How to exercise to be healthy

New advice on how to exercise to be healthy was published earlier this week by the Department of Health.

Until now the Department of Health has recommended that adults do a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on at least five days a week.

The UK’s Chief Medical Officers have changed this advice in the light of increasing scientific evidence that being active each day has many health benefits. These include:

• Reducing your risk of a range of diseases, including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke.
• Helping maintain a healthy weight.
• Reducing symptons of depression and anxiety.
• Improving self-esteem.

The Government’s new exercise advice

The new recommendations are that you should:

• Aim to be active each day. Over a week your activity should add up to at least 2½ hours (150 minutes) of moderate intensity physical activity. You could do this by 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on at least five days a week, but you could also divide it up differently.  Each bout of exercise should be at least 10 minutes.
• Alternatively you can achieve comparable benefits by 1¼ hours (75 minutes) of vigorous intensity physical activity spread across the week or combinations of moderate and vigorous exercise.
• Undertake muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week. There is good evidence that such physical activity stimulates bone formation and maintains muscle mass.
• Minimise the amount of time you spend sedentary (sitting) for long periods.

Older adults aged 65 or over at risk of falls are also recommended to incorporate physical activity, such as yoga and tai chai, that improve balance and co-ordination on at least two days a week.

What is moderate intensity exercise?

Moderate intensity exercise is physical activity that causes you to get warmer, breathe harder and your heart to beat faster, but still be able to carry on a conversation.  Examples of such activity include brisk walking, ballroom dancing and cycling.

What is vigorous intensity exercise?

Vigorous intensity exercise is physical activity that causes you to get warmer, breathe much harder and your heart to beat rapidly, and to find it harder to carry on a conversation.  Examples of such activity include running, swimming, climbing stairs and football.

What is muscle-strengthening activity?

Muscle-strengthening activity is activity that involves using your body weight or working against a resistance. This should involve using all the major muscle groups. Examples of such activity include exercising with weights, heavy gardening, activities that involve stepping and jumping such as dancing and carrying or moving heavy loads such as groceries.

For more information on muscle-strengthening exercise and tips and videos on how to do it see this post.

How to minimise the time you spend sitting

You can reduce the time you spend sedentary (sitting) by:

• Reducing the time you spend watching TV, using the computer or playing video games.
• Taking regular breaks from sitting at work.
• Walking regularly around your immediate area, this could be your workplace, street or garden.
• Breaking up a long bus, train or car journey by walking part of the way, for example by getting on one stop later than you could or getting off one stop earlier.

Today’s takeway health tip

So today’s takeaway health tip is that for your physical and emotional wellbeing  follow this new advice on how to exercise.

Before you increase your level of exercise bear in mind this expert advice on how to reduce your risk of injury or illness.

For tips on how to build more exercise into your daily life see these posts:

Five ideas to help us exercise more

Five more ideas to help us exercise more

Five further fitness tips

How to fall asleep – 5 ways to make your bedroom a sleep haven

Your bedroom environment has a huge impact on your sleep. Today’s post in my series on sleep shows you how you can make your bedroom a sleep haven that helps you fall asleep and sleep better.

Here are five ways to make your bedroom a sleep haven.

1. Make your bedroom dark when it’s time to sleep

Our sleep patterns are regulated by light and darkness. Therefore making your bedroom dark when it’s time to sleep will help you fall asleep and sleep better.

To make your bedroom dark use heavy curtains or blackout blinds (shades) to block out light from windows or cover your eyes with an eye mask.

2. Keep your bedroom slightly cool

If your bedroom is too cold or too hot it can keep you awake. Most of us sleep best in a slightly cool bedroom, around 65ºF (18ºC), with enough ventilation.

Try different temperatures to find the temperature which you find most conducive to sleep.

3. Keep your bedroom quiet

We differ in our sensitivity to noise but in general you will fall asleep and sleep better when your bedroom is quiet.  Even if you have learned to sleep through certain noises, such as traffic noise or the roar of a plane, research shows that these noises still disrupt your sleep.

