The Executive Director/Chief Executive of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Segun Awolowo, posted the made in Nigeria SUV pictured above, manufactured by...
We are sending birthday wishes to someone very special to us and our Nation Nigeria, Professor Wole Soyinka....
Galatasaray stars Didier Drogba and Emmanuel Eboue face disciplinary action over their tribute to Nelson Mandela after the reigning Turkish champions' win over Elazigspor on Friday.Drogba revealed a T-shirt with...
According to E! News, the Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner has separated from her husband of
22 years, Bruce Jenner. They've been living apart for a while but officially announced their
separation today.
"We are living separately and we are much happier this way," the pair exclusively tell E!
News. "But we will always have much love and respect for each other. Even though we are
separated, we will always remain best friends and, as always, our family will remain our
number one priority."
Kris and Bruce are parents to two children together, Kendall and Kylie, and each have four
kids from previous marriages.
Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola wore the new indigenous uniform for secondary schools
under the jurisdiction of the state government to an event.
Anyone who enters the dating world is bound to encounter rejection. Whether your online
messages to dating prospects go unanswered, you have a great first date but never hear from
the person again, or you get dumped after things were just starting to heat up, all rejections
have one thing in common — they really hurt. What makes rejection even more painful is that
any effort to understand what went wrong can easily lead to bouts of self-criticism and self-
blaming.
Did they reject you because you’re not tall enough, smart enough, attractive enough, rich
enough, educated enough, or hip enough? What was the reason? Then you start to second
guess everything you did and said. You berate yourself for disclosing your fascination with
sea urchins, for ordering noodle soup and making slurping noises, or for joking about how
you got the scar on your middle finger.
All this self-punishment makes you feel utterly miserable and you wonder when you became
so weak, needy, or desperate. You must be, otherwise you wouldn’t hurt so much, right?
Wrong.
Here’s why:
Recent studies placed people in fMRI machines (scanners that look at what happens in our
brains when we’re thinking or doing something) and asked them to think about a painful and
recent rejection. What they found was shocking. The same pathways in the brain became
activated when people experienced a rejection as when they experienced physical pain. In
fact, the overlap was so substantial, that when researchers gave people the pain reliever
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and put them through a rejection experience, they reported feeling
significantly less emotional pain than those who did not receive Tylenol. That’s why
rejections hurt as much as they do, not because there’s anything wrong with you — because
you’re simply wired that way.
Fortunately, there are three steps you can take to ease the emotional pain you’re bound to
feel after being rejected:
Argue with self-criticism . Although it’s natural to feel self-critical after a rejection, there is
little point in ‘going there’. Most rejections have much more to do with compatibility and
chemistry than they do with any specific shortcoming or flaw. Even if you seemed to click
with the other person, the reality is, you just didn’t click enough. And if they felt insufficient
compatibility, you would likely have felt it yourself at some point as well. Therefore, there is
utterly no point in trying to blame yourself or any perceived flaw you might have. Unless the
person looked you in the eye and said something specific such as, “Sorry, I’m just not into
dimples,” chalk it up to insufficient chemistry. And if they give you the, “It’s not you, it’s
me,” speech — believe them. In fact, even if they don’t, assume it’s them nonetheless. It
probably is anyway, and your self-esteem will thank you for it.
Revive your self-esteem . Now that you’ve given your self-worth a breather from self-criticism,
you need to help it revive. The best way to revive your self-esteem is to remind yourself of
qualities and attributes you possess that you believe are valuable. Specifically, make a list of
qualities you have that are important in dating and relationships such as being loyal, caring,
supportive, considerate, a good listener, a great cook, a good kisser, and as many others as
you can think of. Choose one of these attributes and write a brief essay (a paragraph or two)
about why the quality matters to you, why a future partner would find it valuable, how you’ve
expressed it in past dating or relationship scenarios, or how you would do so in the future.
Write one or two essays a day until you feel better about yourself. Keep in mind that for the
exercise to have the desired impact on your self-esteem — you must write it out. So don’t
skip that crucial step and do it in your head — write.
Restore a sense of belonging. One of the theories about why rejection causes such sharp
emotional pain is that in our distant past, being ostracized from our tribe was pretty much a
death sentence. Consequently, we developed a mechanism to warn us of when we were at
danger for being ousted from our tribe and as a result, we became exquisitely sensitive to
rejection. The legacy of those tribal days is that even minor rejections can destabilize our
‘need to belong’, to feel as though we’re accepted and loved by our core group. To address
this often unconscious pang, reach out to good friends or family members and try to see
them in person. Doing so will remind you that you are a valued and respected member of your
‘tribe’.
