anxiety Archives

September 20, 2018 By Navnee Garg 1 Comment

5 signs you’re not getting enough Protein

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The food market is constantly advertising about adding protein to all edibles, and this might mislead you into thinking that you are consuming an abundance of this key micronutrient in your diet. This might not be the actual scenario and a lack of protein may be ruining your health and your effort in the gym.

While protein requirement varies for every individual depending upon body weight and activity levels, there is no doubt that an adequate amount of protein keeps the body lean and preserves muscles strength as we age. If you are unsure about the amount of protein you are getting and wondering if it’s enough to fuel your fitness goals, here are a few ways to know.

Your hair starts Thinning

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Hair thinning is a major concern these days and it haunts both genders equally.

But why? And how is protein linked to it? So, here is the answer. If you don’t nourish your body with adequate protein, then it looks for “non-essential” body parts like hair to pull protein from. The body needs nutrients for the basic functioning. Once your hair is deprived of the nutrient it needs, it starts thinning and even falling out. Next time when you observe hair fall or thinning, consume a high protein diet.

2.Constant Injuries

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Injuries, as we all know, are barriers we have to overcome amidst our fitness journey. But why do people get injured so frequently? Let’s solve the query. Apart from muscle loss, a lack of protein in diet precipitates several perils such as loss of bone mass and osteoporosis. The body tends to face difficulty in absorbing calcium which most likely will make you prone to injuries. This is the reason why we lack stamina during high-intensity workouts. So, if you are constantly injured, you may need to increase your protein intake. Some rich sources of protein are Seafood, white meat, eggs and green vegetables. Hog on them to keep the doctor away.

3. Workout Doesn’t Entail Results

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It takes a lot of dedication and effort to wake up each morning and workout. Still, the scale in the weighing machine is not changing? So, here’s the answer to “But why?” Protein is crucial for building new muscle mass and also important in sustainable energy and motivation. It adds up the strength to recover the muscles post workout. A low protein diet may make you suffer muscle atrophy which is a condition when your body starts cannibalizing the tissue for fuel. If you don’t serve your muscle composition with adequate protein, no matter how much you work out, the results will always be below your expectation. Therefore, always consume a protein-rich pre/post workout meal for faster and better results.

4. Unexpected Anxiety and Food Cravings

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Do you often lash out at your co-worker or others around you? This is not always stressing. Let’s dig deeper. Serotonin is a hormone that regulates calmness, and protein plays a vital role in helping the brain synthesize serotonin. Also, if you don’t consume enough protein, your body causes spikes and crashes of insulin, resulting in a craving for carb-rich snacks. Your body’s demand for biscuits and other oily snacks is not because of taste but because of lack of protein. Serotonin also helps in regulating the spike of insulin in your blood, so a lack of serotonin will result in imbalanced amounts of insulin in the blood. So, if you are unable to tame your temper or are craving for greasy and unhealthy snacks, it could be a sign of protein deficiency. When you feel anxious next time, you know what you need.

June 28, 2018 By Samar Hafeez 7 Comments

Reduce Anxiety, Sleep Sound

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Anxiety and Fear are a part of life. You may feel anxious before you take a test or walk a dark street. This kind of anxiety is useful as it can make you more alert, careful and productive, however, it usually ends soon after you are out of the situation that caused it. But, for millions of people, the anxiety does not go away and gets worse over time. This can make one, more restless, clumsy and unproductive thereby causing dysfunction in daily activities, and ultimately begins to take over lives.

Anxiety has plagued millions around the world from time immemorial. Anxiety is defined as a feeling of excessive worry, nervousness or unease about something. In this people are always preoccupied with ‘what- if’ thinking, what if something bad, dangerous or threatening could happen, what if anything bad happens to someone I love etc.

Symptoms of Anxiety:

Physical symptoms include:

Muscle tension, Muscle Twitching
Chronic indigestion, constipation, Diarrhoea
Increased or heavy breathing
Hyperventilation/Palpitations
Nausea
Cold chills, Hot flash, Frequent urination, sudden weight loss, headaches

Emotional symptoms include:

Feeling of dread, feeling tense and jumpy
Irritability
Restlessness
Sleep problems
Panicky most of the time

Cognitive symptoms:

Poor concentration Negative thoughts and Apprehension
Confusion
Poor communication, attention and memory skills

Now let’s move on to discuss how Anxiety may cause sleep problems

Many of us toss and turn and watch the clock when we can’t sleep for a night or two. But for some, a restless night is routine.

The growing cases of sleep disorders due to anxiety are not to be ignored. Indian women outnumber men when it comes to disturbed sleep due to anxiety.

