Friday, August 3, 2012

The Ultimate Health Care System -Ping Pong !?

funny photo: Funny hu1247.gif
AWESOME HEALTH BENEFITS OF PING PONG

Ping pong is the ultimate number one sport that covers  Mind, Body and Spirit!

 Ping pong is no doubt the most Dynamic sport in the world in terms of covering all 3 areas of Mind, Body , and Spirit.  No other sports cover these 3 areas in such a detailed, intense, speedy high octane way.( Maybe other than Martial Arts. But we dont considered Martial Arts a non-violent sport for the evolved or civilized, though we welcomed arguments on this one. In fact, one would argue that ping pong is the highest form of martial arts since it concerns a high level of finesse with a spinning plastic ball, not just bodily raw power or speed)

Below is a simple list of its Great Benefits on why ping pong is the ultimate
Healthcare System-

1.       no.1 Brain sport- great training for all aspects of the mind
2.       Weight loss
3.       an inexpensive sports with very low risk of injury and a quick workout that burns lots of fat!
4.       great social bonding – a happy spirit

5.       ping pong is the ultimate therapy! great ,quick emotional, physiological release- like releasing stress or anger for a healthy, balanced spirit. 

6.       a great, simple sport for all ages especially the elderly. In fact, it is one of very few professional sports that be played competitively till old age.

7.      Quick build of body strength in all parts of the body- Concentrated, quick, high-octane play at a high level can offer a cardiovascular and aerobic workout, and build strength in the body's fast-twitch muscle fibers.

8.        number one mind-body sport- Pingpong also works very well in terms of building eye-hand coordination. It helps build your reflexes because you do need to stay focused at that very high level. And it makes you alert and limber as you are using your arms, legs and shoulders, basically enhancing speed and strength in all those areas.

9.       May cure brain related illness like Alzeimers! Not yet, but possible first step- read article near end of blog.

10.  a strong therapy for curing all kinds of obsessive compulsive disorders, addictions. When it comes to curing any obsessive disorder or addictions, there has to be a strong substitute of Activity that dominates the former addiction.  Ping pong played at higher levels constitutes a series of quick energy  flow in the brain-body function that could simulate or subjugate the excitement or urge of the former addiction, since both the body and brain activity (energy flux flowing across multiple parts/cells  of the brain)is in concert with each other, thus generating a enormous physiological release.

11. ping pong is the high art of communication – in fact it is the highest form of communication without speech! The going back and forth of the ball with you and  your  buddy's unique energies in it do all the talking and babbling. That give and take  of energies through the little white ball does all the interacting.
  Try it and you will know what I mean. Having communication problems with your friends, families, or love ones?   Start paddling that little white ball and all ice is broken!

12.   Ping Pong as World Savior?!!  - that naked little white ball is superman??!  - to play well at any level, ping pong teaches finesse and respect for the spin and energy your opponent puts on the ball on every shot-Similar to having full consideration at all times  for other peoples actions, speech and thoughts.

In summary, ping pong is the undisputed number one sport and superhero for a brilliant Mind, healthy Body and a balanced, happy Spirit!

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Below are the summaries of the 5 articles from the links at the end of this blog-


Millions of people play table tennis, also known as ping pong. The sport is popular around the world, and with good reason. It offers entertainment, good cardiovascular exercise and health benefits to players of different ages and fitness levels. The risk of injury is low and the intensity is manageable for most people. If you play table tennis to lose weight, you can avail of several social, mental and health benefits.

Low Risk of Injury

In table tennis, players bat with a small paddle, using it to toss the ball to the opponent on the other side of the table. There is no heavy playing equipment in use and there is minimal risk of collisions or falls. Table tennis is one of the few competitive sports that offer players an opportunity to indulge in fast movements without straining the joints. It is perfect for people who are recovering from sports injuries or those having joint problems that prohibit them from participating in other high-speed sports.

Weight Loss

A 2006 report in the Los Angeles Times says that a 150-pound person can burn 272 calories by playing table tennis for an hour. Considering the fact that the sport is entertaining and addictive, it can be a fun and easy way to burn calories. While the calorie exemption is lower than in singles tennis, the risk of injury and falls is also significantly lower. A high-speed game of table tennis can burn a significant amount of calories and improve your concentration and reflexes. It also helps your cardiovascular system and improves your overall fitness level.

