Posted by onlinehealthnews in Online Health News.
Tags: exercise, fat, strengthen, workout
Strip fat and strengthen your total body with an unlikely fitness plan used by gridiron warriors
By Mike Morris, C.S.C.S., Men’s Health
As you might imagine, an NFL weight room sparkles with state-of-the-art fitness equipment. But as the head strength coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I can tell you that our players don’t spend their off-seasons with electrodes slapped to their muscles.
No, they’re outside carrying, flipping, and dragging sandbags.
I know that sounds like a miserable summer job, but it’s also a highly effective training regimen. The ever-shifting shape of a sandbag makes it nearly impossible for you to settle into a lifting groove like you do with free weights or machines. So every workout is unique and challenging. And besides, wouldn’t you rather sandbag it outside in your backyard than be stuck inside the gym all summer?
The Sandbag Workout
Your first step, of course, is to bring home a 50-pound sandbag from your local home-improvement store. Any shape will work. Next, use my four pillars of sandbag training below to build a stronger, leaner, and more athletic body. Simply follow the directions and perform the exercises in the order shown. After you’ve completed all four, rest a minute or two and repeat the circuit a total of 3 to 5 times.
1. Shoulder the Load
Like a power clean, shouldering a sandbag — lifting it from the floor to your shoulder in one explosive movement — requires a coordinated effort from your core, upper body, and legs. It also challenges your balance, because the bag’s weight distribution shifts as you lift it.
How to do it: Place the sandbag on the ground directly in front of you. Bend at your hips and knees while maintaining the natural arch in your lower back, until you can grab the bag by its sides. In one powerful movement, rise to a standing position and lift the bag to your right shoulder by forcefully straightening your legs, thrusting your hips forward, and pulling the bag with your arms. Reverse the movement, and repeat.
Your charge: Do 6 repetitions to your left shoulder, followed by 6 reps to your right. Rest 1 minute and then proceed to the next exercise.
2. Walk Off Your Gut
With its awkward shape, a sandbag requires you to expend more energy to lift it. But in addition to burning calories, you can also challenge your toughness and increase stamina with the bear-hug walk.
How to do it: Wrap your arms around a sandbag (or hold it overhead) and walk while maintaining perfect posture — that is, standing tall with your abs braced, chest up, and shoulder blades pulled back and down.
Your charge: After you’ve completed your 1-minute rest in the first exercise, perform the bear-hug walk for 30 seconds. Then proceed to the next movement in the circuit.
Hold the bag as if you’re hugging it.
3. Grip, Row, and Grow
There’s no convenient place to grip a sandbag. To hang onto it, especially in muscle-making moves like bent-over rows, you must crush the bag with your hands and pinch it with your fingers. As a result, you’ll train all the muscles in your hands and forearms while intensively training both your back and biceps.
How to do it: Grab the bag with both hands and stand with your knees slightly bent. Maintaining the natural arch in your lower back, bend forward at your waist until your upper body is almost parallel to the floor. The bag should hang straight beneath your shoulders. That’s the starting position. Now, without moving your torso, pull the bag as close to your lower rib cage as possible. Pause and then lower the bag to the starting position.
Your charge: Do 8 reps, rest 1 minute, and repeat the bear-hug walk before going on to exercise 4.
4. Squat for Strength
Sandbag lifts don’t have to be complicated to be effective. And few exercises can compare to the classic squat for building total-body strength and muscle.
How to do it: Stand holding a sandbag in a bear hug. Initiate the movement by pushing your hips back. Lower your thighs until they’re at least parallel to the floor, and then press back up. Too easy? Pause for 2 or 3 seconds in the down position of each rep.
Your charge: Perform 5 reps, rest another minute, and do the bear-hug walk again. Then start over with the first exercise.
Tags: aerobic, excercise, fitness, flexibility, stretching, walking
Determine your fitness level with this four-part assessment. Use the results to set fitness goals and track your progress.
You probably have some idea of how fit you are. But knowing the specifics can help you set fitness goals, monitor your progress and maintain your motivation. Once you know where you’re starting from, you can plan where you want to go. And it’s easier than you might think!
Gather your tools
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends assessing fitness in four key areas: aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility and body composition. To do your assessment, you’ll need:
- A watch that can measure seconds or a stopwatch
- A cloth measuring tape
- A yardstick
- Heavy duty tape
- Someone to help you with the flexibility test
You’ll also need a pencil or pen and paper to record your scores as you complete each part of the assessment. You can record your scores in a notebook or journal or save them in a spreadsheet on your computer.
Record your fitness levels (PDF file requiring Adobe Reader)
Check your aerobic fitness: One-mile walk
Checking your pulse over the carotid artery
To assess your aerobic fitness, you’ll take a one-mile walk. You can do the walk anywhere — on a trail or track, inside a shopping mall or on a treadmill. Before and after the walk, you’ll check and record your pulse in your notebook or journal.
To check your pulse over your carotid artery, place your index and third fingers on your neck to the side of your windpipe. When you feel your pulse, look at your watch and count the number of pulsations in 15 seconds. Multiply this number by 4 to get your heart rate per minute.
Let’s say you count 20 pulsations in 15 seconds. Multiply 20 by 4 for a total of 80 beats per minute.
Checking your pulse over the radial artery
If your doctor has told you that you have a narrowed carotid artery, check your pulse at your wrist. Place two fingers between the bone and the tendon over your radial artery, which is located on the thumb side of your wrist. When you feel your pulse, look at your watch and count the number of pulsations in 15 seconds. Multiply this number by 4 to get your heart rate per minute.
Another option is to wear an electronic device that displays your pulse.
