Lifestyle & Wellness

We have all expe­ri­enced moments of stress in our lives. When some­thing unex­pect­ed or alarm­ing hap­pens, a part of your brain, the hypo­thal­a­mus, sets off an inter­nal alarm. This alarm sig­nals your adren­al glands to release hor­mones, adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol, into your ner­vous sys­tem that cause your heart rate to increase, your mus­cles to tense and your breath to quick­en. This is referred to as your fight or flight response, and your body is ready to take action to pro­tect itself from harm.

Learn the dif­fer­ence between a pre­bi­ot­ic and pro­bi­ot­ic and why you need both to main­tain a healthy diges­tive tract.

Did the pan­dem­ic force you to get cre­ative when putting togeth­er an at-home work­space? Aaron Eyster, MOT, OTR/L and Kar­la Cortez Duda, PT, DPT, OCS pro­vide their tips on how to prop­er­ly set up your work­space to avoid mus­cle fatigue and stress and ensure you are healthy and pain-free as you work. 

With extra time being spent at home, this new pan­dem­ic-era real­i­ty can con­tribute to more spo­radic food intake. Mind­ful eat­ing is an approach to nutri­tion that focus­es on bring­ing aware­ness to food intake in a non­judg­men­tal and self-reflec­tive man­ner. While mind­ful­ness is a new buzz­word, there is also truth in how its appli­ca­tion can sup­port bet­ter self-care. 

Devel­op­ing a health-relat­ed New Year’s res­o­lu­tion can be a great way to kick start a health­i­er year ahead. Instead of just focus­ing on your phys­i­cal health, it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize oth­er areas as well such as your men­tal and social health and well-being. 

Dr. Sal­ly Salman, Inter­nal Med­i­cine, out­lines com­po­nents of the health tri­an­gle to help you deter­mine what your health res­o­lu­tions should focus on in the new year. 

With the hol­i­day sea­son right around the cor­ner, what bet­ter way to show appre­ci­a­tion for your loved one oth­er than a provider-rec­om­mend­ed gift.

Home – a place where many of us have been spend­ing our time these last few months. With infec­tions spread­ing, many of us will not attend tra­di­tion­al hol­i­day gath­er­ings or bond with extend­ed fam­i­ly or friends. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, with cas­es ris­ing through­out Illi­nois and the coun­try, it’s cru­cial that we lim­it small gath­er­ings as these are a con­trib­u­tor to the rise in COVID-19 cas­es. While cel­e­brat­ing vir­tu­al­ly or with mem­bers of your own house­hold is an option, it may not cov­er the long days after you’ve logged off with your loved ones. 

Haunt­ed hous­es, ghosts and jack‑o’-lanterns are just a few famil­iar scares asso­ci­at­ed with Hal­loween. In 2020, COVID-19 has added a new lev­el of fear to this hol­i­day. What will the spook­i­est day of the year look like dur­ing a glob­al health pan­dem­ic? Dr. Mali­ni Kumar, a pedi­a­tri­cian with DuPage Med­ical Group, explains how COVID-19 will affect Hal­loween and what you can do to make this annu­al hol­i­day ​‘Spook­tac­u­lar’ giv­en the circumstances. 

Your body mass index (BMI) is a broad way to help deter­mine if you are at a healthy weight for your height. Your BMI can be used as a tool to decide if your weight is putting you at addi­tion­al risk for health con­di­tions, such as heart dis­ease and dia­betes. View our info­graph­ic to learn more about your BMI and when to con­sult your physician. 

As you con­tin­ue to wear a face mask in pub­lic to help pre­vent the spread of COVID-19, you may notice some side effects such as break­outs, dry­ness, red­ness or oth­er forms of irri­ta­tion. This is due to the mask cre­at­ing fric­tion against your skin and restrict­ing your air­flow, which caus­es a build-up of humid­i­ty, sweat and bac­te­ria. Our Der­ma­tol­o­gists pro­vide some tips on how to avoid irri­ta­tion from masking.