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The Thermal Environment & Health

Thermal comfort or discomfort are not terms I have consciously thought of in regards to my health; however most of us constantly adjust thermostats and other gadgets in an effort to regulate comfortable temperatures. Sometimes securing cozy room temperatures isn’t as easy as it may seem especially if you have a spouse, friend, or co-worker who blows you away with frigid air. Setting temperature preferences aside, can thermal discomfort have an impact on your health? Many cultures have well established practices including the Native American sweat lodge, Finnish sauna, Russian bania, Jewish shuitz, and the Turkish hamman who have built deep traditions around thermal discomfort assemblies in an effort to heal, sooth, and renew the whole person.

                Scientific research into many of these traditions has established medicinal effects on health including body detoxification, improved circulation, and improved immune system functioning to name a few. Social connectedness and spiritual renewal are additional benefits, which can impact ones sense of wellness. Further John L. Stoops of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory wrote an article entitled A Possible Connection between Thermal Comfort and Health reports the following. “The increased thermal stress does induce an increase in the pulse rate as the body moves fluid about in an effort to maintain thermal equilibrium. This illustrates the close connection between the thermoregulatory and cardiovascular systems. One can induce heart muscle exercise by overheating the body. If the devotee takes regular saunas, it is possible that cardiovascular health benefits are received.”

The thermal environment is not only important to understand regarding health benefits, but also significant to many health concerns including hyper/hypothermia. For instance an article published in the British Medical Journal studied the thermal environment of infants who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) finding those infants significantly overdressed, which affirms other similar research linking hyperthermia to SIDS. (A.L. Ponsonby,, T. Dwyer, L.E. Gibbons, J.A. Cochrane, M.E. Jones, and M.J. McCall, Thermal environment and sudden infant death syndrome: case-control study. British Medical Journal, 1992, 277-282.). The thermal environment can also affect our performance, disposition, physiology, and mortality rates, which is the reason for much building and environmental temperature research especially in relation to the workplace. As the corporate mantra repeats, “time is money”, companies want employees to work at peak levels and know temperatures do affect work performance. Ultimately, comfort is relative and often based on individual, cultural, and local expectations. As a society we build our environment based on many elements including comfort, convenience, and tradition. So the next time you set your thermostat or are out in extreme heat or cold please know these temperatures can affect your health. Check out the links below to learn more on this subject.

Thermal Stress – Montana Department of Labor

World Health Organization-Thermal Protection for Newborns

Research Article: Effects of the thermal environment on human health: an investigation of 30 years of daily mortality data from SW Germany

Health and Safety Executive -UK

Center for Built Environments

Wellness: A Holistic Approach

What is wellness? Well, the wellness movement emerged in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s as a combination of strategies promoting healthy lifestyles in an effort to shift focus away from and prevent illness. Today, if you type the word in Google Scholar you can find articles on psychological, financial, fitness, prevention, healthcare, and other wellness areas. I would like to go beyond categorizing wellness and just pull all the pieces together. I believe for one to experience wellness, wholeness needs to be embraced. When one or more facets of your life are chronically out of sorts, dis-ease in many forms may wear you down. Prolonged and unresolved issues with familial, physical, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual, environmental, and/or other life arenas can lead to frequent and/or reoccurring problems in one’s life.

                A holistic approach to wellness offers a more balanced, well-rounded, and healthy perspective to tackling the complexities of life. No doubt life is tough, rugged, and challenging at times occasionally bringing us to question the meaning of it all. What holistic wellness can offer is a buffer, support, and protection from collapse, illness, and further loss in the midst of life’s challenges. Holistic wellness embraces an individual’s whole system of beliefs, actions, and resulting positive and negative consequences in all aspects of life. Take a look at yourself for a moment.

·         Are there areas of your life you continually struggle with and dwell on like weight, finances, chronic health conditions, and so forth?

·         Do these concerns regularly cause you distress?

·         Have you focused and dedicated time to one of these concerns only for the motivation to fade away?

First off, you’re not alone and secondly this pattern of behavior is common as is evident in America’s unfortunate struggle with obesity.

The point here is many of us often have an area of life we struggle with everyday; however how we continue to approach the problem or not determines the outcome. If we focus on the problem area with the same belief, thought, and action patterns year after year then we will garner the same results. Conversely, if we change those patterns by adopting new beliefs, thoughts, and actions then we can change directions. For example, if you believe restrictive dieting is the best way to lose weight and you have tried this twenty times in the last year it’s probably safe to say it’s not going to work. Turning to a holistic approach with the same vigor can lead you down a new path.

