How Exercise Boosts Memory

Fit Kids The scientific evidence is now clear. If you want to keep your mind sharp as you age, you need to keep physically active. The explanation has to do with the broad-reaching effects of exercise on the chemistry, physiology and structure of the brain.

As a teenager, I was on the swim team in high school, and I remember being able to run for hours at a time at a very fast pace. But as I got older, had children and got really busy with work, I became more and more sedentary, spending more and more time in front of my computer rather than at the gym. Ironically, my most inactive time was when I was conducting research trying to figure out how exercise boosts memory.

After collecting lots of original data, attending numerous conferences, and presenting my work in front of other experts in the field and discussing their findings, I have recently faced the fact that my sedentary lifestyle was damaging. In a major shift of priorities in my life, I now swim every day for 45 minutes at the university pool, mostly because I want to avoid the cognitive decline that comes with aging and offset my chances of getting the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease. The immediate benefit is feeling much more awake and focused during the day that I am exercising, and I find I am much more efficient and productive at work as well. Those of you who exercise regularly: Do you find this to be true for you?

You might think it is strange. How could exercise, which engages your muscles and your heart, have a major impact on your brain? Well, if you think of the body as a highly integrated and coordinated machine, then when you exercise, the machine has to switch into major overdrive, expending much more energy than typical and producing much more force. Since it is your brain telling your muscles what to do, the cells in your brain start firing in unison and with higher frequency, producing strong electrical signals that are detectable even outside the brain.

All this effort in the brain and in the muscles requires energy. And to keep your brain alert and energized, the brain tells your adrenal gland in your body to release a chemical known as adrenalin into the blood. Your brain also tells many organs in your body to release energy into the blood for your muscles and brain cells to use to keep up all their activity. Well, guess what? Adrenalin and energy delivered to the brain enhances memory. Give humans or animals adrenalin and they do better on memory tasks. Give them energy on top of adrenalin and they do even better.

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5 Simple Ways to Make Your Workday Healthier

Happy Many people welcomed 2014 with an enlightened sense of determination to make profound changes in their lives and get healthy. Now that we are six weeks into the year, however, resolve and tenacity are beginning to wear thin. Sheer willpower can only take you so far. So what to do now? One of the most profound actions you can take to ensure continued success is to set up your surroundings and schedule to align with your goals. Let’s start with your office. Here are five tips and tricks you can implement to improve your health while at work!

1. Be Prepared
Review your schedule for the following week. Mentally run through the days and visualize everything that you intend to do in this time frame. Do you have sufficient time to rest your mind and nourish your body with food between meetings, presentations, and deadlines? If not, make edits to your schedule and plan your work more efficiently. You will never be able to consistently make healthy choices on the fly due to factors beyond your control. You must make a plan ahead of time to guide you in times of doubt and stress. Then, all you need to do is execute. Planning in advance will bring you confidence and peace of mind which, incidentally, are conducive to your well-being.

Tips:

– Check what is due and calculate how long it will take you to complete the work. Then, spread out the workload in your calendar over several days. As the deadline approaches you will not need to compromise break times to complete the assignment making it easier to stick to your plan.

– Few meetings are so important that they cannot simply be moved to an alternate time. Change meetings that interfere with your healthy plans.

– Prepare tomorrow’s meals the night before. This way you won’t have to waste any time wondering what you should have for lunch.

2. Schedule Meals Like Meetings 
Set reminders in your schedule at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. to eat a small meal of 250 to 350 calories. The time can vary depending on when you ate your breakfast and the intensity of your morning workout but you should never allow more than three to four hours to pass without eating something nutritious. You need to feed your body and your brain so you can stay alert and engaged throughout the whole work day. Progressively fueling your body will stabilize your energy levels throughout the day so you won’t experience the after lunch lull. Just as you would set an agenda for a meeting, prepare your meals ahead of time to know exactly what you will be eating and have it readily available. This will abate the chances that you might succumb to a Snickers bar!

