Skip breakfast. Grab a coffee. Go to work. You already feel tired and it’s not even noon. Grab another coffee. Buy a sandwich. Eat it quickly. Go back to work. Is it 5 o’clock yet? Skip the gym. Go home. Eat take-out leftovers. Watch TV. Go to bed.

Does this sound like your life? Do you often feel burnt out? For so many of us, that is not an uncommon scenario. Our lives are go, go, go and our health often takes a backseat to all that hustle and bustle.

One of the essential steps in living a healthy life is making time to care for yourself. What if I told you, you could change your life by simply cooking a healthy meal, a couple times a week? People underestimate the power of cooking a home cooked meal. Not only does it mean that we choose what we are putting in our bodies, but it also gives us time to unwind, put our phones down and take a moment for ourselves.

I often hear “I want to cook, but I have no time!” It’s all about keeping it simple. Remember, you’re not trying to become a master chef!

I have put together a winter cooking challenge to help you bring the joy of cooking into your life. Take these actionable steps and you will see just how simple, healthy and fun cooking can be.

1. Book the time.

Commit to cooking a fresh meal, two times a week, for the next month.

2. Read through recipes.

Look at the ingredients and the preparation time to get an idea if that recipe will work for your time frame. I have added my recipe for Walnut Ginger Pesto below, to help get you started. It’s super easy to make and pairs perfectly with brown rice or your favourite pasta.

3. Prepare.

I always tell people to commit to a “grocery day” once a week, so they can stock up on lots of healthy foods. This will keep you committed to the challenge.

4. Add plant-based food whenever possible.

You don’t have to give up the foods you love. Just add some fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts into your meals. This will have you feeling more energized and less likely to crave processed food.

5. Make it a family affair.

Cook with your partner, your friends or kids. Cooking is the perfect social activity and could inspire someone else to find joy in cooking again.

6. Make enough for lunches.

The great thing about cooking at home is you can use any leftovers for lunches through the week. This will eliminate some of those fast food lunches and save you money.

Article Courtesy : http://www.mindbodygreen.com/

How do you deal with the death or departure of a loved one? That was today’s topic on Slice of Health on Chennai Live. The expert on the show was Dr.Mini Rao – an award winning Psychologist. Dr. Tauseef was also present.

 

Dr.Tauseef started saying that being in Emergency medicine he knows that death is real, and the main problem is that immediate family and friends have to accept it. Their first reaction is usually denial.

 

Mr.Rao said that there are 5 stages to dealing with death:

–          Denial – which is essentially a defence mechanism

–          Anger –  Anger at the person for dying and at the doctor

–          Bargaining –  A feeling that this would not have happened if the person had got better medication or better doctors

–          Depression –  When the realisation begins to sink in

–          Acceptance –  When they can finally accept it and move on

 

Dr.Rao does grief counselling for people who are going through depression; usually mourning for more than 2 months leads to depression and the person will need counselling. In suicide cases, this happens more.  There will be more guilt all round which is hard to get rid of.

 

People deal with death in different ways. Dr. Rao herself tried using an Ouija board to get answers to deal with her mother’s death.

 

A caller, also a doctor, spoke about how difficult it is to treat close friends and family especially when there is a terminal disease in question. Dr. Rao agreed and said that one needs to make sure that they don’t let their emotions get in the way of the treatment and decisions.

 

Things to do to make it easier:

–          Be aware that the above 5 stages will happen.

–          Think of all the positive and good times together.

–          Accept that time will be a healer.

–          Listen to music. Do what makes you happy.

–          Have to seek professional help if you feel you are not able to snap out of it

 

A caller said a middle aged relative died after coming to know about the death of another relative. Which stage of the 5 was she in? Dr.Tauseef said she was probably in shock.   Emotional shock can lead to physical shock which can be heart attack or stroke and in some cases coma and death.  If a person is known to be sensitive, keep their contact with the situation minimal and prepare them in advance.

