Preventing Diabetes

9 ways to prevent diabetes

by Kavita Devgan

Diabetes is an epidemic. There is absolutely no doubt about it. And an even bigger problem is that it is getting younger - with people even in their twenties now getting affected. November 14th every year is celebrated as World Diabetes Day, so this is a good time to learn how to prevent it. As it is, there is no cure for this disorder (it can only be managed), so prevention is definitely the better route to follow. Follow these 9 ways to keep it at bay:

Maintain a healthy weight. Losing excess weight and maintaining a healthy body weight helps insulin work better in your body and that keeps blood sugar stable and the risk of pre diabetes (and thereon diabetes) low. In fact losing even 5-6 kgs delivers a much reduced risk.

Have 3 main meals with 2 snacks in between. Keep your portions small. Handy tip for correct portion control: cereals and protein – the size of your palm (for example 1 medium size egg, 2 chapattis). Fill up the rest of the plate with vegetables and green leafy salad. 

Swap half of your white refined grains for whole grains, which deliver complex carbohydrates and are also a gold mine of nutrient and fibre. Try whole wheat, dalia, jowar, ragi, bajra, unpolished rice, amaranth. These breakdown more slowly to release glucose in blood and the presence of extra fibre also slow down the glucose absorption.

Keep a tight lid on sugar intake, both table sugar as well as that hidden surreptitiously in processed foods. Learn to read the labels carefully and work deliberately to cut down your sweet tooth. Excess sugar indirectly leads to an increased risk for diabetes, so is best kept as ow as possible.

Choose your oils carefully. Swap your dalda and butter for olive oil and vegetable oils (use a judicious mix of oils, changing every now and then to harness all their benefits)and get a steady and balanced supply of good mono unsaturated (MUFA) and poly unsaturated (PUFA) fats.

Keep a tight watch on your numbers and control them consciously. Work toward lowering blood pressure and LDL ("bad") cholesterol and boosting HDL ("good") cholesterol. Careful eating and regular exercise both help.

Consciously try to reduce your stress levels. Stress is a major cause of many men now disorders, including diabetes. So learn to relax for some time each day. Keep some me time out, where you can listen to music, meditate or read. Yoga, meditation and tai-chi classes also help. 

Exercise for at least 30 minutes at least thrice a week; done even in  three 10 minute bursts helps. Gardening, walking the dog, doing  chores around the house—anything that's not sitting on the couch  benefits your body by stimulating heart rate and circulation.

Make an effort to stay happy. A positive, relaxed attitude goes a long way towards keeping diabetes at bay.

Yoga Styles

New yoga styles worth a try

by Samreen Samad

There’s a lot that has been said and written about yoga. This holistic approach to fitness and mental health has been evolving continuously to fit into our lifestyles and keep things fresh. If the classic hatha and ashtanga varieties don’t work for you, We fill you in on the latest hybrid yoga trends.

The beauty of yoga is that it can be traditional, sacred and deep but also playful, experimental and adaptable. There are some who are all for yoga and its Zen approach to life and then there are some who can’t do without the instant rush of their treadmills and dumbbells. So, if traditional yoga bores you and you need some excitement in your workouts, here are the classes to sign up for.

AQUA YOGA 
Water babies will love their yoga class moving into a swimming pool. Water reduces the stress put on joints and makes you more flexible. It is great for those suffering from back problems, arthritis and stiff joints. Stretching in water increases your lung capacity and also has a calming effect.
Available at: Citizen Sports, Delhi; Nextgen Fitness India, Bangalore, and Tectonic Fitness, Mumbai

Stand up paddle yoga
While this yoga trend hasn’India—blame it on the weather and lack of clean beaches—it is a rage abr is a combination of yoga and surfi is required to do a sequence of asanas standing on a surfboard. By working on an unstable surface strengthen your core and muscles that ar much in a regular yoga class Rekhi confirms this is ver balance, concentration, strength and flexibility.
Available at: Ashram S Retreat, Mangalore

ANTI-GRAVITY YOGA 
Anti-gravity or aerial yoga combines Pilates, dance, yoga and—wait for it—gymnastics! Performed on a hammock, this is a full-body workout. You fight gravity throughout the session and this helps improve balance and flexibility. Sunaina says, “Anti-gravity yoga involves lengthening and strengthening of your back and aligns your body from head to toe. This ensures all parts are stretched.” Tanvi Mehra, yoga instructor and owner of Tangerine Arts Studios, Mumbai, says, “Aerial yoga brings newness, fun and a new level of challenge and intensity to the traditional practice.”
Available at: Yoga Village, Goa

BALLET YOGA
The first things that pop in you when you think of ballet is grace,flexibility and posture. Ballet dancers are known for their toned, slender build ballet yoga . combines the fundamentals of both to create lean muscles. Sunaina says, “Integrating ballet and yoga together helps in strengthing and toning  the body.”

