The Wellness Year

How Stress Helps Make Us Sad and Overweight – and What to Do About It

This Week 9 of The Wellness Year Program

Two weeks ago, we reviewed the conditions under which stress causes too much of the hormone “cortisol” to be released in our bloodstream. Cortisol’s job is to replenish the stores depleted by the adrenaline rush. The only problem is that in our modern world, those stores were not used up in the first place. The following is summarized from Dr Bruce McEwen's book, "The End of Stress As We Know It".

For example, say you go into full fight-or-flight response internally when someone steals the parking spot you had patiently been waiting for. Most likely, the next action you will do is to drive around some more. You don’t do anything that would cause you to use a significant number of calories. So you sit in your car awash in extra oxygen and glucose.

If things happen frequently that make you feel frustrated, upset or angry, then lots of cortisol comes out and makes you do all the things that would have been appropriate had you spent lots of calories running away from a predator. For example it turns the glucose in your blood and the muscle in your body to storage forms such as glycogen or fat. This can make you hungry of course, so you look for more food. You may feel too weak to exercise, a way to recuperate from the effort your body thinks you made earlier. When a high cortisol level is a chronic condition, you lose muscle and gain weight.

How does it become a chronic condition? Other animals have this system too. However, the theory goes, other animals naturally stop worrying once the upsetting event is over. Humans have a more developed brain, which allows us to be extremely creative in solving problems. The downside of a more developed brain is that we use perception, thought and emotion to keep the stress response going on indefinitely.

There is also a concern that while memory is enhanced by adrenaline, cortisol actually works to dull memory. Research studies link high cortisol levels to atrophy in the hippocampus and amygdala, two brain areas crucial to learning and memory. These brain areas also play a role in mood, because mood is a result of interpreting present events in the light of past history. So mood may be adversely affected by chronic stress.

So to summarize, adrenaline is released in acute stress conditions, and is well designed to help us cope with acute stress – more energy stores, enhanced memory and immune response. Then cortisol is released which is designed to bring everything back to normal. Unfortunately, our response to an acute stressor rarely requires the added energy reserves, so the action of cortisol harms us by building fat reserves we don’t need. This would not be so bad except in cases where the stressor won’t go away, or in cases where our brain, or our surroundings cause us to remember the stressor and reactivate the response multiple times. These conditions of spending too much time in a high cortisol state exist in many of our lives.

What can we do in the short term, without making drastic changes in our lives? Here’s a list of things that in themselves decrease cortisol levels and help avoid the harmful effects of stress.

1. exercise
2. follow a low fat highly nutritious diet
3. do not eat a large meal late at night
4. safeguard your sleep (get enough, good quality sleep)
5. avoid alcohol (especially as a way to cope, relax, etc…)
6. connect regularly with supportive people in your life – maybe friends and family and perhaps a support group
7. do not expose yourself to unnecessary stressors – my pet peeve is TV, I might as well admit it. My opinion is that there is too much violence, and the ads are carefully designed to make you feel anxious about being inadequate so they can get you to buy something. There is a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety and distraction from the things that may really need to change in your life.
8. take time on a regular basis to think about your life and to check in with yourself – what are my goals, my values? How are they being honored? At work, ask yourself whether you have appropriate control given the demands placed upon you, and whether your work is in line with your values and brings great satisfaction into your daily life. This seems unattainable to many people – don’t give up just yet!!!

Next week, I will address the topic of behavior change and of keeping learning alive. I hope I have inspired all of you (and myself!) to make exciting positive changes in our lives. The problem is that typically, about 90% of what we hear or read is forgotten after only a few short weeks, and our best intentions fall through. So tune in next week, and if these words elicit questions, thoughts or comments on your part, please write me!!

All the best,

Myrto

What Stress Does to Your Body and Mind

This is Week 8 of the Wellness Year Program.

We all know that health is important to happiness. In some ways, I think it is actually happiness that is crucial to health.

In his book, “The End of Stress as We Know It” neuroscientist Dr. Bruce McEwen argues that acute stress is good for us: it increases our immune resistance, makes us more alert, stronger, faster, etc… On the other hand, chronic ongoing stress weakens us by causing the release of a hormone called cortisol. The job of cortisol is to replenish the body and repair the effects of acute stress hormones. But if there is too much of it for too long, this hormone can lead to damage.

