During December the Healthy Eastbourne Board, in partnership with the local NHS and Eastbourne Borough Council, is offering a series of free courses for local sports clubs and fitness instructors.

Heading for Fitness is aimed at improving awareness of the needs of people with mental health problems.

Barbara Hardcastle, health promotion specialist for mental wellbeing at East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust (PCT) said, "One in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives.

"As well as promoting general health, taking part in exercise can help to alleviate some of the symptoms of mental illness.

"Unfortunately, many of the people who have these difficulties feel anxious about joining local clubs and groups because they are unsure of how supportive staff will be.

"In Heading for Fitness we are helping to incr

ease understanding of mental well-being, tackle the stigma attached to mental illness and give local fitness instructors and sports clubs the confidence to welcome everyone to their groups."

Some people with mental health problems will soon be eligible for direct payments which they could use to purchase the services of exercise providers.

It is important that Sports Clubs and Fitness Instructors have been trained to offer the appropriate support.

The training is funded by the Care Services Improvement Partnership and is free.

Delivered by mental health workers, the workshops will give practical advice and guidance on how to develop a supportive exercise environment.

 

 

Ways2trade: The 10 Golden Rules of Trading

 

Gearing Up
Is Yoga Just Posing as a Good Workout?

While practitioners say the ancient art is good cardiovascular exercise, most fitness experts say that's a stretch. How to find a balanced routine

By NANCY KEATES
November 17, 2007; Page W1

Ask Bikram Choudhury, founder of the Bikram style of yoga, if yoga alone is enough of a cardiovascular workout, and he will laugh in your face: "My classes are so hard you use your heart more than if you run a marathon."

Ask Kenneth H. Cooper, the physician credited with coining the term "aerobics" and founding the aerobics movement back in the 1960s, and he says that while some types of classes can provide good exercise, yoga should be supplemented with at least 30 minutes of sustained, rhythmic cardiovascular training three times a week. "Don't make the mistake of only doing yoga," he warns.

READ MORE

 

• Is "just" doing yoga enough? Join a discussion.

• Plus, finding the right routine.

So who is right? Almost every study on yoga and fitness agrees that the practice has a significant positive impact on muscular strength, endurance and flexibility. But most find doing only yoga -- without mixing in some traditional aerobic workouts -- doesn't exercise the heart enough. That's a growing concern, with more than 14 million Americans practicing yoga and Tai Chi now, up from six million in 2000, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

Cardiovascular exercise -- defined as a repetitive, rhythmical exercise involving large muscle groups -- is widely viewed as increasing longevity by increasing the body's demand for oxygen and making the heart and lungs work harder. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, it should involve pushing your heart rate to 60% to 90% of its maximum, and keeping it there for 20 to 60 minutes at a time.

Seeing a horror movie can elevate the heart rate -- so a faster rate isn't proof of cardio conditioning. To see how efficiently the muscles are using oxygen, it is necessary to use a test-tube-like mask over the mouth of the person exercising to find how much oxygen is consumed. The term used to measure cardio respiratory fitness is VO2 -- or the maximum oxygen used by the body.

There haven't been many published, peer-reviewed studies of the cardiovascular effects of yoga. A 1989 Duke University study in the Journal of Gerontology found that those who participated in four months of aerobic exercise training produced an overall 11.6% improvement in peak VO2; in contrast, those who did the same amount of yoga experienced no change in cardio respiratory fitness. Co-author and Duke psychologist James Blumenthal says the yoga consisted mostly of stretching and stationary positions.

This was backed up by a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2005 that looked at "hatha" yoga, a term that includes a variety of yoga styles. In this study, it included "movements that are implemented in typical hatha yoga classes found in health clubs, fitness centers and studios," according to one of the authors. The results showed an expenditure of oxygen about twice as high as resting but almost half as high as walking.

"That's the same amount you'd expend scratching yourself," says Christopher Dunbar, director of the Laboratory of Applied Physiology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

BEYOND DOWNWARD DOG

 

There are dozens of companies now selling yoga products, from apparel to equipment. Below, a sampling for the studio and at-home workouts.

