What Happens When You Drink Water Along With Your Food

Sit at the Dinner table, and you'd find yourself invariably extending your hand to the glass of water on the side of your plate. While you may think it's absolutely necessary to have a glass of water during your meals, the truth is this habit of yours might be damaging your health. Read on to find out how.

1. It Dilutes your Gastric Juices - When the digestive acids (acids responsible for the digestion and breakdown of food as well as for killing infectious agents ingested with food) present in your  stomach are diluted with water, they bring about a slowdown in the functioning of your entire digestive system. This slowdown results in food remaining lodged in your stomach for a longer period than normal, thereby causing indigestion.

Additionally, the reaction caused by the dilution of water and stomach acids can give rise to cramps in your tummy.

2. It Reduces the Saliva in your Mouth - The same thing that happens to the acids in your stomach, happens to your saliva as well. Water dilutes the saliva, which stops the breakdown of food in your mouth. Also, your saliva is responsible for stimulating your stomach to release digestive enzymes and prepare itself for the process of digestion. By drinking water with your meals, such signals sent by your saliva to your stomach become much weaker. All these together can make digestion very difficult.

3. It Causes Acidity - Studies show that drinking water with your meals not only leads to the dilution of digestive enzymes, but also brings about a reduction in the secretion of digestive enzymes. This causes the undigested food in your stomach to leak into the lower part of your oesophagus (food pipe), causing acidity and heart burn.

4. It increases insulin Production - Sipping on water in the middle of lunch (or any other meal for that matter) causes a spike in your insulin levels just as glycaemic foods (foods with high starch or sugar content such as honey, potatoes, white bread, rice to name a few) would. When your body is unable to digest food properly, it usually tends to convert the glucose filled part of that food into fat and stores it, reason why your blood sugar levels see an upsurge.

5. It Adds to your Weight - Since drinking water causes an increase in insulin levels in your body (as the food you eat is converted to fat), it can result in the piling of extra weight on your body. This is because a weak digestive system is one of the major causes behind obesity.

Try having your meals with less salt and drink water 30 minutes before each meal to control your thirst when you're eating. This can help you in controlling the negative effects that drinking water with your meals can have on your health.

Make a wise choice and stay healthy.

Cyber Security Guidance for Organisations

Cyberspace has revolutionised how many of us live and work. The internet, with its more than two billion users, is powering economic growth, increasing collaboration and innovation, and creating jobs. Protecting key information assets is of critical importance to the sustainability and competitiveness of businesses today. Companies need to be on the front foot in terms of their cyber preparedness. Cyber security is all too often thought of as an IT issue, rather than the strategic risk management issue it actually is.

Every day, all around the world, thousands of IT systems are compromised. Some are attacked purely for the kudos of doing so, others for political motives, but most commonly they are attacked to steal money or commercial secrets. Are you confident that your cyber security governance regime minimises the risks of this happening to your business?

Companies benefit from managing risks across their organisations; drawing effectively on senior management support, risk management policies and processes, a risk aware culture and the assessment of risks against objectives.

In the course of last few years, malware or malicious software has been a serious threat to businesses. In fact, in terms of frequency, it occupies the top most position. A program that is designed to copy itself and propagate, it can spread when you download files, exchange CDs, DVDs and the USB sticks or copy files from the server. You can also get a virus attack in case an employee opens an infected email attachment. Application specific hacks, blended attacks, unsecured wireless networks and disgruntled employees pose other security threats. Fortunately enough, there are several steps you can take to protect business of internet security threats. Let us take a look.

Know the Threats

Cyber security preparation starts with complete understanding of the external and internal vulnerabilities capacitated to affect business. Make sure to know about the different types of security attacks you may fall prey to. Identify the things that will harm you most in case it falls into the hand of your competitors or some other malicious party. As soon as you identify the information, it’s time to find the tools you will require for protecting the valued details.

Take Protective Measures

Make sure that all the computers that your employees use are protected by firewall, anti-spyware and antivirus programs. There are a few solutions that address all three levels of protection. Make sure it offers protection from spam, identity theft and phishing scams.

Opt for Updated Security Programs

New threats are emerging every day. You need to keep your security program updated to remain guarded and keep your infrastructure perfectly secure. The security solutions will fail to be effective in case they are not updated. Fortunately enough, most of the security solutions get updated automatically. Make sure you update soon after you get the alert.