After you’ve recorded your pulse, note the time on your watch and walk one mile. After you complete one mile, check your watch and record the time it took you to finish — in minutes and seconds — in your notebook or journal. Then check and record your pulse once more.
Measure muscular fitness: Push-ups
Push-ups can help you measure muscular strength. If you’re just starting a fitness program, do knee push-ups. If you’re already fit, do toe push-ups. For both types:
- Lie face down on the floor with your elbows bent and your palms next to your shoulders.
- Keeping your back straight, push up with your arms until your arms are extended.
- Lower your body until your chest touches the floor.
- Push your body upward, returning to the starting position.
Count each time you return to the starting position as one push-up. Do as many push-ups as you can until you need to stop for rest. Record the number of push-ups you complete in your notebook or journal.
Assess your flexibility: Sit-and-reach test
Assessing flexibility in your legs, hips and lower back
The sit-and-reach test is a simple way to measure the flexibility of the backs of your legs, your hips and your lower back. Here’s how:
- Place a yardstick on the floor. Secure it by placing a piece of tape across the yardstick at the 15-inch mark.
- Place the soles of your feet even with the 15-inch mark.
- Ask a helper to place his or her hands on top of your knees to anchor them.
- Reach forward as far as you can, holding the position for two seconds.
- Note the distance you reached.
- Repeat the test two more times.
- Record the best of the three reaches.
Estimate your body composition: Waist circumference and body mass index
With a cloth measuring tape, measure your waist circumference at its smallest point — usually at the level of the navel. Record your waist circumference in inches in your notebook or journal.
Then determine your body mass index (BMI) — an indicator of your percentage of body fat — through a BMI table or online calculator. If you’d rather do the math yourself, divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared and multiply by 703. Record your BMI with the rest of your scores in your notebook or journal.
Monitor your progress
Now that you know your fitness level, keep track of your progress. Take the same measurements six weeks after you begin your exercise program and periodically afterward. Each time you repeat your assessment, celebrate your progress — and adjust your fitness goals accordingly. Show the results to your doctor or personal trainer for additional guidance.
Feb. 23, 2007
Posted by onlinehealthnews in Online Health News.
Tags: stress management, information overload, job, job uncertainty, simplicity
Is your life more or less complicated than it was 10 years ago? How about 20 years ago? More and more people are finding that, in spite of technology and other modern conveniences, they have less time, get less sleep, and are more stressed than they were a decade ago. The reasons for this are, well, not so simple, but relate to a number of factors.
When making a purchase, whether it’s food, health and beauty products, cars, or computers, we confront an expanding array of brands, flavors, and options. Similarly, we also have more options in terms of careers and lifestyles, and this can make our lives busier and more complicated. Although choice can certainly be a good thing, it doesn’t always make life simpler. Some people lose touch with their priorities when faced with too many options and distractions.
You have an urgent question to ask your healthcare provider and you reach an automated phone system instead of a person. Your new computer has a problem that no one in the office can fix and your work is put on “hold.” Your new office phone has dozens of features, but you can’t make sense of the complicated instruction manual. It’s enough to make one question whether or not technology really makes life simpler.
Mass production, mass marketing, and buying on credit has fueled a fervor of consumerism. People buy more than they need and end up burdened with clutter and debt.
Exchanges of information used to take place primarily among the people in one’s immediate environment through personal contact. Gradually, more information was exchanged through letters, publications, telephone, radio, and television. Now we have rapid, world wide, mass communication through the internet, email, and fax machines, as well as diverse and increasing numbers of publications, radio, and television stations. More organizations tend to be created in response to increasing knowledge and information—along with more regulations and more bureaucracy.
We went forth and multiplied. Now we wait in long lines, sit in traffic jams, and witness phenomenons such as “road rage.”
Today it takes more money to live at the same standard of living as our parents did. Many women cannot afford to stay home with their children, and two-income families have become the norm. As a result, people are feeling strained by the lack of quality time and energy they can bring to their families and relationships.
Many businesses have gone through phases of “merging and purging.” Most people don’t expect to stay at the same job for decades, but many are working longer and harder than ever.
Increasing choices, and job and lifestyle changes are leading people to move more frequently. Look at your address book. How many times in the last 5, 10, or 20 years have you crossed off the addresses of friends and family members? How many times have they crossed off yours?
Here today, gone tomorrow—that seems to be the law of modern life. But unless we know how to manage it, rapid change can take its toll on physical and mental health, jobs, relationships, family life, and goals.
Making changes to simplify certain aspects of life can be the antidote to living in such a complex society. But simplification is a very individual matter—what’s considered simple and stress-relieving to one person might be burdensome and stressful to another. For example, you may eat convenience foods because they save you time and energy. Your friend, on the other hand, may find convenience foods expensive and rather “inconvenient” for her family food budget.
The most important part of the simplification process is introspection—taking an honest and in-depth look at yourself and your life and then identifying things that can be changed. Simple enough? Yes and no. That is, some changes can be relatively easy to make. You may decide to unclutter your house by throwing out items that you really don’t need and scaling back on your consumption. On the other hand, you may find that you need a major overhaul to find a simpler life—a change of career or financial goals, a geographical relocation, or a change in perception through intensive psychotherapy.
What makes the concept of simplication difficult for some people is that it implies that you must give up something. But many people derive invaluable benefits from simplifying their lives—more time, freedom, self-expression, and a chance to live with more clarity and meaning. Simplification is a deeply personal endeavor and should be approached with the following things in mind:
- Values/Priorities. What is most important to you? What would you have the hardest time living without—your health, spouse, family, friends, time, creative projects? (This can be a tricky one. For example, you may say that you value money, but by looking deeper within yourself, you may find that what you really value is freedom, self-reliance, time, friends, or self-esteem, which you think money will buy for you).