 

Change is constant in life, life goes on. Keep walking.

 

All of us go thru’ ups and downs in life. What should one do when you are in the depths of despair about life?

 

The guest on today’s show was Avis Vishwanathan . He is a motivational speaker who himself went through a tough phase in his life including bankruptcy but still managed to come out of it. He is also known as the ‘Happiness Curator’. He feels that happiness is who we are if we learn to accept who we are in life.

 

Avis asks who decides what is the end of the road? He said – It should be you and no one else! Life is like a game of cricket- It’s never over until the last ball of your life is bowled.

 

He feels we should not be retrospective about life. If you think about the good things of the past you might let it get to your head and similarly if you think about the bad things, you might get rooted and not be able to move on.

 

When any of us hit rock bottom, fear is the first feeling. But this fear will hold you back. Learn to take one day at a time and move forward with hope. Have faith in yourself and beat the fear.

 

A caller said he is an impulsive person, is that a reason for problems to happen? Avis said he was too, but he started doing a ‘mouna vritham’ time everyday to try and reign in his impulsiveness and stop himself shooting off his mouth and it helped him a lot.

 

Another caller said she took a sabbatical from work and has now decided to get back to work. But she is finding the process of looking for a job, attending interviews giving her a feeling of insecurity.  She finds people judging her and that makes her feel low and unhappy about herself.  Avis said – You are not what other people think you are.  Stare them down, let them know they can’t bother you and move on with your life.

 

Avis feels people worry too much nowadays about Money.  He said – We need to look at life from the perspective that we should enjoy what we are doing and not that everything we do must be to earn more money.

 

Avis’s last words – Love Life and Live it Big!

 

Image Credits: http://pschua.me/

The expert on the show was Major Roy, the proprietor of an adventure arena in Chennai.  His primary advice was that anyone with fears of any sort should – Recognize, identify, confront/deal with the fear and move on!

 

He said there are 2 types of fear:

(1)    Perceived – it is primarily in our minds

(2)    Actual – exists and is normal

 

The 1^st caller was a young student. She spoke about her first time fears when she did rappelling and bungee jumping. She did them when she was less than 10 years old and was only able to do so because her father was there to help her and talk her out of her fears in the first few minutes. Her biggest fear was not being able to see the bottom of the sea when she did snorkelling as it was such a different feeling than being able to see the floor of a swimming pool. She next wants to do sky diving and conquer that as well.

 

Major Roy says-The best way to rationalize fear is to think about the people who have done the activity that you are scared to do. You are not lesser than those people, so go ahead and do it! You must be willing to overcome it as external pressure does not work as much as your own conviction.

 

Is fear only about the mind? Major Roy says yes, mostly it is psychosomatic and can be overcome.

 

The next caller felt that his fears make him to feel that he doesn’t have the freedom that other people have to enjoy life. Major Roy said he then needs to confront his fear; stop saying that those fear exists. Basically he needs to – Get out and stand on the edge!

 

The 3^rd caller, also a student, is an outdoor person and is extremely claustrophobic. Major Roy told him to analyse his fear to see if it is perceived or actual.  What are you afraid of, he asked? Is it about falling down? Or the roof falling or something else? He felt one will soon realize that there is no specific reason!

 

Major Roy said his years in the army definitely helped him overcome many of his fears.  He strongly felt that the way you are brought up makes a huge difference. Children are born without fear, so any fears that form are because of the immediate environment and people, including parents, friends and family.

 

His final words – Go there, do that!

Image credits: http://cdn.cavemancircus.com/

Acrophobia  is an extreme or irrational fear of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort that share both similar etiology and options for treatment.

Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as the fear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have a head for heights. 

Here’s some of what you can do to help overcome a fear of heights.

1) One step at a time, please

There is a technique used by some psychologists called ‘flooding’. The idea is that if you confront your fear head on, in one fell swoop, then your fear system will be so overpowered that when you calm down, the fear will be gone.

