The holidays are hardly the time anyone likes to think seriously about their health, and miss out on all the fun and food. But after the holidays come New Year’s, the time the resolutions are rolled out; caring for your health is one of the top resolutions people think to make around this time. Did you ever read the statistic that one of the worst times in the year for coronary health is the day after Christmas when the festivities end and the bills arrive? Incidences of heart attacks are known to spike up around that time. High blood pressure, once you get it, tends to stay with you for life. And of course the effects of high blood pressure don’t just stop with your coronary health; they can and go on to affect every one of your internal organs. If you ever wanted to either take the smallest dose possible, or none at all, here are a few natural ways to lower your blood pressure, other than to go low-salt and stay calm during the holidays.

For some people, a few simple drinks can really get the heart pumping and raise blood pressure. Your doctor will probably see if you have one of those physiologies that are sensitive to alcohol. If so, keeping your daily beer down to one or two will help. The importance of exercise in lowering brought blood pressure can hardly be exaggerated. People think that they are too busy, that it’s raining and it’s winter, and they can hardly go run everyday like they were preparing for a marathon. It so happens that the tortoise’s slow and steady is all you need. It doesn’t even have to be going out and running; a half hour’s brisk and gardening work, cleaning out the attic, anything that gets your heart pumping, is one of the best natural ways to lower blood pressure. Of course if your heart has a few problems to begin with, you would need your doctor’s permission to embark on this plan.

They call it DASH: the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. It doesn’t sound very appetizing, but if you could fill your plate with whole grains, produce, and only a little meat, that would be helping your heart out a lot. It’s not that the DASH approach is unkind to your taste buds though; when you do have the craving to indulge, a little dark chocolate is recommended and can be particularly healthy. Different kinds of dark chocolate are always healthy and natural ways to lower your blood pressure. Of course you can’t overindulge, as chocolate can pack in the calories. It might be tempting for you to extend the chocolate theory to coffee, so closely related are they in taste. No one is actually sure how exactly caffeine affects you, but at least in the short term, coffee does raise blood pressure. A couple of cups are always okay, but no more. Remember that admonition always to cut down on sodium in salt? The water softener in your home could sometimes be a problem in this area. One of the ways that water softeners do their job is to add sodium to the water supplied. Look up the manual for your machine; if it does this, there is your excuse to buy a snazzy new machine.

November is Breast Cancer Awareness Month as well as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and Diabetes Awareness Month, and it’s also the month for lung cancer awareness. Along with breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and diabetes, lung cancer is also a problematic disease that affects many people—it’s the leading cause of death by cancer in the US for any ethnicity, and it will claim about 437 deaths a day on average. Lung cancer becomes more difficult to treat as its stages advance, so it’s important to spread awareness about this devastating condition so that people can prevent themselves from developing it or seek treatment for lung cancer as soon as possible.

Some of the symptoms of lung cancer include coughing, chest, shoulder or back pain, shortness of breath, coughing up blood, feeling hoarse, face and neck swelling, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia, loss of appetite, and fluid in the pleural cavity, which inhibits breathing. These symptoms are associated with the earlier stages of lung cancer. Other symptoms develop when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. When lung cancer metastasizes it can affect the bones, liver and brain. Symptoms of lung cancer that affect other parts of the body can consist of bone and stomach pain, jaundice, headaches, seizures, nausea and vomiting. Developing lung cancer is highly associated with smoking—smoking damages the cells of the lungs by exposing them to carcinogens, and about 87% of lung cancer cases have to do with the patient smoking, or having formerly smoked. Other lung cancer causes are exposure to radon and asbestos, toxic substances often found in old houses that were not constructed recently.

There are many types of treatment for lung cancer, and choosing which option to take is a complicated choice that depends on the patient, the stage of cancer, and the location of the cancer in the lungs. Medical treatment for lung cancer consists of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, which are all techniques intended to remove cancer or to kill cancer cells. Sometimes these options don’t appeal or work for cancer patients, so they might look to holistic treatment for lung cancer, which consists of a variety of techniques like altering diet, doing regular exercise, aromatherapy, and much more. More recently researchers are looking into developing drugs that might help control the symptoms of lung cancer. But whichever method patients choose, it’s important that they start treatment right away to fight the cancer more effectively.

There are probably some misconceptions spreading around about bipolar disorder thanks to Katy Perry. Bipolar symptoms are a lot more complicated than being hot and cold, yes and no, and “love bipolar” is an utterly bizarre phrase. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disorder, isn’t about being exasperatingly indecisive. It’s a mood disorder in which a person can cycle between episodes of “highs” and “lows,” which is where “Hot N Cold” might have gotten its idea of going back and forth.

Bipolar disorder symptoms depend on which type of bipolar disorder, type I or type II, and the symptoms are different depending on whether the individual is experiencing a high or a low. The presence of highs and lows to begin with is a general overall symptom that is associated with bipolar disorder. The high refers to a manic episode in which a person with bipolar disorder may exhibit symptoms like speaking fast, having racing thoughts, not needing to sleep, being impulsive, and having grandiose ideas. Sometimes people can be extremely creative and productive during mania, but they can also take big risks and act irrationally. The low refers to a depressive episode in which a person can have low mood, loss of pleasure, thoughts of suicide, fatigue, eating and sleeping problems, and impaired concentration. The bipolar disorder symptoms that a patient experiences determines the diagnosis. In bipolar I, the patient has to have had a manic episode. In bipolar II, the patient has to have had a depressive episode, and often has hypomanic episodes, which are a milder form of manic episodes.

Common treatments for bipolar disorder symptoms are medications that help stabilize the patient’s mood or function as antipsychotics. Lots of times bipolar patients have to take a combination of medications, and unfortunately they might be reluctant to take them because of the unpleasant side effects. Psychotherapy or psychoeducation can be administered in addition to medication so that the patient can learn to cope with the episodes and learn about their symptoms. For example, sometimes patients like the feeling of being in a manic episode because it feels like “being on top of the world,” but going to therapy and learning about bipolar disorder symptoms can help them realize the negative effects of mania on themselves and others. Bipolar disorder can’t be completely cured, but patients can learn to live with it by treating its symptoms.