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Mindfulness Practicing mindfulness may have health benefits. Simply defined, mindfulness means paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings as you go through your day: taking time to feel the sunshine, taking a break to stand up and walk around, or simply taking a moment to appreciate that you are moving through your day on time and well organized. At its core, the intent of cultivating mindfulness is to promote inner calm. Mindfulness can play a major role in our health as shown by the February 2025 issue of Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter which details how mindfulness is being studied as a strategy to support heart health. No life is without its stress, its exposure to unhealthy food, smoking or alcohol. But learning to be mindful throughout your day can be an important life tool. Helping ourselves is one of the key elements of this website: Take Control. Mindfulness can be done in simple ways, as mentioned, or in more organized ways such as deep breathing, meditation, using guidance apps, or using a professional to help with stress reduction. I detail below how mindfulness works in my life. I cherry picked portions of the newsletter that I found helpful in regard to mindfulness and heart health. Again, its importance is in alerting us to situations where we can exert some control and possibly act in ways that benefit our physical health. Reduce Stress This aspect of mindfulness for your heart is easy to understand. No person reacts to a stressful situation like another, but stress--especially long-term stress--can be bad for your heart. Long term stress "can negatively impact your psychological wellbeing, contributing to negative mental heath conditions including burnout, depression, anger, pessimism, dissatisfaction, and anxiety. These conditions, in turn, are associated with health problems like increased blood pressure, irregular heart rate or rhythm, and inflammation." Although the medical establishment doesn't know exactly how this works, "we know that negative psychological and mental health is associated with higher risk of these conditions, while positive psychological health is associated with lower risk." Mindfulness may be helpful in relieving stress. "According to the American Psychology Association, mindfulness is used in several therapeutic interventions, including mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness meditation, and mindfulness-based stress reduction." A clinical trial involving mindfulness was found to be as effective as antidepressant medication for some people with anxiety. Lose Weight This is another one that's easy to understand. "Having overweight or obesity increases risk for high blood pressure, tends to raise blood pressure, tends to raise blood levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels, and increases risk for type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea, all of which raise the risk for heart attack and stroke." We've written about maintaining a healthy weight in detail. Mindfulness comes into the picture when you remember not to come to the table extremely hungry, as well as remembering to eat slowly to give yourself time to feel full (and satisfied). I have found that a good strategy is to put out only what you plan to eat. If you want more, sit far enough away from the refrigerator to decide whether you really want more. My experience is that you'll decide you don't more often than not. There's more but you get the idea. Keeping your weight under control is good for your heart. If you need motivation find a role model to follow. Bill Pearl was mine because I admired him as a man and as a bodybuilder. Resolve to be thoughtful about what you eat and calorie burning activities. You'll find that healthy eating and regular calorie burning activities make you better in most everything you do. Change Behavior "Like overeating, behaviors such as tobacco smoking and excessive alcohol use are bad for heart (and overall) health. Changing behavior like these are difficult. Learning to be mindful can be a useful tool. It has been suggested that learning to observe thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the present without judging or reacting to them can help people avoid automatic responses and break habits." Their Health Strategy "Whether your goal is to manage stress, lose weight, change behavior, or simply be kinder to yourself and learn to find joy in the moment, give mindfulness a try!" My Take
This photo taken by Allen Hughes is one of our first and best.
March 2025 Comment on this article: FEEDBACK Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2025 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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