Want to boost your IQ

Exercise is the keystone for healthy living, but it is not often advocated to help you to boost your IQ. We already know that older people who exercise three or more times a week have a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. Whatever your age, if you exercise regularly you have a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of dementia, and even as little as 15 minutes of exercise, three days a week, cuts your risk significantly. One short, brisk, walk every day can make a real difference, but what is new is that recent studies have shown that some forms of exercise may actually help you think better, while others have little or no impact on your brain matter. Here’s three suggestions for what works, and what doesn’t, for those ‘little grey cells’.

Aerobic Training:
In 2006, Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois used MRIs to prove that aerobic exercise builds grey and white matter in the brains of older adults. Later studies found that more aerobically fit schoolkids also perform better on cognitive tests. Widely accepted now that aerobic exercise is one of the best things you can do to stay mentally agile into old age.
Impact on intelligence: STRONG

Weight Training:
It might make you feel good to have ripped muscles, but researchers have found only the most tenuous link between heavy resistance training and improved cognitive function.
Impact on intelligence: NEGLIBIBLE

Yoga:
You need as much oxygen as you can get, particularly for brain function, but under stress we tend to hold our breath and reduce our intake which can certainly affect our memory. Yoga can break that habit by helping you learn to breathe correctly which results in less stress and more oxygen.
Impact on intelligence: POSSIBLY STRONG

Home help for athletes foot

This common fungal infection thrives in warm, damp environments, such as the locker rooms, health clubs, public showers, and indoor swimming pools. If you have any of the following symptoms, it is important to check with your doctor first because your symptoms may be caused by another condition and you want to rule out that possibility before treating the condition yourself:

** Itching, burning, or stinging between the toes or on soles of the feet.

** Scales, cracks, cuts, peeling skin or blisters between the toes or on soles of the feet.

** Skin dryness on the sides or bottom of the foot

If the infection spreads to under the toenails, causing thick, crumbly, discoloured, or separated toenails, it is called onchomycosis and it can be very difficult to treat.

The best home help for Athlete’s Foot is Tea Tree Oil, not least because it is the most commonly used home remedy because of its antiseptic qualities and ability to kill many bacteria and fungi. Tea tree oil has a long history of traditional use in Australia – where it originates from – as a remedy for skin infections and it was also used by the British Army to help deal with Trench Foot in the First World War.

Prevention

Once you have treated the condition, here’s how to avoid repeat infection:

- Keep your feet thoroughly dry, especially between your toes

- Wear only cotton socks and change them daily

- Moisture and heat cause the athlete’s foot fungus to thrive, so where you can, avoid tight, closed-toe shoes and wear loose fitting shoes or sandals

- Never go barefoot in public places like showers at the gym or theswimming pool, wear flip-flops or jelly sandals

- Use a foot powder to keep feet dry

- Wash socks in the hot water setting of the washing machine to kill off any bacteria.

Probiotics benefit runners

Planning on running in a marathon this year? As well as having the right shoes and a positive attitude, you might also want to consider adding probiotic supplements to your diet. Strenuous training can affect the immune system and make athletes more vulnerable to coughs and colds, but an Australian study has shown that taking probiotic supplements, which contain ‘friendly bacteria’, more than halves the days that runners show symptoms and also reduces both the number and length of infections they experienced.

The study focused on 20 top-level endurance runners during their intensive winter training programme, when colds and other respiratory infections can be disruptive. The athletes were given a two month-long course of pills containing the bacterium Lactobacillus fermentum and then a dummy placebo for the same length of time. During the ‘probiotic phase’ the number of infections and days lost through illness was dramatically reduced. It may not have quite the same effect on people who are less active, but if you are given to sprinting round the living room you never know it might stop you catching a last-ditch winter cold.

Can imaginary exercise make you fit?

As I firmly believe I will become a great cook merely by owning cookbooks, then this piece of research really intrigued me. Breakthrough research in the field of exercise physiology has yielded stunning revelations about the way we get fit. The big surprise, though, is not what we “have” to do, but what we might “not” have to do. Apparently this is part of the metaphysical belief system that your thoughts create your reality, certainly something I agree with though whether it can improve my fitness I remain to be convinced.

For decades, exercise scientists have worked to discover how we get fit. Getting stronger, we were told, was about creating enough resistance in a muscle to create millions of micro-tears that would, over days, weeks and months, rebuild themselves, bigger, leaner and stronger. So when we lift weights, sprint or engage in pretty much any kind of exercise, we set this whole process in motion. The entire cycle is known as hypertrophy and it’s always been considered a pretty mechanical experience.

Now it appears, that building muscle is not nearly as mechanical as everyone thought. A recent study at Bishop’s University, Quebec, reveals you may be able to make nearly identical gains in strength and fitness without any effort. That study measured the strength gains in three different groups of people two lots did different types of exercise and the third control group did nothing but think about exercising. The end result? The ‘thinkers’ had a 24% increase in strength, almost the same as the group that trained three times a week.

