Tool against Stress!

Tuesday morning, I have wake up at 6 am to work as a lifeguard, then I will go the three classes from 8:00 am to 11:30 am, and after work at housekeeping for an hour. Eat lunch in 10 minutes and then go to class from 12:30 to 3:15, just to go to work on my internship until 9:30 pm...yes I eat sometime in between.

 The idea of telling you how every single one of my Tuesdays are is to make you think about your schedule, and how stressful can be. This stress can definitely affect your performance in class and sports as well. I am sure that most of students like me, know different ways to cope with this kind of stress. I usually exercise when I can to liberate physical pressure, others might listen to a especial playlist or even cook.. who knows.

According to the dictionary Meditation is the action of engaging in mental exercise for the purpose of reaching certain level of spiritual awareness.

However, studies have suggested that Meditation can not only help you coping with stress but also to improve your scores on tests. check out this article How meditation might boost your test score

The big picture is that Anxiety, Stress and Depression might affect students everyday life. A 2011 survey of 1,600 University of Alberta students reported that 50 percent had felt hopeless within a 12-month period, more than a half of the students felt overwhelming anxiety and 7 admitted to feel like committing suicide.This Article talks about the factors that might be involve on this situation:

· stress of moving away from home;
· academic demands;
· social pressures;
· parents’ expectations;
· fear of graduating into a tough job market;
· pre-existing diagnosis of mental illness;
· difficulty coping with the rapidly changing world; and
· black-and-white thinking regarding success and failure

Meditation is also good to fight against this aspects. This article talks about how Mindfullness meditation can lower the levels of stress


 

Warning, your brain should be aware.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumbrl, Path, Google+......There are so many social networks and so many ways to connect with people around the world. However, I remember when a few years ago I could have a conversation with my friends without thinking what was going on in the internet or at least looking at my cellphone.

I remember my first cellphone:

Strongest artifact EVER!..Feel down from a 4th floor and NOTHING happened!!!

Now technology has become simpler and practical.The new devices are smaller and smaller everyday, however their complexity turns out to be more efficient.

     Same thing with our brains, check out this video,     posted by Deepak Chopra (yes I'm a fan) that talks about social networks and our brain.  Social Networks and the Social Brain by Deepak Chopra

Basically our brain is shaped by everything we do or we experience. Before social networks we were kind of limited to the mind set of the places we have been or only the social interaction at hand. The reason im talking about this, its because I think social networks had helped spreading the word of seeking ultimate health.

Right now i'm following more than ten people and more than ten organizations that talk about health, fitness or anything related. Those are 20 resources I can get information from.

The impact of social networks and technology has been huge last 5 years

              < =======  Check out this video

although it does not provide strong evidence, i think it summarizes what is the good and bad of this new technology. This new era brings many good things but also many bad things, therefore I want to call the attention to the people that relay on social media only to manage their health and say BE CAREFUL..our brain is like water, can take the shape of where its placed.

Check out this video from Deepak Chopra for more information related to the action of sleep, I really like it!

If you can't see the video go here https://www.deepakchopra.com/video/view/508/the_rabbit_hole__the_science_of_sleep

Say No to sleep deprivation!

As I posted earlier the effects of Sleep deprivation can shape negatively they way we live. Therefore i am going to give you guys some tips that I follow hoping that would be helpful for those that struggle getting some sleep time:


Finish every homework, every diligence, every cooking etc before an specific time, for example:
 "I will finish this paper before 9:00pm" so in that way you make your duty a little bit more interesting transforming it into a kind of race.

Exercise, a well set of exercise will get you tired and ready to go to bed

When I miss sleep time, I usually pick one day to wake up really early (a day that is not going to be so busy) and then during the night Im tired enough to sleep at a decent time. The idea of this is to create a routing of sleeping time.

Those are some of the stuff I do, however I know not everybody functions the same way. That is why I found you guys an useful article that explains a little bit more about the ways of coping with sleep deprivation:

Ways to avoid sleep deprivation!

Some factors on sleep deprivation

 - As a college student, I have experienced many nights of long studying, not eating well and worst: combination of both. I'm sure the majority of college students had struggled with this situation before so I went and did a little research to see what the effects of this behavior might cause.

Check this article I found

www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-48440287/sleep-deprivation-the-surprising-causes-and-solutions/

They talked about about many factors that are involve on sleeping deprivation and eating less related to weight gainning:

• About 95% of people use some type of electronics in the hour before bed, whether it's watching TV, surfing the internet, playing video games or texting.
• The youngest generation of adults, Gen Y'ers (19 to 29 year olds), are the biggest users of interactive electronics, like cell phones and the internet. They are more than eight times as likely as baby boomers (46 to 64 year old) to text in the hour before bedtime--52% of them texted compared to 5% of boomers.
• About 19% of respondents sent or received work related emails before bed.

 Notice that this article studies young adults that are out of school, now... my point is, how many students use technology before they go to bed either because they have to write a paper or simply because they are just on facebook, twitter or any other app.

check out this video:

added to nutrional effects, sleeping deprivation has also a negative impact on your brain...so that makes think that maybe students are living in a vicious cycle.. we have a lot of homework, they have to eat well but sometimes they don't manage the time well, therefore we don't sleep, we start eating less and our brain does not work at 100%.

Protein supplements, do we need them??

When going to the wight room, there is a big chance of finding many people filling up a bottle with some kind powder before or after training. That powder can change in color or it can come from different types of cans or containers, but they mostly, have the same purpose: Gaining muscle!

People may have different reason of why they exercise such as general health, getting that "beach body" etc. But in my experience as a wellness student, from what I have seen the most, its guys wanting to get bigger and bigger by using different kinds of supplements. Some of the ones I know say that supplements accelerate the process of getting stronger and gaining more muscle. 

Therefore,  before criticizing this substances we need to know what are the most popular ones that some people use:

Creatine

Beta Alanine

Whey Protein

Branch Chain Amino Acids

popular protein supplements

 if we compare these supplements with real food (supplements with real food) we see that supplements make nutrition easier by lowering in costs and they are easier to get. But on the other side these supplements can develop some stomach bloating in some people and are hard to combine with other foods. Real food makes nutrition more like a satisfaction action rather than only taking nutrients. Food such as eggs, cheese, and specially beef could have more protein than any of the top 5 shakes. 

“..supplements that provide essential nutrients may be a short-term option when food intake or food choices are restricted due to travel or other factors” and that they should be “used in accordance with current evidence under the guidance of a well-informed professional". This was the statement of  the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Even though  such organization may have considered to accept the use of supplements, I believe that it is important to highlight the part when they said "due to travel and other factors" . It may be true that Athletes can encounter some difficulties related to their competition and practices that can make their nutrition and training plan be affected, but I think it is the Job of the professionals surrounding those athletes to create a plan with sufficient organization that provides the athlete easy access to nutrition. Hence, my opinion is that it is not a matter of thinking than protein supplements are better than real food or that food is better than these substances. I think it is a matter of professionally creating a plan that does not requires the need of supplements.

For people that are only looking only for general health and gaining muscle: I have found another statement from the IOC (muscle diet , you may translate the web page) which  says that in order to gain muscle, no more than 2 grams per Kilogram of protein is an efficient amount for gaining muscle, so don't be to worried about getting big so fast.

 

WELCOME!

This blog is dedicated to discuss, debate and inform people about "invisible fitness". The term refers to the things that can do to improve our health but that they are not easily seen in the weight room, or other areas where people can go and exercise. Such activities involve, good nutrition, meditation, stretching, psychology of exercise, sleeping, emotional exercise and the like.