Fidget spinners are the new fad nowadays. They are everywhere, with children and even some adults spinning them for the mere fun. Beside the regular spinning, some even try out new tricks, such as balancing them on the fingers, nose, or forehead.
However, with everything mass produced comes the risk of it falling below safety standards and this doesn’t leave fidget spinners out. In fact, authorities now warn that fidget spinners can pose an enormous threat on the health of children.
Note that this is not a fun fact, but a serious matter to take into consideration when allowing your children to play with these toys, especially if they come from unsupervised sources.
Independent advocate Tamara Rubin has tested a variety of fidget spinners and has found that some of them contained an alarming amount of toxic chemicals that can lead to serious health issues.
What she discovered was that some of the fidget spinners contained mercury and lead which were far beyond the safety threshold for children’s toys. The safety threshold for lead toys is considered by scientists to be 90 parts per million (ppm).
Her analyses showed that the fidget spinners contained a staggering amount of lead by up to 42.800 ppm and has recorded the presence of mercury in some by over 1.000 ppm.
You can read more about her in-depth analyses here (brass spinner) and here (LED light spinner).
While not all fidget spinners are lead-ridden, the main source of lead and mercury contaminated toys are countries where the quality regulations are not strict. Such example is China, and researchers say that toys produced there may contain dangerous amounts of lead.
While you cannot possibly tell how much lead a toy contains, as an XRF instrument can cost around $50.000, Rubin recommends making your own fidget spinner as an alternative.
In case you decide to buy a fidget spinner, the price won’t tell you much – in fact, Rubin found that the most contaminated toy she tested costed $31. What you should be looking at is the country of origin.
Lead poisoning can be fatal
According to MayoClinic, lead poisoning can severely affect both the physical and mental development of children, with children under 6 being the most vulnerable. At very high levels, lead can even be fatal.
Initially, this kind of poisoning can be hard to detect, and the signs and symptoms don’t appear until the body has accumulated dangerous amounts of lead.
Here is a list of symptoms of lead poisoning in children:
If you suspect that your child may be experiencing lead poisoning, it is best advised that you consult their doctor and take appropriate measures. However, prevention is the best option.
Protect your children from these dangers and throw away all fidget spinners to be on the safe side. Explain to them why you need to do this and tell them how dangerous it can be for them if you don’t.
Manipulators wonder around in the world, having selfish and greedy intentions and manipulating others without anyone noticing it.
These people are thinking only about themselves and have no interest in things that don’t bring them benefit in the long run. They would not hesitate to destroy a variety of relationships in order to get exactly what they want.
None of us needs unnecessary conflict in our lives, especially not from someone who brings it on purpose in order to gain something with their selfishness.
1. Be confident
Manipulators feed on people who have low self-esteem. For manipulators, these people are of greatest benefit for them as they are the easiest victims.
If you behave like a person with confidence and stand for yourself, the manipulator will see that there is no way they can benefit from you.
They might try and be persistent sometimes, but you are safe as long as you stand your ground and make it clear that you have no intention of being moved from that position. Eventually they will back off. Always be confident, you can never know who and when someone will try to manipulate you.
2. Resilience
If you are not resilient enough in an argument with a manipulator they will pull out an information from you to see how you feel about something and then try to convince you to do things their way. This is the way things work in their mind. That is the kind of mindset a manipulator has.
By doing so they hope to make you feel bad for some things in order to selfishly gain your trust in that moment.
You must be as resilient as you can be and not give them the smallest chance to get in your head. You must not give in to their lies. Just push them back as hard as you can.
3. Don’t be afraid to use the “NO” word
This is the most important things of all. If you find yourself in a position with a manipulator remember you can always say NO. Say it clearly to signal them to back off. You can say no to anyone for anything, for that matter. It is your right and there is nothing they can do about it.
