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Mediterranean Diet: A Pathway to Optimal Health

A Model for Good Health -Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean Diet When the heart disease rate in the United States was skyrocketing during the early 1960s, people in Greece had some of the lowest heart disease rates in the world. But the most remarkable fact about this is that they were enjoying this robust good health even though their diet racked up nearly 40% of its calories from fat plus they generally washed down their meals with a glass or two of wine.

Scientists searched the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and they discovered that it was not only the Greece people who were living longer but also in neighboring nations like France, Italy, and Spain. These folks were onto something, but what?

Mediterranean Diet Here is what Christopher Gardner, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in Stanford, California has to say about it: “For one thing, the traditional Mediterranean diet includes a lot of vegetables and legumes, along with fruits, fresh whole-grain bread, dates, and nuts. Meats like lamb and chicken are consumed infrequently and in small portions, and the main source of fat in the diet is monounsaturated fat from olives and olive oil, rather than the saturated fat from animal foods. In addition, physical activity is a big part of their daily routine”, he adds.

But just how healthy is the traditional Mediterranean diet? In one study French researchers looked at 600 men who recently had a heart attack. They put half of the men on a traditional Mediterranean diet and half of them on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet that people with heart disease are typically told to follow. Those who followed the traditional Mediterranean diet had a 70% lower rate of recurrent heart problems than those following the prudent low-fat diet.

Other studies showed similar results. When researchers examined the diets and disease rates of people in seven different countries, they found that, while heart disease accounts for 46% of deaths of middle-aged men in America, only 4% of men on Creta, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, had similar problems. The death rate from all causes in Crete during this 15-year study was lower than that of the other countries

In 2006, researchers reviewed 35 experimental studies of the Mediterranean diet and found that the diet had a positive effect on cholesterol and insulin resistance. Researchers also found that the diet also lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome, heart attack and heart disease, and the risk of cancer in obese patients and patients who have had a heart attack.

One study found that, in addition to the health benefits. people find it easier to stick to a Mediterranean diet compared with a low-fat diet. A group of 772 older adults in Spain who had diabetes or three or more risk factors for heart disease were assigned to one of three groups. Two groups followed a Mediterranean diet, and the third followed a low-fat diet. In addition to the Mediterranean diet contributing to lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels after three months, it also made it easier for the study participants to maintain the diet, researchers say.

The Fat Factor The most important factor in the Mediterranean diet is that it uses fat from olive oil, with a total fat intake of 25 to 35 percent of total calories. Even though people in Mediterranean countries eat as much fat as we do (or more), they eat relatively little meat. Red meat is eaten only a few times a month, while fish and poultry are eaten every week.

This means that they consume only minuscule amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. “The big difference comes from limiting saturated fat and replacing it with monounsaturated fat, like olive oil,” Dr. Gardner says. Besides olive oil being a monounsaturated fat, it also contains antioxidant compounds that help prevent chemical changes in the body that can cause the dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to stick to the lining of artery walls. Sweet desserts made with sugar and saturated fat are consumed no more than a few times a week.

Mediterranean Diet-nuts The second-most common source of fats in the Mediterranean diet is nuts and seeds. Nuts contain alpha-linolenic acid, which the body converts to the same kind of heart-healthy fats we find in fish ( which is also part of the Mediterranean diet). Studies have proved that people who eat the most of these fatty acids are the ones least likely to get heart disease.

The fish that people in the Mediterranean eat contains omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to reduce clotting and inflammation in the arteries, thus significantly reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Heart Association reports that epidemiological and clinical trials have shown that cardiovascular disease incidence decreases when people consume omega-3 fatty acids, especially when it comes from fish and plant foods as opposed to supplements.

Physical activity People in Mediterranean countries also take plenty of exercises, in the form of walking, hard physical labor, and generally staying active. So even though they take a lot of calories from fat, they’re usually able to keep their weight under control.

Five-a-Day Protection The folks at the American Heart Association would be delighted if they could get us to eat the five servings (or more) of fruits and vegetables that people in the Mediterranean region eat every day. The Mediterranean diet emphasizes seasonally fresh and locally grown fruits and vegetables over highly processed foods that don’t contain as many micronutrients and antioxidants. Studies have shown that people who eat the most fruit and vegetables have fewer problems with heart disease. Presumably, this is due to the antioxidant vitamins and healing compounds in these foods.

In addition, fruits, vegetables, and beans, which are another Mediterranean staple, are among the best sources of folate, a B vitamin that may work hard in the fight against heart disease, says D. Gardner. Folate helps decrease levels of an amino acid called homocysteine. There is a link between too much homocysteine and heart disease. Research has shown that healthy people who have high levels of homocysteine have about 14 times more chance of having heart disease

High Fiber On top of all that, the Mediterranean diet is extremely high in fiber. High-fiber foods not only help to keep your weight down by filling you up without a lot of fat and calories, but they also help block the absorption of certain fats and cholesterol. This means that some of these harmful substances are flushed away before they can make it into the bloodstream. How powerful the effects of fiber are shown in a study of nearly 44,000 men, aged between 40 and 75, who added just 10 grams of fiber a day to their diet decreased their risk of heart disease by almost 30 percent.

A Drink for Good Health Another factor that contributes to a healthy heart is the fact that wine, especially red wine, is also included in a typical Mediterranean diet. Whine contains compounds called phenols that help prevent LDL cholesterol from sticking to artery walls. It also keeps platelets in the blood from sticking together and causing clots. “In moderation, wine can be a nice addition to a healthy diet,” says Robert M. Russell, MD, director and senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

Final Thoughts Although the Mediterranean diet is most renowned for its role in helping to keep the heart healthy, it also appears to reduce the risks of other health threats, among them cancer of the breast and colon. Studies show that compared with women elsewhere in the world, women in some Mediterranean countries have half the risk (or less) of getting breast cancer. This could be due to their low intake of saturated fat and high intake of monounsaturated fats, fruits, and vegetables.

Indeed, Italian researchers have found that people in the Mediterranean region who follow the traditional diet – that is, those who eat lots of fruits and vegetables and not much fat and protein – are less likely to get cancer than those who eat more modern, less-healthful diets.

“The message here is simple,” says Dr. Christopher Gardner. “For optimal health, choose a plant-based diet, which is naturally high in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, and low in fat, cholesterol, and sodium.”

-Thanks for your insight Adrian Joele.

Going Green: A Guide to Vegetarian Diets

Vegetarian Diets

Chefs started to experiment with cooking without meat back in the day. But the meals were often tasteless. But nowadays after experiencing this for more than a quarter of a century, cooks are combining fruits, vegetable grains, and legumes in exciting new ways. The tastes are so good that even large restaurants are now offering meatless meals.

As a result, more than 30 million Americans, including one in three teens, have tried vegetarian meals, according to the American Dietetic Association. They like the health benefits and how good the food tastes. Vegetarian diets have changed, but one thing stayed the same: a plant-based diet, which is low in saturated fat, high in fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and a powerful array of protective chemicals.

This is the ultimate prescription for a longer and healthier life, according to Virginia Messina, MPH, R.D. a dietitian in Port Townsend, Washington, and co-author of The Vegetarian Way.

Research results have shown that vegetarians have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and obesity than people who eat meat. According to British researchers, vegetarians have a 20% lower risk of fatal heart disease and a 40% lower risk of cancer.

Healing Power of Vegetarian Diets Other studies found more positive facts. Fifty years ago, a large study of 27,530 Seventh-Day Adventists, whose religion advocates a vegetarian diet, provided the first scientific link between vegetarian diets and better health. Researchers were amazed to discover that among the vegetarian Adventists, the death rate from cancer was 50 to 70% lower than among other Americans. Since then, study after study has confirmed the benefits of vegetarian eating.

In Asia, where people eat little or no meat, diseases such as heart disease, breast cancer, and diabetes, are far less common than in the United States.

Naturally Lean

Something that makes vegetarian meals so healthy is that they don’t have all the saturated fat and cholesterol that comes from meat. While most Americans get about 36% of their total calories from fat, vegetarians get less, usually between 30% and 34%. And most of the fat they get is the healthier polyunsaturated and monounsaturated type – and not the dangerous saturated fat that comes from animal foods.

In one study, researchers put 500 people on a vegetarian diet. After twelve days, cholesterol levels had dropped an average of 11%.

Besides the fact that vegetarian meals don’t contain saturated fat which makes vegetarian meals so healthy, they also contain “good” fats. According to studies, both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which are found in olive oil, canola oil, nuts, seeds, and many other plant foods, can lower the level of cholesterol when they’re used to replace saturated fat in the diet.

And the omega-3 fatty acids found in some plant foods, such as walnuts and flaxseed, can further protect against heart disease by helping to keep artery walls flexible and supporting the electrical “system” within the heart that regulates a healthy heartbeat.

The Power of Plants

Doctors in the United States have been pleading with Americans for years to eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, the same foods that vegetarians eat in abundance. Most plant foods are loaded with antioxidants, like beta-carotene and vitamin C and E. They are essential to protect you against diseases.

Also, plant foods contain an abundance of phytonutrients, which are natural plant compounds that have been shown to lower the risk of cataracts, heart disease, and many other serious problems.

In another study, researchers found that people who got the most carotenoids, the plant pigment that is found in dark green and deep orange, yellow, and red fruits and vegetables, had half the risk of developing macular degeneration (the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in older adults) as people getting less.

Vegetarian diets cut the risk of breast, colon, ovarian, and prostate cancer in several studies. The magic ingredients include several cancer-fighting phytochemicals. The naturally lower levels of saturated fat in most vegetarian diets (except those that rely heavily on cheese) avoid a problem that is connected with meat-rich diets: High-saturated fat diets seem to promote the production of a form of estrogen called estradiol, which is linked to breast cancer.

A study showed that women who ate the most animal fats had a one-third higher risk of breast cancer than those who ate the least.

Another study found that vegetarians have higher levels of “natural killer cells” – special white blood cells that attack cancer cells – in their bloodstreams.

Healing Power of Vegetarian Diets 11 But even if you took all the nutrients out of plant foods, the vegetarian diet would still have an edge, because of all the dietary fiber it contains. The average American gets only 12-15 grams of fiber per day, while vegetarians are getting as much as three times that amount.

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of getting enough dietary fiber. because it isn’t absorbed by the body, fiber passes through the digestive tract, adding bulk to stools and helping them to move more quickly. This does more than prevent constipation. The more quickly stools and any harmful substances they contain move through the colon, the less likely they are to do cellular damage that could lead to cancer. Washing is essential.

Also, one type of fiber called soluble fiber forms a gel in the intestine that helps to prevent fat and cholesterol from passing through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. In a study of more than 43,000 men, for example, researchers found that those who added just 10 grams of fiber a day to their diets – about 25% of the amount vegetarians get each day – decreased their risk of heart disease by almost 30%.

Vegetarian diets also guard against other health issues, like kidney stones, gallstones, and asthma. Because high-protein diets with much meat prompt your body to excrete more calcium, oxalate, and uric acid – which are the main building blocks of kidney stones. Diets with a lot of meat increase the chance of getting gallstones in women and could threaten bone density by promoting the excretion of calcium.

In a Swedish study of 24 women and men, vegetable-based meals cut the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

Balance is the Key

A vegetarian diet can provide all the nutrients your body needs, including protein. This is even true for strict vegetarians, who may avoid eggs, milk, and other animal foods altogether. The proteins in meat are complete, which means they contain all the amino acids your body needs.

The proteins in legumes and grains, however, may be low in one or more of the amino acids, but because legumes and grains contain some amino acids, eating a variety of these foods throughout the day will provide the proper balance.

However, vegetarians have the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, which the body needs to make red blood cells. It’s only found in animal foods. People who don’t get enough vitamin B12 feel weak and tired.

You can get plenty of vitamin B12 by eating foods that are fortified with this nutrient, such as fortified cereals, or/and you can take B12 supplements.

Sugar spikes your insulin.

Harnessing Mental Endurance

Mental Toughness

Through the years I have had the chance to coach many professionals and one thing I can tell you without reservation is the ideal players were all mentally tough. It’s a tough concept to describe until you see it, but it’s apparent when you see a player which has it.

To explain my point, not every one of the best athletes gets it. Not, every big-league player is mentally tough and many never reach the large leagues which have great mental toughness. It’s not about ability, I’ve coached many great athletes that didn’t possess a clue about being mentally tough and would fold under pressure. They might work well when there was nothing at risk, however, when this game is at balance, or even the competition was tough, they often failed.

However, I’ve witnessed many players with average skills, but mentally tough, perform in such a way nobody thought they might perform. A clutch hit, a vital bunt, and an excellent defensive play that stopped a rally, mentally tough players complete the job. Actually, the higher the pressure, the greater they perform.

Something I’ve arrived at and understood with experience is the fact that mental toughness will not be an inborn DNA trait, but instead one which is developed with time and contact with adverse conditions. Preparation for mental toughness starts with experiences at an early age. Parents can enjoy a vital role to start the entire process of training mental toughness, however, they need assistance as you go along.

A disciplined educational system with higher expectations and good classroom rules, together with tough, but fair coaches (or mentors in alternative activities) having a positive mindset, is important to creating a child mentally, whether or not they are a sports athlete usually are not.

Mental Toughness 000

This is among the lot of reasons why all children need to engage in balanced organized extracurricular activities at an early age: Karate, gymnastics, ballet, music, scouts, children, and youth activities at church or youth sports will play a role in starting to instill the discipline and structure that is required to build up mentally.

Notice I said start to play a role. It requires some time and preparation.

Growth and development of mental toughness (and leadership skills) are other reasons why athletes have to be involved with an effective training course when they may be 14 or fifteen years old.