What does the holistic wellness approach offer? For starters the approach focuses on your whole system and not just one aspect of yourself, relationships, and/or environment. For instance, maybe you struggle with maintaining a healthy weight, exercise program, and excessive spending as a result of working long hours, little sleep, and depression. If you were to focus on just one of the previously listed problems then more than likely one of the other problems would be exacerbated or another problem would emerge. However, if you work to develop a healthy lifestyle plan including addressing all of the listed problems you are more likely to maintain a healthier lifestyle. Holistic wellness programs are founded on self-esteem, healthy peer support, and mindful living. Some people find it helpful to talk with a wellness expert, counselor, or other professional to personalize a program to their individual needs, hopes, and circumstances. Please find below some links to some holistic wellness programs and resources.

Global Wellness Services

National Wellness Institute

American Holistic Health Association

Thanks for reading and check back soon for more information on this and other healthcare topics!

National Pain Awareness Month

Mybath.biz recognizes September as National Pain Awareness Month and an opportunity to shine light on the reported 50 to 75 million vulnerable Americans suffering from chronic or acute and often debilitating pain. The American Pain Foundation established the Power Over Pain Campaign in 2006, a national grassroots effort dedicated to providing a voice for pain patients. The grassroots effort has a state leader directory available for those wishing to volunteer their time to this healthcare crisis. The purpose and goal of this group is to raise public awareness and promote optimal pain policy, legislation, and practice. Please click on the link highlighted above for more information and to get involve!

So, how does one undertreated pain patient affect us all?

Pain is a protective warning signal alerting us something is wrong and preventing us from hurting ourselves. The availability, knowledge, and effectiveness of pain relieving medications is the best ever today, yet the continued practice of under treating pain is costing pain patients, caregivers, families, and societies heartache and billions of dollars each year. In fact the US cost of undertreated pain is around 100 billion dollars a year in healthcare, litigation, and compensation according to the National Institute of Health. Further, untreated pain is often associated with increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, family turmoil, work-related problems, job loss, insurance loss, and other issues (American Pain Foundation, National Pain Foundation, & Partners Against Pain). The greatest pain management results encompass a combination of modalities in my experience and documented by countless organizations, which include physical therapy, counseling, acupuncture, massage, progressive muscle relaxation, chiropractic, hydrotherapy, prayer/meditation, yoga, and medications.

To check out how well your state policies are helping or hindering effective pain management please refer to the Pain & Policies Studies Group’s yearly state by state grade card. You’ll probably be surprised.

Mybath.biz offers an array of hydrotherapy products to help those in pain including the brand new 2008 6-Person HydroOasis Hot Tub with 103 total jets, 15hp, 8” LCD TV, DVD, CD player with MP3/MP4 input and built with Phalanx Acrylic. Check it out today!

Sacred Native American Sweat Lodge Ceremonies

          

Many Native American tribes hold healing as a purification process of the mind, body, emotions, and spirit embraced in sacred rituals including sweat lodge ceremonies. This ceremony is an age-old tradition having many practices and varying from tribe to tribe. The focus of a sweat lodge ceremony is on prayer, meditation, learning, and healing with the purpose of purifying, cleansing, dying to/release negative emotions/energy, and a rebirth of sorts. The low circular half-dome lodge nestled on the earth’s surface is a safe, dark, hot, and moist environment representing a mother’s womb and a return to childhood innocence.

The lodge is made of natural materials available in the area often including willow sapling, aspen, or other supple wood for the frame and raw hide, blankets, and/or tarps to completely cover the frame. The entrance faces the east where the sun rises and a new day begins. Neighboring the lodge is a fire pit used to heat the rocks (normally lava) also known as “grandfathers”. The hot rocks are placed in the center of the lodge where participates are gathered and water is poured over the rocks to produce steam.

Traditionally, between the lodge entrance and the fire pit is an alter to prevent participants from falling into the fire upon leaving the sweat lodge ceremony. The alter is normally a rock pile with a staff placed in the center and a buffalo skull or other skull placed on top. Participants often place scared objects including feathers, sage, and so forth on the alter when entering the sweat lodge ceremony as a sacrifice.

                To prepare for a sweat, participants are encouraged to fast or eat lightly as well as refrain from alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, recreational drugs, and sugar 24 hours before the sweat lodge ceremony to enhance the purification process. Women who are menstruating and those with high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, and other major health concerns are not recommended to enter a sweat. Always check with your doctor if you have health concern questions before entering a sweat lodge.

                Prior to entering the lodge, participants are commonly smudged with sage, sweet grass, or cedar smoke for ritual cleanliness. The sweat lodge ceremony begins with participants entering the lodge on their hands and knees in an act of humility and reverence crawling clockwise around the stone pit to a seat. Once the last person enters the lodge, the door flap is closed and water and herbs are poured over the hot rocks to generate steam.

