Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

Six ways to be happier and healthier in the new year!

Attitude does count, so how can you improve your attitude this year?

From this long AARP article, please enjoy these six ways to improve your attitude and your life this year:

Get a pet. Pets provide unconditional love, wonderful companionship, and a warm welcome every time you come home.

Enjoy music everyday. Soothing, melodic music blunts stress and provides comfort.  Bright, upbeat tunes improve your mood and boost flagging energy.   Relaxing music serves as an easy and safe way to improve sleep.   Music helps keep both mind and body healthy and resilient, activating specific brain regions involved in emotion and memory.

Have a good laugh. Laughter prompts physical changes that help the immune and endocrine systems function better.  Scientists know that stress has a negative effect on the heart and causes blood vessels to narrow.

Enjoy nature everyday. Get out and take a walk.  Head for the great outdoors to boost your mood and your self-esteem. Researchers have found that people who participate in outdoor activities are significantly less angry, depressed and tense.

Help others. Those who devote time to community organizations or who informally help out friends, relatives and neighbors report greater happiness and better health than those who don’t.

Keep moving, even if it’s slowly. Take a lesson from centuries of Chinese learning, and try Tai Chi.  The gentle movements of Tai Chi reduce anxiety and depression, improve sleep quality, lower blood pressure and relieve chronic pain. These low-impact, slow-motion exercises encourage you to focus on your breathing and your body and allow you to concentrate fully on the present.

Here’s a sign of unhealthy aging!

The Coast Guard vessel stability rules that took effect nationwide Dec. 1 raised the estimated weight of the average adult passenger to 185 pounds from the previous 160 pounds, based on population information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   That means the number of passengers allowed on U.S. ferries needs to be reduced, because we just keep getting fatter and fatter!

During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and about one-third of American adults are now considered obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Learn more here.

Celebrate the Solstice: Return of the light

Precious solstice.   Loving blessings abound.   Give thanks for it all.

It’s winter solstice time again, time to rest, nurture yourself, and focus on the past year, and the new one to come.

When I contemplate all of this, I feel tremendously blessed.

I hope this solstice finds you having similar feelings.

“Abundance is how we live in each moment – the choice to entertain the possibility that we can have, create and attract what we truly want.”

Abundance to you and yours!

Learn more about three near-death experiences

Go view this 45 minute video to better understand what death may feel like…

Keeping your Kegel muscles in shape!

With everything else we have to do in our busy day, don’t forget to keep your kegel muscles in shape.

Luckily INTIMINA by Lelo has created the Laselle Kegel Exerciser, offering an easy and effective way of strengthening the muscles of your pelvic floor (PC muscles).   Designed for the real world, this exerciser offers a complete and effective program without much conscious thought.

Learn more about this CVS-certified product, along with their full line of intimate products here !

The importance of strengthening your core

Do you walk or run for hours each week, lift weights, and assume you’re covering all of your fitness basics?   You’ve got a good start, but you’re missing out on a very important fitness staple that is key to your health and longevity: building your core.

What exactly is your “core”?   It’s a set of 29 muscles in your back, abdomen and pelvis, muscles that are essential to your ability to function on a daily basis.   It’s because of your core muscles that you can control your movements, maintain balance and stability.   They also protect and support your back, which is an essential element as you age.

If your exercise program does not address your core muscles, your body can become weak at its center, making you more prone to poor posture, lower back pain and muscle injuries.   Strengthening your core muscles means that your spine will be supported and your body will be less prone to injury during sports activities and also during daily life.

Considering that more people are rushed to U.S. emergency rooms for injuries related to falling than from any other cause, and falls are the primary cause of accidental death in people over the age of 65, strengthening your core muscles to keep your center of gravity stable could very well save and extend your life.

The Benefits of Strengthening Your Core

Studies have shown that:

• Core stability has an important role in injury prevention.

• Core strength enhancement programs can help prevent injuries in workers.   Among one group of firefighters, an intervention to improve flexibility and strength in the trunk stabilizer and core muscles groups resulted in 42 percent fewer injuries and reduced injury-related lost work time by 62 percent in a 12-month period.

• An eight-week rehabilitation program that improved hip and core muscle strength in women reduced their knee abduction movement, which is associated with developing patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS).

The Mayo Clinic has also pointed out numerous ways that core exercises can benefit you:

• Better balance and stability
• Strengthening and toning your abdominal muscles.
• Making it easier to perform physical activities of all kinds, from swinging a golf club to getting dishes from your top kitchen cabinets

So even though toned core muscles may not make as big an aesthetic impression as toned abdominals or biceps, toned core muscles will keep you agile and stable especially as you age.

Ritalin and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Based on our very small sample of one, we are finding Ritalin really helps my husband’s CFS!

He’s been suffering with CFS for years and FINALLY a doctor offered him this option last week.   He’s been feeling so much better!

Here’s some very useful information about CFS in case you are just learning about what works and what does not.

And here’s a recent New York Times article about CFS and medications.

Big news for hemophiliacs!

Just one injection could be enough to mean people with hemophilia B no longer need medication, according to an early study in the UK and the US.

Learn more here!

If you suffer from depression, anxiety and/or insomnia, do not miss this new drug-free option!

Earlier this year I heard about a new and exciting drug-free treatment option for those who suffer with depression, anxiety and insomnia.   Since my husband Mike has suffered with depression and insomnia for years, I did some further research.

Turns out The Fisher Wallace Stimulator is a small portable electronic device which runs on AA batteries.   The user simply wets the sponge pads, places them at their temples and switches on this machine for a pre-programmed amount of time.

For 20 minute sessions, the stimulator circulates micro-­‐currents of electricity at patented frequencies.  This FDA-approved electronic device has been proven to stimulate the brain’s production of serotonin, GABA and endorphins, and can be used while you are also taking antidepressants, Ambien and other prescribed medications.

My first reaction was uncertainty.  Was it safe to mess with the micro-currents in your brain?   But Mike has suffered with insomnia for years and no sleep studies, CPAP machines or medications have helped at all.   So after much online research and after watching this YouTube testimonial, we decided to go get a prescription and order a stimulator for ourselves.

The Fisher Wallace fact sheet says patients typically experience a reduction in depression, anxiety and/or insomnia in one to four weeks of daily use.   Mike has been using the stimulator daily for at least five weeks now and he says, “I’ve started sleeping nine to ten hours compared to five to seven in the past, but it’s the quality of the sleep which has improved the most.  I’m even starting to remember dreams for the first time in years.”

In a brief interview with Fisher Wallace Labs. President Chip Fisher this morning, I learned that The Fisher Wallace Stimulator has been found to trigger REM sleep while improving sleep patterns and vivid dreaming.   It also has been found to be quite effective in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries in veterans.   New findings suggest it may help with menopausal hot flashes and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) by reducing neuro-chemical imbalances.

All I can say at this point is Mike’s quality of sleep, and therefore quality of  life have improved dramatically.   I plan to try it soon for my own menopause difficulties and SAD.  I’ll let you know later what I find!

Physical Activity and Older Americans

The people over at Evergreen Rehabilitation would like to share this infographic with YOU!