Health New Year’s Resolutions
The new year is a natural time for focusing on new goals. At the end of the festive season we can feel like we have over indulged so want to refocus on health. I know I certainly feel like that. So I wanted to share some ideas for health new year’s resolutions.
- Focus on 1 health goal for 2018 as this focus will help you acheive it.
- Use the stairs more.
- Go outside for a daily dose of vitamin D.
- Focus on your breath when you feel the stress coming on. It’s a mini meditation session.
- Turn off all electronics 20 minutes before lights out at bedtime.
- Write down everything you’re grateful for at the end of the day.
- Drink more water than cafine.
- Add one thing to your life that brings you joy.
- Cook at home more frequently. You’ll end up getting healthier in the process.
- Forgive someone. Anger and resentment is like holding onto internal poison and can even harm your physical health. Life’s too short to not move on.
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Can going to the sauna help your BP?
I will start with a confession. While I know the benefits of hydotherapy - basically you take a hot shower for 30 seconds then switch to freezing cold for 30 seconds, then go back to hot and repeat for 2 or 3 minutes - it has never appealed to me. It may be fantastic for blood flow and good for your liver, but to me it seems brutal! So in the past, I have only spent a few short minutes in a sauna and I have never been tempted to jump into the ice cold plunge pool afterwards - despite my finnish friends telling me how fantastic it is. So I was interested in the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study which looked at if frequent use of a sauna has reduces the risk of high BP. The study looked at 1,621 middle-aged men living in eastern Finland. The study found that
- Going to the sauna 4 to 7 times per week reduces your risk of develping High BP by 46%.
- Going to the sauna 2 to 3 times per week reduces your risk of develpoing High BP by 24%.
Using Positive Psychology to boost Resilience – Part 2
In part 1, I introduced the concept of positive psychology. Positive psychologists say that it takes 21 days to re-program the brain. They also say that doing the following activities every day can allow you to see the positive in your life rather than looking for negatives, to reduce stress and anxiety.
- Write down 3 things you are grateful for in your life.
- Write a diary entry about 1 good thing that has happened to you over the last 24 hours.
- Exercise - its boosts your mood and reduces stress.
- Meditation helps you stop over thinking!
- Random acts of kindness - do at least one kind act a week, even if its just sending a text to say thank you.
- Share your joys and foibles with the ones you love.
Forget what you think you know about Parkinson’s …
There seems to be a trend at the moment of researchers discovering that chronic disease starts in the gut. A theory was proposed in 2003 that was that Parkinson’s which is seen as a brain disease originates in the gut. Now researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark have confirmed that Parkinson’s migrates from the gut. Another important discovery is that the hearts of people with Parkinson’s can also be affected. In fact, the protein alpha-synuclein starts in the gut, then damages the heart before moving on to the brain. They also discovered that it’s in the heart where the damage to the nervous system begins. Researchers now say that a build-up of the protein alpha-synuclein in the gut can be detected up to 20 years before the disease manifests. Researcher Per Broghammer says that understanding where Parkinson’s originates is the first step towards preventing the disease and developing an effective treatment. Reference https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-019-02040-w
