Health & Fitness

Is There An Optimal Time Of Day To Workout?

Published by superadmin on 27th September 2022 | Leave a response

People are always looking at the best time of day to workout and when they get maximum results. Who wouldn’t want that? The answer is simple. The best time to workout is the best time for you and the time you’ll be able to do it on a regular basis. If you jump out of bed the first thing in the morning and are ready to go, you’re a good candidate for working out in the morning. Not everyone functions that well in the morning, so their optimal time may be later.

What time is best based on your energy level?

If you love the feeling of getting your energy flowing with a great workout, the first thing in the morning is perfect for you. Working out on an empty stomach, after your long nighttime fast while you slept, can help burn the fat that’s stored to use as energy. It also trains your body to burn stored fat. Also, people don’t begin to warm their muscles or function their best until noon or later. That makes working out at noon or after work is best.

Boost your endurance if you’re training for a marathon, or Ironman style event.

If your workout is for more than just good health, but leading up to an endurance style event, like the Ironman or a marathon, then working out later in the day may be the most beneficial for you. Your muscles are warmed and have maximum glycogen stored. It’s attained about two to three hours after a meal and keeps your body boosted with plenty of glycogen reserves to keep you functioning at your peak performance throughout your exercise time.

Are you pumping iron and building strength?

If you want to build muscles, especially if you’re NOT a morning person, move that morning workout to noon or later in the day. The extra time you spend up and moving increases the temperature in your body, which is lowered by sleep. You also will have more fuel from meals. Combine that with a higher body temperature and you’ll improve your performance.

Not everyone can workout at the time that’s best for a specific activity. Exercising regularly is more important than exercising at the perfect time for the activity.
To ensure you workout regularly, put your workout time on your schedule and keep it as you would any appointment. If your mornings are too rushed, schedule it for a time after work. If you often work overtime, get your workout done the first thing in the morning.
Some people love to workout at the end of the day to eliminate the stresses of the day. Others love getting their circulation going the first thing in the morning to clear their head and prepare for the day’s work.
No matter when you workout, always have a preworkout and post workout snack. It should be a combination of protein and carbohydrates, like apple slices and peanut butter.

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Do Nightshades Cause Inflammation?

Published by superadmin on 20th September 2022 | Leave a response

What are nightshades? This family of plants include a number of herbs, fruits and vegetables we often eat, but also some deadly members, like Belladonna, also known as the devil’s cherries. Are they good for us or unhealthy? There’s a belief that many cause inflammation. In fact, tomatoes were once considered poisonous. People did get sick and die when they ate them. However, it wasn’t the tomato that was the problem. It was the tin alloy dishes used for food storage that had high amounts of lead. The acid in the tomatoes caused the lead to leak into the food, causing lead poisoning. Is inflammation just another bad rap for members of the nightshade family?

What plants are nightshade plants.

You might be surprised at the food that’s in the nightshade family. In fact, you might eat at least one of them every day. It contains peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, tomatillos, goji berries, gooseberries, garden huckleberries and eggplant, just to name a few. The fruit some plants, like the tomato, and the root of others, like the potato are used. Most other parts of the plant contain toxins. Another member of the nightshade family is tobacco.

Like many plant species, members of the nightshade family have their own pesticides.

Members of the nightshade family contain solanine, which are alkaloids and natural pesticides. When consumed in large concentrations, it can cause digestive issues, such as nausea and diarrhea, but the amount in the produce eaten is normally too small to create a problem. You’ll find it more concentrated in leaves and stems, but the fruits, when green also have higher concentrations. Members of the nightshade family also contain lectins, which are also in legumes and grains. These can cause inflammation, especially when combined with solanine.

Should you avoid nightshades entirely or are they safe to eat?

For most people, the small amount of solanine isn’t a problem and even the lectins might not be. The problem is, for some folks they do create an inflammation. Both solanine and lectins are considered anti-nutrients. That means they interfere with the body’s ability to digest food. That can create two problems. The first is the reduction of nutrition available to the body. The second is the potential to interfere with the microbiome of the digestive tract. Feeding microorganisms makes them grow. Eating plants with lectins that interfere with digestion cause bacteria to grow linked with inflammation.

