36
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
A Personal Path to Lifelong Health
Dr. Goodman welcomes you with an engaging overview of the critical importance of lifelong health. Here, he teaches you how to recognize sound medical advice on healthy living, reveals his personal approach to well-being, and charts the major themes of the course.
1.
A Personal Path to Lifelong Health
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19.
Healthful Eating versus Fad Diets
Learn how to view your way of eating as a way of living. As you debunk the myths of popular low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets, you discover why a Mediterranean-style diet (with its emphasis on fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats) is the perfect template on which to craft your own whole-food diet.
19.
Healthful Eating versus Fad Diets
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2.
The Cellular Biology of Aging
There's no avoiding the fact that your body ages over time. But how it ages is something you can try to control. In this first lecture on aging, explore the science behind this inevitable process with a look at how common aging factors—both internal and external—all begin at the cellular level.
2.
The Cellular Biology of Aging
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20.
Movement and Recreation—a.k.a. Exercise
What are the physical benefits of moving your body? How can you create an exercise plan that is optimum for your lifestyle? Discover the answers to these and other questions about physical activity.
20.
Movement and Recreation—a.k.a. Exercise
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3.
The Physiology of Aging
Continue your exploration of the aging process by examining what causes cells, tissues, and organ systems to lose some of their function over time. In addition, study the external stresses that cause aging, and learn a few tips on ways to slow this progression over time.
3.
The Physiology of Aging
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21.
The Physiology of Muscle
Delve into the physiology of muscles and weight training, including a closer look at the three basic kinds of muscle (skeletal, cardiac, and smooth), the differences between isotonic and isometric exercises, and why it's never too late or too early to start moving your body.
21.
The Physiology of Muscle
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4.
Myths of Aging—Magical Times and Places
For thousands of years, the quest for eternal youth has captivated human society. Learn the difference between your chronological age and your biological age, explore two fascinating legends about immortality, and discover some cultural lifestyles that promote longevity.
4.
Myths of Aging—Magical Times and Places
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22.
Resistance Training and Weight Training
Discover why weight training doesn't have to be uncomfortable or intimidating. Dr. Goodman reveals how to get the most effective (and safe) workout from the muscles in your body through resistance training, free weights, calisthenics, and more—at any age.
22.
Resistance Training and Weight Training
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5.
Myths of Aging—Magical Substances
Dispel the myths behind medicines and procedures widely promoted to prolong life or stave off the aging process. As you investigate the uses of human growth hormones, anabolic steroids, cell therapy, and other methods, you uncover both the risks behind these "cures" and the ways they fall short on their promises.
5.
Myths of Aging—Magical Substances
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23.
Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise
Any well-rounded workout involves the use of aerobic and anaerobic activities as well as weight lifting. Examine the benefits of moderate and high-intensity exercises, learn how to draft a basic workout plan, investigate reasons that walking might be just as good for you as running, and more.
23.
Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise
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6.
Optimizing Health—Tests and Procedures
What health tests, screenings, and examinations can help you stay ahead of the curve? Discover the answers in this lecture, which teaches you the best times to consider mammograms, colonoscopies, exercise stress tests, and more—as well as routine blood tests and blood-pressure screenings.
6.
Optimizing Health—Tests and Procedures
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24.
Exercise in Dealing with Injury and Disease
Contrary to popular belief, exercising can be extremely beneficial for people with diseases such as diabetes, emotional disorders, and osteoarthritis—but only if done properly. Find out how in this lecture, which also offers you tips on preventing and recovering from common exercising injuries.
24.
Exercise in Dealing with Injury and Disease
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7.
Optimizing Health—Prevention
Preventing a disease is always better than trying to cure it. Here, look at some important measures you can take to prevent serious illnesses before they start, including quitting smoking, reducing high blood pressure, and immunizing yourself from the flu and other preventable diseases.
7.
Optimizing Health—Prevention
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25.
Joy in Movement—Sports and Exercise Options
Moving your body is an essential part of overall health and wellness. But with all the exercises and activities out there, how do you know which ones are right for you? Study the pros and cons of popular exercise options, including biking, hiking, dancing, and ball sports.
25.
Joy in Movement—Sports and Exercise Options
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8.
How We Look—Surgery and Skin-Care
Examine the realities of reconstructive surgery (which primarily restores or improves function) and cosmetic surgery (designed to improve appearance to reflect cultural norms). Also, focus on ways to prevent sunburn, skin cancer, acne, and other dermatological conditions.
8.
How We Look—Surgery and Skin-Care
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26.
