7 Ways to feel Better--even in the winter….
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Friday, 12-1-2006
7 Ways to feel Better--even in the winter….
Two of these are relatively well known. But five are new. And, it’s possible you may not know of any of them yet.
They all work. And several of them work almost immediately.
And others often work at least some within a week or so.
Many people would like to feel better this time of year.
Some find the holidays at bit or a lot too stressful. And, not only do some people get tired of bad weather & gloomy skies, some people have physically caused changes, SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, from being deprived of sunlight.
If you feel even a little bit blue or down this time of year even when your family & holidays are going well or at least OK, this set of things may help.:
1. For cases or suspected cases of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, doctors prescribe light therapy for people to use first thing in the morning with a bright full spectrum light.
But you don’t need to see a doctor to try it. Whether it’s your bathroom or kitchen or the room where you read the morning paper or the room where you read the news online, you can get a full spectrum light bulb that’s bright & just use it for 30 to 45 minutes first thing in the morning.
Another way to get full spectrum light that works even better you might not believe. But it works great.
If you live or work in an area that is safe to walk in, both weather wise & in terms of personal safety, try taking a 20 minute walk most days at Noon.
In the winter, it may look gloomy, be overcast, or even be raining or snowing some. But, it may shock & surprise you to know that a light-meter shows that the actual sunlight you are getting is considerably MORE than you can get with the inside light therapy we just covered.
One man tried this during a very rainy time when everyone around him was getting depressed --AND staying inside at Noon. Everyone else was still depressed. But after a few days of walking at Noon, he felt fine. So he kept doing it & continued feeling fine. But no one else did what he did; & they all stayed depressed.
The reason more people don’t do this is that everyone’s eyes automatically adjust the large light intensity by sharply narrowing the pupils in their eyes. And, of course, there really is less sunlight inside. So they don’t realize how much actual sunlight is still coming through & available to help them feel better.
And, here’s the new way to deal with wintertime low sunlight.:
Recent reports show that the optimum intake of vitamin D, ideally as D3, may be closer to 2,000 iu than the 400 iu in most multivitamins.
This new optimum level is said to keep your bones strong & help prevent osteoporosis; & to cut the number of most cancers by a good bit. Stronger bones & less cancer make it worthwhile to take as it’s quite inexpensive.
In addition, it’s been reported that, people who get vitamin D intakes that approach this optimum stop having or getting winter-time SAD.
Apparently, one of the biochemical causes of SAD is that when you get less sunlight, your body makes less vitamin D; & vitamin D is needed in certain quantities to keep your brain from developing depression in some physical or biochemical way.
Some sources say that taking more vitamin D than 2,000 iu is desirable; & others say it can be harmful, particularly if you do it continuously over several months.
However, 2,000 iu daily seems likely to be safe. At the very least, taking a multivitamin with 400 & a D3 capsule with another 400, for a total of 800 iu should be safe all year.
And, it may well pay you to take an extra two or three D3 capsules for a total of 1200 to 1600 during midwinter &/or gloomy rainy weather.
(This presumes you get some vitamin D from your food. Milk is often fortified with some vitamin D.)
2. People living in places where they often eat an abundance of wild caught fish & seafood rarely get depressed.
And, I think such studies of large populations are even more reliable evidence than double blind studies since the numbers of people are so many times larger.
Even better, people who are depressed, other than those who are severely depressed due to brain injury or something of that kind, are reported to stop being depressed if they take one to three capsules of purified fish oil a day.
It also helps to eat wild caught fish & seafood. But these can have some mercury & other pollutants, so two or three times a week is better overall than once or twice a day.
Also, at this time virtually all farmed fish has far fewer Omega 3 oils & considerably more pollutants than wild caught.
So, for a robust supply of the Omega 3 oils that do the job, purified fish oils are best. Most of the better ones also add a lemon or orange flavor that makes them taste way less fishy than you might imagine if you haven’t tried them yet.
And, there’s more good news. Improvement from boosting your intake of Omega 3 oils usually happens within a few days.
