Most cat owners enjoy the warmth and companionship from their pet. It’s not quite a hidden fact that their cute meows, fuzzy faces, whiskers, and head nudges are a great signs that cats are vital to the mental health of their owners. However, not everyone knows this. Those who don’t own cats miss out on the appeal of cats. Do cats help with anxiety? The fact is that behind all of the soothing cuddles of the purring, cats do improve mental health by decreasing anxiety and stress, and offering companionship.
How does one know if cats help with anxiety? First, you should know that these fuzzy companions are fantastic stress relievers. The deal here is that adopting a cat is like adopting a walking, sassy, stress and anxiety reliever. This pet has displayed anxiety relieving qualities in a number of ways, by simply being their natural selves. If you’ve had a hard day at work, coming home to spend time with your fuzzy companion can reduce anxiety and help your body produce stress reducing hormones. When this happens, your blood pressure and heart rate decreases and your anxiety levels become normal.
Indeed, many people can benefit from a relationship with cats. In addition to helping college students when they battle with anxiety and stress, they are useful in other places. In places like nursing homes and hospitals, cats help patients navigate stressful and anxious-induced situations. It gives patients a sense of companionship in hospitals and an all round positive mental health.
Bottom Line
Owning or adopting a cat is a fantastic idea. Cats have the ability to calm humans, offer genuine companionship, lower the body’s stress levels, and are effective therapy animals for a variety of uses and patients.
Yes, tanning addiction is a thing. You will know if you have an addiction if you feel a strong urge to use indoor tanning facilities. You will crave exposure to UV light and and want to head home darker than you arrived. Having similar urges to tan outdoor, almost all the time, can also tell you that you are a compulsive tanner. And just like other kinds of addiction, you may feel the burden that comes with the need to cut back on tanning. Thinking about all these even makes you feel anxious.
This begs the question of why are people addicted to tanning. For one, tanning addiction may be the result of addiction to UV light. One article suggests that the excessive craving to tan outdoors or hit the tanning bed might be driven by an addiction or dependency to the mood-changing effects of the UV light.
Addiction to tanning may also be caused by a psychiatric disorder. The deal here is that excessive tanning has been linked to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Body dysmorphic disorder. These two are kinds of psychiatric disorders. Researchers from Brown University Medical School discovered that among every 200 individuals with BDD, 25% revealed tanning in response to BDD-related anxieties. Also, a good number of compulsive indoor tanners may be determined by an underlying mood disorder or anxiety. Compulsive tanners have twice the rate of moderate-to-severe anxiety and depression of infrequent indoor tanners. Research also suggests that compulsive tanners might be more prone to seasonal affective disorder.
As much as you want to look good with tanning, it’s best to control your need to tan or use tanning beds. In 2009, the International Agency for Research on Cancer included tanning beds in its highest cancer risk. This is based on an analysis of 20 studies that revealed that use of a tanning bed before age 30 increases the risk of having melanoma by 75%. Even the World Health Organization suggests that no one under age 18 should use a tanning bed.
The change in season is always nice. Warm weather brings blooming flowers, fresh grass and budding trees in some places. This is always a good time to stay out and enjoy nature.
However, regardless of how this might sound for some, it’s not all fun for people with allergies. According to the Food and Drug Administration, over 30 million people in the United States struggle with fall and spring allergies.
That being said, to prevent you from sneezing regularly and struggling with itchy eyes, you can try these few tips. Indeed, these tips can help you triumph over your symptoms.
First and foremost, you need to stay indoors in the morning. It’s important to note that allergen levels are quite higher in the early part of the day. So, it’s pertinent that you schedule your outdoor activities or yard work for the afternoon.
Moreover, you should always close your doors and windows. Note that seasonal allergens come from outside. So, ensuring your doors and windows are shut would limit the amount of pollen entering your home and car.
Moreover, you should always protect yourself. Now, if you have to spend time outside, especially when you’re working in your yard, do well to wear a filter mask or a protective eye gear. Make sure you wash your clothes and hair properly to prevent bringing the pollen in your living area or home.
Before heading out, you can also find out the pollen count for the day. How can you get this? Several websites including pollen.com reveals details on current allergen levels. You can then schedule your outdoor activities for days with lower pollen count.
In all, remember other non-seasonal allergens that might cause your symptoms. Dust mites are common indoor allergens. You should also seek medical care if you suffer symptoms.
Lunges, like a workout routine, targets large muscle groups in the lower body. This helps to build lean muscles and works to reduce body fat. Both functions increase an individual’s resting metabolism, which in turn allows one to trim excess weight and burn more calories. Lunges also help to secure leaner legs, and it activates the glutes, hamstrings, and quads. Lunges with weights benefit also improve balance, stability, and lower body strength.
So, if you need to lose weight, you can include lunges in a high-intensity circuit workout routine. You can also add weights. These are some types of lunges with weights benefits.
1. Standard Lunge
Stand with the feet together. As you keep your left foot in place, Step forward with the right foot. Bend your knees and then drop the left knee to the floor. Keep your right knee at the back of your front toes. Once the knees are at 90 degrees, push your right foot and stand. Repeat this with the opposite leg.
2. Diagonal Lunge
Stand with your feet together. With the right foot, step forward at a 45-degree angle. Drop your back knee to the floor. Then use your right foot to get off the floor. Return to your starting position. Change your legs. You can hold weights if it’s too easy.
3. Reverse Lunge
Stand with your feet together. Step backward with the right foot, and drop your right knee on the floor. This should create a 90-degree angle. Now, push off your right foot to ensure that both feet are back together to the starting position. Change legs. Reverse lunges work well for the glutes.
There you go! Try out these lunges with weights benefits. Douglas Laboratories produces healthy vegetarian capsules.
This book is great for those that want to develop better or improved work habits. Although the book was first published in 1990, it still sells pretty well. The reason being that it transcends issues of life in the workplace. It also teaches individuals how to change their perception of the workings of the world around them.
