Restorative Yoga Practice Benefits

In modern age of period, Most yoga teachers recommend a strict discipline of nostril breathing. Some of us are chronic mouth breathers, which can result in a host of problems from a dry mouth to shortness of breath. Not only is the habit of breathing through the mouth damaging to the body or also exceed pain relief, as air does not pass through the filtering mechanisms of the nose, the ancient Yoga texts say that it is harmful to the mind as well for your health.

In now days Restorative yoga has many benefits in regarding of health and fitness tips point of view,that also useful for creating a well balanced yoga practice. There are a variety of poses, each with its own benefits and energetic qualities. Generally restorative poses relieve stress by taking students into a deep state of relaxation. It also stimulates and soothes organs and improves concentration.

A restorative practice is excellent for calming and grounding, with the fast pace of life for healthy foods, it is common for the sympathetic nervous system to be on overdrive and for our bodies to stay in a constant state of heightened alert. Our bodies do not know the difference between stress created from work and actual danger such as the threat of an attack by a bear. In order to restore, the body needs to be able to relax and return to the parasympathetic nervous system. Restorative yoga poses support the muscles and bones with props so that they can relax. As a result, the nervous system sends less messages to the brain, the mind quiets and the body returns to the parasympathetic nervous system. This lowers the heart rate, reduces blood pressure and slows down the breath.

Restorative yoga is a good antidote to the stressful, busy lifestyles that many people lead. Just as you take time each day to eat and sleep, so should you take time to relax. Your muscles will become less tight, your mind less restless, and your life less stressful. where she is studying the benefits and effects of restorative yoga. In addition to yoga and travel, Emily enjoys writing, painting, walking, reading memoirs, live music, and food.

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Surgery May Boost Survival With Dangerous Heart Condition

Surgery May Boost Survival With Dangerous Heart Condition

For patients with a condition called infective endocarditis, coupled with heart failure, heart valve surgery can reduce the risk of dying by nearly two-thirds, a new study suggests. Infective endocarditis, an infection of the lining of the heart that often includes the heart valves, has been associated with a high risk of death. Previous studies have found that in-hospital mortality can be as high as 20 percent and death after a year can reach 40 percent.

"Cardiac surgery during hospitalization for infective endocarditis is associated with significantly lower in-hospital and one-year mortality, compared to medical therapy [drug therapy] alone, even for heart failure which is mild or moderate in severity," said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Wang, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Duke University.
About one-third of patients with endocarditis experience heart failure as a complication, which is typically advanced or severe in degree and due to an acute heart valve problem, he said.

"Nearly two-thirds of patients with this complication undergo surgery during the initial hospitalization, and surgery is associated with lower mortality at one year," Wang added.
Patients with endocarditis and mild heart failure should be evaluated by a team of specialists for possible cardiac surgery, he noted. "Increased use of cardiac surgery for patients with this complication may lower the mortality rate in endocarditis," Wang said.
The study was published in the Nov. 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, Wang's team looked at data from more than 4,000 patients with endocarditis of a heart valve from June 2000 to December 2006, in 61 hospitals in 28 countries.
Among patients with chest X-rays available, 33 percent had heart failure and 67 percent of these patients had heart failure so severe it limited their activities.
More than 800 of these heart failure patients underwent heart valve surgery.
Wang's group found that nearly 30 percent of the heart failure patients died in the hospital, and those who had surgery were at lower risk (20.6 percent) compared with patients treated with drug therapy alone (44.8 percent).
After one year, 29 percent of the patients who had surgery died, compared with 58 percent of the patients who were on drug therapy alone, the researchers found.
Factors connected with dying in the year after treatment included older age, diabetes, an infection contracted in the hospital, other infections, stroke and complications from the surgery, the study authors noted.

In the United States, there are about 15,000 new cases of infective endocarditis each year, according to background information in the study.
Wang noted that the average Medicare payment to hospitals for heart valve replacement surgery ranges from $25,000 to $45,000.
"In our study, surgery for patients with heart failure as a complication of endocarditis was associated with a 50 percent lower mortality, compared to medical treatment alone, so was more effective than medical therapy," he said.
Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a spokesman for the American Heart Association, said that "infective endocarditis results in very substantial morbidity and mortality."
The risks these patients face are even higher if the infective endocarditis results in heart failure. In these patients, the benefits of valvular heart surgery generally outweigh the risk, he said.

