You can actually work yourself to Death!

We all heard of the phrase, work hard play hard.  However, too much labor can have a fatal impact on you. As Americans, we typically love to work. It is how we provide for our families and needs. Full-time employment is characterized as a 40 hour work week. The actual employee spends 47 hours at work each week. In other countries, such as Germany and Sweden, workers typically engage in a 35 work week.

Many executives perpetuate the myth that the need for only four hours of sleep to function at an elite level to meet work requirements is ok. The company Lyft took pride of this myth, due to a woman who continued to drive passengers ,while being physically and emotionally exhausted from the depth of the labor, and turned it into an example to show the success and benefit of hard work. In his recent book, Dying for a Paycheck, Stanford University organizational behavior professor Jeffrey Pfeffer argues that some 150,000 deaths in the United States each year, and as many as 1 million in China, can be attributed to overwork. Some factors that can contribute to this include, sleeplessness and stress which are triggered by damaging work environments and economic anxieties.

In our county's history, most Americans have worked outdoors or in factories, where they sparred with fallen trees, or sky scrapping sized printing machines. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, was formed to regulate these physical dangers. Since then workplace injuries have fallen dramatically.

On the other hand, if you are a white-collar worker in an office environment, sitting down for hours on end can cause muscle strains and repetitive stress injuries. Sedentary lifestyles can kill, be aware of that people. the Guardian reported, the researchers found that those “who were sedentary for more than 13 hours a day were twice as likely to die prematurely as those who were inactive for 11.5 hours.”  

Work can also have a damaging effect to our sleep schedules, like sand in an hourglass. Studies show that lack of sleep or poor sleep quality can cause anxiety, a lack of control over emotions, physical pain, and impulsive behavior. Even the tech giant, Elon Musk who is Tesla CEO, appeared to embody this phenomenon. In an interview,  he was talking about his dependence on Ambien to help sleep and supposedly cried later in the interview while discussing the car production challenges his company has faced.

It is true that work provides the means to live, but it is clearly clear that the modern workplace can in fact kill. Being aware of the danger that comes with our desk chair means we can do our best deal with the effects of sedentary, sleepless life styles. Whether we are working a 100 hours a week like some game developers do to meet deadlines, or playing Fortnite for a 100 hours a week.

The New Wave

We all know the potential impact that Artificial Intelligence can have on our future. Companies are starting to turn towards A.I to solve just about any problem that you can think of. Problems that will no longer require human necessity to solve. The power of A.I is crazy and should be respected. Companies are looking into software that help you change your thoughts for the better and analyze a voice for signs of depression. I want to specifically look into how A.I is effecting the area of Mental Health and how companies are using A.I to make there lives easier.

Looking into the field of Mental Health, everybody has mental health and we all need to look after it every day. Artificial Intelligence can step into play to make up for the lack of clinicians. It is described as a way of task-shifting, or simply moving some of the burden of work from the humans to Artificial Intelligent apps that never goes to sleep, and won’t charge you with a bill either. There is an app called TalkSpace, although it connects people with real human therapists, not a chatbot. Patients communicate with professionals via long text messages, audio notes, video messages, or live video conversations. Plus, TalkSpace uses the platform's own de-identified, aggregated data to give the therapists recommendations they can choose to accept or ignore, like suggesting that they send a recorded video message at a certain time, according to Neil Leibowitz, the company’s chief medical officer.

Other research at MIT has a similar focus. Tuka Al Hanai, a doctoral candidate in the computer science and electrical engineering department, focuses on using A.I to detect problems like depression by analyzing audio files, or text, from a person’s voice.

A.I is growing and becoming more powerful day by day. As the next generation, I believe we should all take a look into this and make ourselves aware of Artificial Intelligence and where our world is headed.

https://www.popsci.com/artificial-intelligence-mental-health#page-3

Are Dinosaurs Still Around?

Can birds possibly thank dinosaur’s for their continued existence in the modern world? Birds are very similar to us biologically. Except they have smaller lungs and are obviously much smaller in size.

I found this to be pretty interesting. Not necessarily a business oriented topic, but a good informative piece. A newly discovered fossil was found in China that showed that birds evolved very early , while they were still dinosaurs.  A team of researchers from China and South Africa published a study of what they believe to be lung tissue in the fossil. This is the first time evidence of lungs has been found in an avian dinosaur fossil, and it may help explain why one group of the avian dinosaurs(Ornithumorpha) was able to survive the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs and continue to evolve into modern birds(Eschner). Scientists believe that the evidence of lungs explains part of the morphological sophistication that may have allowed one lineage of Ornithumorphs to survive the great extinction and evolve into birds.

Modern birds typically have the most complex structure and the most efficient respiratory system among vertebrates, according to the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists. The design of  their respiratory system and air sacs means that birds are able to take in much more fresh, oxygenated air with each breath than us mammals can, since even a full breath in our very own lungs still has old air that is depleted of oxygen within it. In a way, you can say that birds are elite athletes with great lung capacity. Which they really are if you think about it

In the absence of soft tissue evidence, paleontologists have traditionally made guesses about organs based on fossilized bones and the dinosaurs closest modern descendants, the crocodilians and the birds. However, there might be more soft tissue out there than the field currently knows not just in new finds like this one from China. Occasionally, paleontologists take a new look at old evidence and discover hat these structures were there all along. Pretty interesting If i do say so myself.

https://www.popsci.com/lungs-birds-dinosaur-survival#page-3

is THC really what we think it is?

