IN YOUR DAILY DOSE today is information about how STRESS in your life affects your health. But it’s not just any stress, it’s about your reaction and not how frequently you are exposed to it.

IN MAKING CHANGES today are strategies you can use to reduce stress in your life and take back your health.

IN FACT OR FICTION you’ll discover what looks like a gigantic fly but whose larvae lives underground for anywhere from 3 to 14 years.

In The News

Research from Penn State and Columbia University has demonstrated the link between the regulation of your heart and stress. Lead researcher Nancy L. Sin wanted to find out how daily stress affected heart variability, which is the variation in intervals between consecutive heartbeats. She is quoted in Science Daily, saying, "Higher heart rate variability is better for health as it reflects the capacity to respond to challenges. People with lower heart rate variability have a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death."

What they found is that stress, and your reaction to it, has an effect on your heart variability. Those participants who reported a lot of stress in their lives did not necessarily also have less variability in their heart rates. Instead, it was the people who perceived the stressful events as more stressful who experienced a lower heart rate variability.  "These results tell us that a person's perceptions and emotional reactions to stressful events are more important than exposure to stress per se," said Sin. "This adds to the evidence that minor hassles might pile up to influence health. We hope these findings will help inform the development of interventions to improve well-being in daily life and to promote better health."

SOURCE:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160225140246.htm

Daily Health Tip

We all experience stress in our lives. It’s impossible to get away from. It isn’t the amount of stress that’s a problem but how you react to the stress.  For this reason, it’s important to learn strategies that help you cope with stress and reduce the physical effects on your body.

Making Changes

1. Get 8 hours of sleep a night. When exhausted, your brain does not function as well. You will have more problems with focus and with the ability to think through problems. In fact, when tired, your brain functions as if you have been drinking alcohol with reduced reaction time and processing speed.

2. Get 20 to 30 minutes of sunshine each day. Sun is a great way for your body to manufacture vitamin D, but it also affects your brain and your mood. If you can’t get outside, use a light bulb in the house designed for people with seasonal affective disorder. All of us benefit by being in the sun!

3. Exercise every day. Whether you are walking after lunch and dinner or working out for an hour at the gym, get some exercise. Your digestive system works better, your arteries will be healthier and your mood better too.

4. Drink enough water to stay hydrated. Your urine should be light straw color. If it’s darker then you aren’t drinking enough and if it’s lighter you are drinking too much.

5. Find what works best for your stress reduction. Some people practice yoga, others just exercise and others find that prayer helps to relieve their stress of everyday living. However you choose to manage stress, it’s important that YOU manage stress and not that the stress in your life manages you.

My Daily Affirmation

Today, I know I live my best life when I remain conscious of all my actions. I am committed to being a positive and charitable person. Taking that path helps me to be at peace.

Fact Or Fiction?

The life cycle of these little buggers always follow prime numbers, their mating call can be heard most frequently in the early evening, and only live 4-6 weeks above ground. What are they?

These insects look just a bit like gigantic flies. Their shrill mating call can be heard more frequently in the early evening, except when large numbers emerge from their lives underground. Brood II is one of the most famous of the cicada groups. They live underground for an astounding 17 years and then emerge for 4-6 weeks to mate and die. According to CBC News:

“Researchers and cicada enthusiasts have noted that the life cycles of periodical cicadas are prime numbers, i.e. the figure can't be evenly divided into smaller integers.

There is no reliable explanation for this, but in a recent blog post, the New Yorker magazine cited well-known paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, who suggested that the life cycles of periodical cicadas are an evolutionary survival strategy.

U.S. cicada expert John Cooley points out on Magicicada.org that because periodical cicadas emerge in such staggering numbers, there are enough cicadas to satisfy its predators, while also leaving plenty of insects to mate and continue to propagate the species. Another theory for their long gestation is that it's a holdover from an earlier period of history, when the earth was cooler, and cicadas that learned to live underground longer would be less likely to die in an unexpectedly cool spring.”

Have a wonderful day!

Your Healthy Life America Team