A training course not just helps you to build power, strength, and agility, but is essential in developing mentally. Players ought to be accountable to some mentor (trainer, coach, etc.) along with the camaraderie and pressure of the small peer group, even when it’s only a couple of others.

In case a player is involved with a training course sooner than 14 or 15, it ought to be with regards to agility and speed training, together with teaching the correct approaches to strength conditioning without weights. Before any training course begins, please talk to your child’s physician throughout their annual physical, as the creation of each child is different.

Defining Mental Toughness

Mental toughness is having the psychological advantage that enables someone to perform at peak maximum effort and efficiency throughout the demands which are put on them during training, practice, or competition. Specifically, once the demands are greatest or even the conditions become adverse.

Whenever the requirements would be the greatest occurs when the characteristics of mental toughness would be the best shown.

A few of the many characteristics which are evident whenever a player is a mentally tough include:

– Self-confidence

– Self-motivation

– Focus

– Concentration

– Composure

– Calmness

– Poise

– Self-control

– Positive Energy

– Determination

– Persistence

– Leadership

Please be aware, this doesn’t imply that the result is a win, oftentimes these attributes can display the most throughout a loss, especially a detailed loss to some tough opponent or during adverse conditions. But with time along with careful training, the mental toughness of skilled players concerns to light in championships won.

Developing Mental Toughness

To be mentally tough you must practice attributes that lead to mental toughness. If only there have been an equation to adhere to, however, there is not. It requires some perseverance underneath the right leadership to build up mental toughness. Parents, educators, coaches, as well as other mentors, should be systematically active in the training process.

Few athletes require the amount of mental toughness, brute strength, and physical prowess that boxers take into the ring for every fight. Boxing is an extremely tough sport on every level, but it can also be one of the most rewarding.

While taking a beating on the canvas is a challenge best left to the pros, the average person can enjoy tons of health benefits from some time in the ring without the repeated right hooks to the face. Let’s look at four reasons why boxing gyms should replace your regular gym in the quest to improve your health, strength, and mental fortitude.

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Your time in the world is just as mental as it is physical. This sport forces you to push yourself through fatigue, endure pain, and dish out a few solid hits along the way. By pushing you past your limits and giving you valuable self-defense techniques, fighting can bolster your confidence in daily life. Succeeding in the ring requires courage, Zen-like concentration, and self-esteem.

Sparring with a trainer or partner at the gym allows you to summon these key mental qualities in a fight scene. Once you’ve learned to exercise these traits in the ring, they’ll become more available to you during the trials of day-to-day living.

If you’re looking for a new style of exercise that will shape you up mentally and physically, it may be time to abandon the treadmills and free weights to step inside the ring. Seek out local boxing gyms that offer the services, equipment, and training programs you need to start floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

Also, it requires failure and the opportunity to recover. Lots of people develop mental toughness with the experience of failure. Good parents usually do not want their kids to fail and I also realize that. These days, way too many blame others for your failure.

Athletes face a lot of challenges in their careers, whether it is new opponents or their private limitations. Developing mental training, however, can make it easier so they can discover the following:

Better self-esteem – Performance anxiety management – Emotional control – Positive thinking – Better focus – Better self-assurance – The capability to manage challenges and obstacles better.

Goal setting

Setting goals gives a sports athlete something to appear to and help. It can be what leads the mental training skill further down their list known as motivation. It also encourages positive thinking, increased energy, better self-esteem along with growth just as one athlete and person.

Focus & Concentration

What this means is keeping the mind in the present. Everybody is allowed the rare wandering thought, however, when looking at competitive moments it could change everything. It can cause hesitation or distraction. Instead, discover ways to keep the mind inside the moment and so on thoughts products you plan to complete next instead of the mistakes that have already happened and should not be changed.

Imagery & Visualization

Imagery requires over to be able to place a picture in your thoughts. It’s about re-creating moments or pulling on memories to create a new and vivid scenario in your head. This requires that you be much better aware of your surroundings, yourself and just what you happen to be capable of doing. In the long run, it could improve your skill, success, and assurance when under pressure and enable you better overcome your emotions and reactions.

Relaxation & Stress Management

Relaxation could be the opposite of stress as well as for those moments when you don’t have time to relax, obtaining a strategy to manage your stress threshold and concentrate that energy elsewhere is going to help in the long run. Your ultimate challenge with stress is muscle tension and the way it might clutter your head. Learn how to focus the mind, banish fear with full confidence and relax tensed muscles with the right techniques.

Self-Confidence

There’s a lot to get said regarding the success of the confident athlete. If you are that certain of your abilities, there is no room for doubt. Instead, you’ve got a stronger wish to succeed and to strive further along with your goals and it changes the way you think, focus, and react. Confidence-building exercises are usually a great source along with other great skills.

Motivation

An athlete’s success will depend on his degree of motivation from both an inner desire in addition to outside factors. Finding out how to take your desires and set these phones use to inspire you might help enhance a player’s performance and overall motivation.

Self-talk & Positive Thinking

Your thoughts have a strong relation to the way we perform physically. A sports athlete who thinks negatively or nit-picks their mistakes and flaws internally isn’t any good at competing. Some could imagine that pointing out the negative is a superb motivator, however, exercising positive thought can better motivate improvement and success.

Flow in Sport

What this means is something beyond concentration while focusing. It must employ immersing yourself inside the moment and from the sport itself. This is simply not some abstract and fantastical notion. Instead, flow in sports is a situation that wants the mind and body to be in sync to try and do the most beneficial and effortless performance. Learning these kinds of flow by learning how to control your mind can cause incredible performance.

Parents are quick to blame the teacher for problems in class or perhaps a coach once the child will not be excelling in an activity. Mental toughness is unable to be developed properly when blaming others. The contrary is the situation.

The Superfood of the 21st Century: Avocados

Avocados

The well-known characteristics of fruit, which is light, low-calorie, and fat-free, do not apply to the avocado. An avocado contains a lot of calories, 360 or more. And it is also one of the few fruits with a measurable fat content, about 30 gr. each. That’s almost half the daily recommended amount for an adult.

If you have doubts about the fact that a food that contains so much fat could be good for you, ask a dietitian. He will tell you that adding some avocado to your diet, could improve your health.

Avocados have high folate and potassium content. They are also rich in fiber and monounsaturated fat, both are important for people who are concerned about diabetes and heart health.

A favorite part of a diabetes diet people with diabetes has always been told to eat more carbohydrates and cut back on fat. In general, that’s good advice, but it hasn’t to be the best advice for everyone.

guacamole-salad Doctors have discovered that when some people with diabetes eat a lot of carbohydrates, they tend to develop high levels of triglycerides, a type of blood fat that may contribute to heart disease. However, when people replace some of those carbohydrates with fat that’s found in avocados, the dangerous fats in the bloodstream tend to decline.

The monounsaturated fat in avocados is called Oleic acid. They have found that this type of monounsaturated fat control fat levels in the body and helps control diabetes.

Scientists in Mexico put sixteen women with diabetes on a relatively high-fat diet, with about 40% of calories coming from fat. Most of the fat comes from avocados. The result was a 20% drop in triglycerides. Women on a higher carbohydrate plan, by contrast, had only a 7% drop in triglycerides. Someone on a 2000-calorie-a-day diet might be advised to eat 33 grams of monounsaturated fat. You can get about 20 grams from just one avocado.

Lowering High Cholesterol Apart from people with diabetes, people with high cholesterol levels can also benefit from the oleic acid in avocados.

In Mexico, where guacamole is considered almost a food group, researchers compared the effects of two low-fat diets. The diets were the same, except that one included avocado. While both lowered levels of dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the avocado diet raised levels of healthy high-density lipoprotein, (HDL) cholesterol, while slightly lowering triglycerides.

Avocados also help in another way to lower bad cholesterol. They contain large amounts of fiber, and fiber adds bulk to the stool, causing it with the cholesterol it contains, to be excreted from the body quicker. One avocado contains more fiber than a bran muffin 10 grams or 40% of the Daily Value for fiber.

Support the Heart Avocados are also a rich source of potassium. Half an avocado provides 548 mg of potassium. 16% of the DV for this mineral. That’s more than you’d get from a medium banana or a cup of orange juice. Studies prove that people with a potassium-rich diet, like avocados, have a significantly lower risk of high blood pressure and related diseases like heart attack and stroke.

In addition, some research has shown that oleic acid can reduce markers of inflammation in your body. Inflammation plays an important role in the development of artery-clogging atherosclerosis.

Rich in Folate Another benefit from avocado is that it’s rich in folate, a B vitamin that helps prevent the threatening birth defects of the brain & spine. Many women don’t get enough folate in their diets, but avocados can go a long way toward fixing that problem. One avocado contains 114 micrograms of folate, which is 28% of the recommended Daily Value, or nearly 20% of the 600 micro grams that pregnant women need daily.

Minerals for your Bones Avocado can help you to keep your bones healthy. A cup of mashed avocado contains 120 mg of phosphorus, which is 12% of the DV. This mineral is a major component for your bones and teeth, and having plenty of phosphorus on hand also helps your body produce energy from the foods you eat.

Zinc for Good Nutrition You’ll also find 147 mg of zinc swimming in the green depth in a cup of mashed avocado. That’s just under 10% of the DV. Zinc conducts countless activities in your body. The mineral helps keep your immune system working properly, for example, and plays a role in wound healing.

Zinc also aids in your senses of smell and taste, which are necessary to be able to enjoy the food you eat.

Shopping for Avocados If you live in the US, get your avocados from Florida or California. They provide all the nutrients without all the fat. They have about 2//3 of the calories and half the fat of Hass avocados. The best time to buy avocados is between November and March. They may have one-third of the fat of those picked in September or October. Avocado 32

Warning for Drug Users People who are taking warfarin should take care when eating avocados. Researchers in Israel found that eating between one-half and one avocado could make the drug work less efficiently. While the effects didn’t last long, when people stopped eating avocados, the drug started working better again – this could be dangerous for some people. So, if you’re taking warfarin, check with your doctor before adding avocados to your meals.

Help them ripen Like bananas, avocados ripen better off the tree, so they are picked and sold unripe. Once you get them home, leave them on the counter for several days until the fruit is slightly soft. Or if you’re in a hurry to eat them, place them in a paper bag with an apple or banana to soften them. Never place hard avocados in the refrigerator, then they will ripen too slowly.

Louisiana’s Finest: Gumbo Recipe

Louisiana’s Gumbo Recipe

Louisiana Gumbo is said to be one of the greatest additions to American cooking. It is a stew or soup and its origin is said to be from the French when they began with the bouillabaisse in the 18th century. Then later the file’ powder of the Choctaw’ along with seafood was a welcome addition.

Louisiana's Gumbo Recipe Still, later the African Americans added okra (the Bantu African name ‘kingombo’) is said to have given its name to Gumbo. Another version is that the Choctaw word for file’ is “combo” and that is how gumbo got its name. After the African Americans, the Spanish colonists also put their two bits into the Gumbo with the introduction of the holy trinity of onions, celery, and bell peppers.

The Creoles of New Orleans also added tomatoes and a variety of cooking techniques to it that added the much-wanted variety to this dish.

At the start, this was a simple soup with vegetables and meat in it. Okra got added to it and it brought not only a different flavor to it but also a texture that thickened the soup. Later somebody came up with the idea of flour as a thickening agent and still that pig lard browned in flour gave an altogether new coloring, texture, and taste to the Gumbo.

This concoction of flour and pig lard was called a roux and as they say, the rest is history. The roux became the favorite thickening agent along with the traditional okra. Another thickening agent that got added was by the Choctaw Indians and was called file’ or ground leaves of the sassafras tree which brought with it its flavor and texture.

Gumbo Recipe From this complete evolution of the ubiquitous Gumbo, we can draw only one conclusion there were too many hands that made this stew or broth and did not spoil it rather they added their individuality to it. That is why the saying goes that no two Gumbo dishes will ever taste the same even if the same recipe is used.

The recipe that has been given below is the Tennessee version of the Chicken and Ham Gumbo with a slight twist to it.

Preparation Time: It takes fifteen minutes to prepare.

Cooking Time: It takes roughly one hour and fifteen minutes to cook the stew or soup.

Total Time: Total time taken is one and a half hours give or take a few minutes.

Nutritional Value: The total caloric count for gumbo is 130 of which carbohydrates are 18 grams or 6%, total fat content is 4 grams or 6%, proteins are six grams and cholesterol is 15 milligrams or 5%.

Main Ingredients

Four tablespoons of butter
One-fourth cup of diced smoked ham
Half a cup of diced celery
One green pepper, chopped
One large onion, chopped
One-fourth cup of raw rice
One tablespoon of flour
Two quarts of strong chicken broth
One cup of sliced okra (fresh or canned)
One cup chopped fresh or solid-pack canned tomatoes
Two tablespoons chopped pimiento
Half a cup of coarsely diced cooked or canned chicken

Preparation or Method

Fry the ham, celery, green pepper, and onion in the butter until soft.
Add rice to this and cook, stirring for five minutes.
Add flour, blend, and then stir in broth and heat.
Add remaining ingredients.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Cover and let it simmer for 40 minutes till everything gets cooked.

Any Possible Variations: Gumbo is a soup or stew which is open to variations. Culinary history is proof that in the making of gumbos there have been so many variables and each set of people has added something to it down memory lane.

cajun-gumbo You can make the Gumbo a la Louisiana style by adding shrimp and other seafood to it because the people of this state were farmers and fisher folks as this state has some of the most extensive networks of bayous and rivers where catfish, craw-fish and other game fish were harvested. Nearer to the Gulf of Mexico oysters, shrimps, crabs and other forms of seafood were readily available.