Eating too many foods high in lectins can cause digestive issues. It can cause leaky gut, which in turn creates body wide inflammation, causing issues like IBS, allergies, arthritis and other inflammatory issues.
Several studies show that gut inflammation, alkaloids and lectin may be connected. The alkaloids in potatoes made IBS worse, just as the spices from the nightshade family have. They increase intestinal permeability.
Not everyone has reactions to plants in the nightshade family if they eat food that’s table ready. Green tomatoes, the type that are hard and immature, have about 100 times the solanine as ripe tomatoes. Cooking tomatoes also reduces the toxins.
Peeling members of the nightshade family can reduce the lectin in them. Pressure cooking or fermenting the fruits and produce from nightshade also helps cut the lectin that may cause inflammation.

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The Importance Of Mental Fitness

Published by superadmin on 13th September 2022 | Leave a response

People who live in New York often say a lot of their problem comes from living in the big city. People who live in Louisiana, might blame the floods or other issues for their poor attitude. No matter where you live there are pros and cons. Your happiness all starts with you and your mental fitness. If you stay awake nights worrying about things you can’t control, the issues may be different depending on the location or the same, but regardless, you may not be causing the problem, but you are the one causing the stress. You can control your attitude, but it takes work.

Staying positive is not the same as some types of positive thinking.

Don’t mistake positive thinking for inaction. If you’re out of money but refuse to look for employment because you just know that money will magically appear, since you said a mantra to bring it that’s different from eliminating fear that blocks your thoughts. Being able to separate the fear out and focus on solutions is the key to solving problems.

Lack of good mental fitness affects your body, too.

When left uncontrolled, mind-numbing fear can cause high blood pressure from the chronic stress. Chronic stress leads to hormonal imbalances, shortened lifespan and premature aging and disease. Exercise can help eliminate the hormones of stress, so can meditation, deep breathing exercises and other forms of relaxation. The best way to control stress is improving your mental fitness and focusing first on find a solution and eliminating needless worrying that can stress you,

You don’t have to have a problem to feel out of control if you don’t have mental fitness.

Sometimes, mild stressors can create big problems. It doesn’t have to be much. It can be a barking dog, bad driver ahead of you or a cranky salesperson in a store. It all builds up if you let it. How do you get over these mild environmental problems and not let them build? By looking at them for what they are…merely minor nuisances. It’s been noted that chronic stress can increase the potential of death. Mild stress increased the risk of lethal heart disease and stroke by 29% and moderate stress increased it by 43%, while a lifestyle of high stress increased it by 94%.

Developing a positive attitude is just as important as exercising. In fact, it makes exercising easier. Exercising also reduces stress and can play a big role in reducing anxiety and depression.
Staying active and social is important. Studies show that having good friends and a healthy social life can extend your lifespan. Having fun and laughing is the best medicine for any condition.
Having an attitude of gratitude is important for good mental health. Instead of looking at what you don’t have, it’s important to appreciate what you do have.
Schedule time for yourself to improve your mental and physical health. During those hours schedule healthy activities and if you need to, some alone time for meditation, contemplation and relaxation.

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Is Honey Vegan?

Published by superadmin on 5th September 2022 | Leave a response

If you’re vegan, you avoid animal products, such as milk, eggs, meat and any products made from animals. Some vegans differentiate animal and insect products, allowing the second group, which includes honey. Others consume honey in their diet. So, what are the reasons for avoiding this sweet treat? Honey is viewed as non-vegan by some because it’s from a farming source. Just like other types of farming, it’s exploiting living entities, which are bees in this case.

How are bees exploited?

Farming is a commercial enterprise, which means the goal is to make a profit. Vegans often view the farmers as exploiting the work of the bees and use practices that aren’t considered ethical. For instance, bee farmers often replace the queen. While the queen does this naturally, usually in the spring, farmers do it before this occurs to keep up production. It takes time for the new queen to emerge and in the meantime, worker bees age and die and new ones aren’t created. By taking control of the process, farmers ensure a steady flow of honey.

Some vegans feel bee farming harms the health of the bees.

When bee farmers take the honey, they’re taking the bee’s food. Honey has all the essential nutrients and calories that bees need to survive. It’s filled with amino acids, natural antibiotics, carbs and antibiotics. Bees have to eat, so farmers replace that honey with high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose. That can provide calories, but not all the benefits of honey. In fact, there’s scientific evidence that it may negatively affect the immune system and even cause change at the genetic level that diminishes their protection against pesticides.

If vegans don’t eat honey, what do they use as sweetener?