Way back when, kids who feared water used to be thrown in at the deep end of a pool. I’m not saying this never works, but in my experience of clearing up the psychological mess of people who’ve survived this ‘technique’, it can often deepen the trauma if it doesn’t work (and it often doesn’t).

So I’m suggesting you only do what you’re comfortable doing – one step at a time. Practice visiting one level of a building, then eventually the next, and so on, until, bit by bit, you become accustomed to getting higher.

Set small challenges for yourself: “Okay, today I’m just going to walk across that low bridge over the stream and see how that feels…and next week I’ll have a look at going up a notch by seeing how it feels to walk halfway up that office block in town…”

2) Lower the fear as you get higher

Fear, terror, and anxiety feel like they just ‘happen to us’. We don’t describe, say, panic as something we ‘do’, but as something that ‘attacks’ us. But there are things you can do even when you are up high (or about to be) to quickly calm down and thereby take control.

• Breathe yourself back down to calm: When people are scared, they either forget to breathe (for short periods of time, obviously) or they just breathe quickly in but forget to breathe out. To lower panic, pause your breathing for 5 seconds, then take a big breath in and exhale slowly. Ensure you breathe out for slightly longer than you breathe in, as this will rapidly start to calm you right down.
• Scale the fear in numbers: Because your ‘thinking brain’ tends to be ‘swamped’ by the emotional brain when you feel fearful, you can actually diminish the fear by forcing your thinking brain to work – thus diluting the anxiety. The easiest way to do this is through scaling the level of fear.

Think: “If absolute terror is 10 and total calm is 1, where am I right now on that scale?” You might decide you’re at an 8. Now, as you start to extend your exhalations, notice how those numbers go down as you feel calmer.

3) Forget the past

Well, don’t actually forget the past, but learn to feel relaxed about old high up situations. For months after my first bungee jump, I could ‘get the fear back’ simply by remembering that time. If you also find that you can feel fearful just by recalling previous times you were anxious up high, then you’ll need to start to feel relaxed when you recall those old fearful times so as to ‘unhook’ the fearfulness from the memory. This is often the first step to overcoming fear of heights.

Click here to know more

Article Credits: http://www.uncommonhelp.me/

Image credit: http://www.wikihow.com/

In today’s world, stress from one’s surroundings has become a part and parcel of life. How each one of us deals with it differs and hence the actual results vary in their impact. The expert on today’s show was Dr.Krishna Raman, a follower of B.K.S Iyengar, who integrates the practice of yoga with modern medicine.

 

Dr. Krishna Raman said that when people come to consult with him they are initially sceptical of performing the asanas prescribed, but once they start realising the positive impact it has, they want to continue learning it at a higher level. Doc said that Yoga definitely helps with Anxiety attacks as it addresses both the Psyche and the Soma i.e. mind and body – it is holistic.

 

The show had a couple of callers. One caller had a nephew who had gone through a bad bullying experience in school which was still affecting his daily and college life.  Dr.Raman said that such an individual needs both medication and counselling for a period of time along with yoga and pranayama. In time only yoga and pranayama, practiced regularly, would be required to calm him, giving inner stability and hence help in dealing with social pressures.

Another caller wanted to know if yoga could help an 80 year old arthritic patient with Bipolar disorder. Dr. Raman advised him to bring him for a consultation while saying that yoga can be practiced by people of all ages. He also said that the patient has to be willing and also make an effort from their part to be open to this multi-pronged treatment.

Dr.Raman also spoke about the perceptions of yoga and that people think it can cure everything. He said like all things yoga has a specified scope and its set of limitations. For example, it cannot cure Cancer, but it can help in the treatment of various other problems such as anxiety, gynaecological problems, breathing disorders etc. One needs to understand that yoga first helps with the problems of the body which gives feedback to the mind and hence helps the mind.

He said that ideally yoga has to be done under supervision. A wrong angle can change the blood flow to a part of the body causing problems. However simple asanas like Apanasana, Shavasana, simple hand stretches and child’s pose can be done at home.

