8 Things Your Hair Says About Your Health

When it comes to our hair, most of us worry most about what to do with it: how short to cut it, how to style it, whether to color it once it begins to go gray. But experts say that our hair says a lot more about us than how closely we follow the latest styles. In fact, the health of our hair and scalp can be a major tip-off to a wide variety of health conditions.

"We used to think hair was just dead protein, but now we understand that a whole host of internal conditions affect the health of our hair," says dermatologist Victoria Barbosa, MD, who runs Millennium Park Dermatology in Chicago. "Our hair responds to stress, both the physical stressors of disease and underlying health issues, and psychological stress." Here, eight red flags that tell you it's time to pay more attention to the health of your hair -- and to your overall health in general.

Red flag #1: Dry, limp, thin-feeling hair

What it means: Many factors can lead to over-dry hair, including hair dyes, hair blowers, and swimming in chlorinated water. But a significant change in texture that leaves hair feeling finer, with less body, can be an indicator of an underactive thyroid, known as hypothyroidism. Some people conclude that their hair is thinning because it feels as if there's less of it, but the thinning is due more to the texture of the hair itself becoming finer and weaker than to individual hairs falling out (though that happens too).
More clues: Other signs of hypothyroidism include fatigue, weight gain, slow heart rate, and feeling cold all the time, says Raphael Darvish, a dermatologist in Brentwood, California. In some cases, the eyebrows also thin and fall out. A telltale sign: when the outermost third of the eyebrow thins or disappears.
What to do: Report your concerns to your doctor and ask him or her to check your levels of thyroid hormone. The most common blood tests measure the levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and T4. It's also important to keep a list of your symptoms -- all of them.
"A doctor's visit is best to work up this problem; he or she may choose to do a thyroid ultrasound and a blood test in addition to an examination," says Darvish.

18 Things Your Feet Say About Your Health

The state of your feet can yield unexpected clues to your overall health 

Want to make a simple, ten-second check on the state of your health? Sneak a peek at your feet.

"You can detect everything from diabetes to nutritional deficiencies just by examining the feet," says Jane Andersen, DPM, president of the American Association of Women Podiatrists and a spokeswoman for the American Podiatric Medical Association.

The lowly left and right provide plenty of insightful data: Together they contain a quarter of the body's bones, and each foot also has 33 joints; 100 tendons, muscles, and ligaments; and countless nerves and blood vessels that link all the way to the heart, spine, and brain.

Unresolved foot problems can have unexpected consequences. Untreated pain often leads a person to move less and gain weight, for example, or to shift balance in unnatural ways, increasing the chance of falling and breaking a bone.

So when the feet send one of these 18 warning messages, they mean business.

1. Red flag: Toenails with slightly sunken, spoon-shaped indentations

What it means: Anemia (iron deficiency) often shows up as an unnatural, concave or spoonlike shape to the toes' nail beds, especially in moderate-to-severe cases. It's caused by not having enough hemoglobin, an iron-rich protein in the blood cells that transports oxygen. Internal bleeding (such as an ulcer) or heavy menstrual periods can trigger anemia.

More clues: On fingers as well as toes, the skin and nail beds both appear pale. The nails may also be brittle, and feet may feel cold. Fatigue is the number-one sign of anemia, as are shortness of breath, dizziness when standing, and headache.

What to do: A complete blood count is usually used to diagnose anemia. A physical exam may pinpoint a cause. First-step treatments include iron supplements and dietary changes to add iron and vitamin C (which speeds iron absorption).

2. Red flag: Hairless feet or toes

What it means: Poor circulation, usually caused by vascular disease, can make hair disappear from the feet. When the heart loses the ability to pump enough blood to the extremities because of arteriosclerosis (commonly known as hardening of the arteries), the body has to prioritize its use. Hairy toes are, well, low on the totem pole.

More clues: The reduced blood supply also makes it hard to feel a pulse in the feet. (Check the top of the foot or the inside of the ankle.) When you stand, your feet may be bright red or dusky; when elevated, they immediately pale. The skin is shiny. People with poor circulation tend to already know they have a cardiovascular condition (such as heart disease or a carotid artery) yet may not realize they have circulation trouble.

What to do: Treating the underlying vascular issues can improve circulation. Toe hair seldom returns, but nobody complains much.

7 Things Your Teeth Say About Your Health

Be alert to these warning signs of trouble. 