Don’t try to prove them that you are not countable with something which is a waste of time. Simply use the NO word and that can be the end of the discussion. Trying to prove something to these people is a waste of time. They know what they want and they go for it, which is why it is important to say no to them.
If they do not want to listen and try to force you into doing something you are not willing to do, do not hesitate to contact the authorities immediately.
4. Make a difference between the good and the bad
Manipulators will do absolutely everything in their power to convince you of a false feeling that you might question you have about certain things. They would act tough and tell you that you are crazy and emotionally unstable.
They do all this in order to brake you down and make you go their way. Do not let them dictate the way you feel or should feel about something. You are the one that knows best what you feel and no one else can interfere. Let them know exactly how you feel and don’t go their way only to avoid conflict because you will only put yourself in a worse position later.
They have absolutely no power over you and your feelings, so just tell them what you feel and get out of their sight. That is the safest and quickest way to avoid further complications.
5. Last but not least
If all else fails and they still want you to go their way you have the right to tell them: ”I need you to speak calmly to me” or “I need you to stop insulting me” or “I need you to speak with kindness to me”, and “I need you to take care of those things yourself.”
The phrase “I need you to” is not here by accident. It will set the picture in their heads that they are not in control. And they really aren’t. It is you and only you who is in control, so use that to avoid problems with them.
You will be the one asking things from them. If they do not comply than you decide for yourself if this person is worth spending time with. Finally, if they decide to leave, it’s better for you not to have them around.
Who doesn’t like puzzles? Even if we sometimes get enraged with how simple the solution was, we can’t resist the temptation of trying to solve one. Puzzles are a way of keeping your mind sharp, and are a great alternative to mindless scrolling and plain time wasting.
As a fun fact, do you know that children are usually better at solving puzzles? It’s because they tend not to overthink the logical problem, but approach it hands on, and draw their conclusions as they go.
On the other hand, adults tend to base their solutions on logical patterns they have created in their minds. Sometimes they work, but other times these patterns get so complicated, that the mind drifts far away from the simple solution.
Can you move one matchstick to make a square?
The following puzzle is no different from many others: It requires you to look at the simplest solution, so think out of the box and don’t overthink it!
Time for some brain exercise! Let’s put your analytical skills to the test!
As you can see from the photo below, four matches are arranged in a plus shape with the heads facing outwards. What you need to do is make a square by moving just one match.
Take your time and think through it. The solution is very simple.
The key is thinking beyond the obvious route you would try to make a square by moving one match.
Did you find the solution? In the end, you either come up with the solution, or you don’t. If the second one is the case, then you could watch this video below and see how it can be done.
If you thought Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Junior was only a figment of a screenwriter’s imagination, perhaps you were right back then. However, times have changed, and what some thought was impossible is now good news for a happy couple.
Trystan Reese and Biff Chaplow are a married gay couple who are parents to two children they adopted in 2015, after Biff’s sister and her boyfriend were deemed unfit to care for their children due to substance abuse.
This couple is now expecting a new member to the family, after Trystan, who is transgender, became pregnant. This comes after a heartbreaking miscarriage at six weeks in 2016.
A post shared by Caitlin Lawson (@lawson_portraits) on
In spite of them having lost hope of what they thought was their only chance, six months later, Trystan felt the first signs of possible pregnancy and took a pregnancy test and discovered the good news.
Now, six months in, Trystan and Biff announce that the new member to the family is, as they put it, “diagnosis: male.” You can hear more from them on their podcasts at The Longest Shortest Time.
Here’s an interesting fact you may have never heard of. We are significantly taller than our predecessors 100 years ago.
This was concluded in a study conducted by several health scientists known as the Non-Communicable Diseases Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), published in the journal eLife in 2016. The team analyzed differences in height in18-year-old men and women born in 1896 and those born 1996 in 187 countries.
The lead scientist of the study, Majid Ezzati, said for the BBC News that some of the changes in height were due to genes while most of the changes were due to environmental conditions. So people are now taller thanks to improved health conditions, nutrition and sanitation.
