Asia Deadliest Foods

Cobra heart, Vietnam

It’s been made into TV shows, reported on, blogged about. The badass rep is hardly surprising: when it comes to freakish experiences in Asia, gulping down a live cobra’s heart in Vietnam is hard to beat.

In Vietnam, so-fresh-they’re-still-beating cobra’s hearts are dished up in a couple of ways: some, like Anthony Bourdain, eat the heart raw, followed by a cobra blood chaser. Others, like the Guardian’s Howard Marks, slurp it down with a glass of rice wine.

Cobra hearts are believed to enhance male virility in Vietnam, gastroenterologist Harry Teicher says. He reckons the taste is “like an interesting oyster.”

Balut, Phillippines

Balut, or half-fertilized duck or chicken egg, eaten in Asia with a pinch of salt — literally. Boiled and lightly seasoned balut can be found all over street food markets in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, where it’s traditionally seen as an aphrodisiac (though whether the sight of a dead, curled bird fetus can really amp up our libidos remains highly debatable).

Balut is prized among the brave-hearted for its balance of texture and flavors: first there’s sipping the embryo broth, then there’s the shell-peeling, and the chomping down

Fried tarantulas, Cambodia

The story goes that Cambodians, starving and desperate under the Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970s, started eating fried tarantulas in to stave off their hunger. The practice stuck, and now the fried tarantula, or a-ping, is seen by locals as a mouth-watering delicacy, with beautifying effects to boot.

The market town of Skuon is Cambodia’s veritable Spiderville, thanks to a network of tarantula burrows nearby. The spiders are usually fried with sugar, salt and garlic, and is a mouthful of complex textures, starting from the ‘moreish,’ cod-like head and body , to the disturbingly gooey abdomen. Travel website World Hum advises eaters to go for the brittler ones, with less squishy abdomens.

Blood Clams, Shanghai

China’s blood clams single-handedly infected some 310,000 people with hepatitis A in Shanghai in 1988, causing the state to ban the crustacean.

So it may seem like madness that there are still reports of sneaky foodies flouting the ban in the city’s restaurants and black markets.

Eaten immediately after it’s been dipped in hot water, Shanghai’s blood clams reportedly have a raw, briny taste that stands out in a food culture that is all about freshness and mouth feel.

The fact that it’s barely cooked also means it’s a time-bomb of viruses including hepatitis, typhoid and dysentery, thanks to the polluted waterways near Shanghai that the shellfish live in.

Fugu, Japan

By far the most notorious on Japan’s “been there, done that” circuit, fugu, or puffer fish, contain lethal doses of the poison tetrodotoxin in its organs, to which there is no known anecdote. If not prepared correctly, the dish is known to kill the unfortunate epicure in a slow and terrifying way: the toxin paralyzes the body’s muscles while the victim is fully conscious, and slowly he or she dies from asphyxiation.

When prepared correctly, however, it’s known to leave a thrillingly tingly taste on the tongue. Chefs around Japan have to pass a round of stringent tests to be licensed to serve the fish, but that doesn’t wipe out freak accidents of fugu poisoning, like the death of kabuki actor Bando Mitsugoro after an overkill of four fugu livers in 1975.

Those itching to play Japanese roulette may want to head to Shimonoseki, home to Japan’s largest fugu wholesale market.

Most Poisonous Animals

Immense physical strength, razor sharp claws and scissor like teeth are not the only weapons animals use. Thousands of animals use highly venomous or toxic poisons to attack prey or defend themselves. Some animals actually shoot poisons towards victims, others store toxins in their glands or skin. Following are the top eight most poisonous animals in the world.

8. Box Jellyfish

Prevalent in the ocean waters throughout Asia and Australia, this dangerous animal goes out of its way to avoid other creatures. Swimmers must definitely avoid the Box jellyfish. The stingers and tentacles on this animal are extremely powerful. Along with causing excruciating pain for weeks, the animal’s venom is capable of stopping the heart or paralyzing the lungs. To top it off, the venom will slowly eat away at the skin.

7. Marbled Cone Snail

Though very slow moving, this snail thrives in reefs throughout the world. The animal uses its strong, toxic venom to catch its prey. While within its shell, the snail shoots out a nose type advice called a proboscis. From the probiscis, a tooth like appendage attaches onto the victim. The venom within the animal is transmitted through the tooth into the victim. This leads to paralysis almost immediately. Humans that have experienced a bite are succumbed by weakness, numbness, nausea and death, when the lungs ultimately stop working.

