Tag: Health Blogger

Work A High-Stress Career? Look After Yourself First

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

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Working a high-stress career is simply a must for many people trying to achieve their goals and pursue the life they want. There are almost more high-stress careers than there are low-stress, and so it’s important to tailor yourself to the job market so you can work the roles you truly want. For example, a great chef will only become great if they’re willing to suffer the long hours and hardships of the kitchen. A construction worker will need to become adapted to the rugged physicality of the job, as well as mitigating the overstimulation of the nearby machinery.

High-stress jobs are simply a factor of the working world, as they always have been dating back to antiquity. For these reasons, it’s important to take care of yourself to keep resilient and active in the direction you most want to pursue. We’d like to offer you some health tips for achieving this.

Medical

You must make sure you are well protected during your workplace activities. It shouldn’t take a H+S officer to give you the motivation to read through the safety policy at your firm. Knowing this could potentially give you life-saving information. At the very least, making sure you are well protected regarding the role you play can help.

If you’re on your feet for multiple hours a day, wearing soft crocs or supportive shoes can help your feet health and your alertness over the course of the day. Making sure you mitigate the effects of workplace trauma can help too, for example, tinnitus treatment can help you mitigate the effects of noisy environments, or become active to work again after an injury. Making sure your skin is protected in toxic environments and constantly assessing your breathing environment will give you and even more complete view of safety in the workplace.

Unwind

Giving yourself time to unwind from a stressful day will help you loosen some of the tightness you feel after a hard working period. It’s important that you give yourself this time, where you allow yourself to think about nothing in particular. For some people, this involves resting in front of the television, or consuming video games as a hobby. While these can be beneficial, and it’s more than your right to achieve this, there are better hobbies to help you.

Meditating can help you become more focused in your daily life, and actually de-emphasises the part of your brain responsible for stress. A simply crafting hobby can help you meditate physically, and creative expression is often the best way to de-stress. Reading a great book can help distract you in a completely different world, coming back to your life with added rejuvenation. These tips can help you overcome the difficulty of your daily schedule, and approach it with added caution and ability.

With these tips, your high-stress career will come second to your health, just the way it should be.

 

 

 

Fighting Fit: Staying Healthy At Work, And For Work

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

It’s a real fight sometimes staying fit and healthy at work. However, it’s definitely worth doing, and this is for two reasons. The first is that no job is worth sacrificing your health for. After all, it’s really the only thing we have when you take all the trappings of life away. The second is that poor health can endanger your job. Leading to excessive time off sick and even resulting in you no longer being able to work and support your family. With this in mind read on for some advice on how to stay healthy at work, and for work.

Look at your work environment

The first thing you do to keep healthy at work is to look at the environment that you work in. Is it conducive to health and wellbeing? If not, what can you then do, or ask your employers to do to improve it?

It may be that you work in a shop or restaurant and are on your feet all day so you can decide to swap from heel shoes to flats. Something that will put less strain on your back and knees. You may work in an environment where the risk of infection is high, such as a hospital or public building. In this case why not ask your employers to provide hand sanitizer, and items like automatic doors, that can reduce the risk of infection? If you work in an office environment and are indoors all day, you may choose to start taking your breaks outside. This can help you stay healthier because you can access natural light that helps your body to create D vitamins, as well as getting a break from your desk.

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Just remember whether it is a change that you or your employer makes your environment can have a big impact on your health.

Use work health benefits

Next, a good way of staying fighting fit at and for work is to use the health benefits that your company provides. They may offer a free or reduced-priced gym membership. They may even be generous enough to provide health insurance. Although it is always worth asking what is covered by your policy, as not all grant access to eye health services as well as medical help. If this is the case with yours ask to add vision to your business insurance plan that your employer provides. They may even offer to pay for this for you, especially if you can prove that your eye health is vital to your job.

Manage your stress

Next, to stay fighting fit for work, it’s absolutely essential that you acknowledge and deal with stress. Just pretending that it isn’t affecting you will not stop it having a negative impact. Instead, you need to find constructive ways of dealing with it, ones that you can use while you are at work.