The Hunting Season in Fall saw many games such as ducks, rabbits, and other wild games brought in by the Cajun hunters. So whatever meat and seafood were available along with the seasonal vegetables would go into the soup/stew pot and would go to feed many families and friends.

How to Garnish and Serve: Many would not know but the hot and spicy garnish in the Gumbo has been added to it only in the last thirty years. Before that Gumbo was served only with some droplets of Tabasco or Louisiana hot sauce not to make it hot but give the flavor of pepper sauce and vinegar.

The smoked lean meats and the okra and roux would give the zing and zip to the soup. The stew or soup can be garnished with chopped cilantro or a slice of sour lime.

How to Store:

To store Gumbo you would have to be very careful because many kinds of Gumbo have seafood in them and this tends to spoil quickly. But then Gumbo is generally not eaten in one go and is relished for many days after its preparation. When stored and refrigerated correctly it will give you pleasure for many days.

The best way to store Gumbo is to do it immediately after it has been cooked. If you are wanting to eat it in the next few days then put it in an airtight container and store it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator where it is the coolest.

If there is seafood in it do not let it stay in the refrigerator for more than three or four days. Ensure that the setting of your refrigerator is below 40°F.

If you are planning to eat the Gumbo after some days then you can deep freeze it in a sealed plastic bag in the freezer after squeezing out as much air as possible from it. See that your freezer is at least at 0°F. To defrost it bring it down from the freezer into the refrigerated area.

Or else you can defrost the sealed bag in cold water making frequent changes to the water. Once it has defrosted heat it and eat it immediately. If you are planning to eat small portions of the Gumbo then store it in smaller sealed bags and take out only those you plan to eat leaving the rest in the freezer.

Related Information: Roux is said to be one of the basic thickening and tasteful agents in the dish of Gumbo. Given below is the basic version of how to make the roux. To make the roux generally most recipes call for an equal amount of any one of these cooking mediums such as shortening, butter, lard, oil, and in some cases bacon drippings and an equal amount of flour.

What cooking medium is being used gives the flavor and texture to the roux. One can use half a cup of any of the cooking mediums mentioned above to half a cup of flour, though many recipes call for two-thirds cups of the cooking medium to half a cup of flour.

Put the cooking medium into a skillet and melt it on a low flame till it becomes liquid when it is warm slowly sprinkle the flour on it and keep on stirring so that lumps are not formed or kept to a minimum. Ensure that the flour does not burn even slightly and become black as otherwise, you will have to dispose of the whole thing.

Stir the flour in it continuously till it becomes brown. As soon as that happens remove it from the heat and add it to the recipe that requires it, in this case, the Gumbo.

Hints: To avoid the viscosity and stringiness of the okra when you cook it excessively, add it just twenty minutes before serving and cook it till it just gets tender. If you are using file’ in your gumbo dish then do not add it to the whole pot as it breaks down when cooked excessively.

Instead, put a quarter or half spoon in the individual bowl depending on the size of the bowl and the individual’s taste. If you have added it to the whole pot then make sure that you do not boil it again.

For more recipes visit https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/authentic-new-orleans-style-gumbo/

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The Path to a Stronger Heart

Healthy Heart Secrets

Healthy Heart, from the time when the fruits of fermentation were discovered, wine has been a welcome health guest. Not only at dinner tables but also at weddings, religious rituals, and even in doctors’ offices.

Not so long ago, however, scientists began to investigate the actual health benefits of drinking wine. And the findings they’ve uncorked are enough to make any wine lover raise his glass and say “Salut!”

When sipped in moderation, particularly red wine, can help lower cholesterol and prevent hardening of the arteries and heart disease. Also, studies discovered that it can kill the bacteria that cause food poisoning and travelers’ diarrhea.

Pegusas Marketplace and Physicians don’t recommend that people start guzzling wine rather than sipping it or that people who don’t drink should suddenly start. Rather, what the evidence suggests is that moderate drinking can be a helpful addition to a healthy diet.

For many years, scientists were amazed that their French allies indulged themselves in cigarettes, buttery croissants, and fatty pates – and were still 2 1/2 times less likely to develop heart disease than their supposedly healthier American counterparts.

Researchers are still investigating the so-called French paradox, but it appears likely that the French have healthier hearts, at least partly because they prefer red wine. These wines are rich in compounds that help lower cholesterol and prevent harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol from sticking to the lining of artery walls – the process that leads to heart disease. Red wines also help blood platelets from sticking together and forming dangerous clots.

Heart Protection keeps your pump primed in complex ways. There are several chemical compounds at work, and some of them have more than one benefit. As a start, the alcohol in red wine may be beneficial. People who drink small amounts of alcohol seem to have increased protection from heart disease, studies prove. Supplements help too!

According to research, the reason is that ethanol, or alcohol, in spirited drinks raises levels of good cholesterol, heart-protecting high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Beer and other alcoholic drinks have some benefits, but wine is the only one with health-promoting polyphenols.

The reason for its superior protection is that wine contains powerful flavonoids, like quercetin. Along with other potentially protective compounds, like resveratrol, it helps prevent the body’s dangerous (LDL) cholesterol from oxidizing. This, in turn, makes bad LDL cholesterol less likely to stick to artery walls.

Laboratory studies have shown that resveratrol slows down aging in mice, protects against weight gain, and boosts endurance by improving the functioning of mitochondria – which are tiny power plants inside every cell of your body.

“Flavonoids in red wine are more powerful than vitamin E, which everyone knows is an important antioxidant,” says John D Folts, Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the coronary thrombosis Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison.

Keeping LDL cholesterol under control is a good start against heart disease, besides helping to prevent platelets in the blood from sticking together. A study led by professor Folts and his colleagues found that when reed wine was given to laboratory animals, it eliminated potentially dangerous clots, which can cause heart attacks and strokes. “Red wine performs double duty, giving you two important benefits at the same time,” says Dr. Folts.

It’s in the color When we talk about the healing power of wine for a healthy heart, we are referring to red wine. A laboratory study at the University of California, Davis, revealed that red wines could prevent from 46% to 100% of (LDL) cholesterol from oxidizing, while white wines were less protective. In addition, laboratory studies found that white wine misses the blood clot-blocking ability.

The reason why red wine is so much superior to white has to do with winemaking. When vintners make wine, they throw everything in the vat – not just grapes but also the skins, seeds, and stems. They’re all mashed up to create a chunky mixture called must, and this contains healthy flavonoids.

“The longer the must ferment in the alcohol, the more of these compounds release into the wine, according to Dr. Folts. With white wine, the must is taken out early so that the wine never darkens. With red wine, the must is kept for a long time, and the wine picks up a lot of flavonoids.”

UC Davis researchers have found that some red wines are also rich in saponins, which lower heart disease risk by binding to cholesterol and preventing their absorption. Saponins may also cool body-wide inflammation, which could also lower the risk of heart disease and cancer.

blood clot-blocking ability

Red wines contain 3 to 10 times more saponins than whites. The richest source is red Zinfandel, followed by Syrah, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The two white varieties, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay contain less. The saponin may come from the waxy grape skins and seems to dissolve into the wine during fermentation. Wines with the highest alcohol content also have the most saponin. Wine may also maintain a healthy weight.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic followed drinking behavior and weight in 8,200 men ad women. They found that those who enjoyed one or two alcoholic beverages a day were 54% less likely to be obese than nondrinkers. Nondrinkers and ex-drinkers had twice as much chance of becoming obese. People who have a glass of wine or beer every day usually have it with their evening meal, and it could be that a drink replaces a later, high-calorie evening snack.

However, four or more glasses per day don’t make you super slim but give you a 50% more chance of becoming obese.

“Wine protects against infection,” said Scientists from Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu tested red wine, white wine, and bismuth and found that they subsalicylate against some of the meanest intestinal germs, including shigella, salmonella, and Escherichia coli, and that both red and white wines were more effective than drugs for wiping out harmful bacteria.

Headaches for some people with a tendency toward migraine headaches, even a small glass of wine can cause a lot of headaches. Red wine contains substances called amines, which cause blood vessels in the brain to constrict and then expand. For sensitive people, this can result in eye-popping headaches.

Although white wine contains fewer headache-producing amines than the red varieties, it doesn’t contain as many healing compounds. So, if headaches are a problem for you, you may want to ask your doctor if a nonalcoholic wine will allow you to enjoy the great taste without the pain. Resveratrol 500 mg is an age-defying formula to support your body’s youthful essence.

Know your limit The most important tip for getting the maximum healthy heart benefits from your wine cellar is knowing when to put your glass down. The daily limit is one 5-ounce glass a day for women and two 5-ounce glasses for men. Experts agree, however, that if you are tempted to overindulge, or if you have a personal or family history of alcoholism, you’re better off skipping alcohol entirely.

Go for the Gusto when you are scanning the shelves for the wine with the highest levels of heart-healthy compounds, go for the full-bodied, robust varieties. There is a close relationship between the level of tannin, the substance that makes wine dry, and the level of healing compounds in red wines.

Three of the most heart-healthy wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Syrah, and Merlot.

To your health!

Heart-Healthy

Unlocking Your Business Potential with a Business Coach

Business Coach, a Mentor, or a Consultant

Whether you want to expand your small business to another country, kick-start your career as an entrepreneur or hone your marketing skills, you may be looking for some outside support. If you look at top business achievers, you will find one common denominator: They didn’t do it all alone.

High-performing entrepreneurs and small business owners know that if they want to truly excel, they need guidance and support. But what’s best for your professional development? a coach? a mentor? a consultant? How do you even begin to choose?

Great professional development options:

Working with a mentor. You’re getting someone who’s already walked in your shoes. They are experienced in your field and can help fast-track you along your growth path. They can offer guidance, friendship, and support; there is usually a level of personal connection as they serve as a role model to help an individual reach their potential.

This can be super valuable because it saves you from having to go through a steep learning curve and make a bunch of mistakes along the way.

Some of the advantages include:

Getting an outside perspective. Often, we are too close and emotionally tied to our business to see what’s truly happening. It can be beneficial to get a bird’s-eye view of your situation. Often, we’re too in love with our work to know about areas that need a little work. Your mentor will probe to uncover some problem issues that may not be instantly apparent to you.

Enabling you to reach higher. Sometimes we do things for other people that we wouldn’t do for ourselves. When you have the accountability of a mentor, you may push harder to reach your goals. Because you know that you have to report your results during your mentorship, can make you go the extra mile.

Gaining business experience. Even if you have years of corporate experience, running your own business is a new challenge. You probably know a lot about your industry, but you may not know enough about running and growing a business.

When you hire someone with experience in creating systems, marketing, delegating, and growing a business, it helps you avoid costly mistakes and grow further, and faster. And they often have proven blueprints and templates to boost your results.

Being your cheerleader. You probably know that being a business owner can be a roller coaster! Some days you’re on top of the world, and other days you doubt yourself. Maybe you wonder if you should throw in the towel because everything seems to be going wrong. Mentorship can help you stay positive and motivated, so you can keep your business moving forward.

Working with a coach. A coach takes a slightly different approach. He or she serves as an expert guiding you in a very specific area of performance. If you Google “coach” you’ll see results for performance, marketing, financial support, sales, business growth, social media support, and more.

A business coach is trained to help you figure out your roadblocks, holds you accountable for your business success and shares their tried-and-true experiences and processes to help you get ahead in your business. Difference Between a Business Coach, a Mentor, or a Consultant

However, it’s important to note that many coaches are self-appointed experts. They may present themselves as highly successful and knowledgeable, but many could just be one step ahead of you. Read the fine print in any document.

While they may “talk the talk”, you don’t know if they have the skills or experience to help you succeed.

Leadership Coaching to uncover people’s hidden and natural talents and assess individual skills, capabilities, and/or behaviors that impact them positively and negatively. This helps her clients understand the actions they need to take to move in the right direction to get what they want.

Working with a business coach can help you in many of the same ways mentorship can, but they’re less of a “friend” and more of a “guide.”

Hear more objective opinions • Increase your networking opportunities. • Lead more strategically • Develop your personality and leadership style • Better understand yourself

Read: 30 Things Business & Marketing Coaches Wish Entrepreneurs Would Stop Doing, on our website

From the economy to the weather, struggling entrepreneurs have all sorts of reasons why their product or service isn’t selling. But have you ever considered that you might be doing things all wrong and that’s why you’re not reaching the success you’d like to see?

Here are some valuable insights from 30 successful business coaches. They’ve observed what frustrates them to no end, and these are the things that could very well be thwarting your success!

Working with a consultant. A consultant is often an expert in their field and provides you with advice. While they may sound similar to a mentor or a coach, consultants don’t work with you to improve your skills or guide you in your professional development. They usually work within your defined metrics and deliverables.

A coach A mentor A consultant

When you work with a consultant, you’re getting valuable advice from someone with niche experience and industry understanding. While a business coach or a mentor will encourage you to do your best, a consultant will focus on identifying what you need to do to accomplish your goals.

The most common consulting methods are:

Strategic Advice: When a business has specific problems, a consultant can create a strategy to solve them.
Done-for-you Service: Some consultants have a team to support them, so this option makes sense if a small business requires a solution, they aren’t skilled in implementing.
One-Time Training: Say your management team hasn’t been meeting a certain objective. A consultant could offer them training to help them get back on track.
Ongoing Coaching: You can’t expect amazing results by meeting with a consultant once for four hours. Many small businesses will work with a consultant over months or years on things like a marketing plan or expanding the company globally.

Difference Between a Business Coach, a Mentor, or a Consultant3 Your unique needs will determine whether you need a mentor, coach, or consultant to enhance your professional development. But each one has the power to prevent you from making bad decisions that will leave you in financial distress and conducting self-sabotage to your success, whether you realize you are doing it or not!

