What is Ankylosing Spondylitis?

Ankylosing spondylitis is a disorder that primarily affects the spine. It is a form of chronic inflammatory arthritis characterized by back pain and stiffness. These symptoms typically appear in adolescence or early adulthood. As the condition progresses, back movement can gradually become limited as the bones of the spine (vertebrae) fuse together. Joint stiffness or a limited range of motion in certain joints is called ankylosis.

Health And Physiological Benefits Of Yoga

The most important benefit of yoga is physical and mental therapy. The aging process, which is largely an artificial condition, caused mainly by autointoxication or self-poisoning, can be slowed down by practicing yoga. By keeping the body clean, flexible and well lubricated, we can significantly reduce the catabolic process of cell deterioration. To get the maximum benefits of yoga one has to combine the practices of yogasanas, pranayama and meditation. Yoga does wonders to increase flexibility, stretch ligaments, lubricate joints, and tone muscles - just 10 daily minutes of the Sun Salutation sequence will eventually cure your morning stiffness.

Health Benefits

Flexibility

Flexibility and Yoga go together. With increased flexibility many tensions and conflicts are erased on their own. The more flexible a body the better it is for that individual. It saves your body from unnecessary torture and pain. Pain and stress are forms of blocked, jammed, misplaced and misused energy. Being more flexible means opening these energy blockages and freeing your energy circulation.

Excercise's Benefit to Health

We already know that physical activity has a bounty of benefits, which makes it so puzzling why so many people just don't do it. A study shows that, more than 60% of Americans do not get regular exercise. It is not necessary to do the exercise to join a gym, these exercises can be done at home, park or at fitness center according you’re convenient.

Most fitness centers have trainers that can customize an exercise program suitable to your specific needs. Also, your family physician will be able to tell you which type of exercise is right for you based on your health. Here are a few of the different types of exercises like Stretching, Jogging, Walking or Running, Swimming, Cycling, Pilates Exercises, Aerobic Exercises, Yoga, Tai Chi Program of Exercise, which you can add to your exercise program on your trainer or physician recommendation.

A secret for living a healthier, stress-free life?

Do you want to know a secret for living a stress-free healthy life? Well, it's something you're doing right now – reading! Reading for enjoyment is a quick "escape" from worries or the day-to-day round. How else can you travel the world without leaving your armchair, meet fascinating people, visit the past, and make whole other world come alive? But reading doesn't only stretch your imagination. Once you settle into a good book, you actually become more physically relaxed. 

Healthy meal helps to achieve a slim figure

When was the last time you enjoyed a nice leisurely meal? Do you know that one of the best ways to maintain a healthy weight and a trim figure is to slow down and savor the food you eat? This may seem a strange idea but it works to live a healthy life. Just look at the eating of French people, they take their food in multiple course meals with creamy sauces, pure butter, desserts and full of energy drinks.

On the other side, American! they are flip side of French in their eating habits, American are use to having fast food on the run and overindulging at an all-you-can-eat buffet, more often they do not include skipping meals. One might think that staying on the go helps to burn calories, but what it actually does is to create stress, and stress is a big deterrent to maintaining a healthy weight.

But don't worry; still you can take turn-back to healthy life, all is not lost, because any habit that is learned can be unlearned. You can gain a trim healthy figure without too much effort or drastic shift of hard exercise. All you have to do is to slow down at mealtimes, begin to enjoy your food, take better care of yourself, and keep a trim healthy figure to live and enjoy happier and healthier life.

First of all you will have to require some adjustments to your daily schedule. For your first meal of the day, go for something healthy, even if it is just some fruit, milk, dairy product or nuts etc. Studies show that starting your day with a healthy mix of protein and carbohydrate boosts your metabolism and helps you burn fat throughout the day. And if you have a mid-morning or afternoon snack, keep it light and make it a bit small size if possible. Stretching it out will make it feel like more in the end.

Secondly! At mealtimes, go to eat a full balanced meal that includes foods you like, choose foods that are not loaded with preservatives and chemicals and that means stay away from prepared fast foods as much as possible, as your digestive system was designed to break down natural foods. Also eating slower and chewing you food well will help you enjoy the different tastes on your plate and make you more aware when your body is full.