- Identity. Who are you? What talents, skills, activities, and types of environments bring you the most enjoyment? Are you living authentically—speaking your truth and living according to your own values (values that you’ve examined and owned) or someone else’s?
- Time/Pace. How do you manage time and pace yourself? Is your natural pace 100 miles per hour or a bit slower and more reflective? Examine your current pace and your energy levels. If you’re feeling exhausted or burned out, you may need to slow down, or at least change where you are focusing the majority of your energy.
- Purpose. What do you most want to do with your life and are you doing that right now? How do you wish to direct your talents? Are you living purposefully?
- Vision. What is your ideal lifestyle and environment? What would your life look like if you could design it exactly the way you wanted? You can’t always “have it all,” but think about how close you can get to that vision now, realistically.
The list of things you can do to simplify your life is probably endless. Big changes will require a good deal of thought and planning. But there are many small changes you can make to simplify your life right now, such as:
- Buy a simple car—one that has less gadgets to fix.
- Do your shopping all at once, and preferably in the same place.
- Reduce the clutter in your home and office. Throw out things that you don’t use.
- Buy classic clothes that don’t go out of style.
- Donate your dry cleanables.
- Shop during off-hours.
- Get a simple, low-maintenance hairstyle.
- Downscale to a smaller home or less expensive car.
- Find a way to turn your hobby into your primary source of income.
- Make a conscious effort to reflect upon and appreciate the simple things in your life—those things that you may be taking for granted.
Simplifying your life isn’t always simple, but something as easy as getting more organized can be a big help. As some of the complexity decreases from your life, you may find greater clarity and peace of mind.
Posted by onlinehealthnews in Online Health News.
Tags: goal setting, goals, success
by Therese J. Borchard
1. Picture Your Goal Often
Imagine yourself in the goal state. Add details to your image of the goal. The more clear and positive your picture is of you being in the goal-state, the more compelling and powerful your goal will be.
2. Accomplish Goals Through Small Steps
Suppose your car has a dead battery and you must push it to get it started. The greatest effort to get the car moving is the first push. This is when you break the inertia and move the car from rest to motion. Once moving, it takes much less effort to keep the car moving.
If you’re like many people, you often have trouble getting started moving toward your goal. The problem is inertia. You are a body at rest! You must break the inertia to get moving.
3. Take Small Steps
Set the objective for a small improvement over a short time period.
Begin at your current level of performance with the first objective, the proceed in small steps. Ask yourself for small improvements only.
It’s similar to practicing yoga. In yoga, you assume a posture that you can do without undo strain, then you stretch a little bit. You don’t demand too much or try to force yourself into a position.
Don’t set yourself up to fail by demanding enormous changes.
4. Set Yourself Up to Win
Set yourself up to succeed.
Your small step should be only as big as what you know you can achieve with relative ease.
If the goal is something difficult because it is distasteful or involves an entrenched habit, then shorten the time frame of the objective.
For example, suppose you want to stop smoking. If, for your first objective, you demand that you will chew gum every time you feel like smoking for a month, you are likely to fail. Chances for success are better if you make the first objective for one day instead. When you meet that objective, set another one for a slightly longer period of time.
5. Get Into Motion
The objective helps you get started and creates momentum. Once you’ve broken the inertia of a bad habit you have also started to develop a winner’s attitude, which will help you to succeed.
6. Slowly Stretch Your Abilities
Don’t worry about the steps being too small. No step is too small as long as there is some stretch and some movement. Remember the inertia principle: A body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Use small steps to keep yourself in motion toward your goal.
7. Make Getting There Fun
People often equate self-management or self-discipline with austerity–sacrifice and withholding of pleasures. Such an approach is a mistake and will undermine your success.
Grease the skids of change with fun. Enjoyment of a task lessens the toil.
Consider physical exercising. Doing jumping jacks and running in place isn’t much fun. By comparison, playing tennis with a friend is more fun. And it provides a good workout. With this in mind, think of ways you can build fun into the process of achieving your goals.
Tags: blood pressure, children's stress, health care, Qigong, relaxation, stress, T'ai-chi
By Bill Douglas
T’ai-chi is a very popular form of Qigong, or, more precisely, Moving Qigong. Although originally a martial art, T’ai-chi has evolved into a highly effective biofeedback and classical conditioning mind-body technique that helps the practitioner clarify mind and heart, and therefore one’s life.
T’ai-chi can be a key to discovering personal empowerment. As we find that we can take control over our body’s circulation, our blood pressure, and our stress responses, we are empowered. This empowerment begins to resonate out to every aspect of our lives, work, relationships, and society.
As we feel empowered, and T’ai-chi works its clarifying magic, we find learning easier and more exciting. We become drawn to learning as the world becomes fresher and more magical because of our new sense of well-being. T’ai-chi cultivates and supports our childlikeness, our curiosity, and our zest for life.
T’ai-chi also teaches us how precious and miraculous life can be. When we treasure each moment of our lives, we are much less likely to engage in acts that endanger our health or our freedom. When we feel at peace within ourselves, we are much less likely to hurt others. Much violence is the act of someone in personal pain who externalizes that pain on others. T’ai-chi can help heal that pain, thereby reducing much violence.
T’ai-chi and Unemployment
Since people who grew up in high-stress households have higher unemployment rates, T’ai-chi may help both parents and children change that pattern. Secondly, since many people are increasingly required by the modern economy to change careers several times, T’ai-chi’s promotion of letting go of the past and relaxing into change can be helpful to adults in today’s job market.
Children’s Stress Can Reduce Their Employability
England’s Royal Academy of Pediatrics College released a study that concluded that “stressful” households caused problems for children that could last a lifetime. One thing they discovered was that children from such households endured higher unemployment levels than kids from more peaceful households. We know that stress limits our creativity and can affect our self-esteem. T’ai-chi’s ability to provide children with a tool to find a calm place within, even when home is “less than calm,” can be of powerful help to them.
