Archive for November, 2009

Keep Fit and Healthy During Pregnancy

Keeping fit and healthy during pregnancy is essential for many different reasons. Besides being beneficial to the unborn baby and providing he or she with all the vitamins and nutrients they need to be born healthy, keeping healthy and fit during pregnancy helps the mom to be happier and able to withstand some of the symptoms of pregnancy better.

- Exercise can help prevent gestational diabetes, a form of diabetes that sometimes develops during pregnancy.
- Exercise can help relieve stress and build the stamina needed for labor and delivery.
- Exercise can help new mothers keep the “baby blues” at bay, cope with postpartum depression, regain their energy and lose the weight they gained during pregnancy.
- Seek fitness advice from your obstetrician.
- Incorporate a variety of different fitness activities into a weekly schedule.
- Join a pregnancy club.
- Know your limitations and know when to stop.
- Create reasons to keep the body moving.
- Keep fitness activities simple. By keeping the activities simple, it will encourage you to do them more frequently.
- Monitor your weight.
- Gaining more weight than necessary will contribute to health problems during the pregnancy as well as make it harder to keep your body active.
- Maintain a healthy and nutritious diet.
- Drink plenty of water.
- Pregnant women should never smoke, drink or do drugs during pregnancy.

NOTE : It’s best to check with your doctor before starting any exercise program. You may have a medical condition that would make exercise harmful to you or your baby. If your doctor approves, you can start exercising at a level that does not cause pain, shortness of breath or excessive tiredness. You may then slowly increase your activity.

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Negativity can lead to ill health

Negative thoughts can be detrimental to an individual’s life. It can bring about bad luck, health issues, so forth. Most of time when an individual considers that they are cursed or damned, the real cause is negativity.
Negative thoughts or pessimism can also be disastrous on a magical/spiritual level. Thoughts are stronger than most people think. This is because thoughts create energy. Intense negative thought can make negative things to occur. That is why it is very essential to be optimistic. If it seems as if something bad is going to happen, instead of dwelling on it, do something to prevent it.
The unpleasant feelings make the heart’s rhythms less coherent. Since the heart rhythms are the strongest in the body, they entrain all other physical systems. The heart also contains neurons much like those in the brain and both sends and receives messages from the brain. So, the emotional center affects thought and is affected by thoughts.
A negative body image, if severe enough, can:
* Increase your risk of depression and anxiety.
* Trigger feelings of low self-esteem.
* Make it difficult for you to concentrate.
* Lead you to engage in risky behavior.
* Lead to social isolation.
* Spawn mental health issues.
* Lead you to avoid a healthy lifestyle, including eating a healthy diet and getting enough exercise.

The best way to relieve ourselves of negativity is to take some exercise and consider a change in our lifestyle. Smoke fewer cigarettes or give up completely, cut down on the coffee and alcohol, listen to relaxing music regularly and take a thirty minute stroll in the park rather than slouching in front of the television. Relax by reading a book or do anything that takes your mind off your troubles and remember to appreciate the good things in life.

Laugh your way to good health, especially in hospitals

Once in a while, in some park or some gathering place, you will find people laughing (and if you are not part of the group, you may consider them crazy to be laughing heartily in a group); also, from time to time, you will hear people saying that laughing is good for your health. As a part of this, there was a conference of people who are stakeholders in such an effort (doctors and clowns), and who also are involved in efforts where doctors behave like clowns in hospitals so as to impart humour in hospitals, in order to improve the ability of patients to get better.
This has also been there from older times, including from ancient Greece, where people who had depression were shown comedies so as to make them feel better, and the same has been true in many cultures. Even moviedom has adopted this concept, such as the movie where Robin Williams plays the role of Patch Adams, a doctor who used laugh therapy as a part of modern medicine (link to article):

The third International Congress of Hospital Clowns, which was held Nov 7-8 in the Argentine capital, brought together artists and health professionals from around the world who combine humour with health care, the Spanish news agency EFE reported. “All over the world there are doctors who work with the art. Some put on clown noses and some don’t. But in almost all regions, in Europe, the United States and Latin America, there are hospital clowns at work,” said Argentina’s Jose Pellucchi, artistic director of Payamedicos (Doctor-Clowns).
Among other positive effects, Pellucchi said that his organization has studies showing that, after doctor-clown treatment, patients’ blood pressure drops by 13 percent. The artist, who trains clowns, said that “getting laughs, causing pleasure is very healthy”, but added that there are significant differences between ordinary clowns and hospital clowns.