I read the following article in Time magazine, and was given another validation that yoga brings well-being on many levels. For years yoga has helped me maintain a healthy weight through cultivating mind, breath, and body. This article shows that people are beginning to think outside the conventional box maintaining that all we have to look at is calories consumed versus calories burned. That type of thinking is so oversimplified that it can completely disregard wholistic health and overall well-being, and here's why:
STRESS
LESSONS FROM CHUBBY MONKEYS
TIME MAGAZINE A TO Z HEALTH GUIDE
Ice cream, cheesecake and 18-oz burgers can all get you fat, but at least you enjoy the journey. Here's something that packs on the pounds but is no fun at all: stress. Worse, the kind of fat that stress makes you add is the most dangerous. In studies of monkeys at Wake Forest University, researchers found that those lowest in the social hierarchy- and thus highest in stress- tended to be fatter than others and tended to add their weight around the middle. This so-called visceral fat is more metabolically active than subcutaneous fat elsewhere in the body, secreting hormones and other agents that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes. What is true in monkeys is true in us. People who have high levels of the stress hormone cortisol are likelier to have a bulky waistline and thus carry a load of visceral fat. Eating well is key if you want to stay healthy- but chilling out may be just as important.
Namaste,
Reina
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