There are several plant based options, but none of them include the white granules often found in the cupboards of homes across America. Why? Sugar is from plants and fine to consume, up to the point of refinement, where the sugar is pushed through a massive filter that’s created from bone char—the burnt bones of animals. It removes not only the color, but also the nutrients in sugar. Instead of table sugar, vegans often use maple syrup, molasses, barley malt syrup, brown rice sugar or date syrup

Some vegans feel the hard work of bees is stolen by the farmers. Both of these things are believed as unethical by vegans. In order to take a stand, they avoid the consumption of honey.
Honey has many health benefits, which vary based on the diet of the bees. Wildflower honey, for instance, is often used to suppress coughs and help with seasonal allergies.
If you grow sage and have bees, their honey will most likely be good for digestion, if the bees harvest its nectar. The type of nectar bees collect also affects the taste, color and texture. Tupelo honey is extremely sweet and almost buttery in texture.
Whether you’re vegan or not, avoid giving infants 12 months or younger raw honey. Raw honey may have botulism spores or bacteria that won’t affect older children and adults but does affect babies because of their immature immune system.

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Why Vitamin D Is So Important

Published by superadmin on 29th August 2022 | Leave a response

If you’re taking advantage of every method to improve your health, don’t forget to make sure you have adequate vitamin D. Covid brought the need for vitamin D to improve your immune system, when studies found that the people most affected by covid 19, also had a vitamin D deficit. Unlike other vitamins, your body can make vitamin D. It comes from exposure from the sun. However, due to the potential increase of skin cancer, it has to be done carefully and with safe sunning.

Vitamin D may be called a vitamin, but it actually isn’t.

Vitamin D is more similar to a steroid hormone than it is a vitamin. The body makes it from cholesterol, which is like hormones. It’s also a messenger, which is exactly what a hormone is. Vitamin D also determine the amount of fat the body produces by limiting how many fat cells it produces. It also can cause the suppression of fat storage and boost serotonin, which helps control the appetite. It also increases testosterone that aids in weight loss. It makes sense, since exposure to the sun helps create it and as the sun wanes, when winter comes, your body needs more fat for insulation.

You need vitamin D for strong teeth and bones.

Vitamin D is necessary for the absorption of calcium. It also helps prevent type 1 diabetes, some forms of cancer and multiple sclerosis. Adequate amounts of vitamin D are necessary for diabetics. It helps maintain insulin levels. Several other systems depend on vitamin D to function adequately, such as the cardiovascular system, respiratory system and nervous system. It also helps provide protection for the brain. A deficit of vitamin D can lead to osteoporosis, depression and muscle weakness.

It’s easier to get vitamin D from the sun than it is from your diet.

Safe sunning, where you expose your skin to the sun for up to 15 minutes between ten in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, is one way to get the amount of vitamin D you need. Fair skinned people need less time, while darker skinned need more. If you live in a higher latitude, you can only get adequate vitamin D in the summer. As your body produces more melanin, you need more time in the sun. People in states like Texas and Louisiana can get vitamin D from the sun all year. Getting it from food is more difficult. Either choose food fortified with vitamin D or opt for food like liver, fatty fish, cod liver oil or eggs.

If you’re trying safe sunning and extremely fair skinned, opt for only a minute or two unprotected at first, then slather your skin in sunscreen. Build up as your skin darkens. Expose as much skin as you can to the sun when you safe sun.
The older you are, the more vitamin D you need. People that are younger than 70 need 600 IU of vitamin D. People over the age of 70 need 800 IU each day.
A little under half the population was determined to be deficit in vitamin D, according to one study. The vast majority of the people in that group were either office workers, over 55, were dark skinned, had IBS or were vegetarians.
There are several forms of vitamin D, but the two mainly found in food are vitamin D2 and D3. D2 is man-made or from mushrooms exposed to the sun. The body makes D3 and it also is in animal sources. D3 can also be manmade and is more effective than D2.

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What Is The Primal Diet?

Published by superadmin on 22nd August 2022 | Leave a response

If you’re eating a caveman diet, you may be eating a primal diet. But you also could be following a Paleo diet. Both are similar and linked to the way people ate before farming was developed and long before the world was industrialized. What’s the difference between the two? The differences are small. A Paleo diet doesn’t allow milk or milk products at all, but primal diets do. However, those products have to be in raw form. A second difference is the elimination of coffee, alcohol, dark chocolate and members of the nightshade family, like tomatoes or bell peppers. The primal diet allows them. You might say the primal diet is for the “slightly more advanced” caveman.