Ensure Better Protection for the Wireless Networks

One of the prime concerns for the users of wireless networks is keeping the router and the network secure. With the aid of a powerful antenna and a few hacking software, the hackers seated close to the installation or driving by can easily scan the data that is flowing in your network.

You can take a few steps to secure your wireless network.
• Set up a unique password
• Use WPA2 encryption
• Alter default SSID name
• Change router default
• Bring down the range of wireless network
• Use complex passwords

Restrict Access

Make sure that each employee can access only the requisite data. You can create a separate account for each employee and protect the account using strong passwords. Remember that strong passwords must be made combining letters and numbers. The passwords should not be shared or displayed.

A significant percentage of security breaches do not take place owing to technical vulnerabilities but relies on social engineering as well as the willingness of people to trust others. In most of the organizations, either the employees share everything or nothing. None of these approaches are desirable. There must be an element of trust among the employees, but data sharing needs to be checked. This is possible only through running an awareness program. It is not enough to tell the employees that opening email attachments of unreliable sources are not right. You must tell them what can take place in case emails of an unreliable source are opened.

A secure network is a robust network. Cyber-attacks can happen in minutes and are often very hard to detect. Make sure that you take all essential steps to prevent security breach.

Five tips on how to shake hands with confidence

When you meet someone — whether it be a business associate, a host at an event or a colleague you haven't met in a long time — your first response is to stick your hand out. And that's the appropriate reaction. However, what comes next may not be perfect and could let down your whole greeting — a botched handshake. So, before you stick your hand and neck out, read these pointers to seal the deal.

The hard hand: Have you ever been on the receiving end of a limp handshake and cringe at the thought of that experience? While we can all agree that a weak grip and flimsy palm is unpleasant, in your eagerness to do the opposite, don't use a bear grip. Your aim is to be firm but not bone-crushing. So let the power extend from your elbow and not your shoulder. The aim is to make an impression but not leave your own finger impressions on their skin.

The slippery hand: In hot and humid conditions, it's natural to sweat. It's uncomfortable but that doesn't mean you have to share your discomfort with someone else. Before you shake hands, make sure they are dry because a slimy, wet hand will ensure you're remembered for all the wrong reasons. Carry a handkerchief in your pocket or simply wipe down your hands on your pant leg before going in for the shake.

The looooong one: Things can go from familiar and friendly to uncomfortable in just a few seconds. A handshake that goes beyond 3-4 seconds, will immediately take you into awkward territory. So, extend your hand, shake it up and down for a few seconds and then disengage. A long handshake is you just holding hands with your business associate. Don't make them feel like they need to ask you for their hand back.

The cupper: Also known as the politician's handshake, this is a bad idea, especially if you are meeting someone for the first time. The cupper is when someone holds your one hand with both their hands — while it's meant to signify fondness and enthusiasm, it can often come across as needy and overbearing. Save these handshakes only for work associates you are fond of or if you are meeting someone after an extended period of time.

The looker: The most underrated aspect of a handshake has nothing to do with your hands at all. Eye contact is one of the lesser known traits of a good shake. Never look at your hands when you are greeting someone but always at their face. It helps you connect. But no glaring and certainly don't attempt not to blink. Smile, look them in the face and say hello.

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Ways to become a do it now person

Whoever has enough time? So much to do; so little time in which to do it. Finite resources; infinite needs. People to see, places to go, things to do. No time to say hello, good-bye. I’m late for a very important meeting. Sound familiar? That’s life and work. Everyone has more to do than they can get to. The higher up you go in the organisation, the more you have to do and the less time you have to do it. Nobody can do it all. You have to set priorities and manage your time to survive and prosper. Here are ten ways to become a do it now person:

Set goals. Nothing manages time better than a goal, a plan and a measure. Set goals for yourself. These goals are essential for setting priorities. If you do not have goals, you can’t set time priorities. Using the goals, separate what you need to do into important/urgent (necessity), important/not urgent (effectiveness), not important/urgent (deception) and not important/not urgent (waste and excess).

Lay out tasks and work on a time line. Most successful time managers begin with a good plan for time. What do I need to accomplish? What are the goals? What’s critical and what’s trivial? What’s the time line? Many people are seen as lacking time management skills because they don’t write down the sequence or parts of the work and leave something out. Ask others to comment on your proposed sequence of actions.

