4 Ways You Can Beat the Heat

I don’t have to tell you how hot it gets here in Louisiana. It’s not just the summertime heat we need to beat, our hot days start as early as March and can often extend into the holiday season. We have to stay conscious on ways to stay healthy and hydrated.

Drink More

It’s important to stay hydrated, especially once your body begins to sweat. Many of my clients do not like to drink plain water. You don’t have to drink water in order to stay hydrated. Try drinking the sports drinks in place of water, just remember to watch your sugar intake with the sports drinks. Another option is to add some flavoring to your water.

If you are looking for ideas on how to enhance your water, here are a few tips and recipes:

Bored with Water? Add Some Flavor!

The Magical Wonders of Water!

Control the Sweat

If you are prone to excessive sweating, you may want to take your workouts indoors or cut back on some of your activities. Making small changes, such as wearing breathable cotton clothes can help keep you cooler. Getting a massage can help keep your muscles active and improve your flexibility if you need to cut back on your workouts until the weather cools down a little bit.

Eat Cooler Foods

Eating cooler foods such as summer salads and cold soups. Cooking heats up your house and eating hot meals can raise your body temperature and make you sweat. Two other types of foods you may need to cut back on and monitor is your salt intake and super spicy foods.

Drinking milk, eating fruits such as avocados, plums, grapes, peaches and mangos are great for cooling you off. Veggies that keep you healthy and cool are asparagus, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, broccoli, green leafy veggies, zucchini and green beans. Here are a few recipes from my friend and integrative health coach Angie B. LeBlanc:

Asparagus with Lemon Grapeseed Oil

Cucumber Salad

Rancher Green Beans

Super Cold Drinks

This tip may surprise you, but you are better off avoiding super cold drinks. Drinking ice water with your meal can often lower your body temperature and slow down your digestive system. When your digestive system slows down, it takes longer for your body to rehydrate.

6 Reasons You Need More Sleep

What is the one thing we all need more of? Sleep! Sleep is necessary for survival; it allows our body to recover after working all day. While we are sleeping the nervous system becomes relatively inactive, our five senses get a much needed break, the muscles relax, and consciousness is practically suspended. 

Tummy Issues? Try a Massage

It may be an embarrassing and even a gross topic but I know everyone has dealt with digestive issues at some point in their lives.  Whether it be reflux, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion or something more serious like colitis or cancer.  No matter how many healthy choices you make, when deciding what you put into your body, you can still have issues with your digestive system. 

Massage Bringing Light to Darkness

It's estimated that 70% of adult Americans have suffered from trauma severe enough that it resulted in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Deeply distressing or disturbing experiences lead to trauma and can take a toll both physically and emotionally on an individual. 

Fortunately, there is hope and help for those who suffer from PTSD.  There are two forms of therapy that can greatly improve the mind, body, and soul of someone affected; talk therapy and massage therapy.  These therapies work together hand in hand to give light in a situation that feels dark. 

Typical symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can include:

• Flashbacks and Nightmares
• Difficulty Sleeping
• A Feeling of Detachment or Distance
• Chronic Pain or Fatigue

Multiple Levels of Treatment

Massage is one of several successful treatments you can seek for PTSD. The overall goal in massage treatment for PTSD is to help you become safely embodied within yourself. Massage teaches clients safe and effective ways of self-soothing and stress management.

People who have been traumatized are no longer at home in their bodies. While working in conjunction with talk therapy, massage therapy can address the fear and mistrust that is encoded into your body.

How Massage Helps

Massage boosts serotonin levels in your body, creating positive emotions that result in stress relief, a clear mind, and rest. Massage guides your body into healthier mood management allowing access to suppressed emotions.  

Studies have shown that even 15 minutes of moderate pressure makes you feel:

• Energized
• At Ease
• Decreased Stress
• Boosts your Immune System

Once you are able to relax through massage, you will exhibit signs of getting better by:

• Circulation Improving
• Sleep Patterns Return to Normal
• In General Feeling More Relaxed
• Speak More Freely During Talk Therapy Sessions

Lace Up Your Sneakers… Let’s Walk!

When it comes to walking for good health, most of us have good intentions. I can relate because I’ve had spurts where I start a good routine of walking. I physically feel better and feel a sense of accomplishment after my walks and then life happens which leads to excuses that I’m too busy and stop. It’s something I know almost all my friends deal with, I think I will go on a walk today….but:

• I have had a long day
• I am tired
• I need to run an errand
• It’s getting dark outside

The list of excuses continues to grow and the light of inspiration is diminished. I made a list of benefits will help keep all of us motivated and stop with the excuses. Lace up your sneakers…Ready… Set… Go!

Heart Health

Walking is a great cardio exercise that lowers levels of LDL (bad cholesterol) and increases HDL (good cholesterol). Controlling cholesterol levels is important in maintain your blood pressure. According to The Stroke Association, a brisk thirty minute walk every day helps prevent stroke and reduces the risk of stroke up to 27%. Want a stronger heart? Walk!

Lose Weight

In addition to a healthy diet, adding thirty minutes of brisk walking to your daily routine can help you burn about 150 calories a day! The more intense your walk, the more calories you burn. Walking is not only great for weight loss, walking can tone up your legs, tummy, and behind. Simple adjustment to your posture and you can tone your abs, so remember to keep your back straight!

Bikini and six pack abs, here we come!

Prevent Dementia

If you are older in age, walking six miles or more per week can reduce brain shrinkage and preserve memory as years pass. Dementia affects one in fourteen over the age of sixty-five and one in six over the age of eighty. For any age, a daily twenty-minute walk cuts the risk of future dementia by 40%. Daily walks help keep healthy people healthy and help protect patients with degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, from experiencing further symptoms, such as tremors, motor impairments, dementia, and memory loss.  

