Tag Archives: stress

Health & Fitness

When we think of exercise, it involves activity. Whether it may be physical or mental activity depends on what we want to achieve with it.
You can train your brain with mental activity by solving a cross-word puzzle or trying to solve a mathematics problem. However, the type of exercise I like to discuss will be physical activity.

Physical activity is one of the four aspects of lifestyle, which have a major influence on our health and well being. The other three are: nutrition, stress, and synthetic chemicals. Nevertheless, half the Australian population doesn’t have adequate exercise and one in eight adult is totally sedentary.

Being fit does wonders for the working of our bodies and minds, for our attitudes and moods and for the prevention of degenerative diseases and early aging. The evidence for benefits in relation to heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are overwhelming. More recent evidence confirms that there are benefits also for the prevention of adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, anxiety and depression.

In contrast to these benefits, sedentary living may be responsible for as much as one-third of the fatal cases of heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes.

When we analyze the large number of benefits which are responsible for being fit, it’s easy to get motivated to get started with activity, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.

We have to keep in mind that it is important for any physical activity that it
should be enjoyable, otherwise there is a big change that we discontinue sooner or later. It is important to think of fitness as part of normal health and part of our normal life, not just an eccentric hobby. It may surprise you that only a small amount of regular physical activity can make the difference between a body which is sluggish, lethargic, lacks tone and is overweight and one which is energetic, fit, trim and good looking.

Walking is the best exercise you can have, because it’s natural. Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond. You breath properly, your circulation and heart benefits, and it’s good for the mind and positive thinking.
It’s only in recent years that fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking. In contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems. Walking is almost as important as the right food. You need to eat properly and exercise properly, the two together gives you the best results.

The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity. As we breathe deeply, the diaphragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs and liver. The stretching and relaxing of the intestines is vital in preventing that wide spread form of ‘self poisoning’ : constipation. Exercise does keep you regular!

Physical activity has many health benefits. I’m not going into details about
the health benefits of exercise, you can read all about it in my article: “Fitness”.

Sufferers from rheumatism and arthritis, also those who are overweight,
are prone to take too little exercise. When people are troubled with
rheumatic twinges it is usually a sign that more exercise is needed and
that their diet contains too many acid-forming foods.

Forms of exercise

Forms of exercise is a matter of personal preference.
While exercise programs often vary from person to person based on fitness levels and goals, each one should include aerobic exercise, resistance – and flexibility training.
Those components will help you improve your fitness level and help you overcome obstacles that challenge your agility, balance, coordination, endurance and strength
in everyday life.

Skipping is an effective form of exercise, and one of the best exercises
for keeping fit and is very suitable for wet days, as it can be done indoors.
The skipping rope should be just long enough to clear the head, when standing erect. Five minutes skipping every day is
adequate for the first week, increasing gradually to ten, fifteen and finally twenty minutes.
During bad weather it is best to skip at an open window, or better still, under a veranda.

Generally speaking, when we grow older we should take less strenuous exercise than when we were younger. Walking and gardening are safe exercises for almost all ages. Tennis could perhaps better be left to younger people, although here and there one finds elderly people playing tennis with all the vim and gusto of youth. These people have usually ‘grown up’ with the game and accustomed themselves to what is normally a strenuous form of sport.

Swimming, like walking, is very suitable for older people, although they are advised to keep to the slower back and breast strokes, rather than the
more tiring modern strokes. Swimming has the advantage that the body’s weight is partly supported by the water, which makes it possible to exercise without straining oneself or damaging a muscle.
We do not recommend exercise as a method of reducing weight, for this is
most disappointing.
Exercise will reduce weight temporarily, but the appetite thus acquired will rapidly put weight back again.

The physical beauty of a man or a woman is due largely to the quality and
shapeliness of the muscles. Properly developed muscles which in repose do not bulge, but are smooth in contour and firm in appearance, giving a pleasing and attractive outline, which was obviously part of nature’s plan! Only fitness and good health can achieve and maintain the body beautiful!

I like to mention that I have developed an exercise program that can benefit
young and old people, busy people and retired folks.
It’s just a matter of choosing which exercise fits you best.

I have included in my program how to exercise, warming-up exercises,
aerobics, weight-bearing exercises and nutrition for athletes, which is also important.

Cycling as Medicine

Cycling is healthy, convenient, cheap and also good for the environment.
I cycle often: to the train, the shops and the library, and this way I get my recommended 30 minutes of daily exercise.

Thirty minutes exercise a day is sufficient to stay healthy. It seems little, but yet a lot of people don’t get to it. They are often tempted to take the lift instead of the stairs, the car instead of the bicycle, the TV instead of the ball.

Movement takes care that less fat accumulate in the blood and prevent that HDL Cholesterol start to dominate.
Also the supply of oxygen takes care of better combustion of fat.With bodily exertion our blood starts to run better and waste products are quicker exposed.

Moving also helps in most cases to lower blood pressure, as a result that there will be less pressure on the artery walls. In other words: moving keeps your blood clean and your heart and veins in condition.

Another mechanism that plays a roll in the development of cardiovascular disease is stress.
The body produce hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones take care of uppermost readiness.That is okay for a short period of time, but ongoing stress cause problems.

Chronic stress lead to the same kind of inflammation in the arteries as too much fat.
Activity takes care that we relax physically and spiritually.
The less stress, the better for your heart and veins.

If you think that it is useless to start moving when the process already fully started,
or if the blocking of arteries already caused a heart attack, got it wrong.
Cycling helps instantly, but if the artery walls are already attacked, half an hour cycling a day is not enough. It is better to cycle five to six hours a week vigorously, spread over the week.

People often say that they don’t have time to sport one hour a day.But what is one hour? If you build-in cycling in your daily schedule, is it a no brainer.

