Archive for the ‘Caffeine’ Category
How to Relieve Pain in Joints and Body
Do you suffer from pain in the joints and body that you can’t seemed to explain? Perhaps you have already been diagnosed with having osteoarthritis, or rhemautoid arthritis and wanting to find other ways to relieve the condition. Or you don’t have these conditions but wondering why you seemed to have chronic aches in the body.
If you suffer from any medical condition, please seek appropiate treatment from the doctors. However, I would like to recommend some holistic methods that may help you to relieve your discomfort:
Theory of Inflammation
Due to unsuited diet and inactive lifestyle, the body- fascias, joints and muscles may be inflamed. You could have eaten something that results an allergic reaction to your body- and that could escalate or cause the onset of autoimmunity diseases such as RA.
There are 4 lifestyle changes you can make to reduce pain and inflammation on your body:
1. Drink lots and lots of water
2. Reduce sugar intake as much as you can
3. Reduce intake of deep fried (even BBQ) food (especially meat)
4. Take fish oil tablets/supplements
5. Adequate exercise
6. Reduce caffeine like coffee/ tea.
Body Pain may be due to Chronic Sinus
Reuters published an article “Body Pain may be due to Sinus Trouble” with the title above dated 22 September 08 linking the connection between ongoing sinus inflammation in relation to body pains. It is said that especially on older adults, conditions may be diagnosed as arthritis, depression, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome- is relieved once the patients undergo the sinus surgery.
Endoscopic sinus surgery is being recommended. Refer to ehealthMD for a better description about endoscopic sinus surgery whereby the possible advantages & complications are explained in brief.
Even though the study gives a ray of hope to those who are suffering from sinus AND body pains, I would not think it is a good idea to jump straight into the surgery because:
1. Effectiveness of sinus surgery in permanently curing sinus
2. Sinus happens when there is an allergic reaction- is our body’s way of warning us
Caffeine & Its Effect on the Body
In my opinion, there must be something wrong about taking strong doses of caffeine. It may not apply to others. But if you suffer from these symptoms each time you have your daily caffeine fix, you may want to seriously rethink about gradually reducing the dosages:
- tendency to develop sinus or running nose when taking strong doses of latte from San Francisco or Starbucks. On bad days, rashes or skin irritation happens. It is as if the body develops and allergy to it
- more incidents of gastric, gas and acid reflux. Strong doses of coffee are very acidic and if taken on empty stomach over long term, it may lead to stomach ulcers- an extremely painful condition
- pain on the lower back, around the kidney areas- sometimes when getting up from sleep
- weak bladder- inconvenience because always need to do to the washroom due to the caffeine’s diuretic effect
- knee pain or joint discomfort
- numbness of the limbs- legs or joints- sometimes occurring even though you only sat down for a while
- feeling very tired and drained out at the end of the day (because after the effect of that latte wears off, both the body and mind can be very exhausted)
To test out, try to cut down the intake and gradually stop taking. See if any of the signs goes off.
Effects of Caffeine on Exercise and Health
From my personal experience, caffeine intake right before exercise affects exercising in the following ways:
- heart beat much faster than normal
- dizziness
- gastric
- weakness in limbs— especially if you drink Ceylon tea prior to exercising
- sometimes headache
The signs are felt more strongly especially if the caffeine dosage is high, for example in latte or expresso. I felt these signs even though I am so used to caffeine that I have no problem sleeping even right after a latte from Starbucks at night.
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Early Signs of Osteoarthritis
I have long suspected that something’s really wrong with my right knee. I have this creaking sound every time I bend and straighten my right knee. Generally it does not give me pain but still, the creaking sound had always worried me.
Before I started going to the gym and practicing proper eating, I used to suffer from either numbness or pain on both of my knee, and more so on the right side. After I started exercising, incorporating yoga, the pain is reduced to a mere discomfort. Then, I read that weight training helps because at least, it can strengthen the muscles surrounding the knees and therefore can help to reduce the strain on the knees. With that and proper stretching each time I finish my workout, the numbness and pain are reduced to a very minimum. Now, the flexibility that I used to have when I was young returned and my head is able to touch my leg during stretches.
Today, I spent time with a very knowledgeable person- my mom’s good friend who’s an ex-nurse. She’s highly intelligent, England trained and now a retired staffnurse. When I told her about my creaking right knee, she asked me a series of questions and told me point blank that I am showing early signs of osteoarthritis:
- my love for caffeine, especially Ceylon tea in high doses for years went straight to my bones. In Chinese medicine, it is long known that tea, especially Ceylonese tea has a very corrosive effect on the bones
- there is no replenishment- I do not take milk (as in cow’s milk), not much taufu and I also do not take much meat. Also I don’t talk calcium supplements.
- a largely sedentary lifestyle and bad eating habits that I was having prior to joining gym.
- poor posture also contributed to too much of strain being placed on one leg
Free Radicals in Your Body
A number of studies done had linked free radicals towards development of cancerous cells and tumor growth. The higher the levels of free radicals in our body, there comes an increased risk of getting cancer, least the normal cell mutates.
Recently, while buying my favourite drink, tea with evaporated milk, I chanced upon a roadshow offering free radical test. Basically, you just need to stuck the side of your hand to a machine that looks quite sophisticated and the content of your free radicals will be displayed in a laptop connected to the machine.
My score is below average, ie 50%- which is considered as undesirable.
The lower the score, the better it’s supposed to be, with 0% indicating a person with no free radicals (which is actually not possible).
Factors that contributes to increase in free radicals in your body:
- Smoking or prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke
- High processed, BBQ, fried meat intake.
- Very low intake of vegetable and fruits (one should take at least 5 servings per day with one serving being a size of a fist)
- Lack of exercise
- High stress levels
- Constant exposure to sunlight (UV ray)
- Being overweight/ obese
- Lack of sleep
Project ‘Tummy’ Part 5- Obession with Milk Tea
Continuation from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4…
Have to be honest and admit that everything was going on fine till…. I discovered that a newly opened restaurant new my office serves the most awesome tea with evaporated milk. It’s literally my favourite drink which I could not refuse. Nearby cafe and even the drink by the previous owner tasted bad.
For the past week, I found myself wondering to the cafe to pack the drink, followed by a sweet delicacy to go with it …after lunch. But I try to take a light lunch though. Well, I go in with my eyes open as I know how much sugar drinks and sweet stuff contribute to hidden calories.
As the result, the tummy’s here to stay despite the crunches that I have been faithfully doing even though I am grateful it did not balloned up at the rate I am eating. Today, my boss brought lots of delicious Deepavali goodies like muruku, ghee balls, cornflake cookies, coconut candies, etc. How could I resist, hee hee.
This evening, my dinner consist of fried seaweed and an Ensure drink.
My exercise program this morning:
- 1 hr yoga class
- 40 times crunches on the Swiss ball
- 20 min cardio (machine said I burned 250 kcal)
- Weights for legs and abdomen crunch- 25 times (using 25kg)
- 20 more crunches on the Swiss ball.
- Proper stretch down exercise.
It must be the effect of sugar, so yesterday I was feeling very tired and asked for extra time off during lunch (which I will pay back in hours) to exercise. What I did then:
- 5 min cardio warmup
- 40times crunches on the Swiss ball
- 15min on the treadmill
- 20times crunches again on the Swiss ball
- Warm down & stretching.
Eating too much sweet stuff is bad for my system. From last week till yesterday, I felt extra tired again. Perhaps I should start back weaning off processed sugar and starch completely again. See how first…