To this end, consider short guided meditations at your desk, taking breaks outside of the office, or even using a stress relief app like the ones here to help you manage any negative feelings. This will then help to stop them building up and causing more major health problems later on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does A Healthy Body Really Equals A Healthy Mind?

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

There’s a common saying that having a healthy body means having a healthy mind, and while some people believe this, others aren’t so sure. Is mental and physical health that closely linked or is it just a myth? Well, that depends on who you ask, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests that our physical health has a huge impact on our mental health and vice versa.

The ancient Greeks, one of the most advanced civilizations during their time, understood the importance of taking care of your mental health as well as your physical health, which could be why their civilization thrived. ‘Sound mind in a sound body’ was the credo of their civilization, and it worked wonders. It’s clear that in the past a healthy body equalled a healthy mind, but what about today?

Photo from Pexels

It’s time to explore whether, in modern day life, a healthy body equals a healthy mind. For everything that you need to know, read on.

Regular exercise reduces stress

It’s no secret that exercise is good for our bodies, but what about our minds. Various studies have shown that regular exercise can help to relieve stress because working out acts as an outlet for stress and worry. While activities like running, cycling and swimming can be great stress relievers, meditation-based exercise can also work wonders. Take pilates and yoga, for instance, these two activities are made to reduce stress while toning and conditioning the body and its muscles. It’s amazing how you can put on some yoga clothes, grab a mat, and begin to practice this ancient form of exercise, and instantly start to feel happier and less stressed. A bonus of which is that the less stressed you are, the less likely you are to fall foul of anxiety or depression.

Being healthy boosts self-esteem

Did you know that it is scientifically proven that being healthy boosts self-esteem? When you are regularly active and take steps to feed your body with healthy foods, you feel better for it, which then helps to boost your confidence. Being healthy can help to foster your sense of self-worth and boost your strength and power. By meeting your health and fitness goals, you will begin to feel better about your appearance.

People who are more active, sleep better

Obviously, the more active you are, the better you sleep. But what you may not know is that a lack of sleep is linked to many mental health problems, such as depression, post-natal psychosis and post-natal depression, and anxiety. By regulating your sleep patterns, you can help to ensure that you get plenty of sleep, and thus you are mentally healthier. Referring to your physical health, when you don’t get enough sleep, your body sufferers as a result, with your immune system being impacted the most.

So there you have it, a healthy body does equal a healthy mind, or at least in most instances, it does. Admittedly, there is no way to completely prevent mental health problems from occurring. However, that being said, if your body is healthy, then the chances of developing mental health problems is much lower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepare Your Skin For The Winter Season

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

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You should always take the time out to look after your skin, but now so more than ever because temperatures are changing. It’s been hot and humid which your body has adapted to, but now the cooler days are introducing themselves, so your skin is going to need some time to readapt to the change, so it’s extra important – now more than ever – to look after yourself properly.

Here’s how you can do that.

Change the moisturiser

As winter is coming, the products that you are using now just aren’t going to cut it. In the summer months, your skincare routine will include lightweight lotions, but the colder it gets, the dryer your skin becomes, so it needs more moisture otherwise it will start the crack. So it’s important to stay on top of the task at hand by investing in the right creams to coat your skin and protect it from the cool weather.

Reduce your shower time

It’s clear that hot showers are greatly welcomed in the winter, but believe it or not, they can actually do more harm than good to your skin. The hot water from the showers will cause your skin to dry out even more which can leave you feeling very irritated and sore. So although you don’t need to suffer by taking a cold water shower, it’d be wise to just shorten the length of time you bathe.

Focus on sensitive areas

It’s very ordinary to have some areas that are affected more than others. A common place is the lips and around the nose, and in that case, they will require a little more attention. In order to solve this problem, you will want to apply a moisturising lip balm on your lips to prevent them from cracking, and keep reapplying your usual moisturising lotion on any other areas to keep them soft.

Exfoliate

Exfoliating is a way of removing any dead skin that you have that is clogging your pores and clinging to you when it doesn’t need to be. It removes the dead cells while leaving your skin feeling silky smooth. There are many other techniques out there which claim to do this in a different way – you can find more ideas on sites like Exfoliate.com, along with personal advice and reviews on the various approaches.

