Breathe Easy — Your Action Plan


Whether it's time to hit the turf, track or squat rack, breathing isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind (not falling on your face tends to take priority). But smooth and efficient breathing is crucial for delivering the oxygen our body needs to perform its functions properly. Proper breathing can also help athletes exercise longer with less effort, nix side stitches and even calm the mind. With a little extra awareness — and some practice — that A Game could be just a few breaths away. Here's what to keep in mind: 



Running


Nailing the right running form, tempo and strategy can be challenging enough, but a runner's work doesn't end there. Huffing and puffing your way 'round the track won't get you to the finish line. In fact, studies show that improper breathing technique can impair speed and performance.

How to do it right: While there's no golden rule, many runners find it most comfortable to take one breath for every two foot strikes, says Alison McConnell, a breathing expert and author of "Breathe Strong Perform Better". This means taking two steps (one left, one right) while breathing in, and two steps while breathing out — also known as the 2:2 rhythm.

Why it works: Because the diaphragm and surrounding organs are all subject to the forces of gravity, McConnell says, synchronizing the breath to running cadence will keep the organs from putting unnecessary pressure on the diaphragm, which can impede breathing (and make running more uncomfortable than it needs to be!).

4 exercises, 10 reps of each, circuited for 20 minutes.

Push until you can't, rest until you can.

It’s all about moderation and balancing your food groups: protein and carbs, fruits and veggies, experts say.  So how do they all work together?

Before a workout, it’s all about the carbs, said Carol Kelly, a dietitian at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “Carbohydrate is the fuel for our bodies, fuel for our brains.  If you think of your metabolism as a fire, carbohydrate is the fuel that helps the fire burn hot.”

You want a meal that includes quality carbohydrates, lean protein, heart-healthy fats and fluids.  Without a sufficient carb supply, you could be breaking down muscle when you exercise.

If you’re working out in the afternoon or after work, you want to make sure to eat a balanced lunch with some carbs.

Henner, who many remember as the character Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi, is one of only 12 documented cases of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM. People with HSAM have an abnormal ability to remember the intimate details of events in their lives and what was going on in the world on any given day in vivid, experiential fashion.

In her recently released book Total Memory Makeover: Uncover Your Past, Take Charge of Your Future, Henner recalls the memory games she played as a child.

These exercises, writes Henner, were a way to "mentally challenge and exercise my brain to the point that I could 'time-travel' back to: What did we do each day of our vacation? What was I doing when I was exactly to the day my younger brother Lorin's age? My niece Lizzy's age? And it was not just about touching down on a fleeting image or a feeling from the past, but rather going deeper and deeper into memories and specific moments, exploring my past thoughts through the lens of the present."

In Total Memory Makeover, which just made The New York Times Bestseller list, Henner guides readers through exactly that process, helping them create connections between their past memories, present lives and the futures they hope to create. Henner sees memory as both a vast reservoir of information and an opportunity for self-exploration — a contention confirmed by research that suggests that everything we've ever experienced is stored somewhere on our mental hard drives.

Travelers in Northern California can now find their inner calm in the Yoga Room at San Francisco International Airport.

The quiet, dimly lit studio officially opened last week in a former storage room just past the security checkpoint at SFO's Terminal 2.

Airport officials believe the 150-square-foot (14-square-meter) room with mirrored walls is the world's first airport yoga studio, said spokesman Mike McCarron.

The room, open to all ticketed passengers, contains a few chairs and yoga mats but no instructors or televisions. No shoes, food, drinks or cell phones are allowed.

"Silence is appreciated," says a sign spelling out "Yoga Room Etiquette."
A prominent blue-and-white sign with a Buddha-like pictogram beckons visitors: "Come check out our Yoga Room."

Frequent flyer Maria Poole accepted the invitation, practicing a downward dog asana and other yoga poses before boarding her flight.

"It's perfect," said Poole, 47, of Lafayette. "I think it should be in every airport, especially the terminals that I fly through. This would be such a great way for me to get my exercise in, get a little peace and quiet — a little Zen moment."

The Yoga Room is just the latest example of how airports are trying to improve the passenger experience and showcase their regional culture, noting the ancient practice's popularity in the San Francisco Bay area, said Debby McElroy, executive vice president of Airports Council International-North America.

In recent years, airports have upgraded their food and shopping venues and added massage parlors, nail salons, dry cleaners and pet hotels, McElroy said, but SFO is the first to add a yoga room in North America and probably the world.
 

ONE OF THE LONG-ENDURING TRADITIONS at bike events of all stripes is the pasta dinner the evening before the big ride. After all, who doesn't believe in the hearty, turbo-fueling quality of a whopping plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce?

