Aging

Researchers have found that eating potassium rich fruits and vegetables may reduce muscle mass loss that occurs with aging.

Short Term Memory

A study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that spikes in blood sugar can interfere with your short term memory.

What and how we breath makes a difference

Everything we do requires Energy – Where do we get it from

Our bodies produce the needed energy by burning fuel from the foods we eat. The next step is -

What element is necessary to burn the fuel and get energy from it? Oxygen from the Air we breath into our lungs are made up of approximately 600 million sponge like air sacs call alveoli that do this  work of exchange.  Oxygen rich blood then is transported to the entire body, Carbon Dioxide is breathed into the air to be used by plants.  This exchange takes only a millisecond to complete, the circuit of your body takes only about 1 minute.   All the cells of our body are dependant on our breathing.

So Take an Oxygen break:  Take advantage of play time outdoors to throw up your arms & breath deep go to  a window, open it wide and breath deep expanding your chest.

Our Brain is the most sensitive part of our body to a lack of oxygen.             Lack of Oxygen can: 

1.Decrease our ability: to reason to exert our willpower use good judgment control our emotions

2.Cause: Confusion Clumsiness Irritability

Some things that you can do to make sure you get the oxygen you need.   Proper Posture is Important to Proper Breathing whether you are standing, sitting and walking.                                                           Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing: Breath in deeply so that your lungs expand & the diaphragm is pushed down.  When you breath out, the lungs will get smaller & the diaphragm will move up.  Respiration is carried out by this piston-like action of the diaphragm. This pumping action works best when the tone of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles are good. 

Any one of the following can affect your bodies use of oxygen: a high fat diet (clogging arteries), smoking (breaks those small alveoli), alcohol (constricts blood vessels), tight clothing (restricts the expansion of the lungs) & even dehydration (blood is thicker, so flow is less).

Now the exercise that will make the diaphragmatic breathing work best for you (look for as fresh a source of air as available – in a city your air conditioned room might be best because of air pollution):

1. While Standing stretch your arms high above your head
2. Breath in slowly, mouth closed. Normally the ribs will expand
3. Expand the chest as far as possible while breathing in. At the height of inspiration take in 1 more whiff of air
4. With mouth open, let all the air out while slowly bending over. Cough to get the last bit of air out
5. Repeat 5 to 10 times every morning

I will give 1 caution Start slow – remember your brain may not be use to so much oxygen & it might make you dizzy!!  A few minutes invested working on good posture & good breathing will be time well spent in improving your health. & making you feel better. For even better health click here.

 

 

Enhance Your Life With Sunshine

We tend to take sunlight for granted. However, there are health benefits & cautions that we need to talk about.

Plants, animals, & human beings all depend on sunlight. The actions of snow & rain, even the temperature & humidity of earth’s atmosphere are related to the sun.

The sun works on all these things to keep life supported. Green plants grow by a process called photosynthesis this is where Sunlight acts on the Chlorophyll in the leaves, this is the green pigment. Carbon dioxide is absorbed from the air, the rain adds water all this combines to form sugar atoms which in turn combine with minerals from the soil to make starch, protein, oil, vitamins or the food for man & animals.

Benefits of the Sun

– Produces Vitamin D

– Decreases Blood Cholesterol

– Decreases Blood Sugar

– Kills Germs – Disinfects

– Increases Aerobic Fitness

– Promotes Mental Health

Vitamin D — The Sunshine Vitamin

This Vitamin is formed when Sunshine (ultraviolet rays) reacts with Cholesterol (under the skin). This is the only vitamin that we don’t get from food.

However this vitamin is vital to our health because it helps our system absorb calcium, thus preventing bone diseases like rickets and osteomalacia (general term for the softening of the bones due to defective bone mineralization)

Just half of your face in the sunshine for 5 minutes provides 400 units of Vitamin D .which is our daily need.

A side note about cholesterol:

Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that occurs naturally in all parts of the body and that your body needs to function normally. It is present in cell walls or membranes everywhere in the body, including the brain, nerves, muscle, skin, liver, intestines, and heart. Your body uses cholesterol to produce many hormones, vitamin D, and the bile acids that help to digest fat. It takes only a small amount of cholesterol in the blood to meet these needs. If you have too much cholesterol in your bloodstream, the excess is deposited in arteries, including the coronary arteries, where it contributes to the narrowing and blockages that cause the signs and symptoms of heart disease. National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute

Too much cholesterol is bad for you. That’s why getting your Vitamin D from the sunshine’s action on the Cholesterol under your skin is better for you than a synthetic vitamin added to food, sunlight action leaves less to be deposited on artery walls which is an added benefit.

