QotD: Reasons to avoid needing Intensive Care

According to Atul Gawande there are 90,000 new ICU admissions per day in the US. Here's more of what he says:

This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal. Line infections are so common that they are considered a routine complication. ICUs put five million lines into patients each year, and national statistics show that after ten days 4 percent of those lines become infected. Line infections occur in eighty thousand people a year in the United States and are fatal between 5 and 28 percent of the time, depending on how sick one is at the start. Those who survive line infections spend on average a week longer in intensive care. And this is just one of many risks. After ten days with a urinary catheter, 4 percent of American ICU patients develop a bladder infection. After ten days on a ventilator, 6 percent develop bacterial pneumonia, resulting in death 40 to 45 percent of the time. All in all, about half of ICU patients end up experiencing a serious complication, and once that occurs the chances of survival drop sharply.
--Atul Gawande in The Checklist Manifesto p28.

Factoid on Goals from Ted Talk

Think of your biggest personal goal
Don’t tell anyone what it is
Telling goal makes it less likely to happen
Work to achieve goal is needed
If you tell and it is acknowledged, the mind is tricked into thinking it is already done
(I think this depends on the rxn of the person responding: if they congratulate you on your awesome plans, that is what tricks your brain, but if they talk with you about the hard work and long road ahead, this may not happen)
so you have less motivation to complete the work
This goes against conventional wisdom that our friends will help hold us to our goals
People who talked about goal didn’t work as long and felt closer
Delay gratification of social gratification
Say it in a way that gives no satisfaction or stay mum.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/947

Yoga at Your Place, based out of Asheville, NC

A friend of mine started this unique yoga instruction business in 2008. She is avid about Anusara, on a base of many other lines of yogic tradition. Her name is Gayle Jann, and if you have a chance to practice with her, I'm sure you'll benefit on many levels.

Three Gorges Dam Survives Flood

I don't know if you pay attention to the news about China, but the Three Gorges Dam just survived the biggest flood yet. It could have failed, but it didn't.

How to tell if a Corporate Executive is Lying

( besides the mouth moving clue )