There are four sessions or rounds lasting between 15 and 40 minutes where participants sweat and suffer the heat releasing toxins and transforming them. At the end the end of each session, the door flap is raised letting some cool air in and providing participants the opportunity for some water and to step out of the lodge if necessary.

During each session participants pray, chant, share stories, release emotions, and ask for guidance. A talking stick is passed around so each person has an uninterrupted opportunity to contribute. Each session is devoted to the four directions north, south, east, and west recognizing and symbolizing the spirit, ancestral wisdom, relationships, courage, healing, transformation, growth, rebirth, and new beginnings. I found different traditions as highlighted on various websites attribute different meanings to the four directions, but all traditions recognize them. The sweat lodge ceremony experience is a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical cleansing, healing, and growth-oriented encounter requiring a return to yourself.

                Mybath.biz recognizes the ancient wisdom of the Native American sweat lodge ceremony in releasing harmful toxins from your body in an effort to purify your whole system. Thank you and check back soon for new blogs.

Reference: Dunn, Samantha, Rituals of Healing-Native Intelligence-Native American Sweat Lodges, Natural Health, 2004

Muscle Recovery and Contrast Bathing

 

Professional athletes, recreational athletes, and those of us with athletic aspirations often train rigorously resulting in muscle strains, bruises, and/or tears. When this occurs traditional rehabilitation programs work with athletes to heal and recover from their injury. Typically, muscle recovery techniques are administered during periods of injury.

       Yong Li reports in an article entitled Cutting Edge-Muscle Recovery that “injured skeletal muscle can repair itself via spontaneous regeneration, but extracellular matrix overgrowth and collagen deposition can lead to fibrosis, resulting in incomplete functional recovery and a propensity for injury recurrence” (Physician and Sports Medicine, 2005). So, what can athletes do to prevent injury, restore muscles, and avert mental fatigue which can affect their overall performance?

     The Australian Institute of Sports has developed a fatigue and recovery recommendations list for athletes to integrate into their training program ultimately boosting performance and warding off injury. Their program includes

·      Rest and sleep

·      Nutrition

·      Warm-down, stretch

·      Massage

·      Hydrotherapy

·      Psychological means

The idea is for athletes to include in their training program a segment focused on recovering from workouts and competition in order to return to their natural physiological and psychological condition. This routine can allow athletes to remain balanced, healthy, and maximize performance as well as not excessively compromising their performance.

Hydrotherapy included in the fatigue and recovery recommendations list for athletes serves as a healing process and muscle recovery mechanism for their bodies. Heat, buoyancy, and motion are three elements working together providing a healing effect for the body according to an article published in Psychology Today entitled Soak Away Stress.

Other articles highlighting the benefits of hydrotherapy in muscle recovery discuss contrast bathing, which utilizes both cryotherapy and thermotherapy. Cryotherapy uses cold water to narrow blood vessels reducing swelling, inflammation, and pain sensation. Thermotherapy uses hot water widening blood vessels increasing blood flow as well as reducing joint stiffness and muscle spasms. Alternating between cryotherapy and thermotherapy is called contrast bathing and works to speed up the removal of lactic acid.

It’s important to note that while there are several articles on contrast bathing/therapy’s role in muscle recovery more research is requested by many field experts to understand this form of healing.  To review contrast bathing implementation guidelines please refer to Australian Institute of Sports contrast water therapy protocols by clicking here. As always, please consult with a physician for any medical concerns you may have to review benefits and risks of any treatment program.

Thank you for reading Mybath.biz’s free health information blog and check out our great products today!

Multiple Sclerosis Basics

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affects approximately 400,000 Americans which include around 8 to 10,000 children or adolescences and about 2.5 million individuals worldwide according to the National MS Society. Experts label MS as one of many autoimmune diseases, which occurs when the body’s immune system recognizes antigens (proteins) as foreign. In MS, the central nervous system is attacked and myelin a lipid and protein rich material protecting nerve fibers is lost leaving scare tissue (sclerosis) producing numerous associated symptoms.

Although the official cause of MS continues to elude the healthcare community still today, research continues to make strides and discoveries. At present, researchers studying this disease acknowledge the involvement, role, and interplay of several factors including gender, ethnic origins, genetics, and environmental triggers like heavy metals, viruses, traumas, and so on (National MS Society).

Diagnosing MS is often about ruling out other health concerns such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Lyme disease, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, hypertension, syphilis, lupus, Muscular Dystrophy, and other as signs and symptoms can be similar to MS (Mayo Clinic). Currently, there is no test to diagnosis MS. MS diagnosis is usually done through extensive medical evaluations, which Mayo Clinic lists can include a medical history, neurological tests, MRI scans, spinal taps, and evoked potential tests.

