Research: Benefits of moving for women

Health-related links for the ladies:

• Washington Post | Women paying price for physical inactivity - Clip: "The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington recently released data showing that, in a major reversal of public health progress, women's life expectancy is shrinking in 313 U.S. counties. Other public health statistics show that more than 60 percent of women are overweight, about 35 percent are obese, and fewer than half of all women 25 and older meet the federal physical activity guidelines for aerobic exercise compared to 51 percent of men."
  
  
• The Independent | Yoga can reduce chronic pain, study finds - Clip: "A small Canadian study announced July 27 found that practicing yoga twice weekly for eight weeks reduced the symptoms of chronic pain and mental stress in women with fibromyalgia. The study is the first to look at the effects of yoga on levels of the hormone cortisol in women suffering with fibromyalgia. The condition, which predominantly affects women, is associated with chronic pain and fatigue, and symptoms such as muscle stiffness, sleep disturbances, and depression."
  
  
• New York Times | How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit - Clip: "For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers."

Get going, girls!

Discover: Running's hand in evolution

Last year, PBS presented a fascinating series on The Human Spark.

In this short clip, narrator Alan Alda and Harvard scientist Dan Lieberman explore why our ability to run (specifically, long distances) may have been the catalyst for the evolution of our bigger brains.

Running clinched our predominance as swift and crafty hunters. And it also secured our dominance over large game, which, in turn, supplied our hungry ancestors with a steady stream of brain-boosting protein.

I find all of this fascinating, as it combines two pastimes I love: running, and ruminating over the many ways and whys re: the functioning of the human brain. Lucky for me (and you, if you're into these things, too), Dr. Lieberman has written more on these matters in a just-published book, The Evolution of the Human Head.

Sleep: Getting enough zzzzzzz's?

I've been a night owl all my life.

As a flight attendant in my 20's and 30's, I used it to my benefit. When others bid for trips that left and returned home at a decent hour, if I worked under a moonlit sky, I'd snag a better schedule (with coveted or more days off) those senior to me didn't want to fly.

Assigned to the int'l division in JFK, I didn't bat an eyelash at working starry transatlantic flights filled with snoozing passengers. Flying over the pitch black Amazon to South American ports of call? A cinch.

As a domestic stew, my nocturnal nature paid off, too.

Discover: Healthy trends + topics - Feb11

First up, from Dakshana Bascaramurty, Globe and Mail:

Tabata, a type of high-intensity interval training that was originally developed for Japan's Olympic speed-skating team, is fast gaining popularity...Named after Izumi Tabata, a former researcher at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports, the compressed workout has a simple format: Do an exercise (such as push-ups or jumping rope) for 20 seconds at full intensity, and then take a 10-second break. Repeat seven times, varying exercises, for a total workout of four minutes. ...

Tabata training is effective, despite its brevity, because the body continues to burn calories at a high rate during the recovery period, says Martin Gibala, chair of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton.

In a study published last year in the Journal of Physiology, Prof. Gibala and his research team found that participants who did high-intensity interval training for just 1½ hours total each week enjoyed the same physical benefits as those who did 4½ hours of endurance training on a stationary bike. Both groups had similar levels of muscle development and lipid oxidation (which improves endurance and reduces the risk of developing obesity and diabetes).

Research: Diet and exercise for your heart

Every day, your beating heart thumps away 100,000 times, circulating anywhere from 2,500-5,000 gallons of blood throughout your beautiful body.

What better day than Valentine's Day to give your heart a little bit of extra attention? Off you go to the latest in heart health research:

• Do you down a diet soda every day? Stop.


• Think you're OK if you're male and obese, but healthy in every other way? You're not.


• Skipping daily exercise? You lose(r).


• Not getting enough fiber from grains in your diet? Tsk, tsk.


• Think cardio's the only thing good for your heart? Weakling.


• Think high-caffeine energy drinks are fine for your kids? You may be wrong.


• Steelers fan? Oh, boy.

Love hurts. But your heart shouldn't have to. :-)

Work: Ways to decrease job stress

Last semester, I took a graduate-level class on the Behavioral and Social Aspects of Public Health. For our final, we were to choose a topic of interest and turn in a lit review on related health care interventions.

I began researching occupational stress.

What I found was amazing: Lifestyle-related conditions and stress levels are the greatest enemies to health in Western nations (vs. infectious diseases in underdeveloped regions of the world).

A few items to gnaw on:

• Americans say money, work and the economy are their top stressors


• U.S. workers spend half of their waking hours on the job


• 35% of Americans report experiencing job stress harming physical and emotional health


• Work-related stress, depression and anxiety caused the loss of 13.5 million U.S. working days between 2001 and 2002 [trending upward]

Sources: American Psychological Association [pdf] and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [pdf]

Nature: It does a body, mind + spirit good

Living in the upper Midwest, I always get a hankering to jet off somewhere warm right about now. But, what if you can't get away?

Studies show (the latest details on that in extended) that taking time to be in natural settings every day, getting outside for some fresh air and exercise, goes a long way in soothing and restoring us. Anything we pass that's green and growing shares its energy with us.

And, ironically, these explorations relax us, too.

So, I do the best I can to get outside -- even in the dead of winter. I bundle up and go for long walks or shovel the driveway; and, as long as it's 15F or higher, I'm happy to run outdoors -- ice and snow permitting.

But, it's not quite like relaxing on a sunny beach, is it?

Protect: Cardio exercise boosts protective brain protein, increases stress resilience

According to the American Psychological Association:

• 75% of Americans feel stressed
  
• 50% of us grab unhealthy food as a result
  
• 47% of us have insomnia because of it
  
• 33% of us say we're depressed due to our stress
  
• 42% of us report feeling worse than last year

Not a pretty picture is it?

Kimberly Goad wrote a data-filled article in Fitness magazine's September 2010 issue worth a look-see (it appears in full online).

Stop Stress for Good: Exercise to Fight Stress reports that cardio workouts help your brain and body become more resilient to stress. Researchers are learning that, compared to the sedentary, "'brains on exercise' morphed over time into a biochemically calm state that remained steady even when the subjects were under stress."

Research: Meditation physically changes stress-associated regions in the brain

Over the years, there's one thing (yes, only one ;-) that my husband has been better than me at doing: meditating. I've always wanted to take the time to learn how to do it, but never seemed to be able to sit still and slow down enough to really give it an honest try.

Yoga and Qigong a few times a week: no problem. But, meditation?

A few half-hearted attempts where I couldn't shake the feeling that I was doing it "wrong" somehow? Check. I just couldn't keep my mind from wandering, drifting off to all of the other things that needed doing besides calming my mind and focusing on my breath. (Reading up on the latest research on issues I care about is one of those things.)

Well, two weeks ago, I came upon some interesting news re: the positive neurological effects of mindfulness meditation.

Share: Welcome to Stressing Fitness

"The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no [one]. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present." -- Alice Morse Earle

Hi again, new and old friends.

After taking a long-needed break from blogging in 2010 (except for some sporadic updating of the now-retired PTSD Combat), I'm excited to begin a new journey. And I'm hoping you'll once again join me.

The thrust of Stressing Fitness isn't an entire departure from what I've been reporting on over the years -- it's more a broadening of focus, actually. But everyone needs to regenerate and refresh themselves every-so-often, and that was certainly the case here.

February is a time of new beginnings for me.

I began PTSD Combat back in February 2006 (although I'd been researching and blogging elsewhere on the issue consistently starting in September 2005). And today my husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, too.

Creating this space this particular month should shower this little blogling with good luck.