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Mindfulness
How to Be in the Moment, Right Here, Right Now By Maarten Immink
Remember then: There is only one time that is important— Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”
Mindfulness is commonly defined as paying purposeful attention to one’s moment-tomoment experience in a nonjudgmental and accepting way.
This quote by Leo Tolstoy in “What Men Live By and Other Tales” is valuable wisdom and a fitting prompt for us to take this moment to intentionally direct our attention to what is actually happening now. You might begin to notice the variety of sights and sounds in your environment. Within your space, you can then become aware of your body, its posture and all of its sensations, such as those coming from skin, muscles, organs, and so on. Take this moment to tune into your breath, noticing the natural process of breathing in and out. Notice the sensations and movements
associated with breathing—in your lungs, chest, and abdomen, for example. Keep breathing naturally as you now observe your current feelings or the quality of your emotions. You can also take notice of your thoughts, accepting them as they are, rather than dismissing or altering them. Right now you have an opportunity to just be. Pause and grant yourself a short break. Gently close your eyes, if appropriate, and for a few quiet minutes, be still.
See Mindfulness on B6
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e’ve always known fiber to be an important part of a healthy diet. But what is it about fiber that makes it the secret to losing weight and keeping it off? Fiber is a type of carbohydrate the body can’t digest. Though most carbohydrates are broken down into sugar molecules, fiber cannot be broken down into sugar molecules, and instead it passes through the body undigested. Fiber helps regulate the body’s use of sugars, helping to keep hunger and blood sugar in check. Aside from fiber’s regulatory benefits, high-fiber foods are rich in vitamins and essential nutrients, especially when compared to other food groups. Fiber has been shown to lower blood cholesterol and blood pressure. As an added benefit, especially for keeping a healthy weight, fiber fills you up and keeps you feeling fuller longer. Recent studies have shown that people who added more fiber to their diet picked up other important healthy habits like exercising regularly. So it seems that a simple high-fiber diet can provide immense health benefits. It’s also easier to stick to when compared to diets that require multiple changes in eating habits. The ease with which people can incorporate fiber into their diet makes it easy to stick to long term. Many people struggle to follow complex dietary recommendations, with reason. The easier something is, the more likely we are to stick to it. When changes are too drastic, or involve an entire overhaul of our current lifestyle, these big changes often lead to falling off the wagon much sooner than anticipated. A simple diet that only requires you to increase your fiber intake may be an easier alternative and a great starting point for those who have tried many different diets and ways to lose weight. In general, Americans have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to their fiber intake. The truth is that fiber supplements do not provide the same health benefits as the natural fiber you get from whole foods. Therefore, it is important to expand your fiber intake through high-fiber foods rather than only supplements. The recommended daily intake of fiber is between 25–30 grams. Some of the best sources of fiber are fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and beans. Dr. David Samadi is the chairman of the urology department and chief of robotic surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital. He is a medical correspondent for the FOX News Channel’s Medical A-Team. Learn more at RoboticOncology.com and visit Dr. Samadi’s blog: SamadiMD.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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9 Reasons Why
Yoga By Neghar Fonooni
I
promise this isn’t going to be an annoying piece that regurgitates generic reasons why yoga is good for you. I mean, obviously it’s good for you—so are broccoli and fish oil. But we don’t always do things that are good for us, do we? Sometimes it’s just because the things that are good for us are exhausting. But other times, perhaps we have reasons why that “good thing” doesn’t pertain to us. So today, I want to confidently state two things: 1. Yoga is awesome and so very good for you. 2. Yes, YOU. For a long time, I neglected my yoga practice in favor of lifting. I made all the excuses in the world, including the clichéd “I don’t have time” hogwash, and I rationalized that lifting was better than yoga anyway. The further I got from my practice, the more off-center I became. As an entrepreneur spinning multiple plates, I fell deeper into disarray and began to feel terribly encumbered. It took me a long while to realize that there was a giant hole where my yoga practice used to be, and an even longer while to find an instructor and a studio that would properly fill that void.
