Exercise

Posted on Exercise, Mindfulness

Revitalize Yourself with Innovative Strategies for Beauty and Well-Being

Healthcare In a world where first impressions matter and personal well-being is the cornerstone of a fulfilling life, finding unique ways to elevate your appearance and mental health can be transformative. It’s more than just following trends; it’s about embracing a holistic approach that includes physical vitality and inner peace. This article will take you on an inspiring journey through innovative strategies that not only rejuvenate your body but also nurture your spirit.

Boost Your Vitality with Fitness and Nutrition

To truly enhance your energy levels and overall well-being, integrating a well-rounded fitness regimen with a nutritious diet is key. Incorporating high-intensity functional training with strategic nutritional choices can boost your metabolism and improve your cardiometabolic health. Understanding the importance of meal timing and food quality can also aid in better recovery and sustained energy levels throughout the day.

Find Peace through Mindfulness Meditation

Incorporating mindfulness meditation into your daily routine can significantly help manage stress and anxiety, common hurdles in achieving both physical and mental well-being. Even a short duration of mindfulness practice can alleviate anxiety symptoms and improve your overall sense of well-being. For those new to mindfulness, numerous resources and guided practices are available to help you experience its calming effects firsthand. By making meditation a habit, you’re taking a proactive step toward a healthier and more peaceful life.

Refresh Your Body with Hydrating Foods

Incorporating hydrating foods like fruits and vegetables into your diet is a versatile strategy for enhancing both your appearance and overall health. Foods like watermelon and cucumbers, with their high water content, offer a delicious way to boost hydration without relying solely on beverages. Not only do these foods help maintain fluid balance, but they also provide vital nutrients and fiber, supporting your body’s functionality and well-being. By consciously choosing water-rich foods, you can effectively promote a well-hydrated body, ensuring you look and feel your best.

Keep Health Records Organized

Keeping your medical documents organized is essential for quick access and efficient management of your health information. Start by dividing your paperwork into categories like medical history, bills, and insurance forms. Digitizing your records not only streamlines your storage but also protects them from physical damage. Saving documents as PDFs preserves the formatting, ensures compatibility across devices, and provides a secure, easily shareable file that cannot be easily altered. You can utilize an online PDF creator to create PDF files.

Try Sustainable Fashions

Embracing sustainable fashion not only elevates your style but also contributes positively to your overall well-being. By choosing garments crafted from innovative and eco-friendly materials, you support practices that reduce environmental impact. These materials, often free from harmful chemicals, ensure comfort and ease, which can significantly influence your mental state, helping you feel more at ease and confident throughout your day.

Boost Career Prospects Through Higher Education

Earning a degree can significantly boost your career prospects by equipping you with specialized knowledge, critical thinking skills, and qualifications that make you more competitive in the job market. A degree can also open doors to higher-paying roles and leadership positions while expanding your professional network. The flexibility of earning an online degree allows you to continue working while advancing your education. For example, earning a master’s in data science can help you develop skills in data science, theory, and application, enhancing your value in various industries.

Develop a Skincare Routine

Establishing a skincare routine that aligns with your specific skin type is crucial for achieving the healthy complexion you desire. By integrating practices such as daily cleansing, moisturizing, and applying sunscreen, you allow your products to work more effectively over time. This not only addresses common issues like acne or premature aging but also fosters a habit of self-care that enhances your overall well-being. Incorporating natural ingredients and maintaining a consistent routine can transform your skin’s health, leading to radiant, glowing skin that reflects your commitment to personal wellness.

Focus on Core-Strengthening Exercises

Focusing on exercises such as planks and various yoga poses can significantly enhance your core strength, which is crucial for maintaining proper posture. A reliable core acts as a foundation for your body, helping to relieve tension in your neck and shoulders by ensuring your spine remains in alignment. This alignment not only helps reduce back pain but also increases your awareness of how you position your body.

Ultimately, the art of enhancing your look and well-being is about crafting a lifestyle that celebrates individuality and nourishes both body and soul. By weaving together these diverse yet interconnected strategies, you empower yourself to create a life rich in vitality, confidence, and balance. Each step, from the mindful selection of fashion to the purposeful pursuit of personal goals, writes a unique chapter in your journey toward self-renewal. Embrace these insights as your compass, guiding you to a future where you shine with authenticity and thrive in all aspects of life.

