After the excitement of the holidays, the cold, dark days of a Midwestern winter promise quiet hibernation for a few more weeks (at least). This time indoors also permits reflection upon the personal improvements we hope to make. Again.
stress
Minor annoyances, huge problems … like grains of sand passing through an hourglass, stressful stuff accumulates—and ends up in tense, tight muscles.
stress stays
“It is very rare that I see a client who doesn’t have some type of knot,” says Ellen Kersting, a massage therapist at Wellbridge Athletic Club and Spa in Clayton. “A knot in the muscle is caused by lactic acid buildup from the stress of everyday life, not eating healthy and not drinking enough water.”
“There are two major types of stress. One is short-term and immediate, like getting ready for a presentation or a meeting you are concerned about. Those tend not to cause a lot of problems,” says F. Afua Bromley, an acupuncturist and oriental medicine practitioner at Acupuncture St. Louis in Webster Groves. “The problem is long-term stress—that is detrimental to our health.”
Constant stress keeps the body in a constant state of alert and arousal—the primitive ‘fight or flight’ response to danger that floods the bloodstream, muscles and organs with heart-pounding hormones.
“Under chronic stress, your body perceives threats all the time,” Bromley says. “Your muscles stay tense, and your blood pressure is raised, which can lead to high blood pressure. The stress response lowers your immune system so you are more susceptible to colds and viruses and possibly increased rates of cancer. An impaired immune system lowers your body’s natural ability to fight disease cells and get rid of cells that are not in compliance with normal rates of growth.”
She says when you are under stress, your body tends to push more glucose into your bloodstream. “This increases the risk of Type II diabetes, fatty liver and a fat midsection,” Bromley notes. “These tend to lead to heart disease, hypertension, heart attacks and strokes.”
But wait! There’s more. “From a psychosocial standpoint, chronic stress tends to increase depression and anxiety,” Bromley says, adding that those, in turn, also lead to a lowered immune system.
Maintaining a positive attitude in the face of sometimes overwhelming odds is a first line of defense against stress. Another effective stress-buster is pampering that hotwired body.
tied in knots
Prolonged stress can produce a physiological response in tense muscles—so pronounced it can be felt.
“A muscle knot is an area where the muscle fibers have contracted and have not or will not release. It is often easy to feel them during an acupuncture or massage session because they are hard and knotty,” Bromley says.
Kersting adds, “When I am massaging, I look for knots in the muscles. Some people like them to be worked out, some people just want to relax and don’t want to feel you working on them. When I am working out a knot, I like to use arnica cream or oil, which help alleviate pain.”
Medications based on flowers of the herb arnica have long been used to treat pain. Muscle knots can result from isolated tension as well as general stress, Kersting says. “It could be posture-related. If you sit at a desk working at the computer most of the day or drive a car for a long distance, those are possibilities,” she says. “A lot of the knots I see are in the upper back, neck and shoulders. A knot can change your posture.”
untied
“It has been well documented that acupuncture, as well as massage, help get the body out of a chronic stress mode in terms of helping the body normalize an overall sense of well-being so people can let go,” Bromley says. “In Chinese medicine, the translation is, ‘We calm the spirit.’”
Relaxing the muscular concentration of stress feeds back into the body’s unwinding, too. “The physical massage and acupuncture needles have a local function in terms of increasingblood flow to the muscles and allowing the muscle fibers to let go,” Bromley says. “Chronic stress increases dopamine production. Acupuncture has been demonstrated to help normalize dopamine levels, which helps with the whole feeling of well-being.” A relaxing massage also is a treat, Kersting says. “I think it has to do with the nurturing effect. People like to feel they are being taken care of.”
time to relax
“A massage therapist would like to see you at least once a month for overall body care. Some people can come more often than that,” Kersting says.
Bromley agrees. “For chronic stress, once a month is great,” she says. “Every other week is greater, and once a week is awesome. If someone is in crisis, we will see them once a week and taper off.” Bromley firmly believes in stress therapy. “If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t want fancy cars; I’d have an acupuncturist and a massage therapist on call!”
food
A healthy food movement has brought greater awareness about organic, locavore and sustainable foods, which command higher prices. What we want to know is, are these better for you and are they worth it?
food for thought
“The additional cost is definitely worth it for nutritional reasons and for environmental reasons,” says Whitney Linsenmeyer, an instructor in nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University Doisy College of Health Sciences. “Papers published in the British Journal of Nutrition have shown that organic milk and meat have about 50 percent more omega-3 fatty acids, and organic fruits and vegetables have higher concentrations of antioxidants.”
That means you’re getting more nutrients even though you’re paying more. ”Studies have shown that organic foods, which usually are grown in healthier, more diverse soil, have more micronutrients and higher levels of vitamins,” says Sarah Weiner, a St. Louis native who is founder and director of the San Francisco-based Good Food Awards. “By and large you can count on organic ingredients having higher nutrition because the soil needed to grow them is stronger and healthier; it hasn’t been modified by artificial pesticides or herbicides. That soil diversity and health is transmitted into your carrot or strawberry.”
back to basics
The term ‘organic’ is applied to a lot of products, but what does it mean? “Organic means being made without synthetic input, such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and petroleum-based fertilizers rather than natural manure,” Weiner says. “Food can be certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or other certifying programs. It also can be grown following organic methodology without being certified.” The USDA offers a National Organic Program Handbook on its website, usda.gov.