What about Blood Sugar

Sunlight acts like insulin by facilitating the absorption of glucose into the cells of the body. This stimulates the body to convert its blood sugar (glucose) into stored sugar (glycogen), within the liver & muscles, thus decreasing sugar in our blood & providing us with a source of energy

Kills Germs – Disinfects

We need Sunlight for every room in our house.

“If all would appreciate the sunshine, and expose every article of clothing to its drying, purifying rays, mildew and mold would be prevented. This is the only way rooms can be kept from impurities…Every room in our dwelling should be daily thrown open to the healthful rays of the sun, and the purifying air should be invited in. This will be a preventive of disease. “Healthful Living” p 142-143 by EG White

Increases Aerobic Fitness

Sunlight is able to increase the blood’s capacity to carry oxygen and deliver it to the tissues of the body. The more oxygen that is available for delivery to the muscles while exercising the easier it is to exercise!!

Glycogen is increased in the liver and the muscles as a source of energy for aerobic fitness.

Besides, a sunlight day always makes us feel better than when there is no sun. Unfortunately, our outlook on life tends to get gray when the days are gray!!

Can We Get Too Much Sun? Definitely!!!  One Problem is Sunstroke

Working or playing to long or hard in the sun can

1. Increase body temperature
2. Headache
3. Feel Weak
4. Nauseated
5. Confused
6. Pass Out
7. Even Die

Sunstroke can be a problem regardless of the color of your skin.

So use good judgment!

The more melanin in the skin the better you are protected from burning.

It is the ultraviolet radiation that burns the skin. Many of us don’t realize that even on cloudy days 80% of the ultraviolet rays get through so it pays to remember you really only need 5 minutes of sun!!

Over exposure without protection is why you will find more skin cancers in countries where people have predominantly white skin.

Yes, this natural physician is vital, but must be used with caution.

J 0 Y I S W H A T we are, not what we must get.

Joy is the realization that all we want or need in life has been etched into our souls.
Periods of success followed by long periods of unhappiness and dissatisfaction are not the natural order of life. We are not put here to suffer and then die. Yet it seems that we are unable to sustain an even flow of pleasure and ease in our daily affairs and relationships. Things never seem to add up when we make the tally of pleasure and pain, ease and difficulty, good times and bad times. Perhaps this is because we are using the wrong measurements.

Joy, not pleasure; joy, not ease; joy, not happiness. Joy is an internal mechanism which keeps us on an even plane as we move through life.
Joy gives us the ability to move through an unpleasant situation, knowing that once we make it through, it is over.

Joy reminds us of what we need to learn in order to experience longer periods of joy. Joy helps us to see not what we are “going through” but what we are “growing to,” a greater sense of understanding, accomplishment, and enlightenment. Joy reveals to us the calm at the end of the storm, the peace that surpasses the momentary happiness of pleasure. If we keep our mind and heart centered on joy, the joy of growing, of knowing, of living, joy becomes a state of mind, not an elusive preoccupation we choose, only to have it slip through our fingers over and over.
From the book:
“Faith in the Valley” by Iyanla Vanzant

Can I substitute ‘soft drinks’ for some of the Water I should Drink?

More people are drinking soft drinks than 10 years ago. Is this good or bad?
In the United States for example, soft drinks have emerged as America’s favorite beverages.
They have become more popular than coffee, tea, and juice combined.
In fact…compared to just 25 years ago, Americans are now drinking …twice as much soft drinks,
That is an average of 56 gallons (or, 212 liters) a year! That’s nearly 2 cans a day for every man, woman, and child. Since there are some of us who don’t drink this many somebody is getting more!
Have you ever wondered if these drinks have any impact on your personal health and well-being?
When most people open their favorite can of cola, they do not think that they are about to take a long drink of …an artificially colored, chemically flavored mixture of carbonated water, phosphoric acid, sweeteners, preservatives, and caffeine.
Research suggests that these soft drinks present personal health risks, both because of what they contain and what they replace in the diet.
Let’s begin by taking a look at the sugar these drinks contain.
Carbonated drinks are the single largest source of refined sugars in the American diet. this is more than 1/3 of the total sugar consumption
With your average soft drink containing 8-12 teaspoons of sugar, there are many potential health hazards.
Here are just a few of them.
Number 1. A Weakened Immune System
The sugar in soft drinks is one of the reasons for frequent colds, flu, and infections.
Scientific evidence has shown that sugar hinders our body’s ability… to fight off bacteria and keep us well. Just one soft drink, containing 12 tsp. of sugar is enough to weaken the protective ability of our body’s white blood cells…by 60%, for 5 hours.
When you think of how often some people consume soft drinks and other sugary foods, it becomes obvious that their white blood cells are not functioning very effectively for many hours of each day.

