s, you need to pay a higher premium to get another term life, assuming that you don’t have any major illness that would render you as uninsurable.  On the other hand, you will be paying a much higher premium if you buy a whole life insurance, but either you or your beneficiary would receive some money back eventually.  If you are short on money or still working toward some other financial goal, having a whole life might not be realistic.  A term life at this stage might be enough.  If you have extra money sitting around and you are afraid that you might lose it through investment, then whole life might be a good bet for you.

 

(3)Retirement-When I first heard of annuity, I thought, “wow, that sounds really good; you can keep on receiving payments until you die, almost too good to be true.”  Well, in a sense, it is.  The return rate of annuity may be only 3-4%.  If you don’t choose immediate annuity or if you don’t have sufficient funds at first, you have to wait for an extended time before you can make a withdrawal.  If, unfortunately, you really need that money, you will get taxed and heavy penalty on your withdrawal.  On the other hand, if you don’t have a good investment option and you are afraid that you might lose your money, then annuity is one way to have some form of stable income in the future.  Yet, be aware of inflation.  The fixed amount of income you will receive from an annuity in the future may not be enough to cover the living expenses that also crease from year to year.

 

(4) Education-There are lots of scholarships or grant money waiting for people to apply.  Don’t just assume that your income is too high for any type of financial aid.  The amount of an education financial aid that you could receive usually depends on your income and assets plus those of your child, such as his/her savings or trust funds.  Before applying for a financial aid, you need to calculate the “Expected Family Contribution” (EFC)”, where parents’ assets, including the money in 529, count at a smaller percentage, compared with that of the child’s assets and income.  Even though a 529 account opened under the grandparent’s name doesn’t count as parent’s asset in EFC, the money from that account used in the child’s educational expenses would be counted as the child’s income for the next year’s financial aid application.  Besides, putting money in 529 may affect your EFC number, but keeping money in your savings also has the same effect on your EFC.  If there is no other use for the extra money, parents should still open a 529 account for their child (parents owning the account, not the child) to take advantage of 529’s tax benefit.

 

(5) Investment-I’m a very conservative person and not very knowledgeable in stocks/mutual funds, so I can’t give any advice on investing your money in that field, other than that you need to do your own research.  If you have a mortgage on your house, I believe that the current interest rate on your mortgage is much higher than the interest rate on your savings or CD.  Therefore, why not use your extra money to start paying off your mortgage?  The interest that you save from giving to the bank can be viewed as an earning.  Even though you need to pay more income tax, the saving from the interest you would’ve paid to the bank might still be worth it…unless you know how to invest your extra money for a better return.  The other added benefit for paying off your mortgage (if you don’t have a better investment option) is that your monthly expense would decrease because you have one less item to pay for every month.

Green Smoothie Revisited

I love green smoothie and drink it with gratitude, knowing that it brings nutrients to my body.  Whenever I have a chance to talk to someone about healthy diet, I recommend green smoothies.  It’s easy, convenient, and versatile.  You can get creative if you want, making the drink yellow, green, or pink with a variety of flavors.  Yet, if you are like me, care less about taste and look, you can make one without much thinking.


When I first started my green smoothie journey more than a year ago, a very good friend of mine warned me not to put too much fruit in there.  She reasoned, “You want a green smoothie, with vegetables, not a fruit smoothie.”  I’ve been following that principle since day one, always more veggies than fruit.  If you look back to my blog on green smoothie here, you will see that my veggie to fruit ratio is about 3:1.  I’d done that for a while, until last July, when I had a rude awakening on the effect of “sweet” green smoothie on my blood sugar. 


One day in July, after a cup of green smoothie (from the batch that I made for the girls so I added one big banana and one apple to make it sweeter) and leftover brown rice and vegetables for lunch, I had a preliminary blood test an hour later.  My non fasting glucose level was in the range of 140s, the diabetic level!  The normal range for non fasting, after 1-2 hour of eating should be below 120.  In addition, I’ve noticed that when my blood sugar goes up too fast and too high, I would have a left-sided headache.  That usually happens whenever I make a green smoothie that’s too sweet.  I should probably purchase a blood sugar test kit, as suggested by Dr. Ritamarie, to test my theory, but I don’t want to poke myself with needle all the time yet.  Anyway, nowadays, the morning smoothie for my husband and me only consists of one apple and 5-6 vegetables, including kales, dandelions leaves, and chards.  For the girls, I would replace the apple with a medium size banana.  If I want to make it a little bit sweeter, I would add goji berries or blueberries.


