Sunday, June 8, 2014

First week blogathon roundup

And week one of this year's month-long blogathon is done! Those past seven days went by quickly and I've gotten some great feedback on social media about some of the posts.

After my blogathon introduction post on June 1, on June 2 I wrote about pushing yourself (Push yourself - you may be surprised at what you can do). The point of that post was to encourage people to think about things they want to do but may be too afraid or reluctant to try. I look at people around me who push themselves. One friend who is my age, went into body building a few years ago and she looks fantastic. She loves what she is doing and it shows. Another friend, a quilter, has pushed herself way beyond traditional quilting to develop a whole new style of her own. My daughter traveled for seven weeks in countries that not many people here visit. One son changed direction in his education that seems to go against the flow these days. I hope that someone reading my blog may decide to take a chance, to push through a "I can't" to make it a "I did!"

June 3rd's blog post was about bilingualism and aging (Bilingualism helps aging brains). I love language. I love listening to different languages and trying to read unfamiliar ones. I always feel a bit of a thrill if I can figure out some words, find similarities. With so many people living longer, any advantage to help retain memory and cognitive ability can only be a plus.

On June 4, I wrote about online health quizzes (Online health quizzes - are they worth taking?). I'm a quiz junkie. I like taking quizzes, ticking off boxes, and filling out forms. I'm just a bit concerned about how health quizzes could allow unscrupulous people to take advantage of those who may not be as Internet-savvy as others.

June 5th's entry was about exercise and perhaps unnecessary studies (Exercise benefits seniors - did we really need a study about that?) While this doesn't quite qualify (in my books) as a Duh Study, I do wonder why this type of study was needed. If exercise is beneficial for people in their 50s and 60s, why would this be any different for people in their 70s and 80s?

The next blog post was a discussion about the utility of awareness months, weeks, and days (June is ... Awareness Month). I listed observances in both the United States and Canada.

Finally, yesterday's post was about the importance of colorectal cancer screening and its effectiveness (Screening prevents thousands of colorectal cancers). There is often debate about how effective screening programs for cancer are, but in the case of colorectal cancer, it seems pretty clear that screening does save lives.

So, now on to next week. What will the news bring?
Thank you for reading my blog.

No comments: