Nurture Your Own

Previously we talked about the right postures for sitting and standing/walking. Today we are going to share with you the right postures for exercising and sleeping.

Exercising

I personally believe that Singaporeans are lacking exercise. More and more people are becoming more unfit and obese. In fact it was reported that the government decided to extend the Basic Military Training duration for obese recruits because the government felt that the recruits need more time shed weight whilst learning their syllabus in order to become better soldiers. This should not come by as a surprise as a sedentary lifestyle with fast food as the common and popular choice of food becomes that of a typical Singaporean lifestyle.

At this point of time, you may be thinking what does regular exercise got to do with headaches? Regular exercise affects us physiologically in 3 aspects:

1. It improves our fitness.

2. It improves our blood circulation.

3. It soothes and relaxes the body. Better fitness will help us to improve our health. A healthier body minimizes the impact and frequency of headaches. The same goes for blood circulation. Most of the time when we have cramps, aches and strains, the affected parts will have poor blood circulation. If you take a look at most of the professional athletes, you will realise that they have great body posture. This is so because when you work out often, you will have had work out your muscles and joints. It is known that muscles grow when they are relaxing, provided that the muscles have worked out before the relaxation. When your body becomes stronger, the normal postures and physical activities will put on lesser stress on the joints and the pain sensitive areas, thus minimizing headaches.

Sleeping

Most people when they turn in for the night, their heads are down and shoulders are forward; they kind of tuck themselves up and in. When you sleep like this, you’re stretching your back out and bringing your chest, arms and neck in. As a result, you’re causing these muscles to tighten up overnight. You want to relax your muscles when you sleep and the only way to go about doing it is to sleep on your back.

Sleeping on your back represents a neutral posture; it represents a very straight posture that ensures that your body stays in alignment. If you can keep your body in alignment, it won’t stretch or tighten up while you sleep. A lot of people wake up with stiff necks, with their chests kind of tight and sore. Maybe their backs ache a little bit. When they sleep all curl up, it causes their neck, back and shoulder muscles to stretch and tighten up.

Do you always toss and turn while sleeping? If you actually do, it is because that your muscles are tightening up when you are asleep. This will cause you to be tired and fatigued even though you may have sufficient hours of sleep. Thus you have to sleep on your back so that those muscles do not get stretched out. The key towards sleeping well on your back is to support your neck. This means that your pillow should be supporting your neck, not too high that it stretches and not too low that it strains the neck.

The previous post as well as this post has covered on improving body postures from the 4 routine activities that we do daily. The next article will focus on the different types of headaches. See you soon!

Additional Reading of the same series

Headache Management – part 1

Headache Management – part 2

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. ~Ovid

In the previous Post, we discussed about some of the common causes of headaches. Some of the common causes of headaches include having improper postures while sitting, standing/walking, exercising and sleeping.

The main problem about improper postures is that they cause our body to improperly contract the wrong muscles and joints, thus causing undue stress and strain on our joints and muscles in the long run.

Don’t worry, years of mistakes can be corrected once you have got the postures right.

Sitting

The importance of sitting has never been that underscored till recently. With many adults spending long hours at their office chair or at their comfy couch at home, sitting with the right posture is of absolute importance. The following are some important points to take note while sitting:

1. Your head should be above your shoulders. Don’t slouch forward. Slouching causes uneven pressure between your vertebrae and eventually neck and/or lower back problems.
2. Relax your shoulders. Frequent tensing of your shoulders will easily slouch your body forward.
3. The top your monitor’s screen should be about even or a slightly lower than eye level. The monitor should be directly in front of you, not to the side. Additionally, position the monitor so there is no glare on the screen. If this isn’t possible, you may need a glare screen. Glare not only causes eye strain but may make you sit abnormally in order to see the screen clearly.
4. Your hands should be kept in-line with your forearms. Bending your wrist up/down or to either side causes the tendons running through your wrists to rub against their protective sheaths more than necessary and become damaged.
5. The back of your chair should not only support your back but help maintain the natural hollow in your lower back. Many chairs have a built-in lumbar support for this reason. The back should be adjustable up and down and back and forward. Ideally, the back should be able to be adjusted while you are seated.

Having mentioned these points, I have to emphasize that changing your sitting position every 10 minutes will help in encouraging blood flow. Better blood circulation helps in reducing strain to the back, the neck as well as the joints.

Standing/Walking

Many people have the bad habits of slouching and hunching. These bad habits not only cause us to look bad and lowers our confidence, they also causes our body to adopt an improper posture.
Do you know that when you are about to run, you are actually slouching forward? Slouching forward makes us more streamline which enables us to move faster. As our pace of life becomes faster than ever, we also tend to hurry and rush to places. As we hurry and rush, we are actually unconsciously adopting the running position as well. Therefore we have to be mindful of how we walk and stand.

