Kara Hawkins's Blog (9)

I recently met with my M.Sc. supervisor triggering the realization that my ingression into the "wonderful world" of graduate study is just around the corner. Since I'll be spending a lot of time thinking about neurophysiology and the neuroscience of movement over the next couple of years, I've decided to begin a series of blogs discussing some of the interesting (at least to me) research in this area.

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After beginning to read this book, I was inspired to send the following letter to Ontario's Minister of Education. Minister Wynne: This correspondence is to show my support for increased physical activity in Ontario's secondary schools. As a starting point, I urge the Minis… Continue

After writing a series of blogs about stress and its association with poor health, I figured that it would be unfair to leave you without any guidance regarding how you might be able to manage the level of stress that you experience. Before I go on, I highly recommend the following book to anyone who is interested in developing a better understanding of how we (our bodies) are affected by stress, and how to reduce the impact that stress has on your health.

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Research looking at the link between stress and disease clearly indicates that people who are chronically stressed out or who handle stressors poorly are at risk for a wide range of health problems. Researchers use the term allostatic load to describe the long-term "wear and tear" associated with an overactive stress response overtime. Various factors can contribute to the build-up of this wear and tear, including past experiences, and predisposition based on your personality, cultural ba… Continue

Stress has served as an important survival mechanism throughout our evolutionary history by rapidly preparing our bodies for battle and/or escape from injury. In our modern lives however, we are often faced with stressors that do not require a physical response (e.g. exams, deadlines, traffic), yet the fight-or-flight reaction prepares the body for physical action regardless of whether or not it is appropriate. Furthermore, we humans have evolved to be very good at thinking about the past and th… Continue

While working at Baycrest, I've learned a few things about stress... Wait, maybe I should rephrase that… I don’t mean that my time at Baycrest has been stressful, but rather that I have had the opportunity to talk with and learn from experts (namely, Drs. Guy Proulx and Dmytro Rewilak) in the field of brain and behaviour. These experts have an in-depth understanding of the ways in which stress affects our body and our behaviour (I’d just like to make a quick note here that when I use the word bo… Continue

Considering my interest in the field of Kinesiology and Health Sciences (i.e. the study of human movement), I could not resist writing a blog about an article that was recently brought to my attention called, “Don’t Muscle Worry, Be Happy” (by Dr. Dina Ralt, an integrative scientist studying wellness, stress, and obesity in Tel Aviv, Israel). My guess is that you’ve never heard the phrase “muscle worry” before (I certainly hadn’t before reading Ralt’s article), so you’re probably wondering what… Continue

A couple of months ago I became a fan of Michael Pollan (an investigative journalist and professor of journalism at the University of California) after listening to him speak quite eloquently about food science and our (North American) obsession with health on "The Current" on CB… Continue

After much discussion and collaboration with students from William Lyon Mackenzie C.I., we finally have a site up and running... but without contribution and feedback from students, teachers, and health professionals we won't get very far. I thought I’d dedicate my first blog to… Continue