Success in Starting a Healthy New Habit – Part 2
In the last post, we talked about SMART goals and setting yourself up for success in creating a new habit. This article follows up with actionable suggestions. The difference between a routine and a habit is that a habit is done without any thought. Consider brushing your teeth. In The Power of Habit, Duhigg points out that marketers encouraged adding…
Success in Starting a New Healthy Habit
New Year’s Day is only 4 weeks away – the day that virtuous resolutions are made, and unfortunately, broken by February. I’m not so much a fan of New Year’s Resolutions as I am of optimizing health – any time of the year. This is as good a time as any to talk about how to…
EATING PROTEIN TO AVOID MUSCLE LOSS – Sarcopenia Part 2
Last week, we talked about how we all lose muscle mass naturally over time. This series is meant to encourage you to work against that tendency as early as possible. We can minimize the loss if we try! Muscle tissue is in constant flux, being broken down and rebuilt constantly. When we have soreness after…
Growing Your Connections for Brain Health
I think it’s fair to say that we’d like our brains to be working as well as possible for as long as possible. So here’s an important point – brain health is dynamic. Although we lose some nerve connections as we age resulting in impaired processing, so too can we increase those connections by what we choose…
LIFESTYLE MATTERS!
We are born with genes derived from our parents. Although they remain with us through life, you are in charge of modifying them! You can lower your risk of many illnesses by your behavior. A major study reported last week in the Journal of the American Heart Association showed that our everyday behavior affects how much…
Tech Use – Could It Be An Addiction?
We’re used to hearing about addiction to drugs and other harmful substances. Does attachment to our phones and various tech devices also qualify as an addiction? By definition, an addiction is a loss of control of the amount of use, despite adverse consequences. With tech use, those consequences often involve interference with school or professional…
Do You Ever Think About Breathing?
Everyone breathes. Mostly not well. That’s commentary from James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. As part of my involvement in Lifestyle Medicine, I’ve become interested in mindfulness meditation and breathwork as methods of stress management. And who couldn’t use that these days?! Nestor, a journalist, was referred to a breathing class…
The Menopause Transition and Hormonal Therapies
The menopause transition is a challenging time filled with bothersome symptoms. It is also a period of time where women experience increasing cardiovascular risk and decreasing bone density. We often forget that heart disease is the #1 killer of women. The primary goal should be to manage symptoms so patients have a smooth transition, good quality of life and…
About Masks …
I can’t believe we still talk about masks, two years into this Covid pandemic. It is nostalgic to think of the days when my patients and I could talk freely to each other without fearing that we could inadvertently infect each other with a deadly virus. I often wonder now, how my new patients look…
COVID update for 2022
I hope you’re doing well and staying safe during this fourth COVID wave, attributable to the omicron variant. The virus is not typed on any regular basis, but with random testing omicron accounts for 95-100% of COVID infections in Maryland, and is probably above 90% nationwide. The virus is expected to continue to mutate,…