Anxiety (and depression for that matter), are major mood and disposition issues here in the US and abroad. There are tons of pharmaceutical medications conceived of every year that are supposed to be the next best thing when it comes to treating and/or at least alleviating anxiety and stress as well as depressive disorders, and not one of them comes without a long list of potential side effects and warnings.

Some can even catapult someone into a downward spiral if certain variables are present, as documented in several cases. Over the past decade alone, several anti anxiety meds have gotten bad raps as being too laden with serious side effects, including serious withdrawal upon stopping the medication, akin to someone withdrawing from serious street drugs. But there is something you can do that can and does dramatically reduce anxiety and instills a constant sense of peace and calm.

What is it? Exercise of course, silly! Exercise, in its many varied forms serves as not only a natural anti anxiety remedy, but it also wards off depression and many different diseases and disorders. Best of all, it’s free if you don’t pay to go to a gym (besides of course the initial investment in any equipment like a proform treadmill and elliptical machines or weight machines and other various exercise do-dads).

But it most definitely can be free if you just use your imagination a bit. You can jog, run, walk, do pushups, swim like the great Olympian Michael Phelps has done to the tune of record gold medals, do yoga, tai chi and other indoor floor work types of exercises that do not require equipment or weights, just using your body as resistence completely free of charge in or near your own home.

Exercise in many different forms, and ones that bring your joy or that you find kind of fun. Switch it up and keep it interesting, because just enjoying the type of exercise you do can have an immense impact on whether you keep doing it or not and also enhances mood, which helps zap anxiety and depression. Make sure you get your heart rate up, because this is key to reducing anxiety in the long run, although it may run contrary to initial thoughts.

Sometimes anxiety is simply pent up, extra energy that we need to expend, and that’s why working out helps in the most amazing way from relieving the angst feeling that seems to envelope your chest when it has you in its grips. For me, exercise provides almost instant relief, and most definitely provides a long lasting mood boost.

There are some advocates of an approach to working out and exercising that say it’s the quality that mostly counts when you go to the gym or wherever else it is you go to do your routines, and not the quantity, or the length of time that you spend on those exercises. Then there are those that say not to focus so much on the quality, but more so on quantity, saying that you can’t even begin to burn calories, no matter how intense the workout is, until you reach that magical 25 minute mark.

Well, that may not be the case, and there are newer workout regimens that preach quality over quantity and give you a butt kicking twenty minutes to a half hour workout that packs as much punch, if not more, than a more relaxed one hour workout. What sounds better to you? One hour or a half hour? I know what they majority of you will say, and it’s what I’ll say too - whatever can save me time in this hectic life of mine is what I’d pick!

There are workouts out there now that offer that shorter, but more intense, more targeted workout, and many people are seeing the results of that too, fairly quickly. One such regimen is the Thirty Day Shred series of workouts by Jillian Michaels, which one of my friends at work is trying out and says that it really does a butt kicking job of getting your muscles sore.

The Tae Bo series by Billy Blanks used to also use this concept in many of his shorter, blast workouts that offered you a sweat-pouring workout in about a half hour’s time. When you were finished, you’d feel like you’d just been in a (hot) gym for about four hours, and yet you watched the clock plainly say that about 28 minutes had gone by. Now that’s what I’m talking about - cardio conditioning, butt kicking muscle toning and sculpting, and all in just as much time as it takes to cook dinner (for some, less!)

We’ve been hearing about this modern marvel as a possibility for quite a long time now. It’s the idea that people could gleen the same benefits from a pill that their body could from actually getting off their duffs and exercising. In other words, a pill that could cardiovascularly condition you just like exercise, and elevate your metabolism, as well as all those other wonderful “side effects” you get from exercising on a regular basis.

A new pill that has been developed as a drug for those who cannot exercise but need the benefits of exercising, has been tested on lab mice with positive results thus far, making scientists think they might be on to something for near future use for human consumption. The idea is that those that are incapacitated in some way would reap the benefits of exercise, since they cannot actually move around too much, but the applications may spread beyond that into a strictly cosmetic diet aid as well for all we know.

The drug was tested on sedentary mice and found that the sedentary mice who received the pills for four weeks straight burned more fat and had less body fat, and a higher metabolism than those mice that did not receive the pill and were not sedentary. This means that, at least in mice so far, who biologically are supposed to be fairly similar to humans, this drug is working it’s magic on the metabolism and fat burning capabilities of their bodies.