Keep yourself healthy

Although you’re paying attention to the outside of your body, you should also make a conscious effort to take care of the inside, as it’s all connected and will make a big difference in your results if everything works together. This means maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle to keep your appearance looking good, all while feeling great.

Stay hydrated

Water, water, water. You can never have enough of it. It’s what keeps the fluids pumping and your skin glowing – even in the winter. When you hear people complimenting one another on how radiant they’re looking, you’ll find that that is down to how well hydrated they keep themselves – look on homemadeforelle.com to find out more. So always keep a bottle of water on you so you can top it up throughout the day.

 

 

Eat Yourself Happy: Foods Scientifically Proven To Beat The Winter Blues

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Image by Max Pixel

In case you haven’t noticed, the summer is well and truly gone and with the turning of the leaves and the graying of the skies, something more insidious is creeping in with the longer nights. Many of us find ourselves unaccountably experiencing low mood, depression, lethargy and in some cases increased irritability. As fall sets in and eventually concedes to winter, an increasing number of us start to experience Seasonal Affective disorder (aptly abbreviated to SAD). This can not only sap our mood and make us feel depressed and lethargic (even if objectively our lives are great), but also drain our will to eat healthily and live active lifestyles. It can make us want to oversleep and cause us to crave unhealthy foods, especially starchy refined carbohydrates and sugars, resulting in weight gain which only feeds the cycle of inactivity. “Why bother?” we ask ourselves, before grabbing a candy bar and settling down on the sofa.

If the coming of the fall season makes you want to wrap up in a duvet, grab a bag of potato chips and hibernate then you desperately need a pick me up.

Fortunately, with a little know how, you can chomp the blues away while improving your overall health. But first…

Exercise… It’s non-negotiable

On a dark, cold and drizzly morning, going to the gym or out for a jog is probably the last thing you feel like doing which is exactly why it’s the first thing you should do. The benefits of exercising first thing in the morning are many and various. It can raise your energy levels and mood while leaving you secure in the knowledge that the rest of the day is yours to do as you wish. It can also give your brain a much-needed endorphin boost, raising your mood and also boosting your metabolism.

Even a 20 minute jog is a great way to start the day. If that sounds like a nightmare, give yourself a reason to enjoy your jog. Take your phone and listen to some music, a podcast or an audiobook as you jog. Check out this flipbelt review for an alternative to carrying your phone in your pocket. The last thing you want is to start your day with a dropped and broken phone.

Image by Pixabay

Mood boosting foods

After starting the day with a brisk workout, you’ve earned a delicious breakfast. Now’s the time to capitalize on this natural mood booster and load up on these nutritious mood boosting foods:

  • Avocado- Avocados are full of healthy fats to stabilize your appetite and reduce cravings but they’re also great for balancing your hormones and keeping your serotonin levels
  • Nuts- A great post-workout food, nuts are full of healthy fats, fiber, antioxidants and protein as well as being full of serotonin.
  • Strawberries- They’re tasty, they’re versatile and they’re rich in vitamins and nutrients to facilitate stable brain chemistry.
  • Sesame seeds- Great for sprinkling and snacking, sesame seeds are rich in the amino acid tyrosine which naturally increases the brain’s production of dopamine naturally boosting your mood while also helping your body to assimilate their protein.

 

 

Maximize Each Workout With These Top Tips

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

https://www.pexels.com/photo/fitness-girl-hands-lifestyle-374694/

Working out can be a lot of fun when you get it right. But ensuring that a workout is right for you doesn’t always have to involve technicalities or trends. Instead, you need to ensure that any efforts you make to improve your fitness, get healthier, and generally push yourself when it comes to exercise, are maximized. And although there are some set ways that you can do this, you have to be able to work out how you can make tweaks to your own workout plans to make them more effective. So let’s take a look at some of the things that can help you to do that.

