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Headaches during pregnancy can be a real headache, especially during the pandemic when even mild symptoms can cause anxiety. However, headaches are very common during pregnancy, with 80% of pregnant women experiencing them for various reasons. Today, we will share five tips for dealing with those pesky pregnancy headaches.

01 Causes of headaches during pregnancy

Headaches can occur at any time during pregnancy, but are more common in the early stages. Headaches in the early stages of pregnancy may be caused by electrolyte imbalances resulting from morning sickness. They are related to a series of changes in the body during pregnancy, the release of large amounts of hormones, and increased blood volume, as well as mental tension, poor rest, anemia, dehydration, and hypoglycemia. However, severe, persistent, and unrelieved headaches may be a sign of pregnancy-induced hypertension and must be taken seriously.

02How to avoid headaches during pregnancy

(1) Rule out pathological headaches

Go to the hospital and seek treatment from a qualified doctor to correct conditions such as anemia, colds, and hypertension that may be causing headaches. Take medication under the guidance of a doctor. While it is commonly advised not to take medication indiscriminately during pregnancy, it is still important to see a doctor and follow medical advice when you are truly ill. With the advancements in modern medicine, there are certainly medications available that can protect the mother without harming the baby, alleviating discomfort.

(2) Developing good dietary and lifestyle habits

During pregnancy, it is important to establish healthy eating habits. Avoid excessive intake of high-sodium or high-sugar foods, opt for smaller, more frequent meals to prevent hypoglycemia, and avoid strong tea or coffee. Ensure adequate rest and sleep, maintain a calm mindset, avoid emotional fluctuations, and remember not to stay up late. Otherwise, the baby may develop similar habits, which could lead to complications. When sleeping, choose an appropriate pillow.

(3) Avoid fatigue

In many cases, pregnant women who are very tired may also experience headaches. In the early stages of pregnancy, it is important to get plenty of sleep and reduce strenuous work as much as possible. This can also reduce the likelihood of headaches during pregnancy. You can also take some health supplements under the guidance of a doctor to prevent headaches during pregnancy.

03 Tips for dealing with headaches during pregnancy

(1) Ice pack

If you experience tension headaches, you can use either a cold or hot compress. Place a cold or hot towel on your forehead or the lower part of your skull. For migraines, a cold compress is more effective.

(2) Shower

If you suddenly feel a severe headache, taking a shower can help alleviate the pain. If you cannot take a shower, you can wash your face with cold water.

(3) Deep Breathing

Deep breathing can alter our breathing rate and pattern. By stimulating the body’s parasympathetic nervous system through deep breathing, we can trigger a calming response, thereby lowering our heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension, and shifting our focus away from stress or pain, thereby alleviating the headache.

(4) Massage the head

l Using the pads of your fingers, start from the outer corner of the eye,

l slowly move upward around the ear,

l locate the bone behind the ear and feel the edge of the bone,

l slowly push downward until you reach the area below the occipital bone,

l then start again from the outer corner of the eye, moving upward toward the temple, and repeat the process.

l Start again from the temples and move upward, repeating the process once more

l Gradually push upward from the starting point until the top of the head serves as the starting point.

We hope that every expectant mother, while cherishing beautiful aspirations for her unborn baby, also pays close attention to adverse conditions related to pregnancy, and places greater emphasis on caring for and cherishing herself.

If you have any queries or suggestions, please feel free to reach out via email to info@harisonfitness.com. We will do everything in our capacity to ensure that you love your experience with us.

According to some traditional concepts and habits of the Chinese people, it is natural to “porridge” and “health” linked together. But in fact, “porridge stomach” does not apply to all people, porridge drinking is not right, not only does not stomach, but also may aggravate stomach problems. Today we will talk about this topic.

01Drinking congee improperly aggravates stomach problems

After a long rest at night, the stomach is still in a state of contraction, porridge on the bit of stimulation is small, drink it in easy to decompose into glucose and by the human body, absorption and utilization, can quickly rise sugar, which greatly reduces the burden on the stomach and intestines, and at the same time can replenish water. So, when the gastric power is insufficient, a bowl of porridge is still beneficial to the stomach and intestines.

But porridge after a long time of simmering, part of the nutrients will be destroyed in the process, nutrition greatly reduced at the same time due to the porridge without chewing, so it is not conducive to promote salivary secretion. In addition, long-term porridge is not conducive to the digestive function of the stomach, equivalent to a kind of overprotection of the stomach, leading to the stomach’s digestive ability will be worse and worse. After all, porridge has more water, which will dilute the gastric juice, accelerate the expansion of the stomach, and make the stomach movement slow.

02Long-term consumption of congee is likely to cause gastric function deterioration

(1) aggravate GERD. Porridge contains more water, and fluid food into the stomach too quickly lead to pressure, is not conducive to neutralize the secretion of gastric acid, for gastroesophageal reflux disease patients to drink porridge instead of aggravate acid reflux, heartburn.