What do we mean by stress? The word was first used by Dr. Hans Selye – it refers to the external conditions that cause distress as well as to the internal feeling we have in response to pressure or hardship. When a new problem first appears we get a full blown acute stress response – that’s the “fight or flight” response. The whole body is affected: the heart beats faster, breathing is faster, the mouth is drier, we feel that hair stands on end, we feel fully awake. Internally, the pupils dilate to let in more light so we can see better, memory is improved, and carbohydrate reserves are liquidated into the bloodstream to provide a source of fuel. Often we can perform better: athletes are a classic example, or my 10 year old sister at a piano recital I’ll never forget, who started her piece oh!! at least twice as fast as she had ever rehearsed it, and though sitting in the audience my mother and I had palpitations during the entire time, she just nailed that piece with panache and not a single wrong note.

That sense of being fully alive, and the relief when it is all over can be addictive. What happens though, when the episodes causing fear or upset feelings are frequent and inescapable? Or even when we can’t help but endlessly replay them in our minds? Friction at work, or too many demands and not enough control; too much to do and not enough help at home, or chronic anger at family members; problems with friends or family members, too much time pressure all the time...

The effects of this type of ongoing stress on the body are bad. Mentally we suffer memory loss, depression, and anxiety. This is a result of changes in the chemicals that brain cells use to communicate with each other. It can actually be observed as a physical change in the size of the brain structures involved in memory formation and the regulation of mood. Physically, some people suffer ulcers, weight gain, blood pressure changes, cholesterol changes, increased glucose levels, more hardening of the arteries, a worsened immune system leading to more frequent colds and to autoimmune diseases such as asthma, eczema, and some of the new and poorly understood diseases such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Note that I am not saying that any of these diseases are “in your head”. I am just saying that chronic stress makes a lot of diseases worse. Recognizing the role of stress is extremely important. A better lifestyle may be one of the few things that can be done to totally eliminate a chronic medical illness. Many medications unfortunately tend to be “Band-Aids” and not permanent cures. Medications to treat high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, fibromyalgia are not cures, they just improve the symptoms. A person who is treated for these diseases has to take medications every day. They won’t get back to normal on these medications. They’re just better off, usually, than if they didn’t do anything at all.

So, how is your stress level?
What do you do to cope at times when stress is high?
How much of this stress is inevitable?
What is one change you can make this week that will reduce the stress in your life?

Let me know!
All the best,
Myrto

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Get a Handle on the Stress in Your Life

This is Week 7 of The Wellness Year Program

For the next few weeks, the Wellness Year Program will be focusing on stress. This is a timely topic for me, as it turns out, and you will notice that I did not broadcast the newsletter on time this week...

Here is some food for thought:

What are some indications for you that you are under too much stress?

What sorts of things seem to affect you less, or more, than others you know?

Take a moment right now for a deep breath, and stay tuned!!

All the best,

Myrto

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The Best Thing You Can Do for Your Health

If you have been reading recent articles on this topic, you probably have an answer already: exercise, or maybe diet…

WRONG!!
The most important thing you can do is to find your passion, and to hold on to it. Then orient your life around it and dream as big as you dare, and then much, much bigger.

Why? That is simple.
If you know your passion and you dare to dream, then you do what you need to do to stay healthy. You respect this body, and this mind, because they are the instruments of your effectiveness in the world.

In studies of people who enter very old age with their health intact, one of the factors seems to be “remaining engaged with life”. The other factors are exercise, a healthy diet, not smoking, and having a large and varied social circle. These factors are independent of each other, meaning that the reason they are important is not just because people who do one also tend to do the others. Presumably, they each have their part to play in maintaining our health.

There is magic in these studies. We don’t fully understand the results. Why a social circle? What hormones are affected? What difference does it make that we are engaged with life? How do you bottle that so we can all get a dose?

As a physician, I give this advice sometimes, but always a little jokingly. It just doesn’t sound scientific.

But as a coach, I can tell you this has to be basic. Everything works that way. If you know your passion, your dream, the universe conspires to help you. Goethe said so:

“All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issue from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of incidents
and meetings and material assistance
which no one could have dreamed would come his or her way.

Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.”

Magic then. But as far as your body is concerned, it is quite simple. There are hormones that react to your thoughts and feelings. Their levels rise or fall in response to signals from your brain. If your brain says, “life is a bore, depressing, really frightening and horrible”, the levels of a hormone called cortisol rise. This causes increases in blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, decreases in immune function, memory and mood. It also causes increased storage of fat in a “central” way – in the abdomen, around organs. You could be on your way to cancer or a heart attack.

