Category: Medical Mondays

Simplify Your Life To Reduce Your Stress And Improve Your Health!

How can you decrease your stress?

Simplify your life and de-clutter your life and mind and you can significantly improve your health.

Now that we are past the Holiday Season of hustle and bustle, it’s time to simplify.

Discover the value of living a more balanced, less stressful, deliberate and thoughtful life.

Here’s what to do:

  • Clear the clutter. Pick one area of your home and take a hard look. Clear out the items you are not using and either donate, sell, store or throw away.
  • Switch off the media. Turn off the TV’s, radios, smart phones, laptops and video games. This is audio-visual clutter.
  • Clear your calendar. Only say yes to activities you really care about and learn to say no. Too many activities is often the cause of great stress.
  • Stop the multi-tasking. This is a form of mind clutter. This happens when our attention gets spread too thin and we are unable to get into the “zone”.

Clutter not only causes us to be irritated by not being able to find something but also sends a visual message that our life is out of control.

Disorder brings about procrastination which only perpetuates more chaos.

To make matters worse, when you’re under stress, cortisol, our main stress hormone, short-circuits your brain leading to forgetfulness, irritation and meltdowns.

It’s not just the home that gets cluttered but your mind as well can be overcrowded with junk.

So simplify, simplify, simplify! The road to better health is as simple as that!

Tips On How To Keep That Weight-Loss New Year’s Resolution!

Is your New Year’s resolution to lose weight in 2012?

It is not uncommon to approach resolutions with lots of enthusiasm at the start.

After a couple weeks however, your enthusiasm often lessens and it’s easy to fall back into old habits.

These old habits seem comfortable and easy to fall back into, but they don’t help you lose weight or improve your health.

Before you give up on this year’s resolution to lose weight and even before you start, consider this:

  • Are you ready? Is this a good time in your life to make that commitment? Can you devote time to planning and implementing the changes?
  • Do you have a good plan? Much of your success is in the planning. Write your diet out and make exercise an actual appointment on your calendar you must keep, or else.
  • Can you enjoy the process? Many find that when they exercise and lose weight they feel better. Also, there are lots of great tasting foods that are also healthy and abundant sources to find them.
  • Focus on short term “process” goals while keeping long term “outcome” goals in mind. Losing 40 pounds is done one pound at a time. Examples are committing to eat one more serving of fruits and vegetables every day or walking 30 minutes per day. Emphasize short term process goals to eventually reach the long term outcome goal of losing weight.

Always remember that weight loss can be a slow process. Be patient as there is no “quick fix”.

If you are struggling to keep up a diet and exercise program during the program, your chances of maintaining weight loss diminish considerably after the program ends.

Therefore, by developing sustainable strategies from the beginning, you will likely be able to maintain your weight loss.

Daily exercise should always be a part of a healthy lifestyle along with a healthy diet!

Understanding The Symptoms Of A Heart Attack

About every 34 seconds, someone in the United States suffers from a heart attack!

Every year, tens of thousands of Americans survive heart attacks, and are able to enjoy a normal life.

Heart disease is when plaque forms in the arteries that bring oxygen to the heart muscle.

Symptoms of heart disease, which can be a warning of an impending heart attack, are when ordinary physical activity causes you to experience:

  • Undue fatigue.
  • Palpitations which are the sensation that your heart is skipping a beat or ‘racing’, beating too rapidly.
  • Dyspnea which is difficult or labored breathing.
  • Angina pain which is either classified as stable (chest pain with exertion only) or unstable (chest pain even at rest known as ‘acute coronary syndrome’).

Heart Attack!

Most heart attacks start slowly with mild pain or discomfort.

The signs that can mean a heart attack may be happening are:

  • Chest discomfort or pain described as crushing, squeezing, burning pain or pressure, fullness or a feeling of an elephant on your chest.
  • Discomfort in other areas of the upper body such as the neck, one or both arms, the neck and jaw or upper back.
  • Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
  • Other signs like nausea, heartburn or indigestion, sweating or clammy feeling, or dizziness, lightheadedness or even fainting.

Women are more likely than men to present with ‘atypical’ chest pain meaning symptoms other than chest pain. They can present with some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, back, neck or jaw pain.

Learn these signs as the key to survival is to get help fast. Even if your not sure it’s a heart attack, call 9-1-1. Minutes matter and fast action can save lives….maybe your own!

