Stress Management
De-Stress to Look Younger: Top Health Apps That Beat Plastic Surgery
Cathy fit an all-too-typical patient profile: beyond stressed, cursing at the bathroom scale, and spending far too much money on toxic beauty products. During our second visit, Cathy complained that the repercussions were showing up around her face with sagging, wrinkled skin. Then she dropped the bomb: “I’m thinking about getting a little work done.”…
Read MoreViva Las Vagus: How Vagal Tone Impacts Your Health (and 10 Ways to Improve It)
Sometimes I wonder how long I’ve had a problem with my vagus nerve. Years? Decades? Vagus means “wanderer.” This nerve—the longest one in your body—wanders all over your body to important organs such as the brain, neck, ears, tongue, heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, kidney, spleen, and reproductive organs in women. The vagus…
Read MoreHow Stress Harms Your Health and Aging
Mary was a thirty-nine-year-old patient who visited me complaining she felt burned out. Her sixty-hour workweeks left her beyond fatigued, with frequent headaches, miserable colds, and raging tension that cut into her sleep. On top of that, she confessed that lately life had become meaningless, which she attributed to an early midlife crisis, and her…
Read MoreThe Disciplined Pursuit of Less and How It Applies to Hormones and Aging
The beginning of 2017 is almost over, so by now you can know where you stand on your New Year’s resolutions. For most people, the energy of resolutions has already waned by end of January. Personally, I get tired of resolutions as a tasked goal. Sometimes they work, but usually they don’t. Instead, I prefer what my friend Jo…
Read MoreWorried About Holiday Weight Gain? Try These 3 Tips
Women are often on edge about the bathroom scale between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Is there really any way to enjoy the holidays and avoid gaining weight? Hell, yes. This year, I’m going to clue you in on three—yes, just three—ways that you probably don’t know can help you stave off extra weight during the…
Read MoreThanksgiving: What Gratitude Does to Your Brain
Dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin walk into a bar . . . No, I’m not going to torture you with a bad joke. Instead, I want to discuss about what gratitude does to the brain. Recent research findings are a call to action for a sense of thanksgiving every day, not just the fourth Thursday in…
Read MoreCortisol & Cancer: How Lowering Stress Can Help Prevent Cancer
Every week on the news, online, in a magazine, we hear or read about the ever-elusive “cure for cancer.” So far, it’s still a far-off medical goal. While I think it’s important for us to keep researching treatment options for all the men and women affected by cancer, I also want people to focus on…
Read More5 FAQs about Yoga and Hormones: Yoga Changes Your Adrenaline, Cortisol, and Melatonin
After practicing for four decades, I believe yoga helps with that uncomfortable “rev” in the body. You probably know what I’m talking about – that sense that you don’t like something in the present moment, like your belly or butt or thighs, or the feeling that you should be doing more in your career, or that you deserve to be paid more than you are, or you somehow don’t measure up to an impossible standard.
Read MoreHeart Rate Variability: What It Is and Why It’s Important
When a doctor measures your heart rate, he or she will usually give you a number, typically between 60 and 90 beats per minute. Yet your heart does not beat like an unchanging metronome, i.e., the intervals vary between one heartbeat and the next. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the beat-to-beat variation in consecutive heartbeats…
Read MoreStuck at the Corner of Fat and Unhappy? The Intersection of Dating and Hormones
All the single ladies (all the single ladies) All the single ladies, now put your hands up – Beyonce, Put a Ring On It Is your hand in the air right now? Does the thought of dressing up, meeting someone new, and making sparkling conversation sound next to impossible? If yes, I’d put all my…
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