At the top of the list are women in South Korea, who became taller an average of 9 inches while men in Iran became taller an average of 6 inches.
Look at the table of countries where people have grown the most.
When we learn the fact that 74 percent of moms confessed that they swear in front of their children, we couldn’t help but wonder: “For god’s sake!
What do the other 26 percent moms do? What is wrong with them?”
Kraft Mac & Cheese may have thought the same thing, because they have even created a “film” with Melissa Mohr – the mom who is the author of the so called Swear book.
In this film, she gives advice to moms on how to use cursing around the house and she even suggests alternatives of curse words that can actually be used around kids.
And this advice indeed is a piece of gold!
Go check it for yourself if you don’t believe me. But, I warn you: It may cause incontrollable laughing.
Soul Pancake and Puppy Chow team, just released a video that can be found with the hash tag #PowerofPuppies, in order to help raise food donations for shelter dogs.
Each view of this video makes Purina donate one pound of Puppy Chow Natural to Rescue Bank, that will go up to half a million pounds.
The numerous views and shares by good-hearted people, make this campaign still successful today.
So, this is a call to all good people out there: Please view and share this video. You will help some hungry dog get his food. Besides, it is a cute video also.
Penguins. When you don’t think that they have anything new to surprise you, there they are flapping their bony wings against one another… over a cheating wife.
If you thought that fighting over a cheating wife is only what some men resort to (that is humans), then you should definitely see what happens to this penguin couple when the intruder comes in between.
It’s a fact that penguins mate for life, except for some species, but did you know that some penguins can be double-timing cheaters? National Geographic has caught one penguin wife on camera… and so did her husband.
The let-down husband, however, tries to save his family from the intruder. Unfortunately, it’s the wife who chose the new guy, and she won’t change her mind.
The question is: is the new penguin the intruder, or did the wife start having second thoughts?
If you’ve heard the word ‘empathy’ popping out here and there, it’s no coincidence. It seems that more and more people are naturally unlocking their empathetic abilities as time goes by.
What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to feel what the other person is feeling, and recognize and accept that feeling. It’s the ability to step into their shoes and walk a mile, thus drawing conclusions on why they behave and feel the way they do.
Empathetic people understand that no two minds are the same, and that there’s no set pattern on how emotions can be triggered, but that they are there in every situation. And if you thought that these people are meek and vulnerable, you will be surprised to find that they are much more courageous than many.
While empathy was just part of common talk, now even science has started delving deep into its properties and its validity, discovering more as they dive deeper. In fact, neuroscientists have discovered a specific part of the brain responsible for empathy.
The supramarginal gyrus is a region of the brain which, when functioning properly, serves to help the person to distinguish their own emotional state from that of other people, and it’s responsible for empathy and compassion.
While empathy is at its peak during childhood, it doesn’t stop evolving as we grow up. In fact, we can nurture it and use it to transform our lives in a very positive direction. Empathy helps you to gain a better understanding of the world around you, and it opens up a whole new dimension of thinking.
To learn how to nurture this gift, looking at what makes an empathetic person is crucial.
Here are 6 habits that highly empathetic people have in common:
1. Cultivating curiosity about others
Highly empathetic people have this insatiable curiosity about others. You will notice a highly empathetic person talking to a complete stranger sitting next to them on the bus, or at any random place for that matter.
They have stuck to the natural inquisitiveness we all had as children. Not really examining others, but rather being the interested inquirers, these people have managed to resist society’s idea that curiosity is unnecessary when all the answers have already been found.
In fact, when you get to talk to someone you don’t know, you’ll see that every person is a completely new universe to discover, and that the beauty of it all is that you get to discover it first-hand.
The purpose of getting to meet others outside your ‘world’ is to expand your potentials as a human being, socially speaking. It offers a gateway of new worldviews and opinions that may challenge some outdated attitudes that may be lurking beyond your awareness.
