Home Care Services in Shelby Township, MI
6 Ways to Feel Happier, Be Healthier
How a positive attitude really can make a difference
A good mood not only influences how you feel today, it can have a powerful impact on your health for years to come.
Scientists urge us to be as attentive to our moods and attitudes as we are to our physical health. Two recent studies underscore the importance of that advice.
A paper in Current Directions in Psychological Sciencenotes that a positive attitude can protect against poor health later in life and may be a powerful antidote to stress, pain and illness.
Another study, published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, found that happy people tend to live longer and experience better health than their unhappy peers.
“Happiness is no magic bullet,” says University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, the lead author, “but the evidence is clear and compelling that it changes your odds of getting disease or dying young.”
Eating well, exercising, not smoking and getting enough sleep help keep you healthy, but how do you develop a positive attitude?
Here are six mood boosters to make the world look rosier. Add them to your life, and odds are you’ll feel both happier and healthier. If you rarely walk on the sunny side of the street, now’s the time to cross over.
1. Adopt an Animal Companion
Pets provide more than companionship and a warm welcome home. They lend a willing and helpful ear — even if they have fins or feathers instead of fur.
Many pet owners confide in a pet because pets don’t judge, condemn or talk back. Studies have found that dog owners are often as emotionally close to their pets as to their closest family members
An astonishing 97 percent of dog and cat owners reported that they talk to their pets, notes Alan Beck, director of the Center of the Human Animal Bond at Purdue University. “The other 3 percent lied,” he quips.
People talk to their pets because they don’t have to worry about what they say or worry about the response.”Just as it’s more relaxing to walk in a park than a parking lot, it’s more relaxing to be with an animal than to be alone. It’s as calming as looking at a sunset.” says Beck.
If you’d like to have a pet in your life but don’t want the responsibility of owning a dog or cat, you can volunteer at an animal shelter or zoo, offer to walk a neighbor’s dog on a regular basis, set up an aquarium, consider a parakeet or put out bird feeders.
2. Turn Up the Music
Even before we’re born, we can hear music, and it holds us in its power throughout life.
Soothing, melodic music blunts stress and provides comfort. Bright, upbeat tunes set toes tapping and boost flagging energy. Relaxing music serves as an easy and safe way to improve sleep. Music helps keep both mind and body healthy and resilient, and it activates specific brain regions involved in emotion and memory.
“If you listen to a song that triggers a memory from your past, it evokes generally positive visual and emotional memories,” says Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis. He suggests listening to familiar music that you know puts you in a good mood. “Up-tempo, bright and cheery music is always a good bet,” he says. “It will help you get out of bed in the morning in a good mood.
Music remains a part of people’s lives no matter how old they are.
“We’ve just finished a study where we created customized playlists based on music from their past for people with Alzheimer’s disease,” Janata says.
The researchers found that the men and women were substantially less agitated and anxious when they listened to this music. “We often don’t think to play music for people who are no longer able to ask for it, but it’s important that we remember.”
”Music affects every part of the body,” adds research professor Adarsh Kumar of the University of Miami Medical School. “If you relax with music, your body chemistry changes, and your behavior changes.”
3. Have a Good Laugh
Laughter prompts physical changes that help the immune and endocrine systems function better.
There’s even more. Scientists know that stress has a negative effect on the heart and causes blood vessels to narrow.
“New information coming out of our lab and others shows that a positive emotion like laughter has the opposite effect, releasing chemicals that allow blood vessels to open,” explains cardiologist Michael Miller, M.D., of the University of Maryland Medical Center. “We believe that it’s good for your heart to laugh regularly,” says Miller, “and now we have direct evidence to support that.”
Miller’s prescription for laughter is at least one good belly laugh a day. So take yourself a little less seriously, find something that tickles your funny bone, and share this wonderful, free gift of laughter with others.
Are Calcium Supplements Safe? – Home Care Services in Shelby Township, MI
New research raises questions about the pills that millions of older women take for bone health
New research is prompting questions about the safety of the calcium supplements that so many women age 50 and older take to strengthen their bones. One recent study suggests these pills raise a person’s risk for a heart attack, and another new study—scheduled to be presented next month—is expected to raise more safety questions, continuing the debate that erupted this summer.
The controversy began in July when the British Medical Journal published a study that raised troubling questions about the calcium supplements taken by millions of Americans to ward off the bone thinning that comes as we age.
Ian R. Reid, M.D., of New Zealand, led a team that examined data from 15 clinical trials involving calcium supplements, and reported a roughly 30 percent increase in heart attacks among those taking the pills. The team also found, however, that the supplements had no significant effect on strokes or on the risk of death from a heart attack.
