Reaping the Benefits of Relaxation...

Nothing feels quite as good as sitting down after a long day, breathing in deeply and just letting yourself relax. With age comes change, whether it is the state of your health, the loss of friends, moving, or financial instability. One way or another, the “golden years” can have their own stresses. Stress, as many of you know, is a quiet killer. It’s not just a feeling that lives inside your head, a harmless emotion.  Stress causes a physical response within your body. It causes your blood pressure and heart rate to rise, and releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline into your bloodstream. A little bit of stress can be good, it can keep you alert and motivated, however, chronic stress and the physiological changes it causes can put a serious strain on your health. This is why it’s so important to make time in your daily life for some sort of relaxation. Here are some of the benefits you can gain from learning how to relax: Be Happier It comes as no surprise that stress affects your mood. If cortisol, also known as the “stress hormone”, is present for a prolonged amount of time, it can deplete you of serotonin and dopamine, which in turn can cause you to become depressed. Stay Healthy By relaxing, you can potentially avoid many of stress related diseases and health problems, including heart disease, asthma, diabetes, digestive problems, weakened immune system, Alzheimer’s, accelerated aging and premature death. Make Better Decisions A recent study showed that stress actually changed how people weighed their decisions. It is surprising that those who were under a lot of stress tended to focus on the potential positive outcome of a situation rather than the negative. This may...

You are the Center of Your Medical Team...

Sometimes it can seem very daunting when you go to your doctor It is important to remember that you are the one who can best describe what is going on with your body.  You are the one who knows the history of your health. You hold so many of the clues that your doctor needs to help with making a correct diagnosis, and determine what course of treatment is needed. You also are the one that needs to understand as much as possible about your health care. What do you want to accomplish? When you go to the doctor, what is the purpose of your appointment?  Are you going with a specific problem that you want to get taken care of?  Is this a periodic wellness check?  Do you need to have a check of your medicine?  It is very important to plan for your appointment.  Go with a list of questions that you want to ask your doctor, or things you want to talk about. Write these down – go with a plan, and with questions. Take information with you that will help the doctor. If you take medications, vitamins, and any other supplements, your doctor needs to know about all of them.  If you have any allergies to medications, be sure to let your doctor know. Take a list of what you use, listing the dosage, strength, and what time(s) of the day you take them. Sometimes patients take the actual bottles with them to the doctor, which could work for you. Be sure to include everything you take.  Sometimes vitamins and supplements can interact with certain medications, and the doctor can adjust the medications accordingly.  Ask about side effects of any medicines, and if there are...

Is Yoga the Exercise Program You’ve Been Looking For?...

Over the last twenty years, yoga has become a household name. Celebrities and health gurus alike have been praising it for years. Now, you may think to yourself,  “Of course I know what yoga is, but there’s no way I’m able to do any of those crazy poses at my age”. If you, like many others entering the second half of their life, think that you’ve missed the ball when it comes to reaping the benefits of yoga, you couldn’t be more wrong. More and more studies are proving the positive effect of yoga for senior citizens, even those practicing for the first time. Read on to find out more about yoga, and the benefits you could be gaining by incorporating it into your life. Why Yoga? Senior citizens can improve their mental and physical health by incorporating yoga into their daily routine. Here are some of the proven benefits: Exercise Without the Strain Yoga’s slow, gentle movements, allow you to get the exercise your body needs without putting an unnecessary strain on your body. Regular exercise decreases the risk of death by a third and cuts the chances of getting a chronic disease by 40%. Adding yoga into your daily routine could literally save your life. Keeps Your Mind Sharp and Your Heart Happy Yoga is quite meditative, helping you calm your mind and find your center. Studies show that yoga can help better the quality of your life, lifting your mood and giving you the energy you need to move through your day easily. Improve your Flexibility One study showed that yoga increased lower-body flexibility by 34% in older people. Flexibility plays a huge role in mobility and independence, and by stretching certain muscles on a daily...

Humor Yourself to Lead a Happier, Healthier Life...

“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.” – Michael Pritchard A couple of days ago, I was spending some time with friends, and one of them made a joke that made us all laugh so hard that we could barely breathe. It was an infectious sort of laughter, and every time we’d calm down, one of us would start giggling again and within seconds we’d all be in stitches. After about 15 minutes of this, the laughter finally died down, but the mood in the room was joyous and elevated. Personally, I felt as though my mind had been wiped clean, leaving me calm and relaxed. There’s a reason they call laughter the best medicine.  As you enter the second half of your life, laughter can be paramount to enhancing your relationships and keeping you healthy, both physically and emotionally. Here are some ways laughter can invigorate your life: Laughter Helps You Connect Socially Laughter is a great way to bond with new friends and to strengthen old friendships. When you laugh with friends it unites you and keeps relationships fresh and healthy. Resentments and disagreements are effectively healed through humor and lightness. Incorporate more play and humor into your daily interactions with your loved ones, and watch how your relationships change for the better. Laughter Increases Your Life Span (and the Quality of Life You’re Living) A Norwegian study has shown that adults with a sense of humor outlive their more somber contemporaries. By having an optimistic outlook on life, and being able to laugh at difficult situations when they arise, you not only create happiness for yourself, but for the people around you as well. People are drawn to laughter,...

Music Fosters Brain Health and Creative Expression...