Not only does curiosity expand our empathy, it also offers a cure to the chronic loneliness which affects one in three Americans.
Challenging prejudices and discovering commonalities
Prejudices are the worst obstacle that there can be when it comes to embracing your empathetic ability. And really, is there so much to prejudice as you may think there is? Behind the label you are to put on a person lies an individual with lots of qualities.
Prejudices are natural for every mind. However, highly empathetic people like to challenge theirs, by looking into what they share in common with people rather than what divides them.
Differences make us unique, and commonalities bring us closer together. And this knowledge is something highly empathetic people cherish with all their heart. This way not only do they come closer to people, but also learn of new values that make them bigger than they were.
The key is understanding that prejudices are just a mindset that has nothing to do with the actual person they are targeted against. Whatever their behavior, and no matter how much they seem to fit into the frame, the empathetic person will recognize how they got there and what lies at the core of their nature, which is beautiful.
Trying other people’s lives
If you thought that ice climbing and hand gliding are extreme sports, then you should try experiential empathy. You may have not met this term before, but you certainly have heard of great people who have done this.
One such example is George Orwell, who, after several years of being a colonial police officer in British Burma, decided to see what life looked like living on the social margins. For that, he dressed up as a tramp and went to live on the streets of East London.
His life with beggars and vagabonds opened up a whole new window of understanding he was never aware of. Not only did he realize that homeless people are not “drunken scoundrels”, but he even made new friends and wrote a book about it – Down and Out in Paris and London.
His experience showed him that empathy doesn’t only make you good – it’s good for you as well. Do you know people who like to try out different kinds of lifestyles?
Highly empathetic people often consider and practice this kind of life. You might notice them sneaking into services from different religions, just for the experience; travelling to underdeveloped countries and spending time there, living the lifestyle of the people there; doing things that don’t really ‘fit’ into their lifestyle; you name it.
These experiences are the best way to learn about others and understand something which was far from tangible.
Listening hard – and opening up
In conversations, highly empathetic people listen to more than just words. They are aware of what’s going on within, the feelings and the intensity of the thoughts that unfold, while the conversation flows.
They direct their complete attention and awareness to the process of communicating with the other person, to such an extent that they understand the underlying processes, the emotions, and the needs that created the communication in the first place.
And they don’t stop there, as listening is never enough. Highly empathetic people like to open up, and reveal their vulnerabilities. In order to create this strong empathetic bond, it’s crucial to open up completely to the person you’re talking to.
This kind of openness and awareness is what allows empaths to truly connect to others and achieve an honest and a worthwhile communication with others. This way, they not only allow others to feel completely free to express themselves, but they also allow themselves to be completely honest toward themselves in the first place.
Inspiring mass action and social change
Only through empathy can great changes be made. And highly empathetic people tend to inspire others to be as empathetic and follow their footsteps. Empathy can affect the masses and create movements like no other thing can.
You will see empathetic people marching forward to help the downtrodden and marginalized fight their way against the current of prejudice and exploitation. Empathetic people choose to stand on the side of those feeling unjustly singled out and mistreated.
It’s because they understand their struggle and the devastating emotions that they endure because of those who couldn’t care less. And empathy is contagious. Soon, many people join the fight and together change the world for the better.
Developing an ambitious imagination
Empathizing with the ‘usual suspects’, i.e. the marginalized, those who are suffering, is what many would naturally do. But how often have you considered the emotional states of those who have caused the turmoil?
Highly empathetic people understand that empathy should be universal and should be directed toward everyone, no matter their status. This includes the adversaries too. They are people too, although misled by far, but with feelings and struggles.
In fact, the empathetic person will understand that no evil comes by free choice, and that at the core is a vulnerable individual who doesn’t know how to do better. This way of empathizing is a way of developing social tolerance that can lead to profound changes.
A beautiful example is Gandhi’s way of handling the conflicting emotions regarding the conflicts between the Hindus and Muslims, declaring “Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.”
