Women, Wellness and Health

What is wellness mean to you?

Wellness is when a healthy body and brain (mind) are in sync.

Many people think stress is just something external, the result of the trials and tribulations of life.

But whether a stressor is a minor change in your daily schedule or a life threatening event, it is actually the brain that determines when the body's internal equilibrium is disturbed. The external stressors in life, combined with disturbance in the brain's delicate biochemical balance, can actually make any internal pain we feel seem even worse, which has a significant impact on how we deal with external stressors.

And while aging and genetics cannot be altered, being weak and sick in your old age can be prevented. A lack of exercise, too much alcohol and a bad diet, together with stress, multiplies the damage on the body and brain.

Simply put, exercise is the number one antidote to fight stress, anxiety and depression.

First, exercise has a positive ripple effect on the body, brain and mind. Exercise improves the functions of everything, from your cardiovascular system, to your immune system, circular system, digestive system, muscular system, and skeletal system. Exercise does this, in part, by alleviating the physical and emotional feelings of stress. But it also works at a cellular level. When you exercise, your brain and body make molecular by-products that can end up damaging your cells. That is actually a good thing, because the repair mechanisms needed to fix those cells leave them hardier and in better shape for the future.

Think of it this way: Just like muscle cells, as brain cells get broken down and built up, they become more resilient. Exercise not only makes you feel great physically, it also helps your brain and mind deal better with stress, sparking brain growth and strengthening the connections between existing neurons.

Exercise not only makes you look and think better, it also gives you stronger bones and muscle. Exercise creates stronger connection between your brain cells and countless studies have shown that exercise helps grow additional brain cells in the hippocampus. That is an important area of the brain; it is where memory is stored and teaches you how to learn.

Now compare all of these positive impacts to the negative effects that stress has, particularly on your brain. Chronic stress deactivates the temporoparietal junction (TMJ) area of your brain, which is responsible for allowing us to communicate with others and awareness of their feelings and ideas.

PMS & Exercise

Exercise can fight both the physical and emotional PMS symptoms. Many of our clients complain about lack of energy, I informed them why exercise or any movement will create a positive effect both on the body and brain during PMS. Exercise can’t stop the hormonal changes woman go through during PMS, but it lessens the cascades of physical and emotional pain during PMS. PMS symptoms can affect woman differently, both emotional and physically, it can cause emotional and physical discomfort. For some woman PMS symptoms change from month to month if emotional stress, anxiety and depression fluctuate. Going to an emotional distress is difficult enough, and PMS can make it worst.

Normal life stress concert with PMS can make the physical and emotional pain hard to bare. Hormonal change due to PMS can be extreme and it can a have severe side effect. During ovulation progesterone level could go up ten times it’s normal levels, and estrogen can peak up to 5 times it’s baseline level. What most don’t know and not aware of that PMS also create a molecular change in the brain..

A 2004 study shows PMS can reduce the secretion of amino acid tryptophan in prefrontal cortex and bloodstream. The prefrontal cortex is where our thinking brain is. No wonder many clients complaining about not thinking straight or feel like being in fog while going through PMS. Tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin; low level of tryptophan hinders the production of serotonin.

Serotonin is one many neurotransmitters that create great feeling and also manage other neurotransmitters in the brain. Low levels of serotonin also hinders the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF). Low levels of BDNF can effect learning and concentration. Exercise is a great creator of serotonin, norepinephrine and endorphins.

PMS also hinders the balance between glutamate and gamma amino-butyric acid (GABA) balance in the brain. Ovulation Increase level of glutamate in the brain which can cause anxiety. Exercise has extensive effects on the glutamate-GABA system, which puts the brakes on excessive glutamate activity as Xanax does. Studies have shown that just one bout of exercise during PMS turns on the genes that produce GABA, which in turn balances the glutamate-GABA mechanism.

Many doctors prescribe drugs like (Xanax) to alleviate anxiety. Xanax has countless side effect witch includes: sleep apnea, allergies, head pain, low energy, blurred vision, muscle pain, muscle spasm, muscle weakness, dry mouth and liver dysfunction. When emotional and physical pain gets out of control, aggression can also take place. Your spouse or mate must understand what you are going through and becomes a solution not a nuisance. Exercise increases energy, self-esteem and vigor. Exercise ladies, Exercise!!!

