Health, Wellness & Nutrition

You are certainly aware of the importance of happiness on your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. You probably have a number of methods that you use to increase your level of happiness. These may include exercise, meditation, or even certain activities that you enjoy, such as gardening or pottery. You probably also recommend that your patients focus on thoughts and activities that make them happy. Nevertheless, the question remains as to whether or not there are there studies that go beyond just that to draw a connection between increased levels of happiness and tangible benefits?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, other than a few types of skin cancer, breast cancer is the number one cancer-related threat for women. With 237,000 receiving this diagnosis annually, women learn that they have this particular cancer four to five times more often than uterine and bladder cancer and approximately 19 times more often than cervical cancer. Sadly, more than 41,000 will lose their battle with this dreaded disease every single year, with Hispanic women facing the biggest threat as breast cancer is the top cancer causing death for this demographic.

If you are like most people, you probably don’t really think much about how much added sugar you consume every day.From that specialty flavored coffee from at your favorite coffee shop in the morning, to the dressing on your salad for lunch, to the sauce on your pasta for dinner, there’s all sorts of sugar lurking in unexpected foods.

Providing relief for patients in the office is one thing—sustaining that relief, though, can be quite a challenge. Most patients have spent years, if not decades, accumulating bad habits when it comes to posture and movement. And because you can’t follow a patient 24/7, these can be hard to undo. Fortunately, you can identify specific activities, such as sleep, that turn out to be major contributors to overall health. By guiding patients toward simple solutions, you can encourage healthier habits and make their lives (and yours) easier, even if you can’t be with them all the time.

For the majority of exercise enthusiasts, overtraining may never be a concern. This is because it actually takes a lot of physical work and may include pushing through exercise with pain, soreness, and stiffness to become overtrained. Generally speaking, overtraining may occur more frequently in people who are very untrained and suddenly jump into more volume and intensity than they have ever done before. Another big component has to do with elevated cortisol levels, which can suppress immune function.