Healthy Lifestyle Choices and Epilepsy
Improving overall health
Relaxation techniques
Exercise and epilepsy
Dietary measures and epilepsy
Improving overall health
As well as taking care of your epilepsy, you can make choices to improve your overall health.
 Learn how to relax and manage stress. Learning relaxation techniques can help.
Exercise regularly - daily if possible. Staying active makes you feel better, fights depression, and helps to control weight. Discuss exercise with your Neurologist, and use common sense when taking part in physical activities.
Fire Hazard - Dropping a lighted cigarette, cigar, or pipe during seizure could be a fire hazard.
Relaxation techniques
Relaxation methods include diaphragmatic rhythmic breathing, biofeedback, and meditation techniques. No strong evidence supports their value on reducing actual attacks (although some people have reported that they have), but they may be helpful in reducing anxiety in people who have positive experiences with them. There have been some reports that deep breathing (a common relaxation technique) triggers seizures in certain people.
Exercise is important for many aspects of epilepsy, although it can be problematic. Weight-bearing exercise helps maintain bone density, which can be reduced by many of the medications. Exercise can also help to prevent weight gain, which may a problem with some of the drugs. There have been some reports that exercise may trigger seizures in some patients, but this is uncommon. A number of studies have found no significant association between physical activity and a higher incidence of seizures in patients with epilepsy. Nevertheless, some patients are concerned and they should discuss this issue with their physician.
Dietary measures and epilepsy
All patients should maintain a healthy diet, including plenty of whole grains, fresh vegetables, and fruits. In addition, dairy foods may be important to maintain calcium levels. In the 1920s, a high-fat, no-sugar, low protein diet, known as a ketogenic diet, was used to prevent seizures. It lost popularity after the introduction of antiepileptic drugs but is now proving to be effective with many children.
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