health tips

10 Ways to Relieve Stress Naturally

Your misplaced wallet. A dead car battery. Stress is a thug we encounter almost hourly. The question is, do you have what it takes to stand up to the bully? If you’re like most people surveyed last year by the American Psychological Association, you may be losing the good fight: Sixty percent said stressful situations left them irritable, 53 percent felt fatigued, and 52 percent were unable to sleep at night.

Stress takes a toll on more than just your mood. All that tension puts a whammy on your waistline, thanks to the stress-related hormone cortisol, which rises during anxiety-inducing events and makes you crave fatty, sugar-packed foods. Those excess calories are more likely to be stored in the gut as visceral fat, the type that’s been linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and gastrointestinal cancers. Visceral fat also increases the production of cortisol, perpetuating the cycle (as if you need any further assistance).

Moreover, “chronic stress releases cytokines and C-reactive protein in your body — dangerous molecules that cause inflammation and put you at greater risk for developing arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, and other chronic diseases,” says Evangeline Lausier, MD, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.

You’re probably thinking, So, what do I do now? First of all, don’t wig out. Arm yourself with these natural approaches to de-stressing your mind, body, and spirit.

How to De-Stress Your Mind

1. Change Your Attitude
“Some people find riding a roller coaster to be extremely stressful; others find it thrilling. It all depends on your perspective,” explains Paul J. Rosch, MD, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. Say you’re about to run your first half-marathon and your stomach is in knots. The goal is to switch your “Oh, no!” thinking to “Bring it on!” bravado. Easier said than done, for sure, but know this: Short stints of stress are actually good for you because they maximize performance. Blood pressure rises and digestion of food slows, allowing your body to summon the energy to combat the anxiety-inducing situation. If changing your mind-set isn’t working, try this: Decide it’s okay to feel anxious as you hover at the starting line. One recent study found that people who learned to identify and acknowledge stressful thoughts and think them through showed notable improvements in their inner calm.

2. Find Your Zen Zone
Have a big presentation to make? Scared you’ll flub your number? Try this before venturing into the conference room: “Close your eyes. In a quiet area, settle into a comfortable position. Relax every muscle, starting with your toes and moving upward,” Dr. Lausier says. “Focus on your breathing. With every inhale, sink deeper into your body. As you exhale, imagine tension leaving your muscles.” Feel better? Congratulations, you’ve just performed a body scan, a meditative exercise that helps you be hyperaware of where your body is holding stress, so you can physically let go of your worries. Additional mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques, such as deep breathing and gentle yoga, have been shown to ease anxiety as well. Our fave yoga move: child’s pose.

How to De-Stress Your Body
3. Get a Rubdown
It’s four months into the new year, and you’re still carrying the 20 pounds you resolved to lose. Negative self-talk will get you nowhere. Instead, head to the nearest spa for a massage. When stressed-out ER nurses received twice-weekly chair massages, their tension levels dropped significantly, according to researchers at Griffith University in Australia. Go to massagetherapy.com to find a practitioner in your area.

4. Move It!
The endorphins released during workouts make you feel great! The proof: Volunteers who signed up for a three-month stress-management course that included hourlong workouts of walking, jogging, and dancing not only lowered their cardiovascular-disease risk but also eased their anxiety and depression. Dodge your next stress attack by taking the dog for a run. Or crank up your Beyonce CD and shake your hips like a backup dancer.

5. Make Time for Tea
Brits appear composed for a reason. It turns out that people who drink black tea have lower cortisol levels compared with those drinking a tea substitute. Our advice: Brew, steep, and sip up, but skip the scone.

6. Canoodle with a Labradoodle
Researchers at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York found that pet owners have higher heart-rate variability (the greater the variability, the better the heart is able to respond to varying demands) compared with that of non-pet owners. Moreover, recent studies have found that people with pets have lower blood pressure than the rest of the population. One explanation: Pets provide constant companionship and unconditional affection.