Yoga requires you to listen to your body, tapping into your trunk, your feet, your legs, and so on to enter and sustain postures without visual aid. Now that I’ve resumed my place on the mat, I realize just how valuable yoga can be for gym enthusiasts, and how often it is overlooked. I also found that practicing yoga now, as an advanced lifter, has far more benefits than I had even been aware of 12 years ago when I took my first yoga class. So, if you happen to be a gym-junkie who loves to deadlift, hip- thrust, and kettlebellswing your glutes into submission, this list is for you: 1. Active Recovery Yoga is an effective and low-impact way to move on your non-lifting days without compromising recovery. Many yoga experts will even go as far to say that hot yoga in particular can stimulate your metabolism and help release toxins from the body. Either way, you will always feel better leaving yoga than when you came in. 2. Kinesthetic Awareness Flowing through poses while barefoot and without a mirror requires a great deal of control. Yoga requires you to listen to your body, tapping into your trunk, your feet, your legs, and so on to enter and sustain postures without visual aid. This increases kinesthetic (or body) awareness and can help when moving through compound lifts at the gym, such as squats and push-ups. Because yoga carries such an internal focus, it can encourage you to practice more intuition during your lifts.
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3. Balance By balance, I don’t mean stability, although you’ll certainly get your fair share of that from yoga. I’m referring to the balance of activity that yoga provides an avid gym-goer. Lifting sessions are typically aggressive and weighted, while yoga is intrinsic and uses the body as leverage. This can create a balance between Herculean and Buddha-like activities, which in turn, encourages balance within your life. 4. Mobility and Flexibility No matter how many times someone tells us that we need to spend more time stretching our muscles or mobilizing our joints, we would just rather lift, wouldn’t we? I mean, who has time to do all that flexibility work when we have to make sure we snag that open power rack before someone else. But, improving your mobility and flexibility will increase your movement efficiency— benefiting your lifts exponentially. Yoga is a fun way to get bendy that won’t take up valuable gym time. 5. Breath Control I cannot tell you how many times I have helped someone out of shoulder pain by teaching them to breathe from their diaphragm or coached a client into a stronger overhead press just by cueing them to breathe. Yoga places significant emphasis on the breath, which will keep you aware of your breathing during your training sessions. 6. The Goldilocks Principle Understanding when to hold back and when to push through is a delicate dance. You can sometimes set down the weight and think, “I could’ve done more.” Inversely, you might be wishing you hadn’t pushed through that last ugly rep. Yoga teaches you how to feel free within your body, accomplishing challenging poses while fostering ease of movement. You can’t force the poses if you intend to do them correctly, but you are encouraged to look within yourself for what you might be capable of. It’s a beautiful balance of just right that can aid you in your lifting endeavors. 7. Bodyweight Strength It wasn’t until I started practicing handstands last year that I discovered my strength training had some critical holes in it. Being able to move heavy iron relative to your bodyweight is awesome, but what about discovering that you have little ability to leverage that bodyweight? Well, that was a revelation. Yoga improves bodyweight strength and puts you in positions that you might not otherwise put yourself in at the gym. 8. Noncompetitive Environment Most of us who lift regularly have an inherent competitive nature. We compete with our previous lifts, with others at the gym, or even in an organized environment such as powerlifting or Olympic lifting competitions. This is part of what makes us so ambitious and something that should certainly be fueled. However, even when this competition is friendly, it’s still competition and can sometimes blind us. Yoga is a noncompetitive environment that can bring you back to your center when your hunger for big lifts gets ravenous. You’ll have to learn to accept your progressions
Yoga poses can translate to lifting strength by waking up muscles you don’t often use.
