This month is Black Music Month giving us an opportunity to highlight the contribution that black people have made to the music industry.  As I think about all the great music out there, I wonder, can music have a serious role in improving our health and well-being?

We know that music has a huge impact on our emotions. The right song at the right time can be inspiring, make us happy, motivate us to take action and cause us to reflect

So, by extrapolation we could say music must be good for our health because it can make us feel good. But, what does research tell us about the effect of music on our health?

There have been a number of studies exploring the effect of music on our health and they have found that music has a beneficial effect on both our physical and mental health.

Stress and Music

One of the most obvious benefits of music is its effect on anxiety and stress. We’ve all turned to music when we’ve had a particularly stressful day and have needed to create a peaceful calming environment.   Research has shown that the calming effect of music is real with scientists demonstrating that music prevents stress-induced increases in subjective anxiety.

Researchers looked at measures of anxiety (heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels) and found that in a stressful situation these measures were increased in people not exposed to music but not so for those people exposed to music; subjects exposed to music were not anxious and were better able to deal with the stressful situation.

Other studies have confirmed this showing that music can relieve anxiety in a number of situations. These include:

• Improving anxiety levels in cancer patients
• A reduction in pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical and dental procedures
• A reduction in psychological distress during gastrocopic examination

 Mental Health and Music

As well as music being beneficial in alleviating stress and anxiety, music has a role to play in treating mental health conditions.  It can help with the symptoms of depression, improves a person’s ability to carry out cognitive tasks and helps people express emotions.

Furthermore an interesting study looking at the effect of religious music found that listening to religious music regularly was associated with a reduction in death anxiety and an increase in life satisfaction, self-esteem and a sense of control, leading scientists to conclude that listening to religious music promotes psychological well-being

The video below provides a great example of the power of music in improving our mental health

Physical Health and Music

Music also improves our physical health with studies showing that music can help patients with conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and dementia, and can  help us cope better with pain.

When it comes to heart disease researchers found that joyful music improved blood vessel function and can therefore improve the health of our heart. In addition, music has also been shown to improve stroke recovery helping with memory and attention and as mentioned previously music has been shown to be beneficial to cancer patients by reducing anxiety levels but it also has been shown to alleviate pain and improve the quality of life of patients.

So, music is not just about entertaining it can be good for our health and well-being meaning we have a very easy way to improve the quality of our life at our finger tips.  Happy listening!

This month thousands of riders set out at too-early-o’clock on the legendary London to Brighton charity bike ride. Among them was The Lake Foundation cycle club member Sam.

Sam is a regular at our bi-monthly rides. Sam announced her goal to complete the London to Brighton ride on our WhatsApp group back in May:

“Guess what everyone I’m doing the London to Brighton [bike run]”.

In our cycle club fashion, the group began to send messages to cheer Sam on when she decided to keep us informed on WhatsApp about her training.

Training included regular on-road cycling and cycling in the gym. Her team, Cor Correya once rode to Biggin Hill through Sanstead and Warlingham over country lanes and hills. Sam messaged the WhatsApp group, “Only 19 days to the big event. Still time to join me if you want to.” Maybe next year!

As well as training Sam invested in a pump, a puncture repair kit and took her bike in for a maintenance check. This was a good way to avoid any mechanical mishaps on the day.

The big day came and Sam wrote to the group including hashtags #L2B and #HeartRiders, which we then tweeted in support of her. Sam kept up the conversation between her start at Clapham Common and arrival in Brighton. Members responded encouragingly:

“Keep going Sam. Keep up the pace and effort luv”

Back in March we worked with Black History Walks to organise a fibroids awareness event at the University of Westminster. This was a very well-attended event with over 150 women attending. Our speakers provided an overview of fibroids and its treatment, and shared personal stories of the effect of fibroids.

During the event we were absolutely delighted to meet Yvonne Akande, Senior Project Manager at Transforming Outcomes and Health Economics Through Imaging –TOHETI. It was wonderful to learn of all the great work they’ve been doing to raise awareness of fibroids and support women who have been affected.

TOHETI is a three year Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity funded programme, working with NHS partners across Lambeth and Southwark to develop a vision of imaging with patient experience at its core. The programme has been working to understand how they can better join up services to treat fibroids to offer the best possible care to their patients.

In June 2015 they conducted a series of focus groups which helped identify how they could improve the information provided to patients. This resulted in the development of their new patient information leaflet and video.  You can download their leaflet here and view their video here.

