From the monthly archives: September 2011
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Smoking kills one in five Americans, and approximately 440,000 American each year. People who smoke don’t realize how bad their clothes, hair, home and vehicles smell to non-smokers. One of the things that makes smoking so bad for you is that the nicotine and other chemicals in tobacco narrows your blood vessels and actually makes them harder. This makes your heart work harder trying to pump the blood through your body. This sets you up for arthrosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, and this can lead to a stroke or heart attack. Your lungs are poisoned with the nicotine and chemicals in tobacco and lung cancer is a leading killer of smokers.
Your Body Starts to Heal After Your Quit
The good news is once you quit smoking, your body starts to heal and your risk for many major illness and conditions drops dramatically. Within 24 hours of putting down tobacco for good your blood pressure and body temperature are back to normal, the nicotine level in your body will have dropped 93.25%, the oxygen level and carbon dioxide levels in your blood normalize, and only 72 hours after you quit the nicotine is completely out of your system.
Nicotine is Addictive
One of the things that makes quitting so hard is your body’s dependency on nicotine. Nicotine is a drug and it stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain, and also increases the hormone dopamine, which makes you feel good. Withdrawal from nicotine can cause irritability, mood swings, sleeplessness, increased appetite, anxiety and depression. When you make the decision to quit smoking it is important that you understand these withdrawal symptoms will pass with time.
You Can Beat Nicotine Cravings
As said before, it is not easy to give up smoking. But for your health and the health of your loved ones it is important to succeed. There are some things you can do to get rid of nicotine cravings. Here’s a few to help you out.
- Smoking is a habit, so when you feel the urge to smoke change your habits. For example if you always smoked after eat, get up and take a short walk.
- Take up a hobby that uses your hands. Many people feel the need to keep their hands busy. You might try needlework, crossword puzzles or any hobby you enjoy.
- Drink plenty of water. The majority of nicotine will be out of your system within 72 hours. Drinking water will help to flush out your system and rid your body of nicotine.
- Keep healthy snacks handy. Withdrawal can make you feel hungry, so keep some healthy snacks like carrots, celery sticks, low-fat pretzels and low sodium crackers on hand.
- Exercise can help you beat the cravings. Regular exercise increases your oxygen levels, lifts your mood and helps to prevent and reduce anxiety and depression.
- Practice deep breathing. When you feel a craving coming on, take a moment and take some deep breaths. You should see your stomach go in and out while you breathe. This means you’re using your diaphragm to breathe.
- Meditation is another calming method to beat nicotine cravings. Anyone can meditate. Find a quiet comfortable place to sit or lie down, clear your mind and focus on your breathing. When you focus on your breathing, keep your mind clear and your spirit calm.
- Have a support buddy. Find someone you trust that you can call when you are craving nicotine.
- Use a delay tactic. Tell yourself you have to wait 10 minutes before you smoke. If after 10 minutes you still want to smoke, delay another 10 minutes. Set up a reward system each time you make it through the allotted time.
- Hang out in places smoking is not permitted. This is almost all restaurants, libraries, museums and any public building.
- Avoid people who smoke for a few weeks. Just being around second hand smoke may be more than you can handle until after you have completely kicked the habit.
- Avoid situations where you’d normally smoke. For example if you like to have a drink after work and find you need to have a smoke, forego the drink at the club and go home to have your cocktail.
- Use a smoking cessation product. There are gums, patches and prescription medications to help you quit smoking.
- Use a quit smoking journal. Writing down your feelings and cravings sometimes helps you to overcome them.
- Quit smoking for you. Once you’ve made up your mind you will quit, you can do it.
Teena is a freelance writer for hypnosis downloads website Selfdevelopment.com where you can instantly download nlp programs, subliminal messages and binaural beats recordings from experts all across the world.
Cover of Six-pack Abs
Six pack abs are always in fashion. You have probably seen many Hollywood stars and fitness models with six pack abs, but the average person certainly will not have a “six pack” – many have tried, but it’s no easy task. To be successful, you need to build some serious muscle and lose some serious fat. That is the only way of getting a rippled six pack.
Now, let us discuss a few of the things that you need to do in order to gain muscle and lose fat.
Part 1: Build Serious Muscle
First off, you need to have some muscle on your body if you want to see a six pack. You don’t need a whole lot of muscle, but if you’re pretty scrawny right now, it would be a good idea to build up some muscle as soon as possible.
Here are some good ways to do that:
Do squats. Squats are considered by many to be the best way to build muscle. Squats allow you to exercise your entire body with one movement, and using your entire body means you can lift a heavier load with the squat (compared to most other exercises,) giving you more of a workout. Plus, since you need your abs to stabilize yourself during the squat, it makes for a great ab workout!
Do leg lifts. Leg lifts work your abs directly. To do leg lifts, all you have to do is lie back on a bench to support your back, but leave your legs off the edge. Then use your core muscles to lift your legs up off the floor to where they form a 90 degree angle with your body. Then lower back down and repeat.