SO HOW DOES THIS WORK?
Actually, nobody knows exactly, but your mind is the key to the conundrum. Through it’s connection to the endocrine system (the body’s chemical plant), different thoughts and mental states release hormones that can dramatically accelerate or retard muscle growth. Other chemicals work on different organs to either fire-up or slow-down your metabolism – think of the ‘fight or flight’ response’ – and how fast your body responds to a perceived threat.

A Harvard study reported in February 2007 appears to also confirm this theory when they looked at the impact of your thoughts on calories burned. In that study, the housekeeping staff in a major hotel were told that what they did on a daily basis qualified as the amount of exercise needed to be fit and healthy. They didn’t change their routine, did nothing differently and just kept on with their jobs. However, armed with this new knowledge, within four weeks the group had lost weight and lowered their blood pressure, body-fat percentage, waist-hip ratio and Body Mass Index, all without going near a gym. A control group, doing the same job, were not told that their job qualified as exercise and none of that group saw any of those health or fitness improvements.

Another factor that comes into play is your body’s nervous system. The signal that makes a muscle contract begins as an electrical impulse in your brain. That impulse is transmitted through your body’s electrical circuitry or nerves to the muscle. How efficiently that impulse is delivered and how receptive your muscle is to that impulse determines, in large part, how forcefully that muscle can contract. The more fully and the faster it contracts, the stronger we say it is. We call this process neuromuscular facilitation and you can repeatedly ‘visualise’ a muscle contracting, without ever actually contracting it and that’s how many sports coaches teach injured players to slow down the inevitable loss of strength during recovery from an injury.

So it appears that simply visualising an exercise may provide a nearly equivalent strength-building benefit as actually working-out. Anyone want to join me in a ‘keep fit’ routine that involves visualising yourself taking a brisk walk? Time to get out my own meditation CD and starting a daily meditation which I intend taking in my recliner with my two cats for company. They may as well get the benefits too, don’t you think? If you want to know more about my meditation CD please visit my website here:  www.catalystonline.co.uk/potential.htm

Three minutes a day for a better back

Suffering from back pain and poor posture is sadly all too frequent these days. We spend a lot of time sitting for long periods, whether at a computer or in front of a television and what our back needs is gentle and regular stretching and exercise.

Visiting a chiropracter is essential for serious or chronic back problems, but if you want a simple, preventive routine then the British Chiropractic Association have devised a three minute daily stretching routine that will improve your posture and strengthen your spine. The exercises have delightful names like Twirling Star, Humming Bird and Butterfly – or if you are feeling a little more warrior-like there is also Extending the Sword and Tightrope.

They also offer you some good advice, like checking the weight of your bag or briefcase and dumping any unnecessary items out and implementing the ten minute rule – if it takes less than that to walk, then do so and leave the car at home.

To get your copy call the British Chiropractic Association on 0118 950 5950 or download a copy straight from the web, it’s only a couple of A4 pages at www.straightenupuk.org and click on the downloads link. There are two leaflets, one for adults and one for children, just click on the one you want, print it out and off you go on your way to a healthier back.

China has longevity licked

Generally speaking, you would think China would be an unhealthy place to live given all the bad press they have received about their lack of food standards, dangerous lead-laced toys, environmental abuses, exorbitant pollution, and widespread poverty. However, there are two surprising facts that have emerged recently: China boasts a life expectancy surprisingly close to that of the United States and perhaps not surprisingly they do this by spending a lot less money.

The US life expectancy is about 78 years, compared to China’s of 73 years overall, though it rises to around 80 years in cities like Beijing and Shanghai and Hong Kong is out in front with over 82 years. What do the Chinese pay for these extra years of life? Just $277 a head on healthcare in a year, compared to the United States where it is a staggering $6,100 a head each year.

The Chinese are great smokers, live with the many health hazards inherent with living in hugely over-crowded cities and in one of the most polluted countries on earth. So what is their secret? Well it is very simple and down to the fact that daily exercise is widespread and woven into the Chinese culture, offering more than just a way to burn calories. It also enforces social interaction, limiting the isolation that so often comes with old age in the West. Any visitor to China is struck by the way masses of people can be seen practicing tai-chi, aerobics, games, and even open air ballroom dancing. Every day exercise is vital for health and longevity and if you want to try something different from your usual morning or evening walk, then studies have pinpointed several benefits of Tai Chi, as it stimulates your central nervous system, lowers your blood pressure, relieves stress, tones muscles and helps with digestion and waste elimination. If you want to find a teacher locally, then ask at your local alternative health centre or shop for a personal recommendation or visit www.taichifinder.co.uk and just search your postcode.

Cholesterol and Exercise – getting it right

Being recommended to take more exercise is usually what happens if you talk to your doctor about lowering your cholesterol levels. However, what they may not tell you is that what makes the difference is not how hard you exercise, but how long you do it for. A Japanese study has shown that working out extra hard has no effect on cholesterol, but exercising for at least 40 minutes several times a week raised the levels of HDL (beneficial cholesterol) by 2.53 points. It’s particularly important for women as for each point the HDL level increases means that our risk of heart disease gets reduced by 3 per cent. And don’t think 35 or 39 minutes will do, apparently it takes a full 40 minutes to activate an enzyme called LPL, which helps raise HDL levels. Anyone for a long walk?

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