Anxiety and sleep have a bidirectional relationship, meaning high amounts of anxiety tends to disrupt sleep and disruptions in sleep tend to increase anxiety.

In case of Anxiety, it begins in anticipation of an event. When you reflect on a stressful event at night, the emotional centres of brain namely Amygdala and Insular cortex get activated. This stimulates a chain of events that raise both your adrenaline and blood sugar levels. This sudden source of energy then keeps you alert, tense and restless. Ultimately disrupting your sleep.

Sleep on other hand is an integral part of emotional regulation. A lack of it leaves your emotions unstable and in disarray. You are more prone to falling sick often, show irritability and lack of patience and discontent often.

What your Anxiety at night may look like

An individual usually experiences either racing or stagnant/fixed anxious thoughts. These thoughts build on each other or spiral around making it harder and harder to fall asleep.

Some people describe this feeling as being stuck in their head.

Due to the consistent rise in adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormone) levels more and more physical symptoms may result.

Reduce Anxiety

Melt Anxiety with mindfulness meditation: Focusing on your breath and physical sensations can help you stay in the present moment. This can help you recognize what your thoughts may be, allowing them to pass without reaction or judgement.
Rationalize and not Awfulize: Accept the what if thinking as a projection that connects horrifying thoughts and images to anxiety. Think that a what if disaster does not validate or guarantee a disaster, Awfulizing things real or imagined situations as horrible, Awful or terrible will only make symptoms worse
The shift from passive to active perspective: Talk to yourself in a realistic self- assuring way
Relax your body Relax your mind: Practice Diaphragmatic breathing these exercises are simple to learn and can have relatively quick effects. This technique involves breathing in a way that your belly expands as you breathe in and contracts as you breathe out. Psychologist Jon Carlson describes belly breathing as a technique that can send calming signals to the brain and promote a feeling of relaxation and improved attention and awareness.
Imagination and Relaxation: Rolodex of anxiety thoughts can be controlled by using Guided imagery, Guided imagery serves to redirect people’s attention away from what is stressing them and towards an alternative focus, this includes only visualizing pleasant and relaxing image like on a beach or on a serene hill or whatever may soothe a person. This practice is extremely portable, as it relies on nothing but one’s imagination and concentration abilities.
Exercise: Regular exercise provides an outlet for frustrations and releases mood-enhancing endorphins/hormones
Play music: Soft calming music can lower blood pressure and muscle agitation, usually found symptoms in people who get anxious often
Direct anxiety elsewhere: Lend a hand to relative or neighbour or volunteer in your community services. Helping others will take your mind off your own anxieties and will help you count your blessings.

Sleep More Soundly

Make good sleep a priority: Block out 7 hours for a full uninterrupted sleep
Maintain regularity: Try to sleep and wake up on same time daily even on weekends, this helps circadian rhythm your ‘biological clock’ to tick properly.
Avoid stimulants: Say no-no to alcohol, coffee, chocolate or nicotine post sunset
Keep it cool: sleep in a dark room which is slightly cold, this helps the temperature in the brain to fall and help fall asleep quicker, the cool room takes your brain and body in the right temperature direction to get good sleep.
Dark- deprived society: We need darkness in the evening to allow the release of a hormone called Melatonin(sleep hormone) It helps the healthy time of our sleep. In this modern era, we are severely deprived of darkness. So try to dim lights down in your home an hour before bed. Stay away from LED screens as they emit blue light that actually puts break on melatonin and fools brain into thinking it’s still daytime, even though night time.
Do not stay in bed awake: If you haven’t fallen asleep within 30 mins of getting into bed or have woken up and finding difficult to fall back asleep, the advise is to get up go to another room and in dim light just read a book, no screens, no email checking, NO FOOD. And only when you feel sleepy should you return to bed and that way your brain can actually re-learn the association between bed being a place of sleep, rather than a place to stay awake.
Avoid big meals before bedtime and avoid working out 2 hours before bedtime.
Try magnesium-rich foods/supplements like fish or fish oil, almonds, bananas, pumpkin seeds, warm milk, cherries, mushrooms and dark green leafy veggies in dinner. Magnesium relaxes muscles and eases anxiety which contributes to insomnia
Chamomile magic: Try having a cup of chamomile tea 30 mints before bed chamomile is regarded as a mild tranquillizer and sleep inducer, It relaxes nerves and muscles and help fall sleep quicker.

The power of sleep has always been known to be significant but now there’s more and more evidence demonstrating just how important it is for those who experience anxiety. By using above mentioned techniques you can hope for relief from anxiety and eventually will sleep your anxiety away!

