wellness tips

Share

By Cord Reisdorf

For those of us working hard to stay fit, eat well and live a healthy lifestyle, sleep – along with exercise and proper nutrition – is a critical component of maintaining that lifestyle.

Unfortunately, due to our invariably hectic schedules, getting adequate sleep often ranks lowest on our list of priorities. In fact, many of us underestimate the value of sleep and subscribe to the myth to think you can “train” your body to function on less sleep. Not so. For the average person, the minimum daily requirement to simply function normally is 7-9 hours of sleep. Based on this figure, an estimated one-third of North Americans are sleep deprived.

Ironically, it is that lack of sleep that renders busy people less effective, as even a modest loss eventually creates a serious sleep debt when sustained over several nights.

“Sleep… who needs it!”

When you do not get sufficient sleep on a regular basis, your body attempts to both preserve & replenish its stores of energy until adequate sleep has been achieved. The result? A higher rate of weight gain, reduced motivation to exercise, and a reduction in the benefits that accrue from exercising. Yikes.

Research shows that inadequate sleep can result in:

* Higher stress & lower motivation levels
* Slower reflexes & higher incidence of accidents
* Poorer coping skills & reduced productivity

Sleep deprivation is serious: not only does it affect your health, it significantly impairs your overall quality of life.

How does it work?

During the valuable hours of sleep, your body goes to work: sleep allows your brain to consolidate the day’s learning into memory & improves your ability to learn repetitive skills, and cells are repaired & replenished allowing you to recharge for the next day.

So how do you get a “good night’s sleep”?

For most of us it is simply a matter of making sleep a priority. Set a regular scheduled time to go to sleep. Make sure you calculate a minimum of 7-9 hours between the time you go to sleep and the time you wake up. And if you find yourself unable to drift off to sleep right away, give yourself an allowance of an hour or so of reading and “wind-down” time in addition to your 7-9 hours of sleep.*

The Bottom Line:

Make sleep your priority and you’ll be able to reach your peak faster and more efficiently. And most importantly, you will experience a significant improvement in your quality of life.

* Note: If you find that you are frequently unable to fall asleep, awaken several times in the night or feel tired even after sleeping for 7-9 hours, you should consult your physician or see a sleep specialist

Cord Reisdorf is the principle of Peak Fitness Management

Share

By Cord Reisdorf

It is easier to condition your body to be a professional athlete than it is to condition yourself to be an executive. Let that sink in for a moment.

But how could this be true? Professional athletes are prime physical specimens (Offensive Linemen and Bowlers notwithstanding), they put hundreds or thousands of hours into training for their sport and their bodies are their business.

True. But that said, they also (for most sports) have a lengthy off-season in which they regenerate, have a team of professionals to take care of their physical needs (trainers, physiotherapists, massage therapists, personal chefs et al) and their off-season workday may only be the 2-5 hours they spend physically conditioning themselves for next season, while the rest of the day is spent recuperating.

Their in-season conditioning programs become less intense and less frequent as they spend more time competing in their sport. And if that chosen sport is football, hockey, soccer, basketball or golf, their contests are usually less than 4 hours.

Let’s compare that with a typical senior executive. First, in business, there is no off-season! Second, a typical workday can be anywhere from 8-14 hours. Third, during the workday, an executive needs to be mentally sharp and agile in order to make good decisions quickly, all day long. Very few have an entire team of health professionals tending to them yet the mental and often physical demands (think travel, long hours, time zones, inadequate sleep) rival and surpass that of most athletes. Add all of this to the wireless age where work is never more than a belt-clipped BlackBerry away and it is not a stretch to see the correlation of pro athletes and executives.

So what is the solution for the boardroom brawlers?

Physical training. Conditioning the body so that the mind has the opportunity to do what it needs to do. And not just any physical training, but intense physical training in the right doses at the right time with the right frequency.

Beyond slimmer waistlines and bulging biceps, it’s well documented that optimal fitness levels will increase everything from energy & stamina, to mood and a general sense of well-being. If you don’t have the physical wherewithal to endure long days, arduous meetings and the typical daily grind, you will not have the energy to go the distance…whether that means closing the deal or making the sale.

