Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Can stress make you stupid?

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

As I’ve said before, the Adrenal Glands release Cortisol during stress. High cortisol causes decreased cognitive function, meaning you can’t concentrate. You have brain “fog”, and you are unable to stay on task.

It is important for busy, stressed people to realize that if your stress continues and your adrenal glands continue to produce cortisol every day, your memory will start to fail and deteriorate. Your ability to perform intellectually and stay on task will also decline.

A report by Newcomer at al (1999, Archive of General Psychiatry, 56, 527-533) shows that high cortisol levels, the stress hormone, interferes with verbal declarative memory. The subjects were asked to listen and recall parts of a prose paragraph. The study involved three groups:

1. High-steroid group – Subjects were given 160 mg of cortisol/day for 4 days. These levels are similar to a person experiencing a major stress, such as abdominal surgery

2. Low-steroid group – Subjects were given 40 mg/day for 4 days. This is the level seen in people experiencing minor physical stress such as the removal of stitches.

3. Placebo group – sugar tablets each day for 4 days.

The subjects were asked to recall a paragraph read to them. The high steroid group was the only group unable to recite any parts of the paragraph, nor could they summarize it. They had progressive disruption and decline in memory. These effects were not permanent, their performance returned to normal after they stopped taking the hormone.

So yes, in fact, stress will make you stupid!

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Medicine for the mind!

Monday, October 12th, 2009
UPThinkPower Photo
Fear, worry, hate, jealousy, anger, discontent and failure are like cancer in the mind.  Imagine you are given the diagnoses of cancer.  That instant your entire life has changed. What do you do?  You find the best neurosurgeon, get a second opinion, go for tests, surgery and chemo.  You pour over books, stay up late on the internet researching.  You alter your eating habits and wish you had not neglected your health.  You would do anything in your “power” to remove the horrible cancer from your body. Your number one priority becomes survival.Yet, as you are reading at this moment you are allowing a form of cancer in your mind to grow with every negative thought and feeling you have.  If left untreated this cancer will eventually overtake the healthy part of your mind and destroy it along with your body.

Stop this from happening! You must learn how to focus your mind and thoughts. UPThink Power is the answer. UPThink Power is the healthy eating and exercise program for your mind.

UPThink Power is universal and doesn’t see gender, religion, race, age, physical or mental strength. Anyone can do it. Some know how to use it while others had no clue.?  Once you start the program and consciously use it daily, UPThink Power will becomes a way of life.  UPThinkPower.com was created to share these instructions of how to use positive thinking and see results.  It is not a new concept but a very old truth. You can apply it to any aspect of your life and get results.

If you apply it to your career, it works.

If you apply it to your faith, it works.

If you apply it to your family, it works.

If you apply it to your health, it works.

Join me on the road to health and happiness.

Your very life depends on it!

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Prozac, Zoloft or Vitamin D3 deficient?

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Sick all the time? Sad?Depressed? Low energy? Just don’t feel well? Hurt all over? Low motivation? Lack of Focus?

Your body may be deficient in anti-depressants, highly unlikely, or you may be deficient in vitamin D3.

“Inadequate vitamin D status is an important public health problem, which could be readily addressed by adequate vitamin D intake or sunlight exposure” (Am J Clin Nutr 1997:66:929-36)

There is an epidemic of depression in the country.Can we all be depressed? Probably not. Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency can cause low mood and moderate depression like symptoms.Think about how depressed people in colder climates become in the winter months.Indoor tanning has become a huge industry in the Northern and Midwest states because it makes people “feel good.”

We need Vitamin D, specifically in the D3 form for multiple normal functions of the body such as:
*Normal Thyroid Function
*Normal bone and cartilage mineralization
*To absorb and maintain Calcium levels
*Normal Blood Clotting
*Normal Heart Action
*Healthy skin integrity

Vitamin D3 can be considered both a vitamin and a hormone due to where it is produced and released.Therapeutic doses of Vitamin D can help prevent such conditions as:
*Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
*Peripheral Neuropathy
*Lupus (SLE)
*Fibromyalgia
*Depression
*Autoimmune Disorders

“The significant role of Vitamin D compounds as selective immunosuppressants is illustrated by their ability to either prevent or markedly suppress animal models of autoimmune disease”. (FASEB J 2001 Dec:15(14):2579-85).

In Norway there is a high incidence of MS, an autoimmune disorder, inland. But a low to zero incidence on the coast.This could be explained by the abundance of vitamin D-rich fish on the coast and the native consumption if it.Coincidence?In Switzerland, there is a high incidence of MS at low elevation, but a low incidence at high elevation.Coincidence that in low elevation the sun exposure is close to zero?

