Eat Chocolate
Dear Clients,
With summer nearly gone and a potentially challenging winter ahead due to the impending threat of not just Covid but with flu and colds, most of us could do with a boost around now. Getting your body, brain and immune system in better shape doesn’t require a major overhaul – it may just take a few tweaks to boost your health and happiness. Its easier to do something positive than practising restraint.
I have taken parts of an article by Michael Mosely which might help you:-
Eat Chocolate! Research shows that eating just two squares of dark chocolate every day can have a clinically significant effects on blood pressure and heart health. The beneficial compounds are flavonoids, but to be effective the chocolate has to be dark and made up of at least 75% cocoa.
Burst into song. Singing has been shown to not only reduce stress hormones, such as cortisol, but to reduce chronic inflammation, linked to depression. Singing gives you a “high” by boosting endocannabinoids, cannabis-like chemicals that your body naturally produces.
Exercise little and often. Agh, here she goes again I can hear you say. Its called “exercise snacking” and the idea is that instead of doing your daily exercise in one 30 minute blast you can get perhaps more benefit by breaking it down into a series of exercise “snacks”, lasting as little as a few minutes at a time. Short bursts of activity will boost your metabolism and make you less likely to spend long stretches being sedentary.
Get more sunlight. Sunlight is a double-edged sword. It improves mood, lowers blood pressure, and gives us vitamin D, a hormone that plays a vital role in protecting us from viruses such as Covid-19. But too much exposure causes skin cancer. However, briefly popping outside in the middle of the day, without sunblock, can maximise vitamin D production (which is made in the skin as a result of sun exposure). If you are pale-skinned, then you just have to roll up your sleeves and trousers and hang around for about ten minutes. If you are darker-skinned, you may need about 25 minutes.
Change Mealtimes. Time restricted eating (TRE) – in other words, extending your overnight fast to at least 12 hours by having your breakfast a bit later and finishing your evening meal a bit earlier – has multiple benefits. People generally eat less, which leads to weight loss and better sleep, and because you are not eating so close to bedtime your body is better able to process the food you have consumed.
Drink Water. Headache, fatigue and woolly thinking are all signs of dehydration. For one episode we challenged a volunteer to drink a glass of water with every meal, and it really perked him up. One of the best ways to tell if you are drinking enough is to look at your urine. It should be straw-coloured and you should be going five or six times a day.
Stand up more. Sitting for long periods contributes to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. A study has been conducted where office workers stood for an extra three hours a day. It raised their heart rate so much; over a year they would have burned the same calories running ten marathons. When they were standing, they cleared the sugar from their blood much quickly. Even strolling around for a few minutes every half hour can really help.