Working Well :: Healthy Lifestyles and Natural Weight Loss Information

Working Well
by author Melissa Carr, BSc, DTCM, RAc, RTCMP

You’re sitting at your desk, slouching at the end of a tiring day, stressed about deadlines and staring at a computer screen, but focusing instead on your headache, stiff neck, sore hands, or aching back.

This situation is a common one for many. In fact, according to a 2000 Integra Survey–a random telephone survey of 1,305 working adults in the United States–62 percent of respondents routinely ended their day with work-related neck pain, 44 percent reported sore eyes, 38 percent complained of aching hands, and 34 percent reported difficulty in sleeping because they felt too stressed.

You could suffer until your next holiday or you could quit your job, but neither of these options is likely suitable. Happily, wellness practices, such as those employed in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can be instrumental in helping to cope with the stresses at work.

Decompress the Stress

TCM identifies seven emotions as injurious to our health: extreme anger, joy, worry, pensiveness, sadness, fear, and shock. While it is important to feel each of these emotions at appropriate times, when the emotion is especially intense or is felt over a prolonged period of time–particularly if it is not expressed–it can cause illness.

Be aware of your stress level when you eat. When the body is under stress, it tends to act like an overheated engine, so it is best to avoid spicy, hot foods. Stay away from greasy, heavy, fatty, and sugary foods which are also difficult to digest, and eat regular meals–away from your desk.

Be Alert–Don’t Overexert

You might not think that sitting at your desk all day is overexerting yourself, but it can, in fact, cause many physiological problems. Some muscles are underused, while others may be used too much.

A classic TCM book The Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine (Dolphin Books, 1977) states that excessive use of the eyes injures the blood (which nourishes and supports mental activity), excessive sitting injures the muscles, and excessive standing injures the bones. Thus, if you stare at a computer all day, you should consciously blink more often and look away periodically. If you sit all day, be sure to get up and move. If you stand all day, sit whenever you can, if only for a couple of minutes at a time.

Relieve the Pressure

If you feel pain and discomfort during the day, acupressure can be used to help relieve the tension. Try massaging sore shoulders and neck. For your lower back, try making a loose fist and lightly knocking on the muscles beside the spine.

More Help

When these solutions are not enough, seek treatment from a professional. Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years to treat pain and other illnesses. Chinese herbs, nutrition, tui na massage, and other TCM treatments can be used as well for pain and stress management.

Talk to your employer about a workplace wellness program. Mention that Health Canada’s website reports a return-on-investment of $3.40 for each corporate dollar invested in wellness initiatives. You and your employers can create a workplace to be well in.

Your Heavy Head

If you don’t believe that office work can be physically demanding, think about the amount of work that your neck muscles must do while you sit at your desk looking down at your papers or toward a poorly placed computer screen. The average head weighs about the same as a light bowling ball–about 12 pounds–and comprises approximately eight percent of your total body weight. Try holding that weight in an extended hand all day! Posture is the key: Your head is meant to be in alignment with your spine so your neck muscles do not need to be continually active.

Acupressure for Headaches

Try relieving a tension headache with one of the following methods:

Rub the temples.
Stroke over the eyebrows from the centre out.
Massage the tender spots at the base of the skull.
Knead the tenderest point inthe fleshy part on the back of your hand between the thumb and index finger.

Melissa Carr, BSc, DTCM, RAc, RTCMP, is a doctor of TCM with a focus on pain and injury management and workplace wellness. Reach her at 604-783-2846 or through activetcm.com.

Source: alive #276, October 2005

Stress-Busting Herbs
Strengthen your adrenal glands. It's the key to dealing with whatever life throws your way. The person who claims not to be affected by stress is either dead, living an illusion, or lying.

Working Well
We spend most of our lives at work. We make friends, network with colleagues and plan our retirement years based on our active lives in the workplace.

Surviving Stress
Have you ever pushed yourself for so long that you feel as though your resources are depleted and there is little or nothing left to draw on? When stress becomes as much a part of everyday life as breathing and eat.

Put the Ho Ho Ho Back into Your Holidays
Depression is sometimes a component of the Christmas season for a variety of reasons. Typical responses to the emotional overload of the holiday rush are overeating, overdrinking and generally overdoing.

Timely Tips for Seasonal Stress
Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year. The winter holiday season is an intense time. Children become over excited from anticipation and then from sugary seasonal treats.

Get a Handle on Stress
O Excellent, I love long life better than figs. --William Shakespeare Stress is like the card that finally tips the balance on the house of cards, bringing everything crashing down. An immune system that is in top operating order will only be minimally affected by small stressors.

