Having breakfast makes you smarter. What breakfast can wake up our brain and morning
Written By: Founder of Kat-Spirit Nutrition Centre
Senior Nutritionist Ng Yiu Fun
The school year has started, did the children have breakfast before school? Many children have different reasons for not eating breakfast, but parents should pay attention to the fact that breakfast has a great impact on the growth of children!
Earlier, a study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that breakfast has a significant impact on the academic performance of students. Students who have the habit of eating breakfast every day, test scores are more than 5 points higher than the average student who did not eat breakfast. Why does breakfast make us smarter?
Because the brain needs blood sugar for nutrient absorption and consumption, but when our body sleeps all night without food, the body has consumed our blood sugar for the whole day. Therefore, we need to eat breakfast to replenish blood sugar, so that our response becomes faster. Parents may ask, “What is the best breakfast for children?
What breakfast can “wake up our brain and morning”?
Starchy food
This includes porridge, flour, noodles, rice, bread and biscuits, so we can eat a sandwich, a bowl of macaroni or rice flour as well; even drinking milk, eating oatmeal or corn flakes is fine
2. Protein supplement
Since protein itself can make us react faster, for example, shredded chicken is rich in protein, so for breakfast, you can choose a bowl of rice noodles in shredded chicken soup or macaroni in shredded chicken soup, or have an egg sandwich with cheese, which can also help us replenish our needs for the day. So all parents remember to remind children to eat breakfast before going to school!
New mothers are physically and emotionally exhausted, and their husbands have two simple tricks to help them relieve their emotions
Written by Chinese Doctor Yiu Yee Chiu
It is not easy to build a healthy and happy family. Starting from the first trimester, mothers-to-be have to face internal and external changes such as physical appearance, weight and weight, and even psychological and emotional changes. Mothers-to-be who are pregnant for the first time are more stressed and nervous. In addition, the stress may come from the partner and family members around her. I have seen some mothers who are pregnant with their second child and are overly worried because of the urgency of the sex of their child. In fact, children are a gift from God, so we should open our arms and obey God’s will, and our families should support us. However, there are many cases of postpartum depression. Therefore, I will share with you the treatment of postpartum depression from the perspective of Chinese medicine.
Prenatal and postnatal depression and blood stagnation
In Chinese medicine, there are six types of depression: qi depression, blood depression, phlegm depression, damp depression, heat depression and food depression. Postpartum depression is quite complex, with qi and blood depression being the most common. The theory of Chinese medicine is that “when evil qi is injured, the right qi will be deficient”. The body of the mother-to-be has to give a lot of nutrients and blood to the baby during pregnancy, and the pain, qi depletion and blood loss during the delivery process will cause the mother’s body to suffer a lot.
Later on, the mother’s busy schedule in taking care of the baby makes her physically exhausted, coupled with unclear dew and incomplete blood stasis, which causes the internal organs to be out of balance. At this time, the mother starts to feel weak, dizzy and headaches, pain in the lower abdomen, irritability and insomnia, and even affects the secretion of breast milk, such as lack of milk or low milk supply. In this case, the mother will feel frustrated, her emotions will be further affected, she will be irritable and prone to crying, and she will have a sense of loss and emptiness. These are all symptoms of postpartum depression.
Tips to relieve tension
In fact, postpartum depression can be avoided, and both Chinese and Western medicine have excellent therapeutic effects, so mothers should not be afraid to seek medical help if they start to notice something wrong. To prevent depression, mothers should have a regular routine before and after childbirth, plus dietary therapy and appropriate amount of exercise to maintain physical and mental well-being.
At home, husbands can perform some simple acupressure points for their wives to help relieve their tension:
1. Accelerate the heart and lung function to help relax the mood
Hold hands together and gently rub to stimulate the Yuzhi point under the thumbs and the Laogong point in the center of the palms, or press these two points with the thumbs for a few minutes.
2. Reduce head swelling and pain
Press the thumbs and middle fingers of both hands against the lateral solar plexus points and gently rotate them up and down for a few minutes to reduce head swelling and pain.
Whether you are pregnant or not, a husband who massages his wife can improve the relationship between the couple and make the family more warm and harmonious. If you have friends who are expecting mothers, remember to encourage each other and share your experience, which will also help mothers-to-be!
Written by：Dr. Hui Lung Kit, Psychiatry Specialist
Many parents have had the experience of taking their children out to play, and the family was in a happy mood and the children were having a good time. But suddenly, the child makes some unreasonable requests (such as seeing a toy to buy), and the parent does not allow it, the child immediately changes his face and cries. When the parent reprimands the child, the child becomes more aggressive, not only crying louder, but also having a tantrum fiercely and stomping on the ground, attracting the attention of passers-by (who may even suspect that you are abusing the child). Parents have no choice but to do their utmost to soothe the child, or even raise their hands in surrender and buy the child a toy in the hope of calming the storm. In the end, once the child has succeeded in his request, he would turn tears into laughter even when the toy is still not received. The previous crying is gone and makes parents unable to laugh or cry.
However, have parents ever noticed that if the number of times of “compromise due to pressure” increases, the number of children’s cries will increase instead of decrease? This is due to a psychological phenomenon – “Positive Reinforcement” consequence. Positive Reinforcement” means that when a behavior occurs, if a reward is given immediately, the behavior will occur again. The more the reward, the higher the chance that the behavior will be repeated.
To apply the example to the child, if the child cries a lot, if the adult satisfies his unreasonable request (such as buying a toy) when he is most agitated, this is a reward for his crying behavior, and in the future, when the child has other unreasonable requests, he will be more inclined to use the crying method to achieve his goal. In addition, children generally want to be loved and cared for by their parents. If parents usually ignore them, but the child cries, the parents will immediately become very nervous because even scolding is a form of attention, and over time, children will tend to cry as a means of attracting their parents’ attention.
Therefore, the first and foremost thing parents should do to properly handle their children’s crying is to maintain a gentle attitude, but at the same time, they should stick to their principles and not compromise easily, especially not to finally give in and meet demands just because the child continues to cry. If parents cannot control the situation, they can try to reduce their attention to the child, such as removing eye contact, being expressionless, or not talking to the child. In addition, if the crying occurs at home, parents can take the child to a quiet corner, cut off all attention to the child, let the child calm down, and then slowly explain to him what the problem is.