Sugar and simple carbs are “no-no’s” in the primal diet.

Just think of the thinks Carl the Caveman didn’t have. He didn’t have refrigerators, processed food or a Burger Quickie down the street. Carl never would have been able to buy Ramon noodles or grab a bowl of ice cream out of the freezer. Anything highly processed or ready to heat and serve isn’t on the primal diet. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t eat frozen vegetables and fruit, as long as they contain no other additives. You can also have honey and maple syrup, both of which Carl might have eaten. Gran products aren’t on the list and neither is granulated sugar or refined vegetable oils.

What your ancestors ate set the stage for what your body processes more easily.

You don’t have to go too many generations back to find we’ve increased our consumption of sugar. Sugar was originally considered a medicine, and few could afford it. It then became more accessible and by 1700, the average consumption for developed nations was 4 pounds a year. That amount grew tremendously by 1915, Americans consumed approximately 20 pounds a year. Today the average American is consuming156 pounds every year. That’s a huge difference from what the caveman ate or even from what great-great-grandma and grandpa had at the supper table. That’s one huge difference and why sugar is eliminated.

Your body developed eating these whole foods, but food has changed dramatically over the past few years.

Evolution takes time, but most of the fast foods have occurred in the last three generations. That’s why the primal diet focuses on foods that man ate in early times and are genetically predisposed to consuming. It’s not that hard to figure out what to eat. Fresh fruits and vegetables, even frozen ones are allowed. Grains aren’t, except, unlike the paleo diet, quinoa and wild rice are.

The primal diet has proven to lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol results. It even outshined the Mediterranean diet in that area. While people lost just as much weight as they would on a traditional diet, the pounds lost came from the mid-section and belly.
The primal diet is excellent for weight loss. Most of the foods eliminated are high in calories or carbs. Just cutting out foods with sugar and high fructose corn syrup can cause you to lose weight more rapidly.
Many people with an undiscovered food intolerance or allergy often feel better when they’re on a primal or paleo diet. Since it limits the foods that often cause food allergies, it can help solve several health issues.
Whether you need to lose weight or have a health issue, most of the recommendations found in the primal diet can help you feel better. It lowers the amount of inflammatory foods and increases those that are anti-inflammatory.

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Ways To Eliminate Fatigue And Bloating

Published by superadmin on 14th August 2022 | Leave a response

You might not connect the two but bloating and fatigue are often symptoms of the same problem. Most people have experienced one or both at some time in their life, and in some cases, the reason is simple. Fatigue can come from working too hard or not getting enough sleep. Excess gas and bloating can occur if you ate too much, ate foods that tend to be gassy, like beans, or ate too many fatty foods. Identifying the problems can help you eliminate fatigue and bloating.

Monitor how you eat and the quality of your sleep.

If you’ve swallowed air by eating too fast, drinking through a straw, smoking or chewing gum. It can cause you to get gassy. Wolfing down your food without thoroughly chewing also causes other problems, besides swallowing air, that can cause digestive upsets. Part of the digestive process takes place in your mouth. Avoid smoking. If those things don’t help, it’s time to look at food sensitivities.

Other things can cause you to bloat and feel tired?

Fatigue can be tied to bloating and digestive issues. Food intolerance, food allergies and digestive issues can cause both problems. Sometimes, too little or too much sleep can cause constipation, which in turn leaves you feeling tired and bloated. You can solve that problem by adjusting your sleep pattern and drinking more water. Food allergies or intolerances, such as gluten or lactose intolerance or mild reactions to sugar, peanuts, alcohol, eggs, carbonated drinks or red meat, you can also feel exhausted and bloated. Track the food or try an elimination diet and see if that helps.

One big offender that can cause both bloating and exhaustion is sugar.

What you eat makes a difference in your microbiome. Your microbiome is the collection of microbes, which include, among other tiny creatures, both bacteria and yeast. If you have an overgrowth of yeast, it can cause sugar cravings, gas and exhaustion. Sugar feeds yeast. Think about how a yeast bread is made. There’s sugar in the dough that feeds the yeast, causing the yeast to release gas and make the bread rise. That rising action also can take place in your digestive tract, causing exhaustion, bloating and other problems. Cut out sugar.