Stress Management
We've all felt our "fight or flight" response go into action--a sudden increase in blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, metabolism and blood sugar that helps us react quickly to stressful situations. When the danger is over our parasympathetic nervous system takes over with a compensating period of relaxation.

Keep Workplace Stress in Check
We've all been there--stress-filled days at work, mounting chores at home and endless tasks on our to-do lis.

Acupuncture: A Practical and Proven Chinese Treatment
A Practical and Proven Chinese Treatment Just as some of us take our cars into the shop before parts break down, so can we go to an acupuncturist or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner for regular health maintenance.

Herbs for Hectic Times
Famous author and personality Deepak Chopra likes to tell a story about a medical doctor who had not had a check-up for 25 years. When the doctor finally was compelled to get a physical for life insurance requirements, a large dark spot was found on his lung. It was diagnosed as inoperable cancer. A couple of months later, the doctor was dead.

Life Acts, I React
Stress is a much-talked-about issue today. Current literature points to the impact it has on emotional, mental and physical health. I get very concerned when researchers tell me that stress is a main contributor in the development of both emotion- and age-related illnessess, including the dreaded cancer.

Holiday Stress Soooothers
Christmas holidays are supposed to be festive and a time of relaxation. Yet for many, this season is the most stressful time of the year. Planning meals, vacations, buying presents, and everything else can wear the mind and body down.

Avoiding Adrenal Exhaustion
Driven to be superwoman at home and on the job, you can overtax your hormones and eventually suffer burnout. But there is hope and hel.

Developing Your Personal Nutrient Plan
Each of us would do well to become more educated about our body and then develop a personalized vitamin-mineral program to suit.

The Source of Your Stress
Occupational noise is annoying, distracting and inhibits productivity, essentially impacting the bottom lin.

Young and Stressed
Often unnoticed and untreated, stress is a huge factor in the health of Canadian children.

Acupuncture for Pets
Pets are an important part of our families, and it's heart-wrenching to see any member of the family in pain.

Undress Your Stress
Do you ever find yourself saying, "I'm so stressed"? Well, what does this mean exactly? Stress is a very broad and often misunderstood concept.

Stories We Live By
For many people, the word "trauma" triggers images of terrible events afflicting the innocent: abuse, the death of loved ones, war, or natural disasters. The consequences of trauma on emotional health are well known and include mild to severe depression, anxiety, and panic attacks to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Don't "Waist" Time!
Most people these days will tell you that they are stressed. Chronic stress has been linked to North America's five leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung disease, accidents and cirrhosis of the live.

The Science of Mood Foods
Why is it that the majority of diets seem to go down in a hail of cookies and ice cream? The answer usually lies in our inherited biochemistry. Back in the good old days (a few thousand years ago), food was not as plentiful as it is today.

Holiday Stress
Ho, ho, hold the stress. The coming holiday season is supposed to be full of laughter but many find it full of stress. It has been estimated that about three-quarters of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related problems..

The Stress and Diabetes Link
Diabetes is a disease of civilization. It is a disease of unhealthy eating patterns, low levels of physical activity, and chronic emotional stress. Canada's aboriginal people provide a dramatic example. A few decades ago, diabetes was virtually unknown among the Cree nation of northwestern Ontario.

Beating Christmas Stress
In an infamous experiment in the 1960s, lab researchers wanted to examine effects of stress on rats. First, they took an individual rat, isolated it, then injected it with increasing doses of amphetamines until, in the name of science, the poor rat died. Next, researchers did the same to a group of rats in a confined area..

Stress Busters
Children often feel our stress at this time of year, so what can we do to lessen its effects? We don't want stressed-out children to bottle up their emotions, creating emotional and physical effects. You can help your children develop skills to express and release their feelings to maintain good emotional health..

Stressed Out
If you're like so many other people, you're stressed from the moment you wake up until you hit the sack some 16 hours late.

Stress Less
The alarm goes off at 7 am. You manage to drag your body out of bed. Once you've been jolted awake by that large cup of coffee, the mental list begins in your head. Before you realize it, tension mounts and you've worked yourself up into a frenzy..

Suffer Less From Stress
Do you feel stressed a lot of the time? Maybe you're convinced that nothing can be done, except moving to a remote island and throwing away your cell phone. Wait a minute, though.

Stress and Your Health
Burnout has been defined as a state of mental and/or physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. The physical toll of burnout can be very high, yet it is often overlooked as a key influence on health.

Report from a Hot Flush Queen
If you're a Hot Flush Queen like me, stress reduction and bio-identical hormone therapy may bring relief from menopausal symptoms, as I reported in the September issue of alive.