How To Start Lowering Your Cholesterol Without Medication!

42 million Americans have high cholesterol and another 63 million have borderline high cholesterol.

High cholesterol is a major risk factor for the development of a heart attack or stroke due to plaque formation in your arteries (atherosclerosis).

Here are some simple ways to reduce your cholesterol that are ‘non prescription’ to start lowering your risk for heart attack and stroke:

  • Portion control: use your hand as a guide to the size of portions of meat (palm), fruit (fist), and veggies (cupped hand).
  • Serve up mostly heart healthy foods: 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
  • Go to the sea twice a week: eat fish twice a week, good for omega-3 fatty acids.
  • Whole grains: oatmeal or whole grain cereal to start your day and brown rice, quinoa or whole wheat pastas/breads.
  • Go nuts: a handful of almonds daily.
  • Unsaturated fats: you need 25-35% of your calories to come from fat, use only canola, olive and safflower oils.
  • Beans, beans: eat fewer potatoes and more beans.
  • Exercise: 30 minutes of vigorous activity 5 times a week and walk or take the stairs instead of driving or elevators.
  • If you are ‘eating out’ at a restaurant: pick a dish that is broiled, baked, steamed, or grilled, not deep fat fried.
  • Reduce your stress.
  • Lose weight.
  • Follow your Doctors’ advice.

Diet, exercise and weight loss are always ‘sure fire’ ways to help lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Here is also an extensive list of foods and other products known for lowering cholesterol:

Mayo Clinic Likely Effective List:

  • Artichoke
  • Barley
  • Beta Sitosterol-from certain margarines and ‘Promise’
  • Blond Psyllium-from seed husks and ‘Metamucil’
  • Garlic
  • Oat Bran-from oatmeal and whole oats
  • Sitostanol-from certain margarines and ‘Benecol’
  • Others-Fish oil, flaxseed (ground), green tea extract, red yeast rice

WebMD Effective List:

  • Niacin (Vitamin B3)
  • Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)

WebMD Likely Effective List:

  • Beta Sitosterol
  • Blond Psyllium
  • Kefir
  • Oats
  • Sitostanol

WebMD Possibly Effective List:

  • Alfalfa –Macadamia Nut
  • Artichoke –Magnesium
  • Avocado –Olive
  • Barley –Pectin
  • Beta Glucans –Red Yeast Rice
  • Black Psyllium –Rice Bran
  • Calcium –Safflower
  • English Walnut –Soy
  • Flaxseed –Soybean Oil
  • Green Tea –Sweet Orange
  • Guar Gum –Yogurt
  • Jiaogulan
  • Others: Red Wine, Almonds, Cashews, Beans, Chocolate, Spinach

Diabetes: An Epidemic In America, What Can You Do To Prevent You From Developing Type 2 Diabetes!

By 2020, 1 in 2 Americans could have Diabetes!

Type 2 Diabetes (Adult Onset) can be prevented with weight loss, diet and exercise.

Always try to maintain a healthier weight: know your ideal BMI (body mass index) for your heighth and sex.

Exercise daily: 2 1/2 hours of moderate exercise per week.

Eat healthier.

Here are some ways to approach your diet to help prevent Diabetes:

  • Total amount, not the type, of carbohydrate is key: limit the amount.
  • Dish out proper portions of the food groups, no measurement needed: your plate has 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 starch/grains, 1/4 protein.
  • The right “white” bread: white whole wheat flour only.
  • Learn to love whole grains: whole wheat and brown rice.
  • Instead of brown rice some strange but great alternatives: bulgur, quinoa, couscous, millet, barley, or wheat berries.
  • Watch out for “faux” whole grains: “multigrain” or “cracked wheat” are mostly made of flour.
  • Alternative sweet snacks: low fat yogurt with sliced banana and blueberries/blackberries.
  • Can have all the “free food” you want: zero calorie foods like edamame.
  • Drink smarter: replace soda with herbal tea or seltzer water, coffee (yes, coffee may increase insulin sensitivity).
  • Add some spice to your life: cinnamon may increase your insulin sensitivity.
  • Chromium in your supplements: this trace metal may also increase insulin sensitivity.
  • Popcorn: yes, popcorn is a whole grain and a great alternative to chips (but hold the fattening butter).

The Bottom Line: lose weight, exercise daily, limit your carbohydrates, eat those whole grains and cut out the junk food and you can help stop this epidemic from becoming a reality!