The following are some points that help in improving standing or walking posture:

1. Relax your shoulders and let your eyes look straight. When you look straight, you are actually easing yourself of distracting thoughts and thus relaxing. This relaxation helps you to relax your muscles which may be involuntarily tensing you up and making you rush unconsciously.
2. Let your hips lead your body when you are walking. You will realise that you will be walking with more poise, impact and importantly, properly.
3. When standing, make sure your shoulders and hips are level, parallel to the ground. The head should be right between the shoulders.
4. The arms need to hang in a comfortable position, sort of relaxed, with the first finger and thumb pointing forward. The knees should basically point straight forward while the feet will normally have a slight turn out-wards.

You may find unnatural and uncomfortable while trying to adopt the right postures while sitting and standing/walking. Please let me assure you that this is perfectly normal! After all, you have been adopting the wrong postures for years; it is definitely not going to be easy achieving the right postures instantly.

As the following saying goes ‘a journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step’, so long as you are consciously attempting the right postures, sooner or later you will not even realise that unconsciously, you are already adapted to the right postures.
Stay tune to the next article where we will share with you on the right postures for exercising and sleeping

Additional Reading of the same series

Headache management – part 1

Headache Management – part 3

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. ~Margaret Fuller

The moment you shut your heavy eyes, you drift to another world. This world that you are in is the world that you have always dreamt about. It is the sweetest dream that you ever had. You had a long uninterrupted sleep. You woke up 8 hours later, welcoming yourself for a memorably fantastic day ahead. However just when you are about to get off your bed, your head felt a throbbing pain.

Have you had such an experience before? Having an anti-climax first thing in the early morning sure is upsetting.

A headache is a complete waste of a good day. Most people’s response towards headaches is to reach out to painkillers. However painkiller hardly solves the problem. In fact it exacerbates the problem in 3 different manners.

1. It merely eases the pain temporarily.
2. When the headache recurs, most people will be at a lost and they probably resort to taking more painkiller.
3. Due to a regular intake of painkiller, addiction and tolerance problems will surface inevitably in the long run.

Studies have shown that 75% of the people who take painkillers due to chronic pain and that 80% of the chronic pain cases are due to the result of headaches.

The reason why headache is a major cause of concern is because people do not really understand what is headache really all about. The causes of headaches can be classified under 2 categories. The first category is the physiology, whereby proper body postures, regular exercise as well as balance of our hormones play a major role in minimizing headaches. The second category is the environment and substances which play a part in increasing the trigger probability of headaches.

Contrary to popular myth, headaches are not caused by abnormal blood flow to the brain. The brain itself does not have nociceptors or pain receptors. However several areas of the head as well as the neck do have nociceptors.

Most of the headache problems are due to poor head and neck postures over the years. Thus it is very important that we have to be mindful of our body postures. As our body is like a machine, slight misplacement of a cog in a gear will result in our body malfunctioning.

In view of that how we position ourselves while we partake in the following activities:

1. Sitting
2. Standing/walking
3. Exercising
4. Sleeping

In the next article, we will explore how these 4 simple activities can have a drastic impact on heads literally.

Additional Reading of the same series

Headache Management – Part 2

Headache Management – Part 3

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. ~Richard Carlson

Myth: Chocolate causes weight gain.

Fact: Any food can be part of a healthy diet if consumed in moderation. An average chocolate bar contains 220 calories, which is low enough to be a part of a weight control diet if other high-calorie foods are eliminated. Enjoying the occasional piece of chocolate may reduce the risk of severe bingeing, which can occur when you feel deprived of your favorite foods.

Chocolate’s bad reputation is slowly changing and research now shows that chocolate can be a part of an overall healthy lifestyle, when consumed in moderation. If you keep your portion sizes small and select dark chocolate whenever possible, the occasional treat can be a guilt-free part of your diet.

Source: Calorie Count

Additional Reading

World’s #1 Chocolate Cake Recipe for only $5

First Chocolate Recipe School On Video

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. ~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris

Myth: Chocolate lacks any nutritional value.
Fact: Chocolate is a good source of magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. It also contains polyphenols (an antioxidant also found in tea and red wine) that have been associated with a decreased risk of coronary disease. An average chocolate bar contains about the same amount of antioxidants as a 5-ounce glass of red wine.

A daily serving of dark chocolate, which contains more antioxidants than milk chocolate, can also help lower blood pressure and improve insulin resistance according to a joint study between Tufts University in Boston and the University of L’Aquila in Italy. The findings do not suggest that people with high blood pressure consume dark chocolate in lieu of taking their prescribed medication, but that the flavonoids in dark chocolate may have a positive effect on blood pressure and insulin resistance. Learn more about the health properties of chocolate.

Source: Calorie Count

Additional Reading

World’s #1 Chocolate Cake Recipe for only $5

First Chocolate Recipe School On Video