 “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” – Plato Within the realm of music lies a certain kind of magic. It has the ability to transport you into another time, to relive beautiful moments from the past, to lift your spirits, and, most importantly, it allows you to connect to something greater than yourself. In the second half of life, cognitive engagement and brain health become a vital part of your well-being. Music has been proven to strengthen brain activity, and studies are showing that it may help ward off dementia. If you let it, music can bring a positive energy force into your life. There are also many ways that enjoying music can become part of enhancing your social connections. Below are ten ways that music can help improve your way of life. 1. Strengthen Your Memory The medial pre-frontal cortex, the part of your brain that sits just behind your forehead, uses music to trigger powerful memories. A recent study using brain scans showed that music linked to a strong memory created an extraordinary amount of activity in the pre-frontal cortex. Since the front part of the brain is the part that endures, this could explain why Alzheimer patients will often remember music from their past, even when all other memories have disappeared. 2. Awaken Your Creative Spirit An upbeat song is great for a motivated work out, but when you feel like you’re in a creative rut, loud music may not be all that helpful. According to a study done by the Journal of Consumer Research, moderate ambient noise is best for creative endeavors. High...

Fiftysomething Diet: 4 Tips to Help You Age Well...

How you can fine-tune your eating habits to live longer and healthier   A bowl of oatmeal every morning, a handful of nuts, five servings of fruits and vegetables a day — researchers seem to be slowly compiling a grocery list of foods that can extend your lifespan. At the same time, there are quite a few 95- to 100-year-olds in The Longevity Genes Project, a large ongoing study at Albert Einstein College in New York, who haven’t made healthful lifestyle changes. They smoke. They don’t eat a lot of vegetables. They don’t pay much attention to diet at all. Longevity: Diet Vs. Genes That raises a question: How much does diet influence longevity and how much is due to genes? Right now, scientists offer no definitive answer. Estimates are that genes might roughly influence 20 to 35 percent of lifespan length. And some fiftysomethings probably have genes strong enough to override negative lifestyle and eating habits, although they’re likely a small group. For the majority of us, the way we eat and live is likely going to play a huge role in the length, and perhaps more importantly, the quality of our lifespan. Rather than piece together a grocery list of specific anti-aging foods, it looks as if the best way to tap into these dietary longevity benefits is by gradually shaping and fine-tuning eating habits to make them healthier. The Mediterranean diet is one good plan. So is the Okinawan diet. So is the U.S. government’s DASH diet. But we think the following four little culinary rules, based on current research, are a good place to start: Rule No. 1: Drink wine like a Mediterranean; sip moderate amounts with meals Italian researchers suggest that part of the health...

Recrafting a Life After a Stroke...

A survivor and his wife offer advice for coping   At 71, Bob Seiter was an active guy. After retiring from Kaiser Aluminum, where he worked in sales, he played golf three times a week, playing at a 14 handicap and striving to regain his 4. When he wasn’t on the fairway, he spent a lot of time volunteering. Then one morning, he had a hemorrhagic stroke, and everything changed. His wife, Sue, found him in the garage, alarmingly disoriented, called 911 and prayed. Bob was rushed to the hospital, where he spent three weeks in intensive care, clinging to life. The doctors warned Sue that Bob wasn’t expected to make it. But one day he opened his eyes and awareness began, slowly, to return. Coming Back to a New Life Then came 5 1/2 grueling weeks in a rehab facility. Then came reality. Bob recovered from the acute phase of the brain trauma, but he may never get back to normal. He doesn’t have some of the cognitive capabilities he used to have. He can’t, for example, immediately recall numbers, such as age or quantity. Ask him his own age, and he can’t answer until he first counts 40, 50, 60, 70, 71, 72, 73. His short-term memory is poor. He might forget where the TV remote is, whether he turned off the stove or where the newspaper he’s reading is. (He can’t manage reading a book yet.) He still has trouble to recalling specific words or places, such as the cities where his children and grandchildren live. “I’ve had to recraft myself,” he said. “And that means learning how to do basic things again — and accepting that I’ll never be able to do some things I...

Why Boomers Need to Get Tested for Hepatitis C...

People over 50 make up the majority of those with the deadly disease Most of the people who get hepatitis C today are intravenous drug users who share needles. That may be the image that comes to mind when you think of the disease. But decades ago, before widespread screening of the blood supply began in 1992, individuals who received blood transfusions or organ transplants were at risk of coming in contact with the virus. Transmission was common this way, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Once in the body, hepatitis C stays there for about 70 percent of sufferers, according to Dr. John Ward, director of the CDC’s Division of Viral Hepatitis. Boomers Are Unaware And many boomers — who make up 80 percent of the approximately 3 million who have the disease — do not know they are infected. Yet all it takes to find out is a simple blood test. “It sets up a home in the liver and then silently, with very few symptoms, it begins to cause inflammation in the liver,” Ward said. “Over years that leads to cirrhosis, severe scarring of the liver.” It can also result in liver cancer. There was a high incidence of hepatitis C years ago, when the boomers were young, Ward said. They may have shared needles just once or twice (the virus is highly transmissible) or gotten a childhood blood transfusion. “They didn’t know about it, they never got tested for it, and all of a sudden they start getting sick,” Ward said. CDC to Boomers: Get the Test The CDC has actively worked to alert those born between 1945 and 1965 of the need to get the blood test. But Ward said it’s...