Healthbriefs
Celebrating Winter Solstice
In many cultures, traditions associated with the winter solstice on December 21—marking the longest night and shortest day of the year—spark celebrations. But with all the winter holiday to-dos and fewer daylight hours, this fun time of year can also be draining. Rituals can help us remember that life, like the sun, is cycling itself to rebound with strength.
We can recognize the solstice as a powerful moment of annual turning by lighting a candle or burning a Yule log, in keeping with ancient traditions. It’s a time to seek warmth by surrounding ourselves with friends and family dear to our hearts. It’s a time to bring mistletoe, holly, ivy and piney evergreens home, gather around the table, laugh over shared stories, read poetry and renew our spirits with photographed memories of recent vacations.
Solstice brings a time of stillness and reflection. Placing seeds such as acorns into an offering bowl serves as a gentle reminder of nature’s empowering renewal of life through rebirth. Children will enjoy venturing outdoors to look at the stars through a telescope. Stargazing on a clear night is a humbling experience that can shift and lift our mood and perspective.
Source: Adapted from Shambhala.org.
Nuts Over Pistachios
Green—a theme of this holiday season—can benefit us even more when packaged in the form of pistachio nuts, say researchers at Penn State University. Pistachios, the researchers note, contain both beneficial plant sterols and fiber and an important enzyme involved in the body’s synthesis of fatty acids, especially cholesterol. They see the nuts as a valuable addition to any healthy diet aimed at reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease.
In this new, first study considering the cholesterol lowering effects of the heart-healthy party favorite, participants ate a general cholesterol-lowering diet that included pistachios in meals and as snacks, as a substitute for other fats. The control group ate the cholesterol-lowering diet only, with the same fat content, but without the nuts. In comparison with the control group, the pistachio group lowered their LDL, or bad cholesterol, by about 12 percent.
The Green Healer
It turns out that broccoli is a super way to green holiday menus. This wonder veggie, which has been found to lower the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer, now has been found to even reverse damage done to heart vessels as a result of diabetes, according to UK researchers.
People with diabetes are evidently up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than others. With diabetes on the rise, we have good reason this season not to shy away from having seconds of the green stuff.
SOURCE: MEDICAL NEWS TODAY
GREEN LIGHTS
New energy-saving LED holiday lights
use 90 percent less energy than conventional
bulbs and can save up to $50 on the household
energy bill through the holiday season. Source: SierraClub.org
Popularity: 6% [?]
