In common with all other life forms, the human body goes through a natural cycle of decay. This normal deterioration is inevitable, but need not necessarily be uncomfortable. Discomfort and a poor quality of life mean that ageing is taking place too quickly. Ageing is a process; being old is a sentence. The ageing process should be like of brandy: the better the ageing process is managed, the better the end product. (more…)
Sleep is a great healer. It regenerates your body, rejuvenates your skin, clears emotional conflicts, and helps you think and work at top efficiency. It is another form of relaxation essential to health and beauty. In many ways, though, sleep remains a mystery in spite of all the elaborate research that has been done into how and why we sleep and dream.
Most of the common notions about sleep are untrue. For instance, sleep is not some kind of “little death” from which you are rescued every morning. Nor do you go to bed to fall deeper and deeper into sleep until you reach bottom somewhere after midnight, after which you come closer and closer to consciousness until you finally awaken. Also, deep sleep is not any more beneficial than light sleep. And we do not necessarily need the obligatory eight hours a night to remain well and fresh- looking. (more…)
Not only are your eyes the truest of all physical reflections of who you are, they are also an ageless expression of beauty. For there can be something breathtaking about the eyes of an old woman, as there is about the eyes of a child. Like any other part of your body, to be beautiful your eyes have to be healthy, and to be healthy they need care.
But the care they need is quite different from what we are usually led to believe. For eyes are not the delicate, poor, vulnerable things we have been taught they are—overworked, constantly struggling against inadequate light and overstrain, and longing for some well-deserved tinted glasses to rest them. Far from it. Your eyes are tough. They were made for use, and the more you use them, to read and to see with, and the more you exercise the muscles around them, and the more they are exposed to the full spectrum of natural sunlight, the healtheir and more beautiful they will be. And not only will your eyes benefit, so will the rest of your body. (more…)
The reduction of certain chemicals (biogenic amines) in the brain is thought to be related to depressive mood. There is some evidence that the level of biogenic amines falls in the ageing brain,which could increase susceptibility to depression.
As the brain gets older, more and more brain cells die. At the same time the arteries may get narrower, so that the blood and oxygen supply to the brain is limited. The brain becomes more vulnerable when the oxygen supply is reduced because of a respiratory condition, or when diet is inadequate. These and other factors may be related to longer reaction times, more inflexibility, increasing caution and decreasing ability to adjust to new situations, all of which are commoner as you get older. But it is important not to assume that these effects are physically caused, as depression causes the same effects and is changeable. The loss of the capacity to adjust to new situations may make any changes, such as moving house, much harder than before the advent of old age. (more…)
The brain consists of about ten thousand million neurones, ornerve cells, each cell having the capacity to conduct a tinyelectric charge to others, via seven or eight thousand interconnections. The tail of each cell spreads into thousands offibres, each ending with a swelling called a terminal button.The electric charge passes from the head of the cell to the tail,and ends in the thousands of terminal buttons. Between theterminal buttons of one cell and the head of the next cell aremicroscopic gaps called synapses. The electric current can not jump the synapse, but instead causes a change in the chemicals within the synapse, this change then causing a current to start in the head of the next cell. These chemicals are called neurotransmitters because they effectively transmit electrical charge from one neurone to the next. A few neurotransmitters have been isolated. They are divided into two groups, called the monoamines and the catecholamines. (more…)
If you have a positive attitude to ageing, you are far more likely to be fulfilled and content in your later years. The following points may be helpful.
Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is like banging a TV set when it does not work. However, the crudity of whamming a 100-volt electric shock through someone’s brain does not take away the fact that this technique has saved people’s lives when all else has failed. As with every new and seemingly successful physical treatment of mental ailments, such as tranquillizers and anti-depressants, ECT has a history of gross overuse. It has also been misused in some institutions as a form of control or punishment.
ECT produces a temporary epilepsy. It was started on the theory (later found to be untrue) that epilepsy and schizophrenia never co-exist. It was therefore used to treat schizophrenia but with no success beyond a significant placebo effect. However, the technique was also used on people in severe depressive states with incredible results. In a few weeks people who were expected to remain in hospital for months or even years were recovering from the blackest and whitest of depressions. (more…)
This is a recently classified disorder in which people have frequent episodes of compulsive overeating, but unlike those with bulimia, they do not purge their bodies of food. During these food binges, they often eat alone and very quickly, regardless of whether they feel hungry or full. They often feel shame or guilt over their actions. Unlike anorexia and bulimia, binge-eating disorder occurs almost as often in men as in women.
This increasingly common condition is one of the major causes of infertility, and causes many women much distress and pain. The endometrium is the soft tissue that lines your uterus. Normally, (more…)
The brain emits various electrical patterns at various times of the day. When you are awake and in a busy thinking state, your brain emits what is known as beta waves. As you go through the various stages of sleep, your brain emits different electrical patterns as follows:
1. Eyes barely move, muscle activity slows and you drift in and out of slumber. You can easily be woken at this stage. Often you are in alpha state (the same state as when meditating) just before falling asleep.
2. Eye movements almost stop, brain waves become slower. You will need to be prodded to be woken.
3. This is considered one of the stages of deep sleep. Extremely slow brain waves called delta waves can be measured in this phase.
4. No eye movements at all, muscles are relaxed, blood pressure is at its lowest and heart and breathing rate are at their slowest. This is the stage when the body repairs itself with the aid of hormones.
5. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) occurs approximately 70-90 minutes after you fall asleep and recurs throughout the night. Breathing becomes more rapid, irregular and shallow. The heart rate increases and blood pressure rises. Brain waves break up and begin to look like those measured when you are awake. However, while your brain is very active, your body does not move at all in this phase.
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