Is Your Mood Adding Inches to Your Waistline?

Posted on January 13th, 2010 | In General, Health & Lifestyle

Most of us are all too well aware that overeating, eating junk food and not exercising are sure to expand our belt buckles another notch. But weight gain is not always so cut and dry. Oftentimes you may carefully watch what you eat, load your plate full of fruits and veggies, even exercise regularly … and still not win the battle of the bulge.

In this latter case, your weight gain may have nothing to do with the foods you eat or the exercise you do, but rather with your emotional health.

A new study published in BMJ analyzed data from four medical screenings of over 4,300 British civil servants aged 35 to 55, including screenings that assessed mental health and measurement of height and weight.

People with a common mental health disorder, such as anxiety or depression, at all three previous screenings were twice as likely to be obese at the final screening compared with those who had no mental health disorder symptoms. Further, the risk of weight gain and obesity was the greatest for those who had more incidences of a common mental health disorder.

“The connection between mental health and weight gain is not a new one.”
Said Dr. Mark Dedomenico, M.D. in an MSN Health & Fitness blog post:
“Depression, like anxiety, causes some release of cortisone from the adrenal glands. Cortisone will cause insulin resistance at the cellular level, making the delivery into the cells difficult. This in turn causes hunger and weight gain.”

Stress, Job Layoffs and Anxiety May All Impact Your Weight

Research has shown that more than 50 percent of Americans increase their food intake when feeling stressed out. In the past people would lose weight when faced with stressful situations, but the stress of the economy and fear of the unknown are causing people to put on weight.

In fact, the more anxious people get, the more they tend to turn to sugar, fat and salt to boost their mood, albeit temporarily. This explains why boredom, lots of free time at home and financial woes are three big factors that drive people to overeat.

Overeating aside, just being stressed out can cause you to gain weight in and of itself, according to the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation.

“Under stress, people conserve more fat, and we think that may be what’s going on here,” said psychologist and study co-author Tené Lewis of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The study involved more than 2,000 women from their 40s through menopause, and the researchers asked them about unhappy events in their life over the past year. The results? Even after taking into account other factors that could affect weight gain (exercise habits, diet, smoking, etc.) it was found that the more bad things the women reported, the more weight they gained.

In other words, the greater the stress, the greater the women’s weight.

So the link between stress and weight gain is not just the tendency to overeat when stressed, but the fact that your body produces a hormone called cortisol in response to stress, and increased cortisol causes your body to store fat. So, even if you are watching your diet, stress can cause you to gain weight!

This is why getting into a positive state of mind and having proper relaxation are two of the most important keys to good health. They can help lower cortisol levels, effectively help you reduce stress and also contribute to weight loss at the same time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog at RivergateDentalCare.com, you can learn more about our dental services by reading our blogs. We have additional information concerning pregnancy and diabetes, pregnancy and gum disease, diabetes dentistry, cosmetic dental work such as lumineers and teeth whitening. Information on  oral health, systemic connection with periodontal disease, tooth extractions, dentures, cosmetic dentistry, sedation dentistry and sedation solutions, gum disease, root canals, children’s dentist, family dentist, smile solutions. Rivergate Dental Care is located in Goodlettsville TN, Rivergate area and provides dental services to Nashville and the surrounding areas including Gallatin, Hendersonville, White House and Greenbrier. We have three doctors in our office: Dr. David Weaver, Dr John Friedmann and Dr Katie Ham (female dentist). We accept Blue Cross Blue Shield and also work with Delta Dental. Call today to schedule an appointment! We offer free exam and free x-rays to all new patients! 1 800 FIX MY TEETH (1 800 349 6983).

Is it Better to Exercise to Music?

Posted on January 13th, 2010 | In General, Health & Lifestyle

Synchronizing your exercise pace to the tempo of the music may increase your endurance up to 15 percent!

Exercise can help prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, plus it may:

• Lower blood pressure
• Promote healthy blood sugar levels
• Boost the immune system
• Increase levels of HDL (good) cholesterol
• Improve your mood and lower your chances of depression
• Promote healthy bone density

Yet despite knowing this, most Americans — seven out of 10 of us, in fact — do not exercise regularly.

If you are one of these 70 percent who are in need of a bit of extra motivation, working out with music may be just the ticket.

Exercising with music feels good intrinsically; it keeps you moving, takes your mind off your efforts and puts your mind in an energetic state. But there is even more to it than that.

Costas Karageorghis, a sports psychologist at Britain’s Brunel University, has been researching exercise and music for two decades and created a half marathon called “run to the Beat.” The event mixes the perfect blend of live bands for runners to listen to while they run, all based on Karageorghis’ research of human reaction to rhythm.

According to Karageorghis, there are two “internal” factors that contribute to a song’s motivational qualities — rhythm response and musicality — and two “external” factors – cultural impact and association. Dan Peterson, LiveScience’s Sports Columnist, explained:

1. Rhythm response describes the beats per minute (bpm) of the song and how well it matches the cadence or the heartbeat of the runner.
2. Musicality refers to a song’s melody and harmony.
3. Cultural impact describes our own musical background and preferences
4. Association is what we associate with certain songs and artists

The Benefits of Working Out With the Right Music

You likely know which music best gets you up and moving, which songs will push you to keep going and which work best during your slower paced cool down. But what you may not know is just how much of an impact the right music can have on your workouts.

According to one study, exercisers who cycled in time to music (syncing beats per minute with an exercise pace) required 7 percent less oxygen to do so than when music was playing in the background. Research also shows that listening to music may offer you a 10 percent reduction in perceived effort while running on a treadmill, which means you’ll likely be able to keep running, longer.

A new study published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, involved 30 exercises who synchronized their exercise pace to the tempo of the music. Those who listened to synchronized music had a 15 percent improvement in endurance compared to a no-music group.

“The synchronous application of music resulted in much higher endurance while the motivational qualities of the music impacted significantly on the interpretation of fatigue symptoms right up to the point of voluntary exhaustion,” Karageorghis told LiveScience.

Music With Your Workout May Even Make You Smarter

A 2004 study in the journal Heart & Lung found that people who listened to music while they exercised performed more than twice as well on a verbal fluency test than people who listened to no music. The test was designed to challenge the part of the brain that deals with planning and abstract thought.

Said the study’s lead author, Charles Emery, ” … Listening to music may influence cognitive function through different pathways in the brain. The combination of music and exercise may stimulate and increase cognitive arousal while helping to organize cognitive output.”

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog at RivergateDentalCare.com, you can learn more about our dental services by reading our blogs. We have additional information concerning pregnancy and diabetes, pregnancy and gum disease, diabetes dentistry, cosmetic dental work such as lumineers and teeth whitening. Information on  oral health, systemic connection with periodontal disease, tooth extractions, dentures, cosmetic dentistry, sedation dentistry and sedation solutions, gum disease, root canals, children’s dentist, family dentist, smile solutions. Rivergate Dental Care is located in Goodlettsville TN, Rivergate area and provides dental services to Nashville and the surrounding areas including Gallatin, Hendersonville, White House and Greenbrier. We have three doctors in our office: Dr. David Weaver, Dr John Friedmann and Dr Katie Ham (female dentist). We accept Blue Cross Blue Shield and also work with Delta Dental. Call today to schedule an appointment! We offer free exam and free x-rays to all new patients! 1 800 FIX MY TEETH (1 800 349 6983).