Additionally, TOHETI has been hosting patient support groups and their next sessions will be held on Wednesday 13^thJuly and Wednesday 5^thOctober at the McNair Centre at Guy’s Hospital. If you’d like to attend one of these sessions please contact Yvonne Akande (yvonne.akande@kcl.ac.uk).

We’re really happy to see fibroids getting a lot more attention as this is an area that women, from our survey in 2013, felt needed a lot more focus.

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The Lake Foundation will be hosting a half day fibroids seminar on 30^thJuly 2016. At this event we will be focusing specifically on treatment including natural ways of managing symptoms. For more information and to book a place please click here

A study published yesterday by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health has found that a plant-based diet significantly reduces a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, especially if that diet is rich in quality plant foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

The study found that just moderate changes in a person’s diet can lead to significant reduction in risk. They found that  people who maintained a plant-based diet that was low in animal foods were 20% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes and those that consumed a healthy version of a plant-based diet were 34% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

This study is very important to the black community as our community is at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The Lake Foundation encourages everyone to turn towards a more plant-based die to reduce their risk of this condition.

Last month we were delighted to have been interviewed on Gill Manly’s Worker’s Playtime show on Croydon Radio. This was a joint interview with Kinetic Root Services where we discussed trauma in the black community and the work that both our organisations are doing to support the black community through traumatic experiences.

You can listen to the interview below which starts at about an hour and 15 minutes into the show.

If you’re planning on travelling to Rio for the Olympics you may be worried about the Zika virus. Yesterday, Public Health England issued travel and health advice for all those wishing to travel to Brazil for the Olympics. They have recommended that pregnant women postpone non-essential travel until after pregnancy as being infected with the Zika virus whilst pregnant can lead to babies developing microcephaly.

For more information please visit PHE’s website here

The Lake Foundation Cycling Club sprung forward this season with a cycle through South Norwood Country Club and Beckenham Palace Park.  Cycling Instructors Jo and Selena navigated the group along some surprising quiet Croydon back routes.

The level paths of South Norwood Country Park was a stark contrast to the hilly terrain of Beckenham Palace Park. Muscles got a good workout and riders were thankful for the snack and water breaks after climbs.

 The cycling group is made up of people at different cycling proficiency and fitness levels. It was good to see members practice tips they learnt on how to cycle up hills. By way of a reminder you can check watch the British Cycling Federation video on climbing technique.

Meanwhile we were pleased to learn that one of our regular riders booked a free one-to-one session with Cycle Instructor Selena before the session. “Doing the class made me more confident riding in the roads with traffic, especially coming up to Junctions”.

Cycle Instructor is a great resource for the community of Croydon and beyond. They provide one-to-one and group training sessions where you will learn practical skills and gain an understanding of how to cycle on today’s roads. To book a session go to the Cycling Instructor website, http://www.cyclinginstructor.com

Our next ride is on Saturday 28 May 2016. Email events@thelakefoundation.com to join.

The Lake Foundation is delighted to invite you to attend its event ‘Fibroid Focus’ where we will be focusing on the treatment of fibroids. At this event, you will hear from experts in the field discussing all treatment options including natural ways of managing the symptoms of fibroids.

Speaking at this event will be Mr Rajiv Varma, a consultant gynaecologist, who will provide an overview of the treatment options available on the NHS, their pros and cons and what steps to take to ensure you’re getting the best treatment possible. You will also hear from Leah Salmon, The Naturally You Coach, who will outline the impact of diet on fibroids and how a healthy diet can reduce your risk and help in the treatment and prevention of fibroids. Lillian Lartey will discuss the power of exercise in preventing and managing the symptoms of fibroids, Olivia Haltman will look at a sometimes forgotten area for fibroids patients, how to manage the psychological impact and Patricia Ferguson will discuss the use of herbal remedies in treating the symptoms of fibroids.

Additionally, we’ll have some great organisations exhibiting on the day so you can find out more about women’s health in general.

Join us on 30th July 2016 for an informative, empowering session. Book early to avoid disappointment, spaces are limited.

Doors open at 12pm and you can visit the information tables; the presentations start at 1pm.

For more information and to book your place, please click here

A couple of weeks ago we listened live to Harvard Medical School’s Mini Med seminar on ageing. This was a very informative  event featuring experts in the field Amy Wagers Professor of Stem Cell Regenerative Biology; Sharon Inouye, the Director of the Hospital Elder Life Program and Professor of Medicine; and  Bruce Yanker, the Co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Centre for the Biology of Ageing. Together they explained how the body ages and how we can keep it young and healthy.

