Tag: stress

Find Relief from Anxiety with Mindful Meditation

Find Relief from Anxiety with Mindful Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation help individuals gain mental clarity. It also helps to manage stress and improve their understanding of themselves and their surroundings. As depicted in the photo, meditation focuses on “Live the Moment.”

One of the many types of meditation is Mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment. It involves awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, sensations, and environment. Included in this is accepting them as they are. Mindfulness can be practiced daily, for example, by paying full attention to what you do, such as eating, walking, or listening to someone. There are also formal mindfulness practices, such as mindfulness meditation.

Meditation is a way to focus on the mind and avoid intrusive thoughts. Mindfulness meditation is just one form of meditation. The idea is to sit upright in a straight-back chair or on the floor. The way to avoid thinking is to focus on breathing. Each time thoughts intrude, and that happens often, we refocus on breathing. Most people begin the practice of meditation with twenty-minute sessions. Then, the time is increased to thirty minutes or more.

There are many benefits to meditation. For example, it can activate the body’s relaxation response, helping to reduce stress. It’s also been associated with increased well-being and happiness. Findings show it can improve memory, attention, and decision-making skills. Research has linked it to reducing insomnia and improving sleep. 

Guided meditation is a technique used to help people relax and focus their minds. It involves listening to a professional on a recording that leads the listener through mental images and calming thoughts. Guided meditation reduces stress and anxiety, promotes relaxation, and improves overall well-being. This practice is often used as therapy or a personal growth and development tool. It can be done alone or in a group setting and tailored to meet individual needs and preferences.

Walking is a simple and accessible form of physical activity that offers a multitude of health and mental health benefits. Below are some of the notable benefits.

Walking can:

  1. Improve heart health. It can lower the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease by helping to improve circulation and strengthen the heart.
  2. Burn calories and can help maintain or lose weight with a balanced diet.
  3. It helps tone the muscles and improves the strength and flexibility of joints. For people with arthritis, it can be especially beneficial in easing pain and stiffness.
  4. Walking helps improve balance and coordination, which can reduce the risk of falls in seniors.
  5. Help lower blood sugar levels and improve the body’s sensitivity to insulin, which benefits people with type 2 diabetes.
  6. Help boost the immune system, making the body more adept at fighting illnesses.
  7. Combining physical activity, fresh air, and nature can have a calming effect on the mind.
  8. Help with better sleep.
  9. Allow the mind to wander, and may lead to increased creativity and improved problem-solving skills.
  10. Being with friends or in groups can provide social interaction that benefits mental health and creates a sense of belonging.

Incorporating walking into one’s daily routine can be a simple and effective way to enhance physical and mental health. 

I use guided meditation. There is an app that I use called “Calm.” While you can subscribe for free, the sound quality of the paid version is far superior. Meditation is used for a variety of purposes. Those purposes are listed in Calm, where the subscriber can select from various purposes. There are meditations to calm stress, reduce anxiety, promote sleep, walk in the woods, and many more. The user can select from a variety of lengths of time. For example, the time ranges from ten to thirty minutes. The people who guide the meditations are experts at what they do. Many of them are well known.

Meditate. It’s the best medicine of all.

dransphd@aol.com

Health and Education: It’s Heart Breaking to Not Finish Your Education

During the past twenty or more years, I have listened to the complaints of high school students, their families, and the public. The same complaint: “Why do we need a liberal arts education?” The question goes much further than a liberal arts education because it states that children should learn a trade. 

Recent events at one university in Colorado included eliminating language, arts, and other liberal arts classes. 

Research studies conducted during the last twenty or more years consistently show the same results. There is a direct connection between the level of education and heart disease. The lower the level of education, the higher the risk for cardiovascular disease and death. Regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, or nation, these results.

From the American Heart Association, 2019.

Education level may predict the risk of dying for people with heart disease.

By American Heart Association News

“How long people stay in school may play a significant role in predicting how well those with coronary heart disease will fare.

Education level has influenced people’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The new study examines just how much of a factor it plays among people with established coronary artery disease due to a buildup of cholesterol and fatty plaque deposits in the heart’s arteries.

Researchers looked at 6,318 older adults in three Atlanta-based hospitals who underwent a procedure to diagnose and assess problems in coronary arteries. Each person completed questions about the highest level of education completed. Other demographic details and medical history followed for four years.

Among the study’s participants, 16% had received a graduate degree, 42% had finished college, 38% had completed high school, and 4% had completed elementary or middle school.

Researchers found that compared to people with graduate degrees, those with lower educational attainment appeared to have a higher risk of heart attack, dying from a cardiovascular event, and overall death.

