WELLNESS TIP OF THE WEEK

Skin Care In An Intimate Way

by Rebecca Moy, BSN, RN, Solace Wellness Center & MedSpa

 

All of us would take care of itching, burning and dryness of our skin right away. But there’s an area that women often overlook when taking care of their skin; an area that three out of four women experience itching and burning 1-2 times in their life and all women eventually experience dryness. The feminine intimate area is often overlooked in self-care until you’re experiencing a problem. This sensitive area contains normal bacteria and yeast, but an imbalance of these leads to overgrowth and infection that causes uncomfortable itching, burning and pain. Hormone changes with birth control, with pregnancy or in peri or post-menopause predisposes you to yeast infections. Antibiotics can kill off your good bacteria causing an overgrowth of yeast. Maintaining proper vaginal pH of 3.8 to 4.5 and hormonal balance is critical to keeping your normal bacteria and yeast in check. Simple lifestyle changes like avoiding scented soaps and fragrances in the intimate area, eliminating pH altering douches and sprays and taking probiotics all help maintain good bacteria and yeast balance.

A preventative approach to skin care is common sense. At Solace, our Nelly DeVuyst bio-organic products called BioFemme® are designed to inhibit the growth of bacteria, balance the pH of your most intimate skin, address yeast infections, correct dryness as well as treat skin irritations from ingrown hairs. Don’t put up with itching, burning and pain. Give us a call to find out more.

(978) 851-8600 | FoundSolace.com

WELLNESS AROUND THE WEB

How Social Life Affects Bone Health

According to BlueZones.com, high levels of social stress have been established through research as associated with fractures in postmenopausal women. New research has pointed to bone loss as a process in this relationship.

Many people, especially women, experience osteoporosis as they get older. The onset of menopause precipitates the issues. Osteoporosis then becomes a public health concern, as people with the condition are more at risk for falls and subsequent fractures.

Stress is when you are unable to cope with the condition at hand. It could be any combination of psychosocial events, including loss of positivity, loss of satisfaction with life or education level that is a precursor to bone loss. It includes the release of stress hormones as the physiological response.

For six years, 11,020 women from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) were studied to investigate if poor quality socialization, or psychosocial stress, was related to bone loss in these women. The findings of the six-year follow-up study were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Research findings provide evidence that social stress does decrease BMD over a six-year period in women following menopause. These findings correlate with previous findings that social stress increases fractures, as BMD and fracture risk are related.

Subjects lost density of bone in the femoral neck (0.082%), total hip (0.108%) and lumbar spine (0.069%). The researchers evaluated participants for factors that might influence the study, such as history of a fracture after the age of 55, age, education, other conditions, weight and Body Mass Index (BMI), smoking, excess use of alcohol, hormone treatments, age at menopause and lack of physical activity.

Stress is already linked to many chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers. The alterations in bone mass seen in the study may also suggest high levels of cortisol, thyroid and growth hormones, along with glucocorticoids.

The moon influences life on Earth and natural mechanisms in many ways. At full moon, corals release eggs and gametes in a reproductive frenzy, and the gravitational attraction between the moon and the Earth causes sea tides — the rising and falling of the sea.

Since the moon influences such mechanisms of life on Earth, people have also believed that it can affect various aspects of our health, including our sleep patterns.

Popular belief has it that the full moon disrupts sleep, making people more prone to insomnia. There is something attractive about the notion that the moon could influence such intimate aspects of our lives. The evidence is not abundant and is primarily based on small-scale studies, but it does seem to suggest that the full moon can affect a person’s quality of sleep.

According to MedicalNewsToday.com, a study published in Sleep Medicine in 2014 assessed the sleep quality of 319 participants during different moon phases. This study found that during a full moon, participants had lower sleep efficiency. This means that they remained awake or in a state of light sleep for most of the time they spent in bed overnight.

It may be intuitive to blame sleeplessness — as our reader did — on the bright moonlight and the lack of heavy drapes, but that is not the conclusion reached by Christian Cajochen — from the University of Basel in Switzerland — and colleagues.

In 2013, Cajochen and team conducted an a posteriori analysis of data they had collected some years prior as part of an experiment conducted in laboratory conditions.

This experiment involved 17 healthy volunteers aged 20–31 and 16 healthy volunteers aged 57–74. The volunteers agreed to sleep in windowless, dark rooms over a study period of 3.5 days.

During this time, the researchers measured changes in sleep structure, brain activity during sleep, as well as in melatonin and cortisol levels.

The team got the idea to look at any correlations with moon phases only later. “We just thought of it after a drink in a local bar one evening at full moon, years after the study was completed,” they write in their paper.

The analysis the investigators then conducted suggested that immediately before and after a full moon, participants took about five minutes longer, on average, to fall asleep, and their sleep duration fell by about 20 minutes.

Their sleep was also lighter than usual, and melatonin levels also dropped close to the full moon, the researchers note. The researchers could not explain these changes by exposure to bright moonlight since the participants slept in fully dark, controlled environments.

The study suggests that lunar cycles seem to influence human sleep, even when one does not see the moon and is not aware of the actual moon phase.