The event started with an introduction by Amy Wagers who explained that ageing is a collection of physical and behavioural changes that take place as an individual gets older. She stated that ageing is the biggest risk factor for many diseases and the challenge that the medical field faces is how to promote healthy ageing.

When thinking about aging it was stressed that we have to think of a person’s health span as opposed to their life span. A person’s health span is the number of healthy years of life they experience and currently the general population’s life span has increased but their health span is relatively short and we need to do more research to determine how we can effectively increase a person’s health span; we don’t want people to have a long life span but have a poor quality of life because their health span is short.

Amy stated that we need to understand the cellular, biochemical and molecular basis of ageing and therefore understand how age-related diseases develop so that we can target these diseases. Amy stressed the importance of identifying predisposition to age-related diseases as there has been an explosion in these diseases over the past 15 years, mostly because we have more elderly than ever before.

Amy explained that ageing is a complex process where many biological mechanisms interact, these include loss of protein function, reduction in the communication between organs, the loss of the ability to regenerate cells after injury, metabolic dysfunction and DNA defects, just to name a few.  She said that there is hope that we can target the biological causes of ageing to prevent and reverse age-related disease.  Amy stressed that there are two very important factors in preventing age related diseases and these are: diet and exercise.

We then heard from Sharon Inouye who explored the clinical aspects of ageing. She stated that some of the main issues with ageing are: illness, disease and medications affect older adults differently; older adults are more likely to have multiple health conditions; we’re in a stressful society and stress results in a reduction in our physiological reserve so our body is less able to deal with ageing; falls are the leading cause of death in the elderly; many eldery experience a significant decline in brain function and finally we don’t have enough geriatricians to treat older people. Due to all of these issues we need to find ways to ensure that people age well. She stated that an important part of addressing these issues is ensuring that older people maintain their cognitive health by: encouraging people to be physically active (this is the most important), reducing cardiovascular risk factors, looking at medication management,  keeping the elderly socially and intellectually active and ensuring they get enough sleep.

Finally we heard from Bruce Yankers who spoke about brain function in the elderly. He wanted to answer the question: how do people who are healthy lose neurons? He stated that many older people retain memory and cognitive function but others lose this, why? He explained that biological processes in the brain decline with age and there are a number of genes involved in this process. REST is a gene regulator that appears in the ageing brain and disappears in people with Alzheimer’s Disease. REST controls many genes involved in memory. It keeps cells alive and regulates genes involved in neuron function. REST proteins are protective against Alzheimer’s Disease and thus prevent loss of neurons. He explained that some people can withstand Alzheimer’s lesions and do not go on to develop dementia, why? It seems to be REST proteins that are protective in these situations.

Finally Bruce explained that research has suggested that the strength and quality of relationships dictate how well people age. It was found that how happy people are is important in ageing healthily. Specifically how happy people are in marriage by 50 seemed to be a good indicator of how well they will age. Therefore it’s important that people control their stress levels and strive to be happy.

This was a very interesting seminar and gave us a lot to think about with regards to how to promote healthy ageing. A key theme of each talk was the power of exericse and we’ll continue to encourage the public to keep active.

We’d like to thank Harvard Medical School for organising this seminar series and making it as accessible as possible by broadcasting it live on the internet. You can find out more about this seminar series, read the lecture notes and watch

Back in March Public Health England launched their ‘One You’ campaign which aims to help adults across the country avoid health conditions caused by modern day life.

In this age of technology it can be very hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle with many of us spending most of our day sitting in front of a computer. This new campaign urges everyone to move more, eat well, drink less and be smoke free. It also provides advice on reducing stress level and sleeping better.

Professor Sir Muir Gray, clinical adviser for the One You campaign said:

“Although it has been customary to blame people for their ‘lifestyle’ we now appreciate that we need to take into account the environmental pressures that make it difficult to make healthy choices, having to sit 8 hours a day at work for example, and then drive an hour home. One You is designed to help every individual identify not only their risks but also the pressures they face in their life and the stress that results, and then support them with personalised tools and advice.”

The One You website is great resource for health information and on this website you can take the ‘How Are You’ quiz to assess how healthy your lifestyle is as well as download a range of free apps to get you fit and healthy.