Some messages coming out of your mouth bypass the vocal chords. Turns out that your teeth, gums, and surrounding tissues also have plenty to say -- about your overall health.

"Your mouth is connected to the rest of your body," says Anthony Iacopino, dean of the University of Manitoba Faculty of Dentistry and a spokesperson for the American Dental Association. "What we see in the mouth can have a significant effect on other organ systems and processes in the body. And the reverse is also true: Things that are going on systemically in the body can manifest in the mouth."

So stay attuned to the following warning messages, and have worrisome symptoms checked out by a dentist or doctor.

Sign of: Big-time stress
Many people are surprised to learn they're tooth-grinders. After all, they do this in their sleep, when they're not aware of it. And they underestimate the physical toll that stress can place on the body. "Crunching and grinding the teeth at night during sleep is a common sign of emotional or psychological stress," says Iacopino.
You can sometimes see the flatness on your own teeth, or feel it with the tongue. Or the jaw may ache from the clenching.


What else to look for: Headaches, which are caused by spasms in the muscles doing the grinding. Sometimes the pain can radiate from the mouth and head down to the neck and upper back, Iacopino says. Mouth guards used at night can relieve the symptoms and protect teeth.

9 Grammatical Mistakes That Instantly Reveal People's Ignorance

All it takes is a single tweet or text for some people to reveal their poor grasp of the English language.

Homophones — words that sound alike but are spelled differently — can be particularly pesky.

Regardless, you should never choose incorrectly in these nine situations:

1. "Your" vs. "You're"

"Your" is a possessive pronoun, while "you're" is a contraction of "you are."

Example 1: You're pretty. 

Example 2: Give me some of your whiskey.

2. "It's" vs. "Its"

Normally, an apostrophe symbolizes possession, as in, "I took the dog's bone." But because apostrophes also replace omitted letters — as in "don't" — the "it's" vs. "its" decision gets complicated. 

Use "its" as the possessive pronoun and "it's" for the shortened version of "it is."

Example 1: The dog chewed on its bone.

Example 2: It's raining.

3. "Then" vs. "Than"

"Then" conveys time, while "than" is used for comparison. 

Example 1: We left the party and then went home.

Example 2: We would rather go home than stay at the party.

4. "There" vs. "They're" vs. "Their"

"There" is a location. "Their" is a possessive pronoun. And "they're" is a contraction of "they are."

Use them wisely. 

5. "We're" vs. "Were"

"We're" is a contraction of "we are" and "were" is the past tense of "are."

6. "Affect" vs. "Effect"

"Affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun.

There are, however, rare exceptions. For example, someone can "effect change" and "affect" can be a psychological symptom. 

Example: How did that affect you? 

Example: What effect did that have on you?

7. "Two" vs. "Too" vs. "To"

"Two" is a number. 

"To" is a preposition. It's used to express motion, although often not literally, toward a person, place, or thing.

And "too" is a synonym for "also."

8. "Into" vs. "In To"

Are "Creative" Thinkers More Unethical?

You might not want the finance staff to head back to work immediately after that big brainstorming session. And come to think of it, you may want to discourage the brainstorming altogether.

That's because a working paper by Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, titled, "The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest," shows that after being primed to think creatively, people are more likely to act unethically.

Equally as disheartening is the finding that people who are already more creative than others are more likely to act dishonestly. The authors of the study say creativity helps people find new and interesting ways to break rules, and to come up with unique ways to justify their unethical actions after the fact.

To be sure, creativity has many well-documented benefits for businesses. Other studies have shown that investments in creativity and innovation positively impact organizational performance, and that 'creative' products generate a higher return than products that are considered common.

The authors say theirs is the first study to show an empirical relationship between creativity and dishonesty.

Dishonesty in the Research Lab
The researchers conducted four different experiments, each using between 71 and 111 students as subjects. The researchers relied upon commonly-used tests of creativity, such as questionnaires asking the students how well different adjectives described them (insightful, resourceful, unconventional) and asking them to solve hypothetical problems designed to produce a creative frame of mind. (In one example, students were presented with a picture of a candle, matches, and a box of tacks sitting on a table next to a cardboard wall. They were then asked to figure out, using only these objects, how to attach the candle to the wall in such a way that the candle burns properly and does not drop wax on the table or the floor.)