Pregnancy & Exercise

Pregnant or getting pregnant? Do you want to healthy, happy baby with a higher IQ? And for added bonus do you want to experience a pregnancy with hormonal change you can handle? Then start moving! Most women benefit greatly from exercising throughout their pregnancies. For pregnant woman exercise can reduce the possibilities of getting diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia and depression that can develop during gestation period and harm both mother and baby.

Since beginning of time, woman were told to do as little as possible during pregnancy. Studies show over nearly 70 percent of pregnant woman are inactive, despite advances in modern medicine. During pregnancy, estrogen skyrockets to fifty times normal levels, and progesterone increases tenfold. Exercise tones the negative ripple effect of changing hormones.

In another study in Germany, researchers elect to test whether exercise would have any influence on the painful process of labor. 84% of woman who used the stationary bike in the labor room for twenty-five minutes said contractions was less painful during exercise than at rest.

Countless hormonal change in the body and the brain during pregnancy triggers emotional and physical discomfort. Stress, anxiety, and depression can have a frighteningly powerful impact on a pregnancy, and some extreme cases, can result in miscarriage, low birth weight, birth defects, or death of the baby.

Babies born to unhappy mothers are fussier, less responsive, harder to soothe, and have unpredictable sleep patterns. And in follow-up tests, these babies are more likely to be hyperactive and suffer cognitive impairments (low IQ). Exercise elevates expectant mother’s mood by melting away anxiety and depression.

Exercise done with certified trainer and supervision can alleviated the emotional and physical discomfort. Tide are turning, as recent as 2002, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) start recommending a minimum of thirty minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise for pregnant and postpartum mothers. It’s a potentially powerful guideline, given that nearly 30 percent of active women stop exercising when they become pregnant.

Equally important, though, is that for the first time the ACOG recommended that sedentary women begin exercising when they become pregnant, largely to counter risks such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and preeclampsia that can develop during gestation and harm both mother and child. High-risk pregnancy does need bed rest as much as the doctors recommend. For the non high-risk cases, exercise has countless benefits. All pregnant women should not play soccer, basketball, volleyball, racquetball, horseback riding or any sport where contact and falling may occur. 

Stress & Exercise

Many people think stress is just something external, the result of the trials and tribulations of life.

But whether a stressor is a minor change in your daily schedule or a life threatening event, it is actually the brain that determines when the body's internal equilibrium is disturbed. The external stressors in life, combined with disturbance in the brain's delicate biochemical balance, can actually make any internal pain we feel seem even worse, which has a significant impact on how we deal with external stressors.

And while aging and genetics cannot be altered, being weak and sick in your old age can be prevented. A lack of exercise, too much alcohol and a bad diet, together with stress, multiplies the damage on the body and brain.

Simply put, exercise is the number one antidote to fight stress, anxiety and depression.

First, exercise has a positive ripple effect on the body, brain and mind. Exercise improves the functions of everything, from your cardiovascular system, to your immune system, circular system, digestive system, muscular system, and skeletal system. Exercise does this, in part, by alleviating the physical and emotional feelings of stress. But it also works at a cellular level. When you exercise, your brain and body make molecular by-products that can end up damaging your cells. That is actually a good thing, because the repair mechanisms needed to fix those cells leave them hardier and in better shape for the future.

Think of it this way: Just like muscle cells, as brain cells get broken down and built up, they become more resilient. Exercise not only makes you feel great physically, it also helps your brain and mind deal better with stress, sparking brain growth and strengthening the connections between existing neurons.

Exercise not only makes you look and think better, it also gives you stronger bones and muscle. Exercise creates stronger connection between your brain cells and countless studies have shown that exercise helps grow additional brain cells in the hippocampus. That is an important area of the brain; it is where memory is stored and teaches you how to learn.

Now compare all of these positive impacts to the negative effects that stress has, particularly on your brain. Chronic stress deactivates the temporoparietal junction (TMJ) area of your brain, which is responsible for allowing us to communicate with others and awareness of their feelings and ideas.

At the same time, stress also activates the fight-or-flight response. Repeatedly feeling the fight-or-flight response, together with a deactivation of the TMJ, leads to severe stress, sometimes resulting in panic attacks or depression.

Think of it this way: When you are under emotional stress, your brain has the same response as a prey animal trying to escape from a predator. While exercise can’t change your external environment, it will help balance your delicate internal biochemical responses.

Feeling great on the inside has a direct effect on how you perceive your external environment and triggers what I like to call the Stable Emotional Response, or SER.

