Tips & Blog

WATER

Human survival is dependent on water. The average adult body is 55 to 75% water. 2/3 of your body weight is water. Everyday your body must replace 2 ½ quarts of water. It performs essential functions such as transporting oxygen to our cells, it helps digest and absorb the nutrients. Not only does it control the temperature of the body it maintains a chemical balance inside and outside of our cells. Water also accomplished many other functions it removes toxins and lubricants and cushions the joints including the spinal cord, from shock and damage. Chronic dehydration may cause such problems as hypertension, asthma, allergies and headaches. It is important to look at filtration systems to remove contaminants.

Need to drink half of our weight in water, for example if you weigh 120 lbs you need to drink 60 ounces of water per day.

EXERCISE

Must be accomplished on a daily basis for at least 30 minutes, the easiest exercise to do is the one you will do, so find one that you enjoy and will turn into a habit. Important for cardiac health as well as bone health. If the muscles don’t do strength training the muscle tendon will decrease in size, wither and cannot support the bones. Our bodies were designed to “move” so physical activity is essential. We need to do aerobic exercise for the heart and lungs, and to raise our metabolism, this metabolism stays active for many hours after we stop. Also must take care of our upper body muscles and stretch to maintain flexibility, muscle strength and bone density.

Not only does it burn calories, it reduces our urge to eat, relieves stress, increases energy level, sleep better it improves your mood and self-esteem but studies show that exercise helps reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.

You can start slow with 10 minutes a day of doing some physical activity you enjoy and gradually work up to 30-45 minutes, 4-5 days a week, you should be breathing hard but still able to talk, you can walk or ride a bicycle.

POSITIVE ATTITUDE

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” (Norman Vincent Peale) Learn to love yourself despite what you think are your shortcomings and challenges.

To make the first step is sometimes the hardest, but it’s the most important. Get a notebook and write down your goals into manageable pieces. Pick one thing you will change and work on this, when you feel that is under control, take another and eventually you feel like you are accomplishing instead of thinking about it and not doing anything about it because you think it is insurmountable. Start by adding something positive like walking or take about half an hour of your day and schedule something that you love to do like reading or gardening or crocheting or painting. Look at more positives because you’ll have less room for negatives.

SLEEP

Do not scrimp on sleep the recommended sleep hours should be between 7 to 8 hours every night it varies between people but less that 6 is sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep contributes to weight gain, high blood pressure and decrease in the immune system. Sleep helps the brain commit or file information that happened during the day, its called memory consolidation it helps to focus on tasks. It’s also a time of rest and repair to neurons; neurons are the freeways of the nervous system that among other things perform involuntary commands such as breathing and digestive processes. Many hormones are timed to release during sleep, growing hormones for children and also for the muscle repair and boots your mood during the day.

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