indiheritage.com

Tag: mediprecision

  • Creative pursuits to boost your mental & emotional health

     Creative mindset is a gift as well as a talent which can boost your positivity as well as professional talents. However, creative pursuits can be adopted as a habit with a view to improve your physical and mental health.

     Creative pursuits encompass a wide range of activities that involve imagination, expression, and the development of original ideas. These may range from cooking and crafting to artistic performances.

    Many of you might be immensely creative in different areas of life. Creativity offers a broad horizon to explore and practice. Worldwide people are keen towards pursuing some form of creativity since time immemorial. The creative pursuit was part of every civilization, developed as a part of the social evolution of ancient tribes from hunter gatherers into a society or population.

     In the present era of advanced science and technology also creative pursuits have indispensable role.  Across the globe, people may be pursuing creativity either instinctively or as an integral part of profession as arts provide you rewards, contentment and joy, elevating the mood towards more positive outlook. Some of you may have adopted creative professions which also provide you wealth & sense of joy while stimulating your cognitive skills as well. 

    Research data about creative pursuits & health benefits

    The creative mind is more stable and intellectually keen. Of late numerous neuroscientific research studies have been published focusing on creativity and mental and cognitive health. They point out that engaging in creative pursuits is associated with numerous benefits, including improved mental health, enhanced creativity, and increased opportunities for personal growth and expression. Briefly, creativity and creative pursuits boost your physical, mental and emotional health.

    A few examples of creative pursuits you may incorporate into life:

    Artistic pursuits

    • Performing arts such as acting, singing, dancing etc.
    • Visual arts – drawing, painting, sculpture, pottery, digital arts
    • Creative writing of poems, short stories, fictions, journaling etc.
    • Crafts: Knitting, crocheting, sewing, woodworking, candle-making.

    Other types of hobbies you are pursuing may be considered as creative pursuits if it involves your mental and physical contribution such as:

    • Gardening
    • Photography & editing
    • Home decoration & renovation
    • Learning new languages
    • Cooking experiments
    • Creating video games
    • Playing musical instruments
    • Story scripting and narration
    • blogging

    Apart from the listed pursuits you can add more creative hobbies and ventures into your life and enjoy its positive effects on life. Creativity is the ability to discover innovative and original ideas. It is one of the 10 life skills advocated by the World Health Organization.

    Four-C model of creativity given by Kaufman and Beghetto

    According to this model creativity is classified as:

    • Mini-c model

    It means transformative learning, meaningful interpretations of daily experiences that can make changes in the understanding at the individual level.

    • Little-c model

    This modelincludes creative actions and thoughts that is out-of-box thinking in anything we do &          it impacts individuals and their zone of influence

    • Pro-c model

    It includes the creative acts of experts/experiences people learn within an organization, community, or domain or organization, field system of practice. It has impact on the market

    • Big-c model

    This includes eminent creativity of exceptional people that is self-taught, unconventional thinking. This can make profound impact on culture, society and the world.

    Benefits of creative pursuits

    • Psychological or mental health is improved by creativity

    Enhanced  self-efficacy, coping skills and emotional regulation or balanced emotions are achieved by creative people more easily. All creative pursuits orient the mind for positive focus. Purposeful creative involvement promotes well-being.

    • Creativity helps to reduce stress

    Creative pursuits lower stress hormone response and thus help in reducing the impact of stress on your physical and mental health.

    •  Immunity is better in creative & active  people

    Enhanced immune function is another added benefit of creative pursuits

    • Creativity improves social involvement

    Creative pursuits reduce loneliness and isolation, particularly presentation of artistic performances, digital art work etc. These kinds of pursuits are shared with audience and receive feedback also. It enhances social support, and improves social involvement.

    • Adoption of healthy Behaviors

    A focused attempt at creativity fosters healthy habits including increased exercise or physical activity, adoption of healthier behaviors & skills development.

    Creativity as an important way of enhancing and maintaining a sense of well-being. Research studies have recognized that the practice of creative pursuits can be beneficial in influencing positively psychological, physical and social components.

