Category Archives: Health

Exercise Benefits

Exercise stimulates the release of endorphins and adrenaline. These hormones when coupled produce a feeling of energized well being. You know this and you’ve asked yourself why you don’t exercise more often having just wrapped up a work out. Let’s examine benefits of exercise. 

Exercise physiologists speak less frequently regarding the motility of blood through the bloodstream which arises with an increased heart rate. The blood provides nourishment and oxygen to muscle fibers during exercise at a higher rate in accordance with increased muscular requirements. We’ve all come to learn from people close to us etiology arising from a sedentary lifestyle and heart disease unfortunately ranks. It stands to reason that the faster blood moves through the circulatory system that the less opportunity it has to deposit plaque. Additionally, regular exercise may prevent the opportunity for plaque to deposit. In fact, it’s recommended for sedentary individuals to check in with a doctor prior to taking up an exercise regiment because of the potential risk of breaking off plaque deposits within arterial walls when the circulatory system is not acclimatized to the stress of higher throughput.

Exercise will also enable you to burn calories at a higher rate thereby helping with weight management. The associated movement can assist the skeletal system with alignment through increased flexibility and strength. Active joints assist with the removal of metabolic waste thereby potentially reducing the chance of arthritic onset.   

People typically come into your life as a result of physical activity and the positivity surrounding the endeavor produces healthy topics for socialization.

Nurses Quebec Example

Did you know that Quebec reported 50,000 health care workers now on “leave” from work due to “burn out”? Just when your country needed them most….those nurses in Quebec are now collecting a disability cheque. That’s right – short term and long term disability claims are enormous right now. The actual number not on the job is actually 70,000 with the other 20,000 associated with those in current isolation. It’s staggering and you can look to see an increase in insurance costs for whichever policy for which you apply because you are not immune from the effect of claims paid in sectors unrelated to your policies. There is some correlation between sector related claims pertaining to generating premiums but that correlation is not 100 per cent. Insurance companies spread risk through a process called “reinsurance” thereby indirectly affecting you. 

You know when Canadian soldiers lined the trenches while securing our freedom, there was no 1-800 number to call for applying for mental health leave. Of course, there are the “professional associations” and “unions” which provide complicating variables in restricting governments from casting a broader net for acquiring human resources necessary during this critical time. It should be no surprise that doctors are sparse and unavailable to assist due to our system of education and influence of the professional association in limiting access to the profession.    

 Here we are in a health care crisis whereby those associations so adamant at protecting their professions are now desperate. Nurses in Quebec and across Canada are needed now. Help them help us.  

You Think You Have It Tough?

Yes…it’s a provocative title. Poverty and hardship comes in many different forms. There are those who choose not to pursue success. There are others who blame others for their circumstances. There are the addicted and the depressed. There are the swindlers and the slovenly. There are those without a conscience. There’s the combination of variables aforementioned. Then there are also those who have had every bit of bad luck hoisted upon them. It’s true. There are those in difficult circumstances because they never had a chance. It is these people whom I think of when I awake at 3AM and their plight in the context of the socio-political climate.   

The “Chosen Won” at youtube has been profiling the downtrodden from Detroit.  I think of him today and his interviewees as I read today’s headline grappling with the emergence of a potential Roe v Wade challenge. Unfortunately, first world democracies deal with the complexity of homelessness. Administrators will be the first to admit that it’s difficult. One would think that an advanced civilization should be able to extract someone from utter despair and provide meaningful support to aid an individual in becoming self sufficient. In lieu of failure in this regard, I propose that such a variable deserves consideration within the abortion debate among the most obvious variables well known.

I bring your attention to Penny. The youtuber “Chosen Won” in his video entitled “Penny. The Women That Started An Interest”. I won’t give it a link since it’s graphic and for adult audiences only. You can find it if you want. It is the most compelling evidence that I’ve ever seen which showcases that there are those who deserve help from society. It would be very difficult in good conscience to derive an opinion that this woman deserved her fate.

As we go into the Christmas season in 2021 having witnessed more recent evidence that there are some more impacted by the pandemic and weather events than others, there’s cause for reflection on individual circumstance in which some people find themselves.  They are under the radar. Not all of them are panhandling with a sign. Many will need encouragement. Others may need a tougher form of love. I propose that there are some which require absolute intervention not well served here in Canada by our enshrined “Charter of Rights and Freedoms”.       

Brain Function and Exercise

Not only does the heart need to often pump blood against gravity to the brain, but it does to so with the goal of extending supply to vast regions of the brain. Strong brain function requires exercise. In the event of arteriosclerosis due to a sedentary lifestyle, the carotid and vertebral arteries may be forced to work less efficiently thereby impacting oxygenation at receptor sites. Exercise increases heart rate and circulation speed thereby increasing the probability that distant receptor sites receive nourishment potentially starved during the sedentary state. Athletes have reported states of euphoria upon hitting the Max V02 threholds. Others have collapsed not being able to endure heightened levels of physiology having not trained sufficiently to reach such states.

As we grow older, there is an increased probability of plaque deposits building on the arteries in absence of exercise. COVID-19 has become an added variable leading to exercise reduction arising from the supposition that facilities’ access have been restricted.

Now it’s going to be winter in Canada and you can increase your “screen time” or get out into the great outdoors with some heavy breathing and fun. Nakiska’s opening date is scheduled for November 11th due to the best snow making capability in Western Canada.    

The New Mental Health Mantra

It’s all getting a bit ridiculous wouldn’t your say – this new mental health mantra. Suddenly there’s this new excuse for failing or missing the show. When nothing else sticks…just pull this one out of the hat because the whole internet universe has gravitated toward it and you know how politically incorrect it would be to call it out as “bull”.

You see few of us are ever faced with perfect circumstances when delivering the goods. There’s always something in the context of the playing field not to mention haunts from the past. That is what makes the show adrenaline filled and exciting. One is faced with the task at hand along with the context in which we present ourselves albeit the training and obstacles overcome. We may not meet a standard we expect of ourselves but a measure is taken at a point in time. It’s not a matter of win or go home. It’s a matter of doing our best.

If you put your name forward as a contestant, you have a duty to meet the obligation unless obvious unforeseen circumstances present themselves practically. If you don’t feel up to the task…then don’t put your name forward.

At Wimbledon, Naomi Osaka took an entry spot from an embattled tennis player who would have scrambled to qualify likely indebted using scarce resources to travel amidst COVID concerns. In the world of professional tennis there is much disparity in pay between players who consistently make it through to later rounds and players who qualify to make the draw.  Osaka is wealthy. Many of her tennis compatriots are not. She should have thought of them before deciding to contest the event if she was stricken with mental anxiety.

The Simone Biles situation is unfathomable in the context of my aforementioned. If she had thought that her mind was in such a state that she could not pull off the difficult dangerous manoeuvres, with the support of her coach she should have simply adjusted her routine accordingly in order to honor her commitments to her team, and her country. In my opinion, government funding should be withheld from athletes who fail to appear in the Olympic Arena having qualified citing a “mental health” concern. As far as I’m concerned, any individual who has demonstrated the characteristics and training necessary to qualify for international competition also possesses the mental acuity to perform.