With marijuana becoming more and more popular, the legalization of this plant is starting to stretch globally. Canada just recently legalized marijuana, but researchers are wondering about the potential public health effects that comes with smoking a joint. If you a fan of it or not, we all know that smoking pot can potentially lead to health issues.

Many people view marijuana as a safe drug, and it is often used for recreational purposes across the country. However, our lungs are efficient vehicles for substances to get into our bodies, which is why many drugs and tobacco are usually inhaled as smoke or vapor. Edibles will likely have little to no effect on our lung tissue though. A huge sigh of relief to those who want to use it in its healthiest form. According to UCSF professor Stanton Glantz, the American research community has been asking the federal government for easier marijuana access for a long time now. In the U.S, marijuana remains a "Schedule 1" drug, even though numerous states have legalized it for personal/medical use.

The structure of Marijuana is almost identical to tobacco. The only difference is the active ingredient within both substances. With marijuana it is THC, and tobacco it is nicotine. Most of the other stuff in cigarette smoke is in marijuana as well. That includes substances like formaldehyde, ethylene, and acetone. Marijuana smoke has about 4,000-5,000 chemicals in it which can potentially have a fatal impact on your lungs. It is generally true that marijuana smoke is just as toxic as cigarette smoke. With that being said, people are more likely to smoke 20 cigarettes a day( a pack), as opposed to the unlikely odds of someone smoking 20 joints in a day. Now if your Snoop Dog, or a serious hardcore stoner, then maybe 20 joints a day is the norm for you.

With further research, and the help of the legalization of marijuana, we would be able to better understand the pros and cons of the substance and unlock the mysteries and myths behind marijuana. In the meantime, if you have the excess capital, it probably would not be a bad idea to invest early in this field as more and more states and countries begin to dig deeper into this area for economic and medical benefits.

https://www.popsci.com/smoking-weed-lung-cancer

A Different Path

I always had the ambition to live out the American  Dream, and eventually earn back the most valuable asset that we have in our lifetime, which is time. Even though I am a student of higher education and love my field of study, I never planned on living my whole life and devoting most of my time supporting someone else’s dream inside of a cubicle while he/she is on a beach somewhere living the life that we all deserve. We all have dreams that don't deserve to die as we get older. For me, coming up from humble beginnings on the south side of Chicago my goal was to not only take care of my parents for all the sacrifices they have done to get me to where I am now, but also help develop and uplift struggling communities that don't have a lot of opportunities and resources.

I came across network marketing my freshman year of college during the summer. I had just got back from nationals and my friend wanted me to meet his sponsor for an business opportunity. For the most part I am an open minded since our mind is like an umbrella. It only works when it is open. So after I had this meeting and was explained the business opportunity, I went home and did my own personal diligence. The overview of this business plan was an opportunity to build an organization and leverage your efforts  by first acquiring customers, and then duplicating your efforts through your team(organization) for an lucrative leverage opportunity. For a minor startup fee you were entitled to due business internationally and develop teams across the globe. The company also offered a versatile market of product and essential services to offer customers. Now when I saw this of course I believed pyramid scheme right away. However, by definition a pyramid scheme is a form of investment (illegal in the US and elsewhere) in which each paying participant recruits two further participants, with returns being given to early participants using money contributed by later ones. Fraud can not go on forever especially when there is no product to be sold, no service has been provided, and no true wealth has been created. Eventually those at the bottom will suffer the most due to the fact that it is impossible for the cycle to sustain itself. This MLM company in particular made it clear that without customer acquisition, no money will be made. As a recruit/Independent Business Owner, you can make a profit from the sales of the product or service, so you don't necessarily have to recruit more salespeople below you. While you may be encouraged to recruit other salespeople whose sales would give you more profits, you can stick to just selling the product directly to the consumer if you choose. With this company, you don't even have to worry about inventory. Strictly customer acquisition and they take care of the rest. The growth opportunity is limitless. In other words, a person can climb up the ladder at his/her own pace as opposed to a corporate level entry job. It may be years before you even get considered for a promotion and even then they can lay you off at any given day/time due to a reduction is the "budget".

I related this concept to franchising. As of you, the reader, you may disagree or agree with my comparison of the two, but hear me out either way. Keeping an entrepreneurship mindset, I decided that I wanted to invest in a McDonald's franchise. In order for me to do that the franchise fee is $45,000 with a liquid capital requirement of $750,000. As a franchises, sales does not necessarily reciprocate the money going into your pockets. You have to cover your expenses which include the  payment towards $2.2 million investment to cover the franchise. However, do not allow me to confuse you in any way , good money is still made within that opportunity, but we can all agree that a lot of capital is required to fully own one.