Finding your center can help with competitive lifting.
and avoid comparing yourself to the person on the mat next to you. 9. Bigger Lifts You might not typically think of yoga as something that can make you stronger, but it sneaks up on you like that. Yoga poses can translate to lifting strength by waking up muscles you don’t often use, encouraging cooperative multijoint movements, and giving you wicked upper body strength. I can deadlift over twice my bodyweight and perform multiple sets of 10 pull-ups, but the crow pose humbles me. This branch of strength can only serve to make your lifts bigger. Even after reading these reasons to practice yoga, you might still be skeptical. Some of the main reasons are challenges that arise after starting yoga. The most challenging thing I have encountered when it comes to yoga is finding the right instructor, which is why I implore you to seek out your yoga-practicing friends and ask them to take you to a class. If someone you trust thinks their instructor is legit, chances are that you will too. Neghar Fonooni is a fitness and lifestyle coach, entrepreneur, and the founder of Eat, Lift, & Be Happy. For more information, visit NegharFonooni.com
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It’s easy to be strong when things are going well, but we fall so that we learn to get up and get up stronger than we were before. That is what my new class at Solace New York is about: challenging yourself during those moments of weakness and pushing yourself to be stronger than before. I put together a set of exercises that are simple but allow you to push yourself. Whether you’re an absolute beginner or advanced athlete, the exercises take you through the process so you can grow. Do these exercises in sequence to build up your foundation, and push yourself to take on more each time. Change happens when you change the way you look at things. Kenny Santucci is the director of Body by Solace, the newest fitness program offered by Solace New York.
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Lat Squat • With both feet under you and close together, step out to the side with one foot. • The back leg should stay long with no bend in the knee while the opposite leg bends. Both feet should stay flat on the floor. Keep the torso upright and tall, similar to the conventional lunge. Drive out from the heel of the foot you stepped out to one side with.
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How to Be in the Moment, Right Here, Right Now Minfulness continued from B1 Follow the above suggestions to openly explore your body, breath, feelings, and thoughts at this moment. Begin now, and then read on when you are done. Well done! You have just completed a short mindfulness exercise. For those who declined the invitation, there is still time to go back and have that experience. What Is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is commonly defined as paying purposeful attention to one’s momentto-moment experience in a nonjudgmental and accepting way. Mindfulness can be considered to be a natural capacity of the human mind. But because we typically shape our mind to wander and be distracted, mindfulness must be cultivated by regularly engaging in techniques that explicitly promote paying attention to the moment. Increasing mindfulness has a number of benefits, including improved psychological well-being and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Accordingly, there has recently been a dramatic uptake of mindfulness training by individuals seeking to improve their health and well-being or to improve their performance in education, sports, or corporate settings. But as promising as the benefits of mindfulness seem to be, the research evidence supporting its efficacy is not conclusive. We don’t yet understand how exactly it works. One line of thought is based on the capacity of the practices to change the brain in ways that lead to increased attention and cognitive abilities. These changes arise
because the techniques of mindfulness emphasize the use of regions of the brain responsible for attentiveness, discernment, and behavior control. By strengthening these faculties, the brain is better able to regulate emotions and stress. It also becomes better at higher-order processes like divergent thinking, which is an element of creativity. Researchers are exploring other potential benefits. For example, my colleagues and I published research on the quality of life and emotional well-being benefits of mindfulness development for stroke survivors. One common debilitating consequence of stroke and other neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, is fatigue. My research review provides preliminary evidence that mindfulness-based interventions may reduce the symptoms of fatigue in those living with neurological conditions. Other researchers are investigating the benefits of mindfulness interventions for chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer-related fatigue, and management of chronic pain. More broadly, research is exploring how mindfulness can support lifestyle changes as part of treatment of medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Getting Started Although mindfulness is considered to be relatively safe, before starting out, those with an existing physical or mental health condition should first talk to a health professional. Mindfulness practices should not replace or delay conventional health care. A variety of techniques can be used to cultivate mindfulness. Some involve pur-
