Archive for category: Longevity

Eat healthily for a long life

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Move Your Way to a Long Healthy Life

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Take the stress out of your life to avoid dementia

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The toll that stress takes, and how to recognise and manage it.

Has it got to the point where it just feels like being stressed is just your default mode? You might achieve a state of zen now and again, on holidays or on a Saturday afternoon, but you generally spend most of your days experiencing greater or lesser degrees of stress, and it’s started to just feel normal. You’ve accepted it as a reality of life.

The truth is that it has been proven that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol running through your blood stream can lead to alzheimers disease, which needs no introduction.

I’m here to tell you that stress in your life doesn’t have to be the case. And, that it really shouldn’t be the case, as those stress levels aren’t just affecting you in the here and now, but are also taking a toll on your future health, and on those around you.

If you think that stress is a problem for you, then this article is an excellent starting point for getting your life back. It’s not going to happen overnight, but with a little guidance and a little persistence, you should soon be feeling the difference.

We’re going to have a look at the negative effects that stress has on your body. Then, we’ll move on to how to recognise stress, which isn’t always that easy and, lastly, we’ll take a look at how to effectively minimise or manage it in your daily life, so that it doesn’t take over.

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Alzheimer’s disease, many womens’ greatest fear.

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for half of the cases. AD is a progressive brain/body disorder characterised by gradual memory loss, nerve cell loss, dysfunction of connections between nerve cells (synapses), and subsequent impairment in cognitive and behavioural functions.

The Alzheimer’s Gene: APOE4

Women with APOE4 have a threefold greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. About 20 to 25 percent of the population has one or two copies of the APOE4 gene. However, only about 20 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease carry the gene.

What We Know:

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Sleep more – live longer

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Sleep is one of our Longevity hearts on our Longevity tree, but why is it so important?

There’s many, but here are my top three to start with……

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Why giving someone a ‘bear’ hug can make you live longer

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When we discuss the subject of Mingling and how it helps us to stay younger and healthier, the ladies in my classes are not keen on the 5th point on the heart which is ‘Love’, so as always there is a scientific explanation to this point (I love a bit of science!).

 

Doctors at the University of North Carolina have found that hugging may dramatically lower blood pressure and boost blood levels of oxytocin, a relaxing hormone that plays a key role in labor, breastfeeding, and orgasms.

And the more you hug, the better: Women who hugged the most daily had the highest oxytocin levels, and their systolic blood pressure that was 10 mm/Hg lower than women with low oxytocin levels—an improvement similar to the effect of many leading blood pressure medications,  Getting more daily hugs from their friends/family/lovers was related to higher oxytocin, and so the hugs were indirectly related to lower blood pressure.

The hormone oxytocin has been linked to trust, and it helps women bond with everyone from newborns to stockbrokers. But its biggest benefit may turn out to be physical. 

  • Oxytocin is linked to emotional as well as physical closeness in partners, And while the healing power of this connection is not yet proven, they think it will be very soon.
  • Oxytocin also surges through the bodies of men and women during orgasm.  But whether sex itself directly improves women’s health is still not certain.

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Mingle your way to living a long healthy life

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Mingle = ‘to move among and engage with others at a social function’

I love the word mingle, it creates the idea of social interaction, chatting and having fun.  All those things have been scientifically proven to help you to live longer, healthier and happier life.

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Five signs you may have Osteoporosis

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Quite a few of my pilates clients are sufferers of Osteoporosis, many finding out after a fall and a bone breakage.

There are many risk factors for osteoporosis which include family history, medications and lifestyle.

But, how do we know whether our bones are healthy or not? We can’t see them like we can see our skin, or listen to them like the heart or lungs. Bone density scans are one way to look inside bone, but bone density tests are rarely recommended until after menopause unless you have risk factors. Osteoporosis may be developing long before that.

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Arthritis – how do you help sooth yours?

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One of the most common disease I hear about in my classes is Arthritis.  Arthritis literally means inflammation of the joints. There are many possible causes of joint inflammation; the most common are osteo or rheumatoid arthritis. They can both be crippling and painful in one or more joints and although there are differences, their management is all about controlling inflammation.

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Introducing the ALIVE Longevity Tree

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A year ago I asked my ladies the following question:  “What concerns you the most about your future health?”  I thought the outcome would be heart attack, Parkinson’s or diabetes, but the number one thing that came out at the top was the fear of dementia, the memory robbing Alzheimers being the top concern.

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