How to Deal With Hair Loss Problem

Thinning of hair is one of the problems people are facing nowadays. Among those who suffer from hair loss, some spend good amount for expensive products and, or prescriptions to save their hair while others shampoo for thinning hair. Some people do nothing and just affect the fact that it runs on their blood to be bald on old age, they forgot that change in lifestyle and herbal medication could also help them save their hair from vanishing.

Normally, people lose hair up to 100 hairs a day because of factors like hormonal change, stress, and poor nutrition. Abnormal hair loss could be due to reaction to radiation; medication; infection on scalp; auto-immune diseases; and health conditions like arthritis, heart problems and depression. Dealing with the underlying cause of hair loss could stop the hair problem.

Genetics plays a big role too why some people suffer from hair loss, which is so hard to combat. To men who are experiencing genetic hair loss, it is believed that you got more hormone receptors in your scalp, particularly in balding area. Hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) from testosterone damages the hair follicles making hair bit by bit become finer and its growth cycles shorter than normal cycles.
Conversion of healthy male hormone to unwanted dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is stimulated by enzyme produced by prostate and adrenal glands. In women, hair thinning is produced by adrenal glands.

Do not wait until you become bald for some time before you act because once the hair follicles die, it becomes impossible to revive and inverse the process. As common health practice: “Prevention is better than cure,” do not wait until it is too late. Ask help from specialist of what is the best thing to do to save your hair follicles, check out some herbs that could help with hair growth, and practice a healthy lifestyle especially of taking right diet.

A Fight Against Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity problem is rising. More and more children are suffering from it. Obesity could not just result to bullying at school because of not usual size of the child but also of health problems.

Some people throw this issue to food chains and junk food companies. Can we solely blame them? Parents should be responsible enough of the quality and quantity of food they are giving to their kids, right? They are the direct handlers of their kids and have the authority to tame their taste buds while kids are still young.

Excess weight could result to acquired diabetes (Type II Diabetes), high cholesterol level, hypertension and cancer. Obesity could also lead to low self-esteem and depression. Parents, is it fine with you that your children suffer all these things on their young age? If not, better give what is healthy and best for them. It does not mean that it is good you can give more of it because your child wants it. You also need to teach them about discipline. Always be aware of the quality and quantity of the food you give.

Physical activities should be promoted, your child need to move a lot to be physically healthy. Providing a computer with internet and lots of games to choose from, and a cabled television set for your children to stay at home is fine but they should need to have time for their studies and physical activities as well. Let them be involved in sports at school that suites to their age if they want. Providing a space in your yard for them to play like basketball, table tennis, badminton, and other sports that do not require a lot of space but could make them move a lot is great. Taking them to park for a walk or jog with you as form of exercise, or let them play with kids of their age are also great ideas for them to stay fit.

Healthy lifestyle is not just for adults but for everybody. Let us not allow unhealthy condition like obesity to threaten our family health. Let us all live a healthy lifestyle.

Health Benefits of Fish Oil

I love to eat oily fishes since childhood days. Tuna, salmon and mackerel are just some of my favorites. It tastes so favorably on my taste buds and love it even more since I learned that oily fishes are rich in omega-3 oil. But, some people are worried of contamination of fishes with toxic chemicals because of some illegal dumping of toxic materials into the seas thus they prefer to eat animal meat as their source of protein and could not avail the tremendous benefits of fish oil from oily fishes.

Thanks to fish oil manufacturing companies, because of them it is not necessary for us to eat oily fishes just to avail the health benefits of fish oil. Not just that, they make sure that fish oils they produce are of good quality and free from any possible contaminants from the ocean where oily fishes resides. Fish oil supplements are usually blended with vitamin E. Aside from being a powerful antioxidant, vitamin E prevents fish oil to become rancid.

The two components of omega-3 in fish oil, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), provides notable health benefits. Aside from it could fill in nutritional gap, regular consumption of fish oil could lower cholesterol level, lower blood pressure, it improves cardiovascular health so as the liver. It could also help people who are suffering from asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), multiple sclerosis and cancer. Studies also showed that it could help those who are suffering from depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD.