The Incredible Health Benefits of Cabbage

According to Ancient Roman healers, breast cancer could be cured by rubbing on pastes made from cabbage. Not long ago, modern scientists would have considered this practice as Folklore, but now they are not so sure.

Jon Michnovicz, president of the Foundation for Preventive Oncology in New York City says: “Studies have shown that if you make cabbage into a paste and rub it on the backs of laboratory animals, you can prevent the development of Tumors.

But the best way to absorb the health properties of cabbage is to eat it, of course.

Cabbage can fight off breast, lung, and prostate cancer. It also contains a wealth of nutrients that can protect you against heart disease, birth defects, and digestive problems, and lowers the risk of cataracts. One study found that eating four servings of cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage, per week, reduced the risk of dying from any cause by 26 %.

Cabbage, like other cruciferous vegetables, contains several compounds that can help prevent cancers, according to studies. Researchers reviewed almost 100- studies that showed the relationship between brassica vegetables, such as cabbage, and cancer. They found that in 70% of the studies cabbage consumption was related to a lower risk of Cancer.

Scientists found that there are two compounds in Cabbage that make it a cancer-preventing food. The first one, Indole-3-Carbinol, or I3C, is especially effective against breast cancer, according to research. The compound act as an Antiestrogen, which means that it removes harmful estrogens that have been linked to Breast Cancer. “There was no doubt that if we gave women pure I3C, it would work,” says Dr. Michnovicz. But for the average person, eating cabbage or another cruciferous vegetable, such as broccoli, would have the same effect.

The second compound in cabbage, named Sulforaphane, proved to protect against breast cancer, by inhibiting carcinogens and aiding in DNA repair. Women in Poland eat three times as much cabbage as women in the United States 30 lbs a year compared to 10 lbs in the US. Women in Poland also use to eat more raw cabbage, sauerkraut, and short-cooked cabbage as a side dish, instead of boiled or slow-cooked cabbage. Compounds in cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables are also protective against Lung Cancer. A study of Chinese women in Singapore, a city with a high level of air pollution, found that non-smokers who ate cruciferous vegetables reduced their risk of lung cancer by 30%.

Smokers who ate cruciferous vegetables reduced their risk of lung cancer by 69%.

Cabbage also protects against Prostate Cancer. A study at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle found that men who ate three or more servings of cruciferous vegetables each week lowered their risk of prostate cancer by 44 percent. Cabbage is a cook’s best friend. It’s versatile, inexpensive, readily available, and easy to prepare. The only thing is the unpleasant smell. But there is a remedy against it. Next time you want to cook cabbage, add a Celery stalk or a whole English Walnut (in the shell) to the pot. This will neutralize the smell.

Or, cook the cabbage quicker, stir-frying it in a wok or skillet, rather than boiling it for a long time. To preserve the beneficial compounds in cabbage, experts recommend eating cabbage raw. If you must cook your cabbage, steam it lightly, (5 minutes or less), to retain the phytonutrients and maximize their availability. Don’t microwave cabbage, because it decreases the amount of Sulforaphane. Don’t boil cabbage either. In one study, 90 percent of the glycosylates were found in cooking water.

Don’t buy halved or shredded cabbage, because it loses its Vitamin C content quickly when cut. When you get your cabbage home, place the whole head (in a plastic bag) in the fridge. To promote the production of the most glycosylates, slice or chop cabbage and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes before cooking.

Antioxidant Protection. You have read about antioxidants in presiding articles, like Vitamin C and E and Beta-Carotene. They do an excellent job by protecting you and neutralizing free radicals, which damage healthy tissues throughout the body, causing heart disease, cancer, and other serious conditions. All cruciferous vegetables are loaded with these antioxidant compounds. Researchers found that a half-cup of red cabbage contains more antioxidants than a cup of Green Tea, which has long been considered to be a super antioxidant source.

Two cabbages, Bok choy, and Savoy are also excellent sources of Beta-Carotene, a nutrient that other cabbages don’t have in abundance. High blood levels of Beta-Carotene are related to fewer cases of heart attacks, certain types of cancer, and cataracts.

These cabbages are also excellent sources of vitamin C, which has proved to boost immunity, as well as reduce blood pressure and heart disease. A half-cup serving of raw Bok choy provides 16 milligrams of Vitamin C, 27% of the Daily Value (DV) for this Vitamin, while the same amount of raw Savoy Cabbage supplies 11 milligrams or 18 % of the DV. These same cabbages are also decent sources of B Vitamin Folate. Half-cup of either of those provides about 35 milligrams, or 9 % of the DV.

Your body needs Folate for normal tissue growth. Studies have proved that Folate also may protect against certain forms of Cancer, including Cervical, Colorectal, and Lung Cancers, Heart Disease, and Birth Defects.

Also, research shows that women are at high risk for Folate deficiency, especially if they take Birth Control pills.

-Adrian Joele

Winning the War on Our Money: A Psychological Battle

Our Money: Fighting a Psychological Battle

Across the world, governments and populations alike are encountering the same challenges – namely, how to treat the coronavirus and prevent its spread.

But this is just the beginning. Certainly, in the here and now – in the immediate future – bringing the virus under control is the priority, and we salute the legions of scientists, medical personnel, and key workers who are making that happen every day. But what comes next? How do we deal with the economic depression that follows such a crisis? How do we avoid global recession? There is one thing we must do: We must not give in. We must not roll over and simply accept the worst case as inevitable.

And we won’t. This is not the way that we – as a species – do things. If the last few months have taught us anything, it is that the incredible resilience of humanity is still alive and well. Even in the face of such hardship, the flame of endeavor, compassion, of positivity, still burns brightly.

This is all well and good, but what does this mean in practice? How do we go about channeling this resilience into a set of practical solutions that will carry us, and our finances, forward?

Let’s take a look at this in a little more detail.

Practical Solutions to Winning the Psychological Battle

We often hear the phrase “it’s all in your head,” as if a psychological problem is somehow less valid than a physical or external issue. In the 21st century, we are pushing back against this – not only recognizing that psychological issues need real consideration but also understanding that there are real steps we can take to overcome them. So, if you’ve found yourself hounded by money worries and anxiety as a result of this crisis, how do you overturn the negativity?

Develop a complete understanding of your situation

Much of the anxiety and worry we feel daily comes from uncertainty and a lack of knowledge. If we do not know what we are dealing with, we assume the worst. And, these negative feelings build and build until we are overwhelmed. Fight this tendency. Fight it with knowledge. Sit down and work out how the virus has affected your incomings. Then, work out what adjustments can be made so not only can you keep yourself moving forward, but you also can actively set yourself up for a thriving future.

This is not a one-off exercise. You need to get used to appraising your situation regularly, running the accounts, assessing the damage and the improvement, and arming yourself with the knowledge you need to gain the upper hand.

Begin to diversify

Don’t put all your eggs, as the adage goes, in one basket. There’s a reason why this has become so cliché – because it’s such great advice. If your income stream is too narrow or too restricted, you are putting yourself in danger. Even when times are good, you are only a hop, step, and jump away from a serious financial problem.

So, what’s the answer? Diversity. Don’t turn your back on your current revenue streams and business interests. Instead, seek to add to them. Think about how you can protect yourself with a more diverse portfolio of investments, and then consider how this diversity can drive your success.

Build a positive attitude

Negativity will get us nowhere. Instead, it erodes our psychology and makes it difficult to gain perspective and understanding of our situation. Our minds become clouded by doubt and other such thoughts. But, by making small positive changes to our mindset, we can counteract this. Make these small incremental changes – by reframing setbacks as challenges and opportunities, for example, or by putting certain minor hardships in a broader context. Get used to doing this, and witness big changes in your psychology.

Be proactive

Change cannot happen by itself. Your aims and objectives won’t be achieved without effort and action. This does not mean mistaking movement for progress and rushing around like a headless chicken, though. Rather, it means outlining what you want to achieve in the long and short term, thinking about what you need to do to achieve this, and then putting one foot in front of the other until you get there. Fighting a Psychological Battle4

The coronavirus has made goal achievement a little more challenging than usual, so you may need to change your approach. But don’t be discouraged.

Seek assistance

There is help out there, so make sure you get the help you need. This may come from talking to friends and co-workers, or from engaging with webinars, video media, or insightful articles. The truth is, there is no single “correct” way to educate ourselves and grow our emotional and psychological resilience. We are all in this together, so let’s help one another. Let’s accept the help that we need to win the psychological battle, and come through this crisis stronger than ever.

-David Love

https://universalsoullove.com/founders

Seafood: The Key to a Longer Life

Live longer eating Seafood

It’s no strange coincidence that many of the fish-eating populations located within the Arctic regions of the world have experienced fewer occurrences of heart disease.

This is primarily because seafood their main dietary food which is highly recognized for its high concentration in omega-3 fatty acids is widely renowned for not only lowering the cholesterol levels of the blood within the body but additionally for protecting the heart from diseases.

Research into the benefits of seafood discovered that individuals who consumed an extra portion of fish each week were found to lower their risk of heart disease by more than fifty percent.

Consuming fish reduced the risk of thrombosis (clotting of the blood) by improving blood circulation through the omega-3 oils which reduces the need for the body to produce the hormone-like substance eicosanoids which have been primarily responsible for inflammation and blood clotting occurring within the body.

Individuals who include seafood as a regular dish whether by dining out or via seafood delivery service as a balanced diet were generally shown to experience significant relief in their rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, a severe medical condition resulting in the inflammation of the joints within the body resulting in severe and often unbearable pain.

The link between the omega-3 fatty acids found within the seafood and its ability to relieve the symptoms of osteoarthritis has been confirmed through medical research resulting in a strong medical recommendation that eating more seafood will prevent the occurrence of this and other health-related diseases.

Live longer on seafood Seafood has been globally renowned for providing the human body with a vast number of nutrients including zinc, iodine, potassium, and selenium.

Selenium is renowned for its production of enzymes that serve in protecting the human body from cancer, and iodine which is a vital ingredient for the thyroid glands to reduce the risk of slow heart rate, dry skin, depression, weight gain, and several other illnesses.

Shellfish such as lobster, shrimps, and crabs and fish traditionally found in dishes such as Vermicelli Crab, Grilled Salmon, and Steamed Crab Lobster Assorted Platter also contain a form of vitamin-A known as retinol which is popularly recognized for improving vision at night. Individuals who suffer from age-related macular degeneration causing deterioration of the eyesight resulting in blurred vision often referred to as AMD when introduced to a regular diet consisting of such seafood cuisines were able to experience some levels of restoration of their sight.

This has led to a large majority of local health practitioners recommending including seafood as a healthy diet in keeping the eyes bright and healthy.

Seafood not only has been proven through medical research to relieve the symptoms of asthma in children but has shown remarkable signs in preventing the illness from occurring. Families who have customarily eaten large quantities of seafood were observed to possess stronger and healthier lungs with age when compared to those who were found to eat less seafood.

Live longer on seafood 3 Depression today remains one of the most widespread illnesses globally affecting millions of men and women today.

In a recent study, it was confirmed that individuals who maintained a diet rich in seafood containing omega-3 oils experienced a lower rate of depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and post-natal depression.

Fish which has traditionally been a great source of protein is recognized for providing the human body with the essential ingredient collagen, a chemical substance widely known for keeping the human skin flexible and firm.

The skin additionally has been scientifically proven to be protected from the harmful effects of ultraviolet damage by the omega-3 oils found in seafood. Many dermatologists and local physicians confirmed that by eating an increased amount of seafood, patients suffering from illnesses including psoriasis and eczema were provided with continuous relief from their symptoms once a regular seafood diet was maintained.

A seafood diet rich in omega-3 fish oils safeguards the individual from severe inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease additionally slowing the progression of inflammatory bowel disease suffered by many patients today.

The human brain is composed of approximately sixty percent omega-3 fat. In a recent study, individuals who routinely ate a lot of seafood were found less likely to be affected by memory difficulty and dementia as they approached their senior years.

During the research, it was discovered that the omega-3 fat DHA found within seafood played a vital role in the development of reading skills, attentiveness, and behavior in children additionally improving instances of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

Where can we get seafood delivery?

Live longer on seafood crab Many popular restaurants around the world have as a mandatory rule included a wide variety of seafood dishes within their menu and delivery service due to the exceptional taste and vast health benefits of the meal.

Restaurants such as the American-based California Pizza Kitchen, Seafood Fettuccine, Hard Rock Café, and Tony Roma’s Cajun Shrimp and Scallops.

Pasta is known for a wide and extravagant range of seafood cuisines such as Clams, shrimp in calamari rings, squid, and sweet and spicy soy sauce,

Tender scallops and shrimp cooked in lemon wine among several other exquisite dishes.

Chinese, Indian, Italian, Korean Lebanese, Vietnamese, and several other countries host several fine dining and takeout restaurants and are continuously finding new ways to include more and more favorite seafood cuisines within their menus for their customers. Enjoy steak and lobster today!

Exercise for Optimal Health

Healthy for Life

If people would realize how many health benefits exercise can offer, there would be no hesitation in getting started with some form of exercise.

Especially older folks are harder to get motivated because they think the exercise will cause an injury. On the contrary, exercise will keep their overall fitness level and muscle strength in optimal form. It’s a matter of choosing the right form of exercise.

Swimming, walking, and gardening are very suitable for older people. Swimming has the advantage that their body weight will be partly supported by the water, which makes it possible to exercise without risking any bodily harm.