6. Blue Ringed Octopus

The painless bite from a Blue Ringed Octopus may seem innocuous, however the deadly neurotoxins in the animals saliva immediately begin working. Within a few minutes, a human will experience muscular weakness, numbness, followed by a cessation and breathing and ultimately death.

5. Death Stalker Scorpion

Prevalent throughout North Africa and the Middle East, this arachnid lives up to its name. The stinger on this animal is not overly large or strong, however the sting administered is the most toxic from scorpions anywhere in the world. It causes an intense and unbearable pain, then fever, followed by coma, convulsions, paralysis and death.

4. Stonefish

Inhabiting the waters of the Pacific throughout the Australia coast, this complacent fish resembles a sea rock or coral. With its nearly invisible camouflaged assistance, it attacks many fish that swim nearby. A powerful toxin stored within its 13 spines can stop nearly every animal that it connects with. If contact comes with humans, the venom will cause intense pain, swelling of tissue, shock followed by death.

3. Sydney Funnel Web Spider

One of the most venomous creatures in the Australia outback, the Sydney Funnel Web Spider packs a powerful punch. This spider is large and very aggressive, consistently creating the most powerful venom of any spider. Protecting its burrow, the spider places a web across its entrance that passers by should not enter. From its fangs, the spider delivers a powerful neurotoxin that cause extreme pain and are capable of killing a person within 15 minutes. It’s venom does not affect most mammals but has a very powerful effect on humans.

2. Inland Taipan

This Australian snake is frequently considered the most poisonous snake on earth. One bite from this serpent contains enough potent toxin about 110 milligrams to kill about 100 people. It toxin can cause vomiting and will cease a persons breathing. Fortunately, the Taipan is a very gentle and shy reptile.

1. Poison Dart Frog

While running through the rain forests of Central or South America, do not pick up the Poison dart frog. The frog’s skin contains a toxic chemcal that sickens or kills any animal that touches or eats it. Two micrograms of this deadly toxin (enough to fit on the head of a pin) will easily kill a human being or other large mammanl.

GDPE Landmark Building - Reunion Mansion - Guangzhou - China

                             A powerful and futuristic building ispired by the ancient chinese imperial jade disks ! Designed by architect Joseph di Pasquale, AM project Milan.

Are You Suffering from Heart Diseases? Or have you been advised to undergo Angiography or Bypass? For Your Heart Vein Opening

Ingredients For Making Heart Vein Opening Drink  Ingredients:

1 cup Lemon juice

1 cup Ginger juice

1 cup Garlic juice

1 cup Apple cider vinegar

Mix all above and simmer in low heat for about 60 minutes or till solution reduces to 3 cups.

Remove solution to cool, then mix 3 cups of natural honey and store it in a jar.

Drink one tablespoon daily before breakfast. Your vein’s blockage will open in most cases.

Enjoy your drink. Taste good too.

Final Product

Before USE

AFTER USE

Are You Suffering from Heart Diseases?

Or have you been advised to undergo Angiography or Bypass?

Please Wait...

Before you undergo Angiography or Bypass treatment, you must try this with confidence remedy. Insha Allah, you will be cured.

On the 18th April last year, I had to go to Sahiwaal(Pakistan) from the UK to attend the annual Khatme-e-Nabuwat conference. The day before, I suffered acute pain at the place of my heart and after that, experienced uncomforting, which continued for quite some time. I then met in Pakistan Hazrat Moulana Bashir Ahmed Usmani Sahib and disclosed to him, that when the doctors performed Angiography on me, they advised Bypass as they discovered 3 of my arteries were blocked and given a date to operate after a month. 

During this period, a Hakim prescribed the remedy below, which I consumed precisely for a month. A day before my bypass operation, I arrived at the Cardiology Hospital in Lahore  (Pakistan) and deposited Pak Rs. 225,000.00 towards expenses for my Bypass surgery. After closely examining these results and my previous results, the Doctors then asked me if I took any medication after the previous tests were carried out.

I told them of Hakim Sahebs prescribed remedy. The panel of Doctors, surprised by the results, then informed me that according to the latest reports all 3 arteries were open and functioning normally and that surgery was not required. I was refunded my deposit and told to go home.