As it turns out, the nonbelievers include a number of highly informed people, including Allen Lim, PhD, the brains behind much of Garmin-Slipstream's training and race preparation. "There's nothing nutritious about that," Lim says.

In fact, he has eliminated all processed wheat from the team's diet, and at races has replaced traditional starchy foods with balanced, whole-food fuel such as rice cakes made with eggs, olive oil, prosciutto and liquid amino acids. If this creates the impression that Lim knows something you don't, well, that's probably true. His job is to make sure that, unlike the rest of us, his team doesn't blithely adhere to old, counterproductive eating habits—habits that can lead to unnecessary weight fluctuation and diminished performance.

Here's the good news. We've tapped into this new school of food science led by the likes of Lim to correct popular misconceptions about food, particularly about carbs and fat. Proponents of this new approach believe, for example, that a diet heavy in starch causes your body to burn sugar instead of fat, so you bonk more easily, often eat too much and end up overweight rather than properly fueled.

Even Joe Friel, who relentlessly advocated carbohydrates in his training bible series of books, has done a 180, turning his back on starches and relying instead on vegetables, fruits and lean meats as fuel. Consider this our effort to correct myths and misconceptions you've been exposed to over the years. Follow this advice, and you won't just live lean. You'll also be able to ride longer on less food and never bonk.

But, being engineers, they weren’t just going to hit the StairMaster. They decided to build a computer program to make shedding pounds as geekily fun as playing Xbox, but with an added incentive: the opportunity to win cash.

The idea for this program, which recently won patent approval, was simple: participants would be rewarded for eating well and discouraged from eating poorly. So a salad for lunch could mean winning 50 cents. Pecan pie? Forget it.

The invention is an example of how gamification — applying game techniques and psychology to influence behavior in the real world — is affecting the health arena. Eventually, I.B.M. hopes to license the system to companies or insurers as they seek to improve employees’ well-being.

Already, a cornucopia of mobile apps on the market — like Lose It and Weight Watchers Mobile — try to make the arduous process of losing weight more fun. Weight Watchers gives dieters a specific number of daily points so they can stay within a caloric limit, and lets them see how many points they’d use by adding, say, blue cheese dressing instead of balsamic vinaigrette to greens.

I.B.M.’s program, which like these apps relies on users to report their consumption truthfully, is a more customizable model. It can be used by anyone from kosher eaters to moms trying to get their children to eat peas.

The nature of rewards is also flexible. Mr. Paolini noted that “everyone understands cash,” which is why the initial version employs it, but that users could also earn movie tickets or even FarmVille animals for use in the online game.

GROWING old these days is no longer fading away gracefully, but “doing something active like playing golf, coming back and dropping dead,” says Colin Milner, who directs a group promoting active aging. “It’s not years of decline.”

His blunt, jocular prescription reflects a push by some retirement communities for more structured and data-based wellness and fitness programs that go beyond just adding aerobics classes or newer fitness machines; they are meant to systematically help seniors fend off frailty and the effects of age-related diseases.

“People are living much longer — 80 is the new 70 — and are more aware of their health, the importance of balance to guard against falls, and exercise to keep their core strong,” says Diana Cox, director of resident health care services at Kendal at Hanover, a New Hampshire retirement community.

Retirees entering so-called independent living communities often say they want active lives, but such places can come up short in trying to fulfill that desire. While staff could assess the needs of residents and make recommendations, they had no way to follow through to determine whether residents actually met their goals.

To bridge this gap, Kendal at Hanover, and Orchard Cove, in Canton, Mass., are offering a new program called Vitality 360, which uses computerized assessment tools to evaluate the health and wellness of residents, and then provides intensive personal coaching, goal-setting and follow-up.

The health information gathered from residents goes into a national database, which is used to help seniors set short- and long-term goals and measure their results regularly.

Now that is unusual, I thought. Does it really help to eat so often during a 16-mile run?  Certainly a lot of athletes believe they need constant nourishment. My friend and running partner Jen Davis, who has entered more races and run more than I ever have, once went on a 30-mile training run with a guy wearing a CamelBak and bearing snacks. He stopped every 20 minutes along the way and then, about halfway through the run, pulled out a turkey sandwich.

“I’m not sure if he ever actually ran an ultra race,” Jen said. “He may have gotten injured after carrying that heavy pack on those long runs.”

There is no end to the crazy foods people will eat at endurance events. At the J.F.K. 50-Mile in Maryland, boiled potatoes and chicken broth are provided at aid stations. At the Rocky Raccoon Endurance Trail Run in Texas, runners can choose rice and beans or pasta, along with snacks like pretzels, cookies and candy.

At a 100-mile bike ride my husband and I have done several times, pumpkin pie is offered about 25 miles from the finish line. (My husband tried it one year and felt ill the rest of the ride.)