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Posted on Cognitive dysfunction, Exercise

‘Brain endurance training’ promotes healthy aging

Exercise for older women

Brain endurance training (BET), a combined cognitive and exercise training method developed for athletes, boosts mental and physical abilities in older adults. 

According to a new study by researchers at the Universities of Birmingham, UK, and Extremadura, Spain, brain endurance training (BET) can improve attention, executive function (cognition), physical endurance, and resistance exercise performance. BET is a combined exercise and cognitive training method that was initially developed to increase endurance among elite athletes. 

The research has significant implications for healthy aging. Previous studies have shown that mental fatigue can impair both cognitive and physical performance, leading to issues such as poorer balance control, and increased risk of falls and accidents. This study, published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, is the first to examine the benefits of BET for both cognitive and physical performance in older adults.

Corresponding author Professor Chris Ring said: “We have shown that BET could be an effective intervention to improve cognitive and physical performance in older adults, even when tired. This could have significant implications for improving this population’s health, including reducing the risk of falls and accidents.” 

In the experiment, 24 healthy sedentary women aged between 65-78 were allocated to one of three training groups: brain endurance training (BET), exercise training, and no training (control group). The first two groups each completed three 45-minute exercise sessions per week over eight weeks. Each session included 20 minutes of resistance and 25 minutes of endurance training. While the exercise sessions were the same for each of these groups, the BET group also completed a 20-minute cognitive task before exercising. 

All three groups completed a series of cognitive (reaction time and colour-matching tests) and physical tests (walk, chair-stand and arm-curl tests) to assess performance at the start and end of the study. Participants in the BET group outperformed the exercise-only group in the cognitive tasks, with a 7.8% increase in cognitive performance after exercise, compared to a 4.5% increase in the exercise-only group. Regarding physical performance, the BET group achieved a 29.9% improvement, compared to 22.4% for the exercise-only group. 

“BET is an effective countermeasure against mental fatigue and its detrimental effects on performance in older adults,” added Professor Ring. “While we still need to extend our research to include larger sample sizes including both men and women, these promising initial findings show we should do more to encourage older people to engage in BET to improve brain and body activities.”  

Posted on Exercise

‘Weekend warrior’ physical activity may help protect against more than 200 diseases

Researchers from Mass General have found that engaging in recommended weekly amounts of physical activity—either concentrated in one to two days or spread throughout the week—may reduce the risk of a broad range of conditions
Researchers from Mass General have found that engaging in recommended weekly amounts of physical activity—either concentrated in one to two days or spread throughout the week—may reduce the risk of a broad range of conditions

Due to their busy schedules, some people concentrate their moderate-to-vigorous exercise on one or two days of the week or on the weekend. A study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, has found that this “weekend warrior” pattern of exercise is associated with a lower risk of developing future diseases (264 in total) and is just as effective at decreasing risk as more evenly distributed exercise activity. The results have been published in Circulation.

“Physical activity has been found to impact the risk of many diseases,” stated co-senior author Shaan Khurshid, MD, MPH, a faculty member in the Demoulas Center for Cardiac Arrhythmias at Massachusetts General Hospital. “In this study, we demonstrate the potential benefits of weekend warrior activity not only for reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, as we have previously shown, but also for reducing the risk of a wide range of future diseases, including conditions such as chronic kidney disease, mood disorders, and others.”

Are there additional benefits for individuals who exercise for 20-30 minutes most days of the week compared to those who have longer exercise sessions 5 or 6 days apart, even if both groups meet the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity per week?

Khurshid, along with co-senior author Patrick Ellinor, MD, PhD, the acting chief of Cardiology and the co-director of the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, and their colleagues analyzed data from 89,573 individuals in the UK Biobank study. The participants wore wrist accelerometers that recorded their total physical activity and time spent at different exercise intensities over one week. The researchers categorized the participants’ physical activity patterns as weekend warrior, regular, or inactive based on the guideline of 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

The team then sought associations between patterns of physical activity and the incidence of 678 conditions across 16 types of diseases, including mental health, digestive, neurological, and other categories.

The investigators found that both weekend warrior and regular physical activity were linked to significantly lower risks of over 200 diseases compared to being inactive. The strongest associations were found for conditions like hypertension (23% and 28% lower risks over a median of 6 years with weekend warrior and regular exercise, respectively) and diabetes (43% and 46% lower risks, respectively). However, the associations also extended to all disease categories that were tested.

“Our findings were consistent across many different definitions of weekend warrior activity, as well as other thresholds used to categorize people as active,” said Khurshid.