“We think that the evidence is fairly compelling that calcium supplementation is causing heart attacks,” says Reid, a professor of medicine and endocrinology at the University of Auckland. In his own practice, he says, “we almost never prescribe calcium supplements these days.” He advises people “to change their diet so they get what they need from eating conventional foods.”
Calcium in food no risk
This latest research may call into question the popular practice of getting calcium from pills, but it has not suggested any heart risk from calcium in the diet. Researchers say that may be because food doesn’t cause the same temporary, short-term boost in blood calcium as supplements. The authors say this boost produces calcium deposits that may harden the blood vessels or make the blood more likely to clot.
But U.S. doctors widely recommend calcium supplements, especially to postmenopausal women at risk for osteoporosis—thinning and fractured bones—and some say the evidence linking the pills to heart risk is not yet persuasive enough to change that policy.
“I don’t think it’s enough to tell our patients to stop using calcium,” says Lynne Braun, a researcher and nurse practitioner who counsels patients on cardiovascular risk at the Heart Center for Women at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “I personally use calcium supplementation. Would I stop based on this [study]? The answer is no.”
Braun says the new study suffers from the usual shortcomings of meta-analysis, a statistical method that pools data from a variety of studies that haven’t necessarily gathered information on the same questions or in the same ways.
Robert R. Recker, M.D., director of the Osteoporosis Research Center at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., points out that when the New Zealand team looked at trials where specific patient information was available on more than 8,000 people, their analysis found 143 heart attacks among those who took calcium pills and 111 in the comparison group—a spread he calls “underwhelming.”
4 Ways to Ease Into Yoga – Home Care Services – Shelby Township, MI
Have you resolved to exercise and get healthier in the new year? Health and medical experts say you might want to try yoga.
In fact, a 2008 Harris poll of a cross section of 5,000 Americans found that 6.1 percent — which would translate to nearly 14 million adults — say their doctor or therapist recommended yoga to them.
Yoga is an ancient healing practice that has become increasingly popular in our modern, stressful world as a powerful way to stretch and strengthen the body, relax and calm the mind, enhance energy and lift the spirit. Doctors often recommend yoga to people over 50 because it can help lower blood pressure, ease pain and improve balance. But people stick with the ancient practice because they find it improves their mood, reduces stress and, simply put, makes them happier.
Unfortunately, many yoga instructors are not trained to adapt the practice to older bodies. And America’s booming interest in yoga has lead to an increase in classes that are called yoga, but are actually “yoga-flavored” exercise classes taught by instructors whose yoga training may be limited to a weekend workshop.
Unless a yoga teacher creates a safe class designed for older adults, this practice meant to heal may cause harm. To safely reap the many benefits of yoga, it’s important to understand these seven essential yoga facts:
1. Yoga can be good medicine. When new students come to my yoga class, I typically ask them what they’re seeking from the practice. “Flexibility” and “stress reduction” are the most common answers, since most people associate yoga with stretching and relaxation. But that’s changed in recent years, as a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that yoga offers many other health benefits including reducing high blood pressure, relieving back pain and improving sleep. Now when I ask new students why they’ve come to yoga, more and more people tell me that it’s just what their doctor ordered. A strong part of this yoga-as-medicine trend is fueled by people over age 50, who represent the most diverse mix of abilities of any age group.
2. Yoga is not just for the fit and flexible. Saying that you’re not flexible enough to practice yoga is like thinking that your house is too messy to hire a maid. The idea that you must twist yourself into a pretzel to do yoga is one of many common misconceptions. I’ve taught yoga to people with a wide array of health conditions including heart failure, osteoporosis, arthritis, fibromyalgia and back pain. The only requirement for practicing yoga is the ability to breathe.
3. You don’t have to stand on your head. While some people over 50 are extremely healthy and able to do headstands and other challenging yoga postures, much more common are older adults who fit the profile of the “average” senior in America — 80 percent of whom have at least one chronic health condition and 50 percent of whom have at least two. Many also face other health challenges, such as artificial joints or prosthetic heart valves. That’s why it’s essential for older adults beginning yoga to find an appropriate class with an experienced and well-qualified instructor.
4. There are many styles of yoga — from “hot” to gentle. For example, ashtanga yoga is very athletic, while kripalu yoga tends to be gentler and viniyoga is generally done one-on-one in a therapeutic setting. If you attend a class that is too demanding for your specific level of fitness, you may risk injury. Be sure you’re in a class that is appropriate for you, and inform the teacher of any health concerns or challenges you face. (See “How to Find a Good Yoga Instructor.”) Older adults, particularly those who have been inactive, should look for a class called Gentle Yoga or one specifically geared to seniors.