Finally, don't forget to add some exercise to your daily routine as it play a major role to achieve you a slim figure and live a healthy life. But it doesn't have to be something exhausting or lengthy. Studies show that short bursts of activity throughout the day help to maintain an optimum weight. Some little suggestions include taking a short walk after lunch, parking further out in the grocery store parking lot, walking to the corner store as opposed to driving, and opting to take the stairs as opposed to the elevator whenever you can. These extra steps will boost your chance to live a happier and healthier lifestyle and to gain a trim healthy body.

Stretching Excercies

Stretching is the deliberate act of lengthening of muscles, in order to increase muscle flexibility and joint range of motion. Stretching is a natural activity often performed without thinking by most people and many animals, and can simply be pleasurable. Stretching often occurs right after waking from sleep, after long periods of inactivity, or after exiting confined spaces. Many athletes stretch deliberately before or after exercise in order to increase performance and reduce injury.

There are many beneficial stretching excercies that can improve Range of Motion (ROM) or muscle flexibility in athletes, especially runners or a common man. There are some key benefits of stretching.

• May improve Ranage of Motion / Muscle Flesxibility
• Reduce risk of injury
• Prevent post-exercise muscle soreness
• Slow delayed-onset muscle soreness

To gain these benefits, You have to add different forms of stretching in your daily programme, one stretching exercise may not be enough to prevent all types of injury. Therefore, multiple stretching exercises should be used to gain the full effects or benefits of stretching.

Health Benefits to Excercise

6The first punch should be to get down to your fighting weight. A way to gauge your weight is by the body mass index. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight for both men and women. The accepted norms are:

Underweight = <18.5 weight =" 18.5-24.9" overweight =" 25-29.9" obesity =" BMI" align="justify">A way to determine your weight risks is your waist circumference. Place a measuring tape snugly around your waist. This is a good indicator of your abdominal (stomach) fat, which is another predictor of your risk for developing heart disease and other diseases. High blood pressure, high LDL (bad) cholesterol, low HDL (good) cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar, a family history of premature heart disease, physical inactivity, cigarette smoking, and excess alcohol intake are also risk factors.

The risk increases with a waist measurement of over 40 inches in men and over 35 inches in women. For people who are considered obese (BMI greater than or equal to 30) or those who are overweight (BMI of 25 to 29.9) and have two or more risk factors, the guidelines recommend weight loss. Patients who are overweight, do not have a waist measurement that is too high, and have less than 2 risk factors may need to prevent further weight gain rather than lose weight.

People who are overweight or obese have a greater chance of developing high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers. Even a small weight loss (just 5 to 10 percent of your current weight) will help to lower your risk of developing those diseases. Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake. The second punch is to get fit.An increase in physical activity is an important part of your fight to get healthy. Sustained physical activity is most helpful in the prevention of weight regain. Exercise has an extra benefit of reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, beyond those of weight loss alone. Start exercising slowly, and gradually increase the intensity. Trying too hard at first can lead to injury or excessive soreness.

Your daily exercise can be done all at one time, or intermittently over the whole day. Initial activities may be walking or swimming at a slow pace. You can start out by walking leisurely 30 minutes for three days a week and can build up to 45 minutes of faster walking, at least five days a week. With this regimen, you can burn 100 to 200 calories more per day. All adults should set a long-term goal to have at least 30 minutes or more of moderate physical activity on most, if not all days of the week.

Also, try to increase "every day" activity such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Reducing sedentary time is a good strategy to increase activity by undertaking frequent, less strenuous activities. Also take into account that common chores also add exercise. Here are some examples: washing the car, washing the windows, mopping the floor, gardening, raking leaves, pushing a stroller, shoveling snow, or walking up and down the stairs. You may also want to try flexibility exercises to help your full range of joint motion, strength or resistance exercise to tone muscles, and aerobic conditioning to increase stamina.

The knockout punch will be changing your lifestyle. Setting the right goals is an important first step. Most people trying to lose weight focus on just that one goal: weight loss. However, the most productive areas to focus on are the diet and exercise changes that will lead to long-term weight change and health improvement. Lifestyle changes will free you forever from the merry-go-round of diets, the emotional ups and downs associated with weight gain, and the need to eat for gratification instead of for healthy nutrition.

The payout, of course, is a healthier life with more energy.

Take care and love yourself.