Tag: healthiswealth

Correcting bad posture

First and foremost, let’s take a moment to define posture and what it means for your health

Keeping a solid alignment means that our muscles are used correctly. It decreases wear-and-tear on the joints which could result in some crappy conditions (like arthritis).

Posture impacts the bones and muscles in our upper bodies.

It minimizes the strain on ligaments holding up your spine, but it also lets muscles work efficiently and use up less energy.

A bad alignment can not only screw up your physical health but your mental health too.

We’ll be addressing it in three main areas: the neck, the shoulders, and the thoracic spine.

  1. Fix Your Office Chair
    The first step in fixing bad posture in men is addressing the workplace. Many guys work from offices with computers and chairs.
    The best way to take on this endeavor is by aligning your tools in order to engage in a way that best supports your body.
    Prioritize lumbar support for the chair, and adjust its height so you can use the keyboard with your forearms parallel to the floor.
    Keep your feet flat on the floor. If the chair is too high, see about finding a footrest. Ensure that your screen is at eye-level.
    Place the mouse as on the brink of you as possible. A mat with a wrist cushion is a great help in preventing any unnecessary bending.
    It’s a series of simple fixes that go a long way.
  2. Go Swimming

Swimming is a godsend when it comes to solid exercise because it engages your entire core, working it out evenly.Swimming stretches the muscles in your torso to better resemble ideal posture. Doing so repeatedly strengthens your torso.
It helps your shoulders too. Since you need to pull your shoulder blades back for the right motion, it encourages a great habit for off the pool as well.

  1. At The Gym? Try These Exercises

Here are two which can do just that:

The lat hang loosens tight muscles in your chest and upper back. To do this, look for your nearest assisted pull-up bar. Rest your knees on the platform and grip the bar with both hands. It looks like a pull-up starting position, only you let your torso hang. If you feel it on your chest and armpits, you’re on the right track.
Seated low rows loosen up your traps. Grip the handles on a seated rowing machine, pull the cable, and keep your shoulder blades as tight as you can!

  1. Looking Down At Your Phone
    We got science to back this one up from a 2016 study out of the Journal of Physical Therapy Science.

Their goal was to determine a relationship between posture and respiratory function. They assessed several participants and their breathing ratios while looking down at their phones.

I won’t spend too much time on specifics, but they discovered that prolonged smartphone use could negatively affect BOTH your posture and breathing.

  1. Fix Your Forward Head Posture
    Forward Head Posture (FHP) is also known by a number of creative epithets like nerd neck and scholar’s neck.

Essentially, it happens when your head leans forward and your neck ends up being crooked. It’s prevalent for those of us who spend a lot of time on the computer.

Letting it go unchecked can lead to potentially serious conditions like Osteoporosis, Cervical Spine Arthritis, and continuous shoulder blade pain.

FHP also weakens most of your neck muscles, and even strain those on your upper and mid-back.

If you lean up against a wall and your head doesn’t naturally touch it, you might have FHP.

So, what are some steps you can take to improve it?

Try massaging your SCM (Sternocleidomastoid) muscle, which are the tight bands that extend in a “V” from your collar bone. Just press two fingers to them and begin the massage.
Start some neck flexion to stretch the back of your back neck muscles. Tuck your chin in with one hand and use the other to slowly pull your head to your chest.

  1. Take Care Of Rounded Shoulders
    When it comes to correcting bad posture in men, rounded “mom” shoulders are all-too-common. It describes a resting shoulder position which is abnormally forward from the body’s true alignment.

hunched shoulder posture
Out of the types I’ve listed, this condition more immediately affects first impressions. Fortunately, you can remedy that.

The handclasp stretch is done by standing up straight, reaching for the sky, and clasping your hands together to establish the stretch. Gently push your shoulders back while keeping your neck straight.
Use the door frame to stretch your chest and shoulders. Place both hands on opposite sides of the doorway just above your head height. Gently lunge forward.
Squeeze your shoulder blades together while standing up straight, holding for ten seconds at a time.

  1. Fixing Spine Curvature – Kyphosis
    Kyphosis is a common issue that often affects adolescents and adults. It has to do with the abnormal development of spinal muscles, which bad posture can accelerate.

Preventing Kyphosis is a matter of a few simple exercises.

Knee rolls are done by laying on the floor with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Move your knees slowly to one side until you feel it in your back.
With the same starting position, arch your back while keeping the upper back and butt on the floor.
Finally, bring your knees to your chest. Repeat this five times with both legs.

  1. Fix Your Diet

It seems obvious when you think about it: Excess body fat adds to the weight your bones need to bear. This can, in turn, cause a lot of lower back pain.
You should also prioritize foods which strengthen your bones – your posture will be improved in turn. Vitamin D and calcium are great to start with.

Too much alcohol and caffeine intake are actually detrimental to bone health.