If you've hit a brick wall or feeling stuck in your career, Sweeney’s book gives a detailed system for those who seek a career change. If you desire actionable advice concerning your career, this is a great read. There are also lessons that are applicable to personal aspirations.
This book is fantastic for people who want to recover from career failure. It helps people understand that failure is a part of life. The key thing is how to manage it. McArdle teaches how to convert failure into learning experiences. The book also tells stories of people from different career paths.
If you want to learn how to achieve work-life balance, this is a great read. It teaches that living a good life is more than earning a huge sum of money. The desperate pursuit of more (and more) money has caused many to burn out.
How to Get the Most From an Athlete's Diet to Lose Weight
As an athlete, it's important to stay in shape around the year. Moreover, when it's off-season or when the weather turns bad, you'll find that athletes tend to pack on the pounds and have a hard time returning to normal health.
Not to worry, because most trainers usually advise that they follow a strict diet to lose weight. The good news is that there are several diets that can help athletes to lose weight. But it is important to get the most out of these diet plans. For this reason, we'll give you a rundown of how to successfully navigate an athlete's diet to lose weight.
One tip associated with an athlete's diet to lose weight is avoiding crash diets. The deal here is when you decide to cut calories in an overly dramatic manner, your nutrient intake may fight against proper training and recovery. When this happens, you'll be more susceptible to injury, illness, and may also experience an overtraining syndrome. Moreover, cutting calories too quickly may negatively affect metabolism and hormones.
Another way to lose weight through a healthy diet without significantly threatening your health is by consuming less sugar and eating more fiber. Note that low-carb diets provide less than 40% of calories from carbohydrates that are effective at promoting fat loss. However, a drastic restriction of carbs is not best for athletes. The reason being that it can negatively affect training and performance. One of the healthiest ways to reduce total carb intake via dieting is to cut out added sugars.
Another great way to get the most of an athlete's diet to lose weight is by eating more protein. High-protein diets provide a feeling of fullness. This diet also increases the number of calories burned during the process of digestion. Protein-rich diets are also great because while you lose weight, you won't lose muscle mass.
What is the Yoga Diet and Can it Help You Lose Weight?
A yoga diet is a balanced diet that is believed to have a positive influence on not only your physical self, but also your emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Sometimes this diet is called Lacto-vegetarian, meaning that it comprises of non-animal foods, excluding honey and dairy items.
So, with constant awareness regarding the body via the yoga diet, you may discover that vegetarian foods are an ideal natural choice to support your mind and body. The yoga diet can help you to stay energized and to feel light, both literally and figuratively. For spiritual-minded individuals, non-animal foods may help you to attain a higher level of spirituality through positive energy.
For those struggling to lose weight, or on the look-out for healthier ways to secure an ideal weight, the yoga diet can come in handy. Why is this so? The deal is the science of yoga rewards faithfuls with a natural solution that works to balance the body and reinvigorate your metabolism. All of this makes it easier to shed those added pounds in a healthy way.
A smart way to help support your daily wellbeing and weight loss through physical activity is with supplements that seek to support a healthy lifestyle. Brands like Arthur Andrew Medical and Health Concerns offer a range of supplements that may be ideal for your needs.
In essence, the yoga diet, which is largely based on whole grains, vegetables, and fresh fruits, seeds and nuts, beans, and a limited amount of dairy, is a proven way to hit your ideal body weight and maintain it. These kinds of foods work naturally to nourish and balance the body. They also support the immune system and eliminate toxins.
Maintaining your yoga diet largely depends on your body type, climate, and availability of healthy food. For instance, in the summer, lower-fat diets, including lots of raw vegetables, may work well. In the cold, you may opt for warm, cooked foods with healthy fats.
Most times, creativity is not hereditary – that means you don’t have to be born with it. Like any other habit or skill, creativity can be developed, built, boosted, nurtured, and even evolved. Regardless of your career path – whether you are a writer, artist, or hobbyist, you can always try some new methods to start or boost your creative crafting at any time. This article is for anyone looking for ideas to get their creative juice flowing.
Firstly, you need to have a colossal database of ideas cutting across several fields in your head. While some of it may seem useless at the beginning, the larger your repository of ideas, the more ideas you can pick from it. Truth is, armed with a comprehensive arsenal of ideas, you never know where inspiration may come from.
Furthermore, the second part of creativity lies in the ability to connect these ideas. However, the mind needs to be adequately trained to extract, connect, and apply the concepts it gets from everything it sees and experiences. This is hard and requires practice and patience. Frankly speaking, it takes a little time to train one’s mind to remember and see the parallels and synthesize two very different sources.
It is suggested that reading unusual magazines is one great idea to help you start creative crafting, and it works effectively. Simply pick a magazine from a completely unfamiliar niche and go through it. No doubt, it may seem difficult and even uninteresting at first, but keep an open mind and flip through the pages.T o stay energized, you can purchase some of BioRay’s products. It can also be purchased for your kids from BioRay Kids.
Even if you can’t read all the articles, take time to read the headlines and some important paragraphs. This will help you understand the key developments in this niche – the challenges, the innovations, and of course, the trends.
Playing with building blocks, cars, dolls, or any toy is recommended for kids. This activates the portion of the brain responsible for the motor and muscular functions. Playing relaxes the mind and can actually help to visualize a problem or a solution.
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How Stretching Exercises Before Walking Keep You Active
So far, walking has been proven to be a great way to include physical activity in your daily life. Walking is simple and requires no special equipment other than shoes, and maybe a knee brace, or orthotics for your shoes. Best of all, its benefits can be quite numerous!
Although often overlooked, experienced fitness coaches, trainers, and athletes know that stretching is an essential part of any fitness or physical activity regimen. Just like walking and jogging, it requires no unique tool, and its benefits are many, especially for fitness enthusiasts. That is why stretching exercises before walking, or other workout sessions are important. This period is often known as "warming up." It only takes about 5 minutes to loosen the muscles and be ready to exercise.