Tips:

– Add a cup of vegetables to your lunch to feel more full.

– Focus on nutrients more than calories. A handful of grapes and a handful of M&Ms will have different effects on you both physically and mentally.

– Stock up the company refrigerator with plenty of healthy food. The best way to insure yourself against giving in to temptation is to have healthy alternatives readily available.

3. Exercise during lunch 
Speaking of the after lunch lull, do you often feel tired or experience a “dip” in the afternoon? This can be easily avoided by exerting some energy during lunch. Energy begets more energy. Your presentation will be a breeze if you are feeling that endorphin rush from your run. Just like your meals, treat your workouts as important meetings. Alternatively, go for a walk during actual meetings. The main goal here is to stay active as much as possible.

Tips:

– Remember to get up and stretch often!

– If you have a gym at your office, use it for the convenience.

– Be realistic with your expectations. Commit to two or three workouts a week on your calendar and adjust according to your personal

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Probiotics Are Becoming More In Vogue

Pills Fewer people are taking fish oil, vitamin C and calcium supplements, according to a recent survey of dietary supplement users.

The survey, conducted by Consumerlab.com, also showed that the number of people using probiotics has increased.

“The changes in supplement use seem to reflect research findings that made headlines this past year, as well as a shift in promotional emphasis for some of these supplements,” Dr. Tod Cooperman, M.D., the president of ConsumerLab.com, said in a statement.

“In the past, probiotics were marketed mainly to women and for irritable bowel syndrome, but are now finding a wider audience due to expanded treatment applications, including antibiotic-related diarrhea, diverticular disease and even anxiety,” Cooperman said. “Meanwhile, too much calcium has been shown to pose increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while high-dose vitamin C appears to increase the risk of kidney stones and cataracts. The benefits of fish oil now seem largely limited to people who don’t eat fish or have high triglycerides.”

The survey included more than 10,000 people, and respondents were all classified as “heavy” users of supplements (taking 6.6 supplements a day, on average).

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Snowed In: The At-Home Winter Workout

Fit Snowed in but determined to stay on track with your summer bod?

Let the inches pile up on the ground and not on your waist with a customized home workout from celebrity trainer Noah Neiman.

“Time based callisthenic/plyometric circuits for at home workouts are big calorie burners. They are wildly effective for gaining muscular endurance while conditioning the body,” says Neiman.

The no equipment routine is a series of four minute circuits that keep the body safely under duress to perform strength training movements.

Strict body building moves, coupled with a plyometrics get the heart rate up and engage the muscles in a targeted attack.

Short bursts of high-intensity workouts have gained in popularity over the years thanks to the Tabata training method.

TABATA is a move or series of moves performed intensely for 20 seconds, followed by a ten second rest period, repeated for eight rounds for a total of four minutes.

However, most people cannot effectively perform Tabata with the appropriate energy for the intense portion for the whole 4 minutes. Neiman’s approach modifies the Tabata timing sequence to allow a stronger and more consistent workout.

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Sprouts… Living Food at its Best by Isabell Shipard

Image 4 Sprouts are very special. Sprouts are live food, comprising essential and balanced nutrients for alive people, as life proceeds from life. Life and health go together. Good health is precious. A lass I was speaking with, summed it up so well, saying, “Our body is such an exquisite gift”. What a wonderful and thought provoking statement. Every person needs to work at maintaining health, therefore, we need to learn all we can about nutrients and how the body functions.

My interest in sprouts began over 30 years ago, when I read a riddle that fascinated me. It caught my attention and started my
interest in wanting to learn all I could about sprouts. The riddle went…

What will:
• grow in any climate at any time of the year
• that requires neither soil or sunshine, but is still rich in
vitamins and minerals
• has not been subject to chemical sprays while growing
• is extremely economical and in preparation has no waste
• rivals meat in nutritive value
• can be grown indoors within a minimum amount of
space
• multiplies 400% or more in 5 days
• matures in 3-5 days…

the answer… sprouts!

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