Article Written By: Srinidhi Vangala, Srihitha Padamatinti, Simrit Shawla

Since the beginning of our high school careers, we, as in Srihitha Padamatinti, Srinidhi Vangala and Simrit Shalwa have always been passionate about helping the people in our community and in various unique ways. Our campaign is called Power In Purple, and our main goal is to raise awareness for Alzheimer's and its causes. Our sole mission is to educate the community around us about Alzheimer's . The three of us are working each day through different events and community projects to make sure that our generation is aware of such a deadly disease.

Most people just view Alzheimer's as a unpreventable disease.It's something that is not talked about in our generation and our campaign aims to change that. We recently found out that stress is one of the major causes of Alzheimer's so we want to gear our events towards younger aged individuals.

Throughout the year, we plan on doing a lot of events to help raise awareness for Alzheimer's and ways to decrease stress. We will be distributing pamphlets and brochures throughout our local community and have fundraisers to directly help the Alzheimer's Association, such as car washes, bake sales, raffles, etc.

We will be actively posting tips on how to prevent Alzheimer's and also promoting our own events on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat to reach our audience. We hope to hold seminars and other events like meditation day to help stimulate what you can do at home to help decrease your stress!

One of our recent events in contribution to our campaign was a yoga day in the neighborhood! The event happened on October 20, 2018 and we had advertised everywhere before that day. Our flyers were at school and in multiple group chats that caught people's attention!

Below is our flyer!

We were able to have an experienced instructor, Mr. Raghava Thadavarthy, teach us multiple poses to release our stress and ultimately be peaceful. Our main purpose of having this yoga session was to initially eliminate stress. Because everyone has some level of stress, we did not restrict a certain age limit for the yoga event.

One of the poses the instructor taught us was kapalbhati, which is a breathing exercise. The benefits our instructor told us were it worked the respiratory system as well as the abdominal muscles. This also helps our bodies achieve toning and a better physical state. After one and a half hour of exercising, we felt really relaxed and relieved! Simrit's mom was also at the event at the time and as she was going home, they were talking about how peaceful they felt. This event made a huge impact on us that day. We were motivated to do all of our homework and extra studying. From our experience, we have learned that this is something that should occur often to allow others to reduce their stress levels, too!

Alzheimer's is a deadly disease that gradually worsens over time. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.Think about that for a second. How do you think you can live your life without remembering your loved ones or maybe an important anniversary or birthday in your life?

Alzheimer's takes away just these small happy things, causing it to be such a horrible disease to have. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Those with Alzheimer's live an average of eight years after their symptoms become noticeable to others, but survival can range from four to 20 years, depending on age and other health conditions.

Many people don't view Alzheimer's as preventable. Although preventing the disease itself isn't truly viable, there are many things you can do to hinder it by treating the causes of Alzheimer's. There isn't one specific cause for this disease, and scientists don't know what is the sole cause of it. Some of the known causes of Alzheimer's are stress and poor heart health.

Because there is a lot about Alzheimer's we don't know, it's extremely important to always stay healthy and make good life choices. Our campaign strives to help you implement some of the things you can do to help prevent Alzheimer's and mainly focuses on how you can reduce your stress! Stress is linked with Alzheimer's because scientists believe that stress can cause the inflammation of your brain which in the long run can make someone more susceptible to Alzheimer's.

Whether it is a singing performance or a summative you're worried about, stress is extremely prevalent in our society (variety of ages). While a lot of people still know it as a cause of Alzheimer's, we are working everyday to help raise awareness of that and encourage our community to lead a healthier lifestyle.

To partake in our events and see updates, click here to check out our website! We also have an Instagram and a Facebook page which has reached about 720+ people combined over the course of the past two months. Follow us so you don't miss out on the many events we have planned throughout the year!

If you have any questions, please contact us through email: iiPowerInPurpleii@gmail.com