Walking is the best exercise you can have because it’s natural. Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond. You breathe properly, your circulation and heart benefit, and it’s good for the mind and positive thinking.

fitness-running (2) Fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking. Contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems. Walking is almost as important as the right food. You need to eat properly and exercise properly, the two together give you the best results. The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity.

Exercise produces big results whether we’re 40, 60, or 80. According to the Human Physiology Laboratory at Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, we respond well to exercise at any age. Muscles grow, bones strengthen, and metabolism increases. Our body fat decreases while blood sugar and balance improve. I proved this to myself when I taught strength training at a retirement residence.

With modest effort, exercisers in their 80s grew stronger and more vital. We were all delighted. Reduced muscle strength is associated with age-related disability. The most common cause of muscle weakness is inactivity. After three months of high-intensity muscle training, healthy men over 60 experienced gains similar to those reported for younger men training with similar intensity and duration. Stronger people remained more independent and less burdened by advancing years. Any type of exercise helps, but combining aerobics, strength, and flexibility works best. For most people, aerobic exercise is an easy place to begin.

As we breathe deeply, the diaphragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs, and liver. The stretching and relaxing of the intestines are vital in preventing that widespread form of ‘self-poisoning’: constipation. Exercise does keep you regular!

In the mid-eighties, a vital clue to the right exercise for lifelong health was uncovered by brilliant research in biochemistry. Biochemists established that all cell replication in the immune system and therefore all immune strength is dependent on the availability of the amino acid glutamine. Your immune system uses a ton of it. But immune cells cannot make glutamine. Only muscle cells can do the job. So your muscles have to supply large amounts of glutamine to your immune system every day to maintain it. That’s it! The mitochondria of muscle are the furnaces in which most of your body fat and sugar are burned for fuel.

Muscle is what stresses your skeleton to maintain your bones. We also know that muscle is the vital link that also maintains your immunity and hence your resistance to all diseases. Muscle is the health engine. Which so much overwhelming evidence that muscular exercise is essential to health, what are we doing about it? A big fat zero.

Healthy for Life with Exercise3 Muscle is the health engine. It’s a proven fact that the right exercise not only maintains your heart, your lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, and even your intestinal function but also some more subtle functions, like insulin and your body’s dealing with sugar. It has been known for more than fifty years that a lack of exercise leads to glucose intolerance.

However, not long ago research has shown that getting off the couch and starting moving, not only maintain insulin function to deal with the sugar but also can reverse decades of damage. Insulin-dependent diabetics, for example, using the right exercise program, can increase insulin efficiency so much that some patients, who have used insulin daily for years, no longer need it. In healthy people, the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.

Healthy old men who maintain a lifelong exercise program, have the same healthy insulin efficiency as young men. A high-sugar diet, which progressively destroys insulin metabolism, makes it virtually mandatory to exercise if you want to avoid glucose intolerance as you grow older.

Most physicians believe that hardening of the arteries, a degenerative process, is inevitable. The National Institute on Aging Research Centre in Baltimore is showing in ongoing experiments, that regular exercise maintains arterial elasticity and even reverses arterial hardening that has already occurred. I could fill many pages citing numerous bodily functions which are maintained by regular exercise. But I will keep it short.

runners-for-fitness Research recently undertaken has revealed the major way in which exercise protects you against all diseases. It started with the evidence that exercise increases the overall number of white blood cells. Followed by more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophils, and other disease-fighting components of the immune system. There is no doubt that the right exercise strengthens your immunity. And it also strengthens your resistance to all forms of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins, and even radiation.

Closing with the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine: “Host resistance is the key.”

Wishing you a cheerful holiday season!

Unlock the Benefits of Dumbbells

Using Dumbbells in your Exercise

If you have ever exercised in a gym, you have probably used dumbbells to do strength training. You may have dumbbells set laying around your home.

Dumbbells are smaller hand-held weights resembling single-piece mini barbells. Dumbbells are available in various weights, beginning with those less than 5 lbs. These are best used throughout aerobic exercises or when using an exercise bike or treadmill. Heavy dumbbells allow you to build muscle mass.

Dumbbells are versatile, affordable, and easy-to-use weights that allow you to do a range of exercises to enhance your fitness. Based on the weight amount you use, the number of reps you do, and the pace at which you work out, they can help you enhance cardiovascular health, build muscles, burn fat, or improve muscle endurance for sporting activities.

In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of using dumbbells for your fitness routine.

Helps Burn More Fat Overall

For beginners, if define exercise isn’t what you’re aware that frequent strength training using dumbbells, while mixed with the usual cardio workouts, may help burn more fat overall? One study suggests that women who included dumbbell training in their exercises a minimum of 3 days a week were able to lose more fat during usual activities, thus allowing them to fulfill their weight and fitness goals more rapidly. This occurs because in addition to the fat you burnt when you were doing a strength training workout, the body also keeps burning extra fat after you finish your workout since more calories are needed to develop muscle than to lose fat.

So, even when you are not looking to burn fat anymore, strength training or dumbbell workouts make it simpler to keep your ideal body weight besides improving your muscles.

Helps in Preventing Diseases

There is also evidence to suggest that frequent strength training with dumbbells can help in preventing some diseases. For instance, women who experienced menopause in the past can lessen their chance of having osteoporosis (which may cause bone fracture and breakage) by doing a dumbbell training workout as suggested by their doctor. Also, dumbbell training has been proven to help keep glucose levels in the blood in control for countless people having diabetes.

Improves Balance and Flexibility

Besides helping you keep an ideal weight and prevent some diseases, frequent dumbbell training may also enhance your overall balance, flexibility, and coordination at a level that cardio workouts cannot do simply. Many dumbbell training workouts need you to naturally maintain a balanced posture, which eventually helps with coordination and balance. In addition, the included range of activities in many dumbbell training workouts is perfect for improving flexibility.

Protects the Muscles and Bones

Dumbbell training can aid to protect the bones and overall muscle density. Nevertheless, are you aware that after people complete puberty, they slowly start to lose bone mass every year? It is a surprising revelation for most people; however, the good thing is that by using your muscles in workouts frequently (minimum 3 days a week), you may save bone mass and save the muscles during the process.

Improves your Self-Esteem

Although a body-mind relation indeed exists, this is greatly true when someone uses dumbbells (or any kind of workout) to exercise. As dumbbells add resistance to one’s body, soon this causes your body to get fit and tone rather than building bulk. As “tightness” is what everyone desires from their outlook, soon this becomes a reality and therefore it makes the individual feel good. This in turn develops confidence and provides them with a good feeling about their bodies.

Improves the Metabolic Rate

As exercising with dumbbells will slowly improve your body’s strength while developing muscle and losing calories at a rapid rate, this happens because with dumbbells you lose more fat when compared to calisthenics.

Fast Results

Maybe this one is the biggest benefit of using dumbbells rather than freehand and cardio workouts, and you can merely finish your dumbbell exercises in just an hour and call it a day while burning similar if not more fat.

FAQ’s

Are dumbbells effective?

Dumbbells are greatly effective to target particular muscles, and can contribute majorly to overall performance and resistance to injury. There are huge values and returns of investment to exercising isolation movements, no matter what your objectives are. Dumbbells can improve muscles to a level you simply cannot do with barbells.

Do dumbbells burn belly fat?

Dumbbell workouts are a great way to burn body fat, including on the stomach. Although you cannot target specifically belly fat, however, losing calories all through your body will also aid you to lose fat on the tummy. Developing muscle and doing dumbbell circuits (probably with hex dumbbells) is greatly effective for burning belly fat.

Do dumbbells build muscle?

Yes, as long as you raise the weight over a period. You can surely build massive bodies with dumbbells; however, you may face a roadblock if you do not keep increasing your weight.

Should you use dumbbells every day?

Weight lifting daily is safe as long as you’re giving rest to other muscle types. Split workouts, where you work different muscle types on different days, are ideal for this. In case you don’t, you will have the risk of a plateau or injury.

How long should I use dumbbells?

If you are a beginner 30 minutes a day is ideal. You can exercise with weights such as a 20 lb. dumbbell even longer, however, never over-train your muscle, three workouts per muscle type is enough (advanced). In case your dumbbell train for over 60 minutes you are perhaps doing one of these things over-training or speaking too much.

Final Words

Regardless of the level, you are in your fitness journey, you should keep dumbbells a part of it. Not just they are easy to store and use, but dumbbells are comparatively cheap and because they are versatile, they can be used for a wide range of exercises.

Considering all these dumbbells can be a wise investment for your fitness goals.

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Exhausted: The Reasons Behind My Constant Fatigue

So tired all the time? The question that arises is why I am feeling tired all the time. Although it is pretty normal to feel tired after a long day, a constant urge to drop into a bed or a cozy couch is an alarm that something is amiss with your health. This article discusses why you are always on a press to snooze mode or feel drained post-lunch and recommendations to avoid the situation.

Why am I so Tired All the Time?

The day can affect a person’s physical and mental health. It also takes a dig at the quality of life. Usually, a good night’s sleep or a day off can work well to restore energy levels or eliminate extreme fatigue. But if they are not fixing the issue, something could keep up with your mental health, and should be concerned immediately. It is beneficial to seek help sooner than later if you are not sure about the cause of being tired all the time despite a good diet and enough rest.

Here are 13 key reasons why someone is so tired all the time and when to seek help:

Diet is the most critical pillar of a healthy lifestyle, and so is its importance in sustaining the body’s energy levels. Skipping the meals drops the required level of calories. Long breaks between the means lower the sugar level and make you tired. It is essential to take a healthy diet and high-energy snacks to keep your systems running smoothly. Another more important thing is never to skip an end-day meal going hungry to bed reduces sleep quality, leaving you tired on the day after.

Sedentary Lifestyle Physical activity improves energy levels; on the other hand, a sedentary lifestyle leaves you feeling exhausted and sleepy. In one study, researchers worked on how an inactive and sedentary lifestyle affects women’s fatigue levels. Seventy-three women participated in the study. Some woman was physically active quite well, while others were not physically active.

According to the study’s findings, physically active women had a significantly lower fatigue level than women living a sedentary life. This supports the notion that a healthy lifestyle is physically active, leading to more energy and vigor.

Vitamin Deficiency multivitamins Being tired all the time can be a sign of vitamin deficiency. It might occur because of low vitamin D levels, vitamin B-12, iron, magnesium, and potassium. A routine blood test is required to identify the deficiency. In case a person is vitamin deficient, the doctor may recommend taking supplements. The natural way to cope with the deficiency is to increase foods rich in multivitamins and other nutrients. For example, clams, beef, and liver may reverse a B-12 deficiency and reduce the constant tiredness and fatigue. Why I am so tired all the time?

Stress can deteriorate sleep quality and its duration. Also, the lack of sleep elevates stress levels. Therefore, it is essential to manage the mental burden and enable a better and sufficient rest, restoring your energy levels. Persistent stress keeps the body in a state of fight and flight, leaving you exhausted. Stress is also a trigger in worsening sleep disorders. It is advisable to avoid stressful events and off to bed in time for healthy sleep. Other ways to prevent stressful thoughts and remain calm are to practice meditation and build new achievable goals regularly.

Depression When you are suffering from depression, lack of energy and tiredness becomes a problem. Feeling tired tends to associate with physical issues, but mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and stress contribute to exhaustion and chronic fatigue. Consult your therapist for mental health treatment or counseling. Antidepressants, anti-anxiety medicine, and cognitive behavioral therapy can make a difference to alleviate the symptoms of depression. If you’re struggling to cope with depression, It can cause Irregularities in sleep and begin to impact your mental health, seek medical advice immediately.

Sleep Disorder can be an underlying cause of tiredness. If a person’s energy level doesn’t improve after weeks, or even improving lifestyle, speak with your doctor. You may need a sleep specialist. A sleep disorder such as sleep apnea or insomnia also affects a person’s cognitive, mental, and physical abilities. Sleep apnea is a disorder in which breathing pauses while a person is asleep. As a result, the brain and body don’t receive enough oxygen during sleep leading to daytime fatigue.

Sleep Apnea is a complex medical condition that can cause hypertension (high blood pressure), decreased concentration, and even a stroke or heart attack. Sleep apnea treatment involves using a CPAP machine or an oral device to keep the upper airway open during sleep hours.

Burn-out If a person has a constant feeling of running on empty, one could be going through burnout. The World Health Organization (WHO) now considers burn-out as a medical condition, defining the condition as a syndrome caused by chronic stress at the workplace. But how does it play a part in making someone feel tired all the time?

Scientific facts determine that a rest-activity rhythm is an essential requirement to perform well. Sleep is a prime pillar of human health which is mandatory for the body to perform well during working hours. If a person is becoming a workaholic and performing continuously without a sound sleep or downtime, which is required to restore the body’s ability to function OK- what comes next is physical and mental health deterioration. Therefore, sidestep burn-out and let more downtime invade your daily routine for relaxation.

Being Overweight Being overweight can also cause tiredness all the time. When body weight is more than the desired BMI, it becomes harder for the body to carry your weight during daily life, making you exhausted or feeling tired all the time. You can gradually improve your condition by working on a plan to gradually lose weight by adopting a healthy lifestyle like eating well and starting exercises like swimming, jogging, walking, and gradually increasing the workout.

Fibromyalgia Daily activities become a struggle for people who have fibromyalgia, causing muscle pain and tenderness. Fibromyalgia affects the muscles and soft tissues, but it causes pain that does not let you have a good sleep. The awakening of night and restless leg syndrome results in chronic tiredness throughout the day. An over-the-counter pain killer helps improve pain and sleep. Some people also find an antidepressant, physical therapy, and exercise helpful.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome A person can feel tired all the time without any significant health ailment because of chronic fatigue syndrome. It is a long-term illness with various symptoms such as extreme tiredness, insomnia, and even some patients may feel staying asleep for longer durations. Even longer sleep durations do not help to improve the feeling of tiredness. The cause of chronic fatigue syndrome is unknown, and the diagnosis is only possible after ruling out the chances of all other health disorders by a health professional. Treatment of chronic fatigue is possible only by understanding your physical limitations, mild to moderate regular exercise, and circadian rhythm changes.

