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June 20, 2011  In This Issue... - Why is This One of the Fastest Growing Drinks in America?
- Meditation, Military Style
- Forever Young
- Heart Attack and Insomnia
Why is This One of the Fastest Growing Drinks in America? We absolutely love this juice. You can drink it without any guilt because not only does it taste great, but it’s actually good for you! This all-natural Aloe vera and cranberry juice is sugar-free, has only 8 calories and contains 5 grams of soluble fiber, which as you may know is the hard-to-get fiber. Listen to what people are saying: "...my cholesterol is down 37%" -- Diane Q. Bronx, NY
"...no more acid reflux drugs" -- Dorothy W. High Point, NC
"blood sugar’s under control" -- Lester L., Sacramento, CA This is not your typical health drink that you’ll have to psych yourself up to force down. So, what is this juice? Learn more about this delicious, 8-calorie natural juice...
Meditation, Military Style Consider this sort of a boot camp for the mind -- the US military is now training soldiers in a type of meditation that helps them become resilient so they can handle the intense stress of the battlefield. The hope is that this program will result in a reduction in the number of armed services personnel who suffer psychologically after deployment. Just as we civilians have borrowed boot camp’s tough-love strategy as an effective way to get physically strong and fit, it seems to me that we also might benefit by borrowing from the techniques our armed forces use to strengthen their psyches for difficult times. After all, who gets through life without facing some tough emotional challenges? The training program for soldiers is called Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT, pronounced "M-fit"). When I talked with John Schaldach, MMFT’s director of training, he told me that people often mistakenly assume that MMFT is simply using mindfulness for stress reduction. While that’s "hugely helpful" for most types of stress, he told me that MMFT goes beyond that. The program helps soldiers develop resilience by pairing mindfulness with other skills to help them regulate their responses to stress, to maintain peak functioning at all times and to make effective decisions during situations in which they might otherwise panic. It also helps them come down from the high pitch and edge that they must maintain for combat so they can respond appropriately to ordinary life. Learning the Way Soldiers preparing for deployment undergo 20 hours of MMFT training over eight weeks. They begin with awareness exercises, learning to focus attention on what happens when they experience the stress response and its aftermath. Rather than shutting these sensations down or becoming overwhelmed (two common reactions), participants learn to notice and tolerate them, which supports the body’s natural capacity for self-regulation. Example: After intense stress, the human nervous system needs to discharge the excess energy that was mobilized for "fight or flight." Commonly, people experience twitching or trembling, heaviness in the limbs, heat flashes, chills and/or crying. If this release of energy is interrupted, the nervous system can become imbalanced -- and that can be the seed for psychological problems to develop later on. "The rational mind is the main thing that blocks the body’s natural ability to self-regulate," Schaldach explained, noting that the nonconscious survival part of the brain governs the stress response. "When the thinking mind gets involved, it can interfere with the stress response’s natural cycle of arousal and recovery. Teaching soldiers to understand what’s happening and to use mindfulness skills for stabilization helps the conscious mind cooperate with the body instead of fighting it." Finally, soldiers learn to apply all this self-awareness and self-control to managing their actions. "They become much more skilled in accessing a choice -- rather than reacting from habit -- even under tremendous pressure," Schaldach said. Good for All Schaldach told me that participants have experienced remarkable changes from MMFT training. "Many say it is the missing piece in military training they had never had until now," he said. A 2010 Defense Department study showed that Marines who practice MMFT exercises just 15 minutes a day demonstrated improvements in working memory capacity. This mental capacity is critical for situational awareness and the ability to make good creative decisions. These are skills that every one of us would benefit from honing, even in civilian life, to better handle the demands of job, family, finances -- even rush hour traffic -- more effectively. We all have had the experience of strong emotions dictating our behavior in ways that we regret later. Our internal stress response causes us to respond from habit -- the survival brain simply takes over and reacts. Training such as MMFT can help create a little more space during a heated encounter with a loved one or coworker, so that we can respond thoughtfully and in a way that will be most effective. Source(s): John Schaldach, director of curriculum and training, Mind Fitness Training Institute, Alexandria, Virginia. www.Mind-Fitness-Training.org.