poseful movements such as yoga asana or tai chi, while others are meditation-based. No conclusive evidence indicates that one technique is superior to another. The technique must emphasize mindfulness development at a level appropriate to one’s experience and preference. Beyond that, participation and outcomes are determined by intention, motivation, expectations, and attitudes. It is common for people to learn a mindfulness technique by completing a mindfulness course. They then integrate the technique into their daily routine. Regularity of practice is important, even if it is for just a few minutes each day. As with any skill, learning mindfulness can be quite frustrating. For many, this is the significant barrier to their practice. Working with frustration, or boredom, often provides the initial important lessons of mindfulness. A well-trained and experienced instructor will ensure the novice is well-supported and receives adequate feedback on progress. And the rapport between instructor and trainee is increasingly being recognized as another important factor developing mindfulness. In summary, the best way to learn about mindfulness is to practice it. As Albert Einstein said, “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.” Maarten A. Immink is an accredited yoga and meditation instructor. He has received research funding from the National Stroke Foundation and the Medical Advances Without Animals Trust. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Compassionate Behavior and Success
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esearchers at the University of California–San Diego School of Medicine report that older women, plucky individuals, and those who have suffered a recent major loss are more likely to be compassionate toward strangers than other older adults. The study was published in the “International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.” Because compassionate behaviors are associated with better health and wellbeing as we age, the research findings offer insights into ways to improve the
outcomes of individuals whose deficits in compassion put them at risk for becoming lonely and isolated later in life. “We are interested in anything that can help older people age more successfully,” said Lisa Eyler, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and co-author. “We know that social connections are important to health and well-being, and we know that people who want to be kind to others garner greater social support. If we can foster compassion in people, we can improve their health and well-being, and maybe even longevity.”
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The study, based on a survey of 1,006 randomly selected adults in San Diego County, aged 50 and over, with a mean age of 77, identified three factors that were predictive of a person’s selfreported compassion: gender, recent suffering, and high mental resiliency. Women, independent of their age, income, education, race, marital status, or mental health status, scored higher on the compassion test, on average, than men. Higher levels of compassion were also observed among both men and women who had “walked a mile in another person’s shoes” and experienced a personal loss, such as a death in the family or illness, in the last year. Those who reported higher confidence in their ability to bounce back from hard times also reported more empathy toward strangers and joy from helping those in need. “What is exciting is that we are identifying aspects of successful aging that we can foster in both men and women,” said co-author Dilip Jeste, M.D., distinguished professor of psychiatry and neurosciences, and director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging. “Mental resiliency can be developed through meditation, mindfulness, and stress-reduction practices. We can also teach people that the silver lining to adversity is an opportunity for personal growth.”
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Drug abuse, certain medications, and some lifesaving medical treatments such as radiation may also contribute to hearing loss. Lower Your Earbud Volume Dr. Sinclair said she’s seeing more and more young people come to her clinic with hearing loss related to how they use technology and that people are developing hearing loss much younger than in previous generations. Listening to very loud music puts pressure on the eardrums and leads to permanent hearing loss, she said, so keep your volume as low as you can. Use Earplugs After being at a noisy event, it takes about 14 hours of being away from the noise for your ears to recover. Continued exposure to loud noise can cause permanent damage. “If you continue to go to night clubs where the music is so loud, gradually, your hearing will get worse, and your ears will not be able to recover any more from such repeated exposure,” she said. Earplugs can protect your ears from permanent damage, and Dr. Sinclair suggested using them at very loud events. “If you go to a party with loud music and everybody is yelling at each other [in order to converse], use earplugs,” she said.