Manage your time effectively. Plan your time and manage against it. Be time sensitive. Value time. Figure out what you are worth per hour and minute by taking your gross salary plus overhead and benefits. Attach a monetary value on your time. Then ask, is this worth, say, £100 of my time? Review your calendar over the past 90 days to figure out what your three largest time wasters are and reduce them by grouping activities and using efficient communications like e-mail and voice mail for routine matters. Make a list of points to be covered in phone calls; set deadlines for yourself; use your best time of day for the toughest tasks.

Create more time for yourself. Taking time to plan and set priorities actually frees up more time later than just diving into things, hoping that you can get it done on time. Most people out of time claim they didn’t have time to plan their time. In the Stephen Covey Seven Habits of Highly Successful People sense, it’s sharpening your saw.

Give away as much time-consuming work as you can. This can be done by a little planning and by delegating things you don’t have to do yourself. Try to give as much as possible to others. The win-win is that people enjoy being delegated to and empowered. You win; they win.

Find someone in your network that is better at time management than you are. Watch what they do and compare against what you typically do. Try to increase doing the things they do and don’t do. Ask for feedback from people who have commented on your poor time management. What did they find difficult?

Be careful not to be guided by just what you like and what you don’t like to do. That way of using your time will probably not be successful in the long term. Use data, intuition and even feelings to apportion your time, but not feelings alone.

Be sensitive to the time of others. Generally, the higher up you go or the higher up the person you are interacting with is, the less time you and they have. Be time efficient with others. Use as little of their time as possible. Get to it and get done with it. Give them an opportunity to open new avenues for discussion or to continue, but if they don’t, say your good-byes and leave.

Others will always ask you to do more than you can do. An important time saver is the ability to constructively say no. One technique people use is to ask the requester which of the other things they have asked you to do would they like to cancel or delay in order to do the most recent request. That way you say both yes and no and let the requester choose.

Another common time waster is inadequate disengagement skills. Some poor time managers can’t shut down transactions. Either they continue to talk beyond what would be necessary, or more commonly, they can’t get the other party to quit talking. When it’s time to move on, just say, “I have to get on to the next thing I have to do; we can pick this up some other time.”

Mediterranean diet may lower heart attacks, strokes risk

Mediterranean" diet, high in fruit, vegetables, fish and unrefined foods, is likely to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke in people who already have heart disease, finds a new study.

The findings showed that for every 100 people eating the highest proportion of healthy "Mediterranean" foods, there were three fewer heart attacks, strokes or deaths compared to 100 people eating the least amount of healthy foods.

Some foods - particularly fruit and vegetables - seem to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Eating more of these foods in preference to others may lower the risk factors. However, avoiding a "Western" diet that included refined grains, sweets, desserts, sugared drinks and deep-fried food did not reveal an increase in the adverse events.

Eating greater amounts of healthy food was more important for people with heart diseases than avoiding unhealthy foods, the researchers noted while adding that no evidence of harm was found from modest consumption of foods such as refined carbohydrates, deep-fried foods, sugars and deserts.

For the study, published in the European Heart Journal, the team asked 15,482 people with stable coronary artery disease with an average age of 67 from 39 countries around the world, to complete a lifestyle questionnaire.

Depending on their answers, they were given a "Mediterranean diet score" (MDS), which assigned more points for increased consumption of healthy foods with a total range of 0-24; a "Western diet score" (WDS) assigned points for increased consumption of unhealthy foods.

"After adjusting for other factors that might affect the results, we found that every one unit increase in the Mediterranean Diet Score was associated with a seven percent reduction in the risk of heart attacks, strokes or death from cardiovascular or other causes in patients with existing heart disease," said lead researcher Ralph Stewart, professor at University of Auckland in New Zealand.

"We should place more emphasis on encouraging people with heart disease to eat more healthy foods, and perhaps focus less on avoiding unhealthy foods," he suggested.

