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Category: Health & Fitness

TV or Exercise? Why Not Do Both?

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

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You’re sat on the sofa after a hard day’s work and you know you should be out there jogging or using up your gym membership. But what about all those TV shows you need to catch up on? Many of us will often choose the box over exercise. But why can’t we do both? There are many forms of exercise that can be done in a living room in front of the TV. Here are just a few ways that we could all be getting our fix of physical activity whilst getting up to speed on the latest series.

Buy exercise equipment for your living room

Many types of exercise equipment can be used in a living room. Dumbbells, resistance bands and medicine balls take up hardly any space at all both to store and to use. There are then those more bulky exercise machines such as treadmills and exercise bikes. Exercise bikes in particular allow you to sit down as if you were watching TV and take up very little space (some can even be folded away). Read exercise bike reviews online to find the best one for your living space. You could aim to keep on a certain speed for the entirety of a show or vary it up with each ad break.

Use the couch as an exercise tool

Your sofa can be used to perform many exercises. Tricep dips can allow you to still watch the screen. You could also try elevated press ups with your feet on the sofa and your hands on the floor whilst facing towards the screen.

Do squats and lunges 

Squats and lunges are great for toning up your legs and butt and require only a small space of floor. You can easily do these exercises whilst watching the TV. You could also do squats and lungs with equipment such as dumbbells or a medicine ball, allowing you to work on your upper body strength simultaneously.

Consider static exercises

Some static exercises can be done whilst watching TV. The plank is a great core workout for improving your abs that requires you to lift up onto your feet and elbows – you can do this whilst staring ahead at your favourite show. You can also switch this up and do the superman exercise which involves laying on your stomach and lifting your lower body and chest off the floor.

Use commercial breaks for HIIT training

If you find exercise too distracting whilst you watch TV, why not make use of those annoying ad breaks? These can be the perfect time to squeeze in some high intensity interval training. Exercises could include press ups, sit-ups, weight exercises, squats, lunges – whatever you can think of. Make sure that it’s hard to get the most benefit out of this form of exercise. You can then use the time in which the show is on to recuperate with a slower form of exercise that doesn’t take away your concentration.

 

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.

 

 

 

Do You Know How To Act When You’ve Been Wronged?

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-alone-anxious-black-and-white-568027/

Unfortunately for most of us, life doesn’t always go as swimmingly as we’d once of hoped. Life does come with its ups, of course, but we also have downs. And sometimes, those downs start to take over your life. Whether it’s something that’s affecting your health, your livelihood, or just putting you out of sorts, you have to be able to do something about the way you’re feeling, especially if it’s not your fault. You will find that you’ll be wronged at least once in life. But the important factor is, not to dwell on it if you can help it. Instead, you need to know how to take action.

Lied To By A Friend

First of all, let’s tackle something sensible but not completely soul destroying. Being lied to can hurt. It’s definitely one of the wrongs that most have of us have had to deal with. Whether you find yourself being lied to by a friend, family member, or even a partner, it’s important that you know how to act. Firstly, you’re going to want to confront them, but in a non-threatening manner. If you’re ever going to accept the situation that you’re now in, it’s important that you can clear the air and move forwards, or put that relationship in the past.

Defrauded Financially

Next up, something a bit more serious. Having fraud committed against you can be a really stressful situation. Not only can it make you anxious, but it can also set you back in life. Whether you’ve been scammed online, or you’ve had your card cloned and money withdrawn from your bank account, you need to act. Speak to your financial provider to see if they can retrieve the money. Going forwards, you need to take more precautions with your finances, and even spread money between accounts.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-alone-black-and-white-dark-551588/

Hurt In Public

And what about being injured? By now, you’re probably more than aware that you can start a lawsuit for moments like this. So you’re going to need to speak to an expert in the field, such as Patino Law Firm personal injury attorneys, that can take on the case for you. Because you may need the funds to finance your medical care, and to pay your bills if you’re unable to work.

Cheated Out Of What’s Rightfully Yours

Then, there are the times that you’ve been cheated out of something that’s rightfully yours. This is the kind of wrongdoing that you’re either going to have to investigate yourself, like when a colleague takes credit for your work and lands the promotion, or hire a law firm for, such as land or an inheritance that has been taken out from under you.

Attacked Or Victimized

And frighteningly so, it is entirely possible that you could be attacked at some point in your life, or even victimized. When this is the case, you need to speak to the police. Or another professional body that can assist you, depending on the incident and where it took place. But the important thing is that you speak up, as keeping things to yourself will not bring justice down on those who deserve it.

 

 

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.

 

 

When Work Makes You Sick: What Next?

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

The work you do is meant to enrich your life. It gives you a focus, and of course is the way you generate the income that you need to provide for your family. Work, on the whole, is something that can be a force for tremendous good in your life.

However, there is a potential downside; the threat of work-related illnesses. Below, you can explore some of the most common questions that relate to the idea of work causing harm to your health. If you suspect you — or someone you know — might have been affected, there’s also some valuable advice on next steps.

What Illnesses Are Caused By Working Environments?

  • Mental health conditions
  • Repetitive Strain Injury
  • Mesothelioma, due to asbestos exposure
  • Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

The above are the most common, but realistically, any work could have an impact on your health. If you suspect that work is involved in your misfortune, then you’ll need to look deeper into the matter. The four mentioned might be the most common, but they’re far from the only health issues a bad working environment can cause.

How Do I Know It’s Specifically Work That Caused My Problem?

Some conditions are easier to trace to work-related sources, as the conditions required for the illness are unlikely to exist outside of working environments. It’s easier to obtain Mesothelioma help or Noise-Induced Hearing Loss assistance than it is for RSI or mental health conditions. With Mesothelioma or hearing loss, the issues that cause these are very obviously related to employment; few people will have experienced asbestos or extensive volumes in their personal lives. The same cannot be said for RSI or mental health conditions.

So if you have worked with asbestos or around high volume without adequate ear protection, Occam’s Razor dictates that it will be your working environment that has caused the issue. For mental health problems or RSI, it’s worth thinking through your personal life and seeing if there are any obvious causes. That’s not to say work isn’t the cause of these issues, but just that the matter requires a little more inspection before you pursue the idea.

 Do I Have To Tell My Employer? 

Yes. It is only right to inform your employer if you suspect something you are doing at work is causing health issues.

Do I Have The Right To Time Off Work? 

If you have been made unwell for any reason then you should have time off work if needed. However, few companies have a specific dispensation for extra sickness leave solely due to work-related illness. You will need to talk to your employer about this.

Can I Sue?

It’s impossible to answer this without being sure of your individual situation. The best thing to do is to speak to a lawyer and see if they believe you have a case.

In Conclusion

If you think your work is making you unwell, then don’t ignore the matter. Speak to your employer and a doctor to see what they say. There might be changes or assistance that can be put in place, or you might have a legal case to help pay associated health costs. Don’t just ignore the problem; work is meant to be a method to earn money, and you don’t have to just accept ill health as a part of that deal.

[image Credit]

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.

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