December 17, 2017 By Parwage Alam 11 Comments

Myths and Health Benefits of Meditation

Stress can be dangerous. Here is a link to a blog on Stress

http://goqii.com/blog/avoid-stress-lead-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

In this blog, I am going to talk about meditation and its health benefits in detail. Most foreigners are it the Americans or the Europeans aren’t raised to sit and say “Om.” But, today whether it is outside of India or within our country at every nook and corner you can find a yoga and meditation centre. Meditation has gained millions of converts, helping them ease chronic pain, anxiety, stress, improve heart health, boost mood and immunity, and resolve a lot of medical issues even pregnancy problems.

According to doctors, any condition that’s caused or worsened by stress can be alleviated through meditation. Peace is something we all seek for or let’s say satisfaction is something we all long for. Satisfaction could be different for different people. For some satisfaction could mean happiness, for some it could be an achievement. The influence of external factors in our life largely decides our state of mind to be happy, sad or angry.

We often seek for happiness or peace in the outside world. People have their own ways of finding peace or relaxing their mind. Most common practice is going out of town or getting away from our usual routine. It’s very necessary to find peace within us as not everyone can afford to go out of station often. So here is what we can do and also save some money in the process to reach our goal of happiness and peace- MEDITATE.

Meditation you can transform the mind. Meditation doesn’t mean that you have to sit in a particular posture and focus on any single point on the wall or certain point. The definition of meditation is different for different people. If you ask me, meditation is the art of focusing our attention (100%) in one area. We all believe that our mind gets maximum rest while sleeping; however, the fact is that our mind gets to rest and relief while meditating.

Doctors who recommend meditation say that the relaxation response [from meditation] helps decrease metabolism, lowers blood pressure and improves heart rate, breathing, and brain waves. Tension and tightness seep from muscles as the body receives a quiet message to relax.

Articles in medical journals on Meditation indicate there is scientific evidence that shows how meditation works. In people who are meditating, brain scans called MRI have shown an increase in activity in areas that control metabolism and heart rate. Other studies on Buddhist monks have shown that meditation produces long-lasting changes in the brain activity in areas involved in attention, working memory, learning, and conscious perception.

There are some dangerous myths about meditation like:

1. Meditation is a religion: Meditation is not related to any religion. However, meditation brings all religion together.

2. Just relaxation: Meditation is not about just relaxation like sitting on your sofa or lying on your resting chair, meditation helps to produce specific chemical changes in the brain. For example, Transcendental meditation is known to cause the brain to release a soothing hormone known as prolactin.

3. Sit in the lotus posture to meditate: There is a myth that meditating you should always sit in a lotus posture. However, while meditating it is more important to be comfortable and steady. You can sit cross-legged, on a chair, in a sofa – it is fine, but it is mandatory that you have to maintain the same position till you finish meditating.

4. Meditation is for old people: Most of the people believe that meditation is only for people who have reached a certain age or for old people. That is so untrue. Meditation is universal and anyone can do it. It adds value to lives of people of all age groups. A study in the American Journal of Hypertension showed that teenagers who meditated for 15 minutes twice a day for four months were able to lower their blood pressure a few points.10 minutes of meditation in the morning clean your mind, it gives zeal and enthusiasm.

5. Meditation is like hypnotizing yourself: Most of the people believe that Meditation is hypnotising you. But, that’s again false. In hypnotism no one is aware what he or she is going through, however, in meditation, you are always aware of each and every moment.

If you are feeling tense, tired, depressed or anxious or stressed, the one simple word I can suggest or recommend is ‘Meditation’. Five to 10 minutes of meditation will help you relax and get over your stress and restore your calm and inner peace.

Anyone can start meditating with a small practice. It’s really very simple and does not require you to visit therapists or a practitioner of meditation. It also does not require any equipment. You can practice meditation whenever and wherever you are – in office, home, on the bus or train, or waiting at the doctor’s clinic or even in the middle of a difficult business meeting.

Meditation works as a medicine of mind and body and produces a deep state of relaxation. During meditation, we centralize our attention and get rid of the unwanted stress-causing thoughts. This process results in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

Some great Benefits of Meditation:

Psychological Benefits: Reduces stress and anxiety, increases creativity and intelligence. Reduces depression, increases learning ability, reasoning and memory power, reduces irritability and moodiness, Feelings of vitality and rejuvenation, increase emotional control, self-esteem, alertness, Improves relationships and also concentration

Physiological Benefits: May help lower blood pressure, Prevents or relives any pain, boosts immune system- with meditation higher levels of antibodies are produced against the flu virus, according to the study in Psychosomatic Medicine, lowers blood cholesterol levels, improves airflow through the respiratory system, especially in those with asthma, Youngers your biological age.