How to Achieve Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace well-being is a holistic approach to creating high performance organizations through establishing the right workplace conditions to generate high levels of employee engagement. It assumes that achieving high levels of organizational performance depends on employees who are strongly committed to achieving the goals of the organization, and who show this through their actions. This behavioural objective is influenced in turn by levels of employee satisfaction, and by supportive, respectful and healthy work environments. Workplace well-being is connected to physical health and wellness but primarily emphasizes the social and psychological dimensions of three inter-related elements - workplace, workforce, and the work people do.

There is a way where you can springboard your employees into happiness and make them care for your business, however it doesn’t happen overnight. Here are few of the steps to create a workplace wellbeing culture

Educate your managers

Managers need to be able to understand the benefits that a happy workforce can bring to the table. Install this culture and thought process into your managers and you’re half way there. On average managers maintain more active relationships with lower level employees, and can influence employees to change daily habits and behaviours.

Invest in your managers

Emotional intelligence can play a vital role in shifting a business’s culture. Train your managers to identify and assess emotions so that they can create a positive environment for employees. Managers who can help recognise and maximise an employee’s qualities can use this for the greater good of the team, strengthening the group as a whole.

Create feedback loops

All employees express themselves differently. Managers need to be able to understand this and use their employees’ preferred method. A way to achieve this can be by installing a feedback loop within your business that allows your employees to confide in managers, regardless of the issue.

Socialise more

Encourage socialising among your employees. If you enjoy who you work with, you’re more than likely to work better together. Social aspects of work are key ingredients for workplace happiness. Increase working in teams, and champion face to face interaction as a replacement for office emails.

Provide workplace benefits that matter

A little goes a long way. Workplace benefits that don’t cost a fortune can be some of the most rewarding. Offer incentives such as having 1 hour extra for lunch, finish early on Friday, and even giving the morning or afternoon off. This obviously has to be calculated and be offered as a reward for when your employees have gone above and beyond their job description.  Use this as an alternative to financial rewards.

Accept responsibility and introduce accountability for all employees

No business goes without conflicts and internal disputes. This can be the nail in the coffin for some workplace wellbeing initiatives. Through management level accepting responsibility and fellow employees being held accountable for their work output, whenever conflicts arise it can be diffused with minimal confusion. Undertaking this initiative is imperative to secure the long term success of your business’s culture and ensuring they’re happy at work.

Take an interest in your employees well-being

Whether an employee has been on holiday, or been off ill for a period of time, take interest in what’s of interest to them. This way you make your employees know that you are caring for them and their interests. Workers need to feel valued; if you do this they will be sure to return the favour.

Location Location Location!

How far away are you from your workforce? Do you have communal areas? Do you have a pleasant outside area, plenty of free parking, someone locally where workers can go for a walk at lunchtime, or stroll to the shops? The location of your business can make a huge difference to the wellbeing of your workforce.

Good sleep essential to maintain cholesterol metabolism: Study

Not sleeping enough has more far reaching effects on your health than mood alterations and persistent drowsiness. According to a recent study, it can also influence cholesterol metabolism, harming blood vessels in your body.

According to University of Helsinki researchers, genes which participate in the regulation of cholesterol transport are less active in persons suffering from sleep loss than with those getting sufficient sleep. This was found both in the laboratory-induced sleep loss experiment and on the population level.

The experimental study proved that just one week of insufficient sleep begins to change the body’s immune response and metabolism. “We examined what changes sleep loss caused to the functions of the body and which of these changes could be partially responsible for the elevated risk for illness,” explained Vilma Aho, researcher from the “Sleep Team Helsinki” research group, in a university statement.

The study examined the impact of cumulative sleep deprivation on cholesterol metabolism in terms of both gene expression and blood lipoprotein levels. With state-of-the-art methods, a small blood sample can simultaneously yield information about the activation of all genes as well as the amounts of hundreds of different metabolites.

This means it is possible to seek new regulating factors and metabolic pathways which participate in a particular function of the body. The researchers found that in the population-level data, persons suffering from sleep loss had fewer high-density HDL lipoproteins, commonly known as the good cholesterol, than people who slept sufficiently.

Together with other risk factors, these results help explain higher risk of cardiovascular disease observed in sleep-deprived people and help understand the mechanisms through which lack of sleep increases this risk.

The researchers emphasise that health education should focus on the significance of good, sufficient sleep in preventing common diseases in addition to healthy food and exercise. The team’s next goal is to determine how minor the sleep deficiency can be while still causing such changes.