Social Bonding

Whether you play in the community center or at home with friends, table tennis offers a great way to bond with other people while you lose weight. Because young and old people can play the game, it can help improve communication and build relationships, irrespective of age. Playing at home with siblings or parents can bring family members closer and enable them to spend more quality time with each other.

Beneficial for Older People

Table tennis improves reflex, eye-hand co-ordination, mental alertness and speed of movement. It also improves balance and lowers the chances of falls and injuries, especially among older people. Table tennis can slow the process of cognitive decline that occurs with aging. The social skills and bonds you develop are also beneficial in lengthening lifespan, according to Dr. Gary Small from the Center of Aging at the University of California.


"In ping pong, we have enhanced motor functions, enhanced strategy functions and enhanced long-term memory functions," explained Dr. Wendy Suzuki, professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University.
According to Suzuki, table tennis works parts of the brain that are responsible for movement, fine motor skills and strategy -- areas that could be growing stronger with each match. While scientists have yet to study the brain activity of ping pong players, Suzuki believes the game enhances brain function unlike any other sport.

 

Table Tennis Is the No. 1 Brain Sport, Scientists Say

Wednesday night, researchers at The American Museum of Natural History invited Sarandon, Suzuki and a panel of table tennis enthusiasts to become part of their latest exhibition, "Brain: The Inside Story. "
For one night under the iconic blue whale, high above the museum floor, visitors listened to the science behind one of America's favorite basement pastimes. While the ping pong discussion was limited to one night, the brain exhibition continues through the summer.
"Table tennis is the number one brain sport, so we figured this was a great way to get people interested in the brain because a lot of people play table tennis," explained Rob DeSalle, curator for the Museum.
Holding a human brain to get players' attentions, Suzuki pointed out specific areas that are stimulated by playing table tennis.
According to Suzuki, there are three major areas affected by this high-speed game. The fine motor control and exquisite hand-eye coordination involved with dodging and diving for the ball engages and enhances the primary motor cortex and cerebellum, areas responsible for arm and hand movement.

Ping Pong, Like Chess, Involves Strategy

Secondly, by anticipating an opponent's shot, a player uses the prefrontal cortex for strategic planning. Lastly, the aerobic exercise from the physical activity of the game stimulates the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for allowing us to form and retain long-term facts and events.
"There's a lot of strategy and the area that gets enhanced is the prefrontal cortex, critical not only in ping pong, but also in chess," said Suzuki.
That could explain why fellow panelist, Will Shortz, calls ping pong, "chess on steroids." Since 1993, Shortz has been the man responsible for deciding just how much strategy is needed to solve crossword puzzles for The New York Times.
A self-confessed table tennis addict and puzzle editor, Shortz says the key to both of his favorite activities is strategy.
"Crosswords and table tennis go great together, they're both mind sports," he said.
Last November, 11-year-old Alex Lipan focused all of his attention on that bouncing ball to become the top-ranked table tennis player, for ages 12 and under, in the state of New York.

"You have to constantly change your method and see your opponent's weaknesses," he explained after the discussion, when visitors were invited to try their own strategies on ping pong tables set up inside the museum.

Lipan makes split-second decisions by anticipating the other player's moves. By doing so, Dr. Suzuki believes that Alex is actively strengthening and changing the way his brain reacts, possibly affecting the response time of other decision.
Suzuki shared her hypothesis about what could be happening inside the minds of players.
"Given the speed and strategy that they (ping pong players) are using, you can imagine that they have developed fast instincts," she said.
If science one day proves a connection between table tennis and an increase in mental strength, ping pong could graduate from the basement to the classroom.

Excitement is reason enough to bat a small, hollow ball back and forth for an hour. But if that doesn't tempt, consider this: Participants in pingpong glean tangible health benefits. They may even lengthen their lives.

Pingpong burns calories -- 272 of them an hour for a 150-pound person, according to calorimetric analysis. This is not as many as singles tennis (544) or even doubles tennis (408), but a cool 102 more than would be burned by playing billiards for the same amount of time.

In fact, batting the ball about the table with friends on a regular basis may offer a nice mix of mental, physical and social benefits, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

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For starters, pingpong provides a deft mental workout ... truly. Such mental stimulation can affect how the brain is wired -- perhaps even warding off cognitive decline in future years.

Exercise tends to help the front part of the brain, especially if one is solving complex problems, such as mapping out sophisticated strategies for winning a pitched game of pingpong.