T’ai-chi Is Relaxing Into the Future
In today’s modern workforce, it is estimated that most of us will change not jobs but careers over five times in our lifetime. For people who find change difficult, this can be excruciatingly stressful and even life threatening over time. In a world of constant and relentless change, T’ai-chi’s ability to help us mentally, emotionally, and physically let go can be a great help.
By being able to let go of past employment and being open to new information and self-definitions, we can be ready to flow into our next occupation. This flowing can happen, not only less stressfully, but with an adventurous anticipation, just like when we were kids. This is what T’ai-chi can help us do as individuals and as a society.
When you catch yourself considering worst-case scenarios while engaged in a task or project, take a deep breath and let your entire body release thoughts, tensions, and fears. Then make a list or flow chart of what is required for success. This will let you realistically decide whether to proceed rather than resist change because of irrational fears. T’ai-chi promotes a sense of “being in the moment,” of dealing with the tasks at hand, and of letting go of fear-based projections of the future.
T’ai-chi and the Health Care Crisis
Approximately 80% of illnesses that send us to the doctor are due to stress. The six leading causes of death are stress related. Our health care crisis is literally due to stress. Stress can be managed, and there is perhaps no more effective stress management tool than daily T’ai-chi and Qigong meditations.
Hospitals and insurance carriers are beginning to incorporate T’ai-chi and other Qigong into what they offer clients. Physicians, from neurologists, to cardiac and hypertension specialists, to mental health providers, are prescribing T’ai-chi for a host of physical, emotional, and mental conditions. Medical-school nursing programs are also introducing T’ai-chi to their students as part of their training. Other schools are considering offering it to all medical students.
T’ai-chi begins to show us that we have a health care crisis simply because we choose to have a health care crisis. Each of us has it within our own power to dramatically lower our dependence on general health care, pharmacology, and surgery. The fastest-growing investment industry in the U.S. today is pharmaceuticals. The top three such pharmaceuticals are ulcer and high-blood-pressure drugs, and mood-altering medications. T’ai-chi and Qigong can have significantly positive effects on all these conditions in some cases.
T’ai-chi and Qigong are not at odds with modern Western health care. They can be partners with it. You don’t decide between medication or surgery and T’ai-chi. If you need medication or surgery, then use it. However, medication and surgery should not be our first line of defense.
If we practice T’ai-chi, we may never develop the need for certain medications or for much heart surgery. Again, stress is the reason most of the physical conditions requiring medication or surgery develop in the first place. If we daily water our “T’ai-chi Tree’s” roots with the soothing balm of life energy, we will be less likely to ever need that medication or surgery, saving ourselves pain and money, while saving our society a great financial burden.
We cannot afford to ignore our body’s signals and our health until we are in a crisis situation and then expect society to lavish money upon us for expensive surgery or medication. This isn’t just about Medicare alone: All our health insurance premiums are skyrocketing because of a national need to become mindful of our health and ability to heal. T’ai-chi can save us all big money and help us feel good while doing it.
Tags: depression, sleep, caffeine, insomnia, healthcare, worry, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless leg syndrome
True or false?
*The elderly don’t need as much sleep as younger people.
*Bleary-eyed drivers can stay awake better by cranking up the car stereo and rolling down the windows.
*Nighttime shift workers eventually readjust to their late hours.
*Boredom makes you tired.
They’re all false. But if you got them wrong, you’re not alone. A telephone survey of 1,027 people conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 85% failed a simple 12-question quiz on sleep. Not only did they “flunk the exam,” but two-thirds of those polled also reported sleeping difficulties.
“It’s astounding that you can go through your whole education learning about proper nutrition and hygiene but not getting adequate sleep, said Thomas Roth, PhD, Health and Scientific Advisor of the National Sleep Foundation as well as director of the Sleep Disorders Research Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. “Only once did my children get taught about sleep in school. It was the night before a state exam, and the children were told to get a good night’s sleep in preparation. That’s it.”
“Most of us need eight hours of sound sleep to function at our best, and good health demands good sleep,” explained Roth. The problem: Americans are averaging only about seven hours of sleep a night. One in three gets only six hours a night. “People have no idea how important sleep is to their lives,” he stated.
Why IS sleep so critical to our well-being?
If resting in bed were all it took to recharge body and mind for the coming day, insomniacs could take in their favorite late night television and start the next day fresh. But surprisingly, it’s not how much sleep you get that’s important—it’s the level of sleep you achieve that truly restores you, body and mind.
Sleep can be divided into two crucial phases:
- Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep takes up 80% of the average dreamer’s night. The earliest phase of NREM sleep begins with general relaxation of muscles. This relaxed state eventually culminates in the deepest sleep level when it appears that protein synthesis, growth hormones, immune function, and the mind are given a boost. Delta waves—the slowest and largest waves—signal the onset of this most rejuvenating sleep level, which constitutes 50% of an adult’s sleep time.
- Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep takes up about 25% of an average sleeper’s night. Dreams that occur during REM sleep might provide, in a sense, a sorting through of free-floating information. Prolonged REM deprivation has been linked to excessively anxious or emotional behavior that dissipates once more regular sleeping habits are achieved. REM sleep is thought to be the most important period for mental revitalization.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, an estimated $35 billion is lost yearly in productivity, sick leave, medical expenses, and property and environmental damage because of sleep deprivation and untreated sleep disorders. It’s more than a simple matter of dragging yourself through the day. On-the-job dozing can dearly cost the sleep-deprived worker and those around him. For example, the environmentally disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska reportedly involved the sleepiness of the tanker’s third-mate.