If you want to improve your digestion, increase spinach. It contains magnesium that helps digestion. Eat more celery and cucumbers. Both have fiber, add additional fluid and aid in digestion.
If you increase the fiber in your diet, do it slowly. While more fiber will help reduce bloating, increasing it too fast will actually cause it. Don’t forget to increase your water intake, too.
Antibiotics can disrupt your digestive tract microbiome, causing bloating, exhaustion and indigestion. Supplement your diet with probiotics or probiotic foods like sauerkraut or yogurt.
Eat mindfully. Relax before you eat your first bite. Savor the flavor and chew it well, enjoying every minute. It can help relieve stress, which causes fatigue, and help prevent bloating.

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Health Benefits Of Dark Chocolate

Published by superadmin on 6th August 2022 | Leave a response

Anyone who has ever visited Louisiana, knows they’re famous for their desserts, like pecan pralines, king cake or bananas Foster. That makes it difficult if you’re trying to lose weight or live a healthier lifestyle. The good news is that you don’t have to give up sweets entirely to live healthier. In fact, dark chocolate actually has some health benefits. Of course, it doesn’t mean you can eat several bars in one setting or ignore the fact that it’s part of a doberge cake. Eating one small square or a few dark chocolate bits in trail mix may actually make you healthier and satisfy your urge for sweets.

What is considered dark chocolate?

You probably can tell the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate immediately when you look at the color, but finding the healthiest dark chocolate requires you read the package. Healthy dark chocolate has 70% more cacao and less sugar. It has polyphenols, those are antioxidants. When milk is added to cocoa, the milk interferes with the body’s absorption of the antioxidants. If you get the healthiest dark chocolate, somewhere between 70-85% cacao, it contains magnesium, copper, manganese, iron, fiber selenium, phosphorus and potassium. It also contains fiber, which most never suspect.

Dark chocolate is best known for its heart healthy benefits.

Nitric oxide is important to help arteries relax, which makes them wider and lowers blood pressure. Dark chocolate increases nitric oxide. It does even more for the heart. It helps improve the cholesterol profile, while provides help to prevent blood clotting and lower the inflammation that’s linked to heart disease. The wider blood vessels from nitric oxide allows blood to circulate more freely. That blood supplies oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the body, which includes both the heart and the lungs.

The combination of flavonoids and other antioxidants reduce the risk of cancer.

Dark chocolate contains antioxidants called flavonoids that help prevent inflammation. They also stop free radicals from causing damage to cells, particularly the cells of the colon. Studies show that consuming small amounts of dark chocolate may aid in the reduction of colon cancer. The anti-inflammatory properties also provide aid by limiting oxidative stress and blocking the growth of cancer cells.

One large study of 20,000 people that lasted 11 years, found a link to cardiovascular health and dark chocolate. The more often people ate dark chocolate, the lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease.
If you have a problem with insulin resistance, but still want a treat for the day, make it no more than one ounce of dark chocolate that’s at least 70% cacao or higher. The higher the better.
The increased flow of blood to the brain and flavanol in dark chocolate has links to reducing the risk of Parkinson’s disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s. Studies that focused on the antioxidants found in dark chocolate found they improved cognitive performance and brain function.
Dark chocolate may be a new beauty aid. The flavanol it contains may help protect your skin from sun damage and even improve your skin, making it smoother.

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Main Problems With Processed Food

Published by superadmin on 25th July 2022 | Leave a response

No matter where you live, processed food is popular. I see it all the time in Louisiana. It doesn’t matter whether you’re stopping at a drive-through or shopping at the store, processed foods are part of our everyday life. There are problems with processed food that directly affect your health. While not all processed foods are bad, since washing food or freezing food could be considered processing, true processed food, the ones whose labels read like a chemistry equation, have limited nutrients and contain ingredients that affect our health.

Are foods that are highly processed really foods?

There are meats made in the lab and sugar that’s subject to several processes that don’t normally occur in nature. The sugar is called high fructose corn syrup—HFCS. HFCS starts with corn that’s changed to corn starch. It’s then changed by introducing enzymes produced by bacteria. That substance is changed by adding enzymes from fungus and finally, it’s given another dose of bacteria enzyme from a different bacterium resulting in a sweet substance that’s 53% fructose and 47% glucose. It’s hard to digest, since glucose is metabolized by all cells, but fructose metabolizes only in the liver. That can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is on the rise in both adults and children, affecting approximately 7 million. Animal studies show HFCS also linked to brain damage and weight gain.

