Page 23 - Florida Sentinel 12-4-15 Edition

Health
Help Your Brain Stay Younger And Sharper
Ditch The Soda, Save Your Heart
Drinking 1-2 servings daily of sugar-sweetened soda, fruit drinks or tea increases your heart attack risk by 35%.
Too much sugar (one can of reg- ular soda contains 9 tsp.) can lead to heart-damaging changes in your body, including inflammation and belly fat.
Are You Breathing Correctly?
Having trouble focusing, or remembering where you put your keys? Try these...
Turn on classical music. Beautiful melodies relax your brain, which ups activity in brain regions re- sponsible for IQ and mem- ory.
Take A Brief Stroll. Ex- ercise increases blood flow, which keeps brain cells healthy and reduces the in- flammation that could con- tribute to problems like
dementia.
Get ‘Delta’ Sleep. Get-
ting 8-9 hours of sleep
sounds great, but 7 hours allows your body to reach “delta sleep” – the deep phase when your brain powers down, which intensi- fies your ability to focus the next day.
Read. Reading engages several memory-preserving regions of your brain and it eases stress. Stress causes a string of negative chemical and hormonal changes that make it hard for your brain to operate at its best.
Most people do not breathe correctly. The major- ity of people only use the top half of their lungs. This is a problematic because in this scenario, there is not enough oxygen flowing through the body. Shallow breathing, and even over-breathing is more stressful on the body than you may think. Bad breath- ing techniques lead to an un- balanced nervous system, shrinkage of blood vessels, and a lack of energy for the brain, heart, and muscles.
The Proper Technique
In order to correct this, first breathe through the nose. You should always in- hale and exhale through the nose and for two reasons at least. One is because you breathe in deeper when doing so (the exhale is just as important as the inhale be-
Dry Air (Outdoor Or Indoor) Can Cause Sore Throat Complications
cause you are ridding your body of carbon dioxide amongst other toxins), and the other reason is because your nose is a filter. There are elements that are not useful to your body in which the nose filters out; the mouth does not. Breathing through the nose makes it easier to engage your diaphragm, lo- cated directly under the lungs (the second step to breathing properly).
So starting now, you can inhale and exhale through your nose.
Dry air (outside or inside) wreaks havoc on your throat. Here are a few things to do if you get a sore, scratchy throat.
• Reduce your risk with onions and garlic. These foods pack 33 different sulfur compounds, which strength- ens and heals throat tissues, preventing viruses from at- tacking.
• Kill germs with licorice root tea. Simmer 2 licorice root tea bags in 2 cups of water for 10 min.utes, add 1
tsp. of salt, let cool and then gargle 3 times daily. Licorice root and salt kills viruses and bacteria on contact.
• Get better 50% faster with carrots and other root veggies. Carrots, beets, turnips, sweet potatoes and other root veggies are packed with carotenoids, plant com- pounds that switch on tissue- healing, immunity-boosting enzymes in your blood- stream.
• Strengthen your protec- tion with Vitamin C. Taking Vitamin C combined with bioflavonoid (found in citrus) increases your production of germ-killing antibodies.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2015 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 11-B