There are two benefits to crops grown with minimal chemical exposure, Linsenmeyer says. “Organic crops have to work harder to protect themselves against critters, so they are producing compounds that protect the plant from bug infestations, and those also are beneficial to our health,” she notes. The second part is that organic crops grow more slowly compared to traditional crops, and therefore have more time to absorb nutrients.”
There is not yet a verdict on all the health harms resulting from exposure to agricultural chemicals, but she says, “Right now the research is showing that people who eat conventionally grown produce have much more of those chemicals in their blood than people who eat organic food.”
Organic production improves some types of produce more than others. “The Environmental Working Group publishes lists of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ and ‘Clean 15’ foods,” Linsenmeyer explains. Produce items on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list, which changes annually, have more pesticides than their organic counterparts.
the 2016 dirty dozen:
1. Strawberries
2. Apples
3. Nectarines
4. Peaches
5. Celery
6. Grapes
7. Cherries
8. Spinach
9. Tomatoes
10. Sweet bell peppers
11. Cherry tomatoes
12. Cucumbers
the 2016 clean 15:
(foods you can more safely eat in non-organic form)
1. Avocados
2. Sweet Corn
3. Pineapples
4. Cabbage
5. Sweet peas, frozen
6. Onions
7. Asparagus
8. Mangos
9. Papayas
10. Kiwi
11. Eggplant
12. Honeydew melon
13. Grapefruit
14. Cantaloupe
15. Cauliflower
don’t forget flavor!
“A lot of organic foods are grown locally,” Weiner says. “When produce is shipped long distances, sometimes it loses freshness, taste and in some cases, nutrition. A lot of times organic is the growing method of choice for interesting heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables on smaller farms. Much of conventionally grown produce has been bred to work well with herbicides and pesticides, and for being shipped and staying on the shelf longer. Organic varieties are chosen because they are more delicious,” she says.
“Social justice and environmental stewardship can justify the added cost of organic foods,” Weiner continues. “Foods grown with a lot of chemicals lead to runoff that pollutes our water systems, affecting salmon stocks and other fish. There are social justice issues on farms—how people are paid for their work, and their working conditions. Organic farms and smaller local farms tend to have better worker practices. If human rights are important to you, organic food is another way to support your values in the grocery store each week.”
exercise
It may be too cold for shopping and other leisurely pursuits, but the weather is no excuse for putting off that exercise resolution. It’s time to start on your 2017 fitness program!
have a plan
“For the winter months, when people are inside more, there are a lot of things you can do around the house,” says Courtney Tucker, the group exercise manager and a personal trainer at the JCC St. Louis. “You can walk the stairs. Instead of hollering into the next room for someone, walk there. If I am going to be sitting doing work, I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes. Then I get up and move around for 10 or 15 minutes.” With or without exercise equipment, “a home workout can be as good as going to the gym, depending on how much time you put into it,” she says.
Homebound exercise also may lead to a more rigorous fitness plan, says Jessica Phillips, a certified exercise coach at The Exercise Coach. “This time of year we tend to focus on our loved ones and put our health on the back burner. To stay healthy and active throughout the year, you must start now. Schedule workouts like you would doctor’s appointments.”
Home workouts should be a prelude to more serious exercise at the gym, advises Kelly Hanser, a personal trainer at the Center of Clayton. “There are so many distractions at home—dogs, children, computers—you can’t give 100 percent to your workout. I know plenty of people who have home gyms but can’t find time to use them, yet they can find time to get to the gym.”
keep it simple
“Any home equipment people have—bikes, ellipticals, treadmills —can be great tools, but you don’t need to have those in order to stay active in the winter,” Tucker says. “Simple house chores like vacuuming, sweeping, mopping and cleaning out closets can be exercise. Chores keep you moving. Lifting boxes and moving things are forms of strength training.”
Light weights are helpful, “but you don’t need any equipment to do exercises. There are sit-ups, crunches, variations of planks, push-ups, squats, lunges, jumping jacks—all kinds of things you can do with a little bit of space,” she says. “Getting your arms up and moving will fatigue your muscles and increase your heart rate.”
And don’t feel pressure to do all your exercising at once. Fitness around the house can be gained in bite-size chunks. “You don’t need an hour of commitment at one time,” Tucker says. “Ten minutes here and there throughout the day adds up.”
Learn little tricks to tag exercise onto mundane activities, Phillips says. “During commercial breaks on TV, walk up and down the hallway instead of watching the commercials. Take breaks to just walk around your home or business. When you are running errands, park further away so you walk longer distances. When you are in a building, take the stairs instead of the elevator.”
Tucker adds, “Having a plan makes a huge difference. If you commit to walking for 20 minutes or running up and down the stairs for 5 minutes at 10 a.m., that deadline can make you hold yourself accountable.” Hanser agrees. “Write a schedule and put down that you are going to work out for 30 or 45 minutes,” she says.
hydration, nutrition
“Hydration can be a bigger issue in the winter,” Tucker says. “In the summer, we are hot and sweating, and that makes us want to drink water. When you are cold, you don’t want to reach for a cold drink, but your water intake needs to stay at the same level it would be in the summer.” And don’t forget nutrition, Hanser stresses. “Nutrition plays a huge part in weight loss or muscle gain, whichever you are looking to get. It’s about making a complete lifestyle change.”
As sunshine and warmth return, it may be easier to venture out to the gym—and you’ll be ready for a change of routine, always a good thing for fitness.