Although this drug sounds great, and it most certainly would be a blessing to those who truly cannot move, I doubt it could ever wholly replace all the benefits that go with exercise, like feeling great after a workout, mood balance, and possibly even the development of muscle definition. Also, we just don’t know the long term effects of drugs like these because there simply isn’t enough time to test them before they go to market. Usually something that alters the body chemistry in these ways is eventually going to have some sort of repercussion.

The ongoing debate and crisis that we have with childhood obesity rages on, and there’s yet another piece to add to this discouraging story of how our youth is being plagued by inactivity in a day and age of parents sitting their kids in front of the tv for hours instead of having them go outside and play, and kids getting glued to the television playing games for hours on end instead of the “good old days” when kids used to have no other viable entertainment options than going outside and blowing off steam (and hence burning calories) for hours and hours, until dusk many times as when I was a kid.

Well, it seems that children of immigrants are even worse off when it comes to inactivity when it comes to getting in their physical fitness daily, than American-born children, which is worrisome of course as well because these children are also more apt to become part of the bad side of the childhood obesity epidemic.

Another reason to blame for the childhoor obesity epidemic is not just inactivity and lack of true exercise of the body, but also a high amount of processed, fatty and sugary foods being substituted for healthier, fresh options like fruits and veggies, because of the convenience aspect of processed and packaged foods.

Not only do children of immigrants get much less normal activity in during the week, they also participate drastically less than US born kids in organized sports and physical activities or clubs, making it even more unlikely they will be getting the exercise they need to burn calories and have a healthy, lean body that so many active children enjoy.

I think it’s horrible that kids are experiencing these problems so young now, especially since a child’s likelihood of wanting to exercise more as they reach adulthood is slim, since scientists have proven that children have an in-born tendency to be more active and want to be more active when younger, and it is only in teen years that yearning goes away, so the window of opportunity for true activity and wanting of physical activity goes away in a narrow time frame, considering how long we are here on earth.

After doing yoga for a few sessions, way back when I first started to experiment with yoga practices to see if I like them or if they made me feel any better or helped to change up my hum-drum workout routine, I started to wonder what the word, or term “namaste” meant, at the end of many yoga sessions, when the instructor bows their head and has their hands in prayer position in front of their chest.

Well, turns out there are some different interpretations of the meaning of namaste, but they all mean generally the same thing, of course it’s a good, peaceful meaning that tries to bring hearts and souls and minds together, and bring peace to the individual.

The whole idea behind namaste is an acknowledgement of oneness with eachother, with the earth, and with the universe, and we all know too well how this meaning and the basica idea that we were all created from the same “materials” gets lost in translation what with the news today being filled with murder, rape and people treating other people, and animals, cruelly.

Not to get off on a tangent, but I do believe that yoga nd meditation can help us get back to the basics and enjoy others and enjoy ourselves more, and have more of an appreciation for people and the diverse personalities they offer, no matter what their baggage or personality flaws.

Namaste, as determined in many writings, means, simply, “I bow to you”, as a way of honoring others and recognizing that we are all equals and deserve equal respect. It is a way of saying that no matter what your financial status, your history, your family’s stature, or where you’ve come from, we are acknowledging that we are all equal spiritually.

As determined by Deepak Chopra, a notorious author of metaphysical ideas and self help, has given the meaning of namaste as “the soul within me honors the soul within you”. Again, the same basic idea that we all honor one another for what’s inside, our eternal souls, not our egos and other extrinsic factors that do not make up our true spirit.

So, when you say namaste, you are honoring another person. Try doing it silently in your head the next time someone makes you mad, it actually helps take away anger and replace it with acceptance and forgiveness, and then you are not wasting so much time on negative thoughts and energies.

Yoga has been a savior for me during times of high stress. I’m not saying that it’s totally superior to actually just getting a good, sweaty workout in, but I am saying that I think yoga provides benefits that just plain old elliptical or treadmill type exercise can’t really touch, and that is the realm of stress management and breath regulation, both of which are critical to us living stress free, happy and fulfilled lives.

