Wellness Factor: November 2013

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Did you know?

Finding peace and stillness within yourself is CRUCIAL to your body’s health. 90% of all diseases and illnesses are either caused or aggravated by stress, and meditation is a great way to restore balance in your body. A shift in consciousness causes a shift in biology, and when you are peaceful and calm during meditation, you release chemicals such as seratonin, oxytocin, and dopamine which help stabilize the immune system. Did you know that meditation is scientifically proven to:

- Overcome stress (University of Massachusetts Medical School, 2003)

- Boost your creativity (ScienceDaily, 2010)

- Improve your sex life and increase your libido (The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2009)

- Cultivate healthy habits that lead to weight loss (Journal Emotion, 2007)

- Improve digestion and lower blood pressure (Harvard Medical School)

- Decrease your risk of heart attack (The Stroke Journal, 2009)

- Help overcome anxiety, depression, anger and confusion (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2009)

- Decrease perception of pain and improve cognitive processing (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, 2010)

- Increase your focus and attention (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007)

- Increase the size of your most important organ – your brain! (Harvard University Gazette, 2006)

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Treadmill vs. Running outdoors

The first difference between running on a treadmill and running outdoors is wind resistance. When you run on a treadmill you are running in place. You are not moving through the wind as you would outside, which gives your body resistance. Studies have estimated that the air resistance can increase your workload by up to 10% depending on your running speed. As a result, you should run with a starting incline of 1 on a treadmill to compensate for the wind resistance that you may find outdoors.

Another difference between treadmills and outdoor running is the running surface and your running form. When running outdoors you are constantly changing terrain as compared to a treadmill when you may only run at one level. A negative result of running on a treadmill is the lack of proprioceptive training, which is feeling and knowing the position of your entire body when in running stride. It is harder to do this on treadmills because the moving belt is a constant motion that isn’t rough and uneven like the outdoors. The moving belt is essentially doing the running for you and forces your body to run. To overcome this on a treadmill, try to keep a balanced and well-adjusted running stride.

Running outdoors is certainly your best bet although a treadmill can be an effective alternative.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Paleo Diet

I was talking with a friend this morning and he told me many of his friends are now on Paleo diet and they’re happy with that. I’m not a fan of Paleo diet, and we both agreed that nothing in extreme lasts for a long time.

According to its advocates, the “Paleolithic Diet” or “Paleo Diet” is ancient answers to modern problems. It’s taken about 10,000 years but the Paleo diet is making a comeback. Due to misinformation and confusion surrounding the Paleo diet, we’re sharing this infographic that covers the origins and advantages of the Paleo diet as well as dispells myths about the Paleo diet. Please note that we’re not advocating any diets and in future, we plan to comprehensively compare the positive and negative sides of each diet.