As Roman Krznaric says, the 20th century was the age of introspection, where the best way to understanding ourselves was through looking inside ourselves. The 21st century should become the age of outrospection – the age of empathy.
Flying, water and travelling are some of the most common dreams that everyone has had. Do you know the meaning behind these common dreams?
The meaning of the following 11 dreams should never be ignored:
1. Boxes
If you dream of a case or a box of some sort, that probably means that you have some hidden feeling or you sense that something is being kept away from you. If the box is empty that means you have some sort of disappointment in your life.
However, if you dream more than one or many boxes, it means that you have a problem in recognizing your feelings, and therefore you need to hide them away from everyone.
If you dream of an open box that might mean that some opportunity will be presented to you in your real life.
2. Telephones
It is a good thing if you dream of a ringing telephone. When you dream of a ringing telephone, that means that one part of your personality is finally ready to get in touch with your senses the way it is supposed to. Be on alert, there might be an opportunity soon, so be in touch with yourself and your senses.
3. Flying
Dreams about flying are mostly categorized as a lucid dreams, but not always. They might indicate a wakeup call from your subconscious mind. If you dream of flying that might be a sign of some difficulties in your real life, and it can indicate your efforts to overcome these difficulties in life.
The flying is just a representation of an attempt to rise above the problems that you have in your life. It is as simple as that and it is not a good idea to ignore your subconscious.
4. The Moon
If you have a dream win which you see the moon, that might not a good thing. That might indicate that some unseen or never reviled creative side of your personality is fading away.
It might be a sign that you are losing some good quality hidden under your personality. Don’t let that happen, find where your creativity and good qualities are escaping.
5. Roads
If you dream of roads that means you dream of traveling. If the paths you dream of are clear, strait and beautiful in your dreams your life is going straight forward in a good direction.
But if you dream of fogy, dirty and hard to find roads, you have taken a negative course in life and you should consider some changes in your lifestyle. Remember that strait road means an easy journey in life, while a curved road means difficulties along your journey.
6. Flowers
If you have a dream of a young flower, you should be happy because it is a really good thing. This indicates that new and interesting opportunities will pop up in near future. Dreaming of flowers might mean that some hard efforts from the past will give results and spring to life soon.
Dreaming of growing flowers indicate new beginnings, and bright future. On the other hand if you dream old and dead flowers you might be facing an end for some phase in your life, or just an end of something, so be careful.
7. Water
Dreaming of water might be an indication of some ambition you have in life. So if you dream of the ocean don’t be afraid to take charge on big opportunities and risks in life.
If the waters you dream of are small lakes or shallow rivers than you are probably setting goals that are too high for you to reach. In any case, the greater the water you dream of the bigger the opportunities you should take.
8. Falling down
One of the most frightening nightmares for everyone must be this one. We all have dreamed of a situation where we are falling down without control. Well, you should know that this might be your subconscious talking, so don’t ignore it.
It might be a result of things getting out of control in your real life. This also might mean that you have some fear of failure in life, or fear of making the wrong choices in life. Also, if you dream of falling often that might mean that you have anxiety disorder.
9. Teeth
If you have a dream involving teeth or falling teeth, then you might have a fear of aging. Many people have had a nightmare were their teeth are falling off. Another meaning is worrying too much about your appearance.
10. Ants
If you have a dream about ants or other insects, this is an indication that something is bothering you in life. This might be a sign that you need to resolve your problems at the same time when they occur rather than letting them build up over time.
Ants are hard workers and team players. If you dream of ants it means you believe in this idea of hard and team work.
11. Green color
You seem to have a lot of love around, giving and getting. If all you dream about are green things than you probably are in a good emotional status.
Dreaming of the color green is a sign that you should be more passionate about life in general. If you have an emotional scar don’t worry, dreaming green indicates that those scars are going to heal eventually.
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