If you can’t avoid or eliminate noise from traffic, loud neighbours, others in your household or other sources, block it out using earplugs, recordings of relaxing sounds or white noise.

White noise can be very effective in blocking out other sounds and helping you sleep. To create white noise you can use a fan, a white noise machine or generate your own by setting your radio between stations.

White noise machines allow you to choose from various sounds, for example rain, a babbling stream or the wheels of a train on a track. You can also get free white noise online.

4. Ensure your bed is comfortable

Give yourself enough sleeping space. You should have enough space to stretch and turn comfortably. If you share a bed, make sure it is large enough to give both of you room to move around.

Make sure that your mattress and pillows are comfortable and supportive. If your mattress is more than 10 years old it may not give you the support you need and you should also change your pillows regularly.

Use comfortable and attractive bedding materials that invite you to sleep.

If you have allergies or asthma, buy hypo-allergenic covers for your mattress, pillows and bedding that are designed to protect you from possible allergic triggers such as dust mites.

5. Limit your bedroom activities

If space in your home permits, limit your bedroom activities to sleep and sex only. Keeping TVs, computers and work and school materials out of your bedroom will strengthen your mental association between your bedroom and sleep.

If you can’t keep TVs and computers out of your bedroom, turn them off at night.

Today’s takeaway health tip

So today’s takeaway health tip is make your bedroom into a sleep haven to help you fall asleep and sleep better, by following the five ways detailed above.

Let me know how you get on making your bedroom into a sleep haven by posting a comment below.

You can find out more about how to fall asleep and sleep better in the other posts in my series on sleep.

Drinking caffeinated coffee daily may protect you from Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests

Good news for coffee drinkers. Drinking caffeinated coffee each day may protect you from Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new research study.

The researchers at the University of South Florida, who conducted the study, say that there’s an unidentified component in coffee that interacts with the caffeine to boost blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the Alzheimer’s disease process.

Their findings are published in the June 28 2011 edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

This research, which used mice bred to develop symptoms that mimic Alzheimer’s disease, provides the first evidence that caffeinated coffee offers protection against this memory robbing disease that is not possible with other caffeine-containing drinks or decaffeinated coffee.

Previous observational studies have found that people who drink caffeinated coffee daily during mid-life and in older age have a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Earlier research studies by the University of South Florida research team, again among Alzheimer’s mice, suggested that caffeine was probably the ingredient in coffee that provides this protection because it decreases the brain’s production of the abnormal protein beta-amyloaid, which is thought to cause Alzheimer’s disease.

This new study suggests that it’s not the caffeine itself but its interaction with another as yet unidentified component in coffee that provides this protection against Alzheimer’s disease.

The research found that caffeinated coffee induces an increase in blood levels of a growth factor called GCSF (granulocyte colony stimulating factor). GSCF is greatly decreased in people with Alzheimer’s disease and has been demonstrated to improve memory in Alzheimer’s mice.

“Caffeinated coffee provides a natural increase in blood GCSF levels”, said neuroscientist Dr Chaunhai Cao, one of the lead authors of the study. “The exact way that this occurs is not understood. There is a synergistic interaction between caffeine and some mystery component of coffee that provides this beneficial increase in blood GCSF levels.”

The researchers would like to identify this mystery component.

In the new study, the researchers compared the effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee with those of caffeine alone. In both Alzheimer’s mice and normal mice, treatment with caffeinated coffee greatly increased blood levels of GCSF. Neither caffeine alone or decaffeinated coffee had this effect.

The researchers also reported that long term treatment with caffeinated coffee enhances memory in Alzheimer’s mice.

The researchers identified three ways that GCSF seems to improve memory in Alzheimer’s mice. GCSF recruits stem cells from bone marrow to enter the brain and remove the harmful beta-amyloid that initiates the disease. It also creates new connections between brain cells and increases the birth of new neurons in the brain.