"Current guidelines from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology recommend surgery in patients with endocarditis complicated by heart failure, even in older patients with multiple comorbid [pre-existing] conditions," Fonarow said.
"These findings suggest that there are further opportunities to improve the care of patients with infective endocarditis, both in identifying appropriate patients for surgery and improving outcomes for those treated surgically," he added.

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CDC: Teens Don't Eat Enough Fruits and Veggies

CDC: Teens Don't Eat Enough Fruits and Veggies

Many American teenagers may be eating fewer fruits and vegetables each day than nationwide guidelines recommend for this age group, a CDC report suggests.In 2010, about one in four high school students ate fruit less than once a day, and one in three didn't eat vegetables more than once a day.
Although diets rich in fruits and vegetables can help control weight and are also linked with a lower risk of chronic diseases and some cancers, most teens are falling short of the recommended daily levels.

To find out how much produce teenagers were typically eating, the CDC reviewed data from the 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study.
For this study, students attending both public and private high schools across the country were asked to complete a survey describing the kinds of fruits and vegetables they had eaten in the last week and how often they had them.

The survey of 10,765 high school students showed that teens ate both fruits and vegetables an average of 1.2 times a day. Researchers say that's likely to mean that they're eating much less than the 1.5 cups of fruits and 2.5 cups of vegetables for girls, and 2 cups of fruit and 3 cups of vegetables for boys that dietary guidelines advise for many kids this age who participate in less than 30 minutes of physical activity daily.
Teens involved in sports are encouraged to get even higher amounts of these good-for-you foods.

Increasing Fruits and Vegetables

Researchers found that certain groups were leaving fruits and vegetables off their plates more often than others.
Hispanic teens and non-Hispanic black students ate the least amount of vegetables each day, while non-Hispanic whites ate a little more. On average, fruit was eaten slightly more often by boys (1.4 times a day) than by girls 1.2 times a day.
Few students gave fruits and veggies much love: Nearly 17% of teens ate fruits four or more times a day and roughly 11% of them ate vegetables this often.
Since fruits and vegetables aren't frequently part of teenager's meals, the report calls for more effective strategies to boost their consumption.
To improve teens' interest in these healthy foods, it is recommended that more school cafeterias offer salad bars and that school breakfast and lunch programs regularly include fruits and vegetables that students may not get a chance to taste at home.
Farm-to-school programs can also give students access to fresh-picked produce at meals. And school gardens can teach teens where foods come from and involve them in their preparation.
Communities can encourage food growers to host more farmers markets in their neighborhoods and work with grocery stores to keep seasonal produce on their shelves at affordable prices.

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Female Orgasm - Brain Activity Captured In FMRI Imaging Device

Brain activity during a female orgasm has been described as secondary to an epileptic seizure, after researchers from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA recorded the upsurge of oxygen utilization in a 5-minute period of brain networking activity with a fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scanner.

The researchers presented their findings at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, 2011, Washington D.C.

The video footage shows how brain activity develops during the crescendo period, the orgasm itself, and the recovery period. It shows how unrelated brain regions come to life, reach a climax of activity, and then settling back down again.

Lead researcher, Professor Barry Komisaruk, said:

"We're looking at the sequence of brain regions that get recruited at increasing intensity leading up to orgasm. It's such a compelling behavioral and sensory phenomenon with so many implications and so little understanding."

Nan Wise, 54, a sex therapist, who is a Rutgers PhD candidate, reached orgasm by self-stimulation. The researchers explained that every part of her brain was activated when she reached orgasm.

Wise said:

"When I first started grad school in '80s, we didn't have these methods. Now we can study how the brain is recruiting these regions to create the big bang of orgasm. Secondary to an epileptic seizure, there's no bigger brain networking event. It's a fantastic opportunity to examine the connectivity of the brain. Theoretically, it's going be helpful to know how things work. I think the caveat is understanding that sexuality is very complex."

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, UK, Wise said:

"It's my dissertation. I'm committed
to it."

Prof. Komisaruk said they aim to find out what goes wrong in individuals of both sexes who fail to reach sexual orgasm.

