Exercise important to help kids build strong bones

It's never too early to save for a rainy day. That's goes for saving money and it definitely applies to your bones. You want to build strong bones early in life.

Dr. Ed Laskowski, an expert in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic, says bone is very much alive, growing and remaking itself.

“And it remodels itself according to the stress placed on it,” he explained. “That's why we tell people who are at risk of osteoporosis to do weight bearing exercises, so that the bones remodel to the stress and gets stronger."

Dr. Laskowski believes it’s important for parents to encourage their kids to get involved in weight bearing activities. This will cause the bone to build itself up and get stronger.

"We're kind of filling the tank early in life for later in life. If we can build the most bone early in our life, by doing these weight bearing activities, we'll go into later life with a better stock and a better store of bone mass,” he said.

And that's important because it's harder to rebuild bone as we get older.

You don't have to life weights to strengthen your bones – hiking, walking briskly, yoga, dancing, and racquet sports (like tennis and squash) are all weight bearing exercises.

http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/Exercise-important-to-help-kids-building-stong-bones-271779361.html

Iyengar's yoga class: Young or old, everyone's on the mat

In an overheated, billion-dollar market, Iyengar yoga stands apart, with its no nonsense, classicist approach. The guru smashed the weird-contortionist-twisted-around-himself cliche to create a scientific system for yoga. Iyengar is credited with some breakthrough ideas that form the bedrock of yoga practised in the world today.

Anyone can do yoga. There is no premium on being fit, flat-abbed or flexible in an Iyengar class. Iyengar believed yoga was as much for the ageing and sick as for the young and healthy. The techie with a stiff neck, the middle-aged mother with flabby triceps, the senior citizen with a shuffle, for Iyengar, no one was beyond yoga.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Iyengars-yoga-class-Young-or-old-everyones-on-the-mat/articleshow/40560520.cms

Why getting older can make sleep a struggle: We lose the brain cells that 'switch off' our thoughts

Elderly people may struggle to sleep as well as they did during their youth because they start to lose part of the brain that helps them ‘switch off’, scientists believe.

Researchers have identified a group of cells which blocks off conscious thoughts, allowing us to sleep.

They think these inhibitory neurons are gradually eroded as we age, leading to greater sleep problems in later life.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2729899/Revealed-reason-difficult-sleep-old-age-We-lose-switch-enables-nod-off.html#ixzz3B0Bi1x3w

S'pore 3rd most sleep-deprived city: Study

SINGAPORE - Just like their parents, the current generation of working adults here spend long hours in the office, working their way up the career ladder. But, unlike them, their day hardly ends there.

A recent study by Jawbone shows that Singapore is among the cities where people grab the least amount of sleep in the world, clocking an average of just six hours and 32 minutes a day.

Tokyo takes the dubious honour of being the city where people sleep the least - snoozing for just five hours and 46 minutes per night on average. South Korea trails slightly behind at five hours and 55 minutes.

The research tracked users of a digitised wristband that monitors sleep and movement.

A separate study had found that Singaporeans put in some of the longest hours among developed countries - an average of 2,287 hours a year.

While long working hours play a part, it is what Singaporeans choose to do after office hours that deprives them of sleep.

The scenarios differ, but the result is the same. Some choose to hit the trendiest clubs in town, others use after hours to spend quality time with their loved ones, and some opt to do the most mundane of things, like painting their nails.

While their pursuits after work are individual, all of them take hours to fulfil. And these hours are snatched by cutting down on sleep.

For lawyer Anna Tan, 26, it is this "me time" that she treasures, and it is not hard to see why, when she averages 13-hour work days.

"I will just lie on my sofa and reply the string of text messages I missed throughout the day, sometimes pampering myself with a face mask," she said.

"It is a luxury for me whenever I have this pocket of spare time and I don't want to waste it by going straight to sleep."

- See more at: http://yourhealth.asiaone.com/content/spore-3rd-most-sleep-deprived-city-study#sthash.nG5YcLHQ.dpuf