Sleep loss has previously been found to impact the activation of the immune system, inflammation, carbohydrate metabolism and the hormones that regulate appetite.

Tattoo-like ‘e-skin’ turns your body into digital screen

In a yet another example to integrate electronic devices with the human body, researchers from the University of Tokyo have developed an ultrathin, protective layer that will help create “electronic skin” displays of blood oxygen level, e-skin heart rate sensors for athletes and other applications.

The team demonstrated its use by creating an air-stable, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. Integrating electronic devices with the human body to enhance or restore body function for biomedical applications is the goal of researchers around the world.

Wearable electronics, in particular, need to be thin and flexible to minimise impact where they attach to the body. However, most devices developed so far have required millimetre-scale thickness glass or plastic substrates with limited flexibility, while micrometer-scale thin flexible organic devices have not been stable enough to survive in air.

Professor Takao Someya and Tomoyuki Yokota developed a high-quality protective film less than two micrometers thick that enables the production of ultrathin, ultraflexible, high performance wearable electronic displays and other devices.

“What would the world be like if we had displays that could adhere to our bodies and even show our emotions or level of stress or unease?” asked Someya.

“In addition to not having to carry a device with us at all times, they might enhance the way we interact with those around us or add a whole new dimension to how we communicate,” he added in a university statement.

The protective film prevented passage of oxygen and water vapour in the air, extending device lifetimes from the few hours seen in prior research to several days. In addition, the research group were able to attach transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes to an ultrathin substrate without damaging it, making the e-skin display possible.

Using the new protective layer and ITO electrodes, the research group created polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) and organic photodetectors (OPDs). These were thin enough to be attached to the skin and flexible enough to distort and crumple in response to body movement.

This reduced heat generation and power consumption, making them particularly suitable for direct attachment to the body for medical applications such as displays for blood oxygen concentration or pulse rate.

The research group also combined red and green PLEDs with a photodetector to demonstrate a blood oxygen sensor.

Go green to ward off chronic diseases

A recent study has revealed that green neighbourhoods lead to reduction in chronic diseases. Led by researchers at the University of Miami, the study of a quarter-million Miami-Dade County Medicare beneficiaries showed that higher greenness was linked to significantly lower rates of diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, as well as fewer chronic health conditions.

The findings are based on 2010 - 2011 health data reported for approximately 250,000 Miami-Dade Medicare beneficiaries over age 65, and a measure of vegetative presence based on NASA satellite imagery.

"This study builds on our research group's earlier analyses showing block level impacts of mixed-use and supportive building features on adults and children," said lead author Scott Brown.

Researcher Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk said the study results "give impetus to public agencies and property owners to plant and maintain a verdant public landscape."

"Going from a low to a high level of greenness at the block level is associated with 49 fewer chronic health conditions per 1,000 residents, which is approximately equivalent to a reduction in the biomedical aging of the study population by three years," said Brown.

You really need to calm down because daily stress can lead to diabetes

Taking stress isn’t a good thing and now it has been proven to do something really nasty. If left unattended for long, stress can also trigger elevation in blood sugar levels leading to Type 2 diabetes, health experts have warned.

Owing to changes in lifestyle and daily routine, stress is now seen as a reason behind several health hazards, including the rise in diabetes in India. Marked stress causes release of several stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which, in turn, increase levels of sugar in blood apart from spiking blood pressure and pulse rate.

“If stress is consistently high, previously transient sugar elevation becomes persistently high, resulting in diabetes. Similarly, blood pressure elevation becomes elevated constantly. Stress also causes change in eating pattern, resulting in ‘binge eating’, thus increasing weight which may also add to elevation of blood sugar,” Dr. Anoop Misra, Chairman, Fortis C-DOC, told IANS

Stress can affect diabetes control, both directly and indirectly. It is widely recognised that people with diabetes are regularly stressed and are more likely to have poor blood glucose control.

“Both physical and emotional stress can prompt an increase in these hormones which result in an increase in blood sugar”, said Dr. Sunil Mittal, senior psychiatrist and director, Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences in the capital.

Shared stress can also lead to similar dysregulation of hormones in children. If they are under constant stress in the home environment, children may have a similarly dysmetabolic state.

