Tips to Overcome Stress and Depression

More and more people worldwide are affected by depression with different reasons. The reasons differ with the family relationships, work atmosphere, pressure with studies and exams, at times with complicated relationships too. Stress and Depression is not uniform and therefore one treatment cannot be applied as a common treatment to the affected person.

The individuals affected with depression needs to get involved in some activity and keep themselves busy and active. As the popular saying,” An idle mind is a devil’s workshop”. This applies very much as the thinking problem is extended with being idle. To overcome Stress and Depression engage yourselves in exercise, listening to music, reading, cooking, blogging or internet surfing. Get involved in activities that will remove the sick feeling and loneliness.

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

• A constant feeling of sadness, anxiety, and emptiness
• A general feeling of pessimism sets in (the glass is always half empty)
• The person feels hopeless
• Individuals can feel restless
• The sufferer may experience irritability
• Patients may lose interest in activities or hobbies they once enjoyed
• He/she may lose interest in sex
• Levels of energy feel lower, fatigue sets in
• Many people with a depressive illness find it hard to concentrate, remember details, and make decisions
• Sleep patterns are disturbed – the person may sleep too little or too much
• Eating habits may change – he/she may either eat too much or have no appetite
• Suicidal thoughts may occur – some may act on those thoughts
• The sufferer may complain more of aches and pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems. These problems do not get better with treatment.

Easy tips to Overcome Stress and Depression

Take a walk at least twice a day:

It is important in mental health to take a walk on green grass, because green color is good for health, the walk on bare feet will soothe your body and improve blood circulation. Walking twice a day is also recommended by Doctors for good health. Walking in the morning will provide exposure to bright sunlight that can provide psychological effect on mind. Avoid wearing dark glasses as sunlight exposure to your body must come through your eyes. Take a relaxed walk in the evenings after your dinner. This will also help to regulate your daily routine; perfect sleep in the night and get fresh morning.

Follow Aerobic exercises to overcome depression:

Health experts recommend Aerobic exercises as an effective remedy for overcoming depression. Allocate half an hour thrice a week for aerobic exercises. Listen to music, warm up slowly and practice. Get your heart beat (pulse rate) up to the target range of about 50-85 percent of the maximum heart rate depending upon your age and condition.

Plan a change in your sleeping schedule:

Plan your sleep routine such that you go to bed at the same time every night. Turn your lights dim and create a dark room effect for better sleep. Avoid working late night , avoid watching TV for extended hours. Engage yourself in quite activities like reading a book, articles etc. Basically keep away from stressful activities like drinking alcohol, caffeine.

Socialize and build a healthy community around you

Make an attempt to get along with close friends and family. You need not indulge into long conversations but yes…keep in touch and share your thoughts. Keep conversations simple, no arguments, have fun with people around you. Take time to go out for movies, or visiting some place where your mind is relaxed. If you do not have time for long visits, make it short over tea or coffee together .These distractions will lessen stress and you need to include small breaks in your daily routine.

Updating your personal dairy on a daily basis

Updating your personal dairy is a good method to reflect your depression or stressful feeling. This will give you an opportunity to recollect all occurrences in the day and mention the key things in your dairy. This is also a great way to release stress and make you feel relaxed.

Depression can lead to emotional and physical problems. Typically, people with depression find it hard to go about their day-to-day activities, and may also feel that life is not worth living.

Ayurvedic remedies for Overcoming Depression

Relaxation and Meditation are also effective measures in the treatment of depression. Practice shavasana -dead posture in Yoga, for maximum benefits of meditation. Meditation involves training the mind to remain fixed on a particular external or internal location. Meditation helps to create balance in the nervous system. Incorporate yoga and mild exercises.

Also read: Simple ways to include Ayurveda in everyday life

Natural home remedy for Overcoming depression:

• Add some fresh Rose petals to a cup of boiling water. When it comes to room temp, add sugar and drink whenever feeling depressed.
• Cardamom helps in relaxing the body and mind. Crush 3-4 cardamom seeds to powder. Take  ½ tsp of cardamom powder and mix it in 1 glass of water. Mix well, filter and drink 1 glass every day.
• Crush 3-4 cashew nuts to powder. Take 1 tsp of cashew nut powder and mix it in 1 cup of warm milk. Mix well and drink every day.