How to De-Stress Your Spirit
7. Confide in Your Journal
Why is it that every time you feel stressed someone tells you to jot down your feelings? Well — because it works! Writing about a traumatic event, and what you plan to do about it, reduces levels of anxiety, according to researchers at the University of Amsterdam.

8. Hang with Happy People 

Like your friend with an infectious laugh or your buddy who can belch the entire “Star-Spangled Banner.” Our happiness is contingent on how connected we feel to a network of positive-thinking friends, finds a new study. “If someone you have direct contact with is happy, it increases the likelihood that you’ll be happy by about 15 percent,” says James H. Fowler, PhD, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego and principal investigator for the study.

9. Draw, Paint, Dance
No one is saying you have to be Basquiat by day and Alvin Ailey by night — just do your own thing. “Artistic activities may reduce stress because you’re able to access the creative part of your brain to express your thoughts and feelings rather than relying on words, which most of us usually do,” Dr. Lausier says.

10. Listen to Music
Ever notice how your dentist cranks up Chopin before jackhammering your gums? Rest assured, he’s only trying to help. Studies show that playing music can reduce perceived psychological stress. Now that’s reason for an encore!

Source: Yahoo shine

Christmas: The deadliest day of the year?

More people die on Christmas than any other day of the year, Medical Daily reported.

In the 1970s, researchers discovered this phenomenon after they began studying death trends throughout the year. A wide array of causes seem to contribute to the trend of Christmas Day deaths including understaffed hospitals and an unwillingness by people to bother their relatives for a ride to the doctor’s office.

Death by cardiac disease, respiratory diseases, endocrine/nutritional/metabolic problems, digestive diseases, and cancer – the five most common causes of death – see an overall increase during this time of year, Medical Daily reported.

One study from the University of California San Diego examined hospital workforces around the holidays and discovered that Level 1 trauma centers often carry less than a full staff, and have less experienced professionals on hand during the Christmas holiday.

“Those are the cases where seconds make a difference, and you may see a real difference between the response of a junior and senior member of staff,” study author David P. Phillips said.

One optimistic note: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said suicide deaths don’t increase the same way deaths from other factors do around the holidays.

Source: Fox news

Early start to weight gain tied to later heart risks

Kids who start rapidly gaining weight early in childhood are more likely to have higher blood pressure and other signs of future heart trouble as preteens, a new study suggests.

“There’s a natural tendency early in life for children to thin out as they grow taller and gain stature faster than they gain weight,” Dr. Mark D. DeBoer said.

But eventually, all kids hit a point when they start gaining weight at a faster pace, and their body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight in relation to height – begins to rise. That point is called the adiposity rebound.

The adiposity rebound typically happens around age four to six, DeBoer, who studies childhood obesity at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, told Reuters Health.

Some studies have suggested children who start to put on weight at a younger age are more likely to be obese later in life. The new report adds to those concerns.

“It helps I think give us a better understanding of what this might be impacting in addition to obesity,” Dr. Stephen Daniels said.

Daniels studies preventive cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, where he chairs the Pediatrics Department. Neither he nor DeBoer was involved in the new study.

Researchers led by Dr. Satomi Koyama of Dokkyo Medical University in Mibu, Tochigi, Japan, followed 271 children born in 1995 and 1996. Kids had their weight and height measured at least once every year through age 12 during infant health checks and then physical exams at school.

From looking at each child’s growth pattern, the researchers determined when children hit their lowest BMI, the age at adiposity rebound. After that, they got bigger every year.

Koyama’s team found the earlier both boys and girls reached that turning point, the heavier they were at age 12.

For instance, boys who started getting bigger around age three had an average BMI of 21 as preteens. That’s the equivalent of a five-foot-tall boy weighing 108 pounds.

Boys who didn’t start getting bigger until at least age seven had an average BMI of 17 – the equivalent of the same boy weighing 87 pounds.

Boys who had their adiposity rebound at a young age also had higher triglycerides and blood pressure at age 12. Although their numbers were still in the normal range, they could hint at signs of future heart problems, the researchers wrote Monday in Pediatrics.

