Tag: water

Massage for Insomnia

Disrupted sleep patterns happen to everyone at one time or another because of temporary factors, like a snoring partner or medication. Unfortunately, there are other factors, like stress, that can cause sleep patterns to disrupt, sometimes over a long time.

The typical adult needs slightly more than 8 hours of sleep every day, but fewer than 35% of American adults get this level of rest. Actual insomnia is defined as difficulty initiating, or maintaining sleep 3 or more nights in a week, in addition to sleep related daytime impairment. Typically, someone with insomnia feels unrefreshed when they wake, can’t get to sleep despite being really tired, has daytime drowsiness or fatigue, sometimes has difficulty concentrating, sometimes gets headaches.

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20 Things Happy People Do

Happiness really is a state of mind. Everyone defines it a bit differently. For some, it’s contentment, others satisfaction, some pleasure, some joy, some well-being, and for others just “feeling all right”.

Your happiness is influenced both by your perception of what’s going on in your life and actual environmental occurrences. Happy people actually do things that keep them happy.  In other words, they actively pursue happiness, sometimes instinctively, sometimes because they’ve learned good habits, other times because they feel the need to be even happier.

Think about Scrat, the squirrel from the Ice Age films. He’s oh so happy when he finally gets his tiny hands on his beloved acorn. But think also that Scrat goes to great lengths to move toward his goal. As long as he is moving toward the goal, actually taking steps forward, he’s moving closer to his nut every moment. Luckily, you don’t have to scale icebergs or slide off cliffs to be happy, but you do have to work at it. Here are twenty things, in no particular order, that you can do to help yourself move your brain toward a happier perception of yourself and your world.

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Five Hydration Do’s and Don’ts

Many people have discovered that proper hydration with sports drinks helps them run faster, have better motor skills, and stay mentally sharper–and the research bears that out. But sometimes plain old water does the trick.

1  Consume sports drinks during intense workouts.

When you exercise, you lose water and salts through sweat. Gatorade and other sports drinks replace both, and often add other minerals and sometimes vitamins and carbs, too. All these help, especially during intense workouts. Stay away from sports drinks when you’re not exercising, though, lots of calories!

2 Don’t bother with add-ons.

Any add-ons to the basic electrolyte drink–whether it’s choline, creatine, or something else–makes no difference to anyone except the extreme hard-core professional. If you eat protein in your meals (and you should) that’s much more protein than you’ll get in drinks. Theoretically, the drinks are supposed to spare your muscle protein, but in reality it’s a marginal gain. Just eating protein will do that much. Continue reading “Five Hydration Do’s and Don’ts”

Five Ways to Keep Your Body Young

The Fountain of Youth is really all about habits.  Good habits.  Here are five good habits for you to acquire that will help keep your body young, fit and happy.

1 Eat more fat. The healthy kind, that is. Omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon, walnuts, and seeds) help stabilize your mood, maintain bone strength, and help prevent visible signs of aging by reducing inflammation in the body. Eat two grams of omega-3 fatty acids a day or consider taking krill or fish oil supplements.

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