Hazrat Moulana Bashir Ahmed Usmani Saheb himself, prepared this medicine for me and also told me of it’s ingredients and how it is prepared which is as follows:

1 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice

1 Cup Fresh Ginger Juice

1 Cup Fresh Garlic Juice

1 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar

3 Cups Honey 

Mix all the juices & vinegar and boil very slowly for about half an hour until about 1 cup of contents evaporate and 3 cups remain.  After it cools down, mix properly with the 3 cups of honey. Fill contents in a clean Jar and take 3 teaspoons on an empty stomach every morning. Insha Allah you will be cured.

(From Mufti Mohammed Kantharvi. London UK)

Distributed by AYP (Azaadville) for service to mankind. May Allah accept.

Please make copies and Hand out to the elderly or to people who do not have access to email. If it makes a difference only to 1 person, Allah will highly reward you. You may not know, how many persons this can benefit.

Please forward this to as many persons as possible

New connections between brain cells form in clusters during learning

New connections between brain cells emerge in clusters in the brain as animals learn to perform a new task, according to a study published in Nature on February 19 (advance online publication). Led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study reveals details of how brain circuits are rewired during the formation of new motor memories.

The researchers studied mice as they learned new behaviors, such as reaching through a slot to get a seed. They observed changes in the motor cortex, the brain layer that controls muscle movements, during the learning process. Specifically, they followed the growth of new "dendritic spines," structures that form the connections (synapses) between nerve cells.

"For the first time we are able to observe the spatial distribution of new synapses related to the encoding of memory," said Yi Zuo, assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology at UC Santa Cruz and corresponding author of the paper.

In a previous study, Zuo and others documented the rapid growth of new dendritic spines on pyramidal neurons in the motor cortex during the learning process. These spines form synapses where the pyramidal neurons receive input from other brain regions involved in motor memories and muscle movements. In the new study, first author Min Fu, a postdoctoral researcher in Zuo's lab, analyzed the spatial distribution of the newly formed synapses.

Initial results of the spatial analysis showed that one third of the newly formed synapses were located next to another new synapse. These clustered synapses tended to form over the course of a few days during the learning period, when the mouse was repeatedly performing the new behavior. Compared to non-clustered counterparts, the clustered synapses were more likely to persist through the learning sessions and after training stopped.

In addition, the researchers found that after formation of the second spine in a cluster, the first spine grew larger. The size of the spine head correlates with the strength of the synapse. "We found that formation of a second connection is correlated with a strengthening of the first connection, which suggests that they are likely to be involved in the same circuitry," Zuo said. "The clustering of synapses may serve to magnify the strength of the connections."

Another part of the study also supported the idea that the clustered synapses are involved in neural circuits specific to the task being learned. The researchers studied mice trained first in one task and then in a different task. Instead of grabbing a seed, the mice had to learn how to handle a piece of capellini pasta. Both tasks induced the formation of clustered spines, but spines formed during the learning of different tasks did not cluster together.

The researchers also looked at mice that were challenged with new motor tasks every day, but did not repeat the same task over and over like the ones trained in seed-grabbing or capellini-handling. These mice also grew lots of new dendritic spines, but few of the new spines were clustered.

"Repetitive activation of the same cortical circuit is really important in learning a new task," Zuo said. "But what is the optimal frequency of repetition? Ultimately, by studying the relationship between synapse formation and learning, we want to find out the best way to induce new memories."

The study used mice that had been genetically altered to make a fluorescent protein within certain neurons in the motor cortex. The researchers used a special microscopy technique (two-photon microscopy) to obtain images of those neurons near the surface of the brain. The noninvasive imaging technique enabled them to view changes in individual brain cells of the mice before, during, and after learning a new behavior.

Provided by University of California - Santa Cruz

"New connections between brain cells form in clusters during learning." February 19th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-brain-cells-clusters.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Nodding disease confounds experts, kills children

Patrick Anywar, 14, lies curled up naked in a Ugandan village's dust and midday heat, struggling to look up at his younger brother and sister playing in front of the family home.

After a minute's effort to face his siblings, Anywar's head slumps onto his chest and his emaciated body is gripped by convulsions.

Anywar is one of more than 3,000 children in northern Uganda who are suffering from a debilitating mystery ailment known as nodding disease, which has touched almost every family in the village of Tumangu.

For several years, scientists have tried and failed to determine the cause of the illness, which locals say has killed hundreds of youngsters.