Forever Young Getting old can be awful. Aches... pains... illness... constant bouncing from doctor to doctor. We all dread it. You can't stop the clock, but you can banish the miseries that sometimes come with it. - Bulging belly
- Cholesterol-choked arteries
- Brain failure and fatigue
- Weakness and impotence
- Frozen joints or back pain
- Spotted, decrepit skin
- Tumors taking over your body
- Parkinson's tremors
- Menopausal miseries
- Fading, cloudy vision
- And all other indignities of aging!
Read on...
Heart Attack and Insomnia
As though people who have survived a heart attack don’t have enough to worry about, they often find themselves experiencing relentless insomnia. Sleep is key to healing, and a lack of it can substantially slow recovery -- all the more reason for anxiousness and stress. Until now, there’s been no scientific explanation for the onset of insomnia, although mental stress has been under suspicion as the primary cause.
So here’s a surprise -- it isn’t just stress that keeps heart attack survivors awake at night. Canadian scientists believe that they have found a genuine physiological basis for the sleeplessness. As it turns out, they say, the physical damage of a serious heart attack extends beyond the cardiovascular system all the way to the brain stem where important aspects of sleep are controlled.
The Heart-Brain Connection
In earlier research at the University of Montreal, Roger Godbout, PhD, and his colleagues had performed a series of studies with rats, demonstrating that heart attacks affect the limbic system -- the part of the brain that controls your mood -- which explains why so many people experience depression after acute myocardial infarction. "Since depression is frequently accompanied by insomnia, we wanted to verify whether the neurons in the brain stem were also affected," Dr. Godbout explained.
Dr. Godbout’s theory proved to be right. In his latest study (also done with rats and reported in the December 2010 issue of Sleep), he demonstrated that within a few hours of a serious heart attack, the study subjects lost neurons in the brain stem, and within two weeks, it was taking them twice as long to get to sleep. The disturbing effect on their sleep didn’t end there. When they finally did fall asleep, it took them a shorter time than before to reach the restful state of deep dream sleep -- but this stage, which is when memories are believed to be consolidated, was considerably shortened.
"Thanks to this study, we have been able to show that sleep disturbance following an acute heart attack is not a psychological phenomenon. In fact, there is a clear physiological explanation that the death of cells play a key role in difficulty with sleep," says Dr. Godbout.
Poor quality of sleep is a known risk factor for people with cardiovascular disease. Since insomnia can increase the chances of relapse after heart attack, the risk for complications rises -- and a vicious cycle can easily be set in motion.
While there is no specific sleep therapy for those who have lost sleep neurons, Dr. Godbout says, this new study illustrates the importance of "rapid intervention" in the days following a heart attack, before the first signs of insomnia and depression are even apparent... and before recurring patterns have a chance to set in. You can do much of this intervention yourself. For some, it will mean consulting with your doctor about sleeping medication, and for others, it will simply mean what doctors call good "sleep hygiene"... - Fix a regular bedtime and wake-up hour.
- Avoid alcohol, caffeine and spicy foods for four to six hours before retiring.
- Get regular exercise (but no evening workouts). Be sure to check with your doctor, as you may need to pass stress tests, blood pressure tests, etc., to be sure that your heart is strong enough to start exercising.
- In your bedroom, block out light and noise... make sure the temperature is comfortable (it’s worth the higher heating/cooling bills!)... and use bed only for sleep and sex -- no TV watching or computer use, because these activities tend to be stimulating and because the temptation to check one more channel or click on just one more Web site is too great.
If you feel that you need a buffer in between your waking activities and lights out, establish a calm and relaxing presleep ritual that works for you, such as taking a warm bath, reading a relaxing book, praying or listening to soothing music. You can still have sweet dreams!
Source(s):
Roger Godbout, PhD, professor, department of psychiatry, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Be well, 
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line's Daily Health News
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