Managing Your Cholesterol!

Micrograph of an artery that supplies the heart with significant atherosclerosis and marked luminal narrowing. Tissue has been stained using Masson's trichrome. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Worried about your high bad cholesterol level? WebMD has a Cholesterol Management Center that you can visit to learn more about cholesterol and how you can properly manage your cholesterol level. The website provides tools and resources and information on diet, exercise, tips for avoiding heart disease and natural cholesterol treatment. Links to tools and resources are below. An short extract is also provided below to give you an indication of what the website covers.

Tools & Resources

• A Diet to Lower Cholesterol
• Cholesterol-Busting Exercise
• Tips for Avoiding Heart Disease
• Cholesterol Health Check
• Natural Cholesterol Treatments

High cholesterol is associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, which can include coronary heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. High cholesterol has also been linked to diabetes and high blood pressure. To prevent or manage these conditions, take steps to lower your total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol if they are elevated.

Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease

The main risk associated with high cholesterol is coronary heart disease. Your blood cholesterol level has a lot to do with your chances of getting heart disease. If cholesterol is too high, it builds up in the walls of your arteries. Over time, this build-up (called plaque) causes hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Atherosclerosis causes arteries to become narrowed, slowing blood flow to the heart muscle. Reduced blood flow to the heart can result in angina (chest pain) or in a heart attack in cases when a blood vessel is blocked completely.

Cholesterol and Stroke

The main risk associated with high cholesterol is coronary heart disease. Your blood cholesterol level has a lot to do with your chances of getting heart disease. If cholesterol is too high, it builds up in the walls of your arteries. Over time, this build-up (called plaque) causes hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Atherosclerosis causes arteries to become narrowed, slowing blood flow to the heart muscle. Reduced blood flow to the heart can result in angina (chest pain) or in a heart attack in cases when a blood vessel is blocked completely.

Cholesterol and Peripheral Vascular Disease

High cholesterol also has been linked to peripheral vascular disease, which refers to diseases of blood vessels outside the heart and brain. In this condition, fatty deposits build up along artery walls and affect blood circulation, mainly in arteries leading to the legs and feet.

Cholesterol and Diabetes

Diabetes can upset the balance between HDL and LDLcholesterol levels. People with diabetes tend to have LDL particles that stick to arteries and damage blood vessel walls more easily. Glucose (a type of sugar) attaches to lipoproteins (a cholesterol-protein package that enables cholesterol to travel through blood). Sugarcoated LDL remains in the bloodstream longer and may lead to the formation of plaque. People with diabetes tend to have low HDL and high triglyceride (another kind of blood fat) levels, both of which boost the risk of heart and artery disease.

Cholesterol and High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure (also called hypertension) and high cholesterol also are linked. When the arteries become hardened and narrowed with cholesterol plaque and calcium (atherosclerosis), the heart has to strain much harder to pump blood through them. As a result, blood pressure becomes abnormally high. High blood pressure is also linked to heart disease.

Read more - source:  http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/guide/diseases-linked-high-cholesterol?ecd=wnl_hrt_073112

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Top Concentration Killers: Multitasking, Boredom, Fatigue, and More

Attention deficit disorders can disrupt your life and have a negative impact on your ability to reach your goals. Often the solution that people are offered involves drug therapies that can actually compound your problems.

Jen Uscher of WebMD.com identifies six things that can negatively impact your concentration and then proposes a number of solutions to help you to refocus your concentration to enable you to keep on target with your goals and lead a much more orderly life. The key is to avoid behaviors that negatively affect your ability to concentrate. Since life happens, you then need to find a way refocus your attention and minimize the distractions.

 

6 Top Concentration Killers

Straying from the task at hand? Here's how to regain your focus.

By Jen Uscher
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

Unanswered emails are clogging your inbox, you’re wondering when you’ll find time to pick up the dry cleaning, and your brain is foggy from too little sleep.

It’s not surprising you have such a hard time tackling the projects at work and at home that demand your full attention.

To help you concentrate, experts say you first need to identify what's derailing you. Here are six common concentration wreckers and what you can do about them.

1. Multitasking

“Multitaskers might feel like they’re getting more done, but it almost always takes longer to multitask than to devote your attention to one thing at a time,” says psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD, author of Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload.