Next, subjects were asked to look a series of squares, each divided diagonally into triangles. The researchers then flashed a bunch of dots onto each square, and asked students to tell them if more dots were in the left-hand triangle or the right. For every time a student answered "left" they got half a cent, and for every time they answered "right" they got five cents. In half the trials it was obvious which side had more dots, and in half it was ambiguous. The students who had highly creative personalities cheated significantly more than students with less creative personalities; so did the students who had been 'primed' to think creatively.

Creatives Make Ethical Short Cuts

While this situation may seem overly hypothetical, the researchers followed it up by asking 99 people who worked at an ad agency how much creativity was required for their job. They then asked how likely they'd be to do things such as taking home office supplies, inflating their expense report, or telling their boss they'd make progress on an assignment when in reality no progress had been made. Employees who needed to be more creative in their jobs, and in departments where more creativity was required, were significantly more likely to behave dishonestly.

As for the dripping-candle problem? One solution is to empty the box of tacks and tack it to the wall, then place the candle on top of it. Some 47% of students who had been primed to think creatively figured this out, compared to 27% who had not been primed.

Do you find that the "creatives" in your office have morals that are more, shall we say, flexible? 

Lead Like Santa: 6 Immutable Principles

Santa’s mission is simple: Spread good cheer and make people happy. 

Simple enough, right? Oh, if it were only so…

Upon reflection, the problem with this over-simplified mission statement is that Santa’s job is not simple at all! It is very complex and fraught with unimaginable difficulties.

Santa’s Mission

The mission that Santa is on is daunting:

• Multiple time zones
• A narrow window of execution
• Extreme weather conditions
• Dealing with Reindeer and Elves (little people)
• Personalized merchandise
• A most finicky clientele (ever-changing demographics of absolute believers, skeptics, form-believers and naysayers.)
• Oh, and this: “Failure is not an option!“

Only an adroit and seasoned leader of exceptional capacity can deliver the goods (goodies) year after year.

So what is Santa’s secret? Read on!

Lead Like Santa

While participating in a recent Air War College-sponsored Reindeer and Claus Studies (RCS) trip to the North Pole, students from the Air War College experienced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour Santa’s World Headquarters.

Santa was busy–he is always busy–but he made time to sit down with our group. After sharing a generous offering of milk and cookies, he offered some insights into his success as a leader.

He did not look like any leader I know, but when he began to speak, I noticed a twinkle in his eye and redness in his cheeks.

He was authentic. He was in his element. His message, albeit simple, was direct and to the point.

I did my best to capture every word, but my hands were freezing. Sage advice straight from the big guy’s mouth:

Santa’s Six Immutable Principles of Leadership

1. Be Steady and Consistent

Santa cannot have a bad day. He maintains a “Ho-Ho-Ho” attitude in all he does. It is infectious. His steady demeanor underpins a healthy work environment for his Elves.

Santa uniquely balances the need to be jolly with a focused determination to get the job done.

He message is consistent: “the right toy, to the right child, in the nick of time, every time.” Everyone shares the vision, everyone is on the team.

2. Lead by Example

Santa is a mentor for want-to-be ‘helpers’ all over the world. He works hard to maintain his unfitness; no child wants to sit on a skinny Santa’s lap.

He never asks his Elves to do anything that he has not done himself a thousand times before.

Moreover, he walks the walk of a leader by assuming personal risk to deliver those presents to deserving boys and girls. He sets the pace, he sets the example, and he leads from the front.

3. Reward Good Performance

Santa knows his reindeer and he knows who is naughty and nice. He rewards good performance. Results matter, they matter a lot. At the North Pole good performance is rewarded, good performance is the standard.

4. Have a Personal Touch

Santa reads every letter written by every child. He chooses the right toy and delivers that toy personally. Santa might delegate authority to get things done, but the responsibility is his alone.

5. Never Quit

Santa never gives up. One year he had to think ‘out of the box’ when confronted with a thick fog that blinded his veteran reindeer team. Santa, in a moment of genius, put Rudolph, an upstart, at the front of his sleigh, making it possible to navigate from the iridescent glow radiating from the young reindeer’s nose.

Santa, in his typical manner, gave all the credit to Rudolph. Enough said.

6. Check everything twice

Not one to micromanage, yet nothing is left to chance. Imagine a good child being left off of Santa’s list, or worse yet, a bad child receiving an undeserved present.

Santa leads with a light touch, but he knows how to ask the right questions, and when to get involved.