Yoga for seniors

When you come to old age, all the fancy aspirations are over, and you experience yourself as childlike again. But at a biological level, aging also results in the accumulation of cellular damage over time which leads to a progressive decrease in physical and mental capacity of the body. Familiar conditions in older age include back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, depression, heart disease, etc. so, if you are a senior and looking for some therapeutic practices to avoid these conditions, then you are at the right place! Yoga carries some low impact incredible poses that you can practice even in your nineties. In this article, I’m discussing yoga poses categorizing them on the basis of


•Standing yoga poses
•Laying yoga postures
•Sitting yoga postures


You can choose from the poses in terms of your present level of flexibility and medical conditions associated with your body. It is highly recommended to practice any yoga pose under the supervision of a verified yoga teacher. They can help you with the modification in the poses and customized it for your body.

Great years for fitness


Fitness is not only about looking good. If you wake up happy that’s enough to determine your health in many ways. Yoga cultivates a mind-body-emotion link, combines stretching with a deep breath, and develops relaxation. Practicing yoga in old age makes you touch some spiritual aspects along with its physical benefits. Yoga is one of the safest forms of exercise available for seniors with immense benefits.

Benefits of yoga for seniors


Although yoga has tremendous health benefits on the mind and body irrespective of the age of the practitioner, for seniors, the values of the benefits are more. Here I’m listing some benefits of yoga that seniors or old age people will easily relate to

Fitness and ability levels


Practicing yoga enhances one’s fitness level that results in an improved ability to do day to day work. There are numerous yoga postures available to strengthen the core and develop a strong foundation of the body. Yoga reduces the risk of falls in the case of seniors as it provides stability in the system.

Maintains equilibrium


Elderly people are often noticed with some unconscious movement of the body part, especially hand, yoga can help in improving this state of the body. Practicing yoga regularly creates equilibrium in the body and generates a certain level of awareness of the movements.

Improves flexibility


Yoga movements are so fantastic to generate an extra stretch in the body without causing any damage to the body. Flexibility in the muscles encourages the tissues to loosen and relax, which eventually helps to amplify their range of motion.

Encourage deep breathing


As yoga involves the coordination of breath and movements in the body, it results in expanding lung capacity to hold breaths for an extended period. Holding the breath for a longer period enhances the overall pulmonary health and respiratory function of the practitioner.

Bone strength


In elderly age, most people tend to have problems with brittle bones. Consistent practice of yoga can improve the weight-bearing power of the bones and reduces the risk of osteoporosis. Some promising researches claim to improve bone density in the body by Yoga practices.

Alleviate anxiety and stress


Anxiety at an elderly age is not new to this generation. Yoga encourages mindfulness and calmness in the system and prevents the day to day stress through conscious breathing and meditation. Researchers claim that meditation stimulates memory centers inside the brain and reduces the risk of depression among seniors. Yoga activates the “feel-good” prefrontal cortex and boosts the emotional health of the practitioner.

Improved sleep quality


Sleep disturbance is a common problem among people of old age. Sleep deficiency at this age is linked to the increased risks of high blood pressure, heart strokes, diabetes, etc. Potential sleep ensures the removal of toxins from the body and allows the brain to function properly. Performing yoga daily can help to treat sleep disorders like insomnia, relaxing the tissues in the body, and encourages a better quality of sleep.

Yoga poses for seniors


No yoga pose is specially designed for a person belonging to a particular age. You can practice yoga at any age depending on your body limitations. Old age can be a miraculous part of life if you establish yourself in yoga. Yoga is one of those exercises which you can continue throughout all stages of life, as yoga itself is said to be the study of life.
As I mentioned that there is no pose specially designed for seniors, but if you are a beginner then it is recommended to start with some slow and light poses and then take it to the moderate level. Here are some beginners yoga poses for seniors to start with;

STANDING YOGA POSES FOR SENIORS

•Trikonasana (triangle pose)
✓ Helps to create a stretch in the hip and lower back region of the body
✓ Improve the balance of the body
✓ Regulates blood pressure

•Katichakrasana (standing spinal twist)
✓ Helps to produce movements in lower spine and neck
✓ Provides stretch in the arms, knees and neck muscles
✓ Ensures firm movements of the feet

•Vrksasana (tree pose)
✓ Strongest pose in maintaining balance
✓ Enhance hip and leg strength
✓ Provide stretch in the arms, legs, and centers of the body

•Tadasana (mountain pose)
✓ Sets the foundation for alignment of the body
✓ Improves sensibility of the body
✓ Corrects unconscious postural patterns

SITTING YOGA POSTURE FOR SENIORS

•Badhakonasana (butterfly pose)
✓ Regulates digestion by clearing the bowel movements
✓ Gives a stretch to the thighs, knees, and lower back region
✓ Removes stiffness and pain in the legs

CHAIR YOGA FOR SENIORS


Chair yoga or desktop yoga is in trend as it allows anyone to conveniently perform these asanas while sitting on the chair. Seniors can be benefited from chair yoga postures such as neck roll, spinal twist, temple rub, bending of arms and legs, and seated forward and backward bend. Benefits of chair yoga poses are:


•Relaxes the neck and removes stiffness in the back and neck region
•Alleviate fatigue and tension in the muscles
•Increase flexibility
•Coordinate body and breath movement and generates a sense of balance within the system
•Increase focus


Try doing these yoga poses under the supervision of a yoga teacher or your family members to prevent any damage to the body. The yoga routine can help you in spending your old age time perfectly without facing any health issue.