I have suffered many times with stress, and even have had numerous problems with breath regulation and panic attacks. Panic attacks are basically where a person feels they cannot catch their breath, and feel as if they are in a constant state of hyperventilation. The seriousness and the feelings can vary per person and per attack, but for me personally they have been sort of a mixture of more serious and long lasting, and short bursts of breathlessness.

I really need to get them under control when they start to occur, because stress is one of the leading causes of health problems and early deaths here in the US, it’s just not well documented or widely reported because no one wants to take the time to make the correlations between stress and anxiety and debilitating diseases and health and mental issues.

While working out helps to substantially curb my anxiety attacks (panic attacks) it doesn’t quite combine the relaxation and exercise experience of yoga. Yoga has a way of calming the nervous system, and because their movements are timed with the breath, you learn better how to control your breathing and get better control over your diaphragm movements, which is critical to gaining the most control over your breathing as possible.

My boyfriend was just telling me about a very interesting theory he heard on a satellite radio show, the Ron and Fez show, who has on a guy who is postively fascinating to listen to and seems to know a little about everything under the sun, a guy they call Mike the Teacher. I’ve listened to the guy before, and he knows about pretty much everything, especially the fascinating details about why he thinks drummers live longer than ordinary people.

I know, you’re probably trying to think of the correlation, as I am, and it’s not quite there, but he says that it’s because drummers are used to using their upper arms, which is not something that the human race is used to doing any more, unless your profession allows for lots of upper body movement, or you happen to be a frequenter of the gym and upper body workouts.

Now, what this has to do with your longevity, I’m not exactly sure, but it may have something to do with the fact that our heart is housed in our upper body and the circulation may not be as good for those of us that don’t use our upper bodies all that much, or it may be something completely unrelated. Mike the teacher says that if you notice, babies do not have any upper body strength, and this renders them virtually helpless, but again I’m not sure what this has to do with longevity.

So I went and looked it up on good ol’ faithful google to see if I could find anything on why this theory about drummers living longer actually works. And what did I find? Absolutely nothing, I typed in “drummers live longer” and nothing, and also tried variations of that phrase, then I tried, drummers and longevity and again found nada. If anyone has any theories or knows of any published studies, we’d love to know, since this totally relates to fitness!

Apparently text messaging is causing more than a new language emerging in the teen and tween set and beyond, like LOL and LMAO, and so on and so forth. Text messaging is apparently also the cause of a lot of physical mishaps because when people are texting, they aren’t paying attention to what they’re doing. Surprise, right? That’s exactly why I always tell my friends who have jumped on the texting crazed bandwagon that I don’t like doing it.

I’m the type of person who can only focus on doing one thing at once, especially if it involves any sort of dexterity or attention to spelling or thinking about what I’m writing at all. Sure, texting is a very informal way to communicate with people, but it still takes the cognition of reading and writing while you’re usually doing something else, and that is not something the average human being is made to do without occasionally screwing up from doing too many things at once.

Emergency rooms across the US are coming up with some unique and new age injuries from kids and adults who were texting and had accidents, not just car accidents either, but accidents walking into things, falling, tripping, rollerblading, skating, you name it, oh and riding a bike too! Texting does requre more attention than I think people realize, so it’s really creating problems for those that are addicted to it if they’re trying to do it while they really should have their full attention on something else.

There may be help on the horizon, but it will take a while to catch on most likely, as most new technology does when it first comes out, because we are so reluctant to hang up our old stuff, and that is using the voice recognition of some software programs to text and to call people. It means that you would be able to “text” someone hands free. by simply speaking into a phone or a mouthpiece of some sort which translates spoken words into written text and transmits them to the end user. If this technology takes off, then we may find a steep decline in the accidents in ER’s related to doing physical activity while texting.

Experts have actually kind of backpedaled recently on whether exercising regularly is absolutely essential to short term weight loss goals, saying that the initial weight loss isn’t really accelerated by a normal workout routine (unless you are doing some insane calorie burning during those workouts), and that the biggest thing when you are initially trying to get rid of the pounds is to cut calories, since calories butting is what takes weight off the body, period.

However, even though they say that the initial weight loss isn’t really affected by exercise, the long term weight loss is definitely closely associated to one who regularly works out, since long term, you can burn off those few extra calories you may consume in one day due to excess calorie consumption, and long term, exercise actually helps to raise the metabolism and keep it there permanently, not something that happens generally if you do not make it a habit to workout on a daily or at least regular basis.