
Photo: Niklas Ohlrogge, Unsplash
Give Yourself The Miracle Of Health Hacks For The Holidays!:
In the spirit of giving, and to try something a little different, let’s leave a bunch of little presents under the HealthTrekker tree this year!:
“Holiday Heart” is a real thing!
The occasional slice of cake “might” not be so bad for you?
Gonna party like it’s 1899? You need these 8+ tips to minimize the damage!
Oh BTW, Holiday Weight Gain may not be as bad as you thought!
But watch out for all the sugary stuff! It can bite you right back.
Desperately try to control your holiday drinking with help from The Aussies?
Food Anxiety can also be a part of the holidays, too.
Last but not least, Mind UK’s exhaustive list on Why Christmas Is Hard.
Excerpts & Links after the jump. Enjoy!…
The Short Answer:
- “Holiday Heart” is a change in cardio factors brought on mostly by drinking, stress, and sometimes eating.
- People in Sweden who had their Fikan’ sweets in pastry form had better outcomes.
- Tricking your mind a little can reduce holiday weight gain.
- Typical holiday weight gain may be less than you’ve heard.
- Added-sugar consumption in holiday treats can aggravate SAD.
- The Aussies have discovered a successful way to curb drinking.
- Being mindful, careful, & not too hard on yourself can help with Food Anxiety.
- Mind UK has a huge list on how the holidays can be hard on your psych & emotions.-And another on how to cope as well!
Read on to find out the details…
→ Show/Hide Table Of Contents ←
The Conversation Teaches Us About “Holiday Heart”:
Caleb Ferguson and Sabine Allida over at The Conversation have a great article on the weirdness holiday consumption can perpetrate on your body.
Particularly in the form of “Holiday Heart”, that makes people think they might have a serious problem due to the weird, fluttery pulse, dizziness, and other phenoms.
Not that anyone’s sure you don’t, but it could be “alcohol-induced atrial arrhythmia” or HH.
Binge-drinking, overeating, stress, and other factors can contribute to this weird phenomenon that’s been discussed for awhile.
Go give the rest of the article a read over at The Conversation!
Give Yourself A Mulligan On Some Holiday Snacks With Lund University:
Just for the holidays, let’s not file this one in the “probably BS” category for now.
But Suzanne Janzi and her pals at Lund University supposedly found a weird phenom for [Swedish] carb-consumers.
Supposedly, those who eat the odd slice of cake or pastry at the Swedish national sport of “Fika”, more than 2x/week even, had nowhere near as many long-term health problems as those who consumed liquid-carbs and used sweeteners or sweet toppings.
Supposedly, because the fat in the cakes or pastries slows down the absorption of carbs.
Since this is the season of giving, let’s just believe this one even for awhile.
You can read more about it over at LU’s chat with Suzanne.
Be Careful If You’re Going To Party Like It’s 1899!:
Now that we’ve given you a little more carte-blanche to enjoy a pastry or two this time of year,
And just tell your friends, “I’m not becoming obese like 42.8 percent of the population! I’m engaging in a Swedish health practice!”.
It would be wrong to not give you the pointers to keep as much of that holiday bloat off as you can.
So there are at least 8 different ways you can attack the parties a little bit smarter this year over at our own post, “Santa Belly: 8+ Ways To Reduce Or Avoid Holiday Weight Gain From Partying Like It’s 1899”
Good Luck!
Good News About Holiday Weight-Gain, But Don’t Get Cocky Kid!:
Now that we’ve got you a little more prepared for the “marathon Fika” you’re about to attempt this year,
Let’s also give you some bad news/good news.
First, weight-loss as simple as it really is turns out to be extremely hard for the average person.
Especially with 73.6 percent of the current US population classified as either overweight or obese.
Now that we know that and also the number 1 New Year’s Resolution is to lose weight and exercise,
We can also give you the good news! Holiday weight-gain is actually much lower than it was traditionally estimated to be!
Not that were encouraging you to go bench-press an entire tray of Budapestbakelse, but you can find out the good news over at The Truth About Holiday Weight Gain
The Holiday Blues Can Come From Unexpected Places:
One of the most enticing things about holiday food is all the AMAZING treats, cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies.
But if we ignore the Swedes for a second, they can also harbor some sneaky downsides!
And it all comes down to Sugar. -Which is all over the place in holiday food.
You can enjoy it in the short-term, but if you overdo it, especially with the sweeter stuff,
It may come back and exaggerate things like Seasonal Affective Disorder.
This all happens because of the way added-sugar metabolizes.
It creates a whole bunch of little molecules that run wild in you that are the opposite of anti-oxidants.
So be careful! And if you tend toward that mindset, then hop on over to the post on Sugar & SAD!
A Stern Warning And A Tough Task Can Reduce Drinking:
So, not that this sounds very practical. But a study’s a study.
For any of us who wanted to slow down our drinking or just moderate it in some way,
The Aussies of all people have figured it out.
A stern warning commercial about it’s connection to very serious diseases like The Big C,
And a challenge to simply (yes, I get the implied joke) keep track of how many you’ve had,
Turned out to be the only method in this work by Simone Pettigrew and her team.
PS: One other pointer I found over time was to alternate in the 1-for-1 method.
Have 1 pint of water for every drink you have. That way you avoid dehydration-based over-consumption, and pace yourself much better.
Just the way the previous point implied that the more you drink, the less diligent a person might be about an accurate count.
Anxiety Will Often Strike Around Now, Especially At Meals!:
Alison Fixsen at The Conversation has a unique perspective to add to the holiday washing-machine of emotions.
-Food Anxiety!
Certainly a new one to me, but she has a few helpful reminders in her article.
Most of all these suggest:
1) Be aware of when your anxiety kicks in at social meals around this time
2) Be aware of when it kicks in during times of isolation
3) Help your cause by mixing in more of the healthy stuff with the outrageous norm
4) One or two fancy meals with wild food aren’t going to ruin you, so try not to be too hard on yourself.
The rest of her interesting angle on things is over here.
Holidays Are Supposed To Be Jolly But Sometimes They’re Hard:
The team over at Mind UK have come up with an absolute -monster- series on mental health around the holidays.
There are five fairly-exhaustive pages in all.
Even though it’s a UK site with almost-exclusively UK & NHS-type resources, it’s still a clinic on some of the the issues we can all have around this time of year psychologically.
And the best page to start on over there is their, “Why Christmas Is A Hard Time“.
The briefest of overviews of that one page is:
1) Money worries
2) Practical issues
3) Coping when certain people aren’t around
4) Loneliness
5) Difficult situations and relationships
6) Society and the outside world
7) Access to support and services
8) Being in the hospital
So even if you’re not in the UK, their series is definitely something to check-out, especially the Coping Tips section.
Well, that’s all for this special holiday roundup edition of HT.
Wishing you all the best this season and into the new year!
References & Links:
• Sources:
•The Conversation – Holiday Heart
•Lund University – Pastries vs. Sugar
•HT – Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
•HT – Average Weight Gained Over Holidays
•HT – Sugar and SAD
•George Institute – Cutting Down Drinking
•The Conversation – Food Anxiety
•MindUK – Christmas Is Hard
• Source Studies:
• FrontiersIn.Pub.Hlth – Added sugar intake and its associations with incidence of seven different cardiovascular diseases in 69,705 Swedish men and women
• AddBeh – A randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of combinations of ‘why to reduce’ and ‘how to reduce’ alcohol harm-reduction communications
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