HIP HOP YOGA 
Get your groove on by incorporating this fun form of yoga into your routine. Sunaina says, “This is for people who want to add a fun element to their class.” The sessions have music blaring and are very energetic. The choreography is dynamic and meant to inspire you and lift you up while you move. Sunaina says, It’s popular among the younger generation and it really stretches you out.” Tanvi adds, “Hip hop yoga inculcates a community spirit as it is done in tandem with another person or in a group which creates a beautiful, collective energy.” Yoga and hip hop together offer the best of both worlds—a total body workout and a release for the mind and spirit.

DON’T DITCH THE CLASSIC 
Now that you know what’s trending in the yoga scene, it’s necessary to keep a few things it mind before you incorporate any of these forms into your routine. Tanvi says,
“It’s important to have a strong base and foundation in the traditional practice for you to be able to apply it to these different forms.” She believes that one should never
stop practising the traditional form of yoga and that all beginners should start with the hatha, ashtanga, Iyengar or Shivananda style. It’s only after getting a grip on the traditional techniques, asanas and alignment that you truly explore an experimental form. Since most new forms require high levels of strength, stamina and agility, it is important you acquaint yourself with basic yoga postures before trying anything complicated. If not done with complete awareness and intelligence, these could do some serious damage.

Stress is Good For You and How to Respond to it

Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Respond to It

By Catarina Andrade

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor Frankl

These days we can’t seem to get away from stress. We all feel it, and we all hate it. Even my sister’s two dogs are on a special diet for their stress-induced digestive issues, and I’m pretty sure they hate stress too.

Recently it hit me: Our relationship with stress is dysfunctional. No wonder we’re stuck in an anxiety-ridden existence!

Stress is Love

Stress has gotten a bad rep, but it serves an important function—it keeps us safe from danger. Closely linked to our ability to feel fear, stress enables us to be alert and respond to perceived threats in our environment.

When we perceive a threat, the amygdala in our brain sends a distress signal to our hypothalamus, which activates our sympathetic nervous system. This switches our body into “fight or flight” mode, triggering a series of physiological responses to help us get away from whatever is threatening us.

Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, and our heart rate and blood pressure increase. Our blood sugar levels rise to give us more energy, and our breath quickens. This sharpens our senses and gives us a temporary boost in energy, strength, and reaction times.

All of this happens in the name of increasing our chances of survival and keeping us alive. We wouldn’t be here as a species if we were not able to feel stress and react accordingly in dangerous situations.

Bottom line? Stress loves us and wants to keep us safe. We owe stress a big fat thank you wrapped up in an apology for bad-mouthing it all the time.

This realization was a tough pill to swallow. A few years ago burnout brought me down to my knees physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I blamed stress and hadn’t quite forgiven it for all the suffering it caused me.

The truth? Stress wasn’t to blame. If I had properly acknowledged it, seen the red flags, and reacted sooner then maybe I never would have burned out in the first place.

This was hard to accept, but it was also incredibly empowering.

The Timing Problem

Historically, being able to pick up on external stressors such as predators and fighting, hiding, or running away was a matter of life and death. The problem is that what stresses most of us these days is very different from what used to stress our ancestors, yet our bodies respond to these stressors similarly.

In other words, our bodies overreact to stressors that aren’t life-threatening. This includes internal stressors like negative thoughts and external stressors like deadlines or, in my case, toddler tantrums.

It’s a timing issue. We live in a modern time where we experience stress 24/7, but we’re armed with a primitive stress response with which to cope. This stress response is activated so frequently that our bodily functions and stress hormones rarely have a chance to return to normal levels.

If fighting or sprinting away from deadlines, relatives, bills, responsibilities, toddlers, and traffic police was a socially acceptable way to deal with our daily stressors then we’d be all set. In most cases though, running away, hiding, or fighting makes matters worse.

And so we get stuck—bombarded by stressors and experiencing the physiological symptoms of stress that we’re biologically programmed to experience, yet unable to cope by responding how we’ve historically responded.

It is this prolonged stress that has a negative effect on our health and our life. Long-term effects can include disrupted sleep, a compromised immune system, poor digestive function, increased abdominal fat, blood pressure changes, brain fog, low mood, sugar cravings, inflammation, and chronic pain to name a few.

I’ve experienced most of these and they aren’t pretty. The hardest part was clawing my way out of bed every morning because I was so wiped out and exhausted down to my core.