For girls, the link between age at adiposity rebound and heart risks was smaller but still visible.

“Physicians should be tracking body mass index and should be checking for kids who are headed in the direction of being more obese,” Daniels said.

But, he told Reuters Health, parents and pediatricians won’t be able to tell exactly when children are at their adiposity rebound. And it’s not clear how to prevent it from happening early.

“There’s a strong possibility that these are children who inherited a genetic predisposition that made them more likely both to have early adiposity rebound and to have metabolic syndrome earlier in life,” DeBoer said.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors, including high blood pressure, that are linked to heart disease.

“The message is probably still more general, in terms of families working with pediatricians and family physicians to make sure that families have a healthy diet (and) that they have healthy opportunities for activity,” Daniels said.

Source: Reuters

California family celebrates 3 heart transplants

A California family is celebrating this holiday season after the mother and two of her three sons all received life-saving heart transplants for an inherited cardiac condition.

Deanna Kremis and her sons, 17-year-old Matthew and 13-year-old Trevin, all suffer from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It’s a genetic condition that causes the heart muscle to thicken until the heart can’t pump blood properly.

Matthew and Trevin got their new hearts in 2007 within five weeks of each other. But as they got healthier, their mother – who was diagnosed as an adult – began to fail. She finally got a new heart in July and her sons are helping her adjust to her new life.

The transplants are not a cure: There is a constant threat of organ rejection and infection.

Source: Straits times

NYC pharmacy blends Eastern and Western medicine

Positioned on Manhattan’s Decreased East Facet, Stanley’s Pharmacy blends each Japanese and Western medication in an work to aid tackle customers’ requirements.

“I have drugs just like any other pharmacy would,” Stanley said. “And I also have this wellness bar wherever we have our personal blended teas. We have kombucha coming out of the soda fountain in this article, we make our own sodas from scratch and I can customize beverages primarily based on how you sense.”

Stanley’s signature “Drinks and Drugs,” menu presents fixes for typical ailments like a sore throat or PMS – or even a hangover.

It’s this style of personalised care that retains 36-12 months-aged Joe DiNoto coming back. As a runner, DiNoto stated Stanley has assisted him occur up with treatment options that enable him to continue to keep working out with out personal injury.

“I’ve found that my power level is additional dependable all through the day,” DiNoto said. “I also discover that my aches and pains have been lessened due to reduced swelling for the reason that of the tumeric tea. And, I do not know, (I’m) just overall much more satisfied.”

Stanley has been a pharmacist for 15 years and claimed his endeavours to combine pure medication into his 1-of-a-type pharmacy is a thing his consumers take pleasure in.

Monica Stewart, another shopper at Stanley’s Pharmacy, reported she’s now a significant admirer of hoping normal treatments in conjunction with conventional drugs.

“I by no means understood about any of that stuff before…It’s truly opened up my eyes to unique therapeutic methods,” Stewart explained.

Source: USA News

A girl dies in Ireland after pharmacy refuses to give her EpiPen

A teenage girl has died outside a pharmacy in Ireland after a staff member refused to give her family an EpiPen to inject her for a nut allergy because she didn’t have a prescription.

Emma Sloan, 14, was out for dinner in Dublin with her family when she accidentally ingested a sauce containing nuts that she mistook for curry, the Irish Herald reported.

The teenager suffered a severe allergic reaction but was not carrying an EpiPen, which delivers a shot of adrenaline that can reverse the effects of a severe, fast-acting reaction known as anaphylactic shock.

The family went to a nearby pharmacy and pleaded for an EpiPen but Emma’s mother, Caroline Sloan, said a male staff member refused to give them one without a prescription.

“He told me I couldn’t get it without a prescription. He told me to bring her to an A&E,” she told the newspaper.
Mrs Sloan said she tried to take Emma to Temple Street Hospital, but her daughter collapsed and died on the way.
“She died on the footpath. A doctor was passing and tried to help and put her into the recovery position. Ambulance and fire brigade men worked on her. But she was gone,” Mrs Sloan told the Herald.