When we are fatigued, we make poor decisions. Athletes don’t just train so that they start every game in their best shape; they condition themselves so that in the 4th quarter they are able to make good decisions because their bodies are still fresh. This allows their minds to be clear and focused on the task at hand, rather than being preoccupied with how fatigued they may be.

Do you have as much energy and stamina as you would like? How would your next meeting or negotiation go if you were as fresh at the end as you were at the start? Perhaps increasing the intensity of your current exercise routine (or starting a new one) will give you the edge you need to help you perform at your peak.

Cord Reisdorf is the Principal of Peak Fitness Management. For more information, visit www.peakfitnessmanagement.ca

Related tips
Resistance Training
Heart-rate Training
Exercise Intensity and Over-training
Want fat loss? Aerobic exercise alone is not the answer

Share

Omega 3 fatty acids are found in fish, fish oils, flax seeds, walnuts, and in smaller amounts in grass-fed eggs, dairy and meat, and they have a huge impact on our overall health

There are two “essential fats” that our body absolutely must get from the diet, as our body is unable to manufacture them – omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. Our diet is swimming in omega 6. It is everywhere. Grains, nuts and seeds, meat and poultry (especially grain-fed), and vegetable oils like soy oil, canola oil, corn oil, grape seed oil, sunflower oil etc, so no problem getting those. Omega 3 fatty acids are another story however, unless you eat fish three to four times a week. And unfortunately due to the high mercury levels in fish these days, it is hard to recommend eating fish that frequently, unless the fish you choose to eat are very small, like sardines and anchovies. (If you want to check the levels of mercury in the fish you eat, use the mercury calculator.)

Did you know that in Italy, if a physician fails to suggest fish oil to heart patients as a first line of defence he can be sued for malpractice? Fish oil is the treatment of choice, and for good reason. It has NO negative side effects, and it thins the blood as well as aspirin, it decreases inflammation (homocysteine, C reactive protein), and improves the lipid profiles. Drug companies don’t want you to know that, because they can’t patent a food (unless the genetically modify it …). They would prefer you bought their drugs.

Omega 3 fatty acids also do wonders for the brain, and are vital for the cognitive and visual development of babies and children, and for preventing cognitive decline in adults. My sister calls the fish oil capsules her kids' happy pills. They take them, their mood improves. There is a lot of research that supports the notion that a lack of omega 3 fatty acids may lead to imbalances in brain chemistry, resulting in depression, anxiety disorders etc. Fish oils contain two omega 3 fatty acids – DHA and EPA, and it seems to be the EPA that is most helpful to those suffering from depression, so it may be worth looking for a brand that contains a mix with higher amounts of EPA. For young children, it is the DHA that is most important.

Flax Seed Oil needs to be converted in the body into DHA and EPA to be used, and many people lack the ability to make the conversion, which is why I tend to recommend fish oils right from the start.

Remember that omega 3 fatty acids, just like all polyunsaturated oils, are very very fragile. They are sensitive to heat and light, so they should be kept in a dark bottle and in the fridge. Often an antioxidant like vitamin E is included in fish oil capsules to prevent oxidation and rancidity. So watch expiry dates carefully, because consuming rancid fats will cause more bodily harm than good.

A healthy ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 is about 1:4, and the current diet we consume tends to be in the neighbourhood of 1:20 omega 3 to omega 6, so we are way over-consuming omega 6 in relation to omega 3. This causes body inflammation, and we now know that inflammation plays a key role in many of the degenerative diseases we face today, like heart disease and arthritis. So increasing omega 3 consumption while decreasing omega 6 consumption can go a long way to correcting this problem. It is for this reason that I don’t recommend blended oils that contain both omega 3 and 6 – better off to simply stick with fish oil or flax oil, sources of omega 3. So, increasing fish or fish oil consumption (as much as 4000mg a day) while decreasing vegetable oil and processed grain consumption will go a long way to improving body chemistry, decreasing body inflammation and pain, and improving overall health.

I am heading to Florida for the next three weeks to take a course in Neuromuscular Therapy, and in my absence I would like to welcome Cord Reisdorf, owner of Peak Fitness Management, who will be writing in my place.

If you want to search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

Related tips
Vegetable oils – friend or foe?
Essential fats: omega 3 to omega 6 ratio
Fats: the good, the bad and the ugly
Depression
Cardiovascular disease

To subscribe go to www.wellnesstips.ca