When you are in high spirits on a beautiful day or just as part of your routine, you may be eager to get started on your walk. However, just like you treasure your walk, make time to properly warm-up and stretch before you start walking or cooling down before you stretch again after your walk.
Stretching before you walk has been found to reduce the chance of injury and increase flexibility, thereby boosting your performance as you walk and decreasing muscle soreness after your walk. Tight muscles can create tension in other areas of your body, pulling you out of proper alignment and making you cranky. However, when you take time to stretch before your walk, it helps to keep your body in the right position and mood, so you become more efficient at walking — and potentially burn more calories — and reduce your risk of being affected by an injury.
There are several types of stretching exercises before walking for different parts of the body. As important as the stretching exercises are, a post-walk stretch is also good for your joints and limbs. If the weather is good, you can stretch outside. Otherwise, head indoors, switch on the blender for a recovery smoothie and sip some healthy juice while you stretch.
Try a Subѕсrірtіоn to Thеѕе Senior Citizens Magazines
Being retired and being able to enjoy time reading is a perk of growing older. If this sounds like you, or a loved one, a magazine ѕubѕсrірtіоn іѕ an ideal gift that will help to keep their mind focused and active throughout the year. Whether they аrе a hоmеmаkеr or globetrotter, vеrу асtіvе, or саlm, there is a wide ѕеlесtіоn of magazines available tо hеlр them еnjоу their frее tіmе. TV, gаmеѕ, сооkіng, trаvеl, creative hоbbіеѕ, animals, оr gаrdеnіng.
Rеаdіng іѕ indeed an activity that ѕtіmulаtеѕ your brain and improves уоur cognitive function. Tоdау seniors are no longer ѕееn іn thе same way, and they benefit more from their "second уоuth." Thіѕ іѕ why senior сіtіzеn mаgаzіnеѕ hаvе mаnу ѕесtіоnѕ far from thе "ageing" image оf what wе thіnk оf with оldеr реорlе.
If you are concerned about your image while aging, you may want to consider supplements that work to support aging and health. Brands to consider include Ancient Nutrition, ReNew Life, and Acure. These brands offer a variety of products for a range of needs.
Indееd, in ѕеnіоr сіtіzen magazines, you can find tорісѕ in daily life, tірѕ, health tорісѕ, trаvеl, fаѕhіоn, or even tорісѕ оn fаmіlу relationships.
Senior citizen magazines are аdарtіng more аnd mоrе tо уоur aspirations аnd lіfеѕtуlеѕ. Thеrе are many different types.
Here are a few top senior cіtіzеn magazines to consider:
Our Tіmе
Our Tіmе іѕ a mаgаzіnе fоr all senior citizens. It соvеrѕ tорісѕ of news, retirement, rеfоrmѕ, hеаlth, wеll-bеіng, recreation, gаmеѕ, оr еvеn the family. The senior сіtіzеn'ѕ magazines, оur, аlѕо rеlіеѕ on rеаdеrѕ' experiences tоо tеll ѕtоrіеѕ оf lіfе.
Better Homes & Garden
This magazine is one that seniors will love! It аlѕо tаrgеtѕ fаnѕ of gаrdеnіng! Of соurѕе, mаnу ѕеnіоrѕ take mоrе and more time tо tаkе саrе оf their gаrdеnѕ and grееn ѕрасеѕ bу сultіvаtіng flowers and plants.
Sеnіоr Mоrе
Sеnіоr Pluѕ іѕ a mаgаzіnе fоr 60-уеаr-оldѕ. Thіѕ senior citizens magazine іntеndеd fоr bаbу bооmеrѕ whо wаnt to master new tесhnоlоgіеѕ, which are соnnесtеd and mоdеrn. The goal of Senior Pluѕ іѕ to ѕhоw that aging саn bе оnе in ѕеlf-fulfillment and ѕеrеnіtу.
Full Lіfе
Full Life mаgаzіnе is more fоr ѕеnіоr wоmеn. The соntеnt, therefore, fосuѕеѕ оn fеmаlе subjects. You can find thеmеѕ such as bеаutу, fashion, cooking, dесоrаtіоn, trаvеl, аnd аdvісе оn everyday lіfе.
Gеnеrаtіоn Plus
Generation Pluѕ is primarily intended for ѕеnіоrѕ, mеn, оr wоmеn. Dealing with nеwѕ topics оf аn іnfоrmаtіvе nаturе, іt аlѕо focuses оn hеаlth, travel, or сulturе. Themes that affect the over 50 year old crowd fоr whom this modern mаgаzіnе hаѕ become a monthly must-read followed with more and more іntеrеѕt.
Tempo Health
Tеmро health іѕ a ѕеnіоr сіtіzens magazine about thе theme оf hеаlth, prevention, and care. Eating well and рrасtісіng a ѕроrt рrеѕеrvе your vіtаlіtу. In thіѕ senior сіtіzеn'ѕ mаgаzіnе, уоu саn fіnd tірѕ for how to maintain your shape.
Sеnіоr Mаgаzіnе
Sеnіоr magazines offer information on several topics across a number of саtеgоrіеѕ ѕuсh as retirement, health, wеll-bеіng, fаmіlу, аnd recreation. The mаgаzіnе аіmѕ to аnѕwеr ѕоmе of your соnсеrnѕ.
Fruits аrе a good source of essential nutrіеntѕ, аnd they аrе dеlісіоuѕ. This mеаnѕ everyone should еаt lоtѕ оf fruit аnd have ѕоmе gооd fruit dіеt rесіреѕ оn hаnd. Eаtіng a lоt оf fruіt іѕ an еxсеllеnt wау tо detoxify уоur bоdу. Fruіtѕ are lоw іn calories аnd аrе filled wіth lots оf nutrіеntѕ that the body needs.