    For example, music as a creative pursuit is associated with numerous health benefits on the brain. A study conducted on children shows that music plays an important role in reading, language, and auditory skill development. Studies have shown structural differences in grey matter and white matter in children who engage in music (especially during early childhood) compared with those who do not.

    Another study shows that in adults with a mental illness, activities such as choir singing, art-making, expressive writing, and group drumming reduce mental distress, depression, and anxiety while simultaneously enhancing individual and social well-being.

    The benefits achieved through creative pursuits of these kinds may be attributed to the modulation of serotonin and other neurotransmitters, a decrease in cortisol and other stress hormones. The creative activities also cause a reduction in inflammatory immune responses.

    Sleep studies on music indicates that music helps to improve sleep quality, sleep efficiency, and time to sleep onset in a way much better than meditation can do.

    Written by Dr Sanjana p Souparnika [ dr sanjana vb]

    Reference

    • Hyde KL, Lerch J, Norton A, Forgeard M, Winner E, Evans AC, et al. Musical training shapes structural brain development. J Neurosci. 2009;29:3019–25. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5118-08.2009. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19279238/
    • Cordi MJ, Ackermann S, Rasch B. Effects of relaxing music on healthy sleep. Sci Rep. 2019;9:9079. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-45608-y. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-45608-y. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31235748/
    • https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10911317/

  • Health benefits of Anti -inflammatory diet – Foods to eat and avoid.

    Anti -inflammatory diet is suitable to people suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases as well as food sensitivity or allergy.

    The term anti-inflammatory diet is not a specific type of dietary habit suitable for all. As the term anti- inflammatory denotes it is a food choice to reduce inflammation as well as its impacts of body organs.  In order to delve deeper into anti-inflammatory diet and understand its benefits one should know what is inflammation, its signs and symptoms and complications or impacts on the body.

    The triggers as well as type of inflammations and their impacts vary from person to person. Therefore, while choosing an anti-inflammatory diet an individualized approach is better.

    What is inflammation?

    Inflammation is a key aspect of the body’s immune defenses. It can be acute or chronic. Symptoms can include swelling, heat, pain, and more. Treatment is offered depending on the underlying cause.

    Inflammation may be acute as well as chronic.  Acute inflammations occur abruptly and may last for a short period of time. Often acute inflammations are caused by injury, environmental chemicals and by infective agents causing infections of various kinds.

    The sign s of acute or sudden inflammation include redness, pain, swelling , heat , loss of function.

    Chronic inflammation & its impact on your body

    Chronic inflammation means inflammation of the cells and tissues of body for a prolonged period of time. The chronic inflammatory state may cause damage to cells and body organs in the long run. It impairs the functions of organs such as heart, kidney, lung, brain etc.

    For instance,metabolic syndrome, which includes type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity is a chronic inflammatory condition which needs anti-inflammatory diet  as a life style and nutritional intervention.

    Anti -inflammatory diet is suitable to people suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases as well as food sensitivity or allergy.

     A few Chronic inflammatory diseases affecting humans are listed below:

    • Crohn’s disease.
    • Heart disease.
    • Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases
    • Rheumatoid arthritis.
    • Type 2 diabetes.
    • Ulcerative colitis.
    • High blood pressure.
    • Irritable bowel syndrome.
    • Multiple sclerosis.
    • Obesity.
    • Psoriasis.

    Chronic inflammations are mostly  caused by genetic, metabolic and environmental factor. Food sensitivity in people is also a type of inflammatory response.

    Who are at risk of chronic inflammation & anti-inflammatory diet may be helpful?

    The  risk for chronic inflammation is enhanced in:

    • Old people
    • Obese people
    • In people who eat processed foods more
    • In persons who smoke
    • In over stressed individuals
    • In people who follow erratic sleep habits

    How chronic inflammations adversely affect your health?

    • Chronic inflammation eventually leads to complicated Organ diseases

    Chronic inflammation predisposes to complex diseases of liver, kidney, heart, lungs etc. which can considerably enhance the morbidity as well as mortality rates globally.

    • Chronic inflammatory state enhances the risk for cancer.