Know the Law and Get Tested If you are exposed to noise for many hours as part of your work, you should get tested and use protection. “By law, you cannot be exposed in your working environment to more than 80–85 decibels. After 85 decibels, you really need ear protection,” Dr. Sinclair said. The law also requires that employees in noisy workplaces get a hearing test once a year and be provided with earplugs, she said. Check Medications Besides noise exposure, drug abuse, certain medications, and some lifesaving medical treatments such as radiation may also contribute to hearing loss. Dr. Sinclair said this is known as auto-toxicity. “Even aspirin taken in big quantities can cause ringing in the ears and temporary hearing loss. ... Read the side-effects of the medication,” she said. Have Patience With Your Hearing Aid It can be overwhelming when you first get a hearing aid and are suddenly able to hear sounds you haven’t heard in a long time. “It takes a while for the brain to relearn to listen to sounds. We have to retrain the brain. … There’s a period of adjustment—usually about three weeks. First the brain relearns to listen to sounds, and the joy of sound comes a bit later,” Dr. Sinclair said. She has been working with the national hearing-care company HearUSA since its inception, and through it runs a patient support group where people with hearing loss can connect and learn from one another. Treatment and support can make a huge difference in quality of life. “One of my women patients said, ‘Now when I put my hearing aid in I feel complete. … I can’t believe how much I was missing,’” Dr. Sinclair said.
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May is Better Hearing Month istening is incredibly important for our emotional well-being. “Lack of hearing can lead to depression, anxiety, emotional instability, withdrawal, isolation, and less self self-esteem,” audiologist Dr. Georgette Sinclair said. Once hearing cells are lost, they can never be regained, but there are ways to protect them, and hearing aids can greatly improve quality of life, she said. Here are her tips for good hearing health.
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Life Should End With a Comfortable Death Providing care for those with terminal cancer Part 29 COURTESY OF DR. SEO HYO-SEOK
By Dr. Seo Hyo-seok The question of what constitutes good end-of-life care is one that perplexes physicians around the world. In 2011, a survey conducted by the Gerontological Association of Japan asked doctors how they would deal with an 85-year-old patient who has late-stage Alzheimer’s and is unable to eat or drink even with assistance. Among the 1,554 who responded to the survey, 51 percent said they would give an intravenous injection of Ringer’s solution in the patient’s arm or leg; 21 percent said they would supply nutrients through a feeding tube directly into the stomach; 13 percent said they would opt for a nasal feeding tube; and only 10 percent said they would consider making the patient comfortable and allowing death to come naturally. The 10 percent who said they would quietly observe the patient have since been criticized by professionals who reviewed the survey. The reviewers said these doctors would be neglecting their duties as physicians. This view is in line with the current majority medical opinion that it is the duty of physicians to take all possible measures to enable their patients to live for even a short while longer, even if the patient is an elderly person dying of natural causes.
We have the tendency to view death as something to be feared and avoided at all costs. But is this opinion correct? We must ask ourselves who benefits if we sustain the lives of this kind of patient for another few days, weeks, or months? On this issue, public opinion seems to concur with the medical one. Regardless of how old our parents may be, for most of us living in the modern era, unless our parents have specifically requested otherwise, it is normal to rush them to the hospital and have doctors take every measure possible to sustain their life even if it is clear that they will not be able to recover and live a high quality of life. Taking these life-saving measures may console us that we have done our duty as their child even if our parents pass away without the treatments having had any effect. However on the other hand, measures that prolong life can also be seen as completely ignoring the right of patients to end their life with dignity. It is inevitable that all humans die, and allowing people to confront the last moments of their lives quietly and comfortably may in many cases show more caring than fighting to sustain their lives. We have the tendency to view death as something to be feared and avoided at all costs, and the advancement in medical science has created many ways to extend life, even if for a short while. However, this is not the order of nature. Without exceptions, nature ends a life when it has run its course. Thus the common practice of physicians trying to extend a life even if for just a short while, often at the behest of family members, runs counter to the course of nature. Although it is clear that physicians do need to do everything they can to save patients who have the potential to recover, forcing patients who clearly will not recover to pass away in the midst of pain and suffering caused by interventions to prolong their lives is an issue we need to address.