“My daughter died on a street corner with a crowd around her. “I’m so angry I was not given the EpiPen to inject her. I was told to bring Emma to an A&E department. Emma was allergic to nuts and was very careful. How could a peanut kill my child?
“I want to appeal to parents of children with nut allergies to make sure their child always carries an EpiPen with them.”

Regulations prohibit the dispensing of EpiPen injections without a prescription, the Irish Herald reported.
Mrs Sloan said she had gone to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet with Emma and her two other daughters on Wednesday evening for a family meal.

While Emma was usually extremely careful about what she ate, on this occasion she overlooked a sign that warned a sauce contained nuts, Mrs Sloan said.

“Emma has always been very careful and would check the ingredients of every chocolate bar and other foods to be sure they didn’t contain nuts,” she told the newspaper.

“She had a satay sauce. She thought it was curry sauce because it looked like curry sauce and smelled like curry. I’m not blaming the restaurant because there was a sign reading ‘nuts contained’ but it wasn’t noticed. After a while, Emma began to say, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’.”

Police and the pharmacy regulatory body, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, have launched an investigation into the girl’s death.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Being overweight may affect men’s semen quality

Overweight and obese men in a new study showed diminished quantity and quality of semen, suggesting that a weight problem might also affect fertility, researchers say.

“The heavier the men, the higher the chances of a low sperm count,” urologist Dr. Keith Jarvi told Reuters Health. “I don’t think that this message is well known or appreciated by men in general,” said Jarvi, who was not involved in the new study.

Dr. Michael Eisenberg, of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and his colleagues recruited 468 couples in Texas and Michigan who were planning to conceive a child and tested several aspects of the men’s semen.

They also weighed the men and measured their waists and found that greater waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight relative to height – were both linked to lower ejaculate volume.

“All aspects of semen quality are important,” Eisenberg said. “Ejaculate has several chemicals that provide a safer environment for sperm. As such, if the volume is low it may be a problem.”

Sperm count, another important metric, was lower among men with bigger waists.

“The sperm count is just that: the number of sperm in each cc of semen,” said Jarvi, director of the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre and Head of Urology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

Higher semen volume, within the optimal range between 2 and 5 milliliters, will overall have more sperm, Jarvi said. A volume under 1.5 mLs may cause infertility, he said, but too much is not good either.

In the study, a typical man in the normal BMI range had an ejaculate volume of 3.3 mL, compared to 2.8 mL for men in the highest BMI category, severely obese.

Men with the largest waists, over 40 inches, had about 22 percent lower total sperm count compared to men with waist measurements under 37 inches.

There appeared to be no link to semen concentration, motility, vitality or physical appearance, according to the results published in the journal Human Reproduction.

About half of the men had already fathered children when the study took place and none of the couples were seeking help with infertility when they were recruited.

The researchers also did not follow up to see whether the men succeeded in having children later.

Most men exercised less than once per week, so the authors couldn’t really examine what effects more exercise might have on sperm.

“The big question is what does reduction in body weight do to the sperm counts in men starting with a low sperm count?” Jarvi said. “This is the question that my overweight patients ask.”

Source: Reuters

Pregnant woman kept on life support against husband’s wishes

A man reportedly is fighting a Texas law to get his pregnant wife removed from life support, which he says were her wishes before she was declared brain dead.

Texas man Erick Munoz found his wife Marlise unconscious on their living room floor at 2:00 a.m. on Nov. 26, WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth reports. Munoz, a paramedic, began CPR and called 911, and his wife — also a paramedic — was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. She apparently experienced a pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal blood clot.

“You just never think it’s going to be you,” he told the station.

Marlise was 14 weeks pregnant at the time, so doctors told the family they would provide all life-saving measures to her in order to comply with a rule under the Texas Health and Safety Code.

That rule states, “a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient.”