Martial Arts and Yoga
Finish up your study of exercise by investigating two appealing options you might not have considered: martial arts and yoga. The different styles of these two workouts can be practiced at all ages and stages of life, with multiple benefits for enhancing the health of your joints, muscles, and mind.
26.
Martial Arts and Yoga
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9.
The End of the Journey—Death and Dying
Dr. Goodman candidly discusses the topic of death and dying, the awareness and acceptance of which is essential to optimum living. He discusses two programs that have shed new light on this difficult subject for the dying and their families: meaning-centered therapy and hospice and palliative care.
9.
The End of the Journey—Death and Dying
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27.
Mental Health and Stress Reduction
Start taking control of the stress in your life with this lecture, which introduces you to the profound benefits of mental well-being on all aspects of your life and teaches you how to realistically reduce stress through three powerful techniques: relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness.
27.
Mental Health and Stress Reduction
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10.
Health Advances on the Horizon
Cast your gaze onto the future of medical care with a study of current and future advances in medicine designed to prolong our lives, such as genetic research and immunotherapy.
10.
Health Advances on the Horizon
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28.
Brain Physiology, Alzheimer's, and Dementia
Peer inside the physiology of the human brain and uncover ways to increase cognitive function and slow its decline. Then, move on to look at the challenges, warning signs, and myths behind Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for about 60% to 80% of all dementias in the United States.
28.
Brain Physiology, Alzheimer's, and Dementia
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11.
Nutrition—Choices for a Healthy Life
Turn now to a focus on guidelines for good nutrition. Here, Dr. Goodman introduces you to some of the major themes he'll discuss in following lectures, including the role of food in our culture, the value of eating whole foods, and the search for nutritional balance.
11.
Nutrition—Choices for a Healthy Life
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29.
Maintaining Your Mental Edge
Explore the three pillars for optimizing your mental edge as you age: frequently exercising; maintaining strong interactions with family and friends; and stimulating your brain through learning. The lecture concludes with a brief discussion of the invaluable power of laughter on your mental health.
29.
Maintaining Your Mental Edge
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12.
The Physiology of Nutrition
To best understand nutrition, it's necessary to break down the components of food into manageable pieces. Examine the important nutritional roles of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and end with a close look at how to read the USDA's revised food pyramid.
12.
The Physiology of Nutrition
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30.
Focus on Women's Health
In the first of two lectures on women's health, focus on the risk factors, symptoms, effects, and possible preventive measures of three critical health issues for women: osteoporosis, depression, and heart disease.
30.
Focus on Women's Health
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13.
The Role of Vitamins
Learn more about vitamins, those essential nutrients that your body requires from external sources for normal growth and development. Among the vitamins covered in this lecture are Vitamins A, D, E, C, and K. Also, learn why you should always use vitamins to supplement—not substitute for—a well-balanced diet.
13.
The Role of Vitamins
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31.
Focus on Menopause
Take a close look at the three major kinds of menopause, as well as the contentious debate over using hormone replacement therapy to lessen the unpleasant symptoms of this normal part of the aging process.
31.
Focus on Menopause
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14.
The Role of Supplements
Investigate antioxidants, fiber, herbs, and other supplements that may lower your risk of health problems and improve your body's overall function. In addition, learn how to distinguish supplements that can serve a valuable role in your diet from those that serve no benefit—or that can even be harmful.
14.
The Role of Supplements
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32.
Focus on Men's Health
Examine some of the health issues common to men, including prostate health (and the importance of testing for prostate-specific antigens), central obesity (or "belly fat"), erectile dysfunction, and andropause (the gradual decline in testosterone sometimes referred to as "male menopause").
32.
Focus on Men's Health
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15.
Whole Foods for Optimum Health
How can you get the benefit of vitamins and supplements without going into areas of unproven benefits and possible risks? The answer: whole foods. Here, discover the amazing benefits of "power foods," such as berries, apples, garlic, teas, and turmeric.
15.
Whole Foods for Optimum Health
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33.
Focus on Children's and Adolescents' Health
Childhood eating habits tend to stay with people throughout their lives; these habits are also very hard to change later. Using his insight as a doctor, a parent, and a grandparent, Dr. Goodman gives you advice on establishing and maintaining healthy eating habits in children and adolescents.
33.
Focus on Children's and Adolescents' Health
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16.
The Good Fats
Good fats such as omega-3 fatty acids and monosaturated fatty acids are greatly misunderstood and have the potential to maximize your health and well-being. Clear up the myths surrounding this group of whole foods and learn how to best integrate them into your daily diet.
16.
The Good Fats
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34.
