healthy living tips by Dr.Vina

When was the last time you passed your day without having any stress? In human life, joyful times and stressful moments come in a package. To be short, stress is an innate part of our every day life. It is there and we just need to figure out the way to cope with that. Fortunately, we have learned a lot accumulatively from human history and it is well-recorded in medical literatures. Here are some simple tips in managing your stress level:

1. Slow down your pace. What it means is you need to break your life pattern in general when you feel the pressure is just too much for you. Reduce your commute and your work week at least temporarily. Avoid any activities that could drain your energy. Find out what you really want to do and love to do in your life. If you have a job, whenever possible renegotiate vacation and leave time with your boss
2. Try herbs and nutritional therapy. During a stressful time, you need to eat well-balanced food. Avoid any stress aggravating food e.g. you need to reduce consumption of alcoholic beverage and coffee. Instead you might want to try some herbs and dietary supplements helpful in combating emotional symptoms (irritability, anxiety, sleeplessness, and mild to moderate depression) that stress can create. There are a variety of nerve herbs available over the counter at most drugstores or natural-health stores.
   
3. Heal yourself from inside out. One of the most ancient forms of healing involves energy healing, which can involve therapeutic touch or healing touch. For many, stress relief is at their fingertips. Massage therapy—more technically referred to as soft-tissue manipulation—can be beneficial for combating your stress
4. Take a good care of yourself. When you have a difficult time, get creative. Pamper yourself by enjoying your food. Get more quality sleep. See more friends to avoid loneliness.
   
5. Have enough healthy workouts. You can try meditation or practice yoga for stress relief. Our body is so naturally designed to move. So get moving. Some jogging around the park or swimming will do the job. Have a passionate sex and create enough stress-fighting endorphins. Laugh and cry more.

Photo by: Mariana

Our body is designed to move. A life without enough movement can cause nutrition stress. The bones need daily deposit of calcium, phosphor and magnesium to maintain its strength and density. Without a certain level of physical exercise, the bones can not efficiently gathered nutrition from the blood even though the nutrition intake is enough. A healthy load to the bone caused by physical activities is an absolute need. Lack of physical exercise and inadequate calcium intake can cause osteoporosis, a certain condition which causes the bone to be fragile, easily broken and damaged. High calcium diet combined with physical exercise can help prevent osteoporosis.

Muscles need a certain stimulation to absorb nutrition from the blood. Without a regular use and practice, our muscles can grow weaker and shrink. This can lead to the decrease of strength. Physical exercise can reduce the risk of fat and increase the level of good fat in our blood. In addition, physical exercise can also increase the heart and lungs fitness.

Photo by Bern

One of the wonder of life is immunity system of our body. The immunity of our body defends the body from bacteria, viruses, chemical substances, radiation, gas and other environmental stressors. It is like a shield that constantly protects our vulnerable body.

Our skin is part of body immunity system. It creates barrier against external micro-organism like bacteria and viruses that cause infection and disease.

There are many scientific proofs that show how stress can change our immunity system such that our body becomes vulnerable to infection and disease. A number of stressors including light, noise, motion and home condition can disturb immunity system. Even though initial response to stressors can inhibit immunity system, the body can adapt if the stress is mild and lasted for long.

The loss of a loved one represents one of the severest stressors of one’s life. It can be accompanied by suffering from a disease or even lead to death. Even though the response to stress is varied among individual, the loss of a loved one can lower immunity function up to 50%.

Photo by Sanja

Have you ever got headache after eating a certain food? Food allergy can indeed trigger migraine that is associated with stress. Normally our intestine tract reacts to food that causes allergy but for the people with migraine, it is the brain that produces reaction. The foods that can produce migraine include cheese and milk, chocolate, red wine, coconut, wheat, cola drink, coffee and tea, cane sugar, orange and grape. Some non-migraine headaches are caused by food additives like monosodium glutamat, a certain taste enhancer typically used in Chinese food.

How can we determine whether our headache is caused by a certain food? The logical approach is the method of elimination. Essentially, we eliminate all the food that we suspect trigger the migraine from our diet. Then after two weeks, we add the suspected food one by one back to our diet and observe the side effect. Note that the food must be added gradually and the process should be supervised by a doctor.

Photo by Mike

How does our body respond to stress? In situation which is full of stress, our body responds in two different patterns: flight or fight.

Adrenalin, a stress hormone, is released when we are under stress. This hormone together with other hormones circulate in our body to increase blood pressure, respiration speed and other changes of process in our body. Our blood sugar would also rises. The lipid cells release fat into the blood circulation to increase energy supply for muscles. The outcomes of stress response are alertness, wakefulness, tension which prepare somebody to face any threat or hazard. After the stressful situation is over, the body relaxes and returns to its normal condition.

The response from individual to stressor varies. Beyond fight or flight, some people can choose to endure stress or tension within a long period of time.

Stress can be a good thing in our life when it is in the right dosage. If it is too much, it can cause various problems to our body. Some psychosomatic disorders include heart disease, asthma, allergy, hypertension, heart burn and potential for cancer. Stress can also produce psychological problem such as anxiety, depression, eating disorder and drug or alcohol abuse.

