Breath better to relax

If you are in the middle or before of a stressful, important situation, to handle these situation right, you need to be relaxed. This is how you can achieve it:

When you breath, you deliver oxygen to all of your body’s cells, including those in your brain.

Normal breathing involves deep, slow inhalations and exhalations. When you are stressed, however, you tend to take shorter, shallower breaths, which don’t supply as much oxygen to your body; this actually increases the amount of stress you experience.

Breathing is fundamentally linked to the way we feel both mentally and physically. Simply changing the way you breath will enable you to handle stress better. Deep, slow, focused breathing can change the way you feel, give you an emotional lift, and reduce stress and anxiety.

Get in the habit of checking your breathing, and you will find that you can focus and center yourself simply by concentrating on the way you are inhaling and exhaling.

Exercise

These exercise slows your hearth rate, reduces stress level in the process, and makes you become more aware of your breath:

• Sit down and be aware of your breathing

• Inhale, exhale, and repeat

• Your breath may begin to slow and deepen, but don’t actively try to change it

• Just follow it without judgment for 5 minutes, or whatever time you have (there is usually no much time in stressful situations)

• You should be more relaxed by now then before

• Repeat as often as you need, practice it and achieve – relaxed all the time stage

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Tennis elbow

The symptoms of tennis elbow:

• Pain when bending the wrist upward against a force or when stretching muscles by straightening or bending the elbow or bending the wrist downward

• Pain felt over the bony part on the outside of the elbow

• Swelling of the elbow area

Who is at risk?

• Anyone who overuses his or her forearm muscle

• It is not limited to tennis players – less than 5 percent of all tennis elbow diagnoses are related to playing tennis

• It occurs among people who do a lot of heavy lifting, typists, construction workers, baggage handlers and others

• Tennis elbow gets its name from the fact, that up to half of all frequent players develop it at some time during their careers. It is especially common among players who swing improperly, or players that overuse their forearm muscle by playing too frequently or too long.

How it develops?

Tennis elbow is a form of tendinitis caused by continued stress on the forearm muscles used in grasping and extending motions that originate in elbow.

Pain first occurs in the tendons involved in extending the wrist, such as when tennis player hits the a backhand shot. With continued stress, the muscles and tendons begin to hurt when bent or extended, or even at rest due to tiny tears that become inflamed and do not have a chance to heal.

What can you do when tennis elbow pain appears?

• Rest from the activities that cause elbow pain is the most important treatment for tennis elbow

• Apply ice to the area – for two days – 20 minutes every two hours through the day

• Place an elastic bandage around the forearm just below the elbow

• After two days of ice treatment – alternate warm compresses with ice packs to promote healing

• See the doctor if the pain persist for more than two weeks

How can you prevent tennis elbow?

• If playing tennis, use the right backhand movement

• Weight train and stretch your arms to make them stronger and more flexible - Chin ups are great exercise to strengthen your arms and upper body. Do them 3 times maximum repetitions – 3 times a week.

• Learn to pace yourself; for example, if playing tennis every day provokes the symptoms, cut back to every other day

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Eating out

Here is my advice for eating outside the home:

Double up on complex carbohydrates and cut your protein in half.

I know it sounds very different from everybody else’s advice that high protein diet is good. But it is not.

Here is what to do:

• Order half of the usual restaurant portion of animal protein (or share half with a friend or take the uneaten portion home in a doggy bag)

• Order a baked potato (or even two, if you desire), or pasta (whole grain if possible), and a large salad (do not use commercial dressings)

• Top your baked potato with low fat yogurt or cottage cheese (low fat)

• Ask for marinara sauce for your pasta

• Use home made dressing for your salad or just a vinegar

• Order fresh fruits for dessert (melon, grapefruit, fresh berries)

Meats in the restaurants usually contain lots of saturated fat and sodium. So try to eat less meat out.

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