Most people are well aware of the connection between sugary snacks and desserts and the obesity epidemic. Sugar wreaks havoc on your body, causing serious diseases and pain along with inflammation and type 2 diabetes, to name just a few. However, there is an even darker side of America’s sugar addiction that is often overlooked. Sugar can actually affect your mental health, leading to issues like anxiety, depression, and mood swings.
12 Things to Do Before January 1st
In the fervor of the holiday season, the New Year is often overlooked, and the turning of the calendar commences with little more than a late night party, a plethora of finger foods, and a seemingly impossible list of New Year’s resolutions. Rather than setting yourself up for failure, try accomplishing these simple tasks before the year ends to help you get 2019 off to the best start possible and keep you on a course of success.
City Living Vs Country Living: Who Stays Healthier?
The city versus country living debate has raged on for years. City slickers claim that life can only be enjoyed in the hustle and bustle and noise of tens of thousands of people, while rural residents tout the benefits of open space, fresh air, and a sense of community. Ultimately, which is better comes down to personal preference. However, which one is better for you may be a little more complicated.
6 Ways To Prevent Bloating And Swelling This Summer
Summer is a time for indulgences. Whether it’s a family reunion or a trip to your favorite beach, chances are you’re treating yourself to food and drink that you avoid the rest of the year. Add the heat of summer to the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for bloating and swelling that leaves you feeling uncomfortable. [Read more…]
7 Natural Ways To Beat The Summer Heat
As temperatures climb, it’s easy to get dragged down by the sweltering air around us. Not only do we sweat more in the summertime, but most people spend months feeling uncomfortable in elevated temperatures. Luckily there are a few easy, natural ways to keep cooler throughout the summer months, without racking up an extreme air conditioning bill. [Read more…]
7 Things Your Hair Is Trying To Tell You
How you style your hair communicates your personality to the world. But did you know that your hair communicates with you? Depending on its condition – and how much of it you have – your hair may be trying to tell you something. Our locks hold information about everything from our diet to genetic mutations and disorders. Here are seven things to look out for. [Read more…]
6 Steps To Bust Out Of Your Exercise Slump And Get Moving
Once you get into the habit of exercising, it becomes much easier to keep it up. After all, it feels incredibly awesome to master something that was once a big challenge, or to simply enjoy more energy, be more fit and in better overall health. But after awhile, if you stick to the same old routine, you might start to get bored and quit, or hit a plateau and stop reaping all of the benefits you once were. [Read more…]
4 Things Every Woman Over 50 Must Do To Be Healthy
Once you’ve blown out the candles at your 50th birthday, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be taking a ride on the hormonal roller coaster. While you’re likely more self-assured and ready to live life to the fullest, this can really throw you off track if it’s not managed the right way.
Typically perimenopause begins around 40, followed by a decade of fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone which occurs until eventually, your menstrual periods halt altogether. Before and during this time it’s more important than ever to manage your health as the hormone shifts affect nearly every system in your body.
When you have an imbalance of progesterone and estrogen, just some of the symptoms that can occur include fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, hot flashes, diminished sex drive, and the list goes on and on. There are also some more serious problems that can develop, as you have a higher risk of heart disease, colorectal cancer, and a weaker immune system. You may also experience some decreased brain functioning, especially related to memory and your ability to recall places, events and so on.
So what should you do to stay healthy and enjoy the highest quality of life possible? Read on.
Schedule in Regular Exercise
While you might be busier than ever, it’s even more important now to schedule in regular exercise. Physical activity isn’t just to help prevent weight gain or to lose stubborn pounds. It can help to battle inflammation, make your bones stronger, balance hormones and help you sleep better too. It’s also great for your brain, in fact, experts say that the amount of exercise you get is one of the best predictors of how well your brain works as you get older. In fact, studies have found that the more active you are when you’re older, the more dramatically your risk of developing cognitive decline is reduced.
You can do just about anything, no matter what you do, just move. The more enjoyable it is to you, the more likely you are to keep it up. So walk, hike, run, bike, swim, garden, dance, spin or jump rope, it all counts. It doesn’t have to be done in long periods either, you can squeeze it in in short bursts too.
Get Plenty of Rest
When you don’t get enough sleep it can affect just about everything in your body. People who get 7 to 8 hours of quality rest each night have been found to live the longest in numerous studies focused on sleep and aging. In fact, some, including research out of UC Berkeley, have found that deep sleep in our older years may be considered a “fountain of youth.”
When you don’t get sufficient sleep, the body interprets that as stress and triggers hormones that can cause weight gain, weaken immunity and make you more likely to get sick. With proper rest, you’ll be in a better mood, the brain will have a greater ability to store memories, and it can also promote a higher level of human growth hormone which has a role in building muscle and bone mass – all especially important as we age.