For the athlete determined to munch on the go, there are shelves worth of prepackaged “energy gels” and bars, even jelly beans, promising to raise performance.  But most athletes are not running 30 or 50 or 100 miles, nor are they doing the equivalent amount of exercise in another sport, like cycling or swimming or skiing. So most of us really do not need to keep eating during a race to maintain energy and stamina, said Nancy Rodriguez, a sports nutritionist at the University of Connecticut.

Now is the time to clean up your cabinets and rearrange the contents of your fridge and freezer to decrease unhealthy temptations.

Watch, learn, and then take up the task!
 

1. I got the power! Power production and the ability to be reactive is a quality that we lose as we age. The good news is that if you include certain exercises as part of your exercise program, you can develop power, elasticity and reactivity. You may have seen some of the tools that work great for developing power on trendy TV shows such as The Biggest Loser or in the movies, which make them seem like fads or trends, but they are more than that. At Results Fitness we use tools such as kettlebells, ropes and medicine balls to improve our clients' abilities to generate power. In addition, you can work up to explosive exercises such as box jumps. Power exercises using all of these tools are hot right now, but are also more than just a trend. Start to incorporate power development into your fitness routine.
 

"It's important to have a sense of humor," said Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of wd~50 in New York. The former "Iron Chef America" contender serves up this deceptive concoction at his Manhattan restaurant.

"We often play with perception," he said. "We take familiar foods and serve them in unfamiliar ways. … We try to stay true to the taste memory."
Humor and memory might not be the first words that come to mind when planning tonight's dinner, but this kind of creative thinking has earned Dufresne wide acclaim in the food realm.

And it's true that taste isn't just about the way food hits your tongue; there's a whole science behind how we perceive flavor and develop preferences for certain foods.

A former Mr. Universe who has just turned 100 said Sunday that happiness and a life without tensions are the key to his longevity.

Manohar Aich, who is 4 foot 11 inches (150 centimeters) tall, overcame many hurdles, including grinding poverty and a stint in prison, to achieve body building glory.

His children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered Sunday in the eastern city of Kolkata to celebrate his birthday the day before.

Hindu priests chanted prayers while a feast was laid out to honor Aich, winner of the 1952 Mr. Universe body building title.

Rippling his muscles and flashing a toothless grin, Aich says his ability to take his troubles lightly and remain happy during difficult times are the secrets to his long life.

That, and a simple diet of milk, fruits and vegetables along with rice, lentils and fish have kept him healthy.

He does not smoke and has never touched alcohol, he said.

"I never allow any sort of tension to grip me. I had to struggle to earn money since my young days, but whatever the situation, I remained happy," Aich said, sitting in a room decorated with posters and pictures of his many bodybuilding triumphs.

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Factors like having a supportive community as you grow up, a secure job that you can rely on, or family that you see regularly make a big difference in determining both the quality and the quantity of your years, said Dr. Dean Ornish, M.D., author and HuffPost’s medical editor. In other words, love makes you happier, but also healthier and long-living. However, maintaining these sorts of close relationships often goes unrecognized as a health behavior, he said.

“I believe that the need for love and connection and community is a fundamental thing … as basic of a need as food, air and water,” Ornish told HuffPost.

Emotions like anxiety and fear are physiological warning signals that something may be dangerous and prepare us to respond to it. Like sorrow and anger, they may be appropriate responses to a situation. But knowing that can sometimes be a trap, because feeling anxiety or fear can cause us to buy into the feelings when they are not appropriate. Because there is really no separation between mind and body, when we feel the negative sensations they are often accompanied by fearful thoughts. We can become preoccupied with these thoughts and worry about what might be happening to us now, or what might happen to us in the future. This becomes a vicious circle, with the negative thoughts and negative sensations feeding off of each other.

Seriously though, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to get more sleep. It’s “common sense,” but look at all those caffeine-addicted sleep-deprived people out there (me included!). We all know that we operate better (and have better long-term health) when we get adequate sleep (~8 hours a night). But, how many can truly say they’ve reached the mythological 8 hour mark on a consistent basis?

If you’re having trouble sleeping, try running or exercising in the late afternoon or early evening. Don’t exercise too late, otherwise it may make it hard to fall asleep at night!

About the caffeine thing, I’ll admit I still need my morning coffee for that morning energy boost. However, in terms of fighting fatigue, one of the most important things I do (and that I recommend to my patients) is drink enough water. How much is enough?

Have you ever noticed that it’s when you’re stressed out, that you go for that chocolate cake, and you fall for the cookies? Stress is one of the biggest reasons that causes us to fail in our diets and get depressed, leading to worse results in our diet. Stress causes us to lose motivation and lose our energy and enthusiasm for life. That’s why it’s so important to deal with stress in a healthy way!