How do you find your passion, how do you dare to dream? That is why I am focusing on coaching at this time. As a physician, I watched people lose their zest for life and there was little I could do about it. With coaching skills and tools, there is a good chance I can help.

Here are some ideas to get you started. The rest of this post was taken verbatim from the e-zine written by Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses.

“Wait, don't stop reading because you think that stuff is airy-fairy. It's the most practical thing in the world. It's the source of your fulfillment and your success. It's what keeps you smiling and what keeps you going no matter how hard things get.

Your vision and your purpose are not things you achieve. They are the means to achieving everything else. They are not something you get to some day. They are where you come from. They are not something to figure out. You already know them.

What is your vision and purpose? I promise you, they're in there, but they may not be completely clear to you. And even though they are there, it's as if they are hidden behind seven veils.

You unlock the power of your vision and purpose by *expressing them.* And the easiest, fastest and most effective way to do that is to write them down. As you write or type, it will be as if your vision and purpose flow through your fingers.

So don't just discard this, "Sounds kind of weird to me," or even agree with me, "Yeah, that's really true." Actually do it, write down your vision and purpose. There is more than one way to do this. Here are some approaches that have worked for me.

Express your vision and purpose (which, by the way, are essentially the same thing) as those things which you are deeply committed to, such as the contribution you make in the world.

"I am committed to making a lasting difference to my professional field and to the people who work in this field. I bring, clarity, insight and expertise that makes a lasting difference."

Express your vision and purpose as a statement of your innate talents and abilities.

"I am someone who is a great teacher, mentor and coach. I have the ability to empathize with those I work with and then to provide the guidance, direction and support they need."

Express your vision and purpose as how you see the world being a better place with the contributions you make.

"The world is a better place with me because I am constantly giving. I put my attention and efforts towards helping people be their very best."

OK, hopefully that gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. You'll only really understand however, if you take a few minutes to write down several of these vision/purpose statements yourself and notice what happens.

You don't have to force them. They are right there. But once you've written them down, I promise you'll experience a new sense of energy and understanding about who you are, what your life is about and how your business is a vehicle to realize your vision and purpose.

The key to the vision and purpose exercise is to write it down.

* Writing helps you focus and clarify your ideas. If you're just thinking these ideas, they tend to go around and around in your head without resolution. What you think of for hours can often be captured and resolved in minutes.

* Writing gets your ideas organized and prioritized. To be physically organized you have a place for everything and everything in its place. When you write, all your jumbled, messy ideas start to take a form that you can then do something with.

* Writing something down creates space for the next idea. You can only hold so many ideas in your head at the same time. By getting them down on paper, it leaves room for more ideas to flow in.

* Writing increases your ability to verbalize. I've noticed when clients write down a marketing message, an executive summary or an article, they find themselves speaking about these ideas with more clarity and conviction.

* Writing quiets your noisy mind. Ever have trouble going to sleep at night because you kept thinking of all the things you had to do? Then you got up and wrote a list of those things - and you discovered it was really only two or three things? And then you were able to sleep soundly.”

And now, what will be your action step for this week?
Let me know how it goes!

All the best,

Myrto Ashe, M.D.

Teleclasses

ANNOUNCING TWO UPCOMING TELECLASSES

The first is for regular readers of the Wellness Year newsletter who would like a better introduction to the program and to its support and motivation components. Also, you can refer anyone you think may be interested in exploring The Wellness Year.

Introduction to the Wellness Year - Wednesday May 5th, 6pm Pacific Time

The second teleclass is especially tailored to people who already face a chronic medical problem, such as high blood pressure, obesity, arthritis, diabetes, etc... (If you are not sure whether this is for you, please e-mail me with your questions).

Outsmarting Medical Conditions - Wednesday May 12th, 6pm Pacific Time

These teleclasses are free if you sign up by April 7th, $5 if you sign up on or before April 30th, $10 if you sign up after April 30th.

To sign up, write me or call me at 1-888-522-5894.

All the best,

Myrto Ashe, M.D.

Success With Exercise - In 10 Questions!!

This is Week 5 of The Wellness Year Program

Many of us are fully convinced of the benefits of regular exercise – from improving our energy level to preventing many illnesses, from decreasing stress levels to improving our balance and the function of our brains, and of course, it keeps us looking slim and well-toned.

Nevertheless, most Americans don’t do enough exercise. It remains something that people feel guilty about, and despite the growing evidence of its benefits, many of us have been doing less and less of it.