“Together these actions appear to give coffee an amazing potential to protect against Alzheimer’s – but only if you drink moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee,” said Dr Cao.

Although the reported study was only done with mice, the research team indicated that they have gathered clinical evidence of caffeinated coffee’s ability to protect humans against Alzheimer’s disease and will publish those findings soon.

In the light of their latest study, the researchers believe that caffeinated coffee might be a safe way for you to protect your brain from Alzheimer’s disease.

“Because Alzheimer’s starts in the brain several decades before it is diagnosed, any protective therapy would obviously need to be taken for decades,” said Dr Cao. “We believe moderate daily consumption of caffeinated coffee is the best current option for long-term protection against Alzheimer’s memory loss. Coffee is inexpensive, readily available, easily gets into the brain, appears to directly attack the disease process and has few side effects for most of us.”

“No synthetic drugs have yet been developed to treat the underlying Alzheimer’s disease process,” added Dr Gary Arendash, the study’s other lead author. “We see no reason why an inherently natural product such as coffee cannot be more beneficial and safer than medications, especially to protect against a disease that takes decades to become apparent after it starts in the brain.”

The researchers caution however, that since they only used “drip” coffee in their studies, prepared using an automatic drip coffee maker, they don’t know whether “instant” caffeinated coffee would provide the same benefit.

How much caffeinated coffee do you need to drink to protect against Alzheimer’s disease?

Previous research by the University of South Florida researchers found that four to five 8 fluid ounce (a little over 225ml) cups a day were needed to protect Alzheimer’s mice from memory loss.  However, Dr Cao isn’t sure you need to drink that much coffee to protect your brain from Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers also believe that starting moderate daily caffeinated coffee intake at least by middle age, that is in your 30s, 40s and 50s, is optimal for providing protection against Alzheimer’s disease. However, starting even in older age  appears protective from their studies.

“We are not saying that daily moderate coffee consumption will completely protect people from getting Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr Cao. “However, we do believe that moderate coffee consumption can appreciably reduce your risk of this dreaded disease or delay its onset.”

Today’s takeaway health tip

So today’s takeaway health tip is that drinking a moderate amount of caffeinated coffee daily  may reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease or delay its onset. The coffee should be prepared using an automatic drip coffee maker.

The University of South Florida researchers believe that its optimal to start drinking coffee in this way by your 30s to 50s, but if you start doing so when you are older their research suggests that this is also protective.

Currently I don’t drink coffee, never having developed a taste for it, but in the light of these findings I think I need to start doing so! How about you? Will these findings change your coffee drinking behaviour? Please let me know by posting a comment below.

Foods that help you sleep

Some foods can help you sleep, while other foods will keep you awake. Today’s post in my series on sleep focuses on the foods that can help you sleep.

The foods that can help you sleep are foods containing tryptophan. Tryptophan is the amino acid your body uses to make serotonin and melatonin, the neurotransmitters that slow down nerve traffic and so calm your brain.

The foods that will keep you awake are those containing amino acids, such as tyrosine, which stimulate the neurochemicals that perk up your brain.

Eating protein foods containing tryptophan with foods containing complex carbohydrates can help you fall asleep and get a good night’s sleep.

The complex carbohydrates help more tryptophan enter your brain and produce the serotin and melatonin that calms it. This is because they stimulate the release of insulin that helps clear from your bloodstream the amino acids which compete with the tryptophan amino acid.

Eating protein-rich foods without accompanying carbohydrates may keep you awake as protein rich foods also contain the amino acid tyrosine that perks up your brain.

Foods containing calcium can also help you sleep as calcium helps your brain use the tryptophan to make the calming neurotransmitter melatonin.

As dairy products contain both tryptophan and calcium, they are some of the best foods to help you sleep.