Medical knowledge is very important to prescribe yoga postures also. Most yoga teachers nowadays do not know this. So be careful who you learn yoga with. Yoga used to be a way of life and should become line that again he feels. It can be primary form of medicine instead of secondary like it has become now.

Image Courtesy: http://timitude.files.wordpress.com/

 

 

Research has shown that music has a deep effect on your body and mind. There is a growing field of health care known as Music Therapy, which uses music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others. Even hospitals are starting to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to encourage movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension and much more.

 

This morning’s Slice of Health show on Chennai Live was a conversation with Augustine Paul, Director of the 118 year old Madras Choir on what his thoughts were on this topic.

 

Augustine said there are 2 types of music that are part of our lives – Background and Foreground. Most of us listen to background music, on our phones, radios and laptops while doing other tasks. This is of some consequence he says, but not much. He referred to it as furniture music. The most important kind is the Foreground music. This is when you specifically take time off everything else and attend a concert or music show.

 

He feels that music always has a purpose and that it creates a sense of life. For example, a hotel lobby without the music may convey to you no activity! He says organized sound is music and that music can mend a faulty “system”. An example was that combining Mozart’s music with the sounds of the sea waves has an immense calming and de-stressing effect.

 

Music is 4 components: Vertical (Harmony), Horizontal (Melody), Cyclic (Rhythm) and Aesthetic. It is the Horizontal and cyclic that catch people’s attention.

 

Augustine is a huge fan of Mozart’s music.  He feels that anybody who is exposed to Mozart’s tunes will go away with the tune in their heads. The simplicity of his melodies connect immediately to the lay person he feels.

 

From his experience working with children and individuals of different ages, Augustine said he has seen so many cases of people who are considered to be abnormal or slow in everyday life being supremely intelligent and capable in the world of music.

 

He has also come across instances where music has physically helped people. Physiotherapists are using musical instruments to help their patients overcome physical ailment.  A person with an elbow injury was given a base drum to play along with some music. He was so intent on getting his beats right that subconsciously he was strengthening his elbow without realising it. Similarly a patient with arthritis was given a keyboard to play music on.

 

Augustine shared a fun trivia related to music. He said music has a positive influence not only on humans but on animals too! Dairy farmers in Germany and Denmark have found that playing classical music to their cows results in better milk production by the animal!

 

A couple of callers shared how much of a difference music has played in their lives, in helping them be calm and happy. One caller also suggested that apart from music, the other art forms such as dance, painting etc. also help in holistic healing.

 

But that is a topic for another discussion. Till then, Share the music and share the happiness and joy that comes with it.

 

Tune in 9-10am next Thursday, 25th October, for another interesting show!

 

Photo courtesy: http://oliviaworks.co.uk

 

Take the first step. Start with walking! Why? It’s easy, it works and it pays!

We’ve got the tools and resources to get you on the right path to a healthier lifestyle.

It’s Easy

• Walking is the simplest way to start and continue a fitness journey.
• Walking costs nothing to get started.
• Walking has the lowest dropout rate of any type of exercise.
• Walking is easy and safe.

It Works

• Studies show that for every hour of walking, life expectancy may increase by two hours.
• Walking for as few as 30 minutes a day provides heart health benefits.
• Walking is the single most effective form of exercise to achieve heart health.

It Pays

• Physically active people save $500 a year in healthcare costs.
• Employers can save $16 for every $1 they spend on health and wellness.
• Fitness programs have reduced employer healthcare costs by 20 – 55%.
• Reducing just one health risk in the workplace increases productivity by 9%.
• Reducing one health risk decreases absenteeism by 2%.

And walking isn’t your only option. Try these tips for increasing physical activity wherever you are. You may be surprised at all your opportunities to increase your physical activity every day. Consider carrying this list with you for one day. Check off the ways you notice that you could increase your physical activity.

Tips for Increasing Physical Activity

Article Courtesy: http://www.loveyourgut.com/