A 30-dау fruіt diet requires that you start thinking about eating more fruit. It іѕ a gооd іdеа tо еаt fruits frеѕh, so іt is best tо іnсоrроrаtе fruіtѕ thаt are in season.
Tірѕ for a Ѕuссеѕѕful 30 Dауѕ Fruіt Dіеt
To ѕtаrt off, trу еаtіng juѕt your favourite fruits. Thіѕ wау, you аrе hарру and are less likely to fall out of step. Yоu саn diversify and eat a larger variety of fruits if you want. Alѕо, include drу fruіtѕ. Thіѕ еnѕurеѕ vаrіеtу іn your menu so you don’t get bored. Yоu can have fіvе ѕmаll mеаlѕ оr three hеаvу оnеѕ. It іѕ uр to you аnd уоur schedule. You ѕhоuld сhеw and munch оn уоur fruіt vеrу slowly.
Be aware that fruits are digested faster than many other foods, sо you mіght fееlіng hungry аftеr уоu аrе done wіth your mеаl.
If this happens, juѕt grab аnоthеr fruіt. It іѕ also a wіѕе dесіѕіоn tо carry fruіtѕ wіth уоu whеnеvеr you are on thе mоvе. Thіѕ wау if уоu feel hungry, you are less likely to head over to a vending machine and eat something unhealthy.
30 Dау Fruit Dіеt Stаgеѕ
You will fіnd thаt уоur 30-dау fruit dіеt іѕ done in stages that are 10 days long, durіng whісh thе kinds оf fооd уоu аrе аllоwеd tо еаt will сhаngе. Durіng the fіrѕt tеn days, уоu mау bе eating оnlу fresh fruits and veggies (organic is аlwауѕ rесоmmеndеd) ѕіmрlу tо lеt уоur body, whісh mау not have ѕееn either in awhіlе, to adjust tо these changes.
Your 30-dау fruit dіеt wіll almost certainly hаvе mеnu items that уоu muѕt аdhеrе to, and іn thе ѕесоnd 10 dауѕ, you wіll еntеr the lіvе-fооd stage, еаtіng rаw frеѕh fооdѕ and twо dаіlу "smoothies," and other еаѕіlу dіgеѕtіblе blеndеd drinks.
During the final ten days of уоur 30-dау fruit dіеt, уоu will consume оnlу lіԛuіdѕ, so that your digestive ѕуѕtеm саn rеѕt, аnd уоur bоdу can hеаl оn a cellular lеvеl. Yоu'll make thе ѕwіtсh frоm solid рlаnt foods to mоrе ѕmооthіеѕ, and уоu'll be gіvеn thе рѕусhоlоgісаl support you need tо mаkе it thrоugh thе week. Thіѕ tеn days оf thе dіеt will аlѕо рrоvіdе suggestions fоr hоw to соntіnuе уоur healthy еаtіng оnсе уоur 30 dау dеtоx dіеt program is оvеr.
If you are gоіng tо attempt a 30-dау fruіt dіеt, уоu would аlѕо benefit frоm relaxation tесhnіԛuеѕ like уоgа аnd mеdіtаtіоn, аnd from ѕtudуіng the charka system tо undеrѕtаnd hоw your body's systems rеlаtе tо оnе another.
30-dау fruіt dіеt іѕ a fаntаѕtіс mode оf dieting if you want to maintain healthy weight management and much more. And thе rеѕultѕ are ԛuісk аnd satisfying. Happy Fruіt dіеtіng!
How To Start Your Self-Taught Education In Herbal Medicine
As we get older, health is the most important thing in life. Without it, life becomes painfully dreary, but when we’re healthy it’s full of possibilities. One common thread among people who keep their health for life is a skill at intentionally maintaining one’s own health. Wellness doesn’t just happen; it takes discipline, knowledge, and diligence.
Herbal medicine has always been an important way by which certain people maintain their own health. Herbal tonics and supplements have been used for millennia to prevent illness, both occasional and chronic. While modern medicine typically concerns itself with reversing illness after it has already set in, herbal medicine is primarily preventative in nature. Properly applied, knowledge of herbal medicine could help prevent common maladies from ever cropping up in your life.
But how do you acquire education in herbal medicine? After all, practitioners of herbal medicine throughout history have sought out lengthy apprenticeships and academic training. You may not be able to do the same in your current situation, but you can still gain the knowledge you need.
Humans have always learned through a combination of theory and praxis. With theory, we learn the information that we need for a proper herbal education. In praxis (practice), we learn by doing. It’s important that we start with both of these methods working in tandem.
Start with a health problem you wish to solve. Let’s say you want to stave off many of the negative symptoms associated with aging. You could start by ordering Fo-Ti Root Powder from Starwest Botanicals, then recording observations as you take the supplement. In this case, the best method would be to learn everything you can about Fo-Ti Root by reading studies, historical accounts, and the observations of other home researchers. This is theory. By taking the supplement and recording the effects you observe, you are learning by praxis.
Once you have enough experience with the herb to understand its effects, you’re ready to expand your repertoire. This time, you might go for lomatium extract from Herb Pharm, in an effort to promote immune system health. Here, again, you would learn everything you can about the nature and efficacy of lomatium extract as a medicine. Then you’d put your learning into practice, by using the supplement as directed and then recording your observations.
The more knowledge and experience you acquire, the more you’ll be able to use herbs to solve problems (or prevent problems from occurring in the first place). Fill out your herbal arsenal with products from Ayush Herbs, and keep improving your skill through theory and praxis.
The important thing is not to overwhelm yourself with information or supplies. It’s easy, in the early days of a self-taught herbal education, to flood your shelves with different herbal remedies, without giving yourself the time to properly “form a relationship” with each one. Remember, your education in herbs is a marathon, not a sprint. This isn’t like high school, where you’d cram the night before a test and squeak out an A. With herbs, you really have to allow yourself to learn about them at the speed of life. Trying to rush the process will have you spending a ton of money on herbs, without taking the time to thoughtfully assimilate each herbal tradition.