Examples of good bedtime snacks

Good bedtime snacks are light snacks which contain foods that are high in complex carbohydrates and calcium and medium to low in protein. For example:

• A small bowl of whole-grain low sugar cereal with milk
• Granola with yoghurt
• Half a turkey or peanut butter sandwich
• Apple pie and icecream
• A banana with a glass of milk

Eat your bedtime snack about an hour before you go to bed as it takes around one hour for the tryptophan in the foods to reach your brain.

Experiment with different combinations of foods for your bedtime snack to see which give you the best night’s sleep.

Eating a light snack before bedtime will also keep hunger pangs from waking you up during the night.

If you have diabetes, discuss bedtime snacks with your doctor before you start eating them.

Today’s takeaway health tip

Today’s takeaway health tip is that eating a light snack about an hour before you go to bed that is high in complex carbohydrates and calcium and medium to low in protein can help you fall asleep and get a good night’s sleep.

Eating such a bedtime snack helps me sleep. My favourite bedtime snack is two wholegrain wheat biscuits, such as Weetabix, with cold milk.  In the winter months I also like porridge, made with jumbo porridge oats and milk.

What bedtime snacks do you find help you sleep?  Which are your favourites? Please let me know by posting a comment below.

For more on how to get a good night’s sleep check out the other posts in my series on sleep.

Does exercising on an empty stomach really burn more fat as the fitness books suggest? [Answer]

Many athletes and fitness enthusiasts exercise on an empty stomach early in the morning believing that by doing so they will burn more fat.

The theory, promoted in popular fitness books in recent years, is that by performing cardiovascular exercise on an empty stomach you force your body to dip into stored fat for fuel,  rather than using the carbohydrates quickly available from a meal or snack eaten before you exercise.

While this theory appears sensible, research published in the February 2011 edition of the American Strength and Conditioning Journal has found that exercising on an empty stomach doesn’t burn more fat and may even work against you.

The researchers reviewed years of research on the subject and concluded that your body burns about the same amount of fat regardless of whether you eat before you exercise.

They also found that you are likely to lose muscle by exercising when depleted and that without fuel to help your workout, your exercise intensity and overall calorie burn is reduced.

One of the studies the researchers reviewed compared cyclists when they trained after eating with when they trained while fasting. This showed that when the cyclists trained on an empty stomach, about 10 per cent of the calories they burned came from protein, including lost muscle.

So today’s takeaway health tip is  exercise after eating a meal or snack, rather than on an empty stomach, as you are unlikely to reduce the fat you burn,  may even burn more, and will avoid the risk of losing muscle.

Do these research findings match your experience when exercising either on an empty stomach or after a meal or snack?  Please let me know by posting a comment below.  I read and appreciate all your comments.

How much sleep do I need? [Answer]

“How much sleep do I need?” is an important question to ask yourself given how important sleep is to your health.

In today’s post in my series on sleep I will explore how you can determine if you are getting as much sleep as you need for your health and peak performance or whether you are suffering from sleep deprivation. And if you are sleep deprived, how you can get and stay out of your sleep debt.

Most healthy adults need between 7½ and 8½ hours sleep in each 24-hour period to maintain good health and function at their best, according to sleep experts. Therefore if you are not sleeping this much you may be sleep deprived.

The best way to determine if you are getting the amount of sleep you need is to evaluate how you feel as you go about your day. If you’re logging enough hours, you’ll feel energetic and alert all day long, from the moment you wake up until your normal bedtime.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation

If you are sleep deprived, you will have one or more of the following symptons of sleep deprivation:

• Need an alarm clock to wake up on time.
• Rely on the snooze button.
• Find it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
• Fall asleep on the train, bus or tube (subway) on your way to work
• Feel sluggish in the afternoon.
• Become sleepy in meetings, lectures or warm rooms.
• Get drowsy after heavy meals or when driving.
• Need a nap to get you through the day.
• Fall asleep while watching TV or relaxing in the evening.
• Feel the need to sleep in at the weekend.
• Fall asleep within five minutes of going to bed.

