48 THE QUEENS COURIER • WELLNESS • SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
wellness
Most people are eating the right amount of salt
More research seems to be contradicting
Don’t have time to walk and meditate? Try them together
Th e mental and physical merits of walking
are well established, from helping
ward off depression to preventing heart
disease. Meditation, likewise, can help
reduce anxiety symptoms and improve
sleep quality. Have you considered combining
these seemingly very diff erent
activities?
Walking meditation, which doesn’t
take much of an investment in time or
money, can be a good way to reap multiple
benefi ts.
Walking meditation isn’t a stroll in the
park or an hour in the lotus position,
rather something in between. Th e goal
is to be self-focused and mindful of your
body in motion. To get started, consider
these steps from UC Berkeley’s Greater
Good Science Center:
• Find a place that’s relatively free of
distractions and where other people
won’t make you self-conscious. Your
path - whether it’s a hiking trail or a
little-used hallway - doesn’t have to be
long; the whole point is to go nowhere,
slowly - and safely.
• Relax your hands and arms, stand up
straight and take a few deep breaths.
Take 10 to 15 small, deliberate steps,
counting them in your head. Be mindful
of the way your feet feel as they rise
and land on the ground, weight shift -
ing from heel to toes.
• If your mind wanders, try to push out
extraneous thoughts and focus on your
breathing or the sights and sounds of
your surroundings.
• Pause for a breath, turn around and
start again.
Why meditate in the fi rst place?
Meditation may help cancer patients
by relieving their stress and fatigue. It
may reduce blood pressure and alleviate
some symptoms of menopause and IBS.
Th ere is also evidence that it improves
the quality of life for female patients
struggling with fi bromyalgia by helping
them deal with depression and confl
ict, according to the National Institutes
of Health.
Meditation can be good for people
of all ages. A Journal of Alzheimer’s
Disease study found that meditation may
help slow the cognitive decline that leads
to Alzheimer’s and dementia. When college
students added meditation to walking,
they had lower levels of anxiety than
when they merely walked for exercise,
according to a study in the American
Journal of Health Promotion.
As you take a moment to slow down
and practice walking meditation, keep
in mind that the results can also be slow.
Studies have shown benefi ts aft er as little
as 10 minutes per session, but most were
based on practicing four to six days per
week for several weeks.
Courtesy BPT
the oft -stated notion that we eat too
much salt. Th e latest such study appeared
in Th e Lancet, one of the oldest and most
prestigious medical journals. Th e study
found that for the vast majority of people
there is no health benefi t from a low-salt
diet and no harm from the average salt
consumption of most people around the
globe today.
Th e lead scientist working on this
study, Dr. Andrew Mente of McMaster
University, worked with researchers from
around the globe to monitor the salt
intake and health of over 95,000 individuals
in 18 countries for an average of
eight years. Th ey also monitored the associations
between sodium and potassium
intake and blood pressure and cardiovascular
disease and mortality.
Th ey found that most people around the
world already eat in the healthy range of
sodium consumption - between 3,000 and
5,000 mg per day - and that people who
consumed salt at the higher end of the
healthy range had better health outcomes
and fewer incidences of heart attacks.
Only in China, where consumption was
over 5,000 mg per day, was intake associated
with cardiovascular disease and
stroke. In addition, they found a positive
eff ect of increased potassium consumption,
noting, “All major cardiovascular
outcomes decreased with increasing
potassium intake in all countries.”
Despite this new research the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) continues
to insist that Americans should
consume no more than 2,300 mg per
day of sodium and the American Heart
Association recommends a daily maximum
of 1,500 mg. Americans currently
consume an average of 3,400 mg per
day.
Dr. Martin O’Donnell, also at
McMaster University and a co-author of
the study, said, “Public health strategies
should be based on best evidence. Th ere
is no convincing evidence that people
with moderate or average sodium intake
need to reduce their sodium intake for
prevention of heart disease and stroke.”
Courtesy BPT