PharmaPassport Health Tips Blog

July 5, 2010

6 Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy

Filed under: healthy living,heart condition,heart disease,high blood pressure — Tags: beta-carotene, cholesterol, dieting, exercise, healthy living, heart disease, high blood pressure, quitting smoking, stroke — Amanda @ 9:06 pm

Heart disease is preventable, and maintaining a healthy heart will increase your quality of life. There are many everyday things you can do to ensure your heart is working at its best.

1. Don’t Smoke! Smoking is the worst thing you can do for your lungs and heart. If you are having trouble quitting, try eating sunflower seeds and oat straw infusion for a month before you quit. This will reduce your body’s craving for nicotine and strengthen the blood vessels and nerves before the impact of withdrawal.

2. Get More Beta-Carotenes - These reduce your risk of a stroke by 40%. Foods containing beta-carotene are carrots, cabbage, sweet potatoes, spinach, and apricots. Beta-carotene’s lower your cholesterol levels.

3. Embrace Garlic Breath – Garlic has the amazing ability to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, strengthen the heart muscle, improve the immune system, stabilize blood sugar, and lower risk of stroke.

4. Exercise! The best thing you can do for yourself is to be active daily. Skipping rope is the best for your heart, but even walking and swimming and great exercises for your heart – as long as you are exercising on a regular basis.

5. Show affection - Recent studies have found that people who are lovingly touched everyday have a lower risk of developing heart problems than people who are not touched by others.

6. Be consistent - try not to be inconsistent in your eating habits. On and off dieting, fasting, and binging cause an imbalance in your electrolyte levels which will weaken your heart muscle and eventually lead to heart damage.

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May 25, 2010

Music and its Effect on Your Running

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: activity, Fitness, healthy living, music, physical exercise — John @ 10:41 pm

I love music. I love listening to music, playing music, writing music, and even critiquing music. Music to me is one of the greatest forms of expression a person can create. In all great musical compositions from songs by Mozart to Led Zeppelin, there is that fusion of expression through creativity and musical talent. Music plays a significant role in my life as well as the lives of countless others, but now there is even better news. Music can help you exercise.

Many of us exercise with our favorite songs playing through a CD player or MP3 player. Most of us do this because one, we like listening to music and two, we feel more energized when listening to the right kind of music. While there have been many who praise music as a training aid, there hasn’t always been a lot of well-known support backing it up.

So I decided to do some digging and came across a study published in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology by Dr Costas Karageorghis. The study was aimed to observe music’s effect on physical work output and how music may change the way we interpret different signals, such as fatigue.

Ultimately, the study found that music, especially motivational music, can play a significant role in physical endurance. The results showed that motivational music can increase physical endurance 15% over the control, no-music group. Furthermore, music can also aid in boosting your mood while participating in physical activity. This change in mood can help a person feel more positive when working at a higher intensity level which may translate into a longer period before physical exhaustion.

Music has always been part of my workout routine, but it’s awesome to finally learn that there’s actually science behind it. So next time you decide to go for a run, or whatever other physical activity you decide to do, listen to some music for better performance.

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May 6, 2010

Improve Your Memory Through Dreams

Filed under: brain,health-tips,insomnia,memory loss,sleep,sleep deprivation — Tags: brain, ginkgo, healthy living, insomnia, memory, mental health, naps, sleep — Amanda @ 9:32 pm

The days of staying up all night to study for exams are over. The real key to improving the memory is through sleep and dreams. A study recently concluded that there is a definite link between sleep and an improved memory.

A recent study of 99 participants found a link between sleep, dreams, and memory. The experiment had the participants navigate through a virtual maze on a computer screen. Half of them were allowed to take a 90 minute nap, while the other half stayed awake. Later on the participants were re-tested on the virtual maze. Those who napped performed better than those who stayed awake, and what is more is that those who reported dreaming about the maze during their nap performed 10 times better than the nappers who didn’t dream. Another study found that people who dream about doing specific tasks actually improve their ability to perform that task in the waking world.

Scientists don’t know exactly how dreams boost learning and memory capacity because dreaming is such a complex process, but it doesn’t need to take as long as 90 minutes for your memory to improve. In fact, a short nap as little as a 12 minutes can make your memory flourish. Many North American’s are suffering from insomnia and aren’t getting the daily sleep they need. Some find themselves sleeping in on weekends to make up for it instead of sleeping 7 – 8 hours a night on a regular basis. Sleep is an important part of your physical and mental health and shouldn’t be neglected.

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