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24.01.2022 #LMWeek Monday is lifestyle medicine ‘Eat More Plants’ day. Each day this week, we’ll feature a different healthy lifestyle behaviour. All aspects of healthy lifestyle are necessary for us to truly thrive, but we consider nutrition the keystone get the nutrition right and you are likely to find that some of the other elements tend to fall into place naturally. The right nutrition, according to lifestyle medicine organisations, is a whole food, plant predominant diet. We s...upport this position any step towards more whole plant foods brings health benefits but ‘plant predominant’ has no boundary and is open to abuse, particularly in Australia, where animal ‘protein’ seems to be winning the diet wars. Few health professionals seem to understand that the problem with including animal products in the diet is not just the saturated fat, cholesterol, inflammation, excess protein etc but the displacement of calories which could otherwise have come from a far greater volume of whole plant foods, rich in dietary fibre, prebiotics and protective phytonutrients. Understanding calorie density is the key to thriving on a whole food plant-based diet, and it helps people understand the impact ‘that little bit’ of animal food has on a ‘plant predominant’ diet. We cover calorie density in our 4-part webinar series. The next series begins next Sunday 6th June at 3pm (AEST). Details - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/plant-base// #LifestyleMedicine #LMWeekAustralasia
21.01.2022 #LMWeek Friday is lifestyle medicine ‘Stay Calm’ Day. We need to build resilience to the stress in our lives to reduce the adverse impact of chronic stress on physical health and well-being. It’s not about eliminating stress altogether ‘good stress’, challenging tasks that don’t overwhelm us, result in a positive physiological response and promote cognitive vitality and well-being. It’s the frustrating, disempowering and persistent bad stress that we need to deal with. CBT ...techniques can be used to change our perspective on day-to-day stresses and hence change our emotional and physiological responses. Strengthening each of the other lifestyle behaviours will strengthen resilience lifestyle factors support each other. Regular mindfulness practices, meditation and yoga can help us unwind and build a calm focus, so we get less wound up to start with. We recommend incorporating some resilience building practices into your life. There are some good apps available for meditation and mindfulness practices that require no prior experience or special ability. #LifestyleMedicine #LMWeekAustralasia
21.01.2022 #LMWeek Tuesday is lifestyle medicine ‘Love More’ Day which is about social connectedness. Positive social relationships are essential for physical as well as mental health. Loneliness and social isolation have been found to be strong risk factors for heart disease, for example. Many people will be doing it tough in Melbourne’s current Covid lockdown. It’s difficult to maintain healthy lifestyle behaviours without the support of like-minded people, particularly in relation to... food, which is so much a part of our social interactions. Many regions of Australia now have ‘Plant Powered’ groups (following the concept of ‘pods’ from the PlantPure Nation documentary). Visit the Support page of our website to find your Plant Powered group and other support networks - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/going-plan// #LifestyleMedicine #LMWeekAustralasia
10.01.2022 #LMWeek Wednesday is lifestyle medicine ‘Sleep Well’ Day (night) when we encourage you to review your sleep habits. During sleep our brain is busy reinforcing new memories, regulating our anxieties, and cleansing itself of potentially damaging waste. If there were a simple hack to reduce our need for sleep then nature would have found it to reduce the time we spend in a vulnerable and inactive state. Poor quality or inadequate sleep has adverse effects on the whole body, ra...ising blood pressure, reducing carbohydrate tolerance, increasing stress hormones, even increasing cancer risk. We know from personal experience that it can be hard to get a good night sleep, but there are evidence-based strategies that can improve your chances: - Work with your circadian rhythm by sleeping and getting up at the same time every day, even on weekends. - Keep bed for sleep and intimacy and avoid activating your brain with electronic devices at bedtime. - Engineer your sleeping environment to be dark, quiet, and cool. - Move more during the day and you’ll sleep well at night. - Simulate the daily rhythm of light and dark that regulates the sleep hormone, melatonin. Get some bright, preferably outdoor, light during the day, and reduce bright light exposure in the evening. Our modern LED lighting and display screens give off a lot of the blue light which suppresses melatonin production. (Malcolm is wearing his blue blocking glasses as we post this). - Reduce caffeine intake, even many hours before sleep. Alcohol causes reduced sleep quality. We recommend this Rich Roll Podcast interview with Matthew Walker and look forward to reading (or listening to on Audible) his book 'Why We Sleep' - https://www.richroll.com/podcast/matthew-walker-600/ #LifestyleMedicine #LMWeekAustralasia
10.01.2022 #LMWeek Thursday is lifestyle medicine ‘Keep Moving’ Day. Physical activity benefits every aspect of health: muscular function, bone and joint health, glycaemic control and metabolic health, cardiovascular risk, cancer risk, digestive function, and mental health. It does not take much to better a sedentary lifestyle. But why stop there: building greater aerobic fitness, strength and agility will give you extra functional capacity for work, life and play, and build a fitness ...reserve to draw upon should you be laid up with illness or injury. The National guidelines recommend a minimum of 2 hr of moderate activity per week including strength/resistance twice weekly. We suggest at least 30-60 minutes of activity on most days. Don’t forget the strength training to counter age related muscle loss and osteoporosis. Nothing beats exercise for maintaining bone density. Joining an exercise group or setting yourself a specific weekly activity goal can help motivation. For those with health problems, we suggest a medical clearance and professional assistance from a physiotherapist or exercise physiologist. Find activities that you enjoy, engage fully in what you are doing, and feel empowered. #LifestyleMedicine #LMWeekAustralasia
