after she left a corporate career in a blaze of burnout!!
Previously, Lisa stated I was an executive for healthcare companies (cancer research, diagnostic imaging
and molecular diagnostics) and my days consisted of long hours, high stress and poor eating, usually while running between meetings. Wellness was not a priority and I sure didn’t understand balance.
I was your quintessential, “type A” corporate workaholic. Downshiftology is a healthy food, travel
and lifestyle website. All recipes are gluten-free and prioritize fresh, seasonal ingredients.
https://downshiftology.com/
A few years before she was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases – celiac, hashimoto’s, psoriasis
and endometriosis – one diagnosis virtually after the next. Eventually, realizing her work and lifestyle was affecting her health, she opted for a “life do-over” and quit her job. After several months off, the dots finally connected and Lisa learned how to really nourish my body – through food and lifestyle.
Lisa then became well versed in wholesome, anti-inflammatory foods when she embraced a whole foods diet. After being diagnosed with four autoimmune diseases in two years.
Lisa realized her body was fighting massive immune system inflammation and that she
needed to provide reinforcements. Those reinforcements came in the form of groceries.
As an avid traveler who has visited all 7 continents, Lisa hopes to inspire her readers to
explore the world, eat wholesome food and take life “down a notch.”
Watch this video for the list of anti-inflammatory foods – and the other video’s she produce and enjoy
the full blog post on the 8 Anti-Inflammatory Foods she Eats Every Week: https://bit.ly/2Utpni0
These are the anti-inflammatory foods that if eaten every week can reduce inflammation in your body.
An anti-inflammatory diet can help with reducing joint pain and arthritis, heals the gut
(key if you have celiac, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s or IBS), getting rid of eczema and psoriasis, and keeping
other autoimmune conditions such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis in check.
It’s also beneficial if you suffer from anxiety or depression.
Downshiftology YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/
channel/UCYidQwKhM3WTDKpT8pwfJzw
How a coronavirus quarantine affects your body and brain.
10 Ways Coronavirus Attacks Your Body Parts.
This Is Your Body And Brain On Coronavirus Quarantine!!!
By Krissy Brady
Now that it’s day who-even-knows-anymore in the coronaviruspandemic, and
the initial shock of it all is starting to wear off, you might find yourself distracted by
a barrage of mental and physical symptoms that weren’t as prominent back when
panic-induced toilet-paper hoarding was hogging your attention.
This is because the prolonged levels of anxiety we’ve been enduring the last few months are straight-up wearing us down. “The early optimism and community support begins to erode as the mind and body struggle to manage the persistent stress and sense of being out of control,” said Kimberly Johnson, an assistant professor of clinical mental health counseling at Touro College in Bay Shore, New York. “Couple this with feelings of grief, both tangible – intangible, and people having less resources with which to deal with life.”
Much of what we’re feeling, both emotionally and physically, are normal responses to an abnormal event, Johnson added. But the prolonged effects can be damaging if we’re not aware of them and make an effort to mitigate them (translation: self-care).
To make changes, it can be helpful to understand how the body — particularly the brain —
responds to stress and change. Here’s what you should know.
Uncertainty Activates The Fight-Or-Flight Response.
The pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders are things none of us have experienced before,
so the brain doesn’t have data from past experiences that it can draw from to make informed decisions.
“Uncertainty is a major trigger of stress that can boil over into clinically significant levels of anxiety,”
said David A. Merrill, a psychiatrist and director of the Pacific Brain Health Center at
the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.
Uncertainty activates the autonomic nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, which
prepares the body to fight a threat or flee from one. Once that threat is dealt with, the mind
and body go back to their regularly scheduled programming.
But COVID-19 isn’t a temporary threat ― at least not right now. So the ongoing stress, anxiety and worry
(“Am I washing my hands enough?” “Cleaning surfaces enough?” “Going out too much?”)
have sent the fight-or-flight response into overdrive.
Stress Can Make It Hard To Concentrate.
Chronic stress leaves the brain swimming in the hormone cortisol, which research suggests can disrupt the functions of the prefrontal cortex ― the area of the brain responsible for attention span, decision-making, problem-solving and emotion regulation.
Cue brain fog, apathy, indecisiveness and mood swings.
Isolation Triggers Restlessness, Loneliness And Depression.
As a result of being quarantined, not only are we disconnected from the people we care about, many of us have also lost our jobs and are unable to do the things we’d normally do to blow off steam ― either because we can’t afford to or because our go-to stress-busters are no longer an option (eating out at restaurants, going to the movies, hitting up a workout class).
“The problem here is that our cortisol levels are too high, while our dopamine (reward) and oxytocin (bonding) levels are low,” said Patricia Celan, a psychiatry resident at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
This leaves us more at risk of developing feelings of restlessness, loneliness and depression during quarantine, especially if we place a high value on social interactions, Celan said.
Chronic Stress Leads To Tingling, Digestive Problems And More.
