Reduce Stress for Your Heart Health
As our expert guest in Club Epanafero, Dr. Brian Distelberg explained what causes stress, what its effects are, and how you can learn to reduce your stress levels so that they don’t negatively impact your health.
As our expert guest in Club Epanafero, Dr. Brian Distelberg explained what causes stress, what its effects are, and how you can learn to reduce your stress levels so that they don’t negatively impact your health.
We’re excited to welcome Dr. Brian Distelberg to Club Epanafero! He is Professor, School of Behavioral Health and Director of Research, Behavioral Medicine Center, Loma Linda University, US. With Dr. Distelberg as our expert guest, we’ll be exploring our question for the month: Is Stress Affecting Your Heart Health?
There are many health and other benefits that arise from practising your faith, including increased life expectancy and quality of your life. We therefore strongly recommend that you anchor your spirituality into your everyday life through regular practices. Regardless of which path you choose, your mind, body and spirit will benefit!
Life meaning and life purpose are fundamental human drives: they are an active expression of your values. Both have multiple health benefits and serve as powerful motivators for positive health behaviors. The Japanese concept Ikigai gives a model to find your purpose as well as the joy and goal of living.
It is vital to us as humans to build strong and healthy relationships, and to connect meaningfully with others. When this doesn’t happen – and we experience loneliness and social isolation, there are major repercussions on health. Conversely, the healthiest, longest-lived people on earth, in the Blue Zones, enjoy well-developed social networks.
Mental and emotional health are essential to your wellbeing. We place special emphasis on stress reduction and management to prevent long-term serious health problems. Once you recognise and understand what stresses you, you can develop strategies to take (back) control of the way you react to what is happening in your life.
Getting enough good sleep is essential to your health – and this involves the quantity as well as the quality of your sleep. Sleep hygiene practices include daytime napping, exercise, what you eat and drink before bedtime, exposure to natural light as well as to your digital devices, your sleeping environment, and your regular bedtime routine.
Physically conditioning and caring for your body lay the foundation for your experience in years to come. Your activity goals must be to move enough to gain the health benefits for your body and mind in the short term, and to be able to continue moving well into your future years, with ease and delight.
What you eat must certainly be nutritious, but equally it must be delicious, engage all your senses and bring you pleasure, and be consumed in a manner that brings you enjoyment, satisfaction, and connection.
In short, broaden your outlook from ingredients to focus the experience of eating healthily.
Wellness is a personalised approach to life that affirms and engages your unique qualities and strengths so that you can achieve your full potential. It includes all the dimensions that constitute your being and your sense of self – in other words, physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational/occupational, financial, environmental.