Number 2. Unbalanced Nutrition
Although most soft drinks contain lots of calories from sugar, they have no nutritional value.
Because of the amount of calories people get from drinking 2-3 cans a day it decreases their appetite for nutritious food. This significantly decreases their nutrition.normal;
Research shows that heavy soft-drink consumption is linked with low intake of essential B vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, copper, and chromium
Malnutrition is the main concern that many health experts have with the rising soft drink consumption.

Number 3. What about extra calories?
With a typical soft drink containing 150 calories, the average person, within just one year will take in…over 64,000 calories of sugar from soft drinks alone! Now…. it takes 7,500 calories to make one kilogram of fat.
Drinking 2 cans a day you could gain 13.5 kg a year from soft drinks alone!
Are diet drinks a good solution?
Most diet soft drinks are sweetened artificially and contain less than one-calorie. Do these low calorie soft drinks really work to help us stay fit and rim?
Current research says “no.”
One study of over 75,000 women found that those who used artificial sweeteners were significantly more likely than non-users to gain weight over time.
Another study found that diet soda drinkers ate more food and gained more weight than when they were free to drink regular sugar-sweetened soft drinks.
The researchers concluded that these artificial sweeteners increased both hunger and appetite.

Chemical additives cause still more health concerns.
Nearly all soft drinks contain chemical additives for color, flavor, and preservation. It is estimated that worldwide, people were “drinking” twenty million-six hundred thousand tons of chemicals, from soft drinks alone! That’s nearly 4 kilograms for every man, woman, and child, and somebody is getting my share!!
Let’s look at 2 common soft drink additives that are raising significant health concerns.
Number 1. is caffeine.–“WHY?”
It can increase you heart rate and blood pressure
It is an irritant to your stomach and can cause ulcers.
Even if a soft drink is caffeine free, most contain phosphoric acid, or phosphorus.
Number 2. Phosphorous
Phosphorous takes Calcium out of the bones which weaken the bones, thus, contributing to osteoporosis. This extra calcium is eliminated through the kidneys, which also contributes to an increased incidence of kidney stones.

When I think of soft drinks and all of their unpleasant after-effects, I am reminded of the words of scripture,
“Why do you spend money…for what does not satisfy? Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…” Isaiah 55:2,1
Friends, God has provided us with something better. Pure water is the perfect beverage.
It quenches thirst, contains no calories to add unwanted fat, and no caffeine.
It’s readily available, and it’s cheap!
For the best of health, be good to yourself and start enjoying nature’s super fluid—water—today.

References:
National Soft Drink Association; web site, www.nsda. org
Beverage Marketing. Corp. website , http://www.beveragemarketing.com/home.htm
Hard Facts About Soft Drinks, By George Nava True II, website, http://www.netasia.net/users/truehealth/Soft%20Drinks.htm
Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 1995;62(suppl):178S-94S.
National Soft Drink Association; Beverage World, www.nsda. org
Kijak E, Foust G, Steinman RR. Relationship of blood sugar level and leukocytic phagocytosis. Southern California Dental Assoc 1964;32(9):349-351.
Sanchez A, Reeser JL, et al. Role of sugars in human neutrophilic phagocytosis. Am J Clin Nutr 1973 Nov;26(11):1180-1184.
J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 1986;86:493-9.
Nedley, MD, Neil, Proof Positive, pg. 185
National Soft Drink Association; soft drink facts, www.nsda. org
104 Stellman SD, Garfinkel L. Patterns of artificial sweetener use and weight change in an American Cancer Society prospective study. Appetite 1988;11 Suppl 1():85-91.
Additives for Soft Drinks: A World Study, by Giora Agam, Published March 1997 http://www.buscom.com/food/GA092.html

Another Natural Physician = Water!

Yes, simple water. Did you know the average person is at least 60% water! Your brain is 85% water, no wonder Vernon Mark, M.D. at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston says “A deficiency of water can alter the concentration of electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, and chloride, water has a profound effect on brain function and energy level.” Every system in your body uses water, breathing, digesting, saliva, tears, the temperature control of your body & the flexibility of your muscles. In fact, according to Dr. Michael Colgan if you dehydrate a muscle by only 3%, you will lose 10% contractile strength and 8% of your speed. Staying hydrated is very important to both lifelong health and top physical performance.

What Should I Drink& How Much?

