Apr
13
Posted under
health
All it takes is to breathe properly to burn fat, reduce stress and so much more. Learn how to correct and improve your health with exercises below.
Take a deep breathe. You do it up to 22,000 times a day. Chances are, most of us don’t even breathe properly, in turn can yield surprising negative effects on our health. Modern science has finally caught up to what yoga has been advocating for years. We know that proper breathing can help ease an overstressed mind, as well as play a big role in averting or alleviating heart disease, allergies, and weight gain.
Breathing is so simple and inexpensive. People can’t believe it works as a healing and preventative tool. Do the following exercises regularly, twice a day, for 10 minutes each time. The exercises will help your body and mind navigate these issues.
Anxiety
“When you’re anxious, you limit your breaths,” says James S. Gordon, M.D., founder and director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., and author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey out of Depression. When you confine your breaths to your chest instead of using your diaphragm, your anxiety level increases. The key to relaxing lies in calming your sympathetic nervous system (composed of your body’s fight-or-flight engine, which releases adrenaline and stress hormones such as cortisol) and triggering your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls your rest and digest functions and helps your muscles (and your mind) unwind.
Try This: The Soft-Belly Technique
Most people take about 15 breaths per minute, but when you’re anxious, you should aim for six or seven slow, deep ones. Gordon suggests a technique that involves inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, while keeping your stomach relaxed. To help yourself focus, slowly say the word soft in your head while inhaling, and speak the word belly as you breathe out. This technique can stimulate your vagus nerve, a central part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which runs through your abdomen and chest, and back to your brain stem.
Heart Disease
The environment we live in is bombarded with sights, sounds, and emotions that overdrive our nervous systems. The result? Long periods of heightened blood pressure, adrenaline production, and heart rate, all of which are linked to heart disease. Breathing better can normalize high blood pressure and elevated heart rate by activating that same relaxation response via your parasympathetic nervous system.
Try This: Alternate Nostril Breathing
This technique lowers your pulse rate and diastolic blood pressure, according to a study at Nepal Medical College. (The higher a young woman’s diastolic blood pressure, the greater her risk for heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.) David Magone, founder of the breath-oriented PranaVayu yoga practice, explains how to do it: Sit cross-legged and close your eyes. Use the thumb of your right hand to block your right nostril, and inhale deeply through the left for about six seconds. Now, cover your left nostril with the fourth finger of your right hand, release your right nostril, and exhale slowly for six seconds. With your left nostril blocked, breathe in through your right side for six seconds; then cover your right nostril again, release your left, and exhale for six seconds. Repeat the entire sequence for at least two minutes.
Allergies
When it comes to seasonal allergies, research has found that a little music-specifically, humming-can help you breathe better. Humming opens the ostia, which connect the sinuses to the nasal cavities, letting you take in air more easily, explains Timothy McCall, M.D., author of Yoga as Medicine.
Try This: The Bee Breath
Sitting in a comfortable position, take a deep breath through your nose, then let out a high-pitched humming sound as you exhale through your nose. You should feel a vibration in your nose, as well as in your chest and head. (McCall notes that humming tends to lengthen your exhales, making this another good breathing technique for those suffering from anxiety.) Continue for up to 10 minutes.
Weight Gain
The issue of weight gain has something as much to do with what’s in your head as what’s on your plate. “Emotional stress can cause weight gain,” says Dean Ornish, M.D., president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. “It speeds the conversion of calories to fat because you’re more likely to overeat or make unhealthy choices when stressed.” Manage the stress, and you’ll manage the weight. A great way to manage it is to focus on slowing down your breathing, which will help reduce stress hormones.
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., author of Yoga for Pain Relief, points to another weight-gain factor that can be regulated by breathing: heart rate variability (HRV), the moment-by-moment fluctuation that can help determine how you respond to stress. “Studies show that people with a high HRV tend to have more self-control, and those with low HRV are more likely to give in to temptation,” she says.
Try This: The Pursed-Lip Breath
Slow, practiced breathing increases HRV and makes you more aware of your actions, so you’re better able to lower your stress level and get a handle on overeating, McGonigal says. She suggests a four-second nasal inhale followed by an eight-second exhale through puckered lips (as if exhaling through a straw). Another option: the Hindu breathing method called ujjayi. Inhale through your nose for six seconds, and then exhale through your mouth for six seconds as if you’re trying to fog up a mirror, making a “hahhhh” sound while pulling in your abdomen. On your next breath, try making the same noise with your mouth closed. It should sound like a seashell against your ear, McGonigal notes. If you sound more like Darth Vader, you’re probably doing it too forcefully.
Technorati Tags: guide, health, how to improve breathing, life, manage anxiety weight loss stress heart disease, proper breathing techniques, women
Jan
27
Posted under
female workout
Some couple didn’t encounter any trouble conceiving. Other couples have to take time, seek medical help and make special adjustments to be able to conceive a child of their own. You have come to the right guide for ideas on how to make pregnancy happen for you and your partner in life. If you have been trying for a while but to no sign of success. Don’t panic if nothing happens. One in every six couples experiences fertility problems so chances are your problem is common.
Here are tips to enhance your fertility that includes your regular dose of exercise coupled with a healthy , balanced diet.
