Little Things That Make a Big Difference: Balance Exercise

By Cathie Dunal, MD, MPH: One of my patients, a lovely lady of about 60–let’s call her Sandra–had a bad fall a few years ago. It was an icy February, and the sudden collision with a sidewalk took a toll on her back and neck. She went to physical therapy for several months.

This past spring, when Sandra came in for her annual visit, she had a big smile. “I didn’t fall once during the winter,” she beamed, “and I think I know why.” I took the bait: “Why?”

“Because I did the balance exercise you taught me all through the winter. I’m sure that’s why I didn’t fall. I had a few close calls.” She said that she told her friends about the balance training I’d prescribed, and they were doing the exercise too.

Balance exercise? It’s actually incredibly simple to do a tiny bit each day to maintain and improve your balance, and I’d like to share it with you, too:

Stand on one foot. This can be done at any time; I prefer to do it when I’m brushing my teeth–if you brush your teeth for two full minutes, as the dentist recommends, that’s a minute balancing on each foot. Twice a day.  Or while waiting for a pot to boil, a download to finish…during commercials.

It’s that simple. Continue reading »

Face Yoga: Chin & Neck Tightening

Here’s another set of facial yoga exercises from instructor Annelise Hagen to help tighten your chin and neck.

Little Bit of Exercise, Big Benefits

ScienceDaily: A new University of Colorado Boulder study shows that a small amount of physical exercise could profoundly protect the elderly from long-term memory loss that can happen suddenly following infection, illnesses or injury in old age.

In the study, CU-Boulder Research Associate Ruth Barrientos and her colleagues showed that aging rats that ran just over half a kilometer each week were protected against infection-induced memory loss.

“Our research shows that a small amount of physical exercise by late middle-aged rats profoundly protects against exaggerated inflammation in the brain and long-lasting memory impairments that follow a serious bacterial infection,” said Barrientos of the psychology and neuroscience department.

“Strikingly, this small amount of running was sufficient to confer robust benefits for those that ran over those that did not run,” Barrientos said. “This is an important finding because those of advanced age are more vulnerable to memory impairments following immune challenges such as bacterial infections or surgery. With baby boomers currently at retirement age, the risk of diminished memory function in this population is of great concern. Thus, effective noninvasive therapies are of substantial clinical value.”

Article

Building Smarter Beings

By Riddhi Shah of the HuffingtonPost: Over the last decade, interest in the science of meditation has skyrocketed. We now know more than ever before about just how meditation affects our minds and bodies. Increased research has led to a plethora of fascinating discoveries: Take, for instance, the fact that meditation can prevent heart disease. Or that it reduces stress. Or that it can significantly lessen ADHD symptoms, and in many cases, beats medication.

Still, much is left to be discovered. We know more but we definitely don’t know everything. While we wait for science to catch up with ancient wisdom, check out this slideshow on the complex effects of the simple act of focused breathing [here are its salient points]:

• [S]ustained meditation leads to something called neuroplasticity, which is defined as the brain’s ability to change, structurally and functionally, on the basis of environmental input. For much of the last century, scientists believed that the brain essentially stopped changing after adulthood. But research by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson has shown that experienced meditators exhibit high levels of gamma ray activity and display an ability — continuing after the meditation session has attended — to not get stuck on a particular stimulus. That is, they’re automatically able to control their thoughts and reactiveness.

• Continue reading »

All About Cramps

By Anahad O’Connor for NYTimes: For many avid runners, side stitches can be a maddening problem: the cramplike spasms set in suddenly and can ruin a good workout. While no one knows their precise cause, many experts believe a side stitch occurs when the diaphragm — which is vital to breathing — is overworked during a vigorous run and begins to spasm. Runners who develop stitches are commonly advised to slow down and take deep, controlled breaths.

But a new theory suggests that it may not be the diaphragm that’s responsible for the pain, and that poor posture could be a culprit. In one recent study, researchers used a device to measure muscle activity as people were experiencing side stitches. They found no evidence of increased activity or spasms in the diaphragm area during the onset of stitches.

Last year, the same team published a separate study in The Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. They found that those who regularly slouched or hunched their backs were more likely to experience side stitches, and the poorer their posture, the more severe their stitches in exercise. Article

More Running Tips……

Nocturnal Leg Cramps Continue reading »