The problem also hits much closer to home. Driver fatigue has been identified as the greatest accident risk factor affecting motor carriers. Furthermore, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that more than 100,000 crashes per year are caused by drivers nodding off behind the wheel and that thousands die as the result of such accidents.
The National Sleep Foundation’s poll even found that 23% of those questioned had dozed off while driving some time in the past year. It would seem that people know not to drive drunk but not to refrain from driving tired. Rolled-down windows, the car’s blaring stereo, and a strong cup of Joe is not going to restore all the alertness necessary for safe driving. If your eyes are closing on you, the only surefire way to save your life as well as others is to pull over to the side of the road and give in to sleep.
In addition to productivity and safety consequences, research shows that people who are chronically sleep deprived may also be more likely to suffer from:
How is it that there is an epidemic of sleepiness so severe in the United States that it kills people regularly? In the first decade of this century—prior to the widespread usage of electricity—Americans basically bedded down at nightfall. Since then, they have lived increasingly longer days. They also lead driven lifestyles, attempting to balance successful career and home lives. The exhausting modern schedule leaves little time for the “luxury” of sleep.
Today’s lifestyle is so busy that people often don’t have the time to recognize the symptoms of fatigue unless they’re at a task that bores them. This has given rise to the notion that boredom brings on sleepiness. In truth, boredom only brings sleepiness to your attention.
Late shift workers. Not only do Americans give up a good night’s rest in an attempt to keep up with the hectic pace of the electronic age, many, including late shift healthcare, military and public safety workers, nuclear power plant operators, medical residents, and long-haul truck drivers, are building daily schedules against the body’s natural circadian rhythm. That rhythm dictates that the longest period of sleepiness occurs during the hours of 1 a.m.–6 a.m. Thus, people who work the late shift lose out on the time that the body is programmed for the deepest and most beneficial sleep.
Older adults. The elderly, too, cope with a special set of difficulties that keeps them from getting the sleep they need. Aging brings on a host of health-related problems that interrupt sleep, such as pain from arthritis, medications with side effects that disturb rest, or depression brought on by the discomforts of the aging process. More than any other population, the elderly rely on medications that keep them up at night. Moreover, a more sedentary lifestyle doesn’t allow for the expenditure of energy that results in restful sleep. Last, a slowing of what is known as delta wave activity in the brain doesn’t allow for the same degree of deep sleep per night as enjoyed in youth.
But none of this means that the elderly don’t need as much rest as everyone else. The combination of conditions that change the sleep habits of the elderly only indicates that they need to alter their sleep habits so that they get enough shut-eye.
In general, people are so used to going without enough sleep that they don’t recognize that their sleeping habits make sound slumber unlikely. Following these simple tips will help you settle down for a good night’s rest. Do the following to improve the quality of your sleep as well as to get more restful sleep:
- Avoid caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and exercise at least four hours before bedtime. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants, and alcohol, though a depressant that makes falling asleep easier initially, interferes with deep sleep later on during the night. Exercise also acts as a stimulant, but a workout earlier in the day can improve nighttime rest.
- Leave worrying outside the bed. If you stay awake worrying about things you have to tackle the next day, write out a list of “to-dos” to take the pressure off. Then put the list aside to deal with the next day.
- Keep other activities out of the bedroom. Don’t confuse your bedroom with your family room. Keep your television viewing and Net surfing out of your sleeping quarters. You need to associate your bedroom with sleep and not activities that will keep your mind engaged.
- Don’t try to “force” yourself to sleep. You’ll just lie awake staring at the clock. After 20 minutes of wakefulness, go to another room to read or watch TV. Return to your bedroom only when you’ve become tired enough to sleep.
- Temperature counts. Keep your bedroom set up for a restful night’s sleep with a comfortable mattress and proper temperature setting. A too-hot or too-cold room can keep you awake.
- Reduce noise levels. Apartment-dwellers with noisy neighbors or those on heavily trafficked streets can block out noise with a fan or sound-simulating machine that mimic nature sounds (such as the ocean or rain).
- Avoid stimulation before sleeping. Try not to engage in anything that will give you a second wind just before bed, such as viewing an action-packed movie or sitting in a brightly lit room. Instead, try listening to soothing music or reading.
- Slow down. Don’t hurriedly get ready for bed at the last minute. Brush your teeth and wash yourself a while in advance. Try to stick with an early-to-bed, early-to-rise pattern. That way, you won’t go to bed too late during the work week and need an alarm clock each morning to wake you out of a sound sleep.
If you’re troubled with chronic difficulties falling asleep—or staying asleep—see a doctor. You may discover, for example, that what seems like simple snoring is actually sleep apnea. Apnea is a treatable condition that repeatedly rouses an estimated 18 million Americans from their dreams during the night.
Other sleep disorders, such as restless legs syndrome (unpleasant sensations in the legs combined with irresistible urge to move) and narcolepsy (sudden and involuntary episodes of sleepiness) should also be discussed with your physician. Along with treating specific disorders, physicians can prescribe general sleep aids such as zolpidem (Ambien), eszopiclone (Lunesta–approved for long term use), and temazepam (Restoril).
Posted by onlinehealthnews in Online Health News.
Tags: anxiety, fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, stress, weight gain
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Don’t let stress keep you down.
By the Editors of Men’s Health
Like most illnesses, stress is defined by its symptoms: Relieve the fatigue, headaches, tight muscles, and the rest of the physical fallout and you’ll find it exponentially easier to take the tension in stride.
Fatigue
The stress hormone cortisol may sap your serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that regulate mood and sleep.