Mental Health: Children, Young People, and Families

Mental health is a widely overlooked aspect of a person’s health. People don’t consider it as important as their physical health, mostly because the injuries are not visible. However, they often forget that the signs are always there. Mental health problems are often directly proportional to the day-to-day happenings in our lives. Most mental health problems start developing at a very young age, but parents often ignore the warning signs. At such an impressionable age, children need to be taught about their mental well being too. It is imperative that we address the issue of mental health among children, young people, and families.

Children and Young People

It is seen many-a-times that the physical needs of a child are obvious, but his or her mental needs may be neglected. Even when the red flags are identified, there is a stigma associated with mental illness.

Some problems that children suffer from are ADHD, autism, anxiety, anorexia (eating disorder), depression, and bipolar disorder. Warning signs include intense mood swings, self-harm, substance abuse, sudden appetite loss, fidgeting, and continuous nightmares.

health

A few suggestions to nurture a child or adolescent’s mental health could include talking to them about their day; asking them if they are facing any problems at school. This strengthens your bond with them and they start trusting you more. As a parent, make sure that your ward eats a healthy and balanced diet, is physically fit, and takes part in outdoor activities.

Provide children with a healthy environment at home; a child should feel secure in his surroundings. Help them build their self-esteem and confidence while talking to them. Encourage their first steps towards new interests. This would enable them to open up more and express their feelings and doubts. And most importantly, don’t condemn them when they do something wrong. Instead, let them know their mistake and work together to improve it.

Families

It is obvious that an individual’s mental health problems will have consequences for others within his social networks and most importantly his family. When it comes to mental illness, the emotional and behavioral consequences for family members go largely ignored along with having a huge impact on their financial component.

menheal

Family life often becomes unsettled and unpredictable as the needs of the ill become paramount day by day. The afflicted often feels that he’s isolating those close to him. Children may find it difficult to understand why their parent is not his/her usual self. Therefore, many tend to blame themselves and grow up feeling abandoned, lonely, and isolated.

In case a family member suffers from a mental health problem, you should not let him feel dismissed and disregarded. Instead, you could try to understand what he is going through, his inner turmoil, and try to help him cope with that. Children need special care at this time as they are perplexed by the happenings in their lives.

You should try to mend the broken relations, leave the toxic people in your lives behind, and create a positive impact on others’ lives.

Image Courtesy: Google

Life Unplugged

For a second, let your imagination run along these lines. It is a beautiful morning, the sun is slowly rising. You are there on your balcony, peacefully sitting and the only sound you can hear is the chirping of birds. In your hand is your favorite drink, and in your mind is calmness. Amidst all this, you take a long deep breath and feel connected to your soul.

Your life keeps going on and you do things which you think are important for you. You never once stop to just take a breath and look around to see where you have actually reached; what is going on in your own life. So to counteract this, there is this unworldly concept that you just sometimes take a break from your life; you unplug from your own life.

More often than not, you forget to take a break. And even if you do take it, you usually only give it to your physical being but forget that your mental being is equally important.

Take a break every now and then to reevaluate your life and your surroundings. It is just as important to stop as it is to continue to accomplish things because, without a balanced head, you would not be able to accomplish them anyway. Take a break from places, from routines, from people, and even from yourself. Unplug from the chaos of life.

Plug back into life in its purest form and not through a lens. Plug back to your values and the things you desire. Connect to those who truly matter. Connect to peace, joy, and Zen. Embrace your inner self once in a while.

  1. Start your day with yourself

There will come a time when you have to attend to your duties and obligations. The world will start pulling at you and the day will become just a domino effect of endless pulls. Before that happens, spare a few moments for yourself.  You deserve it. Nobody else is more important than you. Take five minutes to breathe, contemplate, and feel grateful for your life.

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  1. Mind your diet

The world is a chaotic place where every being has to fend for himself. Start by minding and mending your food habits. Introduce a new super item into your diet. The only condition is that it should be healthy. Drink a green smoothie if you like that. Find healthier alternatives for your favorite foods. Try eating cakes and sweets that are gluten-free. Cleanse your diet.

  1. Empower yourself with an inspiring book

Your subconscious mind creates reality. Feed your mind with the world you want to create for yourself. Start your day by reading a portion of a book that embeds positive thoughts in your mind.

  1. Explore your neighborhood

It is not necessary for you to travel to exotic places to feel relaxed. You could just go outside your home and take a walk around your neighborhood. Connect yourself with nature. Try a new restaurant. Join a class that you wanted to for a long time.

  1. Prioritize your time and feelings

Learn to balance your time within your boundaries. Manage the time you spend on social media. Own up your actions and let people know how you want to be treated. Focus less on what you want to do and achieve and more on how you want to feel while achieving that.

Image Courtesy: Google