Posted 01/09/2008 Readers of this newsletter regularly hear about the dangers of stress to their health. We experience the emotional and physical reaction known as stress whenever we’re in a situation where we can’t control the course of our lives. The minor stresses (late for an appointment, a botched recipe) are unavoidable, part of life […]
Category: Healthy Lifestyle
Achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can include visits with a lifestyle medicine provider, nutrition counseling, meal planning, stress management and exercise and sleep plans.
R&R for 2008
This new year’s eve, consider a resolution that will make your cheeks glow and your heart happy.
Consider scheduling a long weekend, or even a week, at a health spa.
Many of my patients who have followed through on this (my favorite) prescription consider their health-spa visits life-altering. The healthy food, massage, long walks, and yoga sessions, lack of TVs, and turned-off cellphones helped them see how eliminating stress could lead to a whole new approach to good health.
2008: Time for Mini-Resolutions
As we approach the new year, here are ten small resolutions that will boost your health and are likely to prolong your life:
Q&A: Increasing Your Energy
Q: I’m wondering if you could summarize all the ways I might go about increasing my energy level. I’ve had a lot of fatigue recently. Would you list supplements that could help, along with food and anything else? Thank you so much.
Cure PMS The Natural Way…Without Seeing a Doctor
I can’t imagine what PMS actually feels like, but having heard the litany of miserable symptoms from thousands of my patients, it sounds pretty dismal. But just because I happen to be a male physician doesn’t mean I can’t offer help.
Gratitude
In the spirit of the holiday, consider starting a gratitude journal. Use a pretty notebook or a plain one–it doesn’t matter.
Title the first page something meaningful, such as “Good Things That Happened Today” or “What I’m Thankful For Today.”
The Fine Art of Asking for Help
Your dinner guests are arriving in an hour and things are nowhere near ready. The table hasn’t been set, the guacamole not started, the wine unopened. And the dog hair on the couch?
But instead of signaling for back-up help from your family, you do it all yourself. Within moments, you feel your face muscles tense into that mean little frown you’ve seen in the mirror. And you’re completely frazzled by the time the doorbell rings.
Wintertime Blues: 10 Steps to Turn Them Around
The wintertime blues, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), usually begin when the days get shorter and the sky clouds over into perpetual gray. Many people with SAD dread late autumn because the clocks move back an hour and, in a single day, autumn twilight becomes dark night.
Still Smoke?
A pharmaceutical rep came into the office the other day with a product for my patients with chronic bronchitis and emphysema caused by cigarettes. I told her that I had only one smoker in my entire practice.
Prescribing Happiness
Many good studies have proved that an optimistic outlook has significant long-term health benefits. According to an article in Family Medicine, a journal for primary care doctors, some holistically oriented family physicians are recommending daily exercises in optimism to reduce the risk of developing all sorts of illnesses, both physical and emotional.
A Useful Book I Hope You Never Need
I just finished reading AfterShock: What to do When Your Doctor Gives You–or Someone You Love–A Devastating Diagnosis and am so glad someone has written this much-needed book.
Tips for Better Sleep
Studies have shown that people who sleep efficiently not only feel better than everyone else but actually live longer. If you struggle with sleep, start today taking some of these suggestions seriously. In just a few days, you’ll be amazed at the surge in your energy, mood, performance, and mental clarity.
Better Sleep
When the clock strikes midnight, are you usually burrowed into a blanket, deep in a dream, or are you tossing and turning, unable to put aside the stresses of the day and just go to sleep?
More Better Memory Tricks
Today I’m bringing you a handful more of my favorite tricks for improving your memory (you do remember we’ve been talking about memory improvement, don’t you?)…
Better Memory Tricks, Part 1
Do you have trouble remembering the names of people you’ve just been introduced to? Do you stand in the center of a room you’ve just entered, muttering aloud, “Why did I come in here?” When you ask your family why they look bored, do they respond “Because you’ve told this story before”?
Q&A: Low Blood Sugar
Q: You mentioned in one of your tips that low blood sugar was a controversial diagnosis. Would you explain why?
A: To my thinking, the controversy over low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) got started when the book Sugar Blues came out 30 years ago and doctors couldn’t cope with patients asking questions about a condition they knew little about.
Benefits of a Whole Food Diet
In my last health tip we discussed the damaging effects of all the sugar we’re eating. I urged you to boost your intake of whole foods–real fruits and vegetables that are so readily available now in the farmers markets of our northern hemisphere.
Sugar
Okay, I am going to start in on sugar. And by sugar, I mean not only granulated cane sugar but also high fructose corn syrup, which seems to be added to just about everything except anchovies these days.
Keeping Your Smarts, Part 2
So it’s been a few days since you read part one of this topic. Tucked in your bag next to your New York Times is the adult education course schedule at your local community college. You’ve finally decided, once and for all, that you’ll learn French.
Keeping Your Smarts as You Age
Click here for the original post. Nobody likes to spend too much time thinking about what doctors call age-related decline in brain function. You can get really worried about the future of your brain until you meet someone like Chicago icon Studs Terkel. Studs is now 95, and although he readily acknowledges he’s as deaf […]