Stress can have a dangerous effect on your brain and body when it leads to atherosclerosis, a disease that occurs when plaque builds up in your arteries. This happens due to the fibrinogen protein, which works to speed up blood clotting to reduce the loss of blood, and repair skin and other parts of the body when needed. But immediately after you experience stress, your fibrinogen levels can increase two-to-twenty fold to respond to any injury your body may experience.

But if there is not actual physical damage to the body, fibrinogen starts to accumulate in the major arteries of the body and brain. Over time, this can cause heart attacks and stroke.

In a similar process, the brain also releases natural pain-killers, like endorphins, during stressful events in order to mask any injuries. Again, the brain has no idea if you are fighting for your life or simply late for an important business meeting. Stress also reduces oxygen and blood flow to frontal cortex region of the brain, which eventually hinders the cognitive ability of the brain.

Stress comes in several shapes and sizes. It can be acute or chronic; it can be the result of finances, work, physical problems, or metabolic issues, just to name a few. No matter where your level of stress fits in, stress has a direct effect on your body, brain and overall health. The damage that stress causes to overall health is greater than the feeling one gets on a daily basis. Stress also accelerates aging, producing wrinkles and grey hair, by damaging nearly all the body’s internal organs. Moreover stress deteriorates brain cell and connection between brain cells (synapse).

The internal and external affect of stress on the body and brain is immense. Many people are superficially aware of how stress makes them feel, while they attribute aging simply to genetics. But thanks to my 25 years in fitness and wellness industry, I know that 60-80% of how you look and feel is solely depends on how YOU take care of yourself. Exercise is the best method to reduce, and possibly eliminate, the effect of stress on the body and brain. And that comes without any negative side effects.

Anxiety & Exercise

When it comes to anxiety, exercise does what medicine can’t. According to latest research, exercise can reduce anxiety and make you feel physically healthy in the process.

What is anxiety? Anxiety is higher degree of stress than is normal. People with generalized anxiety disorder tend to respond to ordinary situations as if it they were dangerous. The body can’t handle the onslaught of internal and external tension

For many, anxiety can be a precursor to depression. Think of anxiety as the body’s alarm system telling us that if our state of nervousness does not change, a panic attack, followed by a complete shutdown (i.e. depression) will take place.

The panic attack is the most intense form of anxiety. When someone experiences a panic attack, the periaqueductal grey region of the brain is activated. This area of the brain plays a key role in defensive behavior, phobia and immobilization. Many people attempt to mask feelings of anxiety with by overeating or abusing alcohol or drugs, including pain medication.

But there is a better answer. Unlike food, alcohol and drugs, moderate exercise with wellness trainer can actually help reduce anxiety and panic attacks. Even better, moderate-to-high intensity exercises forces the body to produce important neurotransmitters and chemicals in the brain and body.

Muscle tension and cramping are common side effects of anxiety. But moderate-to-high intensity physical activity can decrease the resting tension of the muscular system, which interferes with the brain’s anxiety feedback loop. It also doesn’t hurt that exercise breaks down fat cells into fuel, which reduces body fat and increases self worth.

Exercise also creates calming chemical effect on the body and brain. And when the body calms down, the brain is less prone to stress. Exercise does this by producing the amino acid tryptophan, which helps to activate the chemical serotonin, and important factor in maintaining a stable mood. Other chemicals, known as “brain derived neurotrophic factor” or BDNF, also work with tryptophan to recruit endorphins, something that also helps calm us down and enhance the feeling of wellbeing.

When you suffer from anxiety, the delicate balance between two important neurotransmitters called glutamate and gamma amino-butyric acid (GABA), is out of whack. That’s because stress, anxiety and panic attacks increase the secretion of glutamate higher than GABA. That is a problem, because elevated levels of glutamate, together with cortisol and adrenaline, puts the body and brain into a state of high alert. That chemical situation can make a normal situation seem very dangerous.

Anxiety also disrupts normal sleep pattern. That can make things even more difficult, as fatigue can make people more susceptible to depression. Many are prescribed Xanax by their doctor to treat anxiety, but when done correctly, exercise can do a better job than drugs.

Depression & Exercise

Depression is a disease that nearly 1 in 5 Americans have, and it costs us $30 billion a year. It is the leading cause of disability in the United States, ranking ahead of cancer, stroke and coronary heart disease. And while it’s hard to know exactly how many people try to commit suicide, we know that in America someone successfully takes their own life every 17 minutes.