We lose time shifting between tasks. In a 2001 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, researchers from the University of Michigan and the Federal Aviation Administration did tests in which people solved math problems or classified geometric objects. The researchers found that people lost time when they switched between tasks. And when the tasks were more complex or unfamiliar, they took even more time to switch tasks.

The key, Palladino tells WebMD, is be choosy about when you multitask. It’s OK to talk on the phone while you’re folding the laundry, for example, but not while you’re working on a difficult or high-priority task - say, proofreading a report.

2. Boredom

Dull tasks can sap your ability to focus and make you more vulnerable to distractions.

“When you’re bored, almost anything else can be more attractive than what you’re doing,” says Gordon Logan, PhD, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt University.

Logan's tip: Give yourself little rewards, like a coffee or a favorite snack, for staying on task for a specific period of time.

“When a colleague of mine had to review a complex grant proposal, she rewarded herself with a chocolate-covered raisin each time she finished reading a page,” Logan says.

It’s also good to schedule breaks -- to take a 10-minute walk outside, for example -- so you’ll have something to looking forward to and a chance to recharge.

Boredom is one case when multitasking may work in your favor.

“Multitasking is often a help when you’re doing something so boring that you’re understimulated,” Palladino says.

If you’re having a hard time focusing on washing the dishes or filing your receipts, for instance, listening to the radio or texting a friend at the same time may keep you motivated.

3. Mental Distractions

When you’re worrying about money, trying to remember if you took your vitamins, and replaying a conversation in your head that didn’t go as planned, it's hard to settle down and stay focused on a project you’re trying to complete.

Those types of distractions -- the ones that are in your head -- “have a lot of power over us,” says Michael J. Baime, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and director of the Penn Program for Mindfulness.

One way to let go of these nagging thoughts is to quickly write them down. Add items to your to-do list, for instance, or vent your frustrations in a journal entry.

If you’re stressed about a certain problem, find a time to talk about it with someone you trust. “If you have a supportive, active listener, it can help drain away some of the tension that is bouncing around in your head,” says Daniel Kegan, PhD, JD, an organizational psychologist.

Meditation can also help.

“When you’re meditating, you learn to manage distracting thoughts so they don’t compel your attention so strongly. You discover how to refocus the attention and take it back and place it where you want it,” Baime tells WebMD.

In a 2007 study, Baime's team found that people who took an eight-week meditation course improved their ability to focus their attention.

To learn the basic techniques of meditation - such as focusing on the sensation of breathing and then transferring that focus to other sensations in the body -- Baime recommends taking an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction class, either in person or online.

4. Electronic Interruptions

“It’s easy to fall into aiding and abetting in your own distraction by checking your email all the time,” Kegan says. “If you’re trying to concentrate, you can lose your train of thought every time you hear ‘You’ve got mail’.”

We often feel like we need to respond to an email, text, instant message, or voice mail as soon as it’s received. But Palladino suggests drawing some lines so you’re not letting technology control you.

Carve out blocks of time when you can focus on your work without electronic interruptions. Try checking your email at set times each day (rather than constantly), and close your email program the rest of the time.

It may also help to change location. Take your laptop to a spot where you know you won’t have wireless access to the Web for a few hours, for example.

5. Fatigue

Many studies show that loss of sleep impairs attention, short-term memory, and other mental functions. “Your attention falls apart when you’re sleep deprived,” Baime says. Sleep needs vary, but most adults do best with 7-9 hours of nightly sleep. Getting at least seven hours of sleep will go a long way toward improving your focus during the day.

Also, try scheduling tasks that need more concentration during the times of day when you’re feeling the most alert. “Pay attention to your own biorhythms,” Kegan says, “and learn which times of day you work best.”

6. Drug Side Effects and Other Medical Issues

If your concentration problems hamper your ability to function at work or at home, or if you’re also noticing a physical symptom like weight gain or insomnia, tell your doctor. Poor concentration can stem from conditions such as ADHD, sleep apnea, depression, anemia, or thyroid disease. Certain medications, such as those used to treat depression, epilepsy, or influenza (flu) infections, may cause concentration difficulties as a side effect, as well.

Source: WebMD.com

Top Concentration Killers: Multitasking, Boredom, Fatigue, and More