Are You Ready to Take a Leap?
February 25, 2024
Most everybody knows 2024 is a Leap Year, when this coming week we add February 29 to our calendar.
Leap Year occurs every 4 years in the year evenly divisible by 4.
Since we get an extra day this coming week, it seems appropriate to share how we got to the Leap.
Until the time of Christ there was no Leap Year or Day.
In pre-history, we as people just knew the four seasons.
We knew the equinoxes, the days when the daylight and nighttime hours were equal, using structures we built to pinpoint those days through the positioning of the sun.
Stonehenge is a famous example of early calendar tools.
There were other primitive solar/lunar calendars in the centuries before the time of Christ, but all were primitive approximations.
The first widely adopted Western calendar was the Julian calendar, the first strictly solar calendar, through an edict from Julius Caesar on January 1, 45 BC.
He added a Leap Day every four years, but all months, by custom in the Roman Empire, had to be even numbered. The month of February continued to have 28 days, but on Leap Year, February 24 was repeated to account for the extra day.
If you were born on February 28 of a Leap Year, you got to have a 48-hour birthday every four years.
The Julian calendar worked well for a while. Still over the course of almost 600 years, the Julian calendar overcalculated by roughly 11 days. The vernal equinox had moved from March 21 to April 2.
No self-respecting Pope could allow that to continue, so in October 1582 Pope Gregory XIIII introduced the more refined Gregorian calendar, which is the standard calendar in the world today.
Pope Gregory replaced two February 24ths in the Julian Leap Year calendar with a new day, February 29, as Leap Day on the Gregorian calendar.
Pope Gregory got his monk mathematician star power to work, and they calculated a calendar year at 365.2422 days instead of the 365.25 days in the Julian calendar. That took care of some of the 11 day overage in the Julian calendar, but still we would be a little off without a further adjustment.
Strain your brain to the maximum to get this: Once every 400 years, there is a Century Year with a Leap Day. That is the Century Year divisible by 400.
All other Century Years will not be Leap Years.
The Century Year 2000 was a Leap Year (2000/400=500), The Century Year 2100 will not be a Leap Year (2100/4000=5.25).
The next Century Years to be Leap Years will be 2400, 2800, 3200.
By then most of us living likely will be on Mars instead of Earth, so the calculations will be meaningless.
That’s it. The most perfect calendar except for the occasional need to add a Leap Second in some years. We let the atomic clock take care of that.
Of course, as we well know these days, human beings can be prone to suspicions and conspiracy theories, and we have some about the calendar too.
In Ireland and England, for instance, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage in Leap Years. (Hopefully, we are past that one year every four years limitation!)
In Finland, the tradition is if a man refuses a woman’s proposal on Leap Day, he has to buy her a skirt. (Might want to up the stakes on that a bit to maybe buying her a car.)
In Greece, marriage in a Leap Year is considered unlucky. One in five engaged couples in Greece will plan to avoid a wedding in a Leap Year.
Fortunately, there are no Leap Year or Leap Day prohibitions on taking whole food supplements or using a microcirculation device. Leap Days are just bonus days for better health.
Eliminating Toxins from Our Food
Now that we have your attention, it’s crucial to recognize the significant rise in environmental toxins over recent generations, including microplastics found in our food, water, and air. While we strive to reduce exposures, it’s not always feasible, and our bodies require support to efficiently eliminate these toxins.
Accumulation of toxins can lead to various health issues such as autoimmune diseases, fertility issues, including low sperm count even in young men, brain fog, allergies, cancer, thyroid disorders and more. Toxins are also sadly found in 99.9% of pregnant women.
Please watch the video below featuring Dr. Tamara Sachs, for more information on where these toxins come from and find out how and why to detox with plants!
Meditating for a Healthy Heart
Problem: During stressful situations at work or home, the release of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine can lead to increased heart rates and blood pressure, contributing to cardiovascular stress and potentially severe health issues such as kidney damage, heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes—leading causes of death in America.
Solution: Meditation activates the body’s “rest-and-digest” functions, countering the “fight-or-flight” response. Incorporating meditation into your daily routine has been associated with lower heart rate and blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart disease. Take a breath and remember to do something for yourself every day.
Whether that is carving a little time out to relax or unwind, taking a bath in the evening, scheduling a yoga class, waking up 5 minutes early to drink your coffee alone, or curling up with a good book. When you take care of yourself, you are also better able to take care of others.
Free meditation resources are readily available on platforms such as YouTube or you can download a meditation app on your phone. We use an app named Calm and highly recommend it. There is both a free version and a subscription version which runs about $60 a year. You can download it to your phone or through any streaming platform.
Discover how meditation benefits your heart, body, and mind for overall well-being.
It’s a Three-Peat for the Stoffels!
We’re ordering a third Bemer for our household this month, this time the new Bemer Evo with enhanced electromagnetic pulse and new features, including a dedicated LED light for facial repair, including acne.
And the best news is the new model has a lower basic price than the original Bemer.
We’ll give you a personal review after we have a chance to experience it.
Heart Healthy Dessert (or Breakfast) Hack
Treat yourself guilt-free with a delicious Banana Split made with yogurt or a plant-based alternative (preferably unsweetened), topped with your favorite berries, nuts, granola, coconut, or any other toppings you desire!
Better yet, make it for yourself and savor every bite of this wholesome treat!