5 Important Tips for Good Sleep and Healthy Body

Sleep constitute an important part of human life; so important that if we consider average of 8 hours of sleep per day and if an individual lives for 75 years, he/she is spending 25 years of his/her lifetime just sleeping. Therefore, if you need rest of your 50 years to be healthy, you need to be wise enough to spend time in having healthy sleep. This post tells you how to get best benefits from your sleep and make your life healthy.

1. Choose your mattress, pillows, sheets and even pajamas and nightwear wisely. These should be comfortable, soft, supportive enough to make you feel rested and cozy.

2. Ever wondered why a partner can sleep soundly when the other snores but wakes up if the baby fusses? Sound ambiance is another important factor that can affect your sleep. Research show that effects of sound on sleep depends on each person and their personal meaning to each type of sound. Create a quite bedroom environment, especially if you live in noisy area. White noise can also help to mask activity from inside and outside of your house to get a healthy sleep.

3. Fresh sheets, mild scented room is an added benefit for good sleep. Many people are more excited to go to sleep on fresh and scented sheets. You can also use scented oils, candles or sachets in your room to make your bedroom smell fresher. Few scents like lavender has been shown to decrease heart rate and blood pressure and can help you to put in more relaxed state and sound sleep.

4. Healthy stomach and healthy dinner can promote better sleep. Therefore it is necessary and important to have healthy dinner two hours before for a healthy sleep. Choices like good protein and carbs can help you for better sleep where as fatty, fried, spiced food can give you a troublesome night. Therefore, choice of food for dinner should be considered if you need sound sleep.

5. Body clock functions continuously and keeps pattern of sleeping and waking up; and healthy sleep can depend on visual conditions before sleeping and after waking up. Since these things can be last and first things you see during sleep, it is important that you make visuals in front of you appealing. Color balance, patterns, position of window etc can enhance healthy sleep.

You are best to judge yourself for all the above mentioned ideas. Only you know what makes you comfortable, what smells good or what you like to see. You can start by decluttering your bedroom, ordering and piling up scattered things, keeping off things that distract you from sleep like computer or TV or other noisy things and other small changes in bedroom like position of light bulb, color of walls, perfumes and oils used etc. can give you sound and healthy sleep.

You can get more information on sleep at National Sleep Foundation
 Sleep Well !

5 Ways to Make Afternoon Healthy

So, here is the daily afternoon scene you might be experiencing! You had your lunch...Minutes later, you feel like you need to sleep and your head starts buzzing. Your desk, work or even TV starts to look boring and you want that sweet cozy feather like mattress to curl up onto and fall asleep. But you have to work! You need to complete an assignment and your body is not cooperating.

 This is the story that many of us experience. So here are the most effective tips to make afternoon healthy and productive.

1. Skip your full lunch and have snacks in small portions whenever you feel hungry. Simply snack on nutritious food (Read: Best Natural Nutrients in Daily Diet) and have small size each time. You can use your lunch break for exercise, walk or simply to be in the sun.

2. Get more light compared to your surroundings. Go out and sit in sunlight or have your meal in sunlight. This will help to lower down melatonin (the sleep hormone) your body produces and has other benefits like vitamin D, reducing risk of osteoporosis, keeping your skin and body healthy etc.

3. Choose protein over crabs. Crabs stimulate serotonin release, which increases sleepiness. Eating less carbohydrates lead to less sleepiness and keeps you active.

4. Walk after lunch: Five to ten minutes of walk after lunch can keep you active and reduce the likeness of falling asleep. Also you have higher energy levels for at least two to three hours and less tension compared to those who do not walk.

5. Involve Isometric exercises as after-lunch-routine. (Also read: 5 Creative Ways to Burn Fat Without Exercise) This simply involves tensing a muscle and holding it for few minutes. You can tense your arms, legs, calf muscles, chest, abdomen, shoulders, back etc. The result is quite significant and your work or daily routine stay unharmed. Not only your body, but also your body is toned.

With these tips, your afternoons are no more dull, shady and sleepy. Changing your habit just a bit can improve your lifestyle (Read: Lifestyle for a Healthy Life) by significant amount and can keep your healthy and strong.

5 Creative Ways to Burn Fat Without Exercise

When you think of losing those extra pounds, the first thing that pops into your mind is burning fat and doing exercise. But you are too lazy to do exercises or got bored following the same pattern again and again. Is this your story? If not then read top 5 simple exercises to get fit. If yes, well then, you are not alone. Many of us feel the same way! All we need is painless weight loss. Well, you can get lean and lose pounds in very simple and creative ways given here.

