Category: Life & Others

Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing your nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections, and protecting them from damage. There are multiple mechanisms at play here, but some are becoming more understood than others.

The rejuvenating role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of them. BDNF activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons. It also triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health.

Promote Intelligence And Better Mood With Just 20 Minutes A Day

A number of neurotransmitters, such as endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and GABA, are also triggered by exercise. Some of these are well known for their role in mood control. Exercise, in fact, is one of the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression.

BDNF and endorphins are two of the primary factors triggered by exercise that help boost your mood, make you feel good, and sharpen your cognition. So, how much do you have to exercise in order to maintain a sunnier disposition and better memory long-term?

According to a 2012 study published in the journal Neuroscience, the ‘secret’ to increased productivity and happiness on any given day is a long-term investment in regular exercise. And a little each day appears to go further than a lot once or twice a week.

Here’s What Happens When You Stop Exercising

You probably expect that your muscle tone will take a beating once your workouts stop, but less expected changes will occur throughout your body. One of the first places to experience the repercussions may actually be your brain.

Research published in the journal Frontier in Aging Neuroscience revealed that endurance runners who skipped exercise for 10 days had reductions in blood flow to their brain’s hippocampus, which is a region associated with memories and emotions.

After about two weeks, meanwhile, your endurance may suffer, which means you may find yourself slightly more winded if you need to quickly climb a few flights of stairs. This is because of changes to your VO2 max (also known as maximal oxygen intake).

VO2 max is defined as the maximum volume of oxygen you can utilise in one minute of maximal or exhaustive exercise, and it’s used as a measure of endurance.

If your workouts take an even longer hiatus, you can expect increasingly noticeable changes to your body, both physically and aesthetically. You may start to notice your strength slipping after about two or four weeks with no activity. And after about six to eight weeks, you may start to gain weight.

There Are Times When You Should Skip A Workout

Skipping workouts generally isn’t recommended – unless you have one of these five valid reasons for not working out.

You’re sick – If you have a slight cold and you’re not overly tired, a quick workout can be beneficial in that it raises your body temperature and might help to fight off viruses;

You’re injured – Regular exercise can help you to prevent many injuries, however you’ll want to avoid exercising an injured area of your body. If you have a shoulder injury, you may still be able to work out your lower body (or vice versa), so long as you don’t aggravate the injured area. Avoid activities that cause pain and, if the injury is going to take a long time to heal, work with a physical therapist who can provide you with a safe exercise plan that promotes healing;

You’re exhausted – If you’ve had a poor night’s sleep, you may be better off sleeping in than getting up early for your morning workout. Like exercise, sleep is also essential for your health, and you generally don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. It’s difficult to catch up on sleep once you’re sleep-deprived, so make sleep a top priority. This isn’t an excuse to hit your snooze button daily, however;

You overdid it and you’re extremely sore – Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), or the muscle soreness you’ve experienced one to two days after exercise, is caused by inflammation stemming from microscopic tears in your muscle fibres. DOMS is normal and is not typically a sign that you should skip a workout; or

You’re having a marathon day – We all have those days when our schedules are jam-packed. Trying to fit in a long workout on such a day may not be in the cards. It’s OK to skip your workout when you get too busy – once in a while. However, resist using this all-too-common excuse to not exercise too often. The truth is, most of us are quite busy, so you need to make exercise a priority.

Regular workouts will help you to stay focused, think clearer and get sick less often. So, what’s not to like? It does take time, commitment and hard work, which is why the exercise programmes that last will be those you find most enjoyable. The key word is ‘enjoy’.

The more you look forward to your workouts, the more likely you are to keep doing them. As an added bonus, most people feel great after they workout, which provides additional motivation to keep going. If you don’t feel good after your work out – for instance you feel exhausted instead of energised – this is a sign that you may be exercising too much and need to take more time for recovery.

About the Author

This article was brought to you by Dr Mercola, a New York Times bestselling author. For more helpful articles, please visit Mercola.com

The past few years saw many unprecedented events, including a sudden change of government and a total shift in how we work, live, and interact with each other. Some have helplessly seen their rice bowls snatched away, while others have suffered losses of loved ones to Covid-19.

Coupled with volatile stock markets, movement control orders, elections and re-elections, and working from home, it is safe to say that no one quite anticipated a year like this. While we are not sure when Covid-19 will be defeated, the one certainty is that if we are so wrapped up in our problems, we may be overlooking things in our life that we can control.

Here are three areas where you can take some purposeful steps to remind of who is ultimately in charge of your family’s “Return on Life”:  

1. Your Mental Health

Diseases and health threats are nothing new, with people passing away daily even before Covid-19. The difference this time is it made us realise that none of us can control how long we have when it comes to life. In addition to very real health concerns this year, there has also been plenty of news of job cuts and losses, people going through financial struggles and more. 