Television is a culprit for many people, as well as the computer, e-mail and the world wide web. Despite all these added conveniences in our lives, time seems shorter than ever.

Time seems to be what we need more of in order to exercise. Or is that true?

At least one study showed that people who fail to exercise regularly do not have tighter schedules than people who do find the time to exercise. The difference must be in what people do with their free time, or in how they combine the activities in their lives.

Here are some questions that can help your motivation to exercise:
(Sit down with pen and paper and answer them now!! They’re a lot easier than a dozen push ups!!)

1. What would you hope to accomplish by exercising?
(List all reasons)

2. How meaningful is each reason for you?
(Take your time with this one, then pick the most meaningful reason)

3. What makes it especially important that you reach this goal?
(Don’t shrug it off!! You are important! There must be good reasons you want to be healthy, fit, smart, energetic, good-looking!)

4. What are some drawbacks to exercising, for you?
(List them all, even the really picky ones – this is your chance to whine)

5. Would you rather honor your reasons for wanting to exercise, or your reasons to avoid it?

6. When have you been successful at exercising in the past?
(Or, when were you more active than you are now)

7. What seemed to make it possible at that time?

8. How can you incorporate some of those ingredients of success into your life now?

9. How can you combine exercise with another activity that will be a treat for you?

10. How can you focus on the good feelings you get from exercise?
(Tip: you may need to slow down and tune into your feelings right after each workout)

Now, knowing the answers to the 10 questions:
What is one step you will take this week to incorporate more exercise into your life?

Will you commit to that?

Please let me know what step you have chosen! (Telling as many people as possible helps motivation…)

All the best,
Myrto

Fun Facts About Exercise

This is Week 4 of The Wellness Year Program

Exercise helps with:
• Weight control
Regular exercise not only burns calories (3500 calories equal 1 lb), but also encourages the body to lose fat instead of muscle. By preserving (and building) muscle, exercise also causes an increase in the rate calories are burned during exercise, thus resulting in a person being able to eat the same amount but lose weight. (Note: this assumes you keep at some aerobic exercise program, as well) .In contrast, a person who loses weight through dieting only may lose muscle, and thus get into a vicious cycle where they burn fewer calories and therefore need to consume even fewer calories to keep weight off.

• Cancer prevention
Moderately active people have lower rates of cancer. In the case of breast cancer, for example, exercise causes lower estrogen levels, which is beneficial for preventing breast cancer.

• Boosts immunity in moderate doses/decreases it in large doses
According to studies involving Olympic athletes, the benefits of moderate exercise on immunity decreases when one does strenuous exercise on a regular basis.

• Mortality prevention depends on how much exercise one is doing at any given time, not how much one did in the past

• Prevents osteoporosis: bones respond to demand by getting stronger, and to inactivity by getting thinner. After age 40, women will lose bone mass unless they do strength exercises (weight training) twice per week. Weight bearing exercise is most beneficial for this particular purpose (for example hiking is better than swimming). People who are thin, pale skinned, blond, blue-eyed and smokers are at highest risk of fractures from thin bones (osteoporotic fractures).

• Helps with osteoarthritis
In osteoarthritis, large joints ache after a day of regular activities. Paradoxically, regular exercise can improve symptoms by strengthening the muscles and tendons that surround the joint, thus preventing some of the inflammation and pain. In addition, of course, reducing one’s weight helps arthritic joints by decreasing the load they have to bear. It may prevent arthritis altogether.

• Helps with depression and anxiety
Studies of people with depression show that they can benefit from regular exercise.

How much is needed to see a difference:
The short answer is “quite a lot”, though it depends on your starting point and goals.
We were initially told that 30 minutes, 3 times per week was enough. This later became 5 times per week. But it was not based on research.

In September 2002. the Institute of Medicine reviewed the health habits of the people with the healthiest weights and found that most of them actually did an hour of moderate exercise every day. This is the basis for the latest recommendation.

A study of people who lost weight and kept it off revealed that on the average, they expended 2500 calories per week, which is the equivalent of about 90 minutes of exercise each day.

In another study, people with pre-diabetes reduced their odds of developing full-scale diabetes when they did 80 minutes per day of regular exercise.