Get Some Sleep

Never underestimate the power of sleep. It’s so easy to let yourself back into unhealthy habits, and not prioritizing your sleep is definitely one of those. Sleep is so essential to everyday life, but also to your workouts. When we sleep, our bodies heal and repair. So if you want to make sure that your body is able to handle your workouts as best as possible, you need to be thinking about getting as much high-quality sleep as possible. And eight hours as a minimum.

Warm Up

When you’re excited to get your workout in, or desperate to fit in what you can in the time you have, it’s tempting to rush through things. But in reality, you need to take it slow if you want your workout to be as effective as possible. And a huge portion of that is going to be down to your warm up. Because when you warm up properly, you can not only ensure that your workout is going to be more effective, but you can get your body ready to perform at its best.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/fitness-girl-person-relaxation-374633/

Stay Hydrated

On the flip side of ensuring that your workouts are as maximized as possible, if them being a bit more of a disaster. And injuries are definitely a huge part of that. However, when you’re able to stay hydrated during your workout, and start off hydrated to, you will be able to not only perform at your best levels, but minimize the risk of injury too.

Refuel

Next, you also need to be super smart with your nutrition. Because what you eat before, during and after your workout is essential to its success. So you need to do your research. Here, you’ll find that Element Fitness recommends what to eat after a workout, but you should also think about what to eat to fuel the workout too. Because what you eat can really influence how well your workout will be.

Stretch It Out

And finally, you’re definitely going to want to think about what you can do before, during, and after your workout to keep your body at its best. And stretching is always great for that. Not only can your body get stronger and avoid injuries, you’ll find that you can recover a lot quicker, especially with post-workout stretches. In turn, your workouts will start to become more effective.

 

 

Improving Your Health As You Get Older

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Aging is the one thing that nobody can avoid. No matter how physically or mentally healthy you may be, we all get old at some point. The best way to make sure you can still enjoy life when you’re old is to work harder to look after yourself as you get older. An aging body already comes with its aches, pains, and more medical issues than you faced when you were younger. You don’t want to make things harder on yourself by doing a poor job of looking after your body.

It’s best to adopt a healthy lifestyle whilst you’re still young, but it’s never ‘too late’ to start making changes to your life so that you can live a little more healthily. If you’re alive and kicking then you still owe it to yourself to look after your body and mind. Here are some pieces of advice to help you improve your standard of health as you get older.

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Physical health.

‘Physical activity’ is just another way of saying exercise, I know. But don’t be too dismissive when it comes to keeping your body active. You don’t want to lift weights at the gym or run marathons and that’s absolutely fine. There aren’t too extremes of the spectrum when it comes to exercising or not exercising. You don’t need to spend hours and hours exercising every day if you don’t want to be incredibly muscular or athletic. The key is just to keep your body physically active on a daily basis.

Moving your body doesn’t just reduce fat surrounding your organs (which is a great health benefit) but it also helps to boost your immune system and help to fight off illnesses; this is something which becomes very important as you get older and your body weakens. Just 30 minutes of light exercise or a brisk 10-minute walk could make a huge difference to the health of your heart, your digestive system, and your ability to sleep well.

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Hearing.

Everything deteriorates slightly as you get older. The vast majority of people notice a gradual decline in their hearing as they age, so you’re not alone if you’ve noticed that you’re frequently asking people to repeat themselves because you misheard what they said. Of course, in the modern age, hearing loss doesn’t have to be a permanent state of affairs. Hearing aids and other modern technology have improved the lives of people both old and young who experience auditory difficulties.

Maybe you’ve been to see a specialist before, but you might want to reconsider your audiologist if you think your hearing still isn’t as good as it could be. There are so many options out there that you shouldn’t “make do” with bad hearing. In fact, it can be dangerous to do so. Many people might counteract the fact that they can’t hear the TV by turning up the volume but, much as it would for people with good hearing, high volumes can do just as much damage to the eardrums of somebody with poor hearing. Don’t try to battle with your ears, and make sure you look into appropriate medical solutions.

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Bad habits.