Indian Rosewood Yoga Block, $23
Made from the Shisham tree, these blocks, which help improve alignment during difficult poses, weigh 1.7 pounds. (barefootyoga.com )

Salubrion Meditation Seat, $49.95
At 2 pounds, the seat travels fairly easily and can assist in proper back alignment, and increase blood flow to the legs. (santosha.com)

Prana Eco Sticky Mat, $44
Designed to decompose over time -- or be recycled when it wears out -- the mat's antislip surface is useful for people who sweat a lot. (vickerey.com)

Whale Therapeutic Back Bench, $419.95
Designed for stretching the spine before and after yoga to help open up the spaces between vertebrae. (fourgates.com)

"You can be sweating and your heart can be beating fast, but that still doesn't mean you are getting an effective cardiovascular workout," says Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise, which funded a study that found no significant increase in cardiovascular health from yoga.

In contrast, a study published in Preventive Cardiology in 2001 and conducted by researchers at the University of California at Davis looked at 10 college students who attended four sessions a week: 10 minutes of pranayama (breathing exercises), 15 minutes of warm-ups, 50 minutes of asanas, or poses, and 10 minutes of meditation.

The students had an increase in "VO2max" (the amount of oxygen consumed at the person's highest level of activity) of 7% -- indicating a respectable level of aerobic activity. The yoga practiced in the study was a combination of different types of hatha and the warm-up exercises were mostly stretching, which wouldn't affect the VO2max, says UC Davis cardiovascular medicine professor Ezra A. Amsterdam.

It isn't hard to find anecdotal evidence that yoga helps people lose weight and feel fit. Honolulu attorney Jennifer Lyons, who typically does 90 minutes of Bikram yoga a day, says her practice has given her a sufficient foundation to swim a mile or to run or bike several miles with relative ease. Over the past few months in her studio, she's watched one woman go from more than 200 pounds and unable to do much more than to stay in the hot room, to moving down five dress sizes and being able to do about two-thirds of the postures.

Mr. Choudhury says modern medical science isn't developed enough to explain yoga's benefits, but he sees practical evidence every day.

Lewis G. Maharam, a sports-medicine doctor and medical director of the New York Road Runners, says measuring cardiovascular activity in yoga is tricky, as it varies depending on the instructor, the type of yoga and the individual's fitness level. But Dr. Maharam says no yoga provides the rhythmic aerobic exercise that is always beneficial: one that keeps the heart rate in the right range for at least a continuous 20 minutes.

There have long been funny yoga spinoffs like laughter yoga and sleep yoga. Now, to address the yoga-cardio dilemma, there's a bevy of so-called fusion yoga classes. Yoga Spinning combines indoor cycling with hatha stretches; Yoga Booty Ballet marries yoga with dance, and Ariel Yoga involves a trapeze.

Purists say these offshoots aren't really yoga -- they compromise the traditional, disciplined technique of the poses. Compromising poses -- and pushing participants to go for the burn and the intensity -- can also increase the risk of injury. Over the past three years, 13,000 Americans were treated in an emergency room or a doctor's office for yoga-related injuries, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Beth Shaw, founder of Yoga Fit in Torrance, Calif., teaches classes that combine aerobic exercises with yoga poses such as squats, rowing-chair pose and jumping forward with a ball between the legs. She believes the workouts provide at least 20 minutes of sustained cardiovascular activity. However, she still tells students to get an additional 30 minutes (running, brisk walking) at least three times a week. "Yoga should be a supplement," she says.

Dr. Cooper recommends people do all three exercises -- cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and relaxation/stress reduction. He suggests people in their 30s do 80% aerobic, 20% musculoskeletal; that moves to 70/30 for people in their 40s, 60/40 for those in their 50s, and 55/45 for those 60 and older (muscles start to atrophy when you age unless you exercise to keep muscle mass).

That means at least 30 minutes of continuous cardiovascular exercise three times a week and 20 to 30 minutes of musculoskeletal twice a week. Yoga, he says, falls into the musculoskeletal and relaxation categories.

Write to Nancy Keates at nancy.keates@wsj.com

Finding the Right Routine

We asked Kenneth Cooper, who designs fitness programs at his Dallas- and McKinney, Texas-based Cooper Wellness Clinic, to prescribe three sample weekly aerobic and yoga workout routines.

An out-of-shape, 50-year-old, busy male executive: To ease back into exercising, start with 15 minutes of brisk walking three times a week and two 15-minute sessions of yoga. To save time, do the yoga on the same days as the walking. Over six weeks, up the walking time to 30 minutes and the yoga to 20. Substitute light weightlifting for the yoga every other week.