If you struggle to fall asleep or wake up frequently during the night there are a number of things you can do to help encourage longer, better rest such as keeping your room cooler, and turning all lights off, even the little lights from an LED display can prevent you from dozing off as they stimulate the brain. If noise is a problem, use earplugs too.
To help you fall asleep faster, sip an herbal tea like chamomile just before bedtime, enjoy a warm bath, perform gentle stretching exercises or deep breathing, and/or use essential oils in a diffuser or on a tissue placed under your pillow. Lavender, clary sage, chamomile, and sandalwood are some of the best essential oils to use for this purpose.
Follow a Healthy Diet
There is no one diet fits all, as everyone is different, some do better on vegan or vegetarian diets, while others do better on a Paleo or another type of diet. The main thing is that you eat as many whole foods as possible while avoiding the “junk,” many sugary and/or highly processed foods like fast food, potato chips, lunch meats, pastries, crackers, frozen meals and so on. While you don’t have to live on kale, the more organic vegetables, in a variety of colors, you eat, the better.
Don’t cut out all fat either, you need healthy fats like coconut and olive oil, as well as protein – foods like wild-caught salmon are ideal. For many, eliminating sugar and gluten can make a big difference, especially after 50. It helps to reduce inflammation, eliminate bloating, prevent weight gain and even address fatigue. While eating should be enjoyable when you think of your food as “medicine” you’ll fuel your mind and body with what it needs.
Take Supplements
While you should get as many nutrients as you can by eating a wide variety of healthy foods, you may want to cover your bases by taking a multivitamin that includes iron, zinc, folic acid, beta-carotene, vitamins B6 and B12, as well as C, D, and E. There are a number of herbs that can help keep hormones more balanced naturally too.
Black cohosh is one of the best-studied and most well-known herbs when it comes to treating perimenopause and menopause symptoms as it’s believed to support and help maintain proper hormonal levels. Many women have reported it to be highly effective and the University of Maryland Medical Center notes that a number of studies have confirmed this as well. Research from Germany showed that the herb helped to improve both psychological and physical symptoms like night sweats and hot flashes, anxiety and vaginal dryness.
A 2007 study of 120 women suffering from menopausal symptoms revealed that black cohosh was even more effective at relieving night sweats and hot flashes than the antidepressant Prozac. Other herbs to consider include maca root, sea buckthorn, and evening primrose oil. The maca plant grows high in the Peruvian Andes and has long been used by the indigenous people. The women who live in this region and consume it regularly are said to experience very few menopausal symptoms as it’s believed to aid in balancing hormones as well as improving energy levels. While there are only limited studies on it, the majority of women who’ve used it swear by it for relief.
-Susan Patterson
How Just 20 Minutes of Exercise a Day Can Bust Inflammation
How would you like to be able to enjoy the many health benefits exercise brings, with as little as 20 minutes of activity a day? According to a new study, you can, particularly when it comes to busting inflammation, the root cause of a wide range of illness and disease.
The list of well-known long-term benefits of physical exercise is long, including lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, strengthening the bones, muscles and the heart, improving metabolism and better weight control, reducing the risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. And, this recent research, shows just 20 minutes of exercise may help fight excess inflammation.
University of California, San Diego researchers find just 20 minutes of exercise busts inflammation
In the study that was published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, experts from the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine – led by Suzi Hong, Ph.D., from the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health looked into the impacts of 20-minute exercise sessions on the body’s immune system. They hypothesized that physical activity would improve the anti-inflammatory response by triggering the sympathetic nervous system.
The study included about four dozen participants who walked briskly on a treadmill for 20 minutes. Taking blood samples taken before and after the session, the researchers discovered that that simply 20-minute exercise session managed to reduce markers of inflammation, in fact, there was a 5 percent reduction in the number of immune cells that produced a protein called TNF, which, according to the researchers, is involved in the inflammatory response.
In a statement, researcher Suzi Hong who researches family medicine and psychiatry said:
“Each time we exercise, we are truly doing something good for our body on many levels, including at the immune cell level. The anti-inflammatory benefits of exercise have been known to researchers, but finding out how that process happens is the key to safely maximizing those benefits.”
She added, ” Our study shows a workout session doesn’t actually have to be intense to have anti-inflammatory effects. Twenty minutes to half-an-hour of moderate exercise, including fast walking, appears to be sufficient. Feeling like a workout needs to be at a peak exertion level for a long duration can intimidate those who suffer from chronic inflammatory diseases and could greatly benefit from physical activity.”
The problem with inflammation when it becomes chronic
While Inflammation is a crucial part of the body’s immune response, as its attempt to heal itself after an injury, battle against foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses, and repair damaged tissue, when it becomes chronic it can lead to some serious health problems that have been linked to obesity, celiac disease, diabetes and many other ailments.
20-MInute Workout Ideas
The good news is that you can bust that inflammation with just a 20-minute exercise session each day. Not only that, but a 2016 study by researchers at Canada’s McMaster University demonstrated that even one minute of high-intensity exercise had health benefits, such as increasing endurance and improving blood glucose levels.