A lot of green smoothie recipes have been sweetened up with lots of fruit, fruit juice, or even maple/agave syrup, because they are meant for beginners or children.  They don’t want to scare people away from this healthy drink.  Yet, you need to be careful in following those recipes.  Do not trust the words “healthy” or “detox” in the name of the green smoothie.  Read the ingredient list.  Be mindful of how much sweetener and sweet fruit you put in the smoothies.  Your taste bud will change if you gradually decrease the “sugary” part and your body will thank you!

Five Ways to Look at Your Money--part 1

I’ve been learning something different lately.  Through some seminars and online courses, I learn to look at money in a different perspective.  If you have a family, you might want to examine your financial planning in the following 5 categories,

(1) Emergency funds—after the 2008 financial crisis in US, everyone probably appreciates the importance of having some cash at hand for rainy days.  How much should you have and where should you put it?  Should you store that money underneath your mattress or in a bank with meager interest earnings?

(2) Insurance—Many people have auto, home or health insurance, but what about insurance against the financial loss should the primary breadwinner be sick or pass away?  If you decide to have life insurance, should you have a term life or a whole life?  Is term life really cheaper than whole life?

(3) Retirement—It’s probably early for some of you to be thinking about retirement, but if you are like me, in mid-40s, retirement may not be that far off.  What is your source of income after you retire?  What could you do when your income can no longer support your current standard of living?  How much would you (or our generation) get from social security?  Would your 401k or IRA be enough to cover your living expenses for as long as you live?

(4) Education—If you have children, how to pay for college tuition probably cross your minds a few times.  My parents and my in-laws paid for all my and my husband’s education through graduate schools.  We would like to do the same for our girls.  We have opened 529 accounts for our girls but there are talks that these accounts might not be as good as they are advertised.  Is that true?

(5) Investment—Well, some of you might think, “Hey, I can barely scrape by with our income, who has extra money for investment?”  Yet, this is closely related to the first category, emergency funds.  It is certainly easy to save your money in the bank because you can get it out whenever you need it.  With the current interest rate falling below 1%, however, your savings will depreciate every year due to inflation.  What do you do then?

I’ll answer some of these questions later.  In the meantime, please share your thoughts down below.

Choice Making

Many parents arrange different activities for their kids after school; music lessons, sports, art classes, tutoring sessions in math or writing, etc.  For our girls, we told them that they could only pick two things that they want to learn during a certain period of time.  If they are no longer interested in a particular activity, they can drop it and find another one to start.  The reason that we limit the activities to two per person is not because we cannot afford to let them participate in more activities, but because we want them to know that sometimes resources are limited and they need to make choices. 

Growing up in a culture where individual choices are often frowned upon, my husband and I value the freedom of choice.  We believe that having choices facilitates the sense of responsibility.  Children cannot assign the blame to others when they fail, since it was their own choice.  That said, it doesn’t mean that we let our kids run their own life and decide on everything.  We exercise a principle called limited choices.  That is, when they make a choice, they have to do it among the options that we provide.  If they want to participate in an activity, we might tell them “no” or ask them to wait a few more years because of their age.  In addition, they still need to do their homework, tidy up their room and share household chores (unpaid).  They can choose when to do it but not whether to do it.

It doesn’t matter how old or young your child is, and under what kind of circumstances.  You can always create options for your child to choose from.  When she is required to make a choice, she learns how to evaluate different options and to weigh the pros and cons for those options.  She learns to live with the consequence from her choice, and learns how to make a better decision next time.  Do not arrange everything for your child.  Give him a chance to consider what he really wants or decides what he does not want.  He will gain confidence in himself from these experiences and that confidence is not something you can achieve with just praises.

Fermented Vegetables

Another year has come and passed.  Have you achieved your 2013 resolution?  At the beginning of 2013, we as a family announced our New Year resolution to each other so we can be held accountable.  Mine was to make and eat fermented vegetables.  You have probably heard of the benefit of eating fermented food.  If not, here is the gist of it,

Fermented food contains healthy bacteria, such as lactobacillus and some nutrients like B vitamins and minerals.  These good bacteria could colonize in your gut and improve your gut flora.  They not only help your digestion but also increase your immunity to common illness.  Since most of our diet consists of processed foods and we probably all have taken antibiotics at some point in our life, our gut bacteria have probably been depleted.  One way to add the good bacteria back to our gut is to eat fermented food.  Here is an interesting short video about gut flora and our immune system, http://www.npr.org/templates/event/embeddedVideo.php?storyId=244526773&mediaId=245227995&inf_contact_key=b44e33f62a6fcc13277e45750203dac2652c5f26600fbbc23e38c40abd302382

There is one problem, though.  Many commercially produced fermented foods contain too much sodium, sugar, or even preservatives.  Most of them are probably pasteurized, which means many nutrients and good bacteria are destroyed (white vinegar also kills off the bacteria).  The real good ones in the health food stores or farmers market are usually quite expensive and still contain lots of sugar.  After some researches, I decided to start with water kefir grains.