Medication Certain medications can make you drowsy and sleepy or make you feel tired all the time and complete everyday chores like driving or operating machinery challenges. On the other hand, some medications can cause insomnia, such as high blood pressure and asthma. Consult your doctor about any such medicine you are taking to find if any alternative or dose adjustment.

Diabetes If you are continually experiencing fatigue, thirst, frequent urination, and unexplained weight loss, get yourself tested for diabetes. Feeling tired all the time can be a symptom of diabetes. If a person has diabetes, the body doesn’t make enough insulin leading to high blood sugar and leaving you tired and irritable. Consult a doctor for any unexplained fatigue as it can be a symptom of other medical conditions like heart disease and cancer.

Under-Active Thyroid Hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid, occurs when the body doesn’t produce the required thyroid hormones. An under-active thyroid causes symptoms such as fatigue, lethargy, and weight gain. Although with treatment, people with hypothyroidism can lead an everyday life.

Post-Viral Fatigue feeling tired all the time or for most of the day after recovering from an infection like flu and glandular fever, are the signs of post-viral fatigue syndrome. Symptoms include chronic tiredness, severe muscle pain, weight loss, vomiting, diarrhea, fever or chills, chest pain, and shortness of breath. It is common to feel tired after an illness, but if your symptoms are not alleviating for weeks or months and prevent you from leading an energized healthy man’s life-it’s better to seek medical advice. However, there is not enough research on post-viral fatigue, so it’s challenging to find treatment. The best way to improve the condition is by having self-care making you feel better gradually.

The takeaway, There is not a hard and fast rule that every other day is an easy day. A few days are meant to squeeze your energy and it’s quite understandable to feel tired at the end of such days. But being tired all the time is something that needs to be addressed by a health professional. You may have a health condition that required to be discussed with your health professional. Another thing to understand well cannot be attributed to physical health alone, sometimes what needs the most attention is your mental health.

Khalyla the Magnificent Labradoodle

Khalyla the Labradoodle

Labradoodles are wonderful family dogs. They are great for first-time pet owners. They are friendly, and intelligent, and do well with children and other dogs. They are easy to train, easy to care and make good watchdogs.

Description: Labradoodles are Hybrid Dogs that are a cross between a poodle and a Labrador. They come in various sizes depending upon the size and characteristics of the parents, the lab, and the poodle. Their coloring may be black, brown, cream, gray, silver, white, or yellow, again depending upon the color of the parents. There are also miniature Labradoodles for those looking for a smaller dog.

Health

Labradoodles are generally quite healthy. They are prone to hip dysplasia and genetic eye problems depending upon their parents’ genetics. That is why it is so important to get your labradoodle from a reputable dog breeder. Be sure to read the ingredients label when buying dog food. The primary protein should be from a quality animal source, preferably, chicken. Grains such as soy, corn, and wheat gluten can be hard to digest and may cause possible allergic reactions. It is not natural for dogs to eat grain, so grains should not be included in the dog food you buy over the counter. Remember, never feed people food to dogs, especially food with a lot of seasoning.

Care

Labradoodles should be brushed at least a couple of times a week, with regular grooming every 8 to 12 weeks including ear cleaning, nail clipping, and teeth brushing. Usually, there is little shedding with a Labradoodle, however, if it has more characteristics of the lab rather than the poodle, it will tend to shed.

Exercise

Labradoodles are highly energetic so they need to have a regular exercise routine of 30 to 60 minutes every day. Due to their high energy, they may become destructive if they become bored and do not receive the needed daily exercise. Exercising the dog is not only healthy for the dog but is also healthy for the pet owner. Walking a dog can be a very enjoyable and relaxing experience.

Training

Labradoodles are very intelligent and are usually easy to train. They like to please their owner so they are inclined to listen to commands with fewer repetitions for obeying specific instructions. They also make good watchdogs. They will bark and alert their owners if an unknown intruder enters their area. If it is time to own a pet, remember these important facts: Check the local or online Pet Adoption Centers first.

There are thousands of pets needing adoption every day; If you are unable to find your perfect pet at the Adoption Center, then begin to conduct research and find a reputable pet breeder from whom to buy a pet. Do not buy from a puppy mill; Always spay and/or neuter the pet; and be sure to devote quality love, time, and attention to care for the pet.

FYI

For those who want to help find homes for pets that need adoption, go online and view profiles of pets who need adoption. Then share the profiles via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Email. Perhaps there is someone within a social network who needs a pet and is ready to adopt

Animals are wonderful companions. Whether it is a cat or a dog, they can bring so much enjoyment to an individual or a family. Yes, owning pets means taking good care of them with food, shelter, and affection.

However, the unconditional love and devotion they provide in return are well worth the effort. There is nothing more rewarding than coming home and being greeted by a dog with a happy face and wagging tail.

Regardless of how bad your day has been, your best friend, your dog will be sure to cheer you up. Remember, only those who have love, passion, time, and dedication to care for pets should own pets.

Pets are not something that should be bought or adopted one day and forgotten the next.

Overcoming Bad Habits: A Step-by-Step Guide

Break a Negative Habit One Day at a Time

Unless you’re perfect, you probably have a habit that drives you or others nuts. The conflicting nature of bad habits makes them difficult to overcome. What is your bad habit?

Typically, the top bad habits we indulge in are eating unhealthy foods, smoking, using chewing tobacco, lying on the sofa instead of exercising, and nail-biting.

The good news is, however, that whatever negative habit you have, you have the power to change it if you want to. stress-bad-habits

Consider these strategies for inspiration to break your negative habit now:

Avoid getting overwhelmed. Realize your goal now is to simply decrease the occurrence of the negative behavior. As you endeavor to gradually reduce the behavior, you’ll feel better and more in control. Eventually, you may be able to stop the habit.
Focus on a daily mini-goal to help you make small adjustments. Let’s say you typically eat more bread and carbohydrates than recommended. You have two bowls of cereal for breakfast and eat two sandwiches for lunch. Do you think you could reduce your daily carbs? But you’re caught in a vicious cycle and keep eating the same things each day.

* Set a specific mini-goal to reduce carb intake by making one small change daily. You’ll be motivated to turn around your negative habit. In this example, a daily goal to reduce bread at lunch strengthens the resolve to eat fewer carbs. * At lunch, rather than eating two sandwiches, add extra meat, cheese and vegetables to your sandwich. You’ll still have a filling lunch but you’ll reduce your bread intake by half. high-carbs

* After you’ve persevered in altering your habit for six weeks to two months, then you can set another mini-goal to replace your second bowl of cereal with a bowl of fruit instead. You’ll feel optimistic and ready to tackle another mini-goal in your quest to reduce carbs.

Use time intervals to control your negative habit. Maybe your negative habit is smoking. The first thing you should know is how many cigarettes you smoke in a day. Perhaps you smoke 20 cigarettes. If you’re awake 16 hours a day, you’re smoking slightly more than 1 cigarette per hour.

* Allow yourself to smoke one cigarette per hour. During the first day, you’ll reduce your cigarette intake by four cigarettes. That’s progress! By the end of the week, you’ll have smoked 28 cigarettes less than you normally do. Now that’s a real motivation to continue the path to a smoke-free life! quit-smoking

* After smoking one per hour for 10 days to two weeks, extend the time interval between cigarettes from one cigarette every hour to every 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 hours. Continue increasing the time length between cigarettes until you’re smoking one cigarette every 4 hours-four cigarettes daily.

* At this point, decide either to further reduce cigarette intake or to quit smoking completely. Your one-day-at-a-time method is working.

Reward yourself for your successes. Daily, document on a calendar how you did. For example, if you met your mini-goal, record “MMG” for “met mini-goal.”

* You could also jot down the number of times you did the negative behavior that day-this method works well for those working to reduce smoking, chewing tobacco, or nail-biting behaviors.

* Use your calendar information at the end of the month to determine if you were successful 75 percent of the time in reducing your negative habit. If so, allow yourself a reward of some type to strengthen future efforts to break your bad habit.

* You might enjoy an afternoon of fishing or taking part in a favored hobby. Maybe a new nail polish or set of golf balls will suffice.

Although getting rid of a bad habit is a challenge, you can break your negative habit using these one-day-at-a-time techniques.

Thanks to Don Lewis for this helpful wisdom. Check out his site https://bildalist.bilderprofit.com

Achieving True Satisfaction

Know Deep Fulfillment

Several decades ago, I began studying goal setting as if my life depended on it. I was committed to learning anything and everything I could about how to set goals and “have it all”. I was certain that having it all would bring me a very deep level of happiness. My motivation was the fact that in my twenties I had reached a point where my greatest goal was to merely get through another day. With many of my childhood dreams shattered, my life consisted of going to a job I despised, being newly divorced and left with no apparent way to support myself, and living from day to day wondering if this was it.

More than three decades ago, all I wanted to do was survive the harsh realities life had put in front of me. And survive I did. I barely got by each day, feeling like the world was against me and wondering why all the lucky breaks happened to others but not to me. I nurtured the belief about how tough life was and as a result, never got any breaks. So much in fact that I lost my assembly-line job with the inability to get another. I became more disillusioned with each passing day and felt stuck with no way out.

I found a book that changed my life forever – The Magic of Believing by Clyde Bristol. From the first page to the last, I was captivated by what I read. Written in 1948, the information is as powerful today as the day the book was written.

In essence, the author wrote that we create our reality by what we think and believe. Feeling as if I had found the holy grail of knowledge, I was fascinated that I had never heard this before. Or if I had heard it, I had never paid attention to it.

Amazingly, as I applied what I read, a few small things shifted. The shift was enough to encourage me to learn more about the power of thought.

Because I didn’t have any disposable income at that time, I found one of my favorite hangouts to be the local library. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on to do with changing the circumstances of my life. There was no shortage of information on setting goals, reaching achievement, accepting “believe and you will achieve” and other such topics.

Know Deep Fulfillment 2

As much as I had no desire to do much of anything before the discovery of The Magic of Believing, I now had a thirst that no amount of reading, learning, or searching could quench. I was fascinated with what I heard about “What you can believe, you can achieve.”

Now my quest was to turn my life around and acquire whatever I wanted on a material level so that I would be fulfilled. Little did I realize the lessons life had in store. I would learn that fulfillment was not about acquisition but rather something completely different. You see, there were many times I acquired just what I thought would be the “golden ticket” to happiness. Although some things did bring me a sense of satisfaction, often it would be short-lived.

So, what was the answer? When would that deep sense of fulfillment be mine? Having placed so much emphasis on acquisitions, awards, and outward recognition (and having achieved a great deal) I wondered why there were times when, regardless of the outward trappings, a deep level of fulfillment would often evade me.

Over more than a 30-year journey of discovery, my experience and definition of fulfillment have morphed more than once from something superficial to something that words cannot begin to express. Something that one comes to “know” rather than define with words. Yet, words are often all there is to convey to another what the experience is.

Happiness and fulfillment had very little to do with what was manifested on the outside. There is no doubt whatsoever that happiness is an inside job. Granted, there are outward things that do invoke feelings of joy, but it is something that manifests from the inside out, rather than from the outside in.

Know Deep Fulfillment 4

Ironically, when we are on a quest for the deepest level of fulfillment, life will give us exactly what we need. It may appear as if it has nothing to do with what we want, yet when we give ourselves permission to step back, observe all that has occurred, and recognize the gift in even the most difficult situations, we realize we have been given exactly what was needed to reach the deepest level of appreciation, fulfillment and joy life has to offer.

Yet, it takes more than simply knowing this. It takes surrender and willingness to allow life to unfold in such a way that we are allowed to become who we are meant to be. It takes a willingness to know that often we just don’t know all there is to know.

This is counterintuitive to much of what many people are selling as the “key to happiness.” How ironic is this? For years we can search for “the knowledge” only to discover the greatest knowledge is that we just don’t know all there is to know.

It is in surrendering to this fact we are in a position to know more. What happens is we become okay with letting go of the need to do, know, and be everything. We simply move in the space of being in concert with what is. We reach a place of showing up to the miracle of what each day has in store.

It has been said that a miracle is a shift in perception. It is in the ability to recognize the shift where the greatest miracle resides – the miracle of who we are meant to be.

Know Deep Fulfillment 4 Make no mistake, there will be experiences in our day-to-day living that at times may seem more than we are equipped to handle. Yet, when we move in the space of appreciation for what is in front of us, life holds amazing miracles – miracles that no amount of money can buy; miracles that create the tapestry of our lives; miracles that take us to the deepest place of surrender that makes life have more depth than we ever dreamed possible; miracles that allow us to love in ways we never dreamed we would or could; miracles that allow us to become the person we are truly meant to be.

It is in the surrender to something beyond what we can see, feel or touch that all we had hoped for will manifest.

Seven Strategies for Smart Nutrition

7 steps of Savvy Nutrition, 14 tips of Balanced Body

Nutrition and body well-being from the inside out are overlooked in modern days. We focus on outer appearance and sometimes miss that treating the inner causes is by far more successful in the long run than treating the outer consequences.

During the past years, I became increasingly interested in holistic approaches and methods to improve mind, body, and spirit. Today I would like to share useful information I have come across and collected over time-related to body wellbeing. Please take what you need from this article. It’s an invitation to reflection and an encouragement to deeper research or even a visit to a nutritionist should you need and choose to do so.