When the fight-or-flight response kicks in, it triggers physical reactions.
“Symptom clusters for this include racing or pounding heart, shortness of breath and sense of numbness or tingling, among others,” Merrill said. Over a prolonged period of time, these reactions can cause significant physical wear and tear on the body.
“With the long haul of the quarantine, we’re seeing more lethargy, disrupted sleep and depression,”
Merrill added. “These symptoms tend to negatively amplify each other.”
This is likely because there’s little separation between work (or the hunt for work) and home.
“Anecdotally, people are saying they’re working more and putting in longer hours,”
Johnson said. “This is also true with essential workers ― their home is often not
the sanctuary it once was.”
Now that our routines are upended, and there are no longer cues from our environment
that it’s time to decompress, our body has no idea when to take a breather. It’s as if our central nervous system has a foot on both the gas and brake pedals simultaneously. To top it off, chronic stress has a tendency to physically manifest in the form of digestive issues
(think bloating, gas, cramps, nausea).
“The onset of irritable bowel syndrome during something as life-altering as a pandemic or having to go
into quarantine is purely from the mind-gut axis and the effect of stress on the gut,” said Niket Sonpal, a gastroenterologist and professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. “This change in cortisol and
other neurotransmitters can lead to constipation, diarrhea or both.”
Personality Type May Affect How You Handle Quarantine.
For people who consider themselves extroverts, the quarantine is causing anxiety and restlessness at the loss
of broader social interactions and being out in the world. But that doesn’t necessarily mean introverts — who typically isolate themselves whether there’s a pandemic or not — aren’t experiencing their own spirals of angst. “Although we might think of these personalities as different, their key objective is exactly the same, which is to maintain some sense of control and mastery in their world,” said organizational and consulting psychologist Richard Citrin, co-author of ”The Resilience Advantage.”
Introverts do this by being more inwardly focused and isolating from people,
“but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be around people, just that their level of interaction can be less,”
Citrin said. They might be missing the freedom to be alone in the crowded streets of the city they live in or meeting a friend for coffee. You don’t need to be a social butterfly to miss being out in the world. From a work perspective, introverts might find themselves invigorated by working independently rather than in a busy, social office building. But Zoom meetings might cause them a significant amount of distress,
and they might get lost in the shuffle.
Plus, being quarantined at home doesn’t mean being alone.
“For some introverts, their homes are always full, with no time or space to themselves,” Johnson said. “The constant stimuli might be overwhelming and increase their sense of anxiety and stress, with little opportunity to be inwardly contemplative or quiet.”
How To Nurture Your Body And Mind During Quarantine.
There are ways to mitigate these issues. Try these suggestions from the experts.
Acknowledge The Uncertainty.
Research suggests that confronting uncomfortable feelings and reassuring yourself can help you feel more in control of your life.
“Realizing you’ve made it this far through the crisis and you’re still ‘pushing back’ against the uncertainty can build up your tolerance for handling this situation,” Merrill said.
Get Into A Rhythm.
“Following a schedule can help normalize your sleep and eating habits, which will lower your anxiety over time,” Merrill said.
The hints of predictability can act as emotional pillars to lean on and help you find a sense of stability during the daily grind.
Carve Out Time For Solitude.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the 24/7 social demands of your household, set aside consistent pockets of “me time,” with boundaries around being approached during this time, Celan said. (For introverts or highly sensitive people who need to recharge more often, consider setting up a permanent “cave” you can retreat to at a moment’s notice.) This can act as a signal to your body that it’s time to transition from
fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.
Natural ways to boost your mood during coronavirus quarantine!
Find A Balance That Works For You.
The most important thing is to listen to your body and honor how you feel.
If you’ve reached your isolation quota, but nobody’s available to chat, you can seek out connection through, say, group workouts on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram Live or other similar sources of community.
On the flip side, if you’re running into social or Zoom fatigue, you might want to take a “quality over quantity” approach instead, Celan said. Keep only your most important connections on the books in order to keep relationships strong yet steer clear of burnout.
Stay fueled by what’s always moved you most ― whether that’s reading, writing, painting or other similar solo activities. It’s much easier for people to “get their mind off the stress of the pandemic, given they’re already used to enjoying the many at-home activities that are available to them,” Celan said.
Common ingredient in cough medicine may help coronavirus grow, study finds!!!
A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus..
Stay up to date with this live blog as they cover the COVID-19 pandemic
7 essential pieces of relationship advice for couples in quarantine
What you need to know about face masks right now
How to tell if you need to start doing online therapy
Lost your job due to coronavirus? Here’s what you need to know.
Parenting during the coronavirus crisis?
The HuffPost guide to working from home
What coronavirus questions are on your mind right now? We want to help you find answers.
Everyone deserves accurate information about COVID-19. Support journalism without a paywall —
and keep it free for everyone — by becoming a HuffPost member today.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Is it safe to go to the beach right now?
