90 Seconds

I love articles that provide fast, easy ways to do something good for yourself. Nowadays, everyone is so busy with our hectic lifestyles that it's often difficult to take care of ourselves in the ways that we should. This article shows some really cool ways to improve your health in just a few seconds a day:

• Fight Cancer: Eat the peel - where most of the vitamins and minerals from fruits and veggies are found
• Slow Aging: Sniff some Lavender or Rosemary - lowers your stress levels and allows for a better night's sleep
• Cut Cholesterol: Sprinkle some pistachios on your salad - the benefits of nuts can be found in a past post of mine
• Keep your Vision Sharp: Eat an egg - shown to have more visual benefits than carrots
• Prevent Headaches: Keep your head up - posture has actually been shown to increase headaches.

There are a abunch more, but I fel that these were the coolest ones to include!

Curb Your Hunger

So I love MSN's Power Points on various health issues, as they are a simple way of breaking down different strategies that might otherwise seem complicated or hard to remember. This past one I've noticed involves how to curb your appetite, which I feel is more important now, considering how much we as a nation tend to snnack int he winter time.

Step 1: Pile on the Protein: Protein shakes and even smaller snacks such as nuts give the body the adequate amount of fiber to make us feel fuller, longer. For this reason, don't skip out on this important area of nutrition just because you may feel like fat is bad. Some fats are essential to the body, and they provide the adequate vitamins needed to make us look and feel healthy.

Step 2: Fill up on Fiber: Like I said before, fiber has the great benefit of making you feel fuller, longer, not to mention that it keeps you regular! Stick to the veggies and whole grains.

Step 3: Go Nuts!: And I quote from the article:

A hormone called ghrelin stimulates appetite and makes your stomach growl, says Mehmet Oz, MD, vice chair of surgery and professor of cardiac surgery at Columbia University and co-author of You on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management. But just a handful of nuts can cause ghrelin levels to take a dive.

Calorically, the most dangerous part of a meal eaten out is the first 10 minutes when you arrive, famished, and clean out the breadbasket, says Oz. "If you eat a few nuts 30 minutes before dinner, your hunger will drop off dramatically," he says. "By the time you sit down for the meal, you'll be able to slow down, enjoy the food, and stop before you're stuffed."

Step 4: Take a Brisk Walk: A lot of times, you feel hungry even when you're not. This can be attributed to the fact that your body has a difficult time telling the difference between extreme hunger and axtreme fatigue. Taking a walk can help you to relax and understand if you are really hungry at all. Maybe you're just exhausted or stressed, causing your body to think that food is what it needs instead of, say a good night's rest or some excercise.

Step 5: Keep your Hands Busy: As an avid knitter, I can attest to this one. When you're working on a project that involves working with your hands, whether it be crafts or even writing a paper, you don't have time to worry about snacking. Most of the time, we eat out of boredom, a terrible habit to give in to. So take up a hobby or get ahead on your schoolwork and drop some pounds at the same time.

Step 6: Soothe Your Taste Buds: Many times, your mouth just wants the taste of something, and often a minnt or some gum will do the trick, so start off slow, and think about why you are hungry rather than just leaping for the chocolate.

Boys as an Endangeered Species

No, I'm not making any threats here. In a recent article, Francesca Lyman produced what is appearing to be a small crisis: the lack of baby boys being born. Whereas in the past males tended to be produced more, in some areas of the world, the ratio of males to females is so skewed, some people are wondering what is causing this change.

I discussed in an earlier post about the rise of conditions such as allergies, asthma and autism, and it is thought that environmental pollutants can be the cause of all of these afflictions, the endangered male included.

However, several people are attributing these problems to lifestyle changes, most notably the rise in the age of parents nowadays. True enough, education and career development has put baby-making on the back burner for many couples, causing them to start families at an older age, which can lead to higher birth complications, but it is only one in a line of possible causes that links all of these problems associated with children now.

Sounds Fishy...

In a recent article from msn health, scientists are now trying to prove that foods such as fish and yogurt can be passed off as "smart foods." The article confused me a bit, as there was no hard scientific explanation as to this new "discovery," but the general idea sounds about right.

My mother always told me that fish were good for me, and while I figured that was just because we were from the Gulf of Mexico and seafood was readily available, it has been proven that high levels of DHA are found in fish.

DHA, a chemical that provides much of the cell membranes in our brains can be found in other foods such as soy milk, eggs and yogurt. And even though I will not disagree that these foods provide tremendous health benefits, I'm gonna need a little more information before signing up for Jeopardy after a salmon-binge.

Where's the food?

In this article, the author discusses the benefits of eating real food, as opposed to all of that fake food we're seeing in the grocery stores nowadays. No I'm not talking about the play house plastic apples, but rather nutrition bars and protein shakes that we're becoming accustomed to. She gives six rules to live by when looking for healthy meals:

1. Eat seeds or foods made from seeds
2. Eat five different colored fruits and veggies daily
3. Eat plant foods with their skins intact.
4. Drink milk and eat milk products that come from animals (rather than soy)
5. Eat foods that come from cold water
6. Eat meat poultry or eggs that come from free-range or grass-fed animals.

You can read the article to understand her reasoning behind her six rules, but I thought her underlying theme was interesting. Basically, it's understanding that vitamins and nutrients cannot be supplemented as easily aas we like to think. Although it's a good idea to take vitamins every day, nothing truly substitutes for the real thing.

Smokin'

Yes, that's right, another post on smoking. I seem to be sucking back more lately with all of the stress I've been under, so I decided to look into ways to quit when I'm good and ready.

SMOKE LESS

They talk about some different techniques for quitting, including some more high-tech ways that have come out lately. The author, however, doesn't trust these methods, and recommends more traditional methods and knowing yourself as a smoker.

I have to agree with him on this one. Only you know your smoking habits and when you tend to reach for a cigarette. By the way, a fun fact: Smokers who have the first cig of the day as soon as they jump out of bed tend to be more addicted than those who wait thirty minutes to light up. Interesting. Especially seeing as I'm part of that first group.

BOO!

As much as I commend the experts at Prevent Blindness America, I have to say: chill out. I understand that the world is a scary place now with uni bombers and razor blades in the apples and whatnot, but let kids be kids. I was a kid. Sometimes I got hurt. I'm not blind. Fancy that. Now I do understand that sometimes people need to step in for the well being of their children, say, when you catch them lighting fireworks too close to their face, but don't dictate what the poor kids should wear for Halloween.

I stated in my previous post that I'm terrified to have children. Let me clarify this: I'm terrified to have children considering what the environmental state of our world is now, but I like to think, though I will worry about my children, that my (probably) constant state of worry will not hinder them from being kids.

Walk with your kids on Halloween night, keep an eye out for perverts and leather face. But let them be kids. You only get one chance to do that, and you'll probably have to pay thousands of dollars worth of head shrinking because of your over protectiveness otherwise.