How can the body be at peace under these conditions? Patients experience even more pain and suffering because of cancer treatment. Another Solution for Late-Stage Cancer In order to suppress cancer cells and to achieve true health, fundamental order must be established in the body. For this order to be established, the immune system must be strengthened. In my experience with cancer patients, restoring the proper functioning of the lymphatic system is key for strengthening the immune system. The lymphatic system is responsible for transporting diseasefighting white blood cells throughout the body, and to strengthen it, I focus on the tonsils. The tonsils are part of the lymphatic system and a key first line of defense for the immune system. Cleansing the lungs fortifies the tonsils. In my experience, after two months of cleansing the lungs, the tonsils regain their health. After four months of cleansing, the fortified tonsils are able to suppress cancer cells. If at this point the tumor does not grow any more, then this cancer can usually be treated successfully. I have also found that more often than not, it is possible to treat tumors that are less than 2 inches in diameter if they do not grow any more after four months of cleansing the lungs, and if there continues to be no change in size at all after six months. However, this is limited to patients who have not undergone chemotherapy and radiation. I have found that the rate of full remission decreases drastically after these treatments, with extremely few patients being cured if they have completed chemotherapy and radiation. For cancers with tumors larger than 2 inches in diameter, it is important to note that while they may not be fully curable, it is possible to improve patients’ conditions. It is possible to stop tumors larger than this from causing further mayhem within a patient’s body. This means that even severely ill cancer patients with terminal diagnoses can live out their lives in relative comfort. If their immunity is sufficiently fortified through cleansing their lungs, it is possible to suppress the further spread of their cancer and prevent it from metastasizing to other parts of the body. Accordingly, terminal-stage cancer patients are able to confront death more comfortably, experiencing less pain and agony. Death With Dignity I attained a profound realization through the death of a patient of mine who was a Catholic friar and who passed away from lung cancer. When I first began treating him with Korean herbal medicine to cleanse his lungs, I told him not to give up hope and that he would definitely be cured. However, he passed away a year later, and I was burdened with a great deal of guilt because of the failure of my
therapy to cure his illness. Then quite some time after his death, one of his fellow friars visited me and told me something I did not expect. The friar who passed away had wanted to convey to me that he was grateful to be able to pass away comfortably and without pain because of my treatment. At that moment, I came to the understanding that a comfortable and noble death is a fundamental right that all humans ought to enjoy.
Allowing people to confront the last moments of their lives quietly and comfortably may in many cases show more caring than fighting to sustain their lives. In my view, it is a huge mistake to subject a patient who is facing the last days of life to a great deal of pain and the ordeal of extensive treatment with surgery, radiation, and other invasive anti-cancer therapies. In these cases, it is not necessary to do everything possible to sustain the life. From this perspective, my lung-cleansing therapy was not a failure for the friar, but a success. Thus, in dealing with terminal cancer patients, it is necessary to view their situations more broadly, with respect for the natural course of life, and allow them to confront death gracefully. We need to discard the idea that it is better to ceaselessly strive to achieve full remission. Rather than striving to cure all cancer, we ought to manage cancer in order for the patient to have a comfortable, pain-free death as much as possible. For this, the key is to fortify their immunity by improving of the health of their tonsils through cleansing their lungs. Dr. Seo Hyo-seok is the director of the Pyunkang Korean Medicine Hospital, which has seven branches in South Korea, one at Stanton University in California, and one in Atlanta. Dr. Seo entered Kyung Hee University in Korea at the top of his class and after years of research, developed the Pyunkang-Hwan herbal formula, which improves immunity by strengthening lung function. It has helped cure over 155,000 patients of various conditions. Find out more at Pyunkang.com Email: Dr.Seo@wwdoctor.com
Cancerous cells can only cause problems when the immune system is weak and can’t suppress them.
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Cancer Treatment More Painful Than the Disease When cancer is detected in a late stage, it means that patients ignored the progress of the disease because they had no pain and were not aware of it. At this point, a physician will usually implement various measures to attack the cancer cells, including surgery to remove the tumor, and chemotherapy or radiation. Unfortunately these measures do not fundamentally solve the issue that caused the cancer in the first place, and patients are subjected to even greater pain than that caused by their illness. Just imagine how the body responds when highly toxic anti-cancer drugs are poured into it, and it is burned with radiation like meat grilled on a fire?
Everyone has the right to a comfortable and dignified death.