Since we are talking about water, “water is the elixir of life”, at the very least drink at least 8 glasses of actual water. If you just don’t like water add a few drops of lemon juice too it. You do get some water from your food, some of us drink other fluids that can cause you other problems. Consider:

1. Drinking water will eliminate all the problems other liquids such a soda, alcohol can cause your body. (but we’re not talking about problems here)

2. Water carries no extra calories & therefore adds no fat!

3. Water has no irritants to bother our sensitive stomach linings.

4. In almost every country clear, fresh water is readily available.

5. That availability of water makes it very cheap.

The main reason we need water is that we loose water every day. We loose water by breathing, when we sweat, of course urine, some in our feces & even when we sleep. All this water must be replaced, or dehydration will occur at least to some extent. Thirst is not a good way to determine your need of water, we must all drink more than we think we need. The most reliable indicator of whether you are drinking enough water is if your urine is pale yellow to clear. A very simple test!!

Even mild dehydration can give us a headache, contribute to constipation, gives added fatigue and lead to itchy dry skin.

Drink 2 glasses when you first get up then drink all day long. It is best to drink between meals rather than with meals.

Does it matter what kind of water I Drink?

The only requirement for water is that it be pure & clean. Bottle water or deep well water is probably the best. The main thing is to drink!! One Daily Health Tip says, “Staying well hydrated offers many health benefits. You are more likely to have smoother skin, regular bowel movements, have increased resistance to infections because of the moisturizing effect on the mucous lining of the respiratory tract and lower the risk of kidney stones and urinary tract infections.” All this lets us know that water is one of our “FREE” physicians.

Just another thought about Exercise

If you are a morning person this may apply to you:

A study by the Southwestern Health Institute in Phoenix discovered that three out of 4 people who exercised in the morning were still exercising a year later.  However, only half of those who waited until midday to exercise were still continuing their exercise habit a year later.

However, if you are like me – I really wake up around 10pm, often working on something until 1 or 2am!!!  This probably comes from years of night shift work in a hospital lab.  Unfortunately, this also means I am not an early morning person.  My exercise time usually starts around 12 noon or even 1pm.  But I have kept this schedule for almost 5 years now.  So inspite of the University study, don’t dispair, because we are all different & sometimes we have to find what works for us as an individual.

Another hint that comes from Health Tips may help regardless of the time of day that you chose to exercise.

A great way to motivate yourself to exercise first thing in the morning is to lay out your exercise clothes and prepare a water bottle the night before.  When you wake up in the morning you will see your exercise clothes and be inspired to get moving. — this works regardless of when you are actually out the door to exercise.

My advice: — no matter when or where — Just Start Moving!!!!

Excercise — Me?? — Why?

Most people don’t want to hear this.

Many of us are sedentary, working in offices, sitting at desks or driving for a living not participating in sports and inventing all kinds of excuses to avoid starting or maintaining an exercise program. If we want health we must take personal responsibility for it. We cannot depend on government or medicine to keep us healthy. Exercise is one of the ‘free’ things we can do for ourselves.

Granted, starting an exercise program may be hard and it may even hurt! But if you start slow & work up you can minimize our troubles. So what if our muscles ache, if old injuries re-surface if we preserve we personally will reap the rewards. It takes time, that we must carve out from the other necessities of life, but the rewards are great.

We may start and stop and even forget that we tried until the results of inactivity rears it’s ugly head. It may take years for us to realize that we must overcome our inertia, that we must take responsibility & start moving!!

Health Benefits of Exercise

Author Carmel Aaron has come up with a terrific list of the benefits of exercise.

Heart Disease and Stroke.
Daily physical activity can help prevent heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, lowering your blood pressure, raising your HDL (Good cholesterol) and lowering LDL cholesterol (Bad Cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart’s working capacity.

High blood pressure.
Regular exercise reduces blood pressure in people with high blood pressure –hypertension.

Diabetes Physical activity can help to prevent and/or control type 2 diabetes.

Back Pain By increasing muscle strength and endurance and improving flexibility and posture, regular exercise can prevent or decrease back pain.

Osteoporosis Regular weight-bearing exercise promotes bone formation and may prevent many forms of bone loss associated with aging.

Depression and Mood Swings Regular physical activity can also improve mood and the way you feel about yourself. Exercise is likely to reduce depression and anxiety and help us to better manage stress.

There are probably many other benefits that we could list, but this might give you a just a little reason to get off the couch. Take responsibility for your health in exercise & that will help you take responsibility in other areas that will benefit your life.

LorraineH

www.mannapages.com/lorrhans

lorraine@affordthegoodlife.com

Nine Laws of Health

Did you know that our world contains at least nine natural physicians? Through the weeks to come we shall look at many ‘free’ actions that we can all use to enhance our health. With health care costs skyrocketing we all need to do what we can, not to be caught up in the spiraling cycle that is actually ’sickness’ care instead of wellness. It is only as we take charge of our health that we can join the Wellness Revolution. I have joined – have you?

LorraineH

www.mannapages.com/lorrhans

lorraine@affordthegoodlife.com