De-Stressing Our Children This Holiday Season
When we think of the holiday season, weconjure up images of beautifully wrappedpresents, out-of-town relatives, and delicious food. Yet, even though the holidayseason can be filled with joy and abundance, this time of year can also bequite stressful for adults and children.

Cosmetic Acupuncture
Our culture thrives on beauty, so it's no wonder many people are going to great lengths in a quest to look younger. Canadians spend an increasing number of dollars every year on invasive and unsafe procedures such as cosmetic surgery, collagen injections, and botox.

Rough Day?
Time to relax and rejuvenate. Right? So why are we still feeling stressed? Medical science now knows that stress is a contributing factor in virtually all disease.

Triumph Over Stress
Nicole stumbled into my examination room clutching her stomach. She'd had severe abdominal cramps for over two weeks. Tense and anxious, Nicole was convinced that she had developed some terrible disease like cancer.

Stress and Your Metabolism
Is everyone stressed these days? According to Kenneth Pelletier, PhD, author of Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer (Stanford University Press, 2002), between 80 and 90 percent of all illnesses are linked to stress, and 75 to 90 percent of all visits to the doctor are for stress and anxiety-related concerns.

Relaxation Response
Fifty-one percent of Canadians are overweight and 59 percent report feeling moderately stressed. Coincidence? Nutritional psychologist Marc David doesn't think so. In his book The Slow Down Diet (Healing Arts, 2005), David suggests that if we want to burn calories at maximum levels, we may need to calm our stress levels.

Rest Assured
Many of us have become so driven and overwhelmed by the demands of work and life that we tend to place a low priority on taking a regular time out to self-heal and regenerate.

Conception's Catch-22
We've all heard of couples who spend years undergoing all manner of tests, procedures, and infertility treatments in trying to conceive their first child. Many achieve their miracle through adoption-and then successfully conceive. Researchers have been studying the stress/fertility paradox and some are now suggesting a link.

Acupuncture for Migraine
If you suffer from migraine headaches, you know how debilitating the pain and discomfort can be. According to Statistics Canada, one in every 12 Canadians-more than two million people-regularly get migraines. These throbbing headaches, which can affect every aspect of life, may be prevented and treated with acupuncture.

The Role of Reflexology in Wellness
Reflexology is an effective way to relieve stress. Ask anyone who has experienced reflexology; they will describe how it relaxed them, and they often go on to describe the benefits that resulted.

Five Steps from Fine to Fabulous
We all have the power to influence our health and well-being through the choices we make every day.

Food and Mood
The relationship between food and mood is mediated by both psychological and physiological factors. It is clear that food can influence mood while mood can influence food choices. It is a complex relationship and based on taste, experience, expectations, culture, stressors, and nutritional status.

Workplace Wellness
You come home sore and aching after a day at the office. Do you wonder why-since your work involves nothing more physical than opening and closing your desk drawers and pushing yourself from your workstation at the end of the day?

Antiaging or Healthy Aging?
With the growing number of baby boomers entering their golden years, interest in antiaging is at an all-time high. Although we may not be able to stop the aging process, healthy aging can help minimize the effects of time by optimizing our health along the way.

Natural Stress Reduction
Casein hydrolysate and magnolia bark, two supplements with a sedative effect, may help decrease the release of the body's stress hormones and fight the battle against belly fat. Fat cells in the belly have three times the number of stress hormone receptors and therefore attract three times the amount of stored fat to the region.

Fish oil reduces disease risk in animal offspring

Stress management for diabetes control

Acupuncture for cancer patients

Broken Heart Syndrome

Say It with Organic Flowers

Soak Up the Relaxation
Long-term emotional or environmental stresses can be hard on the body, mind, and emotions. Quality essential oils have powerful yet subtle effects on emotions and can help relieve stress and anxiety when used in baths, massages, or in aromatherapy diffusers.

10 Healthy Ways to Restore Inner Balance and Calm
The children are getting on your nerves, nothing's going right at work, and it looks like it's going to stay that way until your holiday. You're feeling stressed, like nearly half of Canadians (45 percent) who told Ipsos Reid in a 2006 survey that their stress levels are out of control.

Food and Mood
Food affects mood, influencing the production of neurotransmitters in the brain. Our moods, in turn, affect our desires for certain foods.

L-theanine
Job pressures, family responsibilities, financial pressures, traffic, and time management are just a few of the stressors most of us face on a daily basis. Prescriptions for drugs that are supposed to improve anxiety, mood, and sleep are at an all-time high.

Adapting to Stress
What is stress, exactly? Simply put, it is any change to our normal physiology that can be brought on by a stressor-anything from sudden, traumatic experiences to smaller, ongoing pressures that seem ncontrollable. Even joyous occasions are associated with a degree of stress.