We have no excuse for not availing the awesome health benefits of omega-3 from fish oil now. Whether you are like me who loves to eat oily fishes or not because there are fish oil supplements that are available now in the market. For pure vegetarians, flaxseed and flax oil are great alternative for fish oil when we talk about omega-3.

Watch Out For Bottled Water With Xenohormones

Watch out for bottled water with xenohormones! Have you heard the news about estrogenic chemicals that are found in bottled water? Did you know that these man made hormones called xenohormones found in the glass and plastic bottles of mineral water has hormone like effect to the humans? Study in Germany showed that those xenohormones acts like functional estrogen.

If it acts as functional estrogen, it could interfere our hormonal balance. Too much of estrogen in the body especially if not from healthy source like xenohormones could result to hormonal imbalance that may lead to health problems. Either you are male or female, you have estrogen hormone. Body produces estrogen, some of the food we eat like soybean has phytoestrogen which functions like our own estrogen when consumed. These are the healthy sources of estrogen.

In females, too much estrogen results to hormonal imbalance that produces physical and psychological effects, some of it are depression, migraine, bleeding, endometriosis, infertility and cancer. In males, it could lead to breast enlargement, erectile problems, depression and heart attack.

I hope problem like this, estrogenic chemicals present in bottled water, will be eliminated as soon as possible for good health reasons.

Relationship Between Exercise and Wellness

Make exercise your habit if you want to attain wellness or a higher level of physical functioning.
Exercising daily promotes weight loss, better posture, probable prevention from osteoporosis, lowers blood pressure, prevention against acquired diabetes mellitus, increased coronary efficiency, increase in high density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol. It is also a great stress, anxiety, depression and fatigue reduction technique. It improves your psychological well-being too. It surely improves your body awareness and self-esteem.

Exercise and other strenuous activities promotes a desirable weight maintenance thus controlling obesity. Overweight people are high risk from acquiring heart diseases such as hypertension, strokes and arteriosclerosis. Exercise increases your basal metabolic rate and burns more calories thus, promoting weight loss. But, if your target is to lose weight, you need to incorporate diet to your daily exercise. Healthy foods plus caloric restriction incorporated to your exercise activities promotes weight loss.

The Wonder Of Touch

the wonder of touch

No, I will not be talking about ipod touch here, I am talking about the sense of touch.  It is so nice to know that among your senses touch is the first to develop and last to diminish.

A child’s first emotional bonds are built from physical connection, laying the foundation for further emotional and intellectual development. Newborn babies process most information through their skin. Babies are designed to be frequently fed in a fashion that requires skin-to-skin contact, holding, and available facial cues. Touch really helps premature babies and babies who are slow weight gainers to gain weight at a faster rate.  Amazing, isn’t it? Babies and young children are dependent on touch for learning about the world. The young child explores the physical world by touch and learns many  aspects through it like shape, softness and texture.

Touch also plays a special role as you get older. Touch serves to comfort and give assurance and self-esteem. Not only that, research shows that it lowers blood pressure, subdues heart irregularities and relieves depression. Even a frail old people with failing sight clearly understands the hold of a caring hand.

How to give and receive touch? Just extend your hand to enrich your life and the people you cared for, like a gentle tap on a shoulder, gentle squeeze on the arm, a hug or a kiss and a shake hands when greeting someone.

You may also express touch through your facial expressions, gentle words to the people around you, a loving note, an email or a text message (using your ipod touch if you have one),  when you respect and show your concern to other people especially your parents.

As for me daily dose of touch is part of a healthy lifestyle. It is not a cure all but it will make you feel better.

Good Things About Stress

Yes, there good things about stress. Technically speaking, stress is defined, not by the cause of the distress, but by the way which we react to it. It may simply mean being subjected to external forces or pressures, that is either positive or negative depending on the effect of the external force.