Source: AARP.org
Contact Pure Home Care Services at (586) 293-2457 today! If you live in Shelby Township or the surrounding area, we can help you care for your loved ones.
Home Care Services in Shelby Township, MI
Fish Reduces Alzheimer’s Risk
Regularly eating baked or broiled fish can help preserve brain power, according to new study
People who eat baked or broiled fish at least once a week may improve their brain health and cut the risk of developing memory problems or Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study presented today at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh selected the records of 260 participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study who were in their mid-70s and who had no problems with memory, thinking or reasoning. The researchers then looked at fish consumption and found that 163 of these men and women ate fish regularly, with the majority of them including it in their meals one to four times a week.
Ten years later, three-dimensional MRI brain scans were obtained for each participant. The researchers then did a brain mapping analysis on these scans that measured gray matter, which is crucial to brain health. “This is a mathematical way of understanding the influence of fish intake on the brain,” says Cyrus Raji, M.D., the lead author.
Taking into account factors such as age, sex, physical activity, obesity and education, the researchers determined that people who ate fish weekly had large amounts of gray matter in areas of the brain that are related to Alzheimer’s and mild cognitive impairment, a subtle but measurable memory disorder. Although previous studies have linked eating fish to brain health, the researchers say this is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer’s risk.
“Specific areas of gray matter in the brain are smaller in people with Alzheimer’s because the disease slices away at these regions cell by cell,” says neuropsychologist James Becker, a senior author of the study. If you start out with stronger, larger brain cells, however, it will take longer before the disease destroys so many cells that behavior and thinking start to change, Becker says.
Many people say that Alzheimer’s is genetic and there’s nothing you can do about your genes, notes Becker. “That’s true. But even if you’re destined to develop Alzheimer’s you can delay the point at which the disease shows its face,” he says. “Look at it this way. If you drive a four-cylinder car and one of the cylinders blows, you’re in a lot of trouble. But if you drive an eight-cylinder car and a cylinder blows, you may not be in good shape but you can still get to where you’re going. This is the biological equivalent of building in an extra four cylinders so that even if something goes wrong you’ve still got a lot of oomph left.”
The researchers noted that regular servings of baked or broiled fish promote stronger brain cells in gray matter by making them larger and healthier; greater volume could reduce the risk for a five-year decline in mental skills by almost fivefold.
Although the study didn’t identify the specific kinds of fish participants ate, past research ties fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, to brain health. Scientists already know that eating these fish can protect the heart. It turns out that they also protect the brain. Fried fish, on the other hand, provides no such benefits. “Frying changes the chemical composition of the omega-3 fatty acids, causing them to break down so there’s less available,” says Becker.
“There’s a growing awareness that what we eat can affect our brain,” says Scott Small, M.D., a Columbia University neurologist who was not involved in the research. “This interesting paper is a critical first step in pointing out a link between eating fish and reducing the risk of cognitive decline.”
Source: AARP.org
Contact Pure Home Care Services at (586) 293-2457 today! If you live in Macomb County or the surrounding area, we can help you care for your loved ones.
Eight Reasons to Be Socially Engaged – Shelby Township, MI
Over the last few decades, researchers have been fine-tuning a definitive “prescription” for healthy aging, defining the building blocks that combine to help us maintain the highest possible level of function and quality of life in our later years.
Immune System
A 2007 UCLA study demonstrated that loneliness decreases the efficiency of the immune system. The study’s author, Dr. Steven Cole, says, “The biological impact of social isolation reaches down into some of our most basic internal processes—the activity of our genes.” Several other studies also confirm that people with strong social connections exhibit stronger immunity against disease.
Blood Pressure
University of Chicago researchers released a study in 2006 showing that loneliness is linked to high blood pressure. Stress seems to be a key element of this connection. Author John Cacioppo points out that lonely individuals are less likely to approach stressful situations with “active coping and attempting to problem solve,” which leads to a hypertension-promoting passive reaction. For humans, discussing one’s problems with someone else is an instant stress buster.
Brain Health and Memory
People who are socially active may be less likely to develop cognitive impairment. In a University of Chicago study, MRI scans confirmed the negative impact of loneliness on brain health. It is important to note that in these studies, the researchers were careful to rule out “reverse causation”—the possibility that study participants were less social because they had memory loss, and not the opposite.
Physical Activity
Physical activity is frequently called the number one ingredient for healthy aging, and numerous studies demonstrate that social connections lead to increased exercise. For instance, it is more fun to walk with someone. If it’s more fun, you are more likely to stick with it.