I ordered the dehydrated kefir grains online and started making water kefir.  I use sugar water or coconut water to raise the kefir grains and change the water every two days.  You should do it more often if the weather is hot.  Here is a great website that will answer any question you can think of regarding kefir grains, http://www.yemoos.com/faqwagrains101.html  My younger daughter enjoys drinking kefir water because it makes her feel like she is drinking soda (we only have water, almond milk, and freshly made green smoothies at home).  My older one is a picky eater but she doesn’t complain when I offer her kefir water.  Both girls jokes that kefir grains are my personal pet and they consume the pets’….umm…let’s not go there.

After the success of raising kefir grains, I ventured out to make fermented carrots, Daikon radishes, and cabbages.  At first, I was worried about spoiled food so I put lots of salt.  That batch became really salty and you couldn’t taste any other flavor.  For the next batch, I decreased salt and added some kefir water as the starter.  Since I was still worried about spoilage, I only let it sit for 3 days before putting it in the fridge.  This time it turned out to be flavorless.  It became slightly sour after 3 weeks in the fridge.  Now, I ferment carrots, radishes, green/red peppers, cabbages, beet roots, adding chilly pepper, garlic, and onion for flavor.  I usually leave it out for 7 days before storing it in the fridge.  I can’t say that I have complete success because my husband still doesn’t like it and I’ve only done lacto-fermentation.  At least, it’s a start.

Snacking

Like many moms with young children, I used to eat snacks regularly, twice a day or whenever my children needed one.  At the time I was eating every 2-3 hours, even when I didn’t feel hungry.  I was eating to prevent myself from reaching to a state of dizziness and shakiness.  Since my grandfather used to feel shaky if he became too hungry, I thought that was genetic even though in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong.  Besides, I heard recommendation that people should eat every 2-3 hours to keep their metabolism going, so I just keep on snacking away.

 

After I paid more attention to my diet and added in exercise regime to my life, my fasting blood sugar was out of the danger zone, lowering from 102 to the mid-80s.  I experience less and less shakiness after 4 hours of not eating.  Then I read some information from Dr. Ritamarie about meal spacing, arguing against eating every 2-3 hours, http://drritamarie.com/blog/2013/08/06/the-myth-behind-small-frequent-meals-encore-presentation/  I learned that by snacking every 2-3 hours, you are causing insulin in your blood stayed elevated all the time because they are needed to transport the blood glucose from the food that you eat to your cells.  When your insulin is elevated, your growth hormones are inhibited.  Why is that undesirable?  Well, your growth hormones are in charge of burning fat, repairing your body, and building lean muscles after exercise.  With insulin running wild in your blood, you won’t go far with your exercise and weight loss plan. 

 

Just as with the multitude of conflicting information we read online regarding health, I was confused and not sure whether to snack or not.  It would be easy for me to keep on snacking because…. who doesn’t like to snack, right?  Yet, I want to do what’s necessary to take good care of my body.  Then I recalled when my mom visited us in the summer, I was surprised to find out that she didn’t snack at all.  She eats 3 meals a day and that is that.  There is no mid morning snack or afternoon snack.  Looking back to my childhood, I remember that I only ate one snack a day and that was after school, before dinner was ready, because our dinner usually didn’t start until 7pm.  Even during high school year, the so called “teenage growth spurt” period, I don’t remember ever having snacks at school.  I guess we had big meals so there was no need to snack anytime of the day.  In the end, I decide to listen to my body and Dr. Ritamarie.  I try not to eat if I don’t feel hungry and, therefore, lengthen the time in between eating to 4-5 hours.  I eat bigger lunch than I used to so I don’t need to eat until 6 pm.  If I want to eat out of boredom, I do a quick round of exercise (yoga stretching or bodyweight exercise).  That usually takes away my craving for snacks.  What do you think, snack or no snack?