Our blood tells us everything

7 steps of Savvy Nutrition Our body is a vehicle and representation of everything we eat, drink, ingest or absorb regardless of form. Whilst I am not by far in favor of extremes or dramatic life changes, some balance and moderation are always good when it comes to food, drinks, and other substances we expose to.

Through our digestive system, our blood is a health barometer and a representation of all meals and liquids that come into our body. A blood microscope analysis takes about 5 minutes and shows: how we function, the level of toxins collected in the body, the state of health for the red cells and the oxygen transportation (Wikipedia on Red cells), the existence of any bacteria, mushroom (yeast), level of fat and hydration, clogged cells due to toxicity.

How the body works

In chemistry, the PH scale measures the acidity or alkalinity of an aqueous solution. The scale ranges from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral and our blood ranging between 7.3-7.4 Everything above 7 and up to 14 is alkaline, and everything below 7 and down to 0 is acidic.

When the blood and body are too acidic, they create an unfavorable environment where illness, bacteria, and yeast thrive. Hormonal diseases, digestive and lymphatic problems, cancer, reduced oxygen intake, and fatigue are only some of the issues that may appear.

Scientifically it was not proven that an alkaline diet will remove these risks. Moreover, our bodies have strong regulatory systems that adapt to the environment and whatever food we choose in our diet. However, what is true, is that a more alkaline diet will ease the burden on your digestive system and your blood and body during the PH balancing process. When the PH is too acidic, the blood neutralizes it by extracting minerals from muscles or good alkaline food if ingested. Our mouth, digestive system, and mind (producing thoughts) are acidic, our muscles are alkaline. That is why, too much acidity results in low minerals (calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium) and overall weakened muscles and body.

The aim would be to have a diet that mirrors the normal PH of the blood. Unfortunately, our lives today make it difficult to easily access alkaline products. In simple terms, almost everything around us is acidic. Processed food, meat, dressings, alcohol, coffee, and cosmetics are acidic. The same goes for rumbling thoughts, overworking, stress, or usage of technology which produce acidity and bring blood PH below neutral.

So how can we Help our Body be Slightly Alkaline?

Drink Alkaline Water! Water is vital to the correct functioning of the body, both from quantity and quality perspectives. The quantity depends on factors such as environment, health conditions, pregnancy in the case of ladies or exercising, and the intensity of physical effort. As with everything, a book can be written only on this. In a simplified version, a formula for the quantity (in liters) is your weight in kg times 0.4. For example, a weight of 60kg, requires an intake of 2.4 liters of water per day (60kg x 0.4).

Alcohol, coffee, or coffee-containing teas do not count and intake of water should increase proportionately. Soup and herbal tea are good and so is bottled water sold in shops if the label shows a PH level around 7. Tap water (where drinkable) is mostly alkaline. If not, adding lemon juice, and sodium carbonate or buying a machine that alkalizes automatically would do the job.

Eat Greens! Almost all green vegetables are alkaline and good for digestion. Notice the difference in how you feel after eating veggies vs. eating meat or other processed food. Heavy meals induce a state of fatigue and burden as the system and blood are fully employed for digestion. On the other hand, vegetables make you feel light and energized, whilst in addition, they contain chlorophyll and help the production and transportation of oxygen into the cells
Eat Proteins from Vegetables! Our bodies need Proteins, but good alkaline ones which exist in vegetables. Meat such as pork, lamb, or beef has a PH between 3 and 4, below the PH level of our blood. In exchange, some vegetables such as broccoli, beans, peas, lentils, sprouts, mushrooms, corn, spinach, or artichoke contain a good proportion of proteins and can be a good replacement for meat. In a simplified manner, the formula of ideal protein intake (in grams) is your weight in kg times 0.8 (For example if you weigh 60kg you should eat around 50 grams of protein per day). An ideal diet would include meat or fish only once a week, eggs maybe twice a week, and the rest of the necessary taken from the greens.
Add good Fat to your meals! Fat is very important for the brain, and eyesight and they make you feel full. Fat is not necessarily meat or associated products. You can take your necessary dose of fat by adding alkaline ingredients to your food such as olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, or nuts and seeds that contain Omega-3s. Good fats (unsaturated) help reduce cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease. Bad fats (saturated) are found normally in animal products and cooking oils. Coconut oil, butter, olive, and avocado oils are relatively good for cooking. However, seeds, nuts, and other vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, sesame, canola, etc. contain polyunsaturated fats which are unhealthy in the long run, especially for cooking.
Eat natural Sugar! Added sugar contains no nutrients and is bad for the teeth, overloads the liver, can be addictive, and can cause illnesses like diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, and heart disease. As with fats or carbs, sugar can also be categorized between ‘’good’’ and ‘’bad’’. Processed sugar or similar sweetener products are generally not recommended, including cakes, sweets, and commercially processed products containing sugar among ingredients. The best intake of sugar and energy comes from fruits and vegetables. Agave, stevia, and coconut sugar are also good replacements. You may also create cookies and desserts from alkaline products such as almond milk, coconut, and banana (PH around 9) (http://www.shape.com/latest-news-trends/good-sugar-vs-bad-sugar-become-more-sugar-savvy)
Have your dose of rich Salt! Salt helps the body with minerals and balances the acidity. Processed salt contains limited amounts of minerals. Himalayan salt is a good modern option that contains 84 minerals. It has been preserved under ice and lava for millennia and kept free from pollution, so it’s a good source of healthy minerals.
Limit Dairy products! Opinions differ quite a lot, but generally dairy is difficult for the digestive system, especially as we grow older and have fewer lactase enzymes (after the age of 4). Most of the world (depending on the ethnic group) is intolerant to dairy or highly allergic. In addition to different chemical substances that can end up in the milk such as pesticides or antibiotics (http://www.all-creatures.org/health/howmilkanddairy.html), cow’s milk contains much more protein than human milk. This creates acidity and employs the body to neutralize it. Because it’s an acidic source of calcium, our body will extract its calcium to balance it and in return weaken our bones.

Cheese is also not necessarily good and comes down to common sense. Besides the fact that it consists of milk, it may also contain mushrooms (like yeast) or other bacteria. Goat milk and cheese are a better replacement as their DNA is closer to the human one.

How to detox your body?

In the body we have around 5-6 liters of blood (7% of the body weight) that transports nutrients and oxygen to the body, cleans the waste in our cells, fights disease, and moves hormones and chemicals. When our digestive system activates, it employs the blood for breaking food into vitamins, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The more time the blood is employed for digestion, the less time and resources are available for the other functions of cleaning the body, transporting oxygen to the cells, and taking out the residuum and toxins.

Giving some break from eating can enable the blood to perform its other functions and improve health. For example, fasting has been in some traditions for ages. It’s a process of cleansing the body based only on liquid and no solid food. A simpler way to fast is once or twice a week between 8:00 pm to 12:00 am or between 12:00 am to 6:00 am. That translates into having eaten solid food for around 75% of the time and allowing your body to detoxify 25% of the time.

14 tips for a Balanced Body

Size of the portion is one of the biggest problems of today’s modern world. Obesity, digestive problems, bad sleep, bloating, and fatigue can be caused by what you eat and more important by how much you eat. The ideal size of your portion is the size of your fist, which is how big your stomach is. Everything, in addition, stretches the stomach to accommodate the amount of food consumed. Except for green vegetables which contain water and shrink after chewing, most of the food maintains its original weight and size from the plate into your stomach. To help yourself, use smaller plates and utensils for eating, as well as non-transparent dishes which have been demonstrated to facilitate eating higher quantities of food
Chew well! About 20-30 times for one bite. The more we chew, the more the food gets exposed to saliva and digestive enzymes. This facilitates digestive processes and avoids indigestion and bloating. Putting the fork down after having taken a bite, is a simple way to allow time to chew well and be present.
Take Smaller bites! Taking little pieces and breaking down the food sufficiently is one of the most critical processes of the digestive system; overeating or eating in big pieces results in the food not being digested and transferred into the colon where they create a good environment for indigestion, flatulence and bacterial overgrowth.
Don’t eat fast! Your meal should take about 30 minutes minimum. Eating fast allows one to put more food into the stomach and get ‘’stuffed’’ before realizing it. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to register the chemicals from the food and tell you if you are full. Satiety is not a result of your stomach being full but rather of your brain acknowledging the chemicals. The level of chemicals increases 10 to 30 minutes after eating and decreases in the next 3-5 hours giving the sensation of hunger http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/stomach-full-stop-eating-3080.html
Contrary to common knowledge, drinking water during eating is not recommended. The water dilutes the gastric acid and burdens the process of digestion. Water intake should be done 30-40 minutes before or after a meal.
Stay present! You may have caught yourself wondering when did you eat all the ice cream or all the popcorn. When we are not fully focusing on one process, we easily end up not realizing what we do. Overeating or not chewing well is very common when we watch TV or engage in conversations. Keeping your levels of awareness high and putting all the concentration in one place, will relief your stomach and bring short and long-term benefits. Some soothing music may be a wonderful way of accompanying your meals without distraction.
Eat-in healthy combinations: Proteins (meat, fish, eggs) go well with greens (vegetables), and greens go well with carbs (bread, pasta, rice, cereals). Proteins and carbs (starches and fruits) do not digest well at the same time and fruits ideally should be eaten alone. Allow a minimum of 2 hours between meals and around 3 hours in-between your last meal of the day and going to sleep
Eat at regular hours. Your body remembers the time for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and prepares its resources for these processes. In other words, some discipline and predictability to your lifestyle make it easier for the body to allocate resources and employ them for optimal functioning.
Buy and eat seasonal fruits and freshly collected vegetables as they maintain best their vitamins and minerals; replace eating anything processed with everything from the garden. Don’t avoid garlic and onions as they are natural bacteria-killing and try replacing processed fat with coconut oil and Omega 3/6/9
Treat your stomach! If you feel your digestive system needs some help you may want to talk to a doctor or nutritionist. Having a close look at what you eat may change your life for the better. Probiotics are also good helpers; they are good live bacteria that help the gut stay healthy and improve the digestive system. The impression is that bacteria is bad in general, but actually, our body is a home for good and bad bacteria and probiotics rebalance your intestine flora accordingly. http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/features/what-are-probiotics
Brush / clean your tongue. During the night, our mouth accumulates all kinds of bad bacteria resulting from digestion. Before putting these bacteria back into your body, you may wish to use a brush or scraper device to clean your tongue (which can be found online or at the pharmacy). Rinsing your mouth afterward with coconut oil helps eliminate the acidity, cleans even better, and has a good taste and smell; for a continued good start, I would recommend drinking a glass of warm water and lemon juice that has a high alkaline PH
Brush your body 10 minutes after waking up (a big natural brush that can be found in body shops). These will gently remove the dead cells eliminated during the night from your body and allow the skin to breathe better, regenerate and have an optimal release of toxins. Take a shower afterward.
Exercise to increase your muscle mass and help the body become more alkaline. Practice love and a positive mindset as they are both alkaline as well 🙂
In addition to daily movement, meditation as a routine is a great tool to manage the rumbling mind and balance overall wellbeing

blueberries-savvy-nutrition

Most of the things our bodies need can be made from natural products with no additives or chemicals. Even toothpaste can be done from mint, coconut oil, and soda with no aluminum; or sunscreen for example from carrot juice and coconut oil. It’s a matter of lifestyle and caring for yourself.

Always ask your body how it feels after ingesting different things and make observations on what works for you. If you have pain, feel tired, and have low energy after eating or drinking, then something is not working well for you, you may need to read, learn or observe more about it.

The more you practice the 7 steps of Savvy Nutrition, the more you look and feel way better!

Perfectly Paired: Exploring Chianti Food Combinations

Chianti Food Pairings

Italy is synonymous with good food and good wine. No matter what region you’re traveling in, you’ll find some of the finest cuisines and wines known to man and a local population who are passionate and knowledgeable about both. The delicate combinations that the food and drink can produce can truly be a revelation for visitors to the country. When paired, remarkable things can happen on your palate.

This dedication to sensuous pleasures is perhaps nowhere truer than in the region of Tuscany, and within that region nowhere outdoes Chianti. Chianti Food Pairings menus that incorporate the wines and food of Chianti can pretty much do no wrong!

What is a Chianti Food Pairing?

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, chefs and sommeliers can work wonders with your taste buds by creating a combination menu that takes the finest reds, whites, and rosés and matches them with food that has just the right flavor combination to wow you. Chianti food pairings is likely to be perfect for those who enjoy the classic hearty flavors of Italy, as the wines of this region (for which they are named) go perfectly with these types of dishes. Below are some of the very best combinations of wine and foods that you can enjoy on a tour of the region.

Roast Meats

Roast meat, such as lamb, is a classic combination that you will see on many a Chianti food pairing menu, and it works. The wine can hold its own against the strong, punchy flavors of roast meat. Giving the meat a generous rubbing with spice and herbs works well as the wine of the region is so robust.

Lasagna

The red sauce of lasagna is perhaps the most widely known and appreciated pairing for the wine of this region. Chianti Classico, with its higher percentage of Sangiovese grapes, is the one to go for in nearly all cases, although the other versions are very nice in themselves. The carbohydrate-dense, rich sauce and heavy meats of this dish can make finding a wine to match quite tricky, but Classico, with its freshness and acidity, acts almost as a palate cleanser between bites – making each mouthful feel like the first.

Chianti Food Pairings

Chicken Parmesan

The trouble with chicken parmesan can be that it sometimes just feels too much. It’s a rich mixture of breaded chicken, strong cheese, and deep red tomato sauce. The subtle flavor of the meat can easily be lost.