Doctors offer tips to avoid coronavirus.
By Agnes Pawlowski
Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer as usual, but it won’t be the usual trip to the beach in the age of the coronavirus. Some shores are still closed. At those that have reopened, beach goers may face a wide variety of new rules. Being outside and enjoying nature is good for physical and mental health, so opening up is important — as long as people remember how the virus is transmitted and continue to take precautions,
said Dr. Marissa Levine, director of the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice at
the University of South Florida in Tampa.
“Going to a beach unfortunately lulls us into this sense of normality,
particularly if around you, people are just acting like nothing is going on,” Levine told TODAY.
“We can’t assume that we’re back to normal, because we’re not… we still have no treatment and
no vaccine and therefore, this virus can still cause disease and death.”
Even though there’s much more space to be 6 feet apart, the concern is people spend much
more time at the beach and socialize more, said NBC News medical correspondent
Dr. John Torres.
“With some people, alcohol is involved and once you start drinking, it is easy to say,
‘Hey, I’m just going to go say hi to my friend real quick, I don’t need this mask, I can hug my buddy,
it’s going to be OK,’” Torres noted. “That is the concern with a lot of experts.”
Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself:
Is it safe to go to the beach right now?
Yes, as long as people stay away from each other, said Dr. Joseph Vinetz,
an infectious disease doctor at Yale Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
“No mosh pits at the beach,” he advised. “The beach is fine, outside exercise is fine —
you just have to stay away from closely packed people.”
Both Vinetz and Levine noted that the virus is diluted outdoors where there’s a lot of air circulation.
Plus, ultraviolet light from the sun inactivates the virus quickly.
But people at risk for the severe form of COVID-19 — those over 65 or with underlying health conditions — should think twice about going to a beach where it may be hard to control physical distancing, Levine said. Anyone with symptoms should also stay home.
Follow the guidelines at your local beach.
Restrictions may differ widely.
New York City beaches are closed, for example, but those run by the state will begin to open Friday — at 50% capacity, with added precautions and mandated social distancing. Organized games and contact sports will be prohibited. Beaches in New Jersey and Connecticut will have similar restrictions. In California, Los Angeles County beaches reopened May 13 for activities like swimming, surfing, jogging and walking — but not sunbathing, picnicking or volleyball.
Related:
Florida and South Carolina reopened parts of the coast in April, but some communities have strict rules. Naples, Florida, for example, allows walking, running, swimming, fishing and paddle boarding, but prohibits chairs, tents, umbrellas or coolers on the beach on weekend mornings.
Beware of choke points.
The shore itself offers a lot of open space. Getting there is another story. The parking lot and entry ramps to beaches where people have to funnel in and out could be very crowded.
“If you’re going to go to a beach and you see that the parking lot is full and the beach is jammed, I would say turn around and go home or find another beach,” Levine said. “Because if you cannot maintain your physical distancing, then you’re putting yourself at risk or you might be a carrier and
potentially putting other people at risk.”
Social distancing is still key.
Keep at least 6 feet away from people who are not part of your household. The drill should be familiar by now: The virus is spread primarily through close contact with people who are infected. They may not show any symptoms. “If people don’t stay away from each other, then all bets are off,” Vinetz warned. “If people are close together, talking together, shouting together or singing together in close proximity, that’s clearly a risk for getting an infection.”
Assume everybody is infected, even though few people actually are.
Have a face covering available.
It’s usually not necessary to have a face covering on when there’s nobody very nearby
(unless local rules require it all the time), but have a mask handy to put on at any moment — in those crowded choke points or when others get too close for comfort, Levine advised.
“If you see groups of people coming at you, it might be good to mask up at that point,” she said.
Keep social distancing in the water.
The general thinking right now is that it’s safe to swim in open water, which will dilute the virus, Levine noted.But infected people may release the virus into the water if they submerge their face so it’s best not to swim very near someone, said Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology and immunology at
The University of Arizona in Tucson.
As a general rule, don’t swallow the water — not just to potentially avoid COVID-19, but also,
because of pollution and water-borne diseases.
Bring wipes and hand sanitizer with you.
Have the option to clean your hands after touching a surface that others have frequently touched,
like the lock of a stall in a public bathroom. Wipe down any rental beach equipment — like shared lounge chairs or umbrellas — though it’s best to avoid using such
communal items in the first place.
Remember: We’re all in this together.
“It’s not just about doing it for yourself, it’s about us being part of a cohesive community
that dealing collaboratively against a really difficult issue — something that we don’t know
how long we’ll have to live with,” Levine said.
Don’t forget about sun safety.
May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month, a good reminder to use sunscreen, shade and protective clothing to shield yourself from UV radiation. There’s concern people are so focused on coronavirus that they will forget about the other potential health hazards, Levine said.
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be Using Your A/C Right Now
The One Symptom That Predicts How Bad Your Coronavirus Case Will Be!!!