How Exercise Can Improve Your Relationship
How to Health
What to spice up your sex life? Try exercise. Exercise does more than just strengthen your body, it can also strengthen your connections with others, including that special somone just in time for Valentine's Day. In this episode, we discuss how exercise can make you more attractive to others, how it improves connections (enhances new and existing ones) and what's going on in your body to make that happen. Select references cited in this podcast: Effects of Exercise Interventions on Body Image: A Meta-analysis: Snychrony and Physiological Arousal Increase Cohersion and Cooperation in Large...
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How Vitamin D can Help You
How to Health
It's the dark days of winter in the Northern Hemisphere in which the sun shines less and is lower in the sky. That means your body has less of a chance of making vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient, meaning your body can't produce it on its own. In this episode, we discuss what vitamin D is and what it does in your body, how you can get vitamin D and how using sunscreen affects how much you have, and what vitamin D defficiency means to your health. Select references cited in this podcast: Effect of Vitamin D3 Supplements on Development of Advanced Cancer: The...
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How to Stay Healthy During the Holidays
How to Health
The holiday season is upon us and with it the parties, food and time with family and friends. This can be season of joy, but it also brings with it challenges to your healthy lifestyle and for many, extra stress. Up to 45% of people go on an exercise break during the holidays and 90% report some holiday related stress. It's also a time of year we see more people having heart attacks. In this episode, we discuss ways to enjoy the holidays while keeping up with healthy eating and activity, as well as how to handle any extra stress that may come your way. We finish with discussing why heart...
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How do Old Wives' Tales stack up?
How to Health
Old Wives’ Tales are claims or sayings meant to promote a specific behaviour, such as eating carrots to improve eyesight. Many of these Tales started without any facts or science to support them and while following some may be harmless, others are not. In this episode, we've fact-checked four common Old Wives' Tales related to health, and the results may surprise you.
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How Scott Stays Healthy
How to Health
To start off our fourth season, we're doing something a bit different. In this special episode we're talking about how our very own Scott Lear achieves what he preaches to live a healthy life to support his physical and mental health. We'll touch on his physical activity, nutrition and sleep routines as well as how important socialization is to mental health. And be sure to subscribe and join us in future episodes which will cover topics on how being active can make you more productive, busting common nutrition myths, how helping others can benefit you and discussing the latest...
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How much is too much activity? The Physical Activity Paradox
How to Health
Is long been promoted that any activity is good for you. And in fact many people need to be doing more, but recent research indicates that not all types activity are good for you. In this episode, we discuss what types of activity may actually be harmful, what is the physical activity paradox, can you do too much activity and the biology behind it all. Select references cited in this podcast: The physical activity paradox in cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: the contemporary Copenhagen General Population Study with 104 046 adults: When Moving is the Only Option: The Role of...
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How to Prevent Dementia
How to Health
Every three seconds someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia- a disease that leads to a decrease in mental function. There's currently no cure for dementia making prevention all the more important. In this episode we discuss what is dementia (and how it's not just a thing of ageing), what are the risk factors and how you do and eat affects your chances of getting (or not getting) dementia. Select references cited in this podcast: Association of daily step count and intensity with incident dementia in 78 430 adults living in the UK: Flavanoid-rich foods , dementia risk, and...
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How Behavioural Economics Shapes Your Health Decisions
How to Health
Everyday you make thousands of decisions that affect your health. This includes deciding what to eat, whether to exercise or not, and how much sleep you get. Whether you know or not, you're bombarded with information that influences your decisions. Behavioural economics is a theory that tries to explain why people may make different decisions in different contexts even if those decisions aren't always in their best interest. In this episode we discuss what behavioural economics is, how human laziness leads to decisions we don't want and how you can make use of behavioural economics to make...
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How Pollution Affects Your Health
How to Health
It's estimated that 99% of the world breathes air that exceeds the recommended limits for pollution. Air pollution increases your chances for heart and other disease. But it's not just air pollution that's a problem, noise pollution also can affect your heart. In this episode, we discuss the health risks of being exposed to pollution, how air and noise pollution affect your health and things you can do to reduce your pollution exposure. Select references cited in this podcast: Associations of outdoor fine particulate air pollution and cardiovascular disease in 157 436 individuals from 21...
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Your Weight is Not Your Health
How to Health
The global weight loss industry will be worth $400 billion by 2030. And while most people who are trying to lose weight will say they're doing it for their health, your weight is not a good indicator of how healthy you are. In this episode we discuss how people started to equate weight with health, the role of excess body fat (and not weight) in health, what you need body fat for and when changes in weight are good and when they're not. References cited in this podcast: Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: Weight Circumference and All-cause Mortality in a Large US Cohort: ...
info_outlineExercise has long been thought to weaken the immune system and make your body more susceptible to infections. However, recent science challenges this belief and suggests exercise may indeed make you more resistant to infections. In this episode we discuss the basics of the immune system, problems with early studies suggesting exercise weakens the immune system and how exercise works to improve your immune response, resulting in less infections.