Rejections are an extremely common emotional ‘injury’
and they always hurt. But taking these three steps will
help you heal the emotional wounds they create, recover
your confidence and bounce back quicker and stronger
than you would have otherwise.
Miss Nigeria 2013, Miss Ezinne Akudo Anyaoha, on Tuesday marked Independence Day with
traffic personnel at Adeola Odeku Road / Ahmadu Bello Way intersection in Victoria Island,
Lagos. Ezinne spent over an hour assisting the traffic personnel, comprising the Nigeria Police
and LASTMA, to direct traffic at the busy intersection. The queen said she decided to join the
traffic personnel on Independence Day to encourage their efforts and to also stress the
importance of a safe road user culture. Tuesday's road show is one in a series of public
endeavours outlined by the queen for her reign.
Moscow police has detained 16 Nigerian students accused of smashing furniture inside the
Nigerian embassy in Moscow. The students went on a rampage yesterday over unpaid grants
and had to be forcefully removed from the premises by police, local media reports. The
students who are enrolled at colleges of higher education in Russia started smashing things at
the conference hall of the embassy after a hearing over their financial problems didn't go well.
The students have been detained on charges of hooliganism and will now face administrative
charges, the interior ministry said
Angelina Jolie was spotted recently wearing not one, but two sparklers
on her left hand. The double rings have some wondering if she has
secretly married Brad Pitt.
The gossip mill began churning with talk of a secret Pitt-Jolie wedding
when the "Maleficent" star was spotted wearing a second ring on her
wedding finger in Bondi Beach, Australia, on Sunday (Sept. 29),
according to E! News.
RadarOnline.com notes Jolie's new ring appears to be thicker and made
of a lighter precious metal than the gold one that appeared on her finger
in the spring.
Back in March, the 38-year-old mother of six was seen wearing a simple
gold band in place of her massive $500,000 engagement ring when she
visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda on a goodwill
mission. Jolie shot down rumors of a wedding when approached by a
TMZ cameraman.
In June, VH1's "The Gossip Table" claimed the A-list couple had finally
set a date for their highly anticipated nuptials. The report alleged the
ceremony would happen over the summer and would be a private affair.
If a wedding hasn't happened yet, it's unlikely the Oscar-winner has time
to plan much of anything at the moment. In early September, she
arrived in Australia, where she will direct "Unbroken" at Sydney’s Fox
Studios Australia and Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast,
according to The Hollywood Reporter. Filming is scheduled to begin Oct.
21.
Corrie ten Boom once said, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its
sorrow. It empties today of its strength."
Indeed, numerous studies have shown that worry not only puts a strain
on our mental health, but on our physical health, too. While worry in
and of itself is not bad -- it spurs us into action, after all -- too much of it
can lead to anxiety, which can have a lasting impact on health and
happiness. For instance, research has shown that anxiety can take a toll
on sleep, tax your immune system, raise your risk of post-traumatic
stress disorder, and even affect your risk of dying from disease.
The problem with worrying is that it becomes a cycle of self-perpetuating
negative thoughts. In a new review, University of Surrey researchers
described worry as "a chain of thoughts and images that are affectively
negative and relatively uncontrollable."
So what's the best way to stop the cycle? We rounded up some research-
backed ways:
Set aside a designated "worry time." Instead of worrying all
day, every day, designate a 30-minute period of time where you can
think about your problems. Penn State researchers found in a 2011 study
that a four-step stimulus control program could help seriously stressed
people take control of their anxieties, LiveScience reported. Step one:
Identify the object of worry. Step two: Come up with a time and place to
think about said worry. Step three: If you catch yourself worrying at a
time other than your designated worry time, you must make a point to
think of something else. Step four: Use your "worry time" productively
by thinking of solutions to the worries.
Kick your online addiction.
All that time you spend perusing your Facebook newsfeed probably isn't
doing your mental health any favors. A recent study from Anxiety UK
showed that nearly half of people feel "worried or uncomfortable" being
away from email or Facebook. "These findings suggest that some may
need to re-establish control over the technology they use, rather than
being controlled by it,” Anxiety UK CEO Nicky Lidbetter said in a
statement. Need some ideas for things to do away from your computer
or cell phone? We've got you covered.
Be mindful. The most effective strategies to stop worrying and
rumination may be ones based in mindfulness, which involves
nonjudgmental awareness of present thoughts and emotions, as well as
cognitive behavioral therapy strategies, according to the University of
Surrey review of 19 studies. Particularly, the review noted that
"treatments in which participants are encouraged to change their
thinking style, or to disengage from emotional response to rumination
or worry," as well as "treatments which enable participants to adopt
more concrete and specific thinking or which cognitively restructure
thinking in a more positive and constructive way" seem especially
effective.