Depression
Depression is a common challenge of growing older. One of the most important and powerful ways to fight depression is to interact and engage with others. Untreated, depression can cause a senior to withdraw from social engagement, but spending more time with others can help “jump start” recovery.
Pain
Chronic pain can have a major negative impact on quality of life. Maintaining social connection with others can be an important tool in decreasing the impact of pain. And people who are coping with chronic pain also report the positive effects of participating in support groups with others who are dealing with the same challenges.
Nutrition
Gerontologists have long known that social isolation is a big risk factor for malnutrition. Seniors who live alone often say that it is “just too much trouble” to fix a nutritious meal for one, and they may skip meals or get in the habit of snacking on junk food. This can lead to a serious weight loss—or in some cases, to obesity, when a lonely person turns to food for companionship.
Relationships
It may seem paradoxical, but socialization with a large number of people has been shown to have a positive impact on our primary relationships. Married couples who become too insular tend to expect their partner to meet all their emotional needs. In the same way, too much reliance on the parent/child bond can also be stressful for both, even when parents and children are the kinds who describe each other as “best friends.” Studies show that seniors who socialize not only with family members but also with their peers have better emotional, intellectual and physical health.
Contact Pure Home Care today…we’re here to assist Shelby Township and the surrounding area with all your home caregiving needs. Our number is (586) 293-2457.
Source: Caringnews.com
Home Care Professionals Can Stimulate Brain Health – Shelby Township, MI
Our understanding of brain health has grown by giant leaps over the past few decades. Sophisticated new imaging technologies allow researchers to observe the working of the brain in ways that would have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago. This research has yielded new insight into how our brains change with age. Professional in-home caregivers have tailored senior care services accordingly, with increased emphasis on enhancing brain health for seniors.
Here are ways in-home care professionals are helping senior clients take positive steps to maintain the best possible brain health:
Managing health conditions—New studies show that brain health is closely interrelated with heart health, diabetes, blood pressure, even dental health and hearing loss. So it’s more important than ever for seniors to follow their healthcare provider’s advice. In-home caregivers provide transportation to the doctor and other healthcare appointments, and help clients comply with care recommendations.
Encouraging physical activity—More and more studies show that exercise helps preserve healthy brain function. This year a National Institute on Aging study showed that moderate aerobic exercise can actually increase the size of the brain area associated with memory formation. No matter what their health condition, seniors should add more activity to their day. The presence of an in-home caregiver provides extra encouragement and confidence to help clients stick to the activity program their healthcare provider recommends.
Medication management—Prescription and non-prescription drugs help many seniors manage their health conditions. But overmedication and the side effects of some drugs can actually cloud the memory. Seniors should request that their healthcare provider or pharmacist review their prescriptions regularly. In-home caregivers help senior clients remember to take medications correctly and at the right time, and can transport clients to the pharmacy or pick up prescriptions. Caregivers are also alert to possible negative side-effects of drugs.
Providing “brain friendly” meals and snacks—We can choose foods that help protect our brains. The good news is, seniors who have been following a “heart smart” diet also benefit from the good-for-your-brain choices such as low-fat meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grains. In-home caregivers can plan meals that meet a senior’s nutritional and special diet requirements. They can do the grocery shopping and prepare delicious meals and healthy snacks.
Improving mental health—Geriatric mental health experts tell us that depression, stress and anxiety can cause harmful chemical changes in the brain. In-home caregivers help senior clients comply with their healthcare provider’s instructions for treating these conditions. Treatment might include medication, and a change in routine can be just as important. The caregiver’s presence and support reduces the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can lead to depression. Getting out of the house and spending more time with others provides a noticeable mood boost for most seniors.
Increasing mental stimulation—When it comes to brain health, “use it or lose it” isn’t just a cliché. Using our brains for mentally challenging activities encourages new connections between brain cells. You might say that the brain is like a muscle that can be strengthened! Watching TV and similar passive activities don’t offer the same benefits. In-home caregivers know how important it is to help clients seek out a variety of appropriate, mentally challenging activities. At home, they might enjoy a game of checkers, crafts, or listening to music. The caregiver can also provide transportation so clients can visit a garden, spend time with friends, or go to a museum.
Preventing falls—Did you know that seniors are at higher risk of brain injury, and that most of these injuries result from falls? Seniors and family caregivers should take steps to reduce the risk of falls. An in-home caregiver can take senior clients to fall reduction classes; help “fall-proof” the home by removing clutter; and provide physical assistance when clients need help walking, getting dressed, or moving between bed and chair.
Shelby Township and the surrounding area…Want to see what Pure Home Care can do for you? Call us today! Our number is (586) 293-2457.
Source: Caringnews.com