What they do know is that the disease affects only children and gradually devastates its victims through debilitating seizures, stunted growth, wasted limbs, mental disabilities and sometimes starvation.

Anywar's mother, Rugina Abwoyo, has already lost one son, named Watmon, to the disease in 2010. Now she says she can do little but watch on helplessly as another child slips away.

"Before, he was walking and running like other children, but now someone always has to stay home to look after him," Abwoyo told AFP. "The disease is terrible -- it does not let him drink or eat by himself."

Walking along footpaths cut through the sorghum plantations, Joe Otto, a volunteer health worker, explains how nodding disease has ravaged Tumangu, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of the capital Kampala.

"780 people are living in this village, and we have 97 cases of the disease. It has affected almost every family," Otto, 54, told AFP.

Whenever sporadic deliveries of medicine arrive at the local health centre several kilometres away, Otto pedals his bicycle to fetch the drugs. But he knows that they only offer a short-term solution.

"We are giving out drugs for epilepsy, like carbamazepine, but this disease is different from epilepsy," Otto said.

Instead, as the disease has torn through their community, local residents have moved from fear to a grim acceptance, Otto says.

"We started saying that the patient who had died was the one who had been cured, because finally they were at rest from this painful disease," Otto said.

'We hope that our youngest can be saved'

Scientists are trying to find a cure: since 2010, researchers ranging from epidemiologists to environmental experts, neurologists, toxicologists and psychiatrists have carried out a range of tests.

Investigations have looked at possible links between the disease and everything from a parasite that causes river blindness, to malnutrition and the after-effects of a civil war that ravaged northern Uganda for decades.

"We looked at all this, but unfortunately we were not able to pinpoint any significant contributing or risk factors," said Miriam Nanyunja, disease control and prevention officer at the World Health Organisation in Kampala.

"The search for the causative agent is still ongoing," she added.

Often the results have thrown up more questions than answers. Scientists do not know if the disease is linked to similar outbreaks in neighbouring South Sudan and Tanzania.

Efforts continue to understand if the disease is still spreading or has peaked -- and why it is seems confined only to certain communities.

Last month, after pressure from lawmakers from affected areas, Uganda's health ministry produced an emergency response plan to try to identify and control the disease.

However, Nanyunja says that while the search for the cause and a possible cure goes on, for now, doctors can only focus on trying to alleviate the symptoms.

"There are many diseases that we continue to treat symptomatically, without knowing the exact cause," Nanyunja said.

But for Patrick Anywar, any attempts to curb or cure the disease may come too late.

"We are hoping that the doctors work very hard to get the cure for this disease," his mother Abwoyo says.

"There is no future for us as so many children have already been affected, but we hope that our youngest can be saved."

(c) 2012 AFP

"Nodding disease confounds experts, kills children." February 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-disease-confounds-experts-children.html

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

Before they can speak, babies make friends: study

This file illustration photo shows two babies playing. Babies still too small to speak know how to make jokes and form friendships, say researchers at an Australian university who have spent two years filming the behaviour of young children.

Babies still too small to speak know how to make jokes and form friendships, say researchers at an Australian university who have spent two years filming the behaviour of young children.

Academics at Charles Sturt University are studying how children interact with other infants while in childcare using footage obtained from tiny cameras strapped to their heads.

The study affords a "baby's eye view" of the world in which even simple objects such as spoons appear oversized, said Jennifer Sumsion, foundation professor of early childhood at the university.

But it also shows that children aged from six months to 18 months use sophisticated but subtle non-verbal means to make friends and make each other laugh.

"We were very, very surprised to see just how sophisticated they were in terms of their social skills, their helping skills, in making sure they were inviting other children to be part of their group," Sumsion told AFP.

Sumsion said babies interacted with each other by making eye contact and with hand gestures and humour.

They used "little social games that you wouldn't necessarily see unless you were looking very closely", she said.

Examples of this included children pretending to hand another child a toy, only to snatch it away at the last minute, or babies sitting close to each other in highchairs playfully switching their drink bottles around.

In another instance caught on camera, a one-year-old girl tried to comfort a baby when she was frightened by gently placing a piece of see-through fabric over her so she could see out but feel protected.

The researchers, who analysed the baby-cam footage alongside other video shot of the children at the same time, did not force the babies to wear the cameras and they were only attached for 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

They hope the research will shed light on the secret world of babies and their experience in childcare.