Make a record of all your activities during the week. Do you have to go by car to work,to the shop, or the cinema or can you take the bike as well? Could you bring the children to school on the bike? Could you take the stairs instead of the lift? People often think that cycling cost time, but is that really so? When you cycle, you get fitter physically and mentally.

When you are fitter, you can do more in your day and you can do more things.
Just start and see where your ship strand. There are plenty of changes to unhook.
To persevere is a much greater adventure!

Through the years we have arranged our environment very unhealthy. How can we bend the trend and tempt people to start moving?

I recommend cycling whole-hearted as a dope for life: to promote performance, a habit-forming drug, delicious! And you can get it everywhere without a recipe.
Free of charge!

Toxaemia – hidden Havoc

Why is every second person in Australia suffering from a chronic or recurring illness? Orthodox medicine tend to look for a germ as the cause of a particular disease (though not always for chronic or degenerative diseases), and where no germ can be found,the cause may be given as unknown.

Natural Health sees a completely different picture. It recognize that almost all illnesses today are diseases of civilisation – which means diseases of lifestyle – the underlying causes of our vast range of health problems, plus premature aging, become perfectly clear.

The basic causes of all illnesses are to be found in everyday living: modern diet, stress,
lack of exercise, pollution in air and water and man-made chemicals are the five key areas.

There is an almost inevitable progression from modern lifestyle to deterioration within the body….to disease. Understanding this enables us to gain control of our physical and mental well being.

For many people, at the top of the list of these lifestyle aspects is the typical modern way
of eating, which is too concentrated, supplying an excess of fat, protein and refined carbohydrates, deficient in fiber, vitamins and minerals. And contains food additives,pesticides and stimulants such as coffee, tea, salt, pepper and alcohol.
(Alcohol depresses the mind but stimulates elimination.)

The inevitable result of this kind of eating is that toxic waste-products of metabolism are formed more rapidly than they can be eliminated by the liver and kidneys and so build up in the body. This condition is referred to in Natural Health as ‘toxaemia’ or ‘acidoses’ – because the wastes tend to be acidic in nature and so tissue fluids become more acidic than they should be.( In conventional medicine the word ‘toxaemia’ is used to relate to specific conditions.

Synthetic chemicals, including air and water pollutants, pesticides, food additives and drugs, are often toxic and contribute to toxaemia.

Lack of exercise means that circulation is sluggish and is not given the regular boost that is needed to flush waste products out of the tissues and to the eliminative organs for detoxification and removal from the body. Poor tone of muscles and organs results from lack of exercise as surely as night follows day.

Stress and inadequate sleep devour vital nerve energy and leave insufficient available for normal activities that include digestion, assimilation of nutrients and elimination of wastes. As a result, waste products build up even more quickly and the toxaemia increases further.

The effects of negative attitudes such as anger, resentment, bitterness, intolerance and greed may be likened to putting grit in the bearings of an engine – our system wears out sooner. In contrast, positive attitudes such as love, kindness, tolerance and generosity oil the bearings for smooth running. Negative attitudes indirectly contribute to toxaemia.

In coping with the demands of everyday living – plus the toxins – overworked organs and tissues become exhausted or, more correctly enervated ( depleted in nerve energy ) Enervation diminishes elimination, which further increases the toxaemia, so a vicious circle is created. The combination of toxaemia and enervation is the basic cause underlying most diseases. There are no doubt other specific causes, but the toxaemia that is just about dominant in Western society is almost always a prerequisite.

Cycling as medicine

Cycling is healthy, convenient, cheap and also good for the environment.
I cycle often: to the train, the shops and the library, and this way I get my recommended
30 minutes of daily exercise.

Thirty minutes exercise a day is sufficient to stay healthy. It seems little, but yet a lot of
people don’t get to it. They are often tempted to take the lift instead of the stairs,
the car instead of the bicycle, the TV instead of the ball.

Movement takes care that less fat accumulate in the blood and prevent that HDL start to dominate.
Also the supply of oxygen takes care of better combustion of fat.With bodily exertion our blood starts to run better and waste products are quicker exposed.

Moving also helps in most cases to lower blood pressure, as a result that there will be less
pressure on the artery walls. In other words: moving keeps your blood clean and your heart and veins in condition.

Another mechanism that plays a roll in the development of cardiovascular disease is stress.
The body produce hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones take care of uppermost readiness.That is okay for a short period of time, but ongoing stress cause problems.

Chronic stress lead to the same kind of inflammation in the arteries as too much fat.
Activity takes care that we relax physically and spiritually.
The less stress, the better for your heart and veins.

If you think that it is useless to start moving when the process already fully started,
or if the blocking of arteries allready caused a heart attack, got it wrong.
Cycling helps instantly, but if the artery walls are already attacked, half an hour cycling
a day is not enough. It is better to cycle five to six hours a week vigorously, spread over
the week.

People often say that they don’t have time to sport one hour a day.But what is one hour?
If you build-in cycling in your daily schedule, is it a no brainer.

Make a record of all your activities during the week. Do you have to go by car to work,to the shop, or the cinema or can you take the bike as well? Could you bring the children to school on the bike? Could you take the stairs instead of the lift? People often think that cycling cost time, but is that really so? When you cycle, you get fitter physically and mentally.
When you are fitter, you can  do more in your day and you can do more things.
Just start and see where your ship strand. There are plenty of changes to unhook.
To persevere is a much greater advanture!

Through the years we have arranged our environment very unhealthy. How can we bend the trend and tempt people to start moving?

I recommend cycling whole-hearted as a dope for life: to promote performance, a habit-forming drug delicious! And you can get it everywhere without a recipe. Free of charge!