Women can also benefit from meditation. Quoting a study from an article in WebMD, the article says that PMS symptoms subsided by 58% when women meditated. certain other issues such as anxiety, depression, and fatigue can also be reduced by a regular meditation program.

October 29, 2017 By Trishala Chopra 3 Comments

How much cardio should you do?

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CARDIO- The only form of exercise which has grabbed everybody’s attention and why not, almost all the common activities are a form of cardiovascular exercise.

Whenever I ask someone about what exercise you do throughout the day- their reply is mostly WALKING. Hours of walking sometimes.

So, what does cardio include?

Walking (As already mentioned above)
Running
Swimming
Cycling
Aqua-aerobics
Aerobics
Zumba
Rowing
Boxing

I have seen people concentrating only on cardio exercises for years without any change in their routine. Some people consider themselves to be fit with simply walking.

Fitness is measured by different things and not just your overall structure.

As a part of your fitness routine, these 3 components are very important which is as follows: –

Cardiovascular exercises
Strength training exercises
Flexibility exercises

None of the components can be skipped.

All these 3 components are very important for a proper fitness regime.

The question which I always get is (which also became an idea to write this article) how much cardio should I do?

And my answer is (Always), you should actually ask how much of these 3 components I should do?

Well, I will be covering all these 3 components in 3 separate articles so for now, I will be concentrating on cardio.

So, going back to the question which I always get, I wish I had an answer to that which could be as simple as

Do 60 minutes a day or maybe 150 minutes a week!

But being a healthcare professional, I cannot give a generic answer.

In fact, that question has no specific answer.

The amount of cardio which should be done completely depends upon these 4 factors: – (Ps: – Please read all the factors before you come to a conclusion for yourself)

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(1) It depends on what you are aiming at.

Well, not everybody needs weight loss! Some people might be looking for muscle gain while someone else might need to run a marathon.

So, does that mean all of them will be doing 150 minutes of cardio per week?

Definitely not!

Along with the aim, you also need to know about your metabolism.

Metabolism is the rate at which your body needs calories while resting.

So, for a person who wants to lose weight will probably be needing a lot of cardio but for someone who wants to build muscle- the amount of cardio which you require completely depends on your metabolism. If you have a fast metabolism then you don’t need any cardio but if your metabolism is slow then you need to do some amount of cardio.

Someone who is into different sports like shot put or powerlifting or sprinting might require very little cardio.

Why am I targeting these 2 categories first?

It is because losing weight and gaining muscles are totally different things to talk about. For your body as well, it becomes a very confusing state because the body cannot do 2 things simultaneously. However, with proper training, it does become possible sometimes.

Then, what about fat loss? How much cardio should one do?

If losing weight is your only goal then it is okay to put your focus more on cardio and neglect the muscle gain part.

You just work on not losing muscles while you are losing your fat.

This can be achieved by 2 times a week strength training and adequate proteins in your diet.

What If someone is a marathoner? How much cardio should one do?

It also includes a good amount of cardio and minimum strength training but flexibility here is very important. It can all be divided throughout the week with a focus more on cardio and other endurance sports.

Although I don’t like putting anything in a restricted way I guess I can do with sharing some guidelines about the first factor which I have discussed in brief above so that it becomes easier for everyone to understand.

Building muscle + Fast metabolism = No cardio
Building muscle + Slow metabolism = 2-4 days per week with about 20-30 minutes every day.
Losing fat = 5-6 times per week with about 45-60 minutes every day
Marathoner= 4-6 times per week with about 30-60 minutes every day

*This is very generic; the requirement might differ in each person but this can be used as a guideline to work upon.

(2) State of your hormones

Well, the most common problem which most of us are facing is WEIGHT GAIN or UNABLE TO LOSE THE EXISTING WEIGHT which ultimately makes you hit the gym and your trainer will suggest you do cardio. He or she will decide the plan and everyone blindly follows that plan. But, do you think everybody needs exactly the same amount of cardio?

When your weight becomes a problem the hormone which comes into the picture is CORTISOL.

Cortisol is a hormone which is released all the time in the body but most commonly it reaches its peak under extreme stress. When the stress is often short-term like some assignment to complete or some exams to give then the graph of cortisol keeps fluctuating but when the stress becomes long term which goes on for months and years then the gland which produces cortisol is adrenal glands that starts burning out which means there won’t be enough cortisol which is produced. Well, none of this is good. Neither LOW nor HIGH. Everything goes well in balance.

