Practise Yoga
Studies show yoga lowers the stress hormone
cortisol and helps ease depression, anxiety and create an overall sense of
wellbeing. Experiment with different teachers and different types of yoga to
find a class that suits your personality and your desired level of exercise and
mental relaxation. Some classic yoga postures which are effective for stress
relief include child’s pose, spinal twists, gentle hip openers, cat/cow pose,
legs-up-the-wall and corpse pose.
Listen to music
One of the best ways to unwind, listening to music
helps combat stress and lower cortisol levels. One recent study found that
individuals who listened to music had lower blood pressure and experienced less
stress than people with a great diet and who took regular exercise. Try to fill
your day with music as much as possible, and use it at night to relax before
sleep.
Tidying up
When your surroundings are chaotic it’s very easy
to become distracted, stressed and anxious, even if you don’t realise it, and
then focusing can be more difficult. But a clean, orderly space creates a sense
of calm, making it easier to focus. By getting rid of clutter in your living
room, for instance, you find you have room for an exercise bike, a yoga mat or
a set of dumbbells to make regular exercise easier to sustain.
Share a hug
Close contact with friends and loved ones naturally
helps reduce stress levels. Studies have found that oxytocin, a hormone
associated with decreased stress response, is released when you are being
hugged, or when someone holds your hand.
Find your Ikigai
The Japanese concept of ‘having a purpose’ has been
shown to lead to a longer, healthier life as well as reduced disability and
mortality. Studies show keeping a strong sense of purpose after retirement and
into old age protects both your mental and physical health. So consider
volunteering or engaging in community service of some sort.
As we investigated further, we started to think of
meditation as an antidote to modern distraction. If it could help us focus, we
thought, it could also help us reduce stress, especially in the brain.
Meditation isn’t ‘doing nothing’. It’s not a
passive activity. Done properly, it is all about cultivating concentration and
focus, a fantastically powerful antidote to dementia as it happens in the very
brain regions which are often the first to be affected by Alzheimer’s.
We are now convinced that including meditation or
mindfulness of some sort in your daily routine can dramatically reduce the
effects of uncontrolled stress and even expand important —and very useful —
areas in the brain.
And you can rest assured that enjoying the benefits
of meditation will not mean joining an Ashram or compulsory cross-legged
sitting. Yes, it can mean chanting if you wish, but it can also simply be
sitting quietly, walking around your neighbourhood or having a comfortable
de-cluttered space you can go to that helps you unwind at the end of the day.
If you want to give it a go, find a quiet place
where you won’t be disturbed for ten minutes.
Sit down, close your eyes and try to clear your
mind, focusing only on the breath going in and out of your nose.
Every time your mind starts to wander, bring your
focus back to your breath.
Don’t be discouraged if you find it hard — with
practice you’ll see amazing benefits.
Even doing something you love — that puts you in a
‘zone’ (it could be knitting or washing up, cleaning your shoes or
day-dreaming) where you simply experience the activity rather than think too
much about it — can have enough of a meditative effect to provide huge mental
benefits for both focus and stress management.
Ultimately, the best relaxation techniques for you
are ones that interest you and bring you a sense of calm. Everyone responds
differently.
But don’t think you’re too busy, or that unwinding
isn’t important. Pick something from the suggestions in the boxes. Whatever
method you choose should be simple, convenient for you and, most importantly,
relaxing.
Medicine works best when it's PERSONAL
Although there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, our work
as specialists in the very cutting-edge of this field has convinced us that you
really can protect yourself and dramatically reduce your risk.
The key, we have found, is creating a personalised
plan which ensures you eat a brain-boosting diet, keep active, sleep well,
avoid stress, and challenge your brain — and crucially, that you then stick with
these simple changes for life.
Our infinite differences profoundly impact the way
medical treatments affect us, and also how effective they are
Conventional medicine’s approach has typically been
to treat us as though we’re all the same, to assume somehow that one nutrient,
drug or behaviour will fit all.
But now we know that our infinite differences
profoundly impact the way medical treatments affect us, and also how effective
they are.
Personalisation is becoming increasingly important
in many areas of medicine.
This model of medical care effectively customises
treatments based on individual differences in genes, proteins and environment.
STRESS MYTHS
BUSTED
Stress is most damaging to your heart: Stress
damages the entire body, but the brain is especially susceptible,
even more so than the heart.
You have to sit in a yoga pose when you’re
meditating: You can meditate while standing, lying down or
even while walking. A gentle walking meditation can be a great
choice for some elderly people who aren’t comfortable sitting
for too long or who find that sitting makes them tired or stiff.
You have to meditate for long periods of time
to experience any benefits: Any amount of meditation
or mindfulness is helpful. Even a few three-minute sessions
per day are likely to reduce stress and support your brain.
It is now emerging as the new medical paradigm for
chronic disease as doctors and researchers move towards greater precision in
disease treatment and prevention that takes into account an individual’s genes,
environment, chronic wear- and-tear, protective factors and lifestyle.
Dementia is not a one-size-fits-all condition and
we are convinced that in the future, Alzheimer’s prevention based on these
individual differences will become the standard of care.
Up until now, personalised medicine has been used
most successfully in the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease,
where doctors have looked at the unique genetic and chemical constituents of an
individual’s disease, and have suggested lifestyle changes that take into
consideration the individual’s history, resources, limitations, and
proclivities.
This comprehensive approach is bringing to light
what we discovered years ago: chronic disease, especially neuro-degenerative
disease, is highly complex and highly personal, and if given the right tools,
people can change their lives and influence their health.
That’s why the approach we share in our book, The
Alzheimer’s Solution, on which this series is based, is personalised medicine
for the brain.
Ours is a ground-breaking model for how to
understand, prevent, and treat Alzheimer’s on a personalised level. Whatever
your degree of risk, no one is expecting you to make wholesale changes, but
through adopting a personalised approach to your stress levels and the methods
you might be able to incorporate to help mitigate them, as well as your diet
and activity levels, you will be able to start moving in the right direction.
Just instituting one or two changes at a time,
based on your individual resources and capacity for change is all it takes.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
AND RELAX...
Starting at the top of your body and moving
downwards, begin to tense up all your muscles — your forehead, eyes, jaw, neck,
shoulders, back, arms, hands, abdomen, buttocks, thighs, calves and feet.
Hold this tension for at least five seconds. Then
take a big inhalation, and on your exhalation release everything. Take a few
more deep breaths. Feel the difference between a tensed body and a relaxed
body.
‘I’m too stressed!’: Even a three-minute-per-day
meditation can significantly relieve stress.
Try not to think of mindfulness activities as a
burden, but rather as a solution to the unpleasant stress you feel right now.
‘I don’t have anyone to do this with’: While it can
be relaxing to meditate on your own, and in your own space, you can also join a
group or class at a community centre, or find a meditation community online.
‘Impossible! I’m hyperactive!’: Not everyone has to
meditate the same way or for long periods of time. Three-minute sessions are
helpful for people who find it difficult to relax. Try several of these
sessions per day, and gradually increase the time as you become more
comfortable.
SOURCE: MailOnline, Dr Dean Sherzai and Dr Ayesha Sherzai
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