Boosts Vitamin D

Being outdoors in general will boost your Vitamin D intake. Vitamin D affects important things like bone health and our immune system. It can also fight against mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Walking is a great way to get your daily Vitamin D fix.

Increase in Energy

Do you ever get home from work and feel so tired that you could go to sleep and not wake until the next morning? But then you feel riddled with guilt because you have other tasks you need to accomplish before hitting the pillow for the night? Go for a walk! A brisk walk is one of the best natural energizers around. It boosts circulation and increases your oxygen supply which helps you feel more alert and awake. Ever get tired after lunch and dread clocking back in after your lunch break? Taking an afternoon stroll around the office can help boost your energy, clear your mind and help you accomplish more in the afternoon.

Smile and be Happy

Exercise improves your mood. A walk can be just as effective as antidepressants in mild to moderate cases of depression by releasing feel-good endorphin's while reducing stress.

For positive mental health, walking is a must.

Within 5 minutes of cardio exercise, you will feel a smile forming. Increasing body strength and improving your cardio fitness makes life feel easier. Unloading groceries won’t be such a hassle on your body and getting on the floor to play with your kiddos won’t be such a chore to your joints. In return, your life will be more joyful.

Let’s Recap

During a thirty-minute walk you are:

• Strengthening your heart
• Burning at least 150 calories
• Toning muscles
• Reducing risk of dementia by 40%
• Boosting your vitamin levels
• Wakes you up
• Makes you happy 

These benefits are enough motivation that I am already planning daily walks into my calendar! Make sure to drink plenty of water when walking and remember to pace yourself. Overdoing it can increase your risk of soreness, injury, or burnout. It’s time to lace and pace!

Feeling Stressed? 5 Ways to Unwind!

The top three causes of stress are pressure from work, financial problems, health problems. Stress occurs when you are faced with mental or emotional strains that often leads to physical and mental symptoms. Unfortunately, our culture accepts stress as a normal way of life. It is my mission to let everyone know, life doesn't have to be that way!

Take action!

Stress affects us because we let it. Now it is time to take action and start to live a healthier lifestyle. We all handle stress differently some keep everything bottled up inside and silently suffer the impacts of depression. Others tense up so much they develop knots in their neck and back and live with the pain. There are several ways you can manage your stress through physical activity, diet and positive distractions.

1. Make a Playlist

Research shows that listening to soothing music can lower your heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety.  Music provides a distraction and invites calming emotions.  It is a great aid to help induce a meditating state by preventing your mind from wandering.  Start incorporating music into your busy life by playing CD's in the car, stream soft classical music from Pandora while at work or play your favorite iTunes music while you soak in the bathtub.

2. Reduce Caffeine & Sugar

The temporary adrenaline rush caffeine and sugar provide often end with a crash in both your mood and energy. Reducing the amount of coffee, soft drinks, chocolate, and sugar snacks in your diet, will make you feel more relaxed and you’ll sleep better. Getting a full nights sleep is the best way to fuel your mind, as well as your body.  Feeling tired increases stress because it often impairs our judgement.  

3. Be Thankful

Keep a journal of gratitude.  Journaling reduces stress due to its meditative and reflective effects.  Making a daily list of what we are thankful for can really put your life, worries, stresses into perspective.  You don’t need to write a novel, just jot down a few of your daily events, your feelings, and what you are thankful for.  Documenting life events and feelings can also provide a way for you to reflect on events and gain a new perspective while you are in a calmer state of mind. Reading through journals of your past months and years can show you how much you’ve grown as an individual.

4. Go Outside

Sometimes simply walking through nature and smelling the fresh air can help put your mind at ease and give your brain a break.  Whether it’s walking, running, or sitting on a blanket in the grass; studies show that time outdoors can:

• Spur Creativity 
• Increase Concentration Levels 
• Increases Vitamin D Levels  

Vitamin D improves seasonal depression, anxiety, boosts your immunity, is critical to bone health, and heart health.  The healthier your bodies, the less likely you will experience negative stress.

5. Get a Massage

Massage is more than an occasional luxury. Getting a massage on a monthly basis:  

•  Alleviate physical strain and pain
• Improves your mood
• Increases circulation
• Reduces stress related pain such as headaches and muscle tension

Once your stress level is reduced, you can reclaim the energy you once enjoyed, and experience a refreshed body and mind.

Don’t Worry…  Stress Can Be Good!

Stress is your body's reaction to harmful situations whether real or imagined.  When you feel threatened, your body produces a chemical reaction that allows you react and protect yourself.

 Not all stress is bad. In small doses, stress can help you accomplish tasks and protect you from injury. For example, stress is what makes you to slam on the brakes to avoid getting into a car accident. That's a good thing!  

The key is knowing what kind of stress you are feeling. 

• Is your stress good or bad? 
• Is it negatively affecting your everyday life and activities? 
• Defining your stress helps you take action on how to get rid of it. 

It’s time to take charge of your life and tell stress to go away!

This holiday season give the gift of massage! Go online or call me to order your gift certificate.

What the Heck is an Anma?

Massages are known for promoting relaxation and improving one’s overall well-being. There are several methods of massage; all having great benefits for your body.

Over the past decade massage therapy has become increasingly popular in our society. I have seen the rise of several studios such as mine along with big chain studios. There is also a misconception that massage is a luxury. You may be surprised by the history and popularity of massage that dates back to 710 CE. For the first thousand years massage was considered a form of medicine not a luxury.