So now that was about the theory, let’s understand how to practically apply it.

Symptoms of cortisol imbalance: –

Rapid weight gain
Muscle weakness
Chronic fatigue
Mood swings
Anxiety
Depression
Confusion
Insomnia
Fluctuating sugar levels

How to know about your cortisol imbalance?

It is important to do a stress test first and then go for the lab reports and get your 8 am cortisol checked.
Visit an endocrinologist with your reports.

How much cardio should you do if your cortisol levels are not up to the mark?

Under 60% of your maximal heart rate.

How to calculate your maximal heart rate?

220 – your age= maximal heart rate

For example: –

Person who is 40 years of age,

220-40= 180 (Maximal heart rate)

60% of 180 = 108 beats per minute.

You should not cross 108 beats per minute while doing cardio in any case.
You must strictly monitor it and get yourself a personal trainer/coach who can help you understand this.

Why are we discussing cortisol imbalance and what is the reason behind reducing your cardio activities in such cases?

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All the exercise puts the body into some stress. This stress can affect stimulation of different hormones.
When you do steady cardio like a treadmill or cycling your body increases cortisol and reduces other hormones like growth hormone.
When you do interval training your body increases cortisol and growth hormone
When you do strength training with moderate repetition and sets your body increases growth hormone and cortisol by a small margin.
When you do strength training with heavy repetition and sets your body increases testosterone (Which is mostly seen in bodybuilders)

I have given you an in-depth reason here so that you can understand that doing cardio under any stress will increase the complication even more and will do no good to your body.

So before getting into intense workouts, check your cortisol levels.

If everything is okay then you can do the cardio as discussed above.

(3) Depends on your intensity

Whenever I try getting the history about exercises, I get to hear this very often: –

” I do cardio for about 1 and half hours in the gym but I am not getting any results “

” I walk for about 2 hours a day, one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening but I don’t think it is helping”

Well, the basic point to this is,

YOUR DURATION DOESN’T MATTER.

WHAT MATTERS IS- YOUR INTENSITY.

You can work out for just like 15 minutes and still get the same effect as you might get it from longer duration.

Since a couple of months, I often see people talking about high-intensity workouts, low-intensity workouts. I was actually very curious to know their definition of these workouts. I was actually very surprised to know that out of 10 people not even 2 of them knew what exactly it is. They were talking about it because they read it on the internet or their trainer told or something else. You don’t need to be a doctor or personal trainer or a certified health expert. You as a common man to have the rights to know, after all, you are the one who is actually, going to follow that advice. Well, writing this article in this depth is just for everyone to understand the basics behind all the theories which are coming up.

So, coming back to the theory behind intensity.

What is a low-intensity workout?

Under 60% of your maximal heart rate (How to calculate it is mentioned above) is a low-intensity workout.
These intensity workouts will not increase the endurance but do have relaxation benefits.

What is moderate intensity workout?

In between 60-85% of your maximal heart rate is moderate intensity workout.
This is a basic workout if your goal is to lose fats.
Start with 3-4 times per week and for 30-45 minutes
This is just about cardio however in this routine strength training is also required which will be covered in the upcoming article.

What is a high-intensity workout?

Anything above 85% of your maximal heart rate is high-intensity workout
This can be maintained only for about 1-4 minutes before your speed drops and then gradually goes ahead.
Start with 2-3 times per week for about 20 minutes.
This course will include proper strength training also which will be covered in upcoming article

Note: – High-intensity workout is not suggested for anybody who has not done any cardio exercises for past 4 months, for someone who has serious cardiac issues. Please consult your doctor before getting into these kinds of workout. Inform your coach and coaches too can take this as a basic part of history taking.

(4) Depends upon how well your response to cardio exercises.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, every individual is different and there is no same answer to HOW MUCH CARDIO YOU SHOULD DO?
It all depends on your responses which can vary from person to person
I can simply guess that maybe you require this much workout but I am never sure about it unless I check the response for minimum 15 days.

My players always ask me that why do I give the workouts for 15 days and then think so much for the next set of workouts. Sometimes it so happens that I refuse to change the workout and make then repeat it for 15 days. I know it’s annoying, like very annoying but it is better than any serious injury. Unless I am sure about the responses and progress I do not go ahead in case of workouts.

This article only gives you insights about CARDIO but your workout routine is incomplete with strength training and flexibility.

My next blog is HOW MUCH STRENGTH TRAINING YOU NEED TO DO?.