No wonder I hated stress! 

Reset Your Relationship With Stress

When it finally hit me that stress comes from a place of love and protection, I decided once and for all to mend my dysfunctional relationship with stress.

I’m now convinced that our relationship to stress is one relationship we can’t afford not to heal. Our health, happiness, and sanity are riding on it.

Here are three steps you can take to reset your toxic relationship with stress and restore its rightful place as your ally.

1. Shift your stress mindset.

Stop badmouthing stress and blaming it for ruining in your life. It’s not an external evil force out to get you, so show it a little bit of respect. To get it on your side, you need to first believe that it is on your side and that you are in control.

Believing that stress has my best interests in mind, I now ask myself: What is my experience of stress right now trying to tell me?

For me, it is often a signal that I have taken on too many things at once and need to slow down. Or, that I have been prioritizing everyone else and haven’t been taking good enough care of myself.

2. Mend your relationship to stress.

Instead of judging stress, start making more of an effort to get to know your stress response. Like any supportive relationship that is based on trust and mutual respect, the first step is to listen. Pay attention and get curious:

• How does your unique experience of stress feel?

• What are your triggers?

• Where does stress show up in your life?

I experience stress as back, neck, and shoulder pain, coupled with a tightening sensation in my stomach that is often accompanied by digestive issues.

Some of my triggers include work deadlines, the travel hustle (scrambling to get a million things done before a trip), sleep deprivation, the deadly combination of gluten and dairy, my email inbox, feeling rushed, and having to get my son into his car seat.

3. Change how you engage with stress.

Learn how to de-escalate your stress response. Most of us don’t know how because we weren’t taught. It’s as simple as learning a few new skills to put to use when you feel stress getting the best of you, and committing to actually using them.

Mother nature wouldn’t have given us a highly sensitive stress response if we didn’t need it. She also wouldn’t have done so without equipping us with simple ways to switch it off. Breathing, laughter,meditation, and changing our internal dialogue are a few examples of this.

We’ve become so busy in our lives that we’ve lost touch with this and turned stress into the enemy. This is disempowering because we’re actually in control of our mind and body, so we’re in control of our experience of stress.

I use different techniques to switch off my stress response depending on the stress trigger I’m facing, how desperate I am, and where I am. Some are more conducive to being done in public than others. I recently did an eleven-minute kundalini meditation with my arms up in the air on an airplane, but many would find that awkward!

When it’s a person causing me to get flustered—like my toddler when he is in tantrum mode—I’ve found that it’s important to stay present, connected, and “be cool.” In these instances I choose techniques that don’t involve closing my eyes or doing anything outwardly visible or obvious with my body.

For example, I’m currently loving silently repeating the phrase “all is well” in my head when I feel my stress levels escalating, and combining this with belly breathing.

First, I bring awareness to my breath. Breathing from my nose, I consciously start to slow down and deepen my breath, making sure that my abdomen is also expanding out (on the inhale) and contracting in (on the exhale) with every breath. Placing my hand on my belly helps.

Then, I begin to repeat the phrase “all is well” in my head as I inhale, and repeat it again as I exhale. As I do this, I retain my awareness on my breath and on the movement of my abdomen. I keep repeating this phrase and breathing pattern for a minute, or longer if necessary.

Slowing down my breath connects me with the present moment and automatically turns off my body’s stress response. Repeating “all is well” reshapes my thoughts and signals to my mind that I am safe, also switching my body out of “fight or flight” mode.

Basically, I’m assuring myself that there is no predator in the room, so it’s okay to relax!

Banana Power -- Why You should Eat One Every Day!

25 Reasons to Eat a Banana Every Day

by PP

“C’est banana! Hahaha! Miam miam!” – Minions

Everyone knows that bananas are healthy. They’re a tremendous source of nutrients, and one of the best sources of potassium. Most people that have eaten a banana can also say that they’re pretty tasty too! Containing an essential mix of nutrients, vitamins and fibers, a banana is one of the healthiest fruits at the supermarket. So, what are the benefits of eating this yellow-skinned treat?

HERE ARE 25 HEALTH BENEFITS OF A BANANA, AND WHY YOU SHOULD EAT ONE DAILY:

1. Bananas help with depression. Someone with depression usually has a chemical imbalance of serotonin in the brain. Containing a high level of tryptophan, which is converted into serotonin, bananas can help alleviate symptoms of depression.

2. Boosts energy. Bananas contain three natural sugars – fructose, glucose and sucrose, and are a good dose of fiber. This potent combination provides an instant and sustained boost of energy. Just two bananas provide enough energy for a 90-minute workout!