The treatment for depression is not ‘One size fits all’, however the family and friends need to extend maximum support. People, suffer from various ailments like thyroid, diabetes, high Blood pressure and those who really wanted to overcome depression should engage themselves in some other kind of activities like exercise to make yourself busy and to not think about what makes you depressed.

Please add a comment and, if you like the post, feel free to share it with your friends. You can also visit our Facebook page and Google plus page for more insight on other articles.

Doing Kegel exercises treat Urinary Stress Incontinence

Urinary Stress Incontinence is usually observed in women. Urine leaks for a few women when they cough, sneeze or even laugh. There will be no control over the urinary bladder. This condition is very embarrassing. Few women even avoid social gatherings when the problem is severe.

The Urine Incontinence is observed in women during pregnancy and after childbirth. Ideally the nerves, ligaments, and pelvic floor muscles work together to support your bladder and keep the urethra closed so urine doesn’t leak out. Overstretching or injury to these areas during pregnancy or childbirth can cause them to stop working properly.

Image courtesy: scienceoflife.com

Causes for Urinary Stress Incontinence

• Pregnancy
• After delivery (birth vaginally)
• Assisted Vaginal delivery ( usage of forceps)
• Prolonged pushing ( large baby)
• Obese persons
• Smokers
• Genetic predisposition(runs in the family)
• More number of vaginal deliveries
• Menopause stage , Aging
• Repeated urinary tract infection

Treatment for Urinary Stress Incontinence

The treatment options range from conservative treatment, behavior management, bladder retraining, pelvic floor therapy, medications and surgery. The success depends on the correct diagnosis in the first place.

Exercises to control Incontinence

Kegels are exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles – the muscles that support your urethra, bladder, uterus, and rectum. Kegel exercises may also help reduce the risk of Anal incontinence and urge incontinence.

How to do Kegel exercises at home

Start the exercise with an empty bladder. Imagine that you’re trying to stop yourself from passing gas and trying to stop the flow of urine midstream at the same time i.e closing and drawing up of the front and back passages.

Make sure that you squeeze and lift without pulling in your tummy, squeezing your legs together, tightening your buttocks, or holding your breath. In simple words, only your pelvic floor muscles should be working.

Though you may have trouble isolating these muscles at first, it gets easier with practice. It might help to place a hand on your belly while you’re doing your Kegels to make sure that it stays relaxed.

What is the frequency and duration for Kegel exercises

Start doing Kegels a few at a time throughout the day. As your muscles starts to feel stronger, gradually increase both the number of contractions you do each day and the length of time you hold each contraction, up to ten seconds. Practice them in sets of ten and try to work up to three or four sets about three times a day.

Make Kegels a part of your daily routine. You can schedule a set in the morning, while watching TV and prior to bed time. But it really doesn’t matter when or where you do them – as long as you do them regularly.

Be patient and keep up the schedule. It may take three to six weeks of regular Kegels before you notice an improvement in bladder control.When done correctly and often enough, they can strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, giving you better control.

Precautionary measures

However in the initial stages follow some precautionary measures to avoid any embarrassment.

• Use a sanitary pad to protect your clothes from urine leaks
• Try crossing your legs and tightening your pelvic muscles or shifting your body weight to one side when you feel a sneeze or a cough coming on.
• Cut down on caffeine consumption.(results have indicated positive effect)

Ayurveda recommendations for Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence is primarily a vata disorder, caused by weakness of the muscles of the bladder, especially the bladder sphincter.

Natural Home Remedy using Indian gooseberry, turmeric powder and honey:

Cut and de-seed 1 Indian gooseberry (Amla), Crush the Indian gooseberry into paste. Add a pinch of turmeric powder and 1 tsp of honey. Mix well.

Have 1 tsp of this mixture every morning for about 4 weeks.

You will feel the strengthening of prostrate muscles after duration of 4 weeks.

Natural home remedy using milk, fennel seeds and sugar:

In a glass of warm milk, add 1 tsp of crushed fennel seeds (saunf) and 2 tbsp of sugar syrup in it. Mix well and drink this every day.

To make Sugar syrup: Mix 2 tbsp of sugar in ½ glass water. Heat the sugar and water solution till it becomes a syrup.

