1 . Tai chi, a traditional, slow-moving form of Chinese physical exercise, is known to increase flexibility and improve balance. New research has been conducted to determine whether tai chi has an influence on lowering blood pressure in people with prehypertension (高血压前期).

In the study, Chinese scientists put 342 adults with prehypertension into two groups. The average age of people taking part in the study was 49. About half the participants (参与者) took part in aerobic exercise, including jogging, climbing stairs and cycling. The other half was trained to practice tai chi. Both groups got hour-long exercises four times a week.

Nearly 22% of the people who practiced tai chi saw their blood pressure fall to be normal, compared with nearly 16% of people in the aerobic exercise group. And fewer patients in the tai chi group went on to develop high blood pressure than patients in the aerobic exercise group.

So what is it about tai chi that helps lower blood pressure? “The practice tends to get more of a response from the parasympathetic (副交感的) nervous system, which is the network of nerves that relaxes your body after periods of stress or danger,” says Ruth Taylor-Piliae, a professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Nursing.

“I think the beauty of tai chi is that you don’t have to have a special gym membership, you don’t have to have special clothing,” Taylor-Piliae says. “Once you learn tai chi, you can do it anytime and anyplace. And it does provide a calming and relaxing effect.”

Evidence suggests it can also help protect against cognitive fall and even improve memory. But you have to practice it continually to get the most benefit.

8 . The rate of childhood obesity in the U. S. has tripled over the past 50 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made waves this year by recommending that doctors put obese kids as young as two years old on intensive, family-oriented lifestyle and behavior plans. It also suggested prescribing weight-loss drugs to children l2 and older and surgery to teens 13 and older. This advice reflects the organization’s adoption of a more active position on childhood obesity.

Yet the lifestyle programs the AAP recommends are expensive, inaccessible to most children and hard to maintain. Few weight-loss drugs have been approved for children. And surgery has potential risks and few long-term safety data. Furthermore, it’s not clear whether interventions in youngsters help to improve health or merely add to the psychological burden overweight kids face from the society.

Rather than paying close attention to numbers on a scale, the U. S. and countries with similar trends should focus on an underlying truth: we need to invest in more and safer places for children to play where they can move and run around, climb and jump, ride and skate.

Why is it so hard to get kids moving? Experts blame the problem on the privatization of sports — as public investment in school-based athletics dwindles, expensive private leagues have grown, leaving many kids out. In addition to fewer opportunities at school, researchers cite increased screen time and a lack of safe places for them to play outside the home. New York City, for example, had 2,067 public playgrounds as of 2019 — a very small amount for its large population. In Los Angeles in 2015, only 33 percent of youths lived within walking distance of a park.

Kids everywhere need more places to play. Public funding to build and keep up these areas is crucial, but other options such as shared-use agreements can make unused spaces available to the public. These opportunities aren’t primarily about changing children’s waistlines — they’re how we keep childhood healthy and fun.

9 . Discover the Huge Health Benefits of Strength Training

One of the best ways to stay fit and healthy as you age is to do strength and power training exercises. It is known that when you are in your thirties, you will begin to lose muscle mass. This loss actually contributes to achy joints, the increased risk of injury, and the “middle-age spread” we all fear. What’s more, the older you get, the faster muscle mass loses. It means that eventually, simple tasks like getting out of a chair and climbing stairs can become more difficult.

Strength training can help you build muscles, make you strong, increase your staying power and make everyday activities easier. By combining strength and power training exercises, you’ll not only get stronger, but also improve your reaction speed. As you grow older, that’s critical because it can help prevent falls. Here is a book, Strength and Power Training for All Ages, for your reference.

·The key muscles to work for an injury-free body

·How to tell how much weight is suitable for you

·How to strengthen the bones most likely to break

·How to take pressure off your knees when walking or running

·Why you’ll want to apply heat to sore joints before you exercise

·Build bones

·Fight diseases

·Improve balance

·Strengthen muscles &Increase muscle power

Get a copy, start training, and then you’ll discover a whole new self.

10 . Using the health records of more than a million Swedish conscripts (应征入伍者), a recent study revealed that keeping cardiorespiratory (心肺的) fitness in their late teens and early twenties can cut the risk of developing nine types of cancer by 40% when older. The research team from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden said, “These results could be used to further strengthen the promotion of interventions aimed at increasing fitness in youth.”

Almost a third of people aged from 16 to 24 in England aren’t physically active, without meeting guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week including walking, riding a bike and dancing.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) measures how well the heart, lungs and linked systems work to get oxygen to muscles during constant activities. The conscripts, aged between 16 and 25, had tests of CRF on exercise bikes between 1968 and 2005. The researchers used Swedish health data to see who went on to have cancer during an average follow-up of 33 years. The study found that increasing fitness was beneficial, regardless of body weight. However, they also found that higher fitness was linked to a higher risk of skin cancer. The researchers explained that this trend might be driven by exposure to sunlight.

Findings from those observational studies provide much evidence for a link between higher levels of physical activity and a lower risk of cancer. However, these studies cannot fully rule out the possibility that active people have lower cancer risk because they engage in other lifestyle behaviors. The researchers cautioned that they had no access to full data on factors such as diet, alcohol intake and smoking and so couldn’t fully account for those.

Dr Claire Knight, of Cancer Research UK, said, “The NHS recommends 150 minutes of activity a week, but it’s fine to build up activity over time and there are lots of ways to be more active. You don’t need to run a marathon or join a gym. Anything that gets you warmer and slightly out of breath and your heart beating faster counts.”