Pick up the paddle and your brain could change quickly. In exercise studies, Small notes, beneficial brain changes are visible with high-tech imaging after only a few weeks.

And there's more. The balance training of paddle games such as tennis or pingpong can help prevent falls, which are common among the elderly.

It helps forge social connections -- which increase the chance of living to a ripe old age.

"Unless you are playing pingpong against a wall, it is tremendous to have 
connection, have fun, and be socially involved with other people," Small said.

Of course, what you get out of pingpong depends on what you put into it, says Dr. Frank Chen of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's sports department, who's also on the medical staff of the Oakland Raiders and USA National Rugby.

If you're just banging the ball around in the basement with some buddies, don't expect to drop pounds or gain stamina.

But if you are playing really competitive table tennis, that's different. Concentrated, quick, high-octane play at that level can offer a 
cardiovascular and aerobic workout, and build strength in the body's fast-twitch muscle fibers.

"You are really working both types of muscle fibers (fast and slow) within the body," says Chen, an avid pingpong player.

"Pingpong also works very well in terms of building eye-hand coordination," Chen adds. "It helps build your reflexes because you do need to stay focused at that very high level. You are using your arms, legs and shoulders, basically enhancing speed and strength in all those areas."





The Health... Body-Brain Connection

In a recent study, Clinical neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen argues in his book, "Making a Good Brain Great", that playingtable tennis can increase brain activity.
In his book, Amen calls table tennis the best brain sport. It improves hand-eye coordination. It's aerobic, uses both upper and lower body and causes you to use many different areas of the brain to function.
In an article entitled, "Stupidity and the brain", Dr. Amen says, "Golf is good. Tennis is terrific. Table tennis is the best sport in the world!"
So if you're a child, adult, or senior, looking for something fun and extremely healthy for your body and brain, take up table tennis.

Ping Pong Therapy on Brain Illness
Holocaust survivor Betty Stein, 92, takes off her cardigan. She squares up to the table, bat in hand, deep in concentration. Her eyes dart rhythmically in time with the clack, clack of the ping pong ball.
At the next table, Eli Boyer, 91, sings a love song in Spanish as he plays. The retired accountant speaks four languages, and flits between Russian and English with his coach Elie Zainabudinova. As long as the ping pong ball ricochets back and forth, their absorption is total. Flashes of their former lives creep across their faces – laughter, determination, a mischievous grin.
Only when they sit down do their eyes give it away. The tell-tale existential terror of Alzheimer’s. The confusion. The forgetting of who they are.

Stein and Boyer are among one hundred participants in a ping pong therapy program for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia at the Arthur Gilbert Table Tennis Center in Los Angeles. Founder Mikhail Zaretsky says the sport does not cure, or even slow down the disease, but helps the 100 participants by raising their heart rate and the blood flow to their brains, and exercising them mentally as well as physically. He says it helps their depression, improves their balance, and makes them more alert.

Alzheimer’s erases memories and robs the brain of its ability to learn. A 1997 Japanese study touted the benefits of table tennis for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Betty has been playing ping pong weekly for almost a year now. When she arrived she could barely keep a rally going for three or four strokes; now she’s hitting 20 or 30, says Zaretsky. “After she started playing ping pong, she was telling her caregiver stories that she hadn’t ever told before,” he says. “She told her more details on how she survived the Holocaust – how she had to hide for a few days behind a stove.”

“This was amazing, and some doctors suggested maybe she was depressed, and when she started playing ping pong maybe the depression went away a little bit. We don’t know exactly.” Zaretsky also takes the program to seven nursing homes in the Los Angeles area. He hopes to use the program as part of a U.S. study on the benefits of table tennis for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Boyer’s wife Michele, who has been married to him for 50 years, noticed his dementia starting five years ago. “On the days he plays he’s more alert, he’s happier, he walks faster and his comprehension is a little more in memory for that day. It’s a little surprising, but you can really see it. And it gives him a sense of pride in himself.”

“I’m holding it right, I’m holding it right, that’s what I’m going to do,”chants Boyer repeatedly to the rhythm of the ping pong ball. “You’re gripping the racquet like the Chinese,” reassures his coach. “Chinese players do that.”
She asks him to sing a song in Russian. Boyer breaks into “Besame Mucho,” a Spanish love song. In his clear voice the lyrics continue to roll as he keeps the ball in play to a different beat.
Read the links below for the original articles




http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2011/06/22/ping-pong-therapy/


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