Vitamin Information Center

Understanding the “Holiday Blues”

The holiday season can be a difficult time for many. It is meant to bring joy and celebration but sometimes this time of year can bring sadness and despair. Changes in life, such as being separated from family and friends, or living through the grief of a loss, can be especially hard.

Holiday blues are also thought to be primarily caused by expectation and comparison along with a lack of planning and action. People generally have high expectations for the holidays. We often hope that they will make up for a year gone wrong. We expect family members to become friendly, season’s greetings to be sent, gifts to be given, and happiness to reign. The mass media, through news stories, TV specials, and advertising, raise this hope for “what may be.” The reality of “what is” often falls short of the expectation and there is disappointment.

Negative memories may also be associated to the holiday season and those suffering with depression and other mood disorders can also be affected at this time of year due to change of daylight. Many people are lonely at this time of year if they are working or going to school without a way to get back to your family for the holiday season. You may have not been in Vancouver long enough to make many friends. It can be hard to find comfort.

Characteristics of “The Blues” are emotions - sadness, loneliness, depression, anxiety - and, although intense and unsettling, these emotions are generally short-lived and usually subside within a few weeks once a daily routine is resumed. Other symptoms of the “Holiday Blues” may include:

* headaches * inability to sleep or sleeping too much * changes in appetite causing weight loss or gain * agitation and anxiety * excessive or inappropriate feelings of guilt * diminished ability to think clearly or concentrate * decreased interest in activities that usually bring pleasure, such as: o food o sex o work o friends o hobbies o entertainment

The most important things to remember are: it’s a normal response to a stress-filled time of the year and you don‘t have to suffer unnecessarily. If you anticipate feeling very lonely on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, there are ways that you can help yourself feel better and survive the holiday season. 26 Ways to Improve Your Mood During the Holiday Season:

1. Volunteering offers a way to interact with others, give to the community, and help keep your spirits up through giving. The Union Gospel Mission, Salvation Army, Carnegie Community Centre, or various churches will provide Christmas dinners and benefit by receiving help from volunteers. This is a good way to help yourself by not being alone and by helping others in need.

2. If you are in a new community, try to get an invitation somewhere for Christmas. Let others know that you would enjoy having dinner with them.

3. Invite someone to join you in celebration.

4. Find out what the community offers and participate in it. Go to the concerts and parades. Get involved.

5. Takes gifts to a children’s home.

6. Be active by going for walks. Getting some exercise will help keep mood levels up. Don‘t stay cooped up inside too long. 20 minutes of exercise every day will raise endorphin levels and allow you to absorb what sunshine there is.

7. Be aware of your diet - try not to overindulge in alcohol or sweets. Alcohol and sugar can really affect mood and brings on ‘moodiness’.

8. Get enough rest: general self-care of the body is important.

9. Organize your time: make lists and prioritize.

10. If you are going home to be with family, bad memories might come up that can be really stressful. Take items from your current home that you have positive associations with. This might be a teddy bear, pictures of friends, a good book, or candles. Anything to help you feel more comfortable.

11. Plan time away from family. If you are going for a few days, it can be stressful. Getting away can help to lessen the stress.

12. If you find that you fall back into old patterns when you are around family members, it can he helpful to remember that you are an adult now and you have the ability to behave and respond in a different way. Spend some time planning ahead. What kinds of circumstances will occur that might bring up old feelings?

13. Be Prepared. There may be certain things that happen every year that drive you up the wall. This year, talk to the people involved ahead of time and try to defuse those situations before they occur.

14. If finances are a concern, be aware of this and set reasonable limits.

15. If there is a significant loss that you are reminded of this time of year, such as a death in the family or a divorce, it can be helpful not to push it away and pretend it didn’t happen. Recognize that there was a loss and take time to acknowledge it. Create a healthy way of remembering. Examples could include putting out favorite photographs and lighting a candle before them.

16. If you are in a new city or find yourself lonely, try to create new memories for yourself. You may enjoy events around the city such as the Festival of Lights at VanDusen Botanical Garden -

Dates and times: 4:30 to 9 p.m. every night, December 7th, 2007 through January 1st, 2008 (except December 25th when the Garden is closed).

17. Another tool to help you get through the Holiday Blues is to remember that the Christmas season will pass.

18. Also, remember that winter will pass. Winter does not last forever.

19. Remember to take your medication. Also, taking multi-vitamins and fish oil capsules daily can contribute to overall health and keep stress down. Other vitamin supplements such as Vitamin D or a B Complex can be helpful for mood.

20. Keep yourself busy to take your mind of things if that helps. Make plans to go out for lunch, go for walks, go to the movies or even curl up at home and watch a movie.

21. If you are suffering from clinical depression, getting some help can be beneficial this time of the year. Go to see a therapist, look for a support group, or contact the mental health team in your area. Get as much help and support as you can.

