• On Sep, 30, 2012
•  Jayne Hembruff
•  General

?Reduce your stress and risk of heart diseases by doing yoga?….. Dr. Donald Edmundson, professor at Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Donald Edmundson, a professor at Columbia University Medical Center said people can take steps to reduce their stress by doing yoga, meditation and exercise. This was after his research showed people who report feeling high levels of stress in their daily lives are more likely to develop heart disease. This research links stress and heart disease and can be found in The American Journal of Cardiology.

More specifically, it showed those who have stressful jobs were 27% more likely to receive a diagnosis of heart disease, be hospitalized with the condition, or die from it.

Past research also shows chronic stress can contribute to weight gain in the following ways:?Too much cortisol, the stress hormone, can slow metabolism, causing more weight gain than you would normally experience. In addition, people experiencing chronic stress tend to crave more fatty, salty and sugary foods leading them to choose sweets and processed foods that are not good for their body.?Prolonged stress can alter the blood sugar levels, causing mood swings, fatigue, and conditions like hyperglycemia. Too much stress has even been linked to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of health concerns that can lead to greater health problems, like heart attacks and diabetes. ?Excessive stress even affects where we tend to store fat – higher levels of stress are linked to greater levels of abdominal fat and fat stored in other areas of the body as well.

Max Morton, PhD, LPT recently wrote stress was first spoken of by Hans Selye. We started using stress management in the early 70s as well as yoga in cardiac rehab.
One can learn to manage stress or let it manage them.?A good bumper sticker I use is “Don’t believe everything your brain thinks!”?Evidence today that stress can have a negative impact on the immune system and therefore a negative outcome on inflammation More evidence that HD is an inflammatory disease.

All this supports the International Labour Organizations reports that stated stress has become the most serious health issue in the workplace. Too many people worldwide are reporting stress in their life. Some reports state one in four workers report stress. However, how many are quiet about their stress?

Millions of work days are lost due to stress related illnesses. In the U.K 13million work days per year.

Canada?s 2005 Community Health Survey showed over 85% of all Canadians reported they are have ?Quite a lot? of life stress or ?Some? life stress. More specifically, 22.4% (2.7 million) men reporting ?Quite a lot? of life stress while 63.7% (7.6 million), men reporting ?Some? life stress. While Canadian Women were slightly higher with 24% (3 million) reporting ?Quite a lot? of life stress and 65% (8.1 million) reporting ?Some? life stress.

Try bringing yoga and meditation into your workplace with a certified, registered yoga instructor. You can have classes in the morning before work, over the lunch hour, or after work.

Many workplaces with yoga on site reported yoga assisted their employees to be better problem solvers, more creative, more productive, and decrease down time due to sickness, illness, body aches and pains and injury. Employees enjoyed the convenience of onsite yoga classes as this further decreased their stress to try to get to a community class.

Yoga has been proven to be effective in inducing the relaxation response; allowing the participant to? achieve a deep state of relaxation that reverses the nervous systems? reaction to stress. Yoga also decreases the heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate, as well as strengthens and enhances the participants ability to cope.

With over ninety styles of yoga, be sure to pick the style to meet the needs of your employees. For example, if de-stressing is what you are seeking, consider restorative yoga, therapeutic yoga, or the other gentle styles like kirpalu yoga. However, if you are seeking a more vigorous work out, consider the power yoga’s or Bhikram yoga.

For more information, please email jayne@innovativewelllness.ca.