Beat it: Try the herbal supplement Rhodiola rosea (rhodiolarosea.com). It stimulates serotonin and dopamine production, says Keith DeOrio, M.D., the Men’s Health alternative-medicine advisor.
Muscle tension
A continuous infusion of adrenaline can make your upper-back muscles painfully tight, according to research by Swedish scientists.
Beat it: Start untying the knots with 12 repetitions of wide-grip barbell rows. Two sets will leave your muscles fatigued enough to relax and recover from the tension.
Weight gain
Italian researchers have shown that cortisol can increase your cravings for foods high in fat and carbohydrates.
Beat it: Swallow more omega-3 fatty acids; they can cut cortisol, say French researchers. Take two Ultimate Omega pills (nordicnaturals.com) twice a day, which is a similar amount to what was used in the study.
Headaches
Low serotonin levels may cause the blood vessels in your brain to become dilated and inflamed.
Beat it: Fill up on pumpkin seeds, bananas, and tuna. A study in Clinical Neuroscience found that magnesium, a nutrient that helps regulate blood-vessel dilation, may reduce the frequency of headaches.
Stomach upset
Blood is shunted from your stomach to your muscles so they can fight or take flight, say Johns Hopkins researchers.
Beat it: Heat up a meal. Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their fire, was found to increase gastric bloodflow in animal studies.
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Tags: aloe vera, sunburn, sunburn prevention, sunscreen
Summer—the season for barbecues, picnics, sailing, baseball, golf, and the beach. And if you’re not careful, it’s the ideal time for sunburns.
We all probably have at least one memory of a nasty childhood sunburn—the hot red skin that was painful to touch, the stuff Mom sprayed all over it to cool it off, and the flaking and peeling that came later. Some people with severe sunburns even experience blistering, fever, chills, nausea, and/or vomiting.
If you take the proper protective measures, you shouldn’t get burned. But if you do, you’ll want to seek treatment that will do two things: cool the skin to help ease the pain and moisturize the skin with ingredients that promote healing.
There are numerous over-the-counter (OTC) skin care products and pain medications that can be used to treat sunburn. According to Dr. Jeffrey Dover, Associate Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Boston’s Beth Israel/Deaconess Medical Center, one of the most soothing is topical Solarcaine. Other OTC pain relievers such as aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil), or naproxen (Aleve) will also help ease discomfort, but if you’re so burnt that nausea is a problem, you should avoid these products.
In addition to traditional OTC treatments, there are several natural remedies for sunburn:
- Cool milk compresses–Applying cool whole milk to a sunburn with a soft cloth or cotton gauze will help ease the pain and discomfort, while the fat content of the milk will help soothe the skin and may facilitate healing.
- Cool baths–Soaking in a cool bath is one of the best ways to draw heat from the skin and soothe the pain and discomfort of a sunburn. Adding chamomile oil or baking soda to a cool bath (or oatmeal to a lukewarm bath) can relieve the pain. (After bathing, lightly pat the skin dry with a soft towel, preferably cotton. If you take an oatmeal bath, let the light coating of oatmeal that clings to your skin remain.)
- Rubbing alcohol–Because it evaporates so quickly, dabbing on rubbing alcohol will quickly cool and ease the pain of sunburned skin.
For best results, follow the abovementioned treatments immediately with a slathering of moisturizing cream to relubricate the skin and facilitate it’s retention of water.
Aloe vera is commonly used to treat sunburn. A thick, jelly-like substance found in the leaf of the plant, aloe vera gel is soothing probably due in part to anthraquinones (natural analgesics). Because it is naturally rich in substances such as vitamins A, C, E, and amino acids, it may also provide health benefits to the skin, though studies have generally failed to find any specific beneficial effect on sunburns.
Gel extracted directly from an aloe vera plant works best, but the plants may be difficult to find. Accordingly, you may want to buy an OTC aloe vera cream that contains the gel. But if you do, make sure that the cream contains a higher concentration of aloe vera than it does water or other solutions.
The best way to deal with a sunburn is to avoid getting one in the first place. So, whenever you’re out working or playing in the sun, be sure to take the following precautions:
- Wear protective clothing, including a long-sleeve shirt and a hat.
- Avoid midday sun, if possible, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
- At least 15 minutes before going out into the sun, cover all areas of exposed skin with a sunscreen containing a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15.
- Consumption of antioxidants such as vitamins E and C might slightly increase sun protection. Applying antioxidants to the skin also offers modest benefit, according to preliminary studies.
- Reapply sunscreen every hour while out in the sun, and more often if you are perspiring heavily or swimming.
Since ultraviolet rays can filter through clouds, take the above precautions even on cloudy days.
Also, be aware that certain medications, including many antibiotics, tranquilizers, and diuretics can increase your susceptibility to sunburn. While taking these or other medications, check with your pharmacist or physician about any increased risk for sunburn.
Posted by onlinehealthnews in Online Health News.
Tags: cardio, excercise, fat loss, fat loss tips, thyroid
Fat loss tips are abundant on the internet - but do they work? There are a variety of claims about why we are fat. Some programs say if your arms are flabby, all you need to do is exercise. Others say you can lose fat and still eat fast food! With all this information, how can we know what will work?
The best advice is to read everything and see what “resonates” with you. We are all born with different personalities and must work in different ways. Some like to exercise while others don’t have time. Many like to experiment with something different.
No matter which program might work for you, there are some rules that are common to all programs and work for most people. They are listed for you here.
Fat Loss Tip 1 - Check your thyroid. If this is low, it is way too easy to store fat and way too hard to lose it. A very low thyroid can be dangerous and cause serious health problems. So - be safe and get it checked.
Fat Loss Tip 2 - Exercise does work. There are many types of exercise out there but the following theories prevail throughout all fat loss programs.