Once you’ve absorbed the relevant herbal information, and applied these theories in your daily life, you’ll have an herbal education that stands the test of time. No matter where you acquire this kind of practical knowledge (a teacher, a school, or the internet!), the proof is in the pudding. Herbs have the potential to heal, but the healer is you. Take the time to develop this skill, and you’ll be just as much an herbalist as the healers of yore.
Sunburns are one of the harsh realities of summer. If you’re a paler person, and you don’t spend long periods of time in the sun regularly, chances are that you are surprised by a sunburn once or twice a year. Sunburns often happen during vacations - times when we want more than anything to be free of pain and suffering. If you earned yourself a burn in the summer sun, here are some ways to alleviate the hurt.
The Day Of
It’s important to treat your skin as soon as you get a sunburn. Following sun exposure, your skin may take as little as 30 minutes to turn red, or as long as 2 to 6 hours. At this point, the damage is done, but there are things you can do to minimize your upcoming suffering.
Start by hydrating your skin, from the inside and out. Drink lots of water, and avoid dehydrating drinks containing caffeine and alcohol. Try to double your normal water intake. Your skin has been damaged by the sun and needs to recover its fluids. Topical treatments like Vaseline jelly form a moisture barrier atop your skin, to prevent further dehydration. Of course, there are more wholesome salves for your skin, but we’ll get to those in the next section.
The Next Day
The redness of your sunburn will peak at about the 24-hour mark. At this point, you’ll look like a boiled lobster, and the mild prickle that you felt last night will start to feel noticeably painful. It’s here that your skin really starts to experience the damage it incurred the previous day.
At this point, salves like aloe vera can really help. If you have a particularly painful sunburn, choose aloe vera ointment with lidocaine. This topical anesthetic will temporarily alleviate your sunburn pain when it’s at its worst. Other ointments, such as coconut oil, contain high levels of saturated fats, which your skin will absolutely love. You may find that your skin, on this day, is more absorbent than normal. This is because your skin is hurt, and needs to soak up every beneficial nutrient it can find.
Using coconut oil and aloe vera as a base, you can add many nutritious ingredients to a homemade sunburn salve. Lavender, eucalyptus, and chamomile essential oils can cool hot and soothe painful skin. Oils like these are also strongly antimicrobial, thus helping to prevent infection or secondary inflammation of sun-damaged skin. Vitamin E can help restore skin more quickly than would be possible without it.
In addition to topical treatments, make sure to eat nutritious foods in the day following a sunburn. Keep drinking lots of water and continue avoiding dehydrating beverages.
Day 3-20
Depending on the severity of your burn, sunburn discomfort will likely be most acute on the second or third day. During this period, just keep using all the techniques we’ve described so far (and, of course, stay out of the sun!).
As your burn heals, the damaged upper layer of skin will die and be sloughed off. This is the “peeling” stage, and while nobody likes the Freddy Krueger look, it does mean that your skin is healing. If your burn is no longer red and painful, you may start applying your favorite skin lotion to the affected area at this stage. This will help reduce the appearance of flaking, speed up the peeling process, and heal the new layer of skin beneath the old burn.
Nobody likes a sunburn, and this affliction can be quite the speedbump on a summer holiday. However, with proper treatment in the hours and days following a burn, you’ll be able to minimize suffering and speed up recovery.
Fitness, protein, and supplement powders are a great way to pack in the nutrition, but outside of the home context, it can be hard to keep up with them. Powders are...powdery. They’re difficult to store without making a mess. They take up a lot of room. Carelessly stored, and it’s impossible to tell one from another.
For all of these reasons and more, powders are notoriously troublesome to take on the road. Whether you’re on a holiday, business trip, camping expedition, or moon mission, it’s way harder to maintain a powder regimen than it is in the comfort of your own kitchen.
This doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We’ll give you some quick tips that’ll make your nutritional powders much easier to manage on the road.
Capsule Fillers Are Your Friend
If you take a powdered supplement, such as many of the ones offered by Garden of Life, a capsule filler can make your life a whole lot easier. Typically manufactured and sold in China (where traditional medicine makes nutritional powders ubiquitous), capsule fillers are plastic devices in several parts that let you package your powders in gelatin capsules. Capsules can be bought in drug stores or online in quantities of 1000. Most of the capsules hold about half a gram of powder. For powders you consume only a few grams at a time, this is an ideal solution, though powders you consume in greater quantities such as soy protein won’t work as well.
Buy Protein Powder at Your Destination
It’s very cumbersome to lug protein powder in your suitcase. If you’re cultivating mass at the moment, we still want you to be able to take your protein powder on vacations and work trips. However, if you’re going to be gone for a short amount of time, just eat a bit more meat at meals instead of lugging around the protein tub. If you are going to be gone for more than a few days, just buy some protein powder when you arrive at your destination. You can even have protein powder or protein shakes from Orgain delivered straight to your AirBNB. Just remember to pack your blender bottle.
Put Powders in Your Checked Luggage
If you insist on bringing powders on a plane, make sure to put them in your checked luggage (as powder baggies labeled in Sharpie tend not to go over well with the TSA). Make sure to triple bag these powders, or bring them in their original tubs. If you do choose to bag them, include a cardboard label or other identifying feature from the original package. Not only will this help you distinguish one from another when you arrive at your destination, it’ll also help prevent the TSA from opening up the bags if they do decide to search your checked luggage for some reason.
Be Conscious of Heat and Moisture
If traveling by road, you may have to contend with hot summer days. If you store nutritional or protein powders in the trunk of your car, they may react to heat or moisture that’s present in this environment. Heat, especially, can cause certain powders to denature or cake together. Read the storage directions on each of your powders, and make sure to provide the proper environment for every one, even if it means using ice packs and multiple airtight plastic bags.
Powders can be tricky to deal with, but if you depend on them, there’s a way to make your powder regimen work on the road. Plan ahead, think about every step of your upcoming process, and get creative. You can make road powder work, no matter your destination.
