Summer2010wellness.ucsd.edu

LiveWellSupporting students in achieving a more balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Summer HappinessTips!Making the most of your time off

Sunlight:An essential nutrient

Sweet and Low?The dangers of sugar

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Savor. When you’re basking in the bliss of an outdoor BBQ, relaxing with friends, or otherwise engaged in a moment of joy, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in “if only this could last forever” thinking. Nothing lasts forever, and nothing ruins the moment like a wish that it could be other than it is. Allow yourself to be fully present and grateful for where you are, soaking and simmering in reality as it stands, because you will integrate both the feeling and the experience into your permanent personal record. When you truly savor and engage with something great, you are changed for the better.

Wake up before noon. The sunlit hours are brighter and longer, but the day feels cropped short if you sleep through half of it. This is a great time to establish a relax-ing morning routine: making tea, stretching, reading, taking a walk or run, cooking breakfast. These habits will serve you well into the regular school year to boot!

Explore. Break out of your usual activities and go for some adventures. Whether you stay local or strike out of town, find random places to camp, take a hike through uncharted terrain, try new foods, and talk to strangers. Make it a point to ruffle the feathers in your thinking cap, form fresh impressions, and push the square envelope through the round mail slot!

Encapsulate. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but how about a thou-sand words with pictures? Make a special album, blog, book, or movie that captures a chapter of your summer. It could be a documentary of a vacation, a birthday bash time capsule, a hand-made storyboard, or a You-tube dedication. Get creative. It will be the delight of you and your friends for decades to come.

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SUMMER MADNESS HAPPINESS!Making the most of your day

Summer 2010 wellness.ucsd.edu

Ah, summer...it’s a wonderful time! The most commonly filed complaint is that it goes by too fast. Here are some tips for making it last.

CREATE.

LAUGH.

SING.

APPRECIATE.

GROW.Grand Opening in Price Center Plaza (next to Jamba Juice).

Friday, September 24th. 11 am to 2 pm.

be here.

Summer 2010 wellness.ucsd.edu

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Got a minute? Check it out…

The LiveWell Blog(A fun read that’s guaranteed to feed your mind.)

The LiveWell Blog is updated weekly with articles and news bulletins to keep you thriving!

-productivity and time management-loving and honoring the real you-maintaining a body that is healthy, happy, and strong -balancing your budget -living green-getting the most out of career resources and opportunities -awakening to your purpose and passion-cultivating healthy relationships-much, much more!

livewellucsd.blogspot.com

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not so sweet.

Just a spoonful of sugar…slows your immune system down. Glucose and vitamin C have similar chemi-cal structures, so when sugar levels go up, they compete for one another upon entering the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. But suppressing the immune system is just the beginning. Sugar upsets the body’s mineral balance, contributes to hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness, produces a significant rise in triglycerides, reduces helpful high density cholesterol (HDLs), promotes an elevation of harmful cholesterol (LDLs), causes hypo-glycemia, diabetes, hypertension, and a weakened defense against bacterial infection, causes kidney damage, increases the risk of coronary heart disease, increases fasting levels of blood glucose, promotes tooth decay, produces an acidic stomach, speeds the aging process, contributes to weight gain and obesity, increases the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, contributes to osteoporosis, decreases glucose tolerance, causes food allergies, causes free radical formation in the bloodstream, overstresses the pancreas, increases the amount of fat in the liver, increases the body’s fluid retention, causes hormonal imbalance, and gives you headaches.

Unfortunately, artificial sweeteners such as Splenda, Sweet & Low, Equal are notorious for wreaking even more havoc. The chemical structure of Splenda (sucralose), for example, has more in common with pesti-cides than it does with food.