Even the antidepressant drugs that work for a particular person take weeks before you
know if they’ll help.
In addition, there are reports that the Omega 3 oils in these foods & purified fish oil supplements help prevent some kinds of heart disease & joint pain.
3. Exercise eliminates mild depression more reliably than the best antidepressant drugs.
There are so many reasons for this, we’ll cover them in another post in a few days.
The studies on this are very clear. Some people may need more than exercise to feel better.
But the studies show that exercise works so well & so consistently, it were a drug, the doctors who knew the studies would always prescribe it first & recommend it not be discontinued if more steps are needed later.
(Exercise is one of the best of these tips, particularly if you do it all year long.
For our other articles that can help you get into & keep doing effective exercise, see our blog post on Thursday, 11-16-2006 at http://www.iehealth.blogspot.com/ )
These first 3 steps all work in large part because they help your brain to work more optimally; & they have physical & biochemical effects.
But you can also feel better by literally upgrading your internal software & thinking better.
Some time ago researchers began to discover that people who get depressed easily or stay depressed think in certain ways. And, people who virtually never get depressed & are very resilient think in very different ways—in many ways the reverse of the thinking style that leads to depression.
The number one pioneer & developer of this field is Martin Seligman, PhD.
(His book, Learned Optimism, outlines what he found. And, Dr Paul Stoltz later published his Adversity Quotient book that builds on & improves Dr Seligman’s work.)
Simply put, people who think bad things are permanent even when there is available evidence to the contrary & who have little faith that good things can be lasting or that they themselves can make good things happen, get depressed & all to often stay that way.
a) Conversely, people who think the reverse rarely get or stay depressed.
Superior analysis can improve the first part. Simply learning to watch for times you do it the wrong way & practice in examining the situation more carefully & with a more open mind, can make you feel better—sometimes a LOT better.
For example, if someone is nasty to you, what do you conclude?
Pessimists by this definition decide the person is hostile & is always like that.
Optimists by this definition decide the person is in a bad mood or having a bad day.
Virtually always the optimist has the more accurate view.
People do have bad days & get surly because of it or because they are in pain, etc. And, even people who do have a hostility problem & bad social skills are nice some of the time.
But, until recently, there hasn’t been much progress on helping people learn to do the second part. :
Everyone has disappointments; things they cannot control or know how to change; & has times everything they try doesn’t work. And, sometimes it’s much worse. Ouch.
So, it can be quite challenging at times to believe good things are permanent & your own actions can make good things happen.
These next four steps seem to work quite well.:
An online news article last weekend says that Dr Selgiman’s research staff is testing two methods that appear to work.
1. Simply list at least 3 things that happened to you each day; & think briefly about why they happened.
One woman who was asked to try this exercise thought it was too simple & easy to have any chance of working but wanted to feel better enough she tried it anyway for at least a week.
At the end of the assigned time, she felt so much better, she now does it every day. (She even found she slept better & had more enjoyable dreams.)
Apparently Seligman’s group has found this to be quite common in the people they’ve tested it on.
2. List or find five of your best strengths.
Then, each week pick one or more to use in a new way.
Seligman’s group reports this also works.
This one does make intuitive sense. When you use one of your strengths to do something, your chances of success go up by a factor ten or more. So, by simply using your strengths more often, you’ll make more good things happen. That certainly will brighten your outlook.
3. It’s been separately reported that therapists who help people to work on building a worthwhile life find their patients feel much better after they’ve worked on it for a while.
This takes longer is & is clearly more work. But many similar studies show it works well.
4. In building a worthwhile life, some of the things you need to do to achieve it can be difficult; feel harder than you’d like; or simply not work well at first.
The other strategy that works is to find things you do to build a worthwhile life you actually are good at or enjoy; do those also; & notice how much you enjoy them.
Even if your long term goals have a wonderful upside, life is a journey. And, the people who enjoy the trip, are happier than those who don’t.
This also has the added payoff that it makes it much more likely you’ll keep working until you achieve your goals.
