4 Pain Flare Triggers To Avoid In Crohn’s Disease Or Fibromyalgia

Try and avoid some common triggers if you suffer from chronic pains of Arthritis, Crohn’s disease, or Fibromyalgia.

1. Changes in the Weather

The extreme weather change from hot to cold or cold to hot can affect various chronic pain types. This is especially true when your pain is related to your joints and muscles, such as with arthritis or Fibromyalgia. 

Most of my clients suffering from chronic pains keep a pain journal and record everything that occurred on the days when they had a significant flare-up. I suggest you do that too because it helps you record if your neck or knee pains worsen when it rains or gets extremely cold compared to other days. Knowing if the change in weather will increase your pain, helping you prepare for the future.

2. High Levels of Stress

Everyone experiences stress, but some can handle stress better than others. If you have chronic conditions like Crohn’s disease, the stress can impact your pain and cause painful flare-ups. 

People also experience stress due to chronic pain, especially when you have migraines or stomach problems from Crohn’s. Reversely, you notice that work stress or personal issues can aggravate the pain. The good news is when you know the triggers for your pain and stress, you are well prepared to overcome pains with proper stress relief methods that have worked for you.

3. Hormonal Changes in Women

Concerning women, a notable flare trigger for chronic pain can be when you have hormonal changes during different times of life. Pre-menstrual syndrome, where your pain is worse when you are about to start your period, or you might experience more pain as you head toward menopause. This is another good reason to keep a pain journal because it helps you notice these patterns and be more prepared for the potential triggers.

4. Eating Inflammatory Foods

Suppose your pain is related to your digestive systems, such as Crohn’s disease or irritable bowel syndrome. In that case, You should be following an anti-inflammatory diet as it helps to reduce this trigger. 

Ensure you AVOID the following inflammatory foods. Your body will thank you.

  1. Butter or eat real butter in less quantity.
  2. Red meat includes steak and hamburgers, processed meats like sausage, bacon, hot dogs.
  3. Fried foods like french fries, potato chips, shortening, and margarine.
  4. Refined carbs like white bread and pasta, white rice, white potatoes, and pastries.
  5.  Alcohol and sweetened soda beverages.

Ensure you CONSUME the following Anti-inflammatory foods.

  1. Fruits: Consume plenty of tomatoes, cherries, oranges, blueberries, and strawberries. Luckily, these are all delicious and easy to add to cereal, yogurt, oatmeal, smoothies, and eating as a light snack. 
  2. Green leafy vegetables: Regularly consume spinach and kale. 
  3. Nuts & Seeds: Consume a thumb size of walnuts and almonds every day. You can add pumpkin seeds and pine seeds on top of salads or eat a light snack with cheese. Healthy fats like olive oil are delicious to cook with or use for a light dressing.

You can make a smooth transition to help with your chronic pain by making slight adjustments to your current diet, like replacing a steak with chicken for dinner, adding more leafy greens on the side with your preferred  meal, and make a smoothie every morning for breakfast.

How Yoga and Pilates Help With Chronic Pain

 

An exercise is generally good for chronic pain. Still, for specific types, specialized yoga practices help decrease certain pain types, like shoulder, back, or neck pain, and the relaxation you get can also teach you to manage stress. Simultaneously Pilates on reformers assist in joints’ movements and increase circulations within the joints, reducing stiffness and pains.

When you want to use yoga for your chronic pain, you should first consider the type of yoga you do. While all yoga forms can be beneficial, certain types are useful for people struggling with physical pain. Check out the recommended Abbysan Yoga classes that help with chronic pains.

Yoga – Restorative, Back Flow, Yoga Core, Back Care.

Pilates – Core Recovery, Shoulder Clinic, Spine Clinic, Hip Clinic, Total Body.

One of the best types of yoga for pain is restorative yoga, which aligns with your physical and mental well-being. The movements are not complicated or overly advanced, so they are suitable even for beginners.

You can try restorative yoga at home with our online video or visit our studio for in-person guidance.

Fibromyalgia Resiliency Program

Companion to healing and improving quality of life.

6 Reflections You Must Use For Self-Care.

6 Reflections You Must Use For Self-Care

Self-care is an essential aspect of mental and emotional health, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming.

Check out these six reflections; you must repeat them every day, especially when having a bad day and facing obstacles. As you repeat, you’ll start to believe it and embody it honestly.