As we fight to keep hope, the news can be demoralising. With many spending more time on social media, it actually exposes us to news that may magnify our anxiety and bounces them back to us over and over again. 

If you’re not working or checking on your friends, set some daily screen time limits. Unplugging before bed can be especially beneficial if your brain is still recovering from a full day of tweets and likes. Our electronic devices and apps are designed to attract our attention. When it’s time to sleep, there’s no better mute button than a good book and a warm cup of water. 

It also helps a lot if we have someone to speak to regarding what’s bothering us. People tell me that it helped just knowing that there was someone on the other side listening to what they were sharing, as well as understanding the strong emotional undercurrent during the conversation. Having someone to talk to, I personally believe is very important to maintain balance in our mental wellbeing.

2. Your Physical Health

The pandemic and new norm has created a new breed of couch potatoes. Instead of binge-watching television or Netflix, we’re in danger of putting in unnecessary overtime, all the time. The boundary between your 9-5 identity and your real identity is becoming blurred, and it can be taxing for many people.

Working from home has disrupted many of the routines that kept us active even on days when we weren’t heading to the gym. Simple things like moving around the office or walking down to nearby shops for a coffee break don’t happen as much when you are parked at your laptop at home.

The physical barriers between home and work are a little blurry right now (bosses, this is real!) but you have more control over your schedule. Break up a long day of Zoom calls with ten minutes of simple exercise. When you clear your emails, take a long walk. And when it’s time to clock out for the day, turn off your computer, get up and get moving. Even if you have to convert your living room into a gym, just do it. 

Separating yourself from your WFH routine will help you get the most out of your new exercise routine. For me, I make it a point to get down to the street and jog, even it means jogging in the basement carpark. I also took a deliberate approach on what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

3. Your Financial Health

People who have never set a monthly budget are often surprised by what an empowering experience it can be. The most impactful adjustment you can make to your financial plan is to limit unnecessary spending and maximise savings while continuing to invest prudently, regardless of what’s happening in the markets or on the news. Even if it feels like the one thing we don’t have control of, it could not be further from the truth.

However, investing can make people anxious during moments of uncertainty, especially if retirement is near, or if they are used to low-risk products like fixed deposits. This is one of the reasons why we revisit the “Life Timeline” exercise with clients at least once a year.

A financial plan is only as good as your confidence in it. Since most plans are based on assumptions and what was correct at the time of planning, most financial plans may become obsolete as we move into future; we just don’t know how it could go wrong. That is why, regular check-ins and reviews of our plans are crucial to ensure we are on the right track.

One thing that is certain is that if we take a proactive approach to look at our financial matters and have an idea on how we want things to be managed, that will give us an advantage of being in control over our financial decisions. We are also able to better deal with shocks and surprises.

The Things We Can Control

Now let’s take a look at some of the things that we can control:

• Setting aside money to prepare for future goals
• Using credit cards to pay (and having the ability to make full payment of the outstanding sum when due)
• Planning our income tax bill
• Preparing a medical safety net for our family
• Paying down our debts, especially bad debts
• Withdrawing money from our EPF account 1 if the need arise
• Finding out how we are doing with our money

Being in control of your financial health, enables more flexibility in terms of how to adapt when things go wrong, resulting in less stress and better mental wellbeing. Times like this offer the best opportunity to discuss how comfortable we are with market exposure, savings goals, debt, and spending.

The earlier we work to control these, the more we can feel excited about our plans and future. 

About the Author

Kevin is a NextGen Money Mentor and founder of NextGen Independent Advisors. He works with people to transform their relationship with money and be brave in their pursuit to live a meaningful life with their money. He is a CFP professional, a certified member of Financial Planning Association Malaysia (FPAM). Kevin can be contacted at www.kevinneoh.my.

Everyone experiences this emotion, but knowing how to control it is crucial.

Overblown anger usually indicates a larger underlying problem in life. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues are associated with many magnified negative feelings, some common culprits being worthlessness, shame, and disappointment, all of which can translate into anger.

Addiction is also a common source of anger, showing up when we get frustrated with ourselves for not being able to stop our compulsions, or to get the fix that would soothe us temporarily.

What Causes Anger?

There are two sets of structures in the brain that govern us: the cortex thinks, while the limbic system takes care of the more ancient aspects such as emotions and memories. External triggers, particularly fears, are sent to a deep, central part of the brain called the amygdala.

The amygdala decides whether to send the incoming data to the cortex for rational processing, or straight to the limbic system that generates quick knee-jerk reactions.

Childhood maltreatment, poor social adaptation, and unchecked habits sometimes lead to an overactive amygdala, causing us to react too strongly and out of proportion to the actual gravity of the triggering event. Anger becomes an undesirable response when we keep getting uncontrollably irritated against a perceived threat, no matter how small or unfounded it is.

What Makes Us Angry?