22. Give yourself a break — plan to prepare (or buy) one special meal, purchase one special gift, and take in one special event.

23. If you don‘t like shopping, shop online or make small gifts.

24. Do your best not to create unrealistic expectations and don‘t get caught up in comparisons.

25. Find someone to talk with who can help you through this difficult time — a family member, friend, a spiritual leader, or professional counsellor.

26. Call a crisis line in your time of need: Vancouver area 604-872-3311.

© Janel Ball 2007

Thank you and plesae take care of yourself over the holiday season,

Janel Ball, MA, RCC, MBACP Healing Solutions Professional Counselling Services janel@healingsolutions.ca http://healingsolutions.ca

Tags: action, Blues, celebration, change, christmas, community, comparison, day, daylight, depression, despair, disappointment, Don, expectation, family, gain, grief, guilt, Holiday, home, inability, lack, life, loss, Mass, mood, news, planning, Pleasure, reality, reign, routine, season, subside, time, Understanding, Vancouver, weight, year

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More than a million people around the world are affected by this very disagreeable disorder of the digestive and the GI tract called Crohn’s, it has many unpleasant symptoms, to alleviate which, a remedy (drug-free) called Ablene was developed by scientists.

What is this remedy Ablene?

Forcible discharge of the nutrients from the body with diarrhea, vomiting, and fever are one of the symptoms associated with Crohn’s disease. Ablene is specifically developed to supplement these nutrients in patients with Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome. This makes the patients recover from such a loss.

The biggest irony of the various medical treatments for this disease is that they make the intracellular deficiency even worse. Ablene is developed to addresses this aspect of the treatment, especially.

The way Ablene works:

Apart from diarrhea and abdominal cramping, other notable symptoms are major weight loss, loss of appetite, rectal bleeding, and fever. While keeping the patients under close observation to monitor and control these, they are advised to avoid allergy-causing foods like diary products, fats, chocolate, artificial sweeteners, and cereal grains.

Ablene resists inflammation-causing substances and enzymes, as it contains anti-inflamatories.

Nutrients of optimum quality: Ablene contains sufficient quantity of those nutrients found to be ideal for digestive health, as it is designed with a view to improve the quality of life of the people whose digestive tract is affected.

The ingredients:

The body loses vital nutrients necessary for the body due to a digestive system affected by Crohn’s.

The following are some of the important ingredients of Ablene:

The extracts of iron, iodine, magnesium, zinc, and copper are most important in the regulation of the functions of the digestive tract.

Vitamins A, C, E, and B-complex, natural plant extracts of olive, cat’s claw and licorice to control inflammation.

To control the side effects of Crohn’s, Inositol, choline, l-glutamine, and rutein are present in Ablene.

When combined with the physician’s treatment program, the ingredients of Ablene significantly lower the symptoms of Crohn’s. It is proved by the available research that these ingredients are very useful in the battle against Crohn’s disease and GI tract disorders.

Tags: abdominal, appetite, aspect, Bleeding, body, C, Cat, cereal, chocolate, claw, copper, Crohn, deficiency, diarrhea, diary, discharge, Disease, disorder, E, fever, Forcible, health, intracellular, Iodine, Iron, irony, licorice, life, Nutrients, observation, plant, quality, quantity, rectal, regulation, remedy, syndrome, system, tract, Treatment, view, way, weight, world, zinc

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With the growing awareness of the importance of healthy food, many people are also becoming vegetarian because it matches the kind of low fat, high fiber diet recommended by dieticians and doctors. Concern about the environment is another factor as people become more aware of the effect raising animals for their meat is having on the environment. Or you may be concerned about wasting world food resources by using land to raise animals for meat instead of growing crops that can feed more people directly.

Animals need far more water than grain crops. According to the USDA, growing the crops necessary to feed farmed animals requires nearly half of the United States‘ water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Additionally, animals raised for food in the U.S. consume 90% of the soya crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of its grain.

One acre of pasture produces an average of 165 pounds of beef; the same acre can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes.

Vegetarian diets have been found to satisfy the nutritional needs for all stages of life, and large-scale studies have shown vegetarianism to increase longevity, improve health, and significantly lower the risks of many diseases.

Studies show that vegetarian diets help to keep body weight under control and reduce the risk of heart disease, osteoperosis and many cancers - particularly lung cancer and colon cancer. Vegetarians tend to have lower levels of cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and less incidence of dementias such as Alzheimer’s. Vegetarian diets that are low in saturated fats have been successfully used to reverse severe coronary artery disease.

It was once widely believed that vegetarians had to carefully combine plant protein sources in each meal in order to obtain all the essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids needed to stay healthy. However, scientific studies have shown that the human body can store essential amino acids and combine them as necessary. So, while combining beans and rice, or peanut butter and bread produces a complete protein, it’s not necessary to consciously do this at every meal. If you eat a varied diet and adequate calories, combining proteins is not an issue.