You can also do leg lifts while hanging from a pull-up bar, but this is much harder, so perfect the basic leg lift first!
Use an ab wheel. This very simple piece of equipment is a great way to build a strong core and accentuate your abs. It is also simple to use – grab the handles from a kneeling position, roll out forward, then roll back. And repeat.
Keep your abs tight the entire time, and start out slow. Seriously, this is very, very intense! You will honestly be sore the next day!
Part 2: Lose Serious Fat
Even if you have seriously strong abdominal muscles, you’re not going to see them if they’re covered in fat. So, the most important part to having a “six pack” is to get to a very low body fat percentage (typically under 10% body fat for men.)
Here are some tips to lower your body fat:
Eat less. It’s so simple that some experts say it doesn’t work! But taking in fewer calories is the first step in losing fat. So you should track your daily calories and simply start eating fewer calories. An easy way to do this is to cut out junk food and snacks – forget about fast food, and don’t eat anything pre-packaged like snack crackers.
Eat more fiber. Eat loads of fruits and vegetables that are rich in fiber. This way, you eat plenty of food and feel full, but you consume fewer calories. (More food yet fewer calories? Yes, that’s the magic of healthy food!) And fruits and vegetables are full of nutrients, so you have no excuses not to eat them.
Eat fewer carbs. Low carb diets (think Primal and Paleo) are becoming more and more popular for a good reason – they work. You don’t have to go to extremes at first, though. Just focus on removing high-carb foods from your diet. Foods to avoid would include bread, bagels, muffins, cookies, crackers, and pasta.
As you build muscle and lose fat, your six pack should start to take shape!
Levi Bloom is a former mountain bike racer and marathoner who writes about diet, nutrition, and endurance sports training at CoachLevi.com.
Does your snoring prevent you from sleeping at night? Do you wake up tired and restless? If you answered yes to these questions, you may have a sleep disorder, which is preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Do not worry, you are not alone. It is estimated that 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women snore while sleeping.
Find out Why You are Snoring
The most important thing for you to realize is that there is help available and there are tips that can help you sleep better. The first step that you should take is to try to find a reason for your snoring. You should monitor your snoring to see what your sleep patterns are. Try to note things like, do you sleep on your back, do you sleep with your mouth open or shut, and do you seem to stop breathing while you are snoring. These are important answers to know.
You can make an appointment with your doctor and take along the answers to the above questions. He will be able to completely examination you and rule out any health problem besides your sleep disorder. Your doctor may be able to pinpoint the cause for your snoring. More importantly, he may be able to help you find a treatment plan or sleep apnea treatment the will work for you.
Tips to Alleviate Snoring
There are some things you can do at home that may be able to keep your from snoring or reduce your amount of snoring. You should also try to avoid certain foods close to bedtime like dairy products, soymilk, caffeine and alcohol. You should also refrain from taking sleeping pills or antihistamines right before bedtime.
If you sleep on your back, some people have suggested putting a tennis ball down the back of your shirt while you sleep. The idea is that you when you roll over, it will be uncomfortable forcing you will roll back over on your stomach. Some studies have suggested that doing throat exercises and singing throughout the day can reduce your snoring at night.
If these tips are not working for you, there are several medical treatments that are available for you to try. There are also several types of nasal strips that you wear while you are sleeping to also help you breathe better during the night. Surgery is another option that many people with sleep disorders try when other options are not working.
Benefits of a Good Night’s sleep
The number one benefit of getting a good night’s sleep is that it will make you more productive during the day. Studies show that there is a direct link between sleep and a person’s productivity throughout the day. Without a good night’s sleep, a person has less energy and they are not as alert and focused. These are the three key ingredients to productivity and without them a person’s performance may be at their best level.
There are other benefits that you will receive once you start having a good night’s sleep. Since you will not be tired anymore, any depression or anxiety problems may diminish. Your mood will lift and your attitude is likely to become more positive.
Spending your nights not able to sleep and your days being tired can be a stressful way to live and over time it will wear you out. But once you begin getting a good night’s sleep, you will be amazed at the difference it will make in your life.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
It’s one thing to lose weight. It’s quite another to be able to do it fast. Sure, you can starve yourself silly or use some unhealthy pill or supplement to induce a quick weight loss, but this doesn’t really count. You’re not out to lose weight in an unhealthy and unsustainable way. You’re out to find ways to drop body fat and to keep it off.
This is what I hope this article and the tips in it will help you do. I hope that you find them useful and apply them soon in your life.
1. Train your entire body – One mistake that people make in their workouts is that they focus on their problem areas. Each of us has body parts that we’re less than happy about. It can be the abs, the thighs, the buttocks, the arms. It makes sense to train those body parts primarily.
It may make sense but it is wrong. Our body doesn’t burn fat from anywhere specifically. For the most part, it burns fat according to your genetics. Your goal is to make it burn as much fat as you can (healthily). The more muscle mass you train, the more calories you burn, which is why you need to do total body workout routines as they will target more muscles and burn more calories.