  1. I love myself; Accepting to love yourself the same way you love your friends and family will help you realize that you’re unique and deserve happiness just as much as they do. It’s an essential step toward positive mental and spiritual health.
  2. I am worthy of things that bring me joy; Spending time with a good friend, buying something nice for yourself, sleeping late, or anything else that brings joy. If you often deprive yourself of good things or feel guilty for indulging in what you love, remember that it’s okay to seek what brings you joy in all manners.
  3. I deserve to take care of my body and mind; If you’re always stressed at work or school and have family obligations, you might neglect your physical and mental health. However, even in the middle of all the stress, you deserve to treat your mind and body well.
  4. I am important; It’s easy to prioritize everyone and everything else above yourself, and this reflection reminds you of that.
  5. I choose to be positive; The struggles and stress that come your way might seem out of your control, but not your attitude. You can decide to concentrate on uplifting ideas, be positive, and focus on the real things in your life.
  6. I am strong; Even though you have made it through several obstacles in your life so far, and you’ll continue. Being assertive requires practicing self-care, which helps you become healthy and focused enough to tackle whatever comes your way.

Everyone has different priorities and values, so some of them might not benefit you as much as others. Choose and practice one reflection at a time for a minimum of one week.

A good reflection helps you focus on the positive, but it also has the power to influence your actions. Your reflection should help you accept yourself, take care of yourself, and make positive choices that benefit your life.

The Magic Bullet For Boosting Your Metabolism

For Boosting Your Metabolism

I have seen people obsessed with eating a big bowl of salads, skipping meals, drinking ice-cold water, and other iced beverages, and the most detrimental of all, consuming highly processed food and yet expecting to loos weight or boost metabolism.

Do you believe that enchanted pills, green smoothies, and special diets can amp up your metabolism?

If you have not considered exercise for boosting your metabolism, you have missed the Magic Bullet.

Before I tell you the best exercises out there to help boost your metabolism, understand that multiple factors affect the way your metabolism operates, especially age, gender, and hormones.

Age

Our metabolism begins to decline as we age, and we also tend to lose up to five percent of muscle mass and become less mobile. As combined effects, it’s easier for the pounds to accumulate around the waistline. Approximately 30 to 50 percent of calorie burn should be through exercise.

Gender

Females have a slower metabolism than men due to various factors, including oestrogen levels and a lower resting metabolic rate, which helps determine our overall total daily energy release and plays a vital role in regulating our energy balance.

Hormones

A rise in blood cortisol level due to stress or other factors can lead to weight gain, risk of heart disease, and diabetes. A workout before consuming a meal can help to drop those cortisol levels and improve metabolism.

Low testosterone levels can trigger a bit of weight gain and leave us feeling fatigued. Daily workout regimens can help keep healthy and stable testosterone and support a healthy metabolism. 

Estrogen can trigger metabolic malfunction, and the imbalance in this hormone can cause your weight to increase rapidly.

Finally, the thyroid hormone is responsible for the overall effectiveness of your metabolism. It helps control metabolic processes in the body that are necessary for growth, development, and metabolism. 

Hyperthyroidism (thyroid in a hypermetabolic state) can induce metabolism overdrive, leading to weight loss and excessive use of your resting energy. On the other hand, hypometabolism (underperforming thyroid) can reduce resting energy expenditure (metabolism) and gain weight.

Remember this; the metabolism is a powerhouse that converts food into energy and propels it without missing a beat.

If you are overwhelmed in trying to figure out the ways to regain control, continue reading this,

During exercise, our muscles utilise a relatively large amount of energy by burning calories. And the most exciting fact about exercise is that even after the workout is over, your muscles can continue to burn calories stored in your body, keeping the metabolism functioning at optimal levels.

There are three activities, when paired together, can do wonders and help you boost your metabolism.

  1. Lifting Weights to Burn fat; is a practical approach to helping you build not only muscles but also initiate fat metabolism for energy. When you rest, the muscles use more calories compared to fat cells. For best results, do two sets of repetitions (12-15) for just two days a week on the major muscle groups (back, arms and legs).
  2. Aerobic Activity; is a must-have ingredient for boosting your metabolism. Interval training is instrumental in yielding positive results. Swimming, walking, kickboxing, jogging, or even Zumba are excellent options for enhancing your metabolism.
  3. Low Impact Exercises; such as Yoga, Pilates, water aerobics are an excellent choice for people with low exercise intolerance due to underlying health issues such as arthritis, diabetes, heart conditions, or physical limitations such as knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain, or scoliosis.

In short, there might be a few reasons for not being able to control your metabolism, but exercise is your best bet and a magic bullet.

We want to welcome you to become a member of the Abbysan community to view all the great Yoga, Pilates, and low impact cardio videos and nutrition plans! Just CLICK HERE!