Healthy Choices in Your Daily Life
This lecture emphasizes the importance of choices you make every day that affect your health and well-being. Get invaluable tips on sleeping adequately, staying well hydrated, and controlling your consumption of alcohol—especially during periods of high stress.
34.
Healthy Choices in Your Daily Life
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17.
Sugar, Salt, Allergies, and Additives
Some foods can evoke unpleasant and unhealthy responses in different people. Dr. Goodman examines the risks of eating too much salt, sugar, and additives; offers you commonsense tips on how to control your intake of these foods; and discusses the differences between food allergies and sensitivities.
17.
Sugar, Salt, Allergies, and Additives
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35.
Becoming an Educated Patient
Maximize the effectiveness of your relationship with your healthcare professional by learning how to ask the right questions, what to bring to a doctor's appointment, and more. Also, delve deeper into ways to balance conventional and proven alternative medical therapies while keeping your best interests at heart.
35.
Becoming an Educated Patient
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18.
The Physiology of Weight Management
Obesity is one of the fastest-growing epidemics in the United States. This lecture covers a host of topics about obesity and weight management, including the differences between being "overweight" and "obese," the roles played by genetics and the environment, and practical eating and dieting advice for managing your weight.
18.
The Physiology of Weight Management
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36.
Here's to Your Healthy Life!
Conclude with a review of the ground you covered, a look at a compelling 72-year study on human longevity that cements the benefits of healthy living, and some powerful words of practical advice that will help guide you through the dynamic world of optimum well-being.
36.
Here's to Your Healthy Life!
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24
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers? Why Do We?
In Professor Sapolsky's introductory lecture, get a behind-the-scenes look at the science of stress and preview the groundwork for the course ahead. What exactly happens to our bodies when we come under stress? And how is our response to stress different from that of a zebra being hunted al ong a savannah?
1.
Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers? Why Do We?
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13.
Stress, Learning, and Memory
Memory—whether implicit or explicit—is an essential part of everyday life. So it's all the more important to understand how it's affected by stress. This lecture explains the science behind how short-term stress enhances memory and learning, while chronic stress may actually work to kill neurons in the hippocampus.
13.
Stress, Learning, and Memory
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2.
The Nuts and Bolts of the Stress-Response
Every time you have a thought or emotion, things change in your body. Here, explore the two factors responsible for these changes: the nervous system and hormones. Learn how these systems work, how they're regulated, and—most important—what happens to them during moments of stress.
2.
The Nuts and Bolts of the Stress-Response
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14.
Stress, Judgment, and Impulse Control
In addition to affecting the hippocampus, stress can prove harmful to the frontal cortex as well—the seat of behavioral regulation. As in previous lectures, discover what happens to this essential part of the brain when it comes under attack from chronic stress.
14.
Stress, Judgment, and Impulse Control
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3.
Stress and Your Heart
Armed with the necessary background information, explore how specific organ systems suffer when faced with chronic stress. In the first of a series of lectures on this subject, learn how long-term stress can damage heart muscles, inflame and clog blood vessels, and even lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
3.
Stress and Your Heart
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15.
Stress, Sleep, and Lack of Sleep
Most of us don't get as much sleep as we should. Yet the amount of sleep we get is highly intertwined with how our bodies deal with stress. Investigate why high levels of stress disrupt not only how long we sleep—but the quality of sleep's vital restorative powers as well.
15.
Stress, Sleep, and Lack of Sleep
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4.
Stress, Metabolism, and Liquidating Your Assets
The next organ system you focus on: the metabolic system. Discover how cycles of chronic stress lead to a persistent activating and storing of energy, which in turn can lead to an inefficient use of energy and play a critical role in the prevalence of adult-onset diabetes.
4.
Stress, Metabolism, and Liquidating Your Assets
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16.
Stress and Aging
As you age, your ability to deal with stress decreases. What's more: Lots of stress throughout your lifetime can accelerate aspects of aging. Here, examine a series of intriguing experiments and studies that explain the science behind these two views about the intersection between stress and aging.
16.
Stress and Aging
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5.
Stress, Overeating, and Your Digestive Tract
Focus now on the role stress plays in our gastrointestinal tracts. Why do most of us eat more during stressful periods? How does stress affect bowel disorders like irritable bowel syndrome and spastic colons? And how does stress combine with a bacterial infection to produce a common stress-related disease: ulcers?
5.
Stress, Overeating, and Your Digestive Tract
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17.
Understanding Psychological Stress
Why are some stressors more unbearable than others? This lecture introduces you to three powerful psychological factors that work to modulate the stress response: having an outlet, taking advantage of social support, and having predictive information about when and how long a stressor will occur.
17.