Homeopathy is the largest form of alternative medicine to have evolved out of Europe in the past several hundred years. Widely adopted in the West, especially the United States, homeopathy is a multi-billion dollar industry, continually popularized by well known figures such as Dr. Mercola.
Homeopathy is based upon simple ideas that run in sharp contrast to the esoteric foundations of conventional medicine. Patients of homeopathy are often made to feel like they themselves are in the driver’s seat of their own recovery, and are given resources and medical explanations that are simple to comprehend and practice. Often lower-cost than their conventional medicine counterparts, homeopathic cures are seen by some as the most accessible path toward healing and recovery for various illnesses.
Clearly, homeopathy is popular. But where did homeopathy come from?
Homeopathy was developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843). Hahnemann had little luck making a living in the first decade following his medical education. During his early career struggles, Hahnemann experimented with taking small daily doses of quinine, then a common treatment for malaria. He discovered that small regular doses produced symptoms similar to malaria, but with much lesser severity. It was here that Hahnemann cooked up the notion that by treating a patient with medication that produces symptoms similar to those of certain illnesses, the illnesses might be healed or prevented.
In some ways, this concept was in keeping with standard medical understanding. After all, the entire principle of vaccination is in giving a patient a small dose of some infectious agent, thereby training their immune system to fight off the real thing. However, Hahnemann and his acolytes took the principle much farther. Symptoms were used to fight symptoms, without any deeper investigation into the cause and effect of illness and cure.
This was a system that anyone could easily understand, and homeopathy quickly became a kind of folk medicine popular among the middle and upper classes. Hahnemann made his system even more widely accessible by incorporating another principle: that homeopathic medications should be given only in the barest minimum dose, so as to produce the slightest possible symptomatic effects, and nothing more.
To accomplish this, Hahnemann compiled a vast list of illnesses and related homeopathic cures - those medications that produced similar symptomatic effects to one or more illnesses. These medications were then diluted, sometimes only 1 part in 100,000,000 (or more) remaining in the final solution. Hahnemann countered critics by claiming that these medications retained the power of the original drug, and that this potential could be realized by shaking the solutions vigorously prior to consumption. This process was known as “potentization”.
This, more or less, is the way that homeopathy is understood and practiced today. In addition to the medical aspect, patients are taken through highly personalized journeys, often sitting for an hour or more with the homeopath, examining all aspects of their personal and medical lives. Following these intense sessions, the homeopath prescribes one or more medications, and the patient returns at various intervals to chart progress.
If you are interested in homeopathic medicine, you can get trusted medications of this sort from Boiron and Herb Pharm. It would probably also be a good idea to sit down with a homeopath for one of these personalized sessions. Much like other forms of counseling, these homeopathic sessions may be therapeutic in their own right. If you choose to take homeopathic medicine, take careful note of the effects you observe, and the frequency and nature of the drugs you choose. If you find something that works, stick to it, and you could be yet another person to benefit from homeopathy.
In the modern world, most of us don’t often contemplate survival. Back in our hunter-gatherer days, humans had to worry about predators, war, famine, and harsh elements - any of which could snuff out life with nary a moment’s notice. Today, we’re pretty well insulated from these threats, but in a way this leaves us even more vulnerable than our nomadic ancestors.
It’s easy to take peace and prosperity for granted. Just because things in our personal lives and in society are working well now, it may not always be this way. However, history shows us that this is rarely the case. Whether you fall victim to a life-threatening home invasion, or live through the next major economic collapse, you may have to fight for your own survival in a way you never previously thought possible.
So how do we prepare for worst case scenarios like these? It all starts with the home, your place of refuge when things go from bad to worst.
Protection Against People
It’s important to keep your home secure against those who might enter it against your will. Start by ensuring that your doors are strong and securely locked. Perform the same safety check on your windows. Consider adding bars to ground level windows, especially if you live in an area with lots of foot traffic, and invest in a security camera system if this is appropriate for your situation. Enhancing this basic level of home security can make your home an inconvenient target for a burglar.
It may also be a good idea to buy a weapon or two, which could come in handy in a variety of unpleasant occurrences. If you’re accustomed to guns, buy a gun or two. If you’re not accustomed to guns, but want one anyway, consider buying a shotgun. This will be useful for protection in many scenarios, and won’t be as dangerous or troublesome to manage as a handgun, particularly if you don’t have years of experience. Make sure to train with any guns you bring into your life, and make sure that anyone in your household who could access your guns does the same.
Protection Against Social Breakdown
While society may be pretty stable where you live, we know from world news that this is not always the universal case. Energy shortages occur, currencies collapse, rebellions break out, and supplies stop being delivered in times of war. How will you be prepared when and if the next social breakdown occurs?
You’ve already protected your home with security measures and weapons. Now it’s time to prepare your pantry for the worst. Having months worth of water and shelf-stable food is a must, if you’re worried about your ability to get supplies in the case of an emergency. Similarly, a generator (and other off grid living methods) can make sure you’re supplied with energy when others are without. You may even want to find a way to supply your water needs from a well, rather than city water, or to capture and purify rainwater for the same purpose.
Having a large garden for food and natural medicine will also be indispensable in a social breakdown scenario. Your survival won’t be bound to what foods may or may not be delivered to your local megamart. Instead, you’ll have food independence in the form of nutritious crops, and possibly even livestock such as chickens, pigs, or cattle.
The last obvious requirement for long term survival in a long term disaster situation is money or wealth. Money in the form of fiat currency (Dollars, for example) may not be useful for exchange if the value of this currency is severely depressed, as has happened with Venezuelan hyperinflation. Instead, having wealth in easily tradable forms, such as gold and precious metals, may be the better bet.
There are endless ways to prepare your home and lifestyle for survival scenarios. Hopefully, you’ll never have to put these plans into action, but you will have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you and yours will be safe, no matter what.