Most of us denote the word “stress” only to its negative aspect. It is used to indicate an emotional state of being which is so intense that it hinders our ability to function. We’ve forgotten that stress has its positive side too. Yes, there are positive aspects which are often overlooked. Saying goes, “Too much of something is bad but absence of such means death.” It doesn’t just apply to vitamins and other things needed for us to be considered a healthy individual, it also applies to stress as well. Yes! We need stress. A certain levels of stress are necessary to keep us together. Certain degree of stress is essential for maintaining normal biological functions. If correctly handled, stress can be used as a positive force. It serves as stimulus for us to attain goals, solve difficult problems, enhance performance under pressure and helping us rise to the occasion. It can fuel creativity, create excitement, or energize us for an important event or project. Stress lends excitement and vigor to many aspects of life.

Stress factors come from the physical, mental, social and the spiritual areas of our lives. Physiologist Hans Selye, whose work helped shape modern stress theory, advanced the idea that physical and psychosocial stressors trigger the same physiological response. Selye explored the line between short-term stress that stimulates people to summon the resources to hurdle obstacles (so-called “good” stress) and chronic or overabundant stress, which wears down the ability to adapt and cope (”bad” stress or distress).

Two Harvard researchers, Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, also demonstrated that a jolt of stress is not necessarily bad. The two researchers noted that as stress or anxiety levels rose, so did performance and efficiency — up to a point. At this turning point (point of balance), more stress and anxiety led to significant decreases in performance and ability. The point here is we just need to find the ‘point of balance’ between absence and too much of stress for it to be beneficial. Where that line is drawn or, where that turning point falls differ from person to person.

There comes a time that the burden of our problems and internal conflicts is too great that any problem, no matter how small, push us into anxiety and depression from which is difficult to escape. Here are some of my favorite Bible quotes that may help you coup if time comes that you face greater level of stress:

”Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.” - Psalms 55:22 (NIV)

”Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” -Matthew 11: 28-30 (NIV)

Feeling inable to face the mountain of stress opens the person to depression. Thus it is important to deal with stress before it reaches these extremes. Be optimistic, if something turned sour, think about it and accept the results. Always remember that positive thoughts are not destructive to mind and body while negative thoughts promote illness. As what King Solomon says in the book of Proverbs 17:22 (NIV), “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Healthy and spontaneous laughter is incompatible with depression so take time to find places and people who can help you to be in good mood. It is important that we should learn to face the unavoidable in a positive and intelligent way.

Laughter – The Most Efficient Way to Manage Stress

Laughter is the most efficient way to manage the stresses brought on by life challenges. Study shows that those who have sense of humor and a cheerful outlook in life enjoy better physical and mental health. It was demonstrated that stress-related hormones are lessened during episodes of laughter, supporting the claim that humor can relieve stress.

Laughter enhances our ability to link up to other people. It spreads up so easily, that when you see people laughing you cannot help but join in to share in their playfulness. Encouraging others to laugh will help you keep your sense of humor and build it into a daily habit. Not only will you learn to value the lighter side of life, but you will also live longer, since laughter strengthens immune system by reducing the high levels of stress hormones associated to certain diseases and increasing the level of infection-fighting antibodies in our bodies.

The ecstasy you feel when you laugh is a great way of fighting the physical outcome of stress. Laughter is emotionally purging, it helps expel negative emotions such as sadness, anger or fear. It is a cure for depression. When we laugh, our body relaxes and endorphins are freed into the blood stream, leaving you feeling uplifted and exhausted. It lowers blood pressure, cardiovascular functions may get better, and oxygen levels in the blood may be boosted.

Research showed that by watching a 15-30 minute segment of a funny sit-com or movie, you can increase blood flow to the heart and reduce the strain and stress put on it. Even the eagerness to have a good laugh lowers stress hormones and increases your natural pain defenses.

According to one research, six-years-olds laughs an average of 300 times a day while adults only laugh 15-100 times a day. Take time to have a good laugh, laughter is an aerobic workout for the diaphragm and increases the body to use oxygen. And, why not plan a fun family activity even ones or twice a week as your family bonding?