Understanding Psychological Stress
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6.
Stress and Growth—Echoes from the Womb
The first of two lectures on stress and child development takes you inside prenatal and postnatal life. Using two extraordinary examples, Professor Sapolsky reveals the ways a fetus can respond to the environmental stressors of its mother, and how different parenting styles can affect the stress levels of young children.
6.
Stress and Growth—Echoes from the Womb
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18.
Psychological Modulators of Stress
Conclude your look at ways to modulate the stress response by looking at two subtler variables: your control over the stressor, and your interpretation of whether the stress is getting better or worse. You also see why, despite being enormously powerful, these variables can work only within certain parameters.
18.
Psychological Modulators of Stress
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7.
Stress, Growth, and Child Development
Investigate how chronic stress can disrupt the growth of young children by focusing on stress dwarfism and the connection between stress and low growth hormone levels. Also, learn how mid-20th-century experiments with monkeys proved how important love—and not just nutrients—is in raising less-stressful children.
7.
Stress, Growth, and Child Development
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19.
Stress and the Biology of Depression
Turn to the realm of mental health with this close look at the ties between stress and major depression—one of the leading causes of disability in the world. Start with an overview of the disorder's symptoms before delving into the particulars of its neurochemistry and neuroanatomy.
19.
Stress and the Biology of Depression
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8.
Stress and Female Reproduction
Get an insightful overview of the multifaceted effects of stress on the female reproductive system. Some of the topics you explore are the intricate relationships between stress and fertilization, ovulation, spontaneous miscarriages, high-tech in vitro fertilization, and the strength of the libido.
8.
Stress and Female Reproduction
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20.
Stress and the Psychology of Depression
To truly understand clinical depression, you need to grasp its psychological aspects as well. In the second lecture on stress and this prevalent disease, explore the pivotal role stress hormones play in depression. Then, use your newfound knowledge of stress to knit together the psychological and biological models of depression.
20.
Stress and the Psychology of Depression
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9.
Stress and Male Reproduction
Despite being simpler than its female counterpart, the male reproductive system is just as vulnerable to chronic stress. Here, discover how stress leads not to a major decrease in testosterone so much as an increase in erectile dysfunction (with a focus on two of the most common symptoms: impotency and premature ejaculation).
9.
Stress and Male Reproduction
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21.
Anxiety, Hostility, Repression, and Reward
Anxiety disorders, feelings of intense hostility, a decreased capacity for pleasure, and a repressed or addictive persona are just a few of the many distinct effects that chronic stress can have on an individual's personality and behavior. The ways these psychological disorders emerge are the subject of this fascinating lecture.
21.
Anxiety, Hostility, Repression, and Reward
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10.
Stress and Your Immune System
Turn now to the relationship between stress and your immune system. After mastering the basics of how this system works, delve into how frequent stressors can result in flare-ups of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, can increase your vulnerability to infections like the common cold and herpes viruses, and more.
10.
Stress and Your Immune System
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22.
Stress, Health, and Low Social Status
How strong a role does socioeconomic status play in what stressors you're exposed to, as well as your potential for chronic stress? It's a provocative question whose answer Professor Sapolsky reveals in this penetrating look at the characteristics and effects of psychosocial stress on both primates and humans.
22.
Stress, Health, and Low Social Status
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11.
Stress and Cancer
Can an increase in stress actually cause cancer? Can it cause a relapse among patients in remission, or speed up the rate of a cancer's progression? Professor Sapolsky offers his insights on these and other controversial questions and myths about the possible links between stress and cancer.
11.
Stress and Cancer
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23.
Stress Management—Clues to Success?
Before learning tips to manage chronic stress, it's essential to understand why certain individuals cope better with stress—both physically and mentally—than others. Discover that the key lies in grasping predictors of successful aging, including a position of respect, a resilient personality, a healthy lifestyle, and a realistic approach to life's challenges.
23.
Stress Management—Clues to Success?
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12.
Stress and Pain
Stress and pain have an intriguing relationship: Stress can increase your sensitivity and resistance to pain, while pain constitutes its own particular stressor. Explore this fascinating bidirectional relationship, and expand your knowledge of how both balanced and stressed minds and bodies react to all varieties of pain.
12.
Stress and Pain
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24.
Stress Management—Approaches and Cautions
Exercise. Meditation. Social support. Religious beliefs. In this concluding lecture, learn how these and other outlets can potentially help you manage life's everyday stressors—both biologically and psychologically. Regardless of how many stressors you deal with daily, all of us, according to Professor Sapolsky, have the potential to keep them in perspective.
24.
Stress Management—Approaches and Cautions
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