Need some ideas? We’ve got them for you so that you can get started right away.
Circuit Training
Circuit training is an ideal high-intensity workout that can pack a punch in just 20 minutes, working your body from head to toe, combining strength and cardio with just a few simple exercises. You can perform squats, lunges or mountain climbers, just be sure you use the right technique. CookingLight.com offers a great Cardio Blast Circuit Workout you can find here. You can also add light dumbbells if you want a bigger challenge. All you need is an open space, like your garage, backyard or a spare bedroom, and some fun workout music.
Sworkit App
There’s an app for everything these days, and that includes one for short workout sessions. Sworkit can be used as a web app, on any iOS device or your Android. It’s a great way to prevent boredom, with pretty much no thinking required. All you do is choose the amount of time you have to exercise, what kind of workout you want, and then do what Sworkit tells you to do. It’ll even time each exercise for you so you don’t have to worry about looking at your watch, and if you aren’t sure how to perform one of the exercises, examples are shown on the screen to help you out. It will generate a random workout that focuses on various parts of the body, or all of it, and will work for any timeframe, even if you only have 5 minutes.
Jump Rope
Exercise doesn’t have to be complicated. You can grab a jump rope and jump away just like when you were a kid. Of course, 20 minutes of rope jumping isn’t all that easy, but you can always work up to that gradually by interspersing jumping with jogging or marching in place.
Dance
Dancing is one of the easiest, and most fun exercises you can do. All you have to do is turn up the tunes and start moving around. There’s no need to learn ballet or any complicated moves, even if you aren’t wildly jumping around, you’ll burn about the same number of calories as if you were cycling. It demands a lot of energy as it involves movement in all directions. While running, swimming and other types of propulsive physical activity use rhythm and momentum to keep you going, dancing requires lots of accelerating and decelerating, which the body is less able to do in an energy efficient way, so it requires more calories.
-Susan Patterson
Why I Take a Walk Daily ( and you should too)
No matter what I have going on in my life or in my day, I have always tried to take a quick stroll. Sometimes I can afford longer and will walk more, but as a general rule, I try to walk at least 2 miles per day on top of everything else I do. I learned this lesson from my father, a physiologist, who knows well the benefit of a body in motion. He has walked 2 miles a day for the better part of thirty years and at 78, he is benefiting both physically and mentally from doing this. It is a habit well worth cultivating in your life and one that just grows in benefits as you age.
Here are just some of the reasons why I take a daily walk and you should too:
Mental clarity: I feel like I am pretty clear headed, however, after my walk each day, I realize how great a quick stroll is for taking mental clarity to the next level. There is something about being outdoors, in the fresh air, that just frees the mind. I listen to music when I walk, and this is a nice change up from my workday. I can be undistracted, just enjoying the movement of my body and this is also so helpful for my mind. I tend to be quite a multitasker, and this can cause sensory overload sometimes. Walking helps me untangle the wires and recenter.
Heart health: My father taught medical students for years all about the heart and led by example in the home when it came to healthy living. Walking daily is a phenomenal way to reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. It is an excellent cardio exercise and can also help keep cholesterol levels in check. The American Stroke Association notes that a thirty-minute walk daily can prevent and control high blood pressure and reduce the risk of stroke by up to 27 percent.
Vitamin D: Most people are deficient in vitamin D and making it a habit to walk outdoors daily can help replenish depleted stores of this essential vitamin. Just thirty minutes in the outdoors will help boost your D levels and protect your immune system.
Mood lifter: If I am in a foul mood, I immediately turn to walking for relief. There is nothing that works better to erase negativity than a brisk walk. I may start my walk out in a grumpy state but by the time I am finished, the endorphins have done their thing, and I am good to go.
Weight management: Walking has always been a great way for me to keep extra pounds at bay. I struggle with thyroid issues and walking helps to keep my hormones regulated and extra weight at bay. For a point of reference, you will burn 75 calories by simply walking at 2mph for thirty minutes. If you turn up your speed to 3mph, you can burn 99 calories and 4mph burns 150 calories.
Diabetes: I had gestational diabetes with my first child which increases my risk of type 2 diabetes significantly. Knowing this makes walking all that much more important to me. Walking daily slashes your risk of type 2 diabetes by about 60 percent. Also, it reduces your risk of colon and breast cancer by 20 percent.
Energy: I never feel more alive than after my walk. Scheduling my walk midday or even at the end of the day is a great way to have enough energy to carry me through. A brisk walk will is an amazing natural energizer because it boosts circulation and increases the oxygen supply to all parts of your body. This makes you feel alive, alert and ready to take on anything!
Ready for a walk? If you don’t like to walk alone, gather up a walking buddy or start a walking club at work or in your neighborhood. It’s great to have accountability and motivation from friends!
-Susan Patterson