Foods that used to spoil no longer do or take far longer.

Spoilage is a natural occurrence. Honey is one of the few natural substances that doesn’t break down or spoil, as long as it’s kept sealed to prevent moisture. For other foods, bacteria or fungi break down organic substances to their organic bases. Attaining a longer shelf life is important, since food is no longer a field to table process. To ensure the products remain edible and safe, chemicals are added as preservatives. Eating small amounts isn’t a problem, but if your diet is primarily processed food, it can lead to high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and/or cancer.

Highly processed foods often lack nutrition.

For some foods, just cooking them can eliminate many nutrients. In tomatoes, it can destroy the vitamin C, but it also boosts the lycopene, a powerful antioxidant. So, in that case, processing has a plus. That’s not true of all processing. Highly processed flour has the bran and germ removed, leaving only the starchy endosperm. The bran is high in fiber and the germ rich in nutrients, leaving processed flour nothing but a bleached starchy substance with few nutrients.

Some type of sugar has been added to most highly processed foods. Whether it’s HFCS, which is most often found in processed food since it’s cheap or sugar, it’s in everything. Sugar causes inflammation and inflammation causes serious health issues.
Avoid foods with preservatives, like sulfites and BHA—butylated hydroxy anisole. Also avoid emulsifiers meant to prevent separation in ice cream, mayonnaise and similar foods. They can affect your microbiome and lead to IBS.
Processed foods are a source of refined, simple carbs with almost no fiber. Apples are sweet, yet they don’t spike blood sugar levels like candy. Why? It’s because of the fiber in apples that slow the absorption of the glucose. Highly processed food has little fiber.
Processed foods aren’t always eaten. You drink some, too. Soft drinks, the specialty coffee drinks and even milk shakes are highly processed. Many are high in calories and low in nutrition, like soda that’s flavored carbonated sugar water.

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Can Exercise Stabilize Mood Swings?

Published by superadmin on 18th July 2022 | Leave a response

There are a lot of different causes of mood swings. Even though the first idea that may have come to your mind is a mental condition called bipolar disorder, chronic physical conditions and injuries can cause them, too. Dementia, concussions, stroke, Parkinson’s and other neurological problems can cause them. So can diabetes, MS, sleep disorders and thyroid disease. Doctors often prescribe mood stabilizers. Some of them are prescription medication, while others are natural mood stabilizers. Exercise is one of the natural stabilizers, which is often used before other types of medications.

Exercise has been used to help anxiety and depression.

When you’re under stress, the body creates hormones that tells the body to prepare to fight or run. When you exercise, you burn off those hormones, just as you would running or fighting, and get your body back to normal. The body also creates new hormones that make you feel good, like endorphins and dopamine. They cause the body temperature to rise and make it relax and reduce pain. They also lift your spirits and help stabilize your mood.

Severe mood swings require more help than just exercise.

While some mood swings can be managed with mood stabilizers like exercise, yoga, adaptogens, omega-3 supplements, a healthy diet and mindfulness or meditation, some are far more intense and require help from a doctor and may need medication, psychotherapy or counseling. Mental health specialists have been using exercise as adjunct therapy that’s as effective as many prescriptions, but the only side effect is a healthier body.

You can control mild mood swings on your own by making simple changes.

Mild mood swings, those occasional hissy fits that seem to occur over minor things, can be controlled by identifying what triggers them. It could be something in your lifestyle causes it, such as too much stress, lack of morning coffee or even poor sleep. You can make a big difference in limiting them by including exercise in your daily life, eating healthy, getting adequate, quality sleep, learning ways to cope with stress and eliminating abuse of substances that can add to the mood swings.

Have you ever paced when you were in a stressful situation, like waiting for the results of a loved one’s surgery? That comes naturally as a way to reduce stress and help prevent mood swings and outbursts.
If you can’t participate in a traditional program of exercise due to physical limitations, do what you can. If you can walk, take walks. If you are wheelchair bound, do seated yoga or tai chi. Moving more helps.
One study compared two groups of women with anxiety and depression. One group participated in yoga classes on a regular basis and the other didn’t. The group taking yoga showed marked improvement, which may have come from the combination of mindfulness and exercise.
Always seek out the help of your healthcare professional if you have mood swings, if for no other reason, to eliminate the potential of underlying health conditions.

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