There are countless studies which indicate that curbing bad health habits can have a huge influence later on in life; in other words, you’ll live longer. Addictions such as smoking or drinking are very hard to kick but it’s much easier to do so when you consider the long-term damage. Perhaps you’re still relatively young and the effects stemming from excessive intake of these drugs have yet to really take hold, but the decline of your health is often something which takes place internally before you really start to see the effects externally. Exercise becomes far easier once you stop smoking or drinking excessively, so a healthy lifestyle becomes far more manageable once you’ve stopped these bad habits. It’s about breaking out of that damaging and unhealthy cycle.

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Mental health.

Finally, let’s talk about the mind. When it comes to living longer, people often say the key is to be happy. Not only is this a nice sentiment, but there’s actually some science behind it. The mind and body are interlinked, so it’s completely accurate to say that a good state of mental health can vastly improve your physical health. Think about the ways in which stress, anxiety, and depression all take hold of the body; you might get blemishes on the skin from stress (even young people get that in the form of acne), you might start greying or balding far more quickly, and you might notice a fluctuation in weight.

These things are just a few of the effects of a poor mental state. That’s why it’s so important to work on a healthy mind if you want to keep your body healthy. Breathing exercises and meditation techniques can really help to center yourself if stress is a big part of your life. It’s about becoming more in tune with your mind and finding ways to switch off now and then.

Healthy For Life: Medical Checks You Need To Be Having as You Age

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

It is inevitable that we are all going to age. But how well we age will be dependant on a number of things. Some things in our life we have inherited and may or may happen as a result. Other things can happen through incidents in our life, or how we treat our body. But there are some things that can occur as we get older than can be dealt with pretty quickly. We just need to be getting them checked in time. So has never been more important to have regular doctor’s appointments as we age. Throughout our life we should aim for at least a yearly physical unless we have any conditions that need to be seen to. But what are some checks we should be having as we get older? Here are a few suggestions. If you have yet to have one of these and are reaching a certain point in your life, then it might be time to schedule an appointment. I hope this helps!

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Hearing Test

Hearing tests should be done from a young age. But unlike eyesight, it doesn’t need to be done too often. Once every five years or so should suffice, as long as you aren’t noticing any problems in the meantime, of course. But as we get older, our hearing can deteriorate quite quickly. So more often than not is recommended for hearing tests. But don’t worry, if there are any issues, it can be easily dealt with. Just take a look at a site like hearingaidbuyertoday.com, and you’ll see the variety of hearing aids that are available. There are many that look like you’re not even wearing one, so you don’t have to make it obvious, if that is something that you’re worried about.

Eye Tests

Throughout our lives, our eyes should be tested around every two years. Again, this should be done sooner if you are noticing problems with the quality of your vision. The number of people, especially women, that wear glasses later in their lives is quite high. So you might want to consider having eye tests annually, rather than every two years. Having good vision can impact your health and life in general greatly, so it is worth looking into.

Stepping on the Scales

Knowing how much we weigh is important for weight maintenance. As we get older, our metabolism can slow down; we tend to be a little less active than we have been before, so weight gain can be quite likely if we’re not careful. So keep an eye on how much you weigh. Being overweight can lead to many issues later in life, but being a reasonable weight can reduce your chances quite significantly.

Cholesterol Testing

Do you know what levels of cholesterol are in your blood? It isn’t something that we tend to know. But having it checked every so often can be really important for our overall health. If you have high cholesterol, it can lead to problems with your heart, and even problems with your blood pressure. So having it checked regularly is important. This can be done with your doctor, especially if you are concerned about it or are overweight. Then you can adjust your lifestyle accordingly, to help improve the results.

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Blood Pressure

Similar to cholesterol levels, our blood pressure can have a big impact on our health, but it isn’t something that we get checked all that often. Untreated high blood pressure can be a killer, as it can lead to things like heart attacks or stroke. So don’t let it sneak up on you. You could check out symptoms at webmd.com if you’re unsure. Get your blood pressure checked regularly and then you can make some changes, as well as take prescribed medication, to help with it.