You have my best wishes that one or more of these things work for you also.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Friday, 12-1-2006
7 Ways to feel Better--even in the winter….
Two of these are relatively well known. But five are new. And, it’s possible you may not know of any of them yet.
They all work. And several of them work almost immediately.
And others often work at least some within a week or so.
Many people would like to feel better this time of year.
Some find the holidays at bit or a lot too stressful. And, not only do some people get tired of bad weather & gloomy skies, some people have physically caused changes, SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, from being deprived of sunlight.
If you feel even a little bit blue or down this time of year even when your family & holidays are going well or at least OK, this set of things may help.:
1. For cases or suspected cases of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, doctors prescribe light therapy for people to use first thing in the morning with a bright full spectrum light.
But you don’t need to see a doctor to try it. Whether it’s your bathroom or kitchen or the room where you read the morning paper or the room where you read the news online, you can get a full spectrum light bulb that’s bright & just use it for 30 to 45 minutes first thing in the morning.
Another way to get full spectrum light that works even better you might not believe. But it works great.
If you live or work in an area that is safe to walk in, both weather wise & in terms of personal safety, try taking a 20 minute walk most days at Noon.
In the winter, it may look gloomy, be overcast, or even be raining or snowing some. But, it may shock & surprise you to know that a light-meter shows that the actual sunlight you are getting is considerably MORE than you can get with the inside light therapy we just covered.
One man tried this during a very rainy time when everyone around him was getting depressed --AND staying inside at Noon. Everyone else was still depressed. But after a few days of walking at Noon, he felt fine. So he kept doing it & continued feeling fine. But no one else did what he did; & they all stayed depressed.
The reason more people don’t do this is that everyone’s eyes automatically adjust the large light intensity by sharply narrowing the pupils in their eyes. And, of course, there really is less sunlight inside. So they don’t realize how much actual sunlight is still coming through & available to help them feel better.
And, here’s the new way to deal with wintertime low sunlight.:
Recent reports show that the optimum intake of vitamin D, ideally as D3, may be closer to 2,000 iu than the 400 iu in most multivitamins.
This new optimum level is said to keep your bones strong & help prevent osteoporosis; & to cut the number of most cancers by a good bit. Stronger bones & less cancer make it worthwhile to take as it’s quite inexpensive.
In addition, it’s been reported that, people who get vitamin D intakes that approach this optimum stop having or getting winter-time SAD.
Apparently, one of the biochemical causes of SAD is that when you get less sunlight, your body makes less vitamin D; & vitamin D is needed in certain quantities to keep your brain from developing depression in some physical or biochemical way.
Some sources say that taking more vitamin D than 2,000 iu is desirable; & others say it can be harmful, particularly if you do it continuously over several months.
However, 2,000 iu daily seems likely to be safe. At the very least, taking a multivitamin with 400 & a D3 capsule with another 400, for a total of 800 iu should be safe all year.
And, it may well pay you to take an extra two or three D3 capsules for a total of 1200 to 1600 during midwinter &/or gloomy rainy weather.
(This presumes you get some vitamin D from your food. Milk is often fortified with some vitamin D.)
2. People living in places where they often eat an abundance of wild caught fish & seafood rarely get depressed.
And, I think such studies of large populations are even more reliable evidence than double blind studies since the numbers of people are so many times larger.
Even better, people who are depressed, other than those who are severely depressed due to brain injury or something of that kind, are reported to stop being depressed if they take one to three capsules of purified fish oil a day.
It also helps to eat wild caught fish & seafood. But these can have some mercury & other pollutants, so two or three times a week is better overall than once or twice a day.
Also, at this time virtually all farmed fish has far fewer Omega 3 oils & considerably more pollutants than wild caught.
So, for a robust supply of the Omega 3 oils that do the job, purified fish oils are best. Most of the better ones also add a lemon or orange flavor that makes them taste way less fishy than you might imagine if you haven’t tried them yet.
And, there’s more good news. Improvement from boosting your intake of Omega 3 oils usually happens within a few days.
Even the antidepressant drugs that work for a particular person take weeks before you
know if they’ll help.