You must do cardio exercise 30-40 minutes a day. During this time you should try to hit “peak” target heart rates while strengthening your muscles during your workout. This is generally done while lifting weights, stair stepping or even on an exercise bike.
Another newer concept of fat burning exercise is interval training. This is especially good for those who have less time to exercise. This type of workout is generally about 20 minutes long. During this time you alternate low to moderate intensity exercise with very short periods (30 to 60 seconds) of high intensity exercise. It can be done on an exercise bike, a treadmill, stair stepper, or even an exercise rebounder.
Fat Loss Tip 3 - Exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. This helps your body lose more fat. One reason this works is because during the night you are basically fasting for 8-12 hours. This will deplete your body’s stored glycogen. When your glycogen stores are low - your body burns more fat.
Both of the above exercise fat loss tips are used by fitness experts and body builders. These are the people to use as role models for your most effective fat loss.
Fat Loss Tip 4 - Eat 5 small servings of protein throughout the day. The best proteins to lose fat include fresh, organic eggs, lean beef, skinless chicken, yogurt, tuna, salmon, and turkey.
Fat Loss Tip 5 - Eat less starch. This includes breads and pastas. The extra proteins make up for the calories so you don’t lose muscle.
Fat Loss Tip 6 - Eat healthy fats. Healthy fats actually increase thermogenesis (fat burning ability), help increase muscle, keep your mood elevated and even wards off degenerative disease! Including fish into your diet will provide Omega 3’s and 6’s, which are healthy fats. Olive oil, walnuts, avocados and flax seeds are other foods to include.
Taking a “essential fatty acid” supplement will also help your fat burning abilities. This might be a good option for those who avoid fish because of allergies.
There are many diets and other ways to exercise to lose fat for good. Read as many as you can, put the pieces together and you will find what works for you.
Cindy is a Certified Nutritional Counselor and has been working and teaching in the health field for 15 years. Learn more about fat loss and how to body cleanse before you start any fat loss program.
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By Dr. Ronald M. Klatz and Dr. Robert Goldman
Dr. Ronald M. Klatz
Level: Basic
Dr. Ronald Klatz , who coined the term “anti-aging medicine,” is recognized as a leading authority in the new clinical science of anti-aging medicine. Since …
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Sleep is one of the most basic and universal activities in which we all engage. Yet, getting to sleep, staying asleep, and waking refreshed can be highly elusive to most of us some of the time, and to many of us all of the time. We spend one-third of our lives under the covers, but sleeping well is one of the most a highly underestimated factors in feeling well and performing at our best. This article explores techniques you can implement tonight, to achieve restful, rejuvenating sleep.
Sleep deprivation can be life threatening to you and those around you. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that more than 100,000 car accidents a year — and 1,500 deaths — are the direct result of people driving while sleepy. The nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl, poisoning thousands of square miles with radioactive particles and causing death and serious medical illnesses, was found to be the result of human error by overworked shift workers who had been on duty for more than 18 hours. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger has also been suggested to be caused in part by engineers and supervisors who had been awake for 50 hours continuously prior to launch and overlooked warnings about possible mechanical failure. Errors in judgment caused by sleepiness was also cited as a contributing factor in the Exxon Valdez tanker accident.
The quality and quantity of sleep has a direct relation to the quality and quantity of life. Dr. Kripke from University of California has found that most people need at least 6 to 7 hours of sleep in order to perform at their physical and mental best. The same study also found that taking prescription sleeping medication every day increases the risk of death by 25%.
Additionally, a sleep debt can rob us of our quality of life. Over time, insufficient sleep accumulates. Slowly but surely, a sleep debt deteriorates our physical and cognitive acuity slowly until we are overwhelmed by powerful and sudden sleepiness. The nationwide sleep debt, resulting in fatigue, has been reported to cost the American economy about $120 million annually in both health expenditures, lost worker productivity, and property destruction. The personal costs of sleep debt can include:
- Mood changes: irritability, depression, and anxiety are the three most common mood disturbances caused by lack of sleep.
- Impaired nervous system function: manifesting as decreased cognitive and motor performance, such as inattention, memory difficulties, and delayed reaction time:
- Weight gain: when we don’t sleep, we gain weight. This is not only due to hormones that relate to both sleep and weight, but to the tendency for us to reach for a sugary, carbohydrate-laden snack to keep us awake when we are drowsy.
- Impaired immune function: a lack of sleep undermines the immune system’s capacity to ward off invasion by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
Difficulties with achieving a refreshing sleep, along with sleep dysfunction, play a key role in a wide variety of human disorders. Stroke and asthma attacks tend to occur more frequently during the night and early morning, which some experts suggest to be due to changes in hormones, heart rate, and other characteristics associated with sleep. Dream-state sleep also has been found to be critical in preventing seizures and other neurological disorders. Sleeping problems occur in almost all people afflicted with mental conditions such as depression and schizophrenia. Sleeping problems are common in age-related diseases including Alzheimer’s, stroke, and cancer.
In your search for refreshing sleep, you will be well served by establishing good habits for sleep and creating an inviting environment appropriate for sleep. Collectively, these improvements form good “sleep hygiene,” a personalized regimen that is your gateway to refreshing sleep. In short, to achieve restorative sleep, it is critical to create a sleep haven.
Sleep-Friendly Habits
- Establish how much sleep you really, and realistically, need: Approximate the amount of time your body considers requisite to enable your best daytime functioning by going to sleep and arising without the help of an alarm clock. Once you know how many hours of sleep you need, modify your daily routine so that you take care of personal and professional responsibilities well before the three to four hours prior to bedtime, when you should be starting a pre-sleep routine of quiet relaxation
- Set a regular schedule, particularly for the time at which you get up everyday: an irregular or inconsistent sleep-wake schedule sets the biological stage for poor sleep.