Ways to fit it in to daily life:

- make it functional: walk or bike to work or running errands
- make it convenient – sign up for a gym near home or buy home equipment
- make it fun – find activities you like, go with a partner
- break it up into small portions – 15 minutes four times a day
- do more strenuous exercise for a shorter time
- stay active – walk to a co-worker instead of using e-mail, park a little further away when you can, walk up stairs

Action step for this week:

Answer the following questions:
1. On a scale of 1-10, how important is it to you to incorporate more regular exercise into your life?
2. Why not more, or less important?
3. On a scale of 1-10, how confident do you feel that you can meet this goal?
4. Why not more, or less confident?
What is it that I could do to support you in reaching your goal? E-mail me!

What You Should Know About Cancer Prevention

Health professionals have many tests these days to detect cancer in its early phases: Pap smears and mammograms, of course, but also other tests such as testicular self-exam, sigmoidoscopies, liver ultrasounds, etc...

This is the point I want to make: though these tests are useful, they are early detection tests, and you can only hope that your life will be saved by such a test.

I think most people would want to focus their efforts on cancer prevention. Research is more difficult on that topic, but some guidelines are available.

They do in fact sound a lot like advice from your great-grandmother: Don't smoke, eat healthy, exercise regularly, don't drink too much alcohol and protect yourself from the sun. Watch out for chemicals in your life (pesticides, herbicides, substances at work) and...

...know why you want to live. Why are you on this planet? What is your passion? What is the difference you want to make? What, in the world, really upsets or angers you? If you don't know the answer to these questions, it is not too late to find out. Check out the worksheet we offer with a subscription to the free Wellness Year newsletter.

Be cancer-free!!...and fully alive.

Exercise - Making it Work Harder for You

Let’s face it, many of us have busy lives. So in trying to lose weight and get fit, we want to get the best bang for our buck.

When it comes to weight loss, there is really one best strategy. There is a multitude of studies out there, and they really do come pretty much to the same conclusion.

People who have lost (and kept off) a substantial amount of weight have been engaging in lots (an hour or more) of exercise every day.

Most calories per minute are burned during strenuous aerobic exercise. So an effective goal might be to get fitter, so you can exercise as hard as possible (without getting injured or having to quit too soon) in the time that you do have to devote to exercise, however long that would be.

Ignore the “fat-burning zone” on your machine. It is based on a kernel of truth that doesn’t apply to people who don’t have all day to work out. If you want details, I can explain them to you personally.

Two more points: How do you “get fitter”? And what about weights?
By training in intervals, alternating 4-8 minutes of medium intensity exercise with 1 minute spurts at maximum intensity, your muscles get more efficient (see last WYP issue), and you can train harder and harder (and it doesn’t feel “harder”).
The point of weights, or strength training, is to help you avoid injury, and hopefully, to increase the calories you burn by increasing the amount of muscle you have. It is fair to say that you have to lift very seriously and probably with expert advice in order to really build muscle mass. However, even a single additional pound of muscle will burn extra calories for you while you exercise aerobically. (It will not, contrary to previous arguments, raise your resting metabolic rate much.)

Experts do recommend a weekly schedule of exercising whereby you alternate days where you push yourself with days where you work out more gently. There is a science to this, as staying with it for the long haul is the key to success. But remember, if you don’t work out hard enough to lose any weight, even the long haul won’t get you there.

And finally, it’s not all about weight. Being fit and overweight is better for your health than being skinny and unfit.

What is your source of motivation? How do you keep yourself focused on your goal? I hope this newsletter helps. Please pass it on to your friends!

All the best,
Myrto

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Weight Loss Alternatives for Couch Potatoes

A recent report shows that yearly deaths from illnesses related to obesity have increased dramatically in the last 10 years, from 300,000 per year to 400,000. When this many people were dying of smoking-related illnesses, much attention was placed on ways to prevent or quit smoking. Some approaches were helpful, some not, but overall much progress has been made on that topic.

Overeating and dieting/exercising, on the other hand, are behaviors that are apparently harder to control. After all, you either smoke or you don't, but when it comes to eating, we all have to do some of that...And exercise, well, we all have our excuses (read the post on motivation!!).

Meanwhile, Shape magazine reports study results from a Medical University of South Carolna in Charleston experiment, where volunteers were aked to practice stress-reduction techniques for 20 minutes a day. After a week, they not only had lower stress hormone levels, but they also "showed changes in their eating patterns in a more normal direction".

So what is it? Why would we be more stressed as a nation in the last 10 years? Are you more stressed than you were 10 years ago? Have you gained weight? How do you explain it?

(Tomorrow on The Wellness Year Program, we discuss ways to make exercise work harder for weight loss. Stay tuned!!)