1. Get Social and Burn Calories:

By social, I mean doing activities together. You can do many creative activities to keep your weight under control. This includes playing Frisbee, hiking, cycling, playing with kids, chasing dogs, trekking or even washing car. The reason I insist doing these activities with friends and family is 1 - you can have great time and 2 - you are motivated and more energetic in groups to do things than you are alone.

2. Walk:

Yes! Walk. Even a five minute walk is a five minute walk. Walk to meetings; park your car few distances away or back of the lot; get off the bus few stops earlier; sign up for charity or group walks. Anything that makes you walking, do it. Walking is the good old and well known method for weight loss and full body exercise, if done regularly.

3. Drink Water:

Water has endless benefits and uses for our body. One of them is weight loss. Drink a glass of water before meal, and you'll eat less. Keep drinking water on regular intervals throughout the day and it will help to digest your meal and snacks in better way. It also keeps you and your skin healthy and glowing.

4. Find better alternatives to TV and computers:

Sitting and watching TV, playing games, movies make you dull, inactive and fat. Do something else. Join some hobby classes. Go for karate, cycling, swimming, football, bonsai or even simple art class. This will make your body and mind more active and healthy. Just don't stick to these monitors...DON'T !

5. Switch Meals:

This is hard to do. Meals that contains sweet and fat often make delicious meal and make you want more and more of it. Try to create some veg-fruit-meat meals that are delicious to eat. (Read: Eat a Rainbow to Stay Healthy) You'll need to be a good cook and little creative for it, but it'll help.

There can be more ways that are not included here. All you need to do is be creative and find a way out. Change your lifestyle and the way you eat and do your daily routine stuff and you'll see results. Remember, little things add up to bigger results. So hook on to what works for you and start doing it.

Top 5 Simple Exercises to Get You Fit

There are tons of exercises out there that can help you get the desired results. You don't need any supplements or gym equipments or any guide. All you need to do is follow few of these exercises in your daily life along with healthy lifestyle and you will be blessed with enviable body in just few months. Although you might be knowing about these exercise, you might not be practicing them. Incorporating these exercises in daily life can change your health drastically without any medications or supplements required. So, these are the list and the top 5 that you should do it daily.

1. Push Ups:

The exercise helps you to develop a great arms and chest muscles and also help to increase stamina. This exercise work on chest, shoulders, triceps, back and abs (core). There are many forms of pushups and you can choose the one that fits you the best.
These forms are Wall pushups, Counter Pushups, Knee Pushups, Feet Elevated pushups. Other forms of pushups include wide hands, parallel hands and close hands pushups.

2. Squats

The most effective and the most basic form of exercise is squats. Squats are effective on several body parts at once. These include core, quads, spine, hamstrings and calves. Initially you can start by lowering down a little (say one or two feet) and increase the depth gradually. You can also try squats by using weights when you go to advance levels.

3. Bicycle Exercise

These exercises not only help your thighs and legs but are one of the top exercises to develop six pack abs. All you need to do is lie on your back and start doing paddling (like you do to bicycle) in the air. The most effective way is by doing it in slow and steady manner with 1 to 3 sets of 15 to 20 repetitions each. You can slowly increase your levels as you feel easy doing this.

4. Crunches

Another great exercise for your abs is crunches. But you need to do it slow and patiently as it may risk stress on your back and neck if done incorrectly. You need to be slow when you force yourself up for a crunch. There are many forms of crunches that you can master once you get to know the basics of doing crunches in a proper way. These include exercise ball crunch, vertical leg crunch, long arm crunch and many others.

5. Plank

The technique is as old as yoga and is one of the most effective way to strengthen your muscles. Plank helps on abs, back, arms and legs as well as your internal abdominal muscles, which is your core strength! This is the most simple yet most difficult to do exercise. This is the way to do. You need to get in push up position and rest yourself on your elbow. Squeeze your abs and maintain the position for as long as possible. This can range from 30 seconds to any long duration you want.

Some other exercises that you can do along with these top 5 are pull-ups & chin-ups, walking (or running) hills (or stairs of your building) calf raise, triceps dips etc. You can get full body workout with these 5 exercise tips. Try these for a month or two and you'll start noticing the differences. Let me know your views and questions in the form below.