Believe and Achieve

The long flight back to Maxwell Air Force Base allowed time to ruminate over Santa’s message. His leadership style is not flashy (except for his red clothes, red sleigh and reindeer team) but grounded in centuries of experience overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Santa is the leader we all strive to become. 

His principles work; one must simply believe.

Merry Christmas!

The 6 Warning Signs of Low Employee Morale

Low morale at the workplace isn’t just painful for your employees, it hurts your company too. Poor employee morale can have devastating effects on your business’ efficiency, growth and revenue.

1) Increased Absence From Work
The emptiness of a chair yells out to you – Where has Tom been? You begin to wonder if maybe he is okay, because he has been missing 2 days out of every month.

 2) Excessive Complaining Over Seemingly Small Matters
Jerry can’t stand the fax machine, and he gives you an earful about it. The next day it’s his chair, and the day after that it’s the color of the carpeting.

3) Employee Conflicts
Excessive drama and in-fighting can take their toll. It steals energy and attention from employees that would otherwise go towards work performance.

4) Poor or Little Communication with Management
Employee engagement is at a bare minimum. All that is communicated is what is essential, and that’s it. This can be hugely devastating. Employees no longer feel free to input creative ideas that could really help business. Shortened or tense communication can be a sign that something isn’t right.

5) Zombie Employees
If you find your staff is wandering around, groaning, and walking like they’re half-dead, you might have a problem with workplace morale.

6) High Turnover Rate
Having to conduct job interviews and hire new employees to fill vacant spots can be costly in terms of time and resources.

Build Workplace Morale
The good news is that improving employee morale is possible and not that difficult. One way to boost workplace morale is to hire corporate entertainment like a clean comedian, magician, game show, mentalist or humorous speaker.

Bring your employees together and reward them for their hard work and dedication.

Giving them space to relax and communicate outside the confines of the office is a great way to increase communication and break the ice in an informal environment and it gives everyone a shared experience to talk about for months to come.

Is Your Company Turning You Into a Corporate Zombie?

Your company wants to turn you into a zombie. And you might be letting it happen.

Most employees are hired because they have personal vitality, which is a general sense of aliveness, creative thinking, communication style, presence, awareness, intellectual curiosity, and an untamed sense of humor. Then the subtle cultural cues set in as corporate zombie culture attempts to recruit another member.

It becomes clear that those who make it around here focus on efficiency and bottom-line results. They work long hours. They send email at 2 a.m. They answer their work cell phone at any time of the day or night, unless they're on a plane. They get a gold star for working late, skipping the gym, and taking that conference call at 5 a.m. to accommodate people in different time zones.

As they work, they mostly respond rather than get ahead of situations. Their creativity level drops, and they spend less time reflecting. They laugh less. They look more and more like other people in the office. They begin to parrot what the top leaders say, but with less enthusiasm than the leaders. After all, a key to moving up is to not outshine the boss. That sparkle in their eyes dims. They become corporate zombies.

A friend of mine was recently dinged in a performance appraisal for being "too enthusiastic." Translation: be less alive, more like a zombie.

Corporate zombie cultures thrive on brain eating. Not literally, but through reprimands and random firings that instill terror and drive people to sacrifice more, be more loyal, and stand out less.

Why are we talking about this now? Because zombie cultures rise during recessions and jobless recoveries, when the fear of losing a job is at its highest.

So what do we do here?

The first step is to recognize what's happening. Companies send subtle messages, especially to their managers, that conformity and sacrifice of one's uniqueness are good. They are not.

Second, become aware of the cost. Personal vitality is one factor in what colleagues and I call That Which Cannot Be Delegated -- that intangible quality that commands respect and attention, and encourages others to listen to what you say.

That Which Cannot Be Delegated has a lot to do with the leadership. In the movie "The Social Network," Sean Parker had it. Eduardo Saverin did not, which is part of why he was taken out. Zuckerberg did not have it.

Among presidents, John Kennedy had That Which Cannot Be Delegated. So did Reagan and Clinton. Jimmy Carter didn't. Neither did the first Bush. Most people I talk with think the second Bush also lacked it.

How to develop That Which Cannot Be Delegated is the subject of another post. The key here is that if you let the zombie-ification happen to you, chances are, you're giving up That Which Cannot Be Delegated, impairing your ability to lead.