If you have any of these symptons of sleep deprivation, you have a sleep debt that you need to address.

Sleep debt is the difference between the amount of sleep you need and the number of hours you are actually sleeping. Each time you don’t get enough sleep, you add to your sleep debt.

This debt will not go away on its own, you need to repay it. If you lose an hour of sleep, you must sleep an extra hour somewhere down the line to bring your “account” back into balance.

Sleeping in at the weekend isn’t enough!

Many of us try to repay our sleep debt by sleeping in at the weekend. However, one or two solid nights of sleep are not enough to pay off a long-term sleep debt.

The extra sleep may give you a temporary boost, for example, you may feel great on Monday morning after a relaxing weekend, but your performance and energy will drop back down as your day and then the week wears on.

To really repay a long term sleep debt and then to stay out of it you need to take concerted action.

Tips for repaying and then staying out of sleep debt

Aim for at least 8 hours of sleep every night. Make sure you don’t fall further into debt by blocking off a minimum of 8 hours for sleep each night. Consistency is the key.

Settle short-term sleep debt by sleeping an extra hour or two per night. If you have had a few nights where you have not got enough sleep, pay your sleep debt back in nightly one or two hour instalments.

Keep a sleep diary. Record when you go to bed, when you wake up, your total hours of sleep, whether you have woken up during the night (and if so, for how long you were awake) and any daytime naps. Also note how you feel when you wake up (are you refreshed or tired?), and how you feel at different times of the day.

As you keep track of your sleep, you’ll discover your natural patterns and get to know your sleep needs and can adjust your sleep accordingly.

Click here to download a free sleep diary from the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a leading US medical school.

Take a sleep holiday (vacation) to pay off a long-term sleep debt. Pick a two-week period when you have a flexible schedule or perhaps are on holiday. Go to bed at the same time every night and allow yourself to sleep until you wake up naturally. No alarm clocks!

For the first few days or week you will probably sleep longer because you will be paying off your “sleep debt”, the amount of sleep deprivation that you have accumulated over a period of time.

If you keep going to bed at the same time and allowing your body to wake up naturally, you’ll eventually dig your way out of your sleep debt and establish a pattern of sleeping essentially the same amount of time each night, probably between 7 and 9 hours. Congratulations! You will have identified the amount of sleep that you need.

Once you know how much sleep you need and have allowed your body to pay back your sleep debt and “find” its natural sleep patterns and duration, you will probably feel much better, sharper, happier and healthier. This is how it feels to be well rested.

The next step is to make sure that you continue to make sleep a priority and find ways to protect your sleep time.

Schedule time for sleep as you do for your work and other commitments.

Instead of cutting back on sleep in order to tackle the rest of your daily tasks, put sleep at the top of your to-do list. You will probably find that you get more done than when you were cutting back on your sleep as you have more energy and can tackle tasks more efficiently.

Today’s takeaway health tips

So today’s takeaway health tips are determine if you are getting as much sleep as you need for good health and to function at your best:

• Evaluate how you feel as you go about your day. See if you have any of the symptons of sleep deprivation; and
• If you are sleep deprived, address your sleep debt and then stay out of sleep debt by using the tips in this post.

After you have addressed any sleep debt you are likely to feel much better, sharper, happier and healthier.

Two simple weight loss tips

If you are seeking to lose weight, you could improve your chances of resisting tempting unhealthy food and drink by exaggerating the number of calories in such food and drink and remembering your weight loss goal, according to  research published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The results of experiments conducted by a research team at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas show that if you overestimate the negative effects of a temptation you are more likely to be able to resist it.

In one experiment the researchers found that female university students who had a strong dieting goal estimated that a single cookie contained many more calories and was therefore more damaging to their goal than those who were less keen to lose weight.

The determined dieters said that the cookie contained almost 160 calories while the other participants estimated that it had only around 100.