"What surprised us though was the games that they were playing with each other, even at that age. It's really very positive to see," Sumsion said.

(c) 2012 AFP

"Before they can speak, babies make friends: study." February 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-babies-friends.html

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

A new EEG shows how brain tracts are formed

In the past few years, researchers at the University of Helsinki have made several breakthroughs in discovering how the brain of preterm babies work, in developing treatments to protect the brain, and in developing research methods suitable for hospital use.

Each year, the brains of hundreds of Finnish children, and therefore their future lives, are at risk due to premature birth or intrapartum asphyxia. The brain is a sensitive organ, and merely keeping the baby alive is not enough to save the brain. The latest scientific achievements offer significant improvements in the brain health and lives of infants.

"When developing brain treatment, a key challenge is to find ways to study and monitor the well-being of the brain in the neonatal intensive care unit environment," says Sampsa Vanhatalo, Docent of Pediatric Clinical Neurophysiology.

The R & D work carried out in the basic neurobiology laboratory in the University of Helsinki has provided a whole new level of insight into the electrical activity of the brain in newborns. Now we know that many previously unexplained brain events seen in an EEG are essential for the development and maturation of the brain in premature babies, Dr. Vanhatalo states.

These findings have provided an opportunity to develop monitoring devices to monitor the well-being of infant brains during ICU treatment. The University of Helsinki and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Children's Hospital, Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) have attracted considerable international attention for their novel EEG techniques that enable exceptionally precise measurement of EEG in premature infants.

"These dense array EEG caps and the related full-band EEG (FbEEG) that we have developed have disclosed crucial forms of newborn brain activity that have so far been overlooked. We have also developed a method to study sensory functions of premature babies when the tracts are still in the process of forming in the brain and the yield of a traditional neurological examination is still negligible," explains Dr. Vanhatalo.

The research work carried out in Helsinki has been adapted elsewhere in the world with exceptional speed: the largest device manufacturers are already offering FbEEG devices, and dense array EEG caps are already being manufactured industrially. These devices have been clinically approved in the EU (CE certificate) and in the USA (FDA).

"Multi-modal EEG analysis of newborns may help us to recognize the children in need of immediate care or neurological rehabilitation early on, as preterm babies. Today, often the diagnosis cannot be made until the child is a toddler. It is critical for the development and quality of a child's life that appropriate treatment and rehabilitation is started as soon as possible," says Dr. Vanhatalo.

In the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), Finnish researchers demonstrate the developed method and show how it can be applied safely and without disturbing other treatments in an NICU. JoVE is the only scientific journal in the world that publishes all its articles in both text and video format.

Provided by University of Helsinki

"A new EEG shows how brain tracts are formed." February 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-eeg-brain-tracts.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

FIVE WAYS TO BECOME TRULY EFFICIENT

Finding enough time in the day to get everything done tends to be an impossible task. Increasing one’s efficiency is the best way to ensure that everything gets completed. Find out how you can become truly effective here!

INC suggests…

1. Set Daily Goals. One of the best ways to ramp up your efficiency is to set daily goals. Each morning, before your work day begins, make a list of the top things that you want or need to accomplish during the work day. Rank them in order of importance. Depending upon how long each task will take you, your list may contain two items or ten.  Once constructed, use the list as your guide to keep you focused throughout the day to work towards completing those goals. Keep the list readily accessible and in plain sight on your workspace so that it will act as a constant reminder for those tasks that you want to complete in a given day. As you complete each of your predetermined objectives, check them off. If you do not complete a given goal, move it forward into the next day. This simple task of setting and monitoring daily goals is amazingly effective at increasing your productivity.

2. Delegate. If you are in a position to delegate make sure to do so. Too often we are saddled with a belief that we are the only person that can do a specific task or do it well enough. Throughout my career I have been particularly afflicted with this mistaken belief. There was a time in my career that I would type all of my own letters even though I had a secretary whose job it was to handle this task for me. I would think, it is going to take me longer to explain to her what needs to go into the letter than it would if I just go ahead and write it myself, which I then proceeded to do.

Learning to delegate is an acquired art form, one everyone should try to master. Believing that a task cannot be delegated is truly more about control issues and less about whether or not it truly can be assigned to someone else. Why spend two hours on a task yourself if instead through crafting 10 minutes of detailed instructions, you can delegate the project to another? Accordingly, if you have someone to whom you can delegate, learn how to delegate and learn how to do it well.