Third, say "hell no!" to zombie cultures. The most effective leaders I know got through layers of management without ever losing their personal vitality, but it was a constant struggle. Do what they did: Draw boundaries and train those around you about your priorities. If you don't answer your cell phone on the second ring, it might be because you have something more important to do. These actions actually increase your levels of personal vitality and That Which Cannot Be Delegated.

Fourth, create a culture of aliveness and innovation. Find and connect with others who have said "hell no!" to the zombie siren song, and build new tribes around them.

Again and again, zombie cultures fail because they are outmaneuvered by people that are still alive and still find joy in their work.

Have you ever seen a zombie culture or been a part of one? If so, I hope you'll share it in an email to me or in the comments below.
 

How Zombies Are Ruining Your Job And Your Life

Zombies are taking over your company and your life. They want to eat your brain. Here's how to fight back.

The most interesting bit of research I saw last year came from Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer on what really motivates workers. It turns out that the number one factor is a sense of progress on important work. Combine this finding with "decision fatigue" (studied in relation to judges' rulings), and we arrive that by the end of the day, your brain has been eaten by zombies. Each task you do involves a decision, and depletes your mental resources and likely, your motivation. For tasks that give you a sense of progress, let's call these "progress tasks," the well is partially refilled. Let's call tasks that offer no sense of progress "zombies." After a day of working on a "change the world" project, people can keep going. But an hour of TPS reports (the value-less work that plagued employees from the movie "Office Space") means an hour of zombies snacking on your brain.

It gets worse. The more zombies you kill, the more zombies the noise attracts. Try to answer all your email -- all of it. Tomorrow, you'll probably have as many unread emails as you had before you started. Catch up on your paperwork and your assistant probably has another stack he's been keeping for when that's done. Fill out a rebate card and zombies -- direct mail, spam, telemarketers -- will be chasing you for months.

And the really bad news is that they don't just affect individuals, they infest whole groups of people. I wrote last year about the rise of zombie cultures.

There are two things you can do about this zombie infestation.

First, take your routine work and find a way to track your progress. As a test, I woke up yesterday and had 555 unread emails. This was 555 zombies chasing me around. I set up an Excel spreadsheet, noting various times. By 5:48 p.m., when I left for a meeting, I had only 109 unread emails left. What was remarkable about this experience was that the feeling of getting through email felt completely different than the usual "oh crap, look at how many emails I have to get through." As my friend Daniel Mezick says, "make work a game, and you'll get more done and have more fun." His new book, The Culture Game is a great how-to on converting zombies to progress tasks.

Second, reduce the decisions required to get things done. David Allen artfully describes what happens when you look at a piece of paper, a report, an email, or anything else. Your brain asks: "What is this?" You have to make a decision -- increasing decision fatigue. As an example of how to reduce the number of decisions, ask everyone to put the following in the front line of an email message: "FYI," "Invitation," or "To do." An "FYI" means you need to read it but take no action. An invitation means you're being asked to consider doing something, and saying "no" is OK. The decision is simple: yes or no. And a "to do" needs to be put on your to do list or calendar. Notice that you never asked "What is this?" To strain the analogy, this email protocol doesn't cut the number of zombies, but it slows them down and makes them easier to kill. Combine this action with #1 above, and you transform zombies into -- are you sitting down -- fun things to do. My company CultureSync has just started this protocol and we have all been amazed at its impact.

Here are three other ways you can reduce zombies:

1. At the start of every meeting, ask "What do we need to accomplish, and do we agree that once we get that done, we can leave?" Now a meeting isn't a wait-out-the-clock affair, but gives you a sense of progress measured against goals.

2. Every time you deal with a zombie, see if you can prevent that zombie from coming back. Paying bills is zombies; automate that. Next time you see an automated email that adds no value, unsubscribe. Make zombie prevention a game, and you'll get a double bonus -- fewer zombies, and increased motivation. When I answered most of my 555 unread emails, I unsubscribed to 52 lists. Those zombies are gone for good.

3. Play more games. One year, I wanted to lose weight, so I tracked the total number of miles I ran on an Excel spreadsheet. This made it fun. My motivation increased even more because it was cool to see my progress as I tracked the average number of miles per day. I've written in other blog posts about the best time management tool ever, which is 20 minute segments. Commit to a certain number of segments, or miles, or books read, and you'll feel a sense of progress measured against your goals.

Have you found ways to turn zombies into progress tasks? Have you prevented some zombies from coming back? Or is your work life like a day from The Walking Dead? I hope you'll share what you're learning by posting a comment below.