2. Get enough sleep – One reason why so many people are fat these days is that we tend to sleep less hours than we used to. When you don’t get enough sleep your hormonal make up starts to change. You secrete more hormones that make you feel hungry so you tend to eat more. Naturally, eating more than you should is detrimental to weight loss. So, get at least 7 hours of sleep each night.
3. Do circuits – Working out is great. Doing circuits is better. Circuit workouts are at the basis of metabolic resistance training, one of the best, if not the best, fitness methods to burn body fat quickly. Working out in circuits creates a more intense exercise experience. It burns more calories and gives you a metabolism hike that helps you keep burning more and more calories for hours.
4. Choose your snacks carefully – People tend to disregard the calories in their snacks. This is a mistake as snacks can contain hundreds of calories. You need to eat healthy snacks, primarily fruit and vegetables and avoid candy bars and other calorie rich items.
I hope that these 4 tips have been useful to you. I believe that if you follow them you will achieve results.
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1. Get Sleep!
Feeling deprived of sleep? Most of us are entirely aware that our lack of sleep can intrude on our brain functioning properly. Sometimes it’s not a busy schedule that prevents sleep, but an overactive mind and/or inability for the body to go into sleep mode. Usually the body can’t “shut down” if T3 (active thyroid hormone) is low. Warm milk can quickly cure this problem, and if the inability to sleep is very bad, a T3 supplement (Cytomel) can help. Do not take sleeping pills, as they simply put you in a “knocked out” unconscious state – they are not restorative. If a busy mind is the culprit, writing out thoughts on paper before sleep can help. At least 6-8 hours of heavy sleep per day for an average adult should be enough to achieve a clearer mind.
2. Drink Coffee
There is much controversy over coffee obsession. Most studies done to highlight coffee and caffeine’s negative effects use overdoses – doses unlikely to be obtained through coffee alone. As well, the opinion against coffee becomes skewed if the coffee is dosed as black. With enough sucrose and/or protein and fat, caffeine has an entirely different effect. Because it is so metabolically positive, enough macronutrients should be eaten with coffee or caffeine products.
So what exactly does coffee do? Aside from heightening metabolism, it improves blood flow to the brain – thus improving concentration and curing headaches. In addition, it’s well known that coffee drinkers have a lower incidence of brain disease, such as Parkinson’s.
3. Avoid Stress and Recover from It
Both physical and mental stress can create major complications for one’s ability to concentrate. When there is stress present, hormones cortisol and adrenaline can increase. These two hormones promote inflammation when they are constantly being produced, including an inflammation of – negative impact on – the thyroid gland. Mental fogginess is one of the major symptoms of hypothyroidism and hypothyroid characteristics.
Mental stress – racing thoughts, negative thinking, and depression – can impede upon mental clarity. To rid the mind of such thoughts, therapy or a close friend should be sought after. If either is unavailable at any time, then journaling, and writing, in a diary can be extremely beneficial.
Recovering from stress can be accomplished. Setting aside down time to take a warm bath, watch a movie, take a leisurely walk, indulge in good food, or whatever else you find enjoying and restorative will help to clear the stress bug.
4. Eat for Health and Satiety
An ill and hungry body is one of the worst offenders of a lack of mental clarity. Making sure to avoid processed food, unsaturated oils (canola, corn, safflower, etc.), and too much starch, while increasing consumption of nutrient rich fruit, milk, eggs, coconut oil and other whole foods will help the body by doing more than just clearing the mind. When whole foods are eaten, enough to satisfy hunger should be fully enforced. A hungry body starves the mind of activity!
5. Supplement if Necessary
Oftentimes diet and mental attempts to calm anxiety are not enough. A thyroid supplement – either compounded T4/T3 or T3 alone – can be just what it takes to boost a body out of bad mental health. Amounts to take vary, but when taking T3 alone, no more than 5 mcg should be taken alone at one time. Too much T3 can shut down the body’s natural production of it.
Pregnenolone and progesterone are two other great supplements to consider. Pregenenolone and T3 together can produce glorious effects as a cure for anxiety. Progesterone is known to be a sedative – being why it’s naturally elevated during pregnancy and especially during birth. Men can take pregnenolone – which will break down into the proper hormones to suite them as males – rather than progesterone. Too much progesterone for women can prevent menstrual cycles, which is why it can be cycled bi-weekly. Another positive of progesterone and pregnenolone are their abilities to protect the body from too much estrogen – which contributes to brain aging, as explained by Dr. Ray Peat in his article, “Estrogen and brain aging in men and women: Depression, energy, stress”.
A lifestyle change
It’s not always easy to realize that it could take some major revamping in one’s life to find relief from a convoluted psyche. By being aware that there are many methods to take to clear the mind, small or big steps can be taken effectively. Happiness will be the lasting result of coherent thoughts!
Bio:
Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and recent graduate of Elon University. She is currently a resident blogger at online degrees, where recently she’s been researching different online physical therapy aide programs and blogging about student life. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.
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