People should aim to walk two miles each day in order to achieve the optimum level of exercise, a health expert has claimed.
Dr William Bird, a GP and strategic health advisor to Natural England, said that walking provides a number of beneficial effects for both the body and the mind.
He claimed: ‘Walking has exactly the same beneficial effects on mood and fighting depression as psychological treatments such as cognitive behaviour treatment, and it is more effective than diet, and equal to giving up smoking in the health benefits it brings.’
According to Dr Bird, a person’s blood pressure and pulse rate drop when they head outdoors. Read the rest of this entry »
After the age of about 30, bone thinning is a natural process and cannot be stopped completely. Whether you develop osteoporosis depends not only on the thickness of your bones early in life but also on your health, diet, and physical activity later in life. The thicker your bones, the less likely the bones are to become thin enough to break. Young women in particular need to be aware of their risk for developing osteoporosis and take steps early to slow its progress and prevent complications. Plentiful physical activity during the preteen and teen years increases bone mass and greatly reduces the risk of osteoporosis in adulthood. If you eat a diet adequate in calcium and vitamin D and exercise regularly early in life and then continue with these healthy habits, you may be able to delay or avoid osteoporosis.
- Eat a nutritious diet that includes adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D. Both are necessary for building healthy, strong bones. The recommended daily calcium intake for adults up to age 50 is 1,000 mg a day. Men and women age 50 and older need 1,200 mg of calcium each day. The recommended daily intake for vitamin D is 400 to 800 IU a day for adults up to age 50. If you are age 50 or older, the recommended amount is 800 to 1,000 IU of vitamin D a day. The best source of vitamin D is exposure to sunlight. Vitamin D is vital for calcium absorption in bones and to improve muscle strength. One study showed that vitamin D may reduce an older person’s risk of falling by 22%.9 Read the rest of this entry »
What Increases Your Risk
The risk of osteoporosis increases with age as bones naturally become thinner. After age 30, the rate at which your bone dissolves and is absorbed by the body slowly increases, while the rate of bone building decreases. Both men and women lose a small amount (approximately 0.4%) of bone each year after age 30.4
In women, more rapid bone loss usually begins after monthly menstrual periods stop, when a woman’s production of the hormone estrogen slows down (usually between the ages of 45 and 55). A man’s bone thinning starts to develop gradually when production of the hormone testosterone slows down, at about 45 to 50 years of age. Women typically have smaller and lighter bones than men. As a result, women develop osteoporosis far more often than men. Osteoporosis usually does not have an effect on people until they are 60 or older.
Whether a person develops osteoporosis depends on the thickness of the bones (bone density) in early life, as well as health, diet, and physical activity later in life. Factors that increase the risk of osteoporosis in both men and women include: Read the rest of this entry »
When life’s curve balls leave you stressed and depressed, how do you get back on your game? Easy: try these age-specific mood lifters.
Eat to beat PMS
Nearly 9 in 10 women suffer at least one PMS symptom each month, and those in their 30s are often hit the hardest. You can avoid irritability by eating more foods containing tryptophan, an amino acid that helps your body make the “happy” hormone serotonin, says Beth Hamilton, MD, an OB-GYN in Newport Beach, California, and co-author of So Stressed: The Ultimate Stress-Relief Plan for Women. Turkey, chicken, salmon, and nuts all contain meaningful amounts of tryptophan.
Just say no
Many women are neck-deep in career-building during this decade. The unhappy side effect? Killer work stress. Get off the hamster wheel by avoiding automatic “yes” responses to requests that catch you off guard, says Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, a book chronicling the year that Rubin spent test-driving scientific research and popular wisdom about how to be happy. If saying “yes” makes sense, fine, but being choosy helps you avoid the powerless feeling that leads to burnout. Read the rest of this entry »