People with elementary or middle school education had a 52% higher risk of dying from any cause during the study than someone who attained a graduate degree. People who completed high school had a 43% increased risk. College graduates had a 26% higher risk than people with graduate degrees.

The higher risk remained even after adjusting for traditional cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure and tobacco use, and other demographic characteristics, including sex and income level.

“We adjusted for everything that would be a risk determinant, and despite all that, just the educational level was an independent predictor of outcome,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Arshed Quyyumi, a cardiology professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

“What’s striking is how important the role of education is,” he said. “Most of us practitioners, we don’t ask patients for their educational level when we’re seeing them – and we don’t take any added precautions when you find that somebody may not be as well educated as another person.”

The findings were presented Tuesday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Paris and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Quyyumi said the results show a need for increased awareness among physicians to be more vigilant about following through with heart patients to make sure they’re taking medicine and making recommended lifestyle changes to lower risk. It also shows the link between a person’s health and social determinants, factors that influence where and how people live, learn, work and play.

Social determinants of health represent “a phenomenon outside of biology and genetics, outside of traditional risk factors,” said Dr. Clyde Yancy, professor and cardiology chief at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.”

Multiple studies done worldwide consistently show the same results.

The message is clear. Get an education! 

Help is Available. Contact Dr. Schwartz at dransphd@aol.com

http://www.allanschwartztherapy.net

Coping Strategies for Anxiety and Stress During Corona Pandemic

Are you feeling irritable and short-tempered and getting into arguments at home? So many people are experiencing nervousness and restlessness? So many are finding it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep? You are not alone.

There are many things about which people feel stressed, anxious, and worried. For example, Coronavirus and social unrest are causing worry and fear. Also, many have lost jobs and their salaries. One of the most challenging things that many must deal with is that it isolates them at home—having to be indoors, whether alone or even with family, is extremely difficult. As a result, I hear from many people who feel irritable, angry, sensitive, anxious, and depressed. What can people do to help themselves deal better with these problems?

Here or some suggestions for coping during this difficult time:

  • While wearing masks go out for walks, whether alone, with family, or with friends. In doing so, it is essential to remember to maintain Social distancing.
  • Avoiding alcohol is extremely important. The reports are that many people are drinking to self-medicate their problems. Rather than working as self-medication, drinking worsens the problems. It creates irritability and the tendency to get into arguments at home.
  • Social interaction is essential. The frustration is that the Coronavirus makes it difficult to socialize. While wearing masks and maintaining social distance, it is possible to mix and necessary. I encourage people to chat as much as possible while maintaining safety in my psychotherapy practice.
  • Exercise is important. I know of one person who reported that they walk around their house as much as possible, including going upstairs and downstairs.
  • Owning a dog can help. People who own dogs understand they must be what walked. Two crucial goals or achieved for those who have the dog. One important goal is getting out of the house and walking, allowing for some exercise. Besides, I always remind my clients that it’s impossible to be isolated when you own a dog. Neighbors, children, and anyone will greet and pet the dog. That is often the beginning of a friendly chat.
  • One of the best medicines in the world, for most situations, is his humor. That is why I recommend watching funny television programs. These movies are comic and email humorous cartoons to family and friends. There is nothing like making jokes, laughing, smiling, having a sense of humor, or being suitable for the body and good for the soul.
  • Listening to music is one of the most soothing it will axing things a person can do.
  • I strongly recommend meditation. There is a beautiful app named CALM. Download this app to your cell phone. Sitting or lying down and listening to some meditations is hugely relieving. The reflections are guided or purely musical and, depending on your choice, can last from 5 to 30 minutes.
  • Under stress, many people breathe in a more shallow way without realizing it’s happening. Instead, it’s essential to take a full breath, count to five, let it out, and repeat two or three times. You can feel the body relax.
  • Additional strategies include avoiding watching the news.
  • Stretch to relax muscle tension—deep muscle relaxation techniques.
  • Nature helps a great deal, such as walking in the local park.
  • Avoid turning to alcohol to self-medicate. That only worsens all the symptoms mentioned, including domestic violence and child abuse.

People are experiencing feeling shut into their homes as frustrating. There is evidence that this has resulted in increased alcohol consumptions, domestic violence, and child abuse. It is essential to turn to psychotherapy for this and all the other reasons mentioned if the different strategies do not work.

It may seem silly, but it’s also important to smile. An old song, “smile, and the entire world smiles with you.” It is accurate, and evidence points out that smiling helps us feel better. 

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