-Dr. Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC

Did you know that the amount of physical exercise you exert during the day is one of the key ingredients to helping you get a good nights sleep?  The more active your body is during the day, the more likely you are to relax at night and fall asleep faster.  With regular exercise you’ll notice that not only has your quality of sleep improved, but you may also find it easier to deal with stress and worries of your life.

Research and studies indicate that there is a direct correlation between how much we exercise and how we feel afterwards.  It has been proven that when you increase your physical activity during the day, you give your body enough stimulation so you are not full of energy at night.  This helps your body function in a healthy manner.

It is important to note that you should not be exercising three to four hours before you go to bed.  The ideal time to exercise is in the late afternoon or early evening for a period of 30 minutes or so, three to four times a week. By adding a regular exercise activity to your daily schedule will help you to improve your overall health and help you emotionally as well. Along with running and walking there are several other physical activities that you can add to your daily life to increase your level of physical activity.  If you are battling not sleeping, you’ll find aerobic exercise to be the best.

Your goal with exercise is to increase the amount of oxygen that reaches your blood stream.  Overall, there are many types of aerobic exercise for you to choose from.  The activities include running, biking, using a treadmill, dancing, and jumping rope.
Below are some non aerobic exercises that you may find beneficial to help you solve your amnesia problem.

Yoga
Yoga is an exercise that has a stimulatory effect on your nervous system, especially the brain.  Yoga utilizes breathing techniques and yoga postures to increase the blood circulation to the brain, promoting regular and restful sleeping patterns.  The regular practice of yoga will help you to relax as well as relieve tension and stress.

Tai Chi
Tai Chi is an ancient art of breathing and movement that was developed by the Chinese monks.  The movements involved are slow and precise, which is ideal if you have joint pains or you are unable to participate in high aerobic exercises.  Research has shown that Tai Chi can help with insomnia by promoting relaxation.

If you discover that you don’t have any time to exercise on a regular basis, you should try to sneak moments of activity into your schedule.  Whenever possible, you should take the stairs instead of the elevator, as little things like that will do wonders for your body. You should also park your car around the corner and walk that extra block or two to get to your destination.  As you may know, there are many small things you can add to increase the activity in your life.  Your overall goal here is to have a healthy and well balanced life – with plenty of sleep.

Did you know that your favorite maple syrup is effective in fighting cancer and diabetes?  According to the studies conducted by US researchers, there are strong evidences showing that maple syrup can substantially slow down the growth of cancer cells and can effectively reduce the risk of diabetes. The new research shows that your favorite maple syrup has thirteen active compounds that serve as antioxidants. These thirteen compounds were previously unknown. The discovery proved that maple syrup could be very effective in fighting bacterial infection, diabetes and cancer.

An Effective Solution or Diabetes Sufferers
Considerable amounts of the phytohormone, abscisic acid, are found in maple syrup. This acid is a powerful defense against diabetes and metabolic syndrome, because it encourages the release of insulin through pancreatic cells and enhances fat cells’ sensitivity to insulin. Seeram revealed the results of his tests on Canadian maple syrup during the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.

Maple Syrup as the Best Anti Cancer Food
A study by researchers at the Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, implies that maple syrup can be more effective than broccoli, blueberries, carrots and tomatoes in significantly slowing cancerous cell growth in the brain, prostate and lungs and somewhat less significantly in the breast.

A Delicious Option in Fighting Cancer and Diabetes
The following is from a study titled: Antioxidant Activity, Inhibition of Nitric Oxide Overproduction, and In Vitro Antiproliferative Effect of Maple Sap and Syrup from Acer saccharum, published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, and written by Jean Legault, Karl Girard-Lalancette, Carole Grenon, Catherine Dussault and André Pichette: Maple sap and syrup from 30 producers in three Quebec, Canada, regions were evaluated concerning the time of harvest and abstract antioxidant activity, inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) overproduction and the antiproliferative effect of ethyl acetate extracts.

The harvest time does not have an analytically notable incidence on antioxidant activity of either maple sap or syrup extracts. Their Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) values are 12 +/- 6 and 15 +/- 5 mumol of Trolox equivalents (TE)/mg, respectively. A cell-based assay also confirmed the antioxidant activity. The ORAC assay was also used to establish the antioxidant activity of pure maple syrup. The results show the pure maple syrup ORAC value of 8 +/- 2 mumol of TE/mL to be lower than the blueberry juice value of 24 +/- 1 mumol of TE/mL but similar to the strawberry juice value of 10.7 +/- 0.4 mumol of TE/mL and the orange juice value of 10.8 +/- 0.5 mumol of TE/mL. Lipopolysaccharide-induced NO overproduction in RAW264.7 murine macrophages was considerably inhibited by maple sap and syrup extracts.

It is believed that transforming maple sap into syrup enhances NO inhibition action, because the syrup extract was considerably more active than the sap extract. The maple syrup extracts induced the highest NO inhibition at the season’s end, and the darker syrup was more active than the clear syrup. This indicates that the activity could be partially attributed to some colored oxidized compounds.
Maple syrup extracts (50% inhibitory concentration = 42 +/- 6 mug/mL) and pure maple syrup have a discriminating in vitro antiproliferative action against cancerous cells.

-Dr. Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC

In a half a century it can be said that these may be the toughest times for older workers, but a new study forecasts that in less than a decade, these workers will be in demand once again.

According to a study done for the MetLife Foundtion and Civic Ventures, a San Francisco think tank, by 2018, boomer retirements and smaller pools of younger adults could result in at least 5 million job vacancies.  The fields of education, health car, government and nonprofit wirk will account for about half of th openings it says.

“These jobs will go begging and the economy could suffer if older workers don’t adopt them as their encore careers,” says Barry Bluestone, an economist at Northeastern University in Boston who prepared the study. As the economy recovers, spot shortages in some sectors could appear even sooner, he adds.

The report, accompanied by three papers on new jobs in health care, education and the green economy, is based on analysis of current census data, federal labor statistics and a labor market assessment tool developed by the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern.

Labor economist Richard W. Johnson of the Urban Institute agrees that the job picture will be brighter for older workers in the coming years. “I would say within five years we’ll start seeing strong demand for workers in some of these social service jobs,” he says. “We would have to include older worker participation to meet this demand.”

Still, five to eight years may seem like a long time to a desperate older job seeker who needs income now. The national unemployment rate for workers 55 and older reached 7.2 percent in December, the highest in more than 50 years. On average, workers 55 and older are remaining unemployed for nearly 36 weeks.

But second careers often last as long as 25 years, says Civic Ventures CEO Marc Freedman. “As terrible as the current downturn is, this study is a reminder that you need to think about a longer time horizon. How are you going to invest your own human capital so you can take advantage of emerging opportunities?”

Although community colleges, online degree programs and other organizations are developing initiatives to help older workers transition to new careers, more needs to be done, says Freedman. “We desperately need more inexpensive and expedited pathways to help people move from aspirations to action on their encore careers. Until then, you’re on your own.” Encore.org, a nonprofit group specializing in second careers, offers a list of educational resources.

A rare sector that added jobs during the recession, health care dominates the list of hot second careers. Demand remains strong for traditional positions, such as home health aides, nurses and medical assistants. But a changing health care landscape and an aging population are also creating new jobs in support, education and advocacy to patients. Experts say there is already a need for chronic illness coaches, community health workers, patient navigators and home modification specialists.