Anger makes everything seem worse or more important than it actually is. It also makes us feel sure that the things that offend us are true even though we cannot know absolutely whether they are. We feel the urge to exert our will, and we feel justified to let our ego overcome others’ rights.

Having said that, anger is nevertheless a normal response experienced by everyone in the face of unfairness. Some events in life make us feel deliberately harmed, even when on a deeper level we know that that is not true.

Such events can cause unforgiving feelings that manifest themselves in anger:

• Frustration — Feeling victimised when things are not going the way we want them to.
• Injury — Feeling the need to revenge after being attacked.
• Exploitation — Feeling the need to set things straight after being taken advantage of.
• Lack of attention — Feeling small as a result of being ignored or dismissed.
• Envy / jealousy — Feeling obsessed when someone else has something that we desire.
• Lack of conformity — Feeling irritated when other people do not obey the rules that we obey or believe to be important.
• Sympathy — Feeling troubled when seeing someone else suffer a harm that should not be allowed to happen.

Everyone Expresses Anger Differently

Even though anger is completely normal, it becomes a problem when we feel it too frequently, too overwhelmingly, or when we express it in ways that can hurt other people or ourselves.

Noticing our own physical signs of anger is the best way to catch the beast before it overcomes us. Because physical signs tend to show up even when we are trying to suppress our feelings, they are highly useful for those who are used to restraining themselves, but nevertheless suffer from deep-seated and unresolved rages.

Some of anger signs include:

• Clenched fists
• Fast and shallow breathing
• Stomach in knots
• Shaking or trembling
• Sweating
• Hotness
• Pounding heart
• Reddened face

Apart from classical displays of anger such as verbal abuse and physical violence, many people have learned to express their anger in subtler forms due to social conditioning and habitual inhibition. These are not better or worse than other kinds of aggression, whether self-directed or interpersonal, and should also be monitored mindfully with consistent practice:

• Passive aggression — “I want to control your emotions or behaviour but I don’t want you to notice it.”
• Sarcasm — “I want to hurt you verbally and I will force you to take it as a joke.”
• Contempt and disdain — “I am better than you and you are lesser than me.”
• Disgust — “You contaminate me or the things I care about.”
• Coldness — “I refuse to acknowledge you, and I take pleasure in your misfortune.”
• Hostility — “I am ready to fight you if I have to.”

How To Cope With Anger?

Unbridled anger can form a vicious cycle that becomes more aggressive at every outburst and harder to break. The understanding that anger is usually fuelled by an overblown emotional threat is essential to rebuilding a response mechanism that is not based on defensiveness and flight-or-fight reaction, but compassion and rationality.

Anger can be caused by real problems in our lives that need to be solved, but our ability for problem solving is weakened if we continuously fail to provide ourselves a suitable framework in which to assess life that is based on reality instead of drama.

Many established anger management techniques are not only meant for emotional de-escalation, but also for helping us to restructure our attitudes and rebuild our empathy, so as to restrain our ego from taking centre stage on every occasion:

• Maintain a diary to record the thinking patterns and common triggers that have led to your angry outbursts.
• Recognise the moment anger starts appearing in your body.
• Observe whether the angry feeling is taking over your logical mind.
• Do not feel guilty about your anger, but accept that you need ample personal space to avoid lashing out (even though you really want to), and to let the urge flow through you.
• Practise switching attention to your breathing until the anger feels less urgent.
• When things have calmed, retrace and revisit the train of thought that you have experienced during the provoking situation.
• Do not blame yourself.
• Visualise giving yourself a pat on the shoulder or hugging yourself like a parent would to a child.

Exploring Our Inner Thoughts

Therapy and counselling help us understand our anger and learn how to manage it, so that we can limit its negative impact on our lives in scientifically proven ways.

To gain more insight into our anger, it is useful to ask, “in what ways had this situation hurt me?” and, “am I overestimating the damage that can be done to me?” The answers to these might put things into perspective as we realise that our anger has more to do with our flawed beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world, than the actual severity of the situation itself.

After an angry episode has subsided, ask yourself the following questions, and remember your answers when the next tantrum begins to simmer:

• Do I talk to myself in an overtly emotional language that tends to describe situations as catastrophes, exaggerated dramas, or black-and-white scenarios?
• Was the situation worth getting angry over?
• Did I really need to be angry at that moment? Did it solve my problems?
• Did the pleasure of lashing out justify the harm done (or could potentially do)?
• How did the effects of my anger impact people on the receiving end?

We often either use anger as a tool to avoid feeling hurt, or hurt ourselves by directing the rage inwards. Neither pattern is necessarily our fault, but both can lead to bigger mental health problems and social issues. Learning how to control anger does not mean denying ourselves the freedom of expression, but that it happens to be a vital step towards gaining more inner peace and overall contentment in life. 

Seek the help of a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist if you often feel unsure, overwhelmed, or out of your depth when confronting difficult feelings.

This article is adapted from an article by Sunway Medical Centre, Sunway City.