Prep your body for a baby
Fertility experts agree that a woman’s body should be at an optimum weight neither too low nor too high to be able to bear a child. Being overweight or underweight can affect the regularity of your periods and inhibit ovulation. If you have excess weight around your midsection, it can directly influence hormone balance and weaken fertility.
Exercise
If you don’t have a regular form of exercise, get your body moving now. Regular swimming can significantly boost your chances to become a mother. Your body will be in great shape as well as helps it cope with the physical demands of pregnancy.
Vices
Stop smoking and limiting alcohol intake also boost up fertility. Research shows women who drink less than five units equivalent to five small glasses of wine a week are twice as likely to get pregnant within six months than women who drink ten or more units.
Smoking essentially robs the body of important nutrients for fertility including zinc, selenium and vitamin C. It raises levels of toxic substances like cadmium and lead in the blood. Smoking drastically lowers the levels of vital fertility hormones thus will take you longer to conceive.
Drugs to avoid
Avoid ibuprofen; Roaccutane, an anti acne treatment; certain antibiotics at all costs. If your doctor prescribes you with any of these drugs, inform him or her that you are trying to conceive. Antihistamines can also interfere cervical mucus production. While diuretics can also dry the cervix. Paracetamol can be taken for pain relief and is not known to cause any changes of the cervix.
Folic acid supplements
Plan to take folic acid supplements at least three months before you try to conceive. Folic acid reduces the risk of the baby from developing neural tube defects. It leads to conditions such as spina bifida. It is impossible to take 400 micrograms from foods alone that make it more practical to take a single daily supplement of 400 micrograms folic acid. It is a simple way for women to protect their unborn babies.
Prep his body too!
Men should ensure that their testes are not too hot since it can kill sperms. Inform your husbands to avoid hot baths, tight fitting underwear and jeans, and use a portable computer placed on top of the lap as these factors can raise scrotal temperature.
Men are also recommended to take a vitamin E, C and zinc supplement to enhance sperm number and quality. Vitamin supplements are believed to be unnecessary for women for as long as they maintain a healthy balanced diet low in fat and high in fiber. Advise your partner to stop smoking since it decreases sperm count compared to nonsmokers.
Learn to tolerate stress
Your body is placed on a depressed state when you are under prolonged or severe stress. Stress makes the body use energy on essential repair, maintenance and survival. At this point, your body prioritizes the other needs and puts reproduction on the last of its priorities. That’s the reason why fertility experts believe stress can lengthen the time it takes to conceive. Stress on a woman’s body can lead to an overproduction of prolactin, a reproductive hormone, to interfere with ovulation.
Put the brakes on your hectic life if you do decide to try for a baby. You won’t be able to live your life in a frantic mode once you’re pregnant so it’s best to effect the changes now.
Healthy, balanced diet
Increase your protein intake. Daily portions of meat, poultry, fish and dairy improves egg production. It is best to avoid any soya-based products given its mild contraceptive contents. Ban caffeine as well due to its contributing factor on increasing the time to conceive, especially when you drink coffee by more than one cup.
Increase your water intake instead to around two liters daily. Consider taking multi vitamin and mineral supplements if your diet is low on the said needed nutrients. Look for a specially formulated pre-pregnancy supplement. Look for zinc deemed vital to maintain healthy menstrual cycle, and selenium to boost fertility levels. Minimize flavorings and additives, especially aspartame and monosodium glutamate. Choose fresh meat, fish and vegetables instead of the highly processed ready meals rich in MSG and additives. Snack on healthy food like fruits and nuts rather than chocolate and chips. Tell you partner to drink at least two liters of water since semen is largely made up of water; along with a healthy diet and vitamin and mineral supplements.
Regular romp in bed
The most obvious way to conceive is to have sex regularly. Professional couples find themselves working more than actually trying to work it out to have sex at the right time of the month. Target to have sex at the time of ovulation, which is around the 14th day of the menstrual cycle.
Sex positions do not have a direct impact to increase fertility. It is suggest, on the other hand, to refrain from straddling your partner as it can cause semen to leak out, and that you place a small pillow under your hips after sexual intercourse. It allows the cervix to rest in the pool of semen for a good 20 minutes and enable sperms to swarm up through the cervix. If you have a tipped uterus, try to do it form behind where you are on your hands and knees. With this position, a woman with tipped uterus allows the sperm easy access to her cervix.
Awareness on fertility
You will greatly benefit if you are aware of your menstrual cycle. You need to know how long your menstrual cycle takes place. AN average cycle is 28 days but can be longer or shorter. You must determine whether you ovulate on a regular basis.
Majority of women ovulate at the middle of their cycle. Your body gives you different cues to let you know you are indeed ovulating. Your temperature increases slightly, cervical and vaginal secretions change, your cervix feels and looks slightly different. To beat misconceptions, you need to see your fertility awareness nurse at your family planning clinic.
If you are discontinuing your use of contraceptive pill, you need to remember that you will probably be very fertile for the first few months but then you fertility can lower for a year or more. Don’t miss out on the early burst of fertility. It is worth knowing that lubricant can prevent the sperm to get through the cervix.
Technorati Tags: folic acid supplements, guide, regular exercises, smoking alcohol consequences, stress, tips to enahnce fertility, women's health