- Avoid the stimulants caffeine and nicotine for six hours before bedtime, longer if you know these substances give you trouble sleeping. Also avoid hidden sources of caffeine, such as chocolate and some over-the-counter pain and cold remedies.
- Avoid alcohol after dinnertime: while it may help you fall asleep, it will probably cause you to awaken in the middle of the night.
- Get regular exercise:
- Exercise promotes faster time to sleep and improves progress through the stages of sleep. Moderate aerobic exercise three days a week has been found to promote sound sleep.
- Strength training exercise (including weightlifting) prompts the release of Human Growth Hormone (HGH), rising levels of which at night coincide with sleep.
- Exercise strengthens bones and joints, thereby helping to alleviate pain that can be bothersome in falling or staying asleep
NOTE: It is best to avoid exercising within the 2-4 hours before bedtime because of the hormone-releasing (and thus possibly stimulating) effect.
- Eat for sleep:
- For dinner or a light nighttime snack, choose foods containing the amino acid tryptophan, from which the body makes serotonin and melatonin, key biochemicals that trigger sleep. Dairy products, beans, poultry, and green leafy vegetables are good sources of tryptophan.
- Sex may help to promote sleep by releasing neurochemicals that are sedating.
- If you are on any prescription or over-the-counter medications, ask your doctor if any of them could be keeping you awake or causing you not to get a refreshing sleep.
- Upon awakening, open the curtains and greet the sunlight: morning bright light promotes sleep onset later in the day. For older folks, exposure to bright light at the low point of core body temperature can delay the sleep-wake cycle so that they start feeling sleepy later
The Sleep Environment
- Keep the sleeping room cool: lowering the temperature helps your body cool down, which can help to trigger sleep onset
- Keep the sleeping room dark: light is the most powerful time cue for humans; even low ambient light (such as that of a nightlight) alter the sleep-wake cycle by way of the pineal, which is a light-sensitive organ that detects light even if the eyes are closed.
- Keep the sleeping room quiet. If you cannot keep sound to an absolute minimum, use a fan, air cleaner, or other source of “white noise” to drown out discernable noise.
- Limit the bed for engaging in two activities only — sleep and sex. If you cannot get to sleep after quietly lying in bed for 30 minutes, get out of the bed and engage in a quiet activity like reading or listening to soothing music; avoid television as that is more of a stimulus than a relaxing activity. Once you start feeling tired, return to the bed and try to fall asleep again.
- Is the bed to blame? It is not merely a home furnishing, it is an integral part of your sleep environment:
- If you share a bed, both of you may sleep best in a king-size bed, particularly if your bed partner is prone to tossing and turning or has restless leg syndrome. Two adults in a double- or queen- size bed have as much horizontal space as a baby does in a crib!
- Your mattress should be a smooth, intact comfortable surface. It should not feel bumpy and the coils should not be protruding out.
- A properly selected and maintained mattress provides positive resistance to the sleeper’s body weight. Goldilocks was right:
- A mattress that is too firm will not provide even body support, tending instead to support only at the body’s heaviest parts (shoulders and hips). This causes increased pressure that reduces blood circulation, causing the sleeper to toss and turn.
- A mattress that is too soft will not keep the spine in proper alignment with the rest of the body. As a result, your muscles will work throughout the night to straighten the spine, leading to aches and pains in the morning. Sags or imprints in your mattress indicate that your mattress is not right for you.
- The foundation part of the bed, also called the box spring, extends the life of the mattress. It absorbs the major portion of the stress and weight placed on the sleep surface, working like a shock absorber to eliminate stress in the mattress. A worn-out foundation can shorten the life of a mattress by 50% and thus compromise your sleep.
- De-technologize your sleeping room. Specifically, reduce sources of electromagnetic fields (EMFs), waves of electric and magnetic energies that are produced by electronic and electrical equipment. EMFs represent one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences on health today, and scientists have found they can affect brainwaves so as to alter mental acuity and change mood and sleep patterns. EMFs are produced by:
- Electric clocks and clock radios
- Televisions and computers
- Cellular phones and cordless phones
- Lamps
- Ionization–type smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
- Reduce chemical irritants that may cause breathing difficulties that can interfere with getting to sleep or getting a continuous night’s sleep:
- Remove home furnishings made with synthetics or that are chemically treated (carpeting, furniture, draperies)
- Freshly dry cleaned clothes are high in vapors of the solvents used in the cleaning process. Do not bring into the sleeping room until aired out in a separate room for several days. Close the closet door before sleeping.
- Use natural, non-treated cotton or silk sheets. Avoid “permanent press” sheets as these are treated with chemicals (most notably, formaldehyde).
- If you have pets, do not allow them into the sleeping room. A study by Dr. Shepard of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center (Minnesota, USA) reported that 53% of pet owners permitting the animal in the sleeping room had disrupted sleep every night. Pet allergies can also contribute to problems breathing during sleep.
- Address sources of allergies: pets, plants, and knick-knacks are best left out of the sleeping room.
- A few drops of jasmine or lavender essential oil on a tissue placed near the bed can promote relaxation upon inhalation. Dr. Raudenbush and colleagues from Wheeling Jesuit University (West Virginia USA) found that people who slept in rooms infused with jasmine slept more peacefully and reported higher afternoon alertness than those in a room with no added smell. Similar results were demonstrated for lavender, but Dr. Raudenbush’s team found the benefits to be less pronounced as those seen with jasmine.
With a modest investment of effort to improve your sleep hygiene, you can reap significant improvements in how well, and how long, you sleep. Get the best rest of your life so you can get the best out of your life.
Ronald Klatz, M.D., D.O. and Robert Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., D.O., FAASP
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