Mammogram

For women over a certain age, and some men, a mammogram regularly is a great way to detect something like breast cancer before it happens. As well as an annual check, you should look for changes in your body, especially your breasts, and have any changes checked. Yes, it isn’t ideal and can be uncomfortable. But staying on top of it all will help you to deal with anything that might arise, prolonging your health and your life.

Checking Shots

Things like the flu vaccine are available for many of us, especially when the winter months roll around. So if you think you would like one or want to know about it, then speak to your doctor. It can be a lifesaver in winter months when the flu is doing the rounds!

 

 

5 Ways to Manage Arthritis Pain

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

As anybody with the condition will tell you, there are few things more difficult or painful than living with arthritis. Unfortunately, there’ll be much more people who will be able to inform the rest of us how painful the condition is; the number of people living with arthritis is rising all the time, to the tune of some one million more people each year in the United States. In all, there are around 350 million people with arthritis across the world, including millions of children. Below, we take a look at five ways to manage arthritis pain.

Source: Pixabay.com

Hit the Gym

Exercise is one of the things that offer nothing but good things; it’ll relieve pain, improve your all round health, and will not negatively affect your joints. Sounds good to us! Benefits include strengthening the muscles around your joints, giving you an energy boost for when your pain is draining your motivation, improve and maintain your bone strength, and, importantly, help you control your weight; this is particularly crucial because excess weight can put pressure on our bodies.

Use Cold Treatments

Cold treatments are a highly effective way to manage an arthritis flare up. When you’re suffering from arthritis pain, apply a cold pack to the affected spot; it’ll soothe the pain. If your pain is more acute, look at using the new methods of cold treatments that are available. A whole body cryotherapy session like those offered by Cryology has been shown to reduce arthritis pain dramatically. It’s like an extreme cold pack (temperatures reach as low as -160c) that those who have arthritis say works wonders for their pain relief.

Live Stress-Free

When we’re stressed, our muscles seize up. And when our muscles seize up, we’re more likely to suffer from an arthritis attack. Ergo, if you want to reduce the chances of a flare up, then you need to get enough relaxing activities into your life that’ll allow you to live without stress. Of course, what exactly this is will depend on the individual, but there are some activities, such as meditation, reading, and unwinding outdoors, that have been shown to be beneficial to all people.

Try Tai Chi

You might not think that a martial arts activity that developed in 13th century China could help with arthritis, but that’s just what Tai Chi does. Because it’s a low impact activity, it could be performed by people of any age. Benefits of Tai Chi include improved posture, greater balance, increase muscle strength, and an all around improve general mobility. It’s also fun and can be used as a stress reducer.

Eat the Right Foods

Having an overall healthy diet is important when combating arthritis, but there are also specific foods that can help relieve symptoms of the condition, too. If you’re looking for a go-to meal, make it a dish of fish like salmon or mackerel (fish high in Omega-3), with a side of broccoli and brussels sprouts, and add a dessert of tart cherries; your joints will thank you for it.

 

Safeguarding Your Health The Smart Way

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Safeguarding your health is absolutely crucial, especially for those who aren’t exactly getting younger! That being said, the younger you are when you start, the better. Here are some smart ways to look after your health for a great quality of life:

Live A More Balanced Lifestyle

Some people think to protect their health, that they need to eat clean, exercise every day, and do every little thing they can. While this level of commitment is admirable, it isn’t necessary. It’s much better to live a balanced lifestyle, with the odd glass of wine and food with friends. Make smart choices 90% of the time and have fun. When you have fun, studies say you will live longer!

Track Your Health

Fitness trackers are a brilliant way of measuring how fit you really are. There are plenty of brands around today, so it depends on the sort of look and features you think will be best for you. Just some of the features you can enjoy include sleep tracking, finding out your cardio fitness level, comparing yourself against similar people in your demographic, your heartrate, and more. You can really improve these way!

Invest In Lifesaving Equipment

Did you know that mature adults are more at risk of suffering from cardiac arrest than other people? Anybody can suffer at any time, but there are ways that it can be prevented. Equipment is becoming more advanced, and having some of it in the workplace or at home could really prevent the worst from taking place. The infographic below can give more information.


By Foremost Equipment