3. Help you lose weight. At just 100 calories a serving, bananas are a good option for people trying to lose a few pounds. They also contain three grams of fiber, helping us feel more full and keep cravings at bay.

4. They’re a great brain food. Bananas release energy slowly, which helps the brain stay alert for a longer period of time. The high potassium levels keep us more alert and the magnesium helps the brain to focus.

5. Boosts libido. Containing a high level of potassium and B6 vitamins, bananas are a good source of nutrients necessary for hormone production.

6. Relieves heartburn. The high potassium level of bananas helps reduce the stomach’s acidity, while the fiber helps aid digestion; both of which are essential to alleviating heartburn.

7. Lowers blood pressure. Research has shown that eating two bananas a day can lower blood pressure by 10%. For those with blood pressure issues, bananas contain low sodium and high potassium, making them a great dietary choice.

8. They’re good for our blood. Containing a good amount of iron, bananas are great in keeping the blood healthy and lowing the risk of anemia. Containing high levels of B-6, bananas also aid with the production of white blood cells.

9. They’re good for our bones. The nutrients in bananas helps build and sustain strong bones by increasing calcium absorption.

10. Protects against illness. Bananas contain a high level of antioxidants, providing cell protection against free radicals that cause illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and muscular and tissue degeneration.

11. Help you quit smoking. While potentially a contentious claim, it needn’t be. Bananas contain a potent mix of potassium, magnesium and vitamin B6. Together, these nutrients are known to reduce nicotine withdrawal, which is crucial to kicking the habit.

12. Treats stomach ulcers. While doctors in India have been proclaiming the benefits of bananas to treat peptic ulcers for generations, it wasn’t until recently that doctors in England discovered the same thing: bananas contain sitoindosides (sigh-toe-in-doe-sides), which prevents and heals ulcers.

13. Helps with hangovers. By containing high levels of electrolytes, bananas are good food choice for somebody that had one-too-many. They’re great for regulating electrolyte levels and getting the body back to a healthy state.

14. Helps with constipation. Okay, so perhaps not the most pleasant thing to discuss, but we’re all adults here, right? That said, bananas are high in fiber, and fiber aids in the normalization of bowel movements. Not really a surprise, as we’ve already discussed bananas and their positive effect on digestion.

15. Protects against brain disorders. Rich in magnesium, bananas aid in the conversion of fatty acids into DHA, an important Omega-3. Scientists have discovered an important link between DHA deficiency and neurological disorders such as ADHD and Alzheimer’s disease. Containing a high level of B-vitamins, bananas also assist in preventing Parkinson’s disease.

16. Improves memory. Technically, this should have been filed under #4, but since so many people are worried about their memory it deserves its own number. Yes, bananas can help improve and sustain memory because of high levels of tryptophan, potassium and magnesium.

17. Promotes heart health. Not really a surprise here, given the banana’s high levels of nutrients and vitamins. Increasing potassium intake and decreasing the intake of sodium is probably the most important thing someone can do to protect their heart, and the banana is a high-potassium, low-sodium food. The fiber, vitamin C and B6 ingredients in the banana also promotes health and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

18. Reduces the risk of asthma. Imperial College of London conducted a study in which researchers found that children who ate at least one banana a day had a 34% less chance of developing asthma.

IMPRESSIVE. ANYTHING WE CAN DO WITH THE PEEL? WELL…

19. Can shine your shoes(?) Apparently rubbing the inside of a banana peel on a leather shoe and then polishing it with a dry cloth can produce a nice, quick shine.

20. Whitens the teeth. Another interesting use for a banana peel: rubbing the inside of the peel on the teeth for a quick whitening job! Some ingredients in a banana, including magnesium, manganese and potassium, aids with whitening tooth enamel. Interesting.

21. Soothes itches. Banana peels can help relieve the itchiness caused by bug bites, such as those caused by mosquitoes. Also, the properties of banana peels can relieve the effects of contact with poison ivy.

22. Removes splinters (!) Woodworkers and clumsy people, unite! Just tape a piece of banana peel to a splinter and within ten minutes, the enzymes will remove the wood shrapnel.

23. Relieves burns and cuts. Okay, now…parents unite! If the little one falls and cuts themselves or burns something, grab a banana peel and let the little guy or girl rub it on their boo-boo. That pain will be gone pretty quickly.

24. Meat tenderizer. Adding a banana peel to a roast can add enough moisture to prevent the meat from becoming dry.

25. Helps with the garden. Banana peels provide a versatile gardening by-product in performing a variety of functions, including: tomato plant fertilization, aphid and pest control, and can be suitable food for roses..