Accept the worry -- and then move on. Worrying about
worrying is a dangerous cycle to fall into. A 2005 study in the journal
Behaviour Research and Therapy showed that people who naturally try
to suppress their unwanted thoughts end up being more distressed by
said thoughts. Meanwhile, "those who are naturally more accepting of
their intrusive thoughts are less obsessional, have lower levels of
depression, and are less anxious," the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee researchers wrote. Therefore, people who get caught up in
worry when they try to force themselves to stop worrying may want to
try a different strategy -- acceptance.
Write your worries down.
Letting all your emotions out on paper before a big exam could help
decrease test-taking worry, according to a 2011 study in Science. "It
might be counterintuitive, but it's almost as if you empty the fears out
of your mind," study researcher Sian Beilock, an associate professor in
psychology at the University of Chicago, told U.S. News. "You reassess
that situation so that you're not as likely to worry about those situations
because you've slain that beast." While exams are no longer a threat to
many of us, Beilock noted that the approach could work for people facing
anxieties for other things.
Cut yourself some slack. Dr. Susan M. Love, a professor at the
David Geffen School of medicine at the University of California, Los
Angeles, told The New York Times that the perceived need to follow all
the rules when it comes to health can be a source of stress and worry in
itself. Love, who wrote the book "Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won't
Break Your Health" told The Times that at the end of the day, it's
impossible to have perfect health, and you're probably a lot healthier
than you realize. "Is the goal to live forever?” she said to The Times. “I
would contend it’s not. It’s really to live as long as you can with the best
quality of life you can. The problem was all of these women I kept
meeting who were scared to death if they didn’t eat a cup of blueberries
a day they would drop dead.”
Keep your hands busy. Engaging in activities that keep your
hands busy and mind distracted could help prevent flashbacks from
traumatic experiences, according to research from the Medical Research
Council in England. While the study didn't examine how this strategy
impacts everyday worry, the American Association for the Advancement
of Science's Bob Hirshon pointed out that "keeping your hands and mind
busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images."
Make time for meditation.
Taking some time to find some zen can really help anxiety in your brain
-- even brain scans say so. A study published earlier this year in the
journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience showed that
meditation training not only lower anxiety levels in people, but it also
had effects on the anterior cingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal
cortex brain regions (the former region controls emotions and thinking,
the latter controls worrying).
Get your heart pumping. Exercise may be a predictable way to
beat stress, but it's only predictable because it's so effective. Research in
animals, for instance, shows that exercise can affect brain activity of
serotonin (a so-called "happy" brain chemical) as well as reduce the
effects of oxidative stress, The New York Times reported. And Well and
Good points out studies showing that exercise interventions can result
in lower anxiety levels than people who stay tied to the couch. “Several
studies have found the effects of aerobic exercise to be initially similar to
those of medication,” Jeff Dolgan, an exercise physiologist at Canyon
Ranch Hotel & Spa in Miami Beach, told Well and Good. “However, in the
long term, exercise seems to work better.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger described Mesut Ozil's first-half performance
as "absolutely amazing" after the German scored his first goal for the club and
inspired them to a commanding 2-0 victory over Napoli in the Champions
League on Tuesday.
Ozil, who joined Arsenal for a club-record transfer fee of £42.5 million from Real Madrid on
transfer deadline day a month ago, opened the scoring after eight minutes and provided the
final touch for Oliver Giroud to score the second seven minutes later.
He was also the creative heart of most of Arsenal's sublime play and his touch, vision and
movement were virtually faultless.
Wenger, whose team have now won 10 successive matches including a penalty shootout
victory over West Bromwich Albion in the League Cup last week, was delighted after his side
brushed aside Napoli in the group match, saying the first-half performance was "the best we
have played here for a long time".
He reserved special praise for Ozil on a night when Arsenal rekindled the class and confidence
of their glory days under Wenger nearly a decade ago.
"He had an outstanding first half, he was absolutely amazing," Wenger said of the German
international.
"He was fantastic and it was good he scored his first goal. When it goes on too long before
you score, it's always on your mind, so he got rid of that.
"He had everything fans want to see from a great player: individual skill, team play, finishing,
final ball," he told reporters.
"I loved him when he played for Real Madrid too, I must say; I thought he was great for Madrid
and we are just lucky to have got him.
"He enjoys playing football, he enjoys playing with his partners. He has integrated very quickly
with the team and it helps that he has come when we are doing well, it makes it easier. Of
course he has given everyone at the club a lift and belief, and belief is a part of the success of
football."
Happy 53rd Independence Day Celebration to Nigeria.. we ask all Nigerians to pray for our country..
God bless us all.