PANIKOORKA, THE NATURAL REMEDY FOR COUGH, COLD AND FEVER

Panikoorka plant is a common sight in most homes in the Southern states of India, especially Kerala. You will find them in the homes where small children are there. Panikoorka is an Ayurvedic herb , the leaves are used for treating common cold, cough and fever in babies and adults. There are references in Ayurveda of the usage of this herb.

The botanical name of Panikoorka is Plectranthus amboinicus . In India it is known as Indian borage, in Hindi known as Patta ajavayin, in Tamil – karpooravalli and referred as navaryila in Malayalam.

Panikoorka, natural remedy for fever, natural anti-pyretic

Panikoorka is very effective home remedy for cold, fever and cough in children. Leaves of panikoorka is squeezed and the juice is taken. A teaspoonful of Panikoorka juice when given to babies would cure their cough, cold, fever, sore throat, nasal congestion and chest congestion. Grownups should take 2 tablespoonful of juice to relieve fever.

Panikoorka, very effective for cough and chest congestion

Panikoorka is a natural expectorant for children. Boil the leaves of panikoorka for 5 mins in 1 cup of water. When cool feed 2 tspn of this decoction to children for curing their cough, and bronchitis.  Adults can take quarter cup of Panikoorka decoction for getting relief from chronic cough and bronchial asthma. Panikoorka is most effective in children. It is an effective natural remedy for excess phlegm and chest congestion. Ideal for asthma patients, they can consume decoction regularly for relief.

Panikoorka helps improve lactation

Panikoorka helps improve lactation in nursing mothers. The health benefits will be transferred to the child through milk.

Panikoorka addresses First aid too

Applying the extract of panikoorka leaves on the area relieves itching, infection, wounds etc. It is also an effective antidote for insect bites and scorpion bite. It is also used in the treatment of skin disorders, dandruff and different types of allergies.

Panikoorka can be consumed in different ways to minimize the bitter taste and strong odor.

The juice is extracted from leaves by placing them on a hot tava. The leaves will become transparent when hot. Remove from the tava and squeeze them with your fingers. In case of grown up you can directly squeeze the washed leaves with your fingers to collect juice.

Infants and Toddlers:

• Two three drops of panikoorka leaves juice would treat chest congestion, cough, and cold in infants. Two three drops of the juice when applied on head, would prevent cough and cold in children and adults.
• Panikoorka leaves extract can be mixed with honey and applied on mother’s breast so that infant will suck it when they drink milk. You can also apply panikoorka leaves on child’s lips.
• Panikoorka leaves extract can be mixed with powdered organic rock sugar (mishri in Hindi, Kalkandam in malayalam ) and given to toddlers for throat infection, cough and cold.

Children:

• When children complain of stomach pains, problem of worms , you can give Panikoorka leaves extract mixed with sugar three times a day.
• For relieving cough take a mix of panikoorka leaves extract, honey and lemon juice two times a day.
• Inhaling vapors with panikoorka leaves extract would cure cold and fever.

Adults:

• Add few leaves of Panikoorka into the boiling water for steam inhalation when you have cough and cold . If you are using vaporizer , dip a cotton ball into the Panikoorka juice extract and put it in the mouth of the vaporizer.
• People suffering with gas trouble and flatulence can have heated panikoorka leaves extract with honey twice daily. Grownups suffering from bronchial asthma can consume panikoorka leaves extract mixed with honey and kalkandam.

Panikoorka, flavouring ingredient for dishes.

Panikoorka is a good substitute for oregana flavor in dishes. Can be used to flavor dishes of meat – beef , lamb, etc. Panikoorka is very commonly grown as a potted plant. Indian Borage is a fast growing plant. Propagation is via stem cuttings. The herb grows easily in a well-drained, semi-shaded position.

Try out this snacky recipe which will relieve throat pain and fever:

Panikoorka bajji

Ingredients:

• Panikoorka leaves 10 – 12 nos
• Chana powder  -1 cup
• Onions finely chopped- ½ cup
• Green chillies finely chopped – 2 tsp
• Ginger finely chopped- ½ tsp
• Salt to taste
• Optional : addition of finely chopped curry leaves-1/2 tsp and Kothmir – 1 tsp

Mix all the ingredients. After 10 mins heat oil , dispense the mixture with a spoon into hot oil. Fry till it is brown. Drain bajjis onto tissue paper. Serve hot.