Swobidu Health

Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

When it comes to weight control your mindset plays as big a role as your diet and exercise routine, in fact without a positive weight loss mindset your diet and exercise are doomed for failure. This article shares how you can build a strong and supportive mindset that will make controlling your weight easy and long lasting.

Weight Control

1. Constantly remind yourself why it is important to control your weight. when you lose focus of why you enjoy being thin or why it is important you make yourself vulnerable to caving in to cravings. Every day take a few minutes to remind yourself why you love being thin or better yet write it down and post it where you will see it often.

2. Build your belief. do you believe you will be able to control your weight? if you hesitate at all in answering this question then you will need a mindset boost. The truth is that many people maintain their weight loss and control their weight and it is something you can do.

3. Commit to one thing. Identify that one thing that works for you and commit to it. does keeping a food journal help you control your weight or maybe exercising regularly? Then make this a commitment, it might not always be possible to do everything right but as long as this key element keeps going you will stay in control.

4. be willing to deal with frustration. There will always be unexpected treats or days when your weight goes up even though you had been good. if you allow these frustrations to get to you it will negatively affect your weight. take a deep breath and remind yourself that this too shall pass.

Keep your weight in control by getting your mindset in the right place.

James N. Martin, Jr, MD

By James N. Martin, Jr, MD President, The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Up to seven percent of pregnant women will develop preeclampsia, a serious pregnancy-related condition that can affect the placenta, liver, kidneys, blood, brain, and other organs. It is a leading cause of maternal and infant sickness and death in the US.

While the cause of preeclampsia is unknown, high blood pressure is a main contributing factor. normally, blood pressure changes throughout the course of the day—for example, it increases when you exercise and slows when you’re at rest. but when it stays elevated, it can strain the heart and blood vessels, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke and damage to the kidneys, brain, and eyes. During pregnancy, high blood pressure can also restrict the flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the fetus.

Some women have ongoing (chronic) high blood pressure before they get pregnant. Others may develop high blood pressure during pregnancy, usually after the 20th week of gestation. Women who have chronic or gestational high blood pressure, are pregnant for the first time, have had preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy, are 35 years or older, are carrying more than one fetus, have certain medical conditions such as diabetes or kidney disease, are obese, are African American, or have certain immune disorders such as lupus or blood diseases are at increased risk of developing preeclampsia.

Other symptoms of preeclampsia include increased amounts of protein in the urine, headaches, visual problems, and swelling of the hands and face. Severe preeclampsia may be accompanied by lung, liver, kidney, or clotting complications and seizures (eclampsia).

If you have chronic high blood pressure, it’s important to make efforts to lower blood pressure before pregnancy by losing weight and taking medication as prescribed. Regular prenatal care during pregnancy can help detect preeclampsia early in all pregnant women. at each prenatal visit, a woman’s weight and blood pressure are taken along with a urine sample to monitor any changes. you may be checked more often if your blood pressure is high.

The gestational age of the fetus, the severity of the mother’s preeclampsia, and risks to mother and fetus will be assessed to guide the decision on when to deliver. some women will be monitored to see if the situation improves, or—if the risk to the fetus is greater in the womb than in a special nursery—delivery may be necessary. Women with slightly increased blood pressure who are not near the end of pregnancy may be prescribed bed rest at home or in the hospital.

For more information, the ACOG Patient Education Pamphlet “High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy” is available at acog.org/publications/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Medicine. you can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The role of massage therapy in addressing chronic pain.

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Image: Dreamstime

Laughing with friends releases feel-good brain chemicals, which also relieve pain, new research indicates.

Until now, scientists haven’t proven that like exercise and other activities, laughing causes a release of so-called endorphins.

"very little research has been done into why we laugh and what role it plays in society," study researcher Robin Dunbar, of the University of Oxford, said in a statement. "we think that it is the bonding effects of the endorphin rush that explain why laughter plays such an important role in our social lives."

Chuckle it up Dunbar and colleagues thought our guffaws might turn on the brain’s endorphins, a long debated, but unproven idea. These pain-relieving chemicals are created in response to exercise, excitement, pain, spicy food, love and sexual orgasm, among other things.

In addition to giving us a "buzz," these endorphins raise our ability to ignore pain. So the researchers used the endorphins’ pain relief to determine if laughter causes an endorphin release. They first tested participants for their pain threshold, then exposed them to either a control or a laugh-inducing test, and then tested pain levels again.

The tests included humorous videos (clips of the TV shows "Mr. Bean" and "Friends") and a live comedy show during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Because laughter is such a social activity (it’s 30 times more likely to happen in a social context than when alone), the participants were tested both in groups and alone.

The lab-based pain tests included wrapping a participant’s arm in a frozen wine-cooling sleeve or a blood-pressure cuff. the pain tests were administered until the patient said they couldn’t take it anymore. At the live shows, the researchers tested pain by having participants squat against a wall until they collapsed.

Why laughter releases endorphins across all tests, the participants’ ability to tolerate pain jumped after laughing. on average, watching about 15 minutes of comedy in a group increased pain threshold by 10 percent. Participants tested alone showed slightly smaller increases in their pain threshold.

"When laughter is elicited, pain thresholds are significantly increased, whereas when subjects watched something that does not naturally elicit laughter, pain thresholds do not change (and are often lower)," the authors write in the paper. "These results can best be explained by the action of endorphins released by laughter."

The researchers believe that the long series of exhalations that accompany true laughter cause physical exhaustion of the abdominal muscles and, in turn, trigger endorphin release. (Endorphin release is usually caused by physical activity, like exercise, or touch, like massage.) the study was published today (Sept. 13) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

© 2011 TechMediaNetwork.com. all rights reserved.

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I do not mean yoga as a religious style or anything like that, but yoga as exercise for relaxation and all the benefits? just out of curiousity

If not do you practice any other sports?
I walk in a daily basis, hopefully i will jog soon enough…

not yoga.. but pilates

during and right after exercise, I feel impotent. It's also at it's very smallest after the gym. Is that how it works? if so, why?