A Day in the Life...
She jumps out of bed; rushes to the bath; notices her belly, avoids the scales; dashes to the kitchen, no time for breakfast, then out the door; grabs a coffee on her way to work; up the elevator; straight to her desk, face like flint, no time for hello, too much to do.

Yes, You can Care too Much...
A family caregiver, according to the Caregivers Association of BC (caregiverbc.ca), is anyone who provides unpaid care and support to an adult friend or family member who is disabled, chronically ill, frail, or elderly.

It's Your Life to Live
From crackberries to virtual reality, North Americans are addicted to speed, technology, distraction, achieving, and packing as much as possible into each day. While this lifestyle offers excitement, it does not leave much room for fulfillment, contentment, or health on any meaningful level.

A Season of Stress
It was the Hungarian-born researcher Hans Selye who first began piecing together the puzzle of human stress in the 1930s.

Planning to Ward Off Post-Season Blahs
No one could ever accuse me of being a grinch-the weeks and days leading up to December 25th are a flurry of shopping, baking, and planning. The day itself is always a good time, too-though seldom exactly how I had envisioned it. But then it's over...

A Good Place to Work
Money matters-but it's not the only thing we care about. To ensure employee retention and satisfaction, enlightened employers know the value of developing a healthy workplace culture.

You May Be Physically Fit...But Are You Financially Fit?
Sue and Mark and their two children live an active, healthy lifestyle. Yet Sue suffers from insomnia and tension headaches and she's had a series of colds over the past year. Sue visited the doctor recently. The diagnosis? Stress. Seems that anxiety about the family's finances is making her sick.

Relax
As a working mom trying to balance all of my responsibilities, tension can feel overwhelming at times. That's when these five stress-busting exercises can really help. After 10 minutes invested in any one of these exercises, I usually feel relaxed and ready for anything. Try these quick, easy ways to combat stress and anxiety. You'll find they fit easily into even the busiest day.

Take a Deep Breath
Stress is pervasive in our frenzied lives, but how many of us know how to truly relax? To find the answer to this question, I talked to stress management guru Eli Bay and discovered that you don't have to be lying on a beach in the Bahamas to unwind.

Daily Spiritual Rituals
We've all known people who, despite the challenges and stresses they face in their daily lives, manage to project calmness and serenity that belie the surrounding maelstrom. Have you ever wondered how they achieve such tranquility?

Worrying Ourselves to Death
Have you ever tried counting your worries? While drafting this article I managed to squeeze in worries about my gobbled-down breakfast, my half-baked plans for the rest of the day, and what I can do to ease pain in various aching body parts-to name but a few ever-nagging worries.

Secrets of Self-Healing
Author Dr. Maoshing Ni is better known online and elsewhere simply as Dr. Mao. Together with his brother (heirs to a long lineage of Taoist masters in healing), Mao has several books to his credit and currently practises medicine at California's Tao of Wellness.

The Sandwich Generation
When Naz Deravian became a mom for the first time, she found herself embracing her new baby girl, Luna, and her new role, with utter joy. But the 36-year-old actor was also worried about her own mom, who at the time was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Stand Up to Back Pain
Most back and neck pain is not the result of an isolated injury but of ongoing stress. Our spines and back muscles work together to hold us up, but we must care for them to avoid strains, sprains, and soreness. Here are five strategies for banishing back pain, safely and naturally.

The Spectrum
Dean Ornish is a high-profile name where alternative medicine is concerned. A 30-year veteran of North America's controversial diet wars, Ornish is consistently lauded by the scientific community for his work in reversing heart disease and other illnesses through dietary and lifestyle changes.

Seasonal Stress-Busting
The holiday season can be a time of comfort and joy, but it can also be a time of stress as we cope with overeating, overspending, traffic jams, holiday travel, office parties, and family dramas.

Fertility
You've been trying and trying, but your dream of having a child just hasn't come true. Along with the longing to hold your own little one in your arms come some nagging questions.

Caregiver's Thrive Guide
Relieving stress helps you stay healthy as a caregiver—because if you’re not taking good care of yourself, you can’t take good care of others.

Stress Less
Many Canadians suffer from stress. It’s the root cause of numerous health challenges we experience. Finding ways to reduce stress is essential to improve our health and our quality of life.

Listening For Quiet
Urbanization is a fact of Canadian life. A full 80 percent of Canadians live in cities and metropolitan areas—up from 67 percent just 50 years ago. If this trend persists our sprawling cities will continue to eat up our valleys and forests and, with it, our quiet spaces.