The movie animation - consisting of a series of snapshots taken two seconds apart - shows how 80 different brain regions (40 on each laterality) respond. It uses colors to represent oxygen utilization levels in the brain, displayed on a spectrum from dark red, progressing to orange, yellow and finally white (highest level of activity). When orgasm is reached, nearly the entire brain becomes an illuminated yellow/white.
Female Orgasm in Brodmann Brain Regions
Early on in the movie, one can see that the genital area of the sensory cortex becomes active first - what the researchers say is a response to being touched in the genital area. Then the limbic system comes into action - this part of the brain is involved in long-term memory and emotions.
When the orgasm is about to arrive, the cerebellum and the frontal cortex become much more active - Komisaruk says this is due to muscle tension.

Activity reaches a peak in the hypothalamus during orgasm - oxytocin is released, a pleasure-inducing chemical that makes the uterus contract. The nucleus accumbens, a region in the brain linked to pleasure and reward, also becomes very active.

After the orgasm subsides, so does activity in all the stimulated brain regions.

Komisaruk has developed a technique whereby the individual being scanned can see his/her own brain activity on a monitor, providing neurofeedback. The team aims to help people learn how to alter their brain activity, and perhaps eventually improve their symptoms related to pain, depression and anxiety.

Komisaruk said:

"We're using orgasm as a way of producing pleasure. If we can learn how to activate the pleasure regions of the brain then that could have wider applications."

Written by Christian Nordqvist

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Moderate Alcohol Intake Linked To Lower Female Diabetes Risk

Females in middle age who drink alcohol moderately and consume large amounts of refined carbohydrates have a 30% lower chance of developing diabetes type 2, compared to women with similar dietary habits who don't drink, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Examples of refined carbohydrate foods include sugary drinks, white bread, some pastas, and (polished) white rice.

The authors explained, as background information to their report, that very little prior research has focused on whether there might be an association between glycemic index load, glycemic index, alcohol consumption and diabetes type 2 risk.

Dr. Frank Hu and team set out to determine what impact alcohol intake (or lack of it) might have on diabetes risk in middle aged women whose refined carbohydrate (carb) intake was high. They tracked 81,827 women for 26 years. The women had participated in the Nurses' Health Study and were all free of diabetes type 2 when the study began.
Their cumulative averages of glycemic index, glycemic load, total carb intake and total alcohol intake were calculated every two to four years using questionnaires.
During the follow-up period 6,950 participants developed diabetes type 2.
They found that the women with a high refined-carb intake who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol had a 30% lower chance of developing diabetes type 2 compared to women whose refined-carb intake was also high but consumed no alcohol.
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Dr. Hu said:

"If you eat a high carb diet without drinking alcohol, your risk of developing diabetes is increased by 30 percent.
However, if you eat a high carb diet, but (drink) a moderate amount of alcohol, the increased risk is reduced."

The authors concluded in an Abstract in the journal:

"Our findings suggest that a higher alcohol intake (≥15 g/d) attenuates the positive association between GL and T2D incidence."

The moderate drinkers in this study consumed an average of 0.8 once (24 grams) of alcohol each day, the equivalent of approximately two drinks each week. A very small percentage were classed as heavy drinkers - consuming at least two ounces of alcohol each day - they did not have a lower diabetes type 2 risk.
The authors stressed that their study should not encourage people to start drinking if they do not do so now. Rather, they encourage a diet low in refined carbs and high in whole grains. If you are a drinker, they added, you should do so with moderation.

Refined and unrefined grains

Refined grains have been milled so that their outer bran coating has gone, leaving just the endosperm. Examples include white rice, white pasta and white bread. When referring to rice, the term polished is often used with the meaning 'milled'.
Unpolished long-grain rice with bran
Polished Indian sona masuri rice grains
In whole grain products, the germ and endosperm are still there. Bran is a good source of fiber, while the germ has protein, minerals and vitamins - the endosperm has carbohydrates (mainly in the form of starch).
Whole grains, also known as unrefined grains (unrefined carbs) are rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals - these help protect us against diabetes, some cancers and coronary heart disease. Some studies have demonstrated that individuals who consume at least three portions of whole grains each day have a lower risk of developing heart disease compared to people who don't.

Here you can see the bran, germ and endosperm
Written by Christian Nordqvist

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