3 Exercises For Living In The Present Moment

3 Exercises For Living In The Present Moment-2

Being present and being mindful are excellent practices for health and wellness. They are also a great way to reduce stress and stay connected to the experience that you are having.

We continuously live on autopilot, and we are often distracted by external forces, events, distractions, and stimuli all the time, which keeps us from being present in the moment.

Why Is Being Present Important?

This quote by Ramdass sums up the most basic tenet of Mindfulness, “The next message you need is always right where you are.” Ram Dass.

Being in the present moment is referred to as staying in the “here and now.” Being mindfully present and aware of the moment you are living in right now has many benefits. 

Let’s check out some of the reasons why you should live in the present moment.

3 Exercises For Living In The Present Moment

1. Visualize Your Daily Goals; Take time each morning to visualize your goals. Because when you imagine your goals, you are making it more likely to become more mindful daily. After all, Mindfulness is a habit and a practice. 

See yourself doing each goal and finish each goal during this visualization. Quickly do this for each thing on your list of to-do items today. Sometimes the mental rehearsal helps you in the process of completing your daily tasks.

2. Do A Body Scan; The body scan is a way to attune to and get in touch with your body; it’s also a suitable method for entering a mindful state. Please do this in the morning to make it a ritualistic way to get your day a positive start.

Sit or lay and take some slow deep breaths. Notice the way your breath enters and exits your lungs. Feel the air intake into your lungs and feel your chest expand.

Do a mental scan from head to toe slowly. Check your feelings and the sensations you perceive through every part of your body.

This exercise also teaches you to notice when your body is feeling different than usual. Being attuned to your body’s sensations is excellent for your health and develops self-awareness.

3. Journaling can help you settle your mind, clarify your thoughts, and attend to one thing at a time. You can use journaling to start your day right or close it mindfully.

Just take a few minutes of intentional time that you set in your schedule to write whatever needs to be expressed on the page.

Writing out thoughts and feelings can bring about a new awareness of events or be an outlet for your senses. Writing is a great activity to allow you to be present to moments in your life, and it’s also a purifying and therapeutic practice.

Being mindful and present is accessible to everyone!

However, to develop it as a habit takes work, patience, and practice, and it’s worth adding the three techniques mentioned above to help you be present to the moments and events in your life.

Try out various methods and practices to help you learn to be more mindful. Have fun experiment with new, fun, and creative ways to add Mindfulness and presence to your daily routine.

5 Mindfulness Techniques You Can Start Right Now!

5 Mindfulness Techniques You Can Start Right Now!

Mindfulness is a practice of mentioning what is happening in your mentality and then making changes according to what thoughts would be most beneficial.

According to Mindful.org, “Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”

Mindfulness is a comprehensive practice to help people achieve happiness in the present moment. Being present in the moment that is currently happening allows us to recognize the positive incidents and process anything that may be an issue or can cause problems down the road.

Various mindfulness techniques are easy and accessible to new practitioners of mindfulness. Try implementing some of the techniques below and see how quickly you can grasp your thoughts and shift them to an uplifting mindset.

1. Breathe. Focusing on the breath is a practical way to calm the mind and provide a calm environment where the mind can slow down and allow for curiosity and creativity. Breathing regulates the nervous system, calms the mind and the body, and brings fresh oxygen to our brain, allowing new thoughts to emerge.

BREATH

 

2. Light A Candle. Lighting a candle is an effective way to practice mindfulness and meditation if you take the time to sit with it and watch it. Fire is one of the most fundamental aspects of nature. It reminds us of being strong and powerful and also peaceful and ever-changing. You can light a candle and sit calmly in front of it and enjoy its presence. Watching a flame flicker can be incredibly calming.

LIGHT A CNADLE

 

3. Drink Tea. One way to bring mindfulness to the moment is to drink tea with a calm and peaceful serenity. Drinking hot tea triggers us to take deep breaths and take breaks between sips to allow spaciousness in mind. Many masters throughout history have engaged in drinking tea as a spiritual practice. Whether your mindfulness practice is spiritual or not, this is a great practice to invoke to bring calm and presence at the moment.

DRINK TEA

 

4. Write A Gratitude List. Making a list of gratitude is an excellent practice of mindfulness. Each morning, evening, or whenever you can make time throughout the day, sit with a pen and paper and write a list of things you are grateful for. Maybe you set a timer for 3 minutes to write about what you are thankful for, or commit to writing down three items from the day you are grateful for. Bringing gratitude into the mind is an excellent practice of mindfulness and can lead to greater positive feelings and recognition of positive experiences.