In this video, I share a valuable technique that I use on a daily basis to reduce stress and become more productive while having fun at the same time.

Ever felt like an idiot in a meeting at work or clammed up at a cocktail party? New research from Virginia Tech shows that many people are actually less intelligent in small group settings. Elizabeth Bernstein has details on Lunch Break.

So what did he contribute to the discussion? Absolutely nothing.

“I just sat there like a lump, fixated on the fact that I was quiet,” says Mr. Murphy, 31 years old.

Have you ever clammed up at a party or found yourself tongue-tied at a meeting for fear of saying something stupid—even though you consider yourself at least as smart as anyone else in the room?

Research from scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute offers an explanation of why many people become, in effect, less intelligent in small group settings.

Back home in Brooklyn, a neurologist had her balance on her toes, walk backward on her heels and push back when he put pressure on her legs. Then he asked, “Do you wear tight clothes? Control-top pantyhose? Tight belts?” When she nodded yes, the doctor, Irving Friedman, exclaimed “That’s it!”

The culprit: the cinch belts Mrs. Steinman loves to wear. Dr. Friedman said they can compress a major nerve, the lateral, femoral cutaneous nerve, that runs from the abdomen to the outer thigh. He said he frequently sees the condition—called meralgia paresthetica—in policemen who carry guns on their hips and ballet dancers who wear tight tutus. “Anything that puts pressure on that nerve can cause it,” he said. “It’s very, very common.”

In a nutshell, it's about slowing down.

Studies show that when you slow down, you'll be more likely to stop and help someone in need (see this). But there's another benefit to slowing down — it's not only good for others, it's good for us. Slowing down helps us savor the present. And savoring has been directly tied to happiness.

What Is Savoring?

Savoring is the ability to prolong and stretch enjoyment or positive emotional experiences. It's the difference between wolfing down a meal versus lingering over every bite. It relates to how much time you spend sitting in front of a sunset (if you even stop at all).

Scientists have consistently found that the ability to savor promotes happiness (see here or here). Which makes sense. The more you can prolong positive emotional experiences, the more positive emotions are filling up your day. In fact, the tendency to savor benefits individuals across the lifespan: studies show it predicts the subjective well-being for grade school children, adolescents, college students and the elderly.

Research has come a long way in helping us understand that sleep is more than just a required period of inactivity for our bodies and brains. "Only in the last five to 10 years has research shown that sleep is biologically programmed into virtually every single cell of your body," Michael J. Twery, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Sleep not only restores the body after a long day, it also seems to play a role in learning and memory, growth and development and immunity, yet researchers still don't know exactly why or how sleep works its many wonders.

In medicine, when we talk about the "nocebo effect," what we are referring to is the concept that adverse health or clinical events can be produced or influenced by negative expectations. These effects are a direct result of the psychosocial context or therapeutic environment and its impact on a person's mind and body.

It can be produced by various factors, including verbal cues and past experiences. So, if someone has had prior unsuccessful or negative therapeutic experiences or was provided information in a negative light, it may mediate an undesirable outcome to the therapy.

So if you want to lose weight or avoid weight gain, one step is to get a handle on your stress. Sounds good, but what do you do when you're facing a really difficult problem and it's stressing you out? Here are some simple ways to manage the stress, calm down, and turn your fat-burning machine back on.

Well, yes and no.

While the general guidelines are indeed pretty simple, there actually are some subtleties involved in properly caring for your teeth and gums. And in some cases, the things you're doing in the name of pearly whites can actually do more harm than good, which is why we've rounded-up a list of six of the most common dental mistakes people make when caring for their smiles. Are there any you regularly make?

But in many of the most stressful jobs, it's not uncommon to stay up late putting in extra hours and wake up early to do it all over again, trapped in a vicious cycle of sleep deprivation and over-caffeination. To highlight those fields where workers are the most tired, mattress company Sleepy's analyzed a set of data from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and ranked occupations based on whether or not workers were getting enough shut-eye. (The average adult needs seven to nine hours a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation.)

Some of the worst offenders are occupations you might expect to see on a list like this. We know, for instance, that shift workers (like night nurses or paramedics) are at risk for sleep problems (not to mention heart disease and diabetes). And a 2011 study suggested that some 40 percent of police officers have a sleep disorder — causing many to fall asleep on the job.

The study, to be published in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly, looked at two dozen young investment bankers who worked between 80 to 120 hours a week (going to work around 6 a.m. and leaving work around midnight, according to the Wall Street Journal).

The researchers found that as time went on they had increased risks of health problems like alcoholism, arthritis and Crohn's disease.

Alden Cass, a clinical psychologist based in New York, told the Wall Street Journal that bankers have an increased risk of mental health issues and burnout because their jobs can be so volatile.