Thankfully, Chianti Classico does a great job of bringing out every flavor of the meal because of its acidity, so this dish will taste better than ever before.

For your next meal enjoy Chianti Food Pairings – and enjoy food !

May all your wishes come true. Happy holidays!

Mental Health in the Youth: A Growing Concern

Mental Health in Youths

Something that we should keep an eye on in these crazy times. Mental health in youths is not just something important, adults have to pay more attention to and work on, it is also something teens and youths can struggle with. It is also not just the absence of a mental illness; it is also about having the tools to deal with setbacks and challenges life might throw at you.

Having good mental health in youths is just as important as being physically healthy. Just as people exercise, eat well, and lead a healthier lifestyle to achieve good physical well-being, so too are the things you can learn to help with mental well-being self-doubt-mental-health

The added difficulty with youths is that this is a time when they are already moody, experimenting with behavior, developing sexual preferences, changing their appearance, and being influenced by societal expectations and peers.

Often experiments at this age are harmless, but sometimes they are not. When you add to that, stress, family problems, learning problems, anxiety, depression, bullying and so on then it is clear there are some big things going some big things are going on they need help with. Teens turn to self-harm, develop dangerous behavior, and may even display warning signs of suicide.

Rising rates

Not noticing when a youth’s mental health is at risk leads to an increased likelihood of unsafe behavior, self-harming, isolation, academic failure, poor health, drug and alcohol dependency, unsafe sexual habits, unemployment, and more. As the crisis gets worse, not better every year, the rising rates of mental health problems mean we are seeing a staggering number of suicides and suicide attempts. Youth mental health statistics 2022, show more and more youths face mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression and other more serious psychological problems. The issue then is even if teachers, parents, and the community can see it what then can be done to help?

Improving access to mental health in youths support

When you are able to recognize the warning signs of suicide you can take action. This is not just the role of the parents, it is something teachers, counselors, club organizers, employers, and the whole community can help with. Being good role models, offering advice not judging, listening, helping them with self-esteem issues, and making sure there are programs in place and resources available.

Suicide prevention programs, social skills training, violence prevention, conflict resolution, anti-bullying, and so on. Education in schools helps parents to prevent the abuse of drugs and alcohol, promote mental health, and pay attention to the pressure teens have placed on them. With better attention paid to their mental well-being youths can improve their lives, and see a positive impact on how they feel, and on their personal and academic achievements.

Child Psychology & Mind Development

Along with the physical health of your child, it is necessary to care about his psychological health because during childhood a child passes through several mental changes and these changes leave a dark impression on his mind till the younger stage. A child’s psychological development depends basically on the love that he or she will receive from his parents, especially in the first days of his life.

In early childhood, it is necessary to give more & more love as well as affection to your child more love allows it to develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. It should be taught how to eat, walk and talk and how to get the most out of what it learns at school and college.

A child who is treated well in his childhood has more confidence & Children who are not respected and loved acquire serious psychological problems from the beginning of their formation. If you had a sad childhood, you probably have many psychological problems, even if you don’t admit their existence, or if you cannot recognize various behavioral abnormalities in the way you act.

The minds of children are very sharp and are affected easily by all events in the immediate environment. Events that are only trivial or unimportant to adults may leave deep scars or memories in a child’s mind.

Several factors affect the mental development of a child in early childhood:

Memorable physical/bodily sensations
Personal experiences/events that evoked strong emotions of fear, joy, sorrow, etc.
Emotional relationships with friends, teachers, or family members.
Domestic abuse or violence
Sexual molestation or abuse
Accidents or illnesses experienced or observed.
Personal success or failure in school

Several other situations badly affect the mind of a child. At any age, parents need to be aware of the result of their reactions to their children’s learning about emotions. Hence the important thing is that you take notice of your child’s emotional state and take it into account when you react. Acknowledge it in an age-appropriate way first, before you race for a solution. Don’t be shy to ask: ‘So what are you feeling right now?’ or ‘How does that make you feel?’

SPTS USA

If you are looking for support, advice, or information, whether for parents, educators, youths or the community you might want to head to SPTS USA. it is a great resource there to help educators understand what their role is in youth suicide prevention and improved mental health. The quicker we can observe warning signs, and refer students to the right resources the more chance we have of having a positive impact.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.

Learn more

800-273-8255

The Benefits of Eating Raw: A Guide to the…

Raw Food Diet

Raw Food Diet, more and more we hear about how you should think about your eating habits and the impact your eating has on your health and longevity, you may be considering a raw-food diet. While this lifestyle could be quite different from your usual fare, you might find that you thrive on eating mostly raw foods.

What exactly is a raw food diet? In general, it means eating only things that are in a completely natural state. This means foods that have not been processed or cooked. For some folks, this can even include raw meat, though many raw-food advocates do not eat meat, other than perhaps a little sushi.

These tips will help you make the conversion:

List acceptable foods that appeal to you. There are numerous books and websites available with lists of foods that conform to the principles of the diet. You’re likely to find a lot of foods you’ve never considered. Make a long list so you can provide yourself with a wide variety of foods and flavors!
Go shopping. Budgeting accurately may be challenging at first. While much of the food you’re likely to buy won’t be expensive, there will be a lot of it. Most raw foods don’t offer a lot of calories; you’ll be surprised how much you might need to eat.

sushi-raw-diet

Avoid over-shopping, though; many foods won’t last as long as many processed foods.

Start slowly. If you’re not used to eating a lot of fruit, getting carried away might cause more than a little gastric upset. Introduce the raw foods slowly. Substitute a raw food item at each meal for something you didn’t typically eat raw. Continue adding foods over a week or two, until you’re 100% raw.
Throw out your processed foods. One way to be almost certain to fall off the wagon is to have other food readily available. We all have moments of weakness, so prepare for yours. Friends, family, and food banks will likely take what you no longer want to eat.

If you have others in the house who won’t be eating raw, at least try to get rid of the items you’ll find most tempting.

Take a good multivitamin. Certain nutrients may be unavailable with a raw vegan diet, and Vitamin B-12 is the classic example. Even if you’re not eating vegan and you usually scoff at manufactured supplements, talk to your doctor before you dismiss the idea.

Remember to get enough protein. Protein is another major nutrient you might lack if you’re not careful. Eating balanced meals is just as important as ever.
Keep adjusting until your diet is right for you. Assess how you feel. Are you losing weight? Are you losing too much weight? Are there other foods you’d like to try? Are there foods you’d like to eliminate?
Give raw foods for at least 30 days. If you can go 30 days without cheating, you should have an excellent idea of whether or not a raw-food diet is something that you want to continue. Any foods eaten outside of the diet will tend to interfere with an accurate assessment.

raw-diet-fruits

If a raw-food lifestyle is something you want to try, give the above steps a shot. Changing dietary habits is frequently a challenge; our bodies and minds get used to certain foods. Expect some challenging times over your first 30 to 60 days.

However, keep in mind that medical data indicates that our dietary choices have a huge impact on our health. Maybe a raw-food diet is an answer for you. Try a green smoothie, it’s a source of raw and healthy food you can consume daily.

Don’t forget about a raw diet for your pets if you have them.

Another study found that vegetarians have higher levels of “natural killer cells” – special white blood cells that attack cancer cells – in their bloodstreams.

The proteins in legumes and grains, however, may be low in one or more of the amino acids, but because legumes and grains contain some amino acids, eating a variety of these foods throughout the day will provide the proper balance.

However, vegetarians have the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, which the body needs to make red blood cells. It’s only found in animal foods. People who don’t get enough vitamin B12 feel weak and tired.

You can get plenty of vitamin B12 by eating foods that are fortified with this nutrient, such as fortified cereals, or/and you can take B12 supplements.

Through the years I have had the chance to coach many professionals and one thing I can tell you without reservation is the ideal players were all mentally tough. It’s a tough concept to describe until you see it, but it’s apparent when you see a player which has it.

Defining Mental Toughness

Mental toughness is having the psychological advantage that enables someone to perform at peak maximum effort and efficiency throughout the demands which are put on them during training, practice, or competition. Specifically, once the demands are greatest or even the conditions become adverse.

Better self-esteem – Performance anxiety management – Emotional control – Positive thinking – Better focus – Better self-assurance – The capability to manage challenges and obstacles better.

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Parents are quick to blame the teacher for problems in class or perhaps a coach once the child will not be excelling in an activity. Mental toughness is unable to be developed properly when blaming others. The contrary is the situation.

Avocados

If you have doubts about the fact that a food that contains so much fat could be good for you, ask a dietitian. He will tell you that adding some avocado to your diet, could improve your health.

Louisiana’s Gumbo Recipe

Louisiana Gumbo is said to be one of the greatest additions to American cooking. It is a stew or soup and its origin is said to be from the French when they began with the bouillabaisse in the 18th century. Then later the file’ powder of the Choctaw’ along with seafood was a welcome addition.

The recipe that has been given below is the Tennessee version of the Chicken and Ham Gumbo with a slight twist to it.

How to Store:

Healthy Heart Secrets

Healthy Heart, from the time when the fruits of fermentation were discovered, wine has been a welcome health guest. Not only at dinner tables but also at weddings, religious rituals, and even in doctors’ offices.

Not so long ago, however, scientists began to investigate the actual health benefits of drinking wine. And the findings they’ve uncorked are enough to make any wine lover raise his glass and say “Salut!”

According to research, the reason is that ethanol, or alcohol, in spirited drinks raises levels of good cholesterol, heart-protecting high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Beer and other alcoholic drinks have some benefits, but wine is the only one with health-promoting polyphenols.

Three of the most heart-healthy wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Syrah, and Merlot.

Business Coach, a Mentor, or a Consultant

Whether you want to expand your small business to another country, kick-start your career as an entrepreneur or hone your marketing skills, you may be looking for some outside support. If you look at top business achievers, you will find one common denominator: They didn’t do it all alone.

High-performing entrepreneurs and small business owners know that if they want to truly excel, they need guidance and support. But what’s best for your professional development? a coach? a mentor? a consultant? How do you even begin to choose?

According to Ancient Roman healers, breast cancer could be cured by rubbing on pastes made from cabbage. Not long ago, modern scientists would have considered this practice as Folklore, but now they are not so sure.

Jon Michnovicz, president of the Foundation for Preventive Oncology in New York City says: “Studies have shown that if you make cabbage into a paste and rub it on the backs of laboratory animals, you can prevent the development of Tumors.

Across the world, governments and populations alike are encountering the same challenges – namely, how to treat the coronavirus and prevent its spread.

It’s no strange coincidence that many of the fish-eating populations located within the Arctic regions of the world have experienced fewer occurrences of heart disease.

This is primarily because seafood their main dietary food which is highly recognized for its high concentration in omega-3 fatty acids is widely renowned for not only lowering the cholesterol levels of the blood within the body but additionally for protecting the heart from diseases.

Research into the benefits of seafood discovered that individuals who consumed an extra portion of fish each week were found to lower their risk of heart disease by more than fifty percent.

Healthy for Life

If people would realize how many health benefits exercise can offer, there would be no hesitation in getting started with some form of exercise.

Especially older folks are harder to get motivated because they think the exercise will cause an injury. On the contrary, exercise will keep their overall fitness level and muscle strength in optimal form. It’s a matter of choosing the right form of exercise.

If you have ever exercised in a gym, you have probably used dumbbells to do strength training. You may have dumbbells set laying around your home.

Final Words

Regardless of the level, you are in your fitness journey, you should keep dumbbells a part of it. Not just they are easy to store and use, but dumbbells are comparatively cheap and because they are versatile, they can be used for a wide range of exercises.

Considering all these dumbbells can be a wise investment for your fitness goals.

Here are 13 key reasons why someone is so tired all the time and when to seek help:

Khalyla the Labradoodle

Labradoodles are wonderful family dogs. They are great for first-time pet owners. They are friendly, and intelligent, and do well with children and other dogs. They are easy to train, easy to care and make good watchdogs.

Regardless of how bad your day has been, your best friend, your dog will be sure to cheer you up. Remember, only those who have love, passion, time, and dedication to care for pets should own pets.

Pets are not something that should be bought or adopted one day and forgotten the next.

Break a Negative Habit One Day at a Time

Unless you’re perfect, you probably have a habit that drives you or others nuts. The conflicting nature of bad habits makes them difficult to overcome. What is your bad habit?

Typically, the top bad habits we indulge in are eating unhealthy foods, smoking, using chewing tobacco, lying on the sofa instead of exercising, and nail-biting.

Thanks to Don Lewis for this helpful wisdom. Check out his site https://bildalist.bilderprofit.com

Know Deep Fulfillment

It is in the surrender to something beyond what we can see, feel or touch that all we had hoped for will manifest.

7 steps of Savvy Nutrition, 14 tips of Balanced Body

Cheese is also not necessarily good and comes down to common sense. Besides the fact that it consists of milk, it may also contain mushrooms (like yeast) or other bacteria. Goat milk and cheese are a better replacement as their DNA is closer to the human one.

Always ask your body how it feels after ingesting different things and make observations on what works for you. If you have pain, feel tired, and have low energy after eating or drinking, then something is not working well for you, you may need to read, learn or observe more about it.

The more you practice the 7 steps of Savvy Nutrition, the more you look and feel way better!

Chianti Food Pairings

This dedication to sensuous pleasures is perhaps nowhere truer than in the region of Tuscany, and within that region nowhere outdoes Chianti. Chianti Food Pairings menus that incorporate the wines and food of Chianti can pretty much do no wrong!

Mental Health in Youths

Rising rates

Child Psychology & Mind Development

Raw Food Diet

Avoid over-shopping, though; many foods won’t last as long as many processed foods.

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