Posted on Diabetes, Exercise

Fear of hypoglycaemia remains a major barrier to exercise among diabetics

What is moderate and vigorous exercise?
Despite the high use of continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pump therapy, fear of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) remains a significant barrier to physical activity and exercise for adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D).


However, the findings suggest that if exercise and diabetes management are discussed in the clinic, this fear could be reduced. “Regular exercise can help individuals with diabetes to achieve their blood glucose goals, improve their body composition and fitness, as well as reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes which is higher in people with type 1 diabetes,” explained lead author Dr Catriona Farrell from the University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. “Yet many people living with type 1 diabetes do not maintain a healthy body weight or manage to do the recommended amount of physical activity each week.” A number of previous studies have examined barriers to exercise in T1D, but these have been limited by their small sample size.


To fill this important evidence gap, researchers from the University of Dundee assessed knowledge and barriers to physical activity in adults with T1D and associated predictive factors.
Adults with T1D were recruited from the NHS Research Scotland Diabetes Network (research register) and internationally via social media. Overall, 463 adults, 221 men and 242 women, with T1D answered an anonymous web-based questionnaire to assess barriers to physical activity (measured on the modified Barriers to Physical Activity in Type 1 Diabetes [BAPAD-1] scale), diabetes management, and attitudes to exercise and sport. Participants were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale (1, extremely unlikely to 7, extremely likely) the chance that each of 13 factors would keep them from doing regular physical activity in the next 6 months. Factors included: loss of control over diabetes, the risk of hypoglycaemia, the fear of being tired, the fear of getting hurt, a low fitness level, and lack of social support.

Researchers calculated average scores for each factor and assessed which were most correlated with perceived barriers to physical activity, as well as identifying independent predictors.
The participant reported median age of respondents was 45-54 years, median disease duration 21-25 years, and median HbA1c 50-55 mmol/mol (an ideal level is 48 50-55 mmol/mol or below).
Over three-quarters (79%) of respondents reported using continuous or flash glucose monitoring, around two-thirds (64%) said they were treated with multiple daily insulin injections, and over a third (36%) reported used insulin pump therapy. The researchers identified that despite advances in technologies and diabetes management, risk of hypoglycaemia with exercise remains a significant barrier to physical activity.
 
Importantly, participants who best understood the importance of adjusting insulin dose before and after exercise as well as adjusting carbohydrate intake for exercise were found to be less fearful of hypoglycaemia associated with physical activity. This knowledge is essential in order to adapt insulin and/or carbohydrate intake to prevent hypoglycaemia induced by exercise. The researchers also found that being asked about exercise or sport within a diabetes clinic was negatively correlated with fear of hypoglycaemia, and identified exercise confidence as the strongest independent predictor of fear of physical activity.
 
“Our findings demonstrate that in order to break down the barriers to physical activity, and empower our patients to exercise safely and effectively, we need to improve the education we provide and our dialogue about exercise in clinics,” said Dr Farrell. “In turn, this should help them to achieve the multitude of health benefits that exercise offers.”
Posted on Exercise, Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis – aerobic exercise and cognitive rehabilitation

Running is better than weight training at reversing signs of ageing

Researchers at Kessler Foundation have published a new clinical protocol that examines the combination of aerobic exercise and cognitive rehabilitation to improve learning and memory in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have mobility disabilities.

“This trial represents a significant advancement in our understanding of how combined interventions can improve cognitive outcomes for individuals with MS,” stated Dr. Wender, the lead author of the study and a research scientist at the Centers for Multiple Sclerosis Research and Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research at the Foundation. “By targeting the hippocampus using both cognitive and physical stimuli, we aim to offer more effective treatment options for individuals experiencing significant cognitive challenges due to MS,” she added. “The combination of exercise and cognitive rehabilitation has the potential to create synergistic effects, especially in individuals with advanced disease progression,” she concluded.

The article outlines the protocol for a Phase I/II, parallel-group, single-blind randomized controlled trial involving 78 participants with MS and mobility disability. The trial, called COMBINE (Combination Optimizes Memory Based on Imaging and Neuropsychological Endpoints), randomly assigns participants to either an aerobic cycling exercise with VR combined with KF-mSMT or a control group receiving stretching and toning exercises combined with KF-mSMT. The main outcomes measured include various aspects of new learning and memory, such as list learning, prose memory, and visuospatial memory, as well as neuroimaging outcomes focusing on hippocampal structure and function.