    The incidence of diabetes and obesity are rising in the global population   and this chronic inflammatory conditions  alarmingly increase the risk of cancer as well as other  allied complications of lifestyle diseases.

    How do you know you have inflammations? Signs and symptoms

    Inflammation is characterized chronic pains , swelling ,redness ,tenderness of the affected parts.

    Inflammation causes other symptoms also depending on the organs and tissues affected.

    Anti-inflammatory diet

    Anti -inflammatory diet  offers guidelines to follow to eat in a way that reduces the likelihood of inflammation. In a nutshell anti-inflammatory diet is one that includes minimally processed foods and includes  healthy antioxidant rich  vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds ,fish with anti -inflammatory properties.

    Avoid the following Foods:

    • Sweets, pre-packaged desserts, ice cream and candy.
    • Snacks – fried and junk foods
    • Processed meats, including bacon, sausage, hot dogs etc.
    • Processed cheeses
    • Sugary beverages

    The anti-inflammatory diet recommends the following foods to include in your diet plan:

    • Brown or wild rice.
    • Vegetables particularly green leafy vegetables which are rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals
    • Fruits
    • Chicken breast
    • Eggs
    • Fish (oily fish, such as salmon, tuna, herring or mackerel).
    • Legumes
    • Nuts and seeds.
    • Oats.
    • olive oil
    • cardamom
    • ginger
    • cloves

    Best types of anti-inflammatory diet patterns

    • Mediterranean diet
    • Dash diets  
    • MIND Diet

    These are specific diet patterns which help to prevent and manage life style diseases and various other organ diseases of mankind.The mediterranean and DASH diets are found to be very effective in preventing and modifying diseases of heart and blood vessels .

    It helps to prevent heart attack, stroke , diabetes and hypertension. Most of these diseases are associated with chronic inflammations. These diets help to reduce inflammation also. MIND diet is a combination of Mediterranean diet and DASH diet. Here processed and junk foods, excessive intake of sweet and salt intake are restricted.

    Further more, the diet includes so much of antioxidants and ingredients with anti-inflammatory properties. 

    Mediteraanean diet includes olive oil as the prominent ingredient of foods and which are anti-inflammatory to a great extent.

    Research studies show that people of Mediterranean region who consume these foods had very low incidence of heart diseases and stroke. Now mediterranean diet is accepted by the whole world as the best and practical solution for obesity and life style diseases prevention.

    Both of these conditions are related with chronic inflammation and the efficacy of Mediterranean, DASH and MIND diets prove its anti- inflammatory role also.

    Benefits of Anti-inflammatory diet

    Improves skin health and beauty

    Reduces joint pain & swelling

    Improves gut health & reduces abdominal bloating from gas

    Better and refreshing sleep.

    Reduces heart attack and stroke

    Lower blood pressure.

    Lower blood sugar and helps to manage type 2 diabetes well.

     Helps in weight loss.

    Improves energy level.

    Foods to include in anti-inflammatory diet

    Berries

    Fatty fish

    Broccoli

    Avocados

    Green tea

    Peppers

    Mushrooms

    Grapes

    Turmeric

    Extra virgin olive oil

    Dark chocolate and cocoa

    Tomatoes

    Cherries

    Of late anti-inflammatory diet is gathering attention world wide as a solution for obesity and many types of diseases of inflammatory nature including lifestyle diseases.

    History of Indian medical heritage points out that many centuries ago herbs, vegetables and fruits were used in the treatment of various inflammatory conditions.

    The Indian systems of medicine gives emphasis to  prescription of food  with some inclusion and exclusion criteria, for various types of clinical conditions or diseases. Recent advances in nutritional research substantiates the ancient practice with well designed dietary protocols understanding the underlying pathology as inflammation.

    Everyone can achieve wellness and health through well chosen diet plans tailoring to individual needs.

    Written by

    Dr sanjana p. BHMS,DBRM,CDN

    References

    1. https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/conditions/inflammation
    2. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-weight/diet-reviews/mediterranean-diet/#:~:text=Research%20has%20consistently%20shown%20that,the%20course%20of%2012%20years.
    3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26086182/
    4.   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-04258-9