(2) Not conducive to the repair and healing of gastric wounds. It is said that drinking porridge can promote the rapid absorption of glucose, but for the normal dietary structure, its nutritional composition is too single, to provide people with limited nutritional value, is not conducive to the repair and healing of gastric wounds. Moreover, drinking congee will stimulate the secretion of gastric acid, which will further aggravate the damage of the wound.

(3) Decline in digestive function. Often say drink porridge, because porridge is stewed for a long time without chewing teeth to eat, long-term porridge will lead to the degeneration of the chewing organs, the oral secretion of saliva to reduce the secretion of amylase, that is, a lot of salivary enzymes have to promote digestion and absorption of the function. And porridge in the stomach to stay a short period of time, long-term stomach peristalsis will be weakened, digestive function degradation, is not conducive to “stomach”.

(4) Increase blood sugar fluctuation. Porridge after a long time boiled into food, easy to be digested and absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract and rapid glucose rapid absorption after the rapid decline in blood glucose, resulting in greater fluctuations in blood glucose in the human body, is not conducive to blood glucose control.

03People who are suitable for congee

(1) The elderly gastric mucous membrane atrophy and the function of gastric wall cells decreases, gastrointestinal tract power is insufficient, so you can eat porridge appropriately to promote the secretion of gastric acid and reduce the burden of the digestive system. In order to increase the nutrition, you can add some supplementary ingredients in the porridge to enrich the nutrition and increase the chewing time at the same time. For example, you can usually drink some millet porridge, yam porridge, pumpkin porridge, etc., these porridges can play a role in protecting the gastric mucosa stomach.

(2) postoperative and severe diarrhea, vomiting patients are recommended to eat appropriate fluid and semi-fluid food, this time you can consider drinking porridge. For example, acute gastroenteritis patients stomach, vomiting and diarrhea at the same time may be dehydrated, eating porridge can be appropriate to replenish water and some glucose, to maintain body water balance. There are also in the gastroscopy enteroscopy biopsy polyp removal surgery, drinking porridge can avoid friction fresh wounds, reduce local irritation, help the gastrointestinal tract function recovery.

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How to supplement nutrition for the elderly? Blindly taking supplements can easily outweigh the benefits. Many diseases are very much related to daily diet, and the missing nutrients are more recommended to be taken on the basis of adjusting dietary nutrients and then taking the corresponding supplements, which is one of the key ways to resist aging.

01 Nutritional imbalances in the elderly

Many older people have reduced digestive capacity and less appetite, which may be due to malnutrition caused by an unbalanced and insufficient proportion of nutritional intake. For example, some underweight older people are accustomed to not eating fat, preferring salty vegetables and white porridge for the day. Neglecting fat intake in daily diet has serious consequences.

Overweight, also accompanied by hypertension, diabetes in the elderly, is not recommended long-term high carbohydrate-based diet. Because the elderly sugar metabolism function is low, high-carbohydrate diet structure will lead to the body to rise sugar fast, often stimulate insulin, leading to insulin resistance induced elderly diabetes, cause obesity and so on. So that the elderly nutritional imbalance, many times from the “eat” to start, do not get timely and adequate supplementation, do not pay attention to some focus on supplementation, are ineffective dietary supplementation.

02 loss of nutrients to eat how to replenish

(1) Low-carbon diet, reduce the intake of rice, flour and sugar

Elderly people’s basal metabolism is not as high as when they were young, coupled with less physical activity and endocrine changes, the need for caloric energy will also be reduced, and at this time, calorie consumption and total intake can reach the lower limit of maintaining a standard body weight. Staple food can usually be replaced by coarse grains, including oats, brown rice, buckwheat and red beans, mung beans and other beans, as well as sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, yams and other potatoes. It is recommended to eat more meat, eggs and fish, which helps to improve insulin sensitivity and also helps overweight older people to reduce visceral fat.

(2) Protein prolongs life and fights aging

Muscle is the metabolic reservoir of healthy aging. Muscle repair can’t be done without protein to provide energy, and like many older adults after surgery, wound repair requires proper protein supplementation to aid in damage recovery. Generally speaking, the more muscle you have in your body and the healthier you are, the better your body’s ability to heal. It is recommended that older people drink about 300ml of milk every day, you can choose fresh milk, yogurt, powdered milk, or eat some cheese, you can eat in time to supplement.

(3) Dietary fiber helps digestion

Satiety and overeating are not only detrimental to digestion leading to constipation, but also easily lead to myocardial ischemia and cholecystitis in the elderly. It is recommended to eat more fruits and vegetables to obtain dietary fiber, minerals, vitamins, prevent constipation, promote cholesterol excretion, and increase the body’s antioxidant capacity.

Combined with traditional habits will find that China’s elderly dietary structure is generally single, advocating that the diet of the elderly should be a variety of varieties, meat and vegetables, in order to focus on supplementation of potassium, magnesium, calcium and other inorganic salts, to prevent the high incidence of cardiovascular disease in the elderly.

Finally, if you want to make the elderly willing to eat and eat healthy and delicious, it is important to change the way of cooking.