Vitamins and Other Compounds that Provide Antioxidants
Along with the immune system, antioxidants are one of the primary ways our bodies fight disease. Unlike immune cells, however, antioxidants are primarily found in the diet. Our bodies harvest these chemicals from a variety of sources, such as vitamins and other nutritional compounds found in food. Let’s take a look at some of the most plentiful chemical sources of antioxidants, so that we can better seek these out in the meals we eat every day.
Antioxidants From Vitamins
Vitamins are chemicals that the body needs to operate. For the most part, essential vitamins can not be produced in the body, or at least not in the quantities necessary to preserve life. Therefore, vitamins must be sourced from outside the body, and food is the easiest way to make this happen.
Vitamins have many roles in the body, and a number function as antioxidants. These include vitamins A, C, and E. Vitamin A can be found in foods like liver, carrots, and egg yolks. Vitamin C is found in foods like citrus fruits. Vitamin E is found in nuts, vegetable oils, legumes, and grains.
Some antioxidants are derived directly from vitamins. For example, benfotiamine is made from vitamin B1 with plants and animals. Benfotiamine may be converted within the body. This conversation may also occur in a plant or animal, entering the body of a human when it consumes these as food.
Antioxidants From Other Chemicals
There are many other nutrients and chemicals that, while not vitamins themselves, provide essential antioxidant activity within the human body. Like vitamins, most of these are also consumed as food. There are hundreds of examples.
One important antioxidant chemical is astaxanthin. A natural pigment found in fish, shrimp, algae, and yeast, astaxanthin decreases oxidative stress as a powerful antioxidant. Other examples include manganese (found in seafood, lean meat, milk, and nuts), beta-carotene (found in pumpkin, fruits, spinach, and parsley), various flavonoids (found in tea, citrus, onions, and apples), and lutein (found in leafy vegetables).
Sourcing Antioxidants
There are two primary methods we use to sourcing antioxidant vitamins and compounds in our diets. One or both of these methods may give you the results you are looking for. The first is by finding antioxidants through a balanced diet, rich in natural foods. The other is to supplement your diet with antioxidants, using bioavailable supplement products from Metagenics, Premier Research labs, and other trusted sources.
Wherever you get your antioxidants, it’s important to understand what effects these powerful chemicals are likely to have in your body. Unlike what we normally think of as “medicine,” antioxidants are more useful for prevention than healing (though they can heal, as well!). Antioxidants work to make the body work as it should. Ideally, someone who is already healthy will consume plenty of antioxidants, thus ensuring that their bodies continue to operate as desired for a long time to come.
However, people who are ill may still derive benefit from antioxidants. It takes time, exercise, and proper nutrition to turn the tide in an unhealthy body. It’s a process that may take months or years. And while antioxidants alone are unlikely to transform someone very ill into the picture of health, they can work in cooperation with other healthy nutrients and practices to make a real difference, even in someone who is very unwell.
Therefore, antioxidants, in the form of vitamins or other compounds, should be of interest to any reader. Antioxidants are essential to normal body function, so all of us should have a plan to consume our fill of these life-giving chemicals. See to it that you get more than enough antioxidants for the job, and your body will do the rest.
How Do Older Couples Keep the Passion In Their Relationships?
We’ve all been inspired to see very long term relationships - couples still going strong in their 3rd, 4th, 5th decades and beyond. There’s a difference between couples who merely cohabitate long term, and those who “keep the spark alive.” So what’s the secret to a long lasting relationship that doesn’t lose its passion?
There are probably as many answers as there are enduring couples, but we can generally group common responses into a small handful of categories. We’ll reduce these to: health and loving communication.
Health and Passion in Enduring Relationships
It’s an old adage that “health is wealth,” and few who have been with and without health and wellness will find fault with this saying. Health can be considered as something we experience in our bodies, but it’s also an aspect of our minds. And just as nature imbues us with a certain degree of physical and mental health, there’s much that we can do to promote both in our own person.
Healthy relationships frequently exist between two people who, individually, care for their own health. When we exercise, control our weight, and practice good hygiene, we work with nature to promote physical wellbeing in our bodies. A healthy body tends to produce a healthy mind, and this combination tends to create a partner who is kind and caring to the other partner.
A steady attention to health also helps with attraction and sexual harmony, even as the decades roll along. In addition to diet, exercise, and hygiene, there are numerous natural herbs and supplements which can further promote sexual health. Blessed Thistle can promote reproductive health in younger women, but also may provide all-important respiratory benefits in older people. Chaste Tree may promote fertility in young women, hormonal balance in middle aged and older women, and prostate health for men.
These two are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to herbs that promote sexual/reproductive health, especially for older adults. Metagenics, Integrative Therapeutics, and DesBio all have sexual health products aimed at people in various life stages, and you may find one that feeds into your long-standing relationship in a very happy way.
Loving Communication in Long-Lasting Relationships
In addition to healthy bodies and minds, multi-decade couples find ways to create passion through loving communication. Communication is more than conversation. It’s a way to promote intimacy and happiness between partners. The benefits of love are self-evident in healthy long term relationships, these people tend to live longer, live with less illness, heal more quickly, and live with less pain.
But these benefits aren’t a given, they are most closely associated with relationships in which both partners feel secure, appreciated, and “tended to.” It’s possible to be in a long term relationship in which stress and discord are the norm. These relationships tend not to last as long as their mutually supportive counterparts, and they tend to be less physically healthy all the while. Studies show that people who feel unwanted in a close relationship have higher levels of inflammation than people in close relationships, for example.
It goes without saying that it’s easier to passionately love someone who loves you back, than someone who neglects and tears you down for decades at a time. As with the physical health of both members of a lengthy partnership, the health of the relationship itself has a great impact on the “passion” that either partner will have access to at any particular time.
If you are in a long term relationship, you already know the benefits and challenges that result from such an arrangement. If you’ve managed to maintain passion all the while, congratulations on a job well done. If you want to revive passion in a relationship that has seen it wane, start with these steps, and you may be able to restore what once was.