The most promising option on the plate is stevia, or reb a, which comes from a Paraguayan plant. Stevia can be used for anything you might use sugar in, including baking…and it is naturally low in carbohydrates. Known in South America as the “sweet herb,” stevia has been used in other cultures for centuries without ill effect. It’s 200–300 times sweeter than sugar, so just a small portion of stevia will sweeten even a strong cup of tea. We’ve known about stevia in the US since 1918, but pressure from the sugar import trade blocked its use as a commodity. Now you can buy it at most health food stores and on the web.

Cookies and frozen yogurt and soda and cake and chocolate and cereal are delicious. But is the taste worth the trouble?

Highly refined sugars are processed into so many foods. And not just the obvious desserts—sugar hides in many places. Some brands of ketchup have more sugar per ounce than ice cream! The labelling is often misleading; manufacturers avoid listing sugar as the first ingredient by dividing it into different terminologies like dextrose, corn syrup solids, malt powder, etc. If you add these ingredi-ents together, sugar would become the first ingredient on the product list.

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Fruits and vegetables are light, refreshing, and keep your energy levels high--

while nourishing your body at the same time!

•Lower blood pressure; reduce risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancers; lower risk of eye and digestive problems.

•Add baby spinach to just about anything, even smoothies- the flavor is mild and the nutritional value can’t be beat.

•Throw some sliced green and yellow zucchini on the grill. Brushed on both sides with olive oil and sprinkled with your favorite seasonings or marinades, they are yum-yum delicious.

•An apple makes a great snack. For that matter, so does a pear, an orange, or a banana…and they even come in their own wrapper!

Smooth out wrinkle and bulges with 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

TASTE THE RAINBOW!

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Sunlight:more than meets the eye

Since the dawn of humanity, cultures around the world have revered and worshipped the thera-peutic qualities of the sun. The earliest writings by the Pharaohs of Egypt, ancient Greek, Ro-man, and Arabic physicians, and many others reveal the healing powers of 'sun therapies.' These records demonstrate how the sun was used to strengthen a person's health and treat a variety of illnesses and conditions. Dr. Carl Hoffminster wrote that soldiers in World War II healed much bet-ter when their open wounds and broken bones were exposed to sunlight.

Recent studies show that sunlight maintains heart and muscle health, and helps heal and prevent many common diseases, including multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, asthma, and yes—even cancer.

This flies in the face of the commonly-held belief that sunlight causes cancer. As Dr. Jacob Liber-man states, "About three decades ago, dermatologists alarmed at the rising incidence of skin cancer began a campaign to get people to stop spending so much time in the sun, or at least to cover up with strong sunblock lotion if they did.” This approach has backfired on several counts. For one, un-blocked sunlight is essential for the synthesis of vitamin D, a little something you can’t live without.

Large population studies by the National Cancer Institute have verified that people with low vitamin D levels have higher levels of several common types of cancer; according to researchers from the Moores Cancer Center here at UCSD, if vitamin D3 levels among populations worldwide were increased, 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancers could be prevented each year. In addition, sunscreen itself is a highly irritating—and cancer causing—agent. A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals that 97% of Americans are contaminated with a widely-used sunscreen ingredient called Oxybenzone that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage.

n the summertime, when you put on your bathing suit (or birthday suit, for that matter) and sun-bathe for 30 minutes, your body produces about 20,000 IUs of vitamin D -- as much as exists in 200 glasses of milk, or the equivalent of about 50 typical multivitamins! Of course, all things in moderation…common sense dictates that you do not thrust your hand into an open flame, and in the same vein you would avoid roasting yourself in the sun. Repeated or severe burning causes obvious damage to the skin.

The recommendations for regular sun exposure fall somewhere between 10 minutes to 1 hour, de-pending on your skin tone. Do not shock your skin into solar submission, but rather, gradually build up a “base tan.”

Light is an essential nutrient: Get your daily dose!

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Summer 2010 wellness.ucsd.edu

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you into something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Walso Emerson

Words of Wellness

Office of Student Wellness

Student Services Building 5th Floor, Suite 562(858) 822-7618

Hours: Monday-Friday8:00 am to 4:30 pm

wellness.ucsd.edu

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