Photo by Gavin Wood

Who does not want a hot cup of coffee to jump start a sluggish working day? A cup of coffee can stimulate someone to start his day with more vigor. This stimulus is provided by caffeine which excite the central nervous system. Caffeine is absorbed in our stomach and intestines, and in a couple of minutes reach our blood circulation and gets disseminated throughout our entire body.

But be aware that too much caffeine intake can give you problems. Caffeine stimulates the stress hormone and increases heart beat and blood pressure. Both caffeine and acid contained in coffee can irritate the surface of your stomach and intestines. Caffeine overdose can cause anxiety, fatigue, head-ache, sleep disruption and emotional disorder.

How much is too much? Drinking 5 glasses or more a day is considered too much. Caffeine is diuretics and stimulates secretion of vitamin B and C in the urine. This stimulant can cause abnormal heart beat and increase fat in our blood (Dawber et al., Coffee and cardiovascular disease: Observations from Framingham Study. N Eng J Med 1974; 291:871-74).

If you feel a bit stressed out, do not start your day with a cup of coffee and a sweet cookie. You can find a variety of substitutes that can help you relax. Fruits, water and herbal tea are a good candidate for substitute. You can also still drink decaff or instant coffee made in part or entirely from the roasted coffee beans.

Credit: Photo by CDWaldi of Stock.Xchng

What is stress? Many people tend to view stress only from its negative side.

In reality stress is part of our daily life. What happens everyday canpose a challenge that necessitates the role of mind, body and emotion. We can adapt to stress and learn how to use it for our benefit. Stress can be viewed as a force that impose someone to change, grow, struggle, adapt or gain benefit.
However, too much stress will degrade our life quality.

We human tend to get physical and psychological stress. Cold or otherwise hot weather can produce physical stress to our body in such a way that there exists responses in terms of changes in circulation, respiration, and heart beat. Exposure to virus, fog or smoke can also cause a physical stress. Anxiety for special occasion, job deadline or loss of a friend are examples of psychological stress.

source: Stress and Nutrition, Judith Swarth, MS.RD

Not all stress are detrimental. Stimuli, challenges and changes can beadvantageous to our life.

Every day our life is literally surrounded by potential stressors: being late for work, traffic jam, meeting the dateline, and countless of other factors. A combination of these causes can send your stress levels soaring high.

You can sense the tension instantly. Now, what is the relation between stress and nutrition? The good news is: we can effectively combat the stress with well-balanced nutrition.

When you get busy fighting your stressors, you tend to lose your meal discipline. You easily end up having less energy at the time when you need it most. Consider also that stress weaken your immune system, while good nutrition defend it. On the other hand some types of foods or beverages can also cause stress. So it is important to manage your daily nutrition wisely to use it as your line of defence against stress.

Here are a couple of practical tips to survive stressful days with good nutrition:

• Do not consume too much alcohol, caffeine or simple sugar on your diet. So do not drink to much coffee to jumpstart your day. Instead opt to orange juice or sparkling water.
• Eat good breakfast. You will need a stable blood sugar for your busy morning. Skipping breakfast for any reason will weaken your defence.
• Drink green tea. The antioxidant is your best friend.
• Bring healthy snack and eat only while you are sitting down. If you eat while doing something else, it is easy to eat more that you needed.
• Eat regular and complete healthy meal. Avoid sugary, fatty and other unhealthy foods. Stressed people tend to crave foods high in fat, sugar and salt. How often have you easily turned to Baskin-Robbins after a long day?
• Snack on healthy munchies. Forget your cheese puffs and potato chips for a moment. You have better options for your munchies: carrot stick, sunflower seeds or even popcorn (minus the butter and salt).

Background. Basically stress can be viewed as our body' s response to defend itself. This is useful in many emergency situations (getting out of fire, wild animals or other external threats). However it cause physical syndrome if it happens for too long. In addition, stress is also thought by scientist to worsen auto-immune disease by affecting two glands in the brain -the hypothalamus and the pituitary.

Sources. Any kind of changes in your life can be a source of stress including the positive one like job promotion. Stressor is also unique to each personmeaning that what is stressful to you might not affect other people. Common source of stress includes: death of spouse or family members, loss of job, illness, injury, financial problem, moving, and having a baby. Another source of stress is major depression itself, which has been found to raise the level of stress hormones such as cortisol, with their subsequent effects on the hippocampus and other parts of the brain.

Symptoms. Our body reacts naturally to any stressor. The symptoms that we can feel when we are stressed out are:

• Headaches
  
• High blood pressure
• Lack of sleep or insomnia
  
• Problems with relationships
• Shortness of breath
  
• Stiff neck
  
• Stomach upset
• Weight loss or gain
  
• Panic and anxiety
  
• Back pain
  
• Constipation or diarrhea
  
• Depression
  
• Fatigue
  

Treatment. Researchers at Uni Chicago have identified stress as the prime
force that bends a person's brain toward violence and aggression. The good news
is that there are effective treatments today both pharmacological and
psychological, not only for people with depression but also for those with many
other disorders.

Prevention. To cope better with the stress, maintain positive attitude towards your life in general. The way you view and interpret changes in your life greatly affects your stamina in dealing with the stress. Finally, I save the best for last. To protect yourself from your daily stressors, eat good and balanced food and exercise regularly 3-4 times a week. Food and exercise can do wonders to maintain your wellness and sense of well-being.