With the fear of skin cancer and wrinkles we are in the sun less and less these days. And when we are, we a lathered up with chemical based-toxin containing sun screen, blocking vitamin D absorption.
So, how do we achieve normal and/or therapeutic levels of Vitamin D3?
Let’s start with nature.Spend 15 minutes in the sun 2-3 times per week without a sun block.As we said, low light climates can dampen Vitamin D levels.This emphasizes an important point:optimal functioning of the skin, liver, and kidney are necessary for metabolism efficiency.

Unable to swing that? Try adding it to your diet through foods high in vitamin D such as organic egg yolks, fish and liver.You will need to eat 3 to 4 servings of each per week to achieve the needed 400-600 IU per day. Most of us don’t eat, nor want to eat the foods rich in D so supplementation of D3 can be used.

Supplementation is absolutely needed when treating conditions present from depletion.But be careful where your vitamin D supplement is coming from. Unfortunately, like in anything else, you get what you pay for. Most over the counter products are in such low doses and poor content you won’t absorb it well enough to feel a difference. The D3 we carry in the office is the highest quality and purest form on the market.
So, eat more fish – play in the sun – take your Vitamin D3 and feel good!

. Tenesha Weine, Infinity Wellness Center | 512-328-0505 | 205 South Wild Basin Road 2B | Austin | TX | 78746

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How will you become GRAND?

Friday, October 9th, 2009


surreal1
Be Grand

Being that every job I’ve ever had has been working with children, of course I love them. I think to be a really effective teacher it has to go far beyond that however. Everyone has heard all the rhetoric about how children are our future and inherit the Earth etc. I know some of this can become borderline cheesy but most of it holds true.

While sitting in a conference hall recently doing teacher training for my TX teaching certificate, I found it surreal that all 299 people sitting around me were writing down notes that read, “be respectful”, “be on time”, and “learn the children’s names”.

Were they kidding? This is what it takes to be a teacher? In my own time (about a decade) I figured that out. However one day in training they did mention favorite teachers. I thought back to my dreaded school career and four came to mind, what did they have about them that made them grand?

I come from a highly emotional family (on my dad’s side). Everything (I do mean everything) makes my dad, sister and I tear up! Proud, happy, sad, funny moments, you get the idea. That’s what I love so much about teaching. A shared laugh, a goal reached, a mountain climbed. Teaching truly is about the emotional awards.

My love for the arts was nourished from many different people in my life from when I was just a tot. However some teachers destroyed parts of the things I loved little by little. That is one of the reasons why I became a teacher. I truly love to pass on my love for the arts onto others. I have been told that I am sincerely gifted at that. I know I am blessed to have found my place.

For those other 299 people in the room training with me, I would love to ask: Is this your calling and how will you become grand?

For being a teacher to a group of young minds truly is a privilege. This is an honor to be taken on as a responsibility to nurture their growth and life path.

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Do you have frozen shoulder?

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Think you may have (or have experienced) frozen shoulder? Let’s find out!

  • So what is frozen shoulder? To put it simply, frozen shoulder is when the shoulder is painful and cannot move normally because of inflammation.  Often times, the pain prevents you from moving your shoulder.
  • In some cases, it follows a minor injury to the shoulder, a stroke, or over use of the shoulder with bad body mechanics (common in 40-70 year olds and more common in women than men).
  • Common sign and symptom with frozen shoulder:  decreased range of motion, stiffness, muscle weakness, and postural compensation.
  • Functional limitations: Reaching over or behind head, reaching out to the side, and behind the back.  Frozen shoulder affects common activities like getting dressed, retrieving your wallet, or reaching out of car window.
  • Frozen shoulder can be classified as the following:
    • Freezing- Characterized by intense pain even at rest and limitations of motion by 2 to 3 weeks after onset. Acute symptoms may last 10 to 36 weeks.
    • Frozen- Characterized by pain only with movement.  Atrophy of the deltoid, rotator cuff, biceps, and triceps muscles can occur. Lasts 4 to 12 months.
    • Thawing- Characterized by no pain and no inflammation.   Shoulder motion gradually returns toward normal.  Lasts 2 to 24 months or longer.

Ok we now know what frozen shoulder is, so what can you do about it?

  • Call your doctor let him diagnose your symptoms and make the conclusion that is adhesion capsules.  First he will prescribe physical therapy to see if it can be resolved manually by breaking up the adhesions.
  • Massage therapy will help the surrounding muscles of the shoulder to remain loose and healthy.
  • In conclusion frozen shoulder will disrupt you daily life and there is ways to decrease the symptoms.  This can be resolved and all you have to do is make it happen!

Thanks,

Aaron B Kropp RMT, PTA, CEP

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