WRITE A GRATITUDE LIST

 

5. Listen To Meditation. A practice of mindfulness that can be implemented anywhere is an audible or listening meditation. Wherever you are, you can take a moment to listen to the sounds around you and recognize where you are and what your sense of hearing is experiencing. If you are blessed with the ability to hear, listening mindfulness is a practice that can be transformative for attention to the present moment.

LISTEN TO MEDITATION

 

These five practices are simple options for bringing a conscious experience into your life. And can be a transformative practice to set aside the time for yourself, your mental health, and mindfulness practice. 

Breathing and listening to meditation for mindfulness practice can be done anywhere and anytime. Lighting a candle is a great practice to engage in the evenings before bed, while drinking tea with mindfulness can be a lovely and quiet morning practice. 

Practicing mindfulness each day and in each moment can bring mental clarity and peace of mind with continued training and patience.

Significant Damage Done By Ruminative Thinking And How To Cure It.

Significant Damage Done By Ruminative Thinking And How To Cure It

It is prevalent in modern culture to overthink and become stressed over things that are only happening in our minds.

Sometimes we experience a condition that is difficult to process, and often, we are simultaneously attempting to process multiple situations at once. It can be complicated to separate our minds and reactions from experiences that we go through as individuals or in relationships.

Because we often experience emotional overwhelm, we can sometimes stuff our thoughts and feelings away for another day. But instead of processing them later, they get lodged in our bodies and psyche and remain unresolved. Alternatively, many people can’t cope with the overwhelm by letting go instead of ruminating their feelings.

What Is Rumination

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Rumination is when we allow our thoughts to spin in our minds, almost as if they are on repeat, without any sense of control over what we are thinking or how it affects us.

Rumination is an exhausting experience for most people because it is a sort of “groundhog day” mentality where the same thought circle around the mind over and over again. If the thoughts circulating in your mind are harmful, destructive, or pessimistic, you will experience incredible stress, sadness, depression, or anxiety. 

It is also possible to ruminate around positive thoughts, as experienced in excessive thinking over a new love infatuation or an upcoming job opportunity. In these instances, the thought itself is positive, but the rumination as a process is draining. It’s rather destructive than constructive if it drains our energy or prevents us from experiencing openness and curiosity.

When we are open to the creativity of life and can bring curiosity to experiences, it can bring an openness to mind and allow for unique opportunities to come forth. But, when we are narrow-minded and stick in ruminating thoughts or over-identification with an inevitable outcome, we can experience extreme overwhelms when things don’t go as planned. 

Clinging to a mindset that’s not serving us is detrimental to the energy levels and to the ability to enjoy life as it is currently occurring. 

Overcome Rumination

The mind can be a trickster, so identifying thoughts and patterns is a significant first step in stopping ruminating thoughts. When we give attention to the mind, it is called mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the first step in changing mental behaviors and habits. 

When you learn to identify rumination, it is possible to begin to change the mind’s behavior through attentiveness. When we recognize rumination, we can offer a new perspective by inviting curiosity and optimism and grounding ourselves back into our bodies. 

When you wish to bring some space to the thoughts, it is essential to breathe, put your feet on the ground, get into nature, go for a walk, or participate in the exercise. Sometimes getting the heart rate up and getting active can calm the thoughts for a while and bring a break that will allow for clarity. 

When we take the time to honor ourselves by engaging in an activity other than dwelling in our mind, we can allow the body to bring forth a new message that is more clear than what we were experiencing in a spinning and stressed-out mind.

Further Strategies

1. Distractions – Distractions can help break the cycle of ruminating. Here are some ideas:

  • Watch TV
  • Read a book
  • Call someone
  • Exercise

2. Action Plan and Taking Action – When negative thoughts take over your mind, instead of just thinking about them, make an action plan for how you will address the problem. Then follow through on the action plan. 

3. Investigate – When you are puzzled by negative thoughts and obsessing, consider if the thought is sensical. Get perspective on it. 

4. Meditation – Meditation clears the mind and invokes deep calm and peace to the mind. Essentially you can use meditation to wipe clean those nagging thoughts entirely and break the cycle of rumination. 

IF Nothing Works; Get Therapy

If ruminating thoughts are a constant problem, then consider speaking with a licensed mental health professional. They are trained to help you identify the core issues, so you work through the reasons behind rumination and solve the problem once and for all.

If you are not sure what mindfulness is and how it be incorporated in your daily life take my 5-day mindfulness challenge that will guide you through simple actions you can take each day to increase both your peace and mindfulness.