health

by Nina Just a quick announcement today about some research findings I think you�ll all enjoy learning about. Baxter and I read about a recent study , designed by Maria G. Araneta, PhD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego, to determine whether obese women lose fat from less intense exercise instead of aerobic activity. Although not a huge study, the groups were larger than most of those we see in recent studies, with the yoga group of 88 having a mean age of 55 years with an average BMI of 36 kg/m2 and the stretch group of 83 having a mean age of 54 years with an average BMI of 32.5 kg/m2. Along with her co-authors Matthew A. Allison, MD, MPH, Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD, and Alka M. Kanaya, MD, Dr. Araneta presented the results at the 73rd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Chicago (June 21-25). And the results showed that the practitioners of restorative yoga lost significantly more subcutaneous fat over the initial six months of the study. They ...

by Baxter Fallen Tree by Brad Gibson We have mentioned  cortisol,  one of the body�s important hormones, a few times in the recent past, but always with the slant of it somehow being a problem child, a bad actor, a rotten apple, as it were. But cortisol, when it is working in harmony with a well-balanced body and mind, is part of a elegant system that tries to help us respond in the best way possible to short term stressful situations that are bound to arise in our daily lives. So on a daily basis, during the early morning hours - around 4-5 am, the body releases a bit of cortisol to get your inner furnace ready for the first foot hitting the floor in the morning. It releases a bit of sugar into the blood stream, sends a bit more blood to the brain and heart, and really gets us ready for action, however mellow or intense our morning will be. Then, if the day is relatively uneventful, the level of cortisol gradually diminishes to its lowest levels around 10pm. When released i...