Vegetarian diets are lower in saturated fats, cholesterol, and animal protein. They’re also high in folate, anti-oxidant vitamins like C and E, carotenoids, and phytochemicals.

Some famous vegetarians are Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Socrates, Plato, Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Edison. Famous modern day vegetarians include Bryan Adams, Alicia Silverstone, Liv Tyler, Jerry Seinfeld, Kim Basinger, and Paul McCartney.

If you are new to vegetarianism, The Higher Taste by Srila Prabhupada is a great beginners booklet. Not only does it explain vegetarianism clearly but it also gives some delicious easy to follow recipes.

There are many vegetarian websites today that provide many delicious recipes. There are a large variety of vegetarian recipes available from Italian and Greek cuisine to Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cuisine.

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Since time immemorial, man has always been in a quest to find the fountain of youth because almost everybody wants to be eternally youthful, strong and beautiful. However, until now, scientists are yet to uncover a miracle cure or pill that will make these desires come true.

You really do not have to look at the deepest seas and remotest regions to find your answer to staying young. Actually, you can maintain your vigor and youth for a long time, if you just follow the tips below.

Be Happy

If you read self-help books available in the market, you will realize that an important key in maintaining youth is staying happy and contended. Nobody in his or her right mind would want to live long if his or her life is miserable.

A crucial element in maintaining happiness is having a positive outlook in life. Everybody has problems but those who approach the challenges in their lives with hope and optimism end up surpassing all obstacles. If you let negativity affect you, you will start being depressed, anxious, and stressed out. It is a known fact that depression, stress, anxiety and other negative emotions can zap your energy, prevent you from sleeping well, and generally make you look old and weak.

Stay Active

Degenerative diseases such as arthritis, osteoporosis and many others can be prevented if you regularly exercise. Brisk walking for at least twenty minutes a day is important in helping improve your cardiovascular health. Weight training, on the other hand, is essential in building your muscles to boost metabolism and in strengthening your bones, among others.

If you are not a gym buff, try sports activities, such as swimming, playing tennis, running and jogging at least three times a week. Some studies show that fidgeting also help burn fat and bolster metabolism. Thus, when you are watching your favorite television program, instead of sitting on a couch and drinking beer, why don‘t you do some lunges and leg lifts?

Eat Healthy

Another component of staying physically healthy and young is by eating right. Start ditching junk foods and sweets because they are unhealthy and are responsible for a lot of serious diseases, such as diabetes, kidney problems, and even obesity. Remember that as you get older, your metabolism begins to be a little sluggish and it becomes more difficult for your body to use up stored fat. If you don‘t pay attention to what you eat and let your weight increase uncontrollably, you might find it hard to shed off excess pounds later.

You need to eat a lot of vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, carrots, garlic and other leafy greens, and fruits because they contain all the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants your body needs for cell regeneration and renewal.

Learn New Things

To prevent the development of Alzheimer’s, dementia and other problems relating to cognitive abilities, you need to take care of your brain health. Aside from taking supplements that are rich in essential fatty acids (Omega 3,6, and 9), you also need to exercise your mind.

One fun and exciting way to keep your mind sharp is by learning new things. Read books and magazines, learn a new language, study a new field, and try solving puzzles to attain a sharper and more alert mind.

Ditch Harmful Habits

Smoking, drinking, and taking drugs are some of the most harmful habits that can prematurely age your body and mind. Sleep deprivation, sedentary living, and binge eating are also some of the things you need to kick out of your system.

Maintain Your Skin

Wrinkles, skin discoloration, dry skin and other imperfections are the first signs of aging. If you want to stay young, you need to look young. Thus, always protect your skin from harmful rays of the sun by wearing sunglasses and sunscreen. Moreover, be sure to use moisturizers or facial creams that target your specific needs. One facial product that can help eliminate fine lines, wrinkles, and even out skin tone is Dermaxin. Read more about this product on its website, http://www.dermaxin.com/.

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Sugar. What is it Good For? Absolutely… Nothing? I wouldn’t go that far.

It’s been a great contributor to some of the most debilitating diseases known to man. Diabetes, heart disorders of all types, adrenal disorders, allergy, endocrine disturbances, obesity, and brain chemistry disturbances. Continue Reading…

Tags: acid, allergy, amount, balance, Balancing, blood, bloodstream, body, bottom, brain, calcium, candida, chemistry, crystal, diabetes, diet, direction, efficiency, endocrine, factor, form, glucose, grumpy, hormones, insulin, management, maximum, metabolism, Nixon, nothing, obesity, process, Rich, Shall, today, turn, United States of America, weight

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