In addition, there are reports that the Omega 3 oils in these foods & purified fish oil supplements help prevent some kinds of heart disease & joint pain.
3. Exercise eliminates mild depression more reliably than the best antidepressant drugs.
There are so many reasons for this, we’ll cover them in another post in a few days.
The studies on this are very clear. Some people may need more than exercise to feel better.
But the studies show that exercise works so well & so consistently, it were a drug, the doctors who knew the studies would always prescribe it first & recommend it not be discontinued if more steps are needed later.
(Exercise is one of the best of these tips, particularly if you do it all year long.
For our other articles that can help you get into & keep doing effective exercise, see our blog post on Thursday, 11-16-2006 at http://www.iehealth.blogspot.com/ )
These first 3 steps all work in large part because they help your brain to work more optimally; & they have physical & biochemical effects.
But you can also feel better by literally upgrading your internal software & thinking better.
Some time ago researchers began to discover that people who get depressed easily or stay depressed think in certain ways. And, people who virtually never get depressed & are very resilient think in very different ways—in many ways the reverse of the thinking style that leads to depression.
The number one pioneer & developer of this field is Martin Seligman, PhD.
(His book, Learned Optimism, outlines what he found. And, Dr Paul Stoltz later published his Adversity Quotient book that builds on & improves Dr Seligman’s work.)
Simply put, people who think bad things are permanent even when there is available evidence to the contrary & who have little faith that good things can be lasting or that they themselves can make good things happen, get depressed & all to often stay that way.
a) Conversely, people who think the reverse rarely get or stay depressed.
Superior analysis can improve the first part. Simply learning to watch for times you do it the wrong way & practice in examining the situation more carefully & with a more open mind, can make you feel better—sometimes a LOT better.
For example, if someone is nasty to you, what do you conclude?
Pessimists by this definition decide the person is hostile & is always like that.
Optimists by this definition decide the person is in a bad mood or having a bad day.
Virtually always the optimist has the more accurate view.
People do have bad days & get surly because of it or because they are in pain, etc. And, even people who do have a hostility problem & bad social skills are nice some of the time.
But, until recently, there hasn’t been much progress on helping people learn to do the second part. :
Everyone has disappointments; things they cannot control or know how to change; & has times everything they try doesn’t work. And, sometimes it’s much worse. Ouch.
So, it can be quite challenging at times to believe good things are permanent & your own actions can make good things happen.
These next four steps seem to work quite well.:
An online news article last weekend says that Dr Selgiman’s research staff is testing two methods that appear to work.
1. Simply list at least 3 things that happened to you each day; & think briefly about why they happened.
One woman who was asked to try this exercise thought it was too simple & easy to have any chance of working but wanted to feel better enough she tried it anyway for at least a week.
At the end of the assigned time, she felt so much better, she now does it every day. (She even found she slept better & had more enjoyable dreams.)
Apparently Seligman’s group has found this to be quite common in the people they’ve tested it on.
2. List or find five of your best strengths.
Then, each week pick one or more to use in a new way.
Seligman’s group reports this also works.
This one does make intuitive sense. When you use one of your strengths to do something, your chances of success go up by a factor ten or more. So, by simply using your strengths more often, you’ll make more good things happen. That certainly will brighten your outlook.
3. It’s been separately reported that therapists who help people to work on building a worthwhile life find their patients feel much better after they’ve worked on it for a while.
This takes longer is & is clearly more work. But many similar studies show it works well.
4. In building a worthwhile life, some of the things you need to do to achieve it can be difficult; feel harder than you’d like; or simply not work well at first.
The other strategy that works is to find things you do to build a worthwhile life you actually are good at or enjoy; do those also; & notice how much you enjoy them.
Even if your long term goals have a wonderful upside, life is a journey. And, the people who enjoy the trip, are happier than those who don’t.
This also has the added payoff that it makes it much more likely you’ll keep working until you achieve your goals.
You have my best wishes that one or more of these things work for you also.
posted by David at 1:08 PM
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