A moderately fit 35-year-old: People who are in pretty good shape should push themselves to run two miles in less than 20 minutes, four times a week. Yoga is less important but still a great way to stretch and reduce stress, so Dr. Cooper recommends yoga at least twice a week.

A fit 75-year-old male or female: Building up muscle and stretching is important as you age, so Dr. Cooper recommends yoga and weightlifting three times as week to supplement 30 minutes of walking three times a week.

Informed Reader
November 16, 2007; Page B7

Wall Street Journal

MEDICINE

Rise of Homeopathy in India Adds to Health-Care Tensions

• THE LANCET -- NOV. 17
 

Homeopathic medicine's rising popularity in India has recently strained some of the tensions in that country's complex health-care system, says Raekha Prasad in the British medical journal the Lancet.

 

Homeopathic medicine, which claims to treat diseases with highly diluted doses of supposed remedies that cause the same symptoms as the disease, arrived with German missionaries nearly 200 years ago and caught on quickly. About 10% of the country relies solely on homeopathic medicine to treat illnesses. Homeopathic medicine has the third-largest of the Indian government's seven medical departments, of which only one is devoted to what Ms. Prasad calls modern medicine. Three quarters of India's homeopathic practitioners are trained by the state.

 

For the poor, homeopathic medicine is seen as a cheap, convenient and side-effect-free alternative to modern medicine, especially in rural areas where physicians are scarce. For the wealthy, it has become a fashionable treatment, giving rise to a private homeopathic industry in urban areas that is valued at about $165 million, but is rapidly increasing.

Despite such wide acceptance, homeopathy has caused some recent controversies. Many doctors trained solely in homeopathy have been giving their patients conventional drugs such as antibiotics, often in unconventional cocktails, which the Indian Supreme court considers quackery. Despite efforts to stop homeopaths practicing in areas they aren't qualified, about 90% of them are administering pharmaceutical drugs. Last month, a homeopathic doctor made national headlines for selling a homeopathic HIV cure for about $3,800 to hundreds of patients. He was prohibited from advertising the claim that he had cured 2,000 people of AIDS and is under investigation from medical authorities.

drinking water on empty stomach

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DRINK WATER ON
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KEEP THE WATER IN A COPPER VESSEL OVERNIGHT

 

It is popular in Japan today to
drink water immediately after waking up every morning. Furthermore,
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modern illnesses the water treatment had been found successful by a
Japanese medical society as a 100% cure for the following diseases:

 

Headache, body ache, heart system,
arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma,
TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea,
piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and
menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases.

 

METHOD OF TREATMENT

 

1. As you wake up in the morning
before brushing teeth, drink 4 x 160ml glasses of water

 

2. Brush and clean the mouth but do
not eat or drink anything for 45 minute

 

3. After 45 minutes you may eat and
drink as normal.

 

4. After 15 minutes of breakfast,
lunch and dinner do not eat or drink anything for 2 hours

 

5. Those who are old or sick and
are unable to drink 4 glasses of water at the beginning may commence by
taking little water and gradually increase it to 4 glasses per day.

 

6. The above method of treatment
will cure diseases of the sick and others can enjoy a healthy
life.

 

The following list gives the number
of days of treatment required to cure/control/reduce main diseases:

 

1. High Blood Pressure - 30 
days

 

2. Gastric - 10  days

 

3. Diabetes - 30  days

 

4. Constipation - 10  days

 

5. Cancer - 180 days

 

6. TB - 90  days

 

7. Arthritis patients should follow
the above treatment only for 3 days in the 1st week, and from 2nd week
onwards - daily.

 

This treatment method has no side
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It is better if we continue this
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Drink Water and Stay healthy and
Active.

 

This makes sense .. The Chinese and
Japanese drink hot tea with their meals ..not cold water. Maybe it is time
we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!! Nothing to lose, everything
to gain...

 

For more info and comments blog on   Ways2fitness

To avoid back pain.

Dear  All, We all sit in single position for the whole day in the office, and ride the bike all the way to our places.   As a result at night, while going to bed, many of us experience a slight pain in the back. DON'T IGNORE IT AT ALL.....this may lead to many further deceases and disabilities as well.... Don't be panic, just do the following exercise for 10 mins every morning and shoot off the back pain. Enjoy a healthy living.... Simple Exercises... to keep you fit and avoid back pain. Need not visit a gym, your home may be the ideal place.                     For more info Log on to    Ways2fitness