Depression is a major problem. Thankfully, exercise can be a key part of the solution.

Depression is a disease for which there is no blood test. It comes in many forms, making it so some people can’t get out of bed, can’t eat or sleep, or use food, alcohol and medication as coping mechanisms. Many people with depression are often inactive, feel hopeless and have little to no motivation.

The stigmas surrounding depression often keep many suffering in quiet and shame. Despite immense struggles, they mask their disease so well that their own family members, friends and coworkers don’t know they have it.

The good news is that whether you are simply just stressed out, have a mild case of depression or you have been diagnosed as clinically depressed, exercise can help with any mood disorder. That’s because exercise unleashes a cascade of neurotransmitters and other important chemicals in the brain and body that can help reduce or even eliminate depression. .

We have known since 1965 that depression is caused by a deficit of three important chemicals in the brain: norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin. These are powerful and important chemicals we need to function every day, and exercise helps produce all three in the brain at the right quantity.

So how does it work? Exercise activates a section of the brain known as the locus coeruleus, which is the main producer of norepinephrine in the brain. This chemical is vitally important because it wakes up the brain and keeps it running smoothly, in addition to increasing self esteem.

Exercise also increases the secretion of a second very important chemical called dopamine. Dopamine not only enhances mood, it increases feelings of wellbeing and jump starts motivation. Just starting something, or getting moving at all, is a big challenge to someone who is depressed. But with exercise, you make more dopamine, which helps break the vicious cycle of lower dopamine due to inactivity.

Research has even shown that prolonged exercise helps increase dopamine storage and can make more enzymes that need dopamine to work specifically in the reward center of the brain. This reward center, known as the nucleus acumens, triggers feelings of satisfaction when we accomplish something. With extra dopamine produced through exercise this process is stabilized, something that also helps reduce addictions to food, alcohol and medications.

Exercise also increases the production of serotonin in the brain and body. Serotonin is a crucial chemical when it comes to the brain communication. It helps relay messages from one area of the brain to another and keeps your brain activity under control. In addition to sending messages throughout your brain, serotonin is also vital for mood, impulse control, and self-esteem.

Beyond the production of chemicals, there are numerous researchers who believe that depression can shrink many parts of the brain, including the frontal cortex and the hippocampus. That shrinkage starts to erode connections between brain cells, making it more difficult for the brain to function. But exercise can reverse that shrinkage.

In addition to helping produce important chemicals, exercise also helps reduce stress by counteracting cortisol and primes the cellular connections in the cortex and hippocampus that are important for learning. In short, exercise is the ultimate antidepressant pill. And it comes with no negative side effects.

Back in the 1970s, hospitals in Norway and the United Kingdom offered patients suffering with depression the option of treatment with antidepressants or daily exercise. Today, more and more doctors are aware that exercise has direct effect on mood disorders and can help their patient with depression, anxiety and countless other mental health issues.

Someday soon, I expect the scientific and medical community to make exercise a critical treatment for depression, anxiety and other mood disorders. I only wish it could have happened 15 years ago.

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Ultimate Results has been a blessing to me in many ways. Before I joined Ultimate Results, I had a terrible eating habit, and I never worked out. In fact, I viewed the gym as my enemy; it was boring to run on the treadmill and I hated doing crunches because it hurt my neck. My other frustration was that I didn't see any results. However I was very conscious that I was overweight and unhealthy. I wanted to work out because I knew I should be healthier and thin. I made up excuses like, "I don't have the time today, but I'll do it tomorrow." That was the excuse I used for years, but one day something changed. On my way to work I would drive past Ultimate Results and think to myself "maybe I should check it out". A few weeks later, I walked in and was greeted by warm, inviting, understanding individuals (Ultimate Results Team) who appeared genuinely interested in my goals of becoming healthy and losing weight. My trainer and I started the journey that I had struggled with for many long years. Working with my trainer has been a continuous positive experience; mentally, emotionally and physically. Her role is not limited to a trainer because she is a role-model, a teacher and a friend. She has a keen gift of knowing how much to push me. Her constant motivation and optimism keeps me focused when I have a hard time with my overall program. As a result, in two and a half months I lost 22 pounds and 16.5 inches! I never thought in a million years that I'd actually feel healthier, stronger and more energetic, and I owe this success to the Ultimate Results team for guiding me on this challenging journey that I continue to conquer! Thank you, Ultimate Results Personal Training & Weight Loss Center. 

K. Thomas