Early detection of MS is critical to implementing “disease-modifying treatment” as drug therapies appear to prevent new lesions according to Dr. Peter Calabresi of John Hopkins University School of Medicine in an article entitled Diagnosis and Management of Multiple Sclerosis published in the American Family Physician journal in 2004. There are many medications used in treating and managing MS as well as referrals to rehabilitation programs such as physical therapy.

Alternative or complimentary medicine also offers a range of treatment/symptom management therapies and approaches including dietary supplements, acupuncture, massage, biofeedback, hydrotherapy, etc. The Rocky Mountain MS Center, an internationally recognized non-profit resource for complimentary and alternative medicine, provides many services for MS patients including a cool hydrotherapy program at their Englewood, Colorado facility. They highlight the benefits of hydrotherapy for MS patients as including “increased mobility; aerobic conditioning without overheating, increased muscle strength, increased circulation, weight control, improved range of motion, and decreased risk of injury with falls.”

Thank you for reading this brief overview of MS blog made available to you by MyBath.biz! As with any medical condition, please consult with your physician to discuss your symptoms and treatment options.

Hypertension: The Silent Killer

Hypertension also known as high blood pressure is the heart laboriously working to pump blood throughout the body often leading to plaque buildup and hardening of the arteries. Ultimately, arterial build up can led to stroke, heart attack/failure, eye damage, and/or kidney failure. According to a featured article on Hypertension (Nov. 2001) published in Southern Medical Journal, hypertension seems to be a polygenic and multifactorial disorder with importance placed on the interplay of several genes and the environment. Further, blood pressure levels are correlated commonly with “genetic background, environment, or lifestyle habits."               

                                                                                       

Hypertension is a serious health problem in the United States and is often referred to as the “silent killer” according to the American Heart Association who reports approximately one in three Americans lives with hypertension. Unfortunately, one-third of those living with hypertension are unaware they have it and exacerbate this health condition by engaging in risk associated activities like smoking, excessive drinking, inactive lifestyles, weight gain, and eating too much salt. Other risk factors can include being African American, pregnancy, women taking oral birth control pills, stress, and some medications.

While many individuals are unaware of having hypertension there are some signs and symptoms to be alert to including headaches, blurred vision, nose bleeds, and dizziness according to the Mayo Clinic. Many of these symptoms present themselves when hypertension becomes potentially life threatening.

     There are several prevention and treatment methods and recommendations presented in Southern Medical Journal’s Hypertension article, which are lifelong processes and include:

• Maintaining weight for your height and gender
  • Loosing even 10 pounds of excess weight can reduce blood pressure in a significant number of overweight individuals with hypertension.
  • Weight loss lowering blood pressure can also reduce concurrent risk factor like diabetes and dyslipidemia

• Moderate alcohol intake
  • Alcohol intake needs to be less than one ounce of ethanol (e.g. 2-12 ounce beers) a day and less for those who weigh less.
  • Those withdrawing from heavy alcohol consumption may experience a substantial increase in blood pressure going down after about three days.

• Exercise
  • A regular exercise program will assist with weight loss, functional health, lower blood pressure, and reduce cardiovascular risks.
  • Inactive individuals run a 20-50% increased risk for hypertension and associated health problems.
  • Please make sure to consult with a Physician before starting an exercise program especially if you have a serious medical condition.

• Sodium Intake
  • Reducing sodium intake is favorable for a host of health conditions including hypertension.

• DASH-Diet
  • Web MD recommends the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension)-Diet, which reportedly can reduce high blood pressure within two weeks. Click here to read more about the DASH-Diet

• Relaxation
  • Emotional distress often raises blood pressure and finding ways to relax while not scientifically proven to lower blood pressure is a helpful tool in dealing with daily concerns.

• Smoking/Tobacco Use
  • For the usual reminder why smoking is not good for your health click here.

• Prescriptions
  • In cases where lifestyle changes aren’t enough your doctor may prescribe one of many pharmaceutical prescriptions, which can be decreased or eliminated once lifestyle changes take hold.

              Dr. Emily Kane, a graduate in both Naturopathic and Acupuncture/Oriental Medicine recommends and highlights hydrotherapy treatment process for hypertension. Her extensive list includes hot baths, peroxide baths, constitutional hydrotherapy, and alternating hot cold footbaths. To read Dr. Kane’s article click here. Please not that research also recommends against hydrotherapy in some hypertension cases because of the seriousness and progression of this condition. To find out if you have or are at risk for hypertension please check with you Physician and check your blood pressure regularly.

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