Dental health is important for all people, but older adults should pay even greater attention. Poor oral health has been linked to memory problems in senior adults, and gum disease has been linked conclusively to a higher incidence of heart disease. Anyone who has suffered painful dental cleanings or root canals knows the more immediate hazards of poor oral health.
On the positive side, healthy teeth and gums are their own reward. These individuals can eat and drink without pain, and don’t have to endure corrective procedures in the dentist’s chair. Practicing oral hygiene also has its social benefits. Fresh breath and shiny teeth are attractive at any age, and senior adults are certainly no exception.
So how can older adults promote oral health, especially at an age when many people start to see major problems in their teeth and jaws for the first time in life? We’ll look at this issue from two different perspectives: supplementary prevention and hygiene. Practiced together, these methods should keep your teeth and gums healthy, no matter how old you are.
Preventing Problems in the Teeth and Jaw With Natural Products
Teeth, gum, and jaw problems don’t crop up over night. They take weeks, months, and years to set in. Fortunately, most of these issues are preventable. As people grow older, they need extra nutrition and better hygiene practices to keep their mouths truly healthy. Let’s take a look at the former, to see what natural products can help in this effort.
Triphala is an herbal preparation that has been used for more than a thousand years in traditional Ayurvedic medicine. Triphala mouthwash has been shown to cut down on bacteria in the saliva in significant amounts. It’s impossible to completely remove bacteria from the mouth, nor would you want to. After all, bacteria serve an important purpose in oral health and primary digestion, but bacteria populations that grow out of control are problematic. Triphala mouthwash can help keep your oral bacteria in order.
It’s also important to give your body the nutrition it needs to maintain jaw and tooth strength. Carlson Labs and Jarrow Formulas both have products that help strengthen bones. This can help you improve the integrity of your jaw, which could help you keep your teeth much longer. Some older adults experience jaw decay, which may not manifest until the teeth start to get loose, and the surrounding tissue damaged.
Improving Oral Hygiene for Better Tooth, Gum, and Jaw Health
Keeping a clean mouth is obviously the primary way most of us prevent tooth decay and gum disease. However, it’s easy to get into the habit of not caring properly for the mouth, especially as we get older. For example, insurance problems and busy living can see us going to the dentist only several times per decade, instead of the twice annually recommended by physicians. Similarly, it can be tough to floss every day as recommended, leading to low level gum disease that persists for months or years.
Daily brushing, flossing, and rinsing with mouthwash can prevent the worst oral health problems from manifesting, especially when you go to the dentist once every six months. A dentist can fix any damage that is present, show you how to stop more from accumulating, and teach you the techniques you can use on your own to keep your mouth healthy.
All of these tips are good for anyone of any age, but they’re particularly relevant for senior adults. Old age doesn’t guarantee gum, tooth, and jaw problems. Natural products, healthy living, and sound oral hygiene practices can give you a healthy mouth for life.
What is the Relationship Between People and Plants? Can We Communicate?
Living with plants is like living with an alien species. All life on Earth is interrelated, and humans and plants actually share a common ancestor. Both humans and plants are Eukaryotes, which means that our cells have membrane-bound nuclei. Certain regions of plant and human DNA are the same, further proving our shared ancient lineage. All of this begs the question, if humans and plants have such marked similarities, can they communicate with each other? In answer, we’re not completely sure what the communication potential is between humans and plants is, but we have a pretty good idea.
First of all, plants and humans don’t experience the world in the same way. Humans think, using memory to recall past events and imagination to picture the future. Humans have emotions, which are subjective “feelings-based” representations of physical and mental states. These states are made possible by our brains and highly complex nervous systems.
Plants don’t have nervous systems, but they are able to transmit electrical signals, even communicating with other plants using chemicals. In all probability, plants can “feel” in a way not totally dissimilar to the way humans do. Plants then “react” to this sensation through the production and transfer of various compounds, the movement of leaves and branches, the production of nutrition through photosynthesis, etc.
So. Your homegrown chaste tree plants are sort of like quiet little buddies who can’t move (very quickly or far, at least), see, hear, or (for the most part) think. They can, however, “feel” in a way that you can sort of relate to - for example, sensing changes in temperature or humidity, and producing internal changes accordingly. Similarly, plants may also have a kind of “taste”, registering the nutritional and moisture contents of soil and reacting accordingly with root growth and hormone production.
Considering all of the above, a cultivated blessed thistle essentially “knows” when it’s being treated well. Anyone who has ever worked with plants understands what is meant, colloquially, when a plant is said to be “happy”. This plant looks healthy and vibrant, its leaves and branches move gradually and fluidly throughout the day, and it shows visible growth throughout its most active seasons. Learning to promote “happiness” in your plant, and feeling happy in response, is the essence of Plant Therapy.
Similarly, a mistreated or neglected plant will look “sad”. It won’t grow well, it will droop and grow slowly, and it may gradually dry up and die. We’ve all seen people who respond similarly to mistreatment, exhibiting signs up distress and failure to thrive. This is not to say that plants have the same complexity of “emotion” that humans do, but insofar as a plant is able to “experience” (in an inner life sense) its own physiological wellbeing, it may have more in common with human beings than we sometimes assume.
We say all of this to say that, yes, in some ways, humans and plants can be said to communicate. Though we can probably never completely know, plants almost surely don’t have the higher-order consciousness that humans do (memories and dreams and enjoyment of Game of Thrones and whatnot), but they can “experience” and “know,” if only in the instantaneous reaction to physical stimuli.
Therefore, you probably can’t have a psychic experience with your salad, but you can have an interactive relationship with living plants in your home. As you learn to care for them, to read their needs and externalized representation of inherent wellbeing, you can respond with care accordingly. In giving the plant what it “wants” (external appearance and behavior expressing inner need), you can learn to help your plants thrive.