3. Let the Phone Ring. Let E-mails go Unanswered. You’re in the middle of solving an issue relating to one of your goals for the day. The phone rings. You answer. On the other end of the phone is someone who needs to speak with you about something that is important but not related to the task at hand. The conversation only lasts three minutes and then ends. However, when you go to pick up where you left off you need to quickly review where you were, get your brain back on track and then finally pick up and keep moving on the same.

Do not assume that picking up that quick call only cost you three minutes of being off task. It cost you your focus, the three minutes, and ultimately the review time of thinking about where you left off and the time it takes to re-engage your brain on the specific project you were working on before you were interrupted. All in all that three minute call, depending upon the complexity of the issues being dealt with, may cost you six, seven, even 10 minutes!

If your job allows, keep focused. Turn the phone (off?) ringer volume down so as not to disturb you or simply do not answer the same if the caller on the caller id is not calling about an urgent matter. You would be amazed at how simply allowing callers to leave a voice mail and then responding later in the day, in bulk, to all of your messages can truly amplify your efficiency.

However, it doesn’t have to end there. The same policy should be employed in regard to e-mails. How many e-mails do you really get that need to be viewed or read almost instantaneously? So don’t. Let them sit. They’ll still be there when you complete the task at hand. Like your calls just designate a time during the day, or two if you prefer, to answer all of your e-mails. Once again, by not allowing these constant interruptions
,
the efficiency with which you can accomplish the goals on your list will be increased exponentially.

4. Close the Door. The phone and e-mails are not the only distractions in modern office life. Your co-workers can really drag down your efficiency as well. Back when I worked in a large law firm in Washington, D.C. I would routinely need to go see one of the head partners in his big corner office. Almost without exception every time I walked into his office he would sigh, roll his eyes, and growl “Yes, what is it?” For the first year or so I worked there I simply chalked it up to the fact that he was personality-challenged and sadistically enjoyed degrading others, in other words, a lawyer. But one day I was standing down the hall from his office and it hit me as to why he was consistently grumpy. I was not the only associate that was constantly demanding attention from the big cheese. While I stood there speaking with other lawyers in the hallway I witnessed a veritable conga line of associate attorneys strolling through his office to ask him questions here, decisions there. No wonder he was so upset every time I would come into his office. Although I did not realize it, someone else had been in there two minutes before and again five minutes before that. If the man had seven minutes in a row to think to himself and get his own work done he would consider it a good day.

Why do I mention all of this? If you have the capability,  sometimes you just need to close the door. If you work in an open workspace, hang a sign. Open-door policies are great, but they can often lead to an erosion of efficiency that is disturbing. Don’t be afraid to shut the door and politely let people know this is my efficient time. If they need to speak with you they can come back later or, better yet, set up daily pre-scheduled times in which they will have your undivided attention. By moving away from constant interruptions you will be able to stay on task and, consequently, move more efficiently through the goals you set every day.

5. Facebook, Twitter, and Instant Messaging. The secret time killers. Let’s say you spend 10 minutes on Facebook a day. For the majority of us that is being conservative. Let’s further say you use Twitter. Chalk up another 10 minutes. By the way, did you IM any of your friends today while at work? Come on, you know you did. Maybe the wife or the hubby had a funny story to share with you or Madonna just announced her latest concert dates and everyone had to BUZZ each other over it. Another ten minutes. So how much did we spend? Ten minutes? Twenty? Thirty? Wrong. It was more like 130 hours. Over three 40-hour work weeks.

Huh? You might be asking yourself. What you talkin’ about Willis?

It’s simple. If you spend 30 minutes a day on social media and instant messaging that adds up to two and a half hours per week. There are 52 weeks in a year. Fifty-two times two and a half is 130 hours. One hundred and thirty hours equates to over three 40-hour work weeks you are spending on social media and chatting online per year. It’s like a whole other vacation.

Is this overly dramatic? Maybe a little. But recognize what spending time on these sites does to your productivity. Thirty minutes a day, on average, equates to a loss of up to three plus weeks of work per year. So if you are just spending 10 minutes a day doing the same, that’s like one entire lost week of work. Wow.

I’m not saying don’t do it. I am just saying recognize how the numbers add up. Once you see how they do, if you want to ramp up your efficiency limit the social chats to only designated times during the day when you are already taking a break. Trust me, that wicked awesome zinger you’ve been waiting to post on Facebook can wait.

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