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.