“According to recent findings, stress hormones cause an epigenetic change in sperm. So when a father is stressed out, his hormones pack the potential to raise his offspring’s blood sugar levels. With higher blood glucose levels comes a higher diabetes risk, especially Type 2 diabetes,” noted Dr. Ajay Kumar Ajmani, senior consultant (endocrinology) at BLK Super Speciality Hospital.

The primary function of these hormones is to raise blood sugar to help boost energy when it’s needed the most.

Think of the fight-or-flight response. One possibly can’t fight danger when their blood sugar is low, so it rises to help meet the challenge. Both physical and emotional stress can prompt an increase in these hormones, which results in an increase in blood sugar levels.

Making a few simple lifestyle changes can help combat and cope up with stress which reduces the risk of being diabetic or help to keep diabetes in control.

“One should do more of physical activities, like yoga, gymming and dancing. Aerobics and Pilates are great stress busters too. Make a few food changes like having a plenty of fiber and choosing whole grains. Avoid packaged foods and junk foods. Most importantly, take a break from your regular routine and plan some family outings,” Ajmani suggested.

Diabetes is a lifestyle disorder and becoming increasingly common these days.

“Intermittent stress relief in small time frames several times of day (10-15 minutes each) may be acquired with chores that you enjoy the most like music or playing your favourite sports. Mediation helps a lot too,” Misra added.

Here are some lesser-known facts about flying

Check out 9 things about aeroplanes you always wondered about but never knew...

Flying might not be all that smooth sailing, though the fun of it is worth the price. Yet have you wondered about the reason behind numerous safety norms that are followed when you board a flight? If not, get familiarised with some surprising facts about air travel.

Why do airlines dim the cabin lights for take-off and landing?

This is a precautionary measure that allows passengers' eyes to adjust quickly to darkness. This is especially important during emergency situations, for passengers to maintain situational awareness to expedite escape.

Why do airplanes have blinking lights on their wings?

Known as strobe lights, these are bright, flashing lights on the wingtips that serve to augment the airplane's visibility at night. They are visible from miles away, and are turned off when operating in proximity to other aircraft as they can cause temporary blindness.

Why do pilots fly around with the landing lights turned on?

If you are a keen observer, you might have noticed that pilots keep the landing lights on for several minutes after takeoff and before landing. Landing lights are so bright that they also make great anticollision lights. Mind you, these lights can be seen from miles away, even in daytime.

Why do airline safety procedures require you to avoid using the toilet during take-off and landing?

Most of us know that take-off and landing are the occasions for most aircraft accidents. The two reasons behind avoiding toilets are: 1) Toilets are not fitted with seatbelts and have hard, sharp surfaces that could injure you in case of an accident or turbulence, 2) Toilets are an enclosed space that could be blocked or jammed closed during an accident, and could become a death-trap in case of fire.

Why do airplanes use nautical miles instead of kilometres?

Ships and airlines use this unit of measurement because their captain wants to know how many degrees of the Earth's circumference he/she has traveled and this also helps him/her to work out their exact geographical location at a given time.

Why are the tips of some airplane wings bent upward?

The reason behind this is that they help stop air below the wing from 'leaking' to the lower pressure region above the wing. The bent part also doesn't present an obstacle to the forward movement of the wing, or during sideways movement of the aircraft in the event of a sideslip manoeuvre. Apart from this, winglets give 3-6 per cent fuel savings when cruising.

Why do some planes leave white trails?

These trails are called contrails (short form of 'condensation trails') and are formed when the water in jet exhaust mixes with wet cold air, condenses and freezes into ice crystals. But nowadays, it's rare,except the deliberate ones used at air shows.

What's the idea behind lifting window shades during takeoff or landing?

Raising the window shades has two purposes: 1) Your eyes adjust to the same lighting conditions that exist outside the plane so that if there is a need to evacuate in a hurry, your eyes will already be adjusted to outside conditions; 2) If an accident occurs during takeoff or landing, there is more visual access to the outside to know what's going on. Awesome facts you didn't know about flying Check out 9 things about aeroplanes you always wondered about but never knew.

Why do airplanes extend wing flaps?

The flaps increase the off-ground lifting capacity of the aircraft without requiring a corresponding increase in angle of attack. In simple terms, this means the airplane can fly at slower speeds than it could without its flaps. This plays a pivotal role in landing.