Another experiment showed that if you are looking to lose weight you are more likely to overestimate the number of calories in a tempting treat when you have been recently reminded of your weight loss goal.

In this study the researchers asked female university students questions in a room that either had posters showing attractive slim women or posters of scenery from nature, such as trees and streams.

The researchers reported that “Participants who were exposed to posters depicting fit models were more likely to exaggerate the calories in a tempting drink that they expected to consume later on, and consequently consumed less when offered the drink.”

So, today’s takeaway health tips are two simple weight loss tips.

If you are seeking to lose weight you could improve your chances of resisting the temptation to consume unhealthy food and drink simply by:

• exaggerating the number of calories in such food and drink and
• reminding yourself by pictures, words or other means of your weight loss goal.

Please let me know how you get on putting these weight loss tips into action if you are dieting by posting a comment below.

What does depression feel like and what helps in the middle of it, according to 14 young people who’ve experienced depression

What does depression feel like? What does depression look like?

When you’re in the middle of depression, is there anything that actually helps?

These are the questions a new collection of short, original comics explores.

In the comics  14 young Australians chronicle their close encounters and experiences with depression to give an insight into what depression feels like and looks like,  revealing what is often unexpressed.

They also describe the small gestures, strategies and support from other people that have helped them when they have been in the midst of depression.

In one of the comics they give five tips for caring for someone with depression.

At the end they detail various sources of online and offline help if you or someone you know suffers from depression. These include two sources of online therapy: e-couch and the MoodGym.

How many hours of sleep do you need? [Answer]

Today I am continuing my series on sleep. In this second post I am exploring the key question: How many hours of sleep do you need?

The first post in the series showed how important sleep is to your health.  Indeed most experts now believe that getting enough high quality sleep may be as important to your health as healthy eating and exercise.

Given the importance of sleep it is therefore vital that you get as much sleep as you need.

How much sleep do you need?

According to sleep experts most healthy adults need between 7½ and 8½ hours sleep in each 24-hour period to maintain good health and perform at their best.

This is true from 18 years of age to the end of your life.  Contrary to what some people believe the amount of sleep you need does not decrease in later life.

However, many older adults do have trouble sleeping this long at night.  Taking a nap during the day can help fill the gap.

Sleeping less than 6 hours a night increases your risk of developing or dying from heart disease or a stroke and of developing other conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, according to recent research into the effect of disrupted sleep and sleep duration on health.

While sleeping too much, more than 9 hours at a stretch, may be an indicator of illness, including cardiovascular disease.

Many of us are not getting the required amount of sleep

Only 1 in 3 adults in the UK (31%) are getting the required 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours of sleep, according to the first wave of the UK’s Understanding Society study, the world’s largest household longitudinal study, published in February 2011.

And worryingly 1 in 8 UK adults (12%) are sleeping less than 6 hours a night.

In the US the National Sleep Foundation’s 2011 Sleep in America poll found that people aged between 13 and 64 were sleeping an average of only 6 hours and 55 minutes during the week and 7 hours and 46 minutes at the weekend.

In my next post in this series I will look at how you can determine if you are getting the hours of sleep you need for peak performance, or whether you are sleep deprived. And if you are sleep deprived, how you can get out, and stay out, of  sleep debt.

Are you getting the 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours of sleep a day that experts say most healthy adults need? Please let me know by posting a comment below.

Important health news for women on ovarian cancer screening

An 18-year study by the National Cancer Institute in the US has found that widespread screening for ovarian cancer does not save lives and sets up many women for unneccesary surgery and avoidable complications.

This article from the Los Angeles Times tells you about this study.  In the article Dr  Beth Karlan, who directs the Women’s Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai’s Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute in Los Angeles, says that the tests are still valuable for women at high risk of developing ovarian cancer.

She also advices that if you are a woman you should:

• check out your risk profile for ovarian cancer with your doctor and
• know the symptons associated with ovarian cancer and if you have any, get them checked out.