Food Mood Solution or Pilates for Fragile Backs

Food-Mood Solution: All-Natural Ways to Banish Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Stress, Overeating, and Alcohol and Drug Problems--and Feel Good Again

Author: Jack Challem

Renowned nutrition expert Jack Challem isolates the nutritional triggers of bad moods, providing solutions that will help you stabilize your moods, gain energy, sleep better, handle stress, and be more focused. He lays out a clear-cut, four-step plan for feeding the brain the right nutrition, presenting advice on choosing the right foods and supplements as well as improving lifestyle habits to help regulate mood swings.

Publishers Weekly

Best known as the "Nutrition Reporter" for consumer health publications (Alternative Medicine; Body & Soul; etc.), Challem (The Inflammation Syndrome) describes a familiar scenario: rising levels of anger, impatience, frustration, fatigue and anxiety due to minor daily irritations. Citing studies of increased violence traced to mood disorders, Challem contends that basic but highly specific diet and lifestyle modifications can lower stress levels and radically improve behavior and health. While the effects of poor nutrition on health take years to manifest, he says, such effects on mood are readily apparent, and he urges readers to notice how certain foods and beverages lead to headaches, fatigue, poor sleep, depression, compulsive behavior, panic attacks, bipolar disorder and other increasingly common conditions. His plan targets neuronutrients (vitamins and minerals needed to make critical brain chemicals) and nutrisocial factors (family, workload, environment, advertising, etc.) to boost mood. After taking a few quizzes, readers will be guided through a four-part program: supplements, diet, exercise and lifestyle. While the information is not entirely new, Challem does solidly address the hardest part of his equation-and that's the lifestyle change itself. (Mar.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Sarah Boslaugh - Library Journal

It is obvious that what we eat may affect our moods and mental functioning—anyone who gets cranky when hungry or sleepy after a big meal has experienced this connection firsthand. However, specific recommendations, such as using B vitamins to treat depression or omega-3 fish oils to treat adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are more questionable. This book, for which health reporter Challem has drawn on 30 years of nutrition research, is an uncomfortable combination of truisms and general advice (e.g., modern life is stressful, physical activity can improve your mood) that often recommends using nutritional supplements to treat specific disorders. Although the general advice may be useful, it is available elsewhere; the specific advice may be dangerous if it replaces consultation with a medical or psychiatric professional. Nonetheless, some people want this kind of information, so the volume may be relevant to public libraries collecting popular health books of uncertain scientific credibility.

Table of Contents:

Foreword   Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D.     ix
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction     1
The Food-Mood Connection
How Food Affects Your Mood     11
How Life's Stresses Do a Number on Your Moods     27
Neuronutrients, Moods, and Your Mind     39
How to Improve Your Moods
The First Step: Take Your Supplements     59
The Second Step: Eat Mood-Enhancing Foods     87
The Third Step: Be More Active     133
The Fourth Step: Begin Changing Your Life Habits     139
Improving Your Specific Mood and Behavior Concerns
Dealing with Irritability, Anger, Aggressiveness, and Violent Behavior     167
Reducing Anxiety, Panic Attacks, and Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior     183
Reducing Distractible and Impulsive ADHD-like Behavior     203
The Overweight-Prediabetes Connection to Mood Swings     213
Dealing with Down Days, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder     221
Dealing with Alcohol and Drug Abuse     237
Afterword     247
Appendix     250
Selected References     257
Index     265

Read also Eros Consciousness and Kundalini or The Psychology and Physiology of Breathing

Pilates for Fragile Backs: Recovering Strength and Flexibility After Surgery, Injury or Other Back Problems

Author: Andra Fischgrund Stanton

Studies suggest that proactive strengthening and flexibility-recovery exercises can speed recovery after spine surgery. Whether you're preparing for or recovering from spinal surgery, recuperating from a back injury, or just dealing with a fragile back, this book offers you a regimen that will help manage pain and regain strength and mobility.

The exercises in this book modify Pilates exercises to accommodate partially immobilized spines, making this routine safe and effective for anyone with a fragile back. These exercises are designed not to compromise a spinal fusion. Instead they will do what Pilates exercises do best-stretch, strengthen and tone the trunk with precise positioning and movement, rather than repetition.