But, Erick says he and his wife had discussed and mutually agreed upon “do not resuscitate” (DNR) orders, though one was never signed. She has not shown brain activity since, and doctors are unsure how long the fetus was without oxygen and nutrients, so it’s unknown whether the fetus is even viable.

“I don’t agree with this law… I don’t,” he said, adding, he doesn’t expect many people to side with him on this.

A hospital spokesperson told CBS News that the facility follows state law.

“Our responsibility at JPS Health Network is to be a good corporate citizen while also providing quality care for our patients,” J.R. Labbe said in an email. “In all cases, JPS will follow the law as it applies to healthcare in the state of Texas. And this specific state law says life-sustaining treatment cannot be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant patient.”

One bioethicist not involved in the case considers the Texas law both unethical and unconstitutional, arguing it violates individual liberties.

Source: bossip

Duke University scientists find women need more sleep than men

If the woman in your life woke up grumpy this morning, don’t be too hard on her. It is, apparently, only natural.

Scientists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina discovered that women need more sleep than men. And chances are, she’s not getting enough.

In fact the best thing a loving husband or partner can do is perhaps persuade her to get a few extra hours snuggling under the duvet. Or face the consequences.

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Scientists say women suffer more than men, both mentally and physically, if they are forced to skimp on their sleep.

As well as a higher risk of heart disease, depression and psychological problems, sleep-deprived women have extra clotting factors in their blood, which can lead to a stroke.

They also have higher inflammation markers, which indicate developing health problems.
As inflammation markers are also linked to pain, sleep expert Dr Michael Breus explained that women can literally be in more pain when they wake up.

That’s enough to make any girl feel rather grumpy.

By contrast, the state of a man’s health does not appear to be closely linked to how much they sleep.

In the study, men showed no increased risk of developing the ailments that affect women when they are sleep deprived.

“We found that women had more depression, women had more anger, and women had more hostility early in the morning,” said Dr Breus.

If this sounds like someone you know, it can probably be blamed on sleep deprivation and the fact that women are particularly susceptible to the effects. What does Dr Breus advise?

If you don’t manage to get enough sleep at night, try taking strategic naps.
However, he warned that those naps should be either 25 minutes or 90 minutes long. Any other length will make the snoozer feel worse when they wake, he said.

This is not the first time experts have suggested that women need more sleep than men.
One of Britain’s leading authorities on sleep found that women actually need 20 minutes more shut-eye. This is because of the female multi-tasking brain.

“One of the major functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself,” said Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, England.

“During deep sleep, the cortex – the part of the brain responsible for thought, memory, language and so on – disengages from the senses and goes into recovery mode.

“The more of your brain you use during the day, the more of it that needs to recover and, consequently, the more sleep you need.
“Women tend to multi-task – they do lots at once and are flexible – and so they use more of their actual brain than men do. Because of that, their sleep need is greater.

“A man who has a complex job that involves a lot of decision-making and lateral thinking may also need more sleep than the average male – though probably still not as much as a woman.”
source: news.com

India launches its indigenous cervical cancer screening device

India launched its first indigenously developed device for screening and early detection of cervical cancer, which kills over 74,000 women in the country every year.

Launching the low-cost “AV-Magnivisualiser” device developed by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said it will help in early detection of cervical cancer among adolescent girls and women, thus helping in save many lives.

Designed and developed at Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology ( ICPO), Noida, working under ICMR, the device will cost about Rs 10,000 and is much lower as compared to the cervical cytology method used at present in medical colleges, the equipment of which costs over Rs eight lakh.

“I am extremely happy and I congratulate the scientists involved in the cutting-edge level. I hope the cost-effective device will be available in the market in the next eight months to help ensure ..

The Minister said with this device it will be easy to screen and detect cervical cancer in its early stages, thus making treatment more effective.

“We will also ensure proper training of nurses and manpower for using the device in the coming months,” he said, adding that screening for cervical cancer is available only in regional cancer institutes and medical colleges at present.

He said the equipment presently being used is expensive, as a result of which not many medical coll ..

Source: Economic Times