Secrets of longevity – longer life how to live a healthy lifestyle

Things to avoid in cold and flu season – tips for a healthy lifestyle
I hate those days when I was staying at home with a runny nose, with sore throat, fever and muscles aches. Those days are far away now and my secret how to stay healthy isn’t actually a secret. I bet you’ve heard about the benefits of having a healthy lifestyle, a moderate and a balanced diet and about having a regular physical activity. It’s of no use denying the obvious: all these may be included without any doubt in our ‘natural prevention list’. Below you’ll find some great advice on how to avoid things that suppress your immune system making your body more sensible to infections. Prevention is possible only if your immune system is ready to fight with any condition. How to make that possible and how to enhance your body’s natural defences?

Preventing colds and flu, staying healthy during cold and flu season

Cold and flu relief, natural remedies for cold and flu

At least for the cold and flu season try to except/use less/avoid/:

1. Smoking. A cigarette smoked once in a while isn’t a decisional factor in suppressing your immune system but smoking regularly makes your body weaker when confronting with infections in general and seasonal diseases in particular.

2. Junk food. It saves a lot of time but the saved time is then spent curing the conditions junk food may favour including cold and flu. Unhealthy eating habits

3. Avoid sugar or high sugar foods. It’s a fact that sugar decreases your immune system that’s why excepting sugar from your diet is very important. Also try to avoid artificial sweeteners.

Continue reading Cold and Flu Prevention Tips. Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Great motivational facts about benefits of exercising regularly

If you’re exercising a lot for loosing weight and didn’t lose a pound, if you don’t exercise at all because don’t see the reasons for doing that, than this article would be something motivational for you. Have you ever noticed that every article about a healthy living, a healthy lifestyle or fighting with depression or stress contains this simple advice: Get at least 15 minutes exercises a day and you’ll feel better? But have you really asked yourself what are the ‘miraculous’ benefits of exercising regularly? Below there’s a list with the most important benefits sport can bring you.

1.    Helps fight chronic diseases. Exercising you improve your blood pressure and cholesterol levels that fact decreasing your chances of suffering from such conditions like type II diabetes, heart disease (human heart facts) and several cancer types (cancer prevention tips). It was also proved to be one of the causes of delaying onset of dementia.

2.    Helps fight seasonal illnesses. Cold and flu will stay away or would be more difficult to catch if you’re doing your exercises regularly. Cold and flu prevention tips

3.    More energy. It may look like a paradox but the more you move and use your energy, the more it feels like you have a lot of it.

4.    Improves your mood by raising your serotonin levels decreasing at the same time cortisol levels (stress associated hormone) in your blood.

5.    Improves cognitive functions (like memory and learning).

6.    Improves the quality of sleep. Exercising regularly you’ll have a good sleep. It would also help to fall asleep more quickly. Lack of sleep symptoms

Continue reading Longevity and health – health benefits of exercise

Tips for good nutrition – basics of good nutrition

‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’ so said G. B. Shaw.

If you are reading this post, it means that you are interested in good nutrition tips and keeping your body healthy.  We first need to understand how our diet influences our health.  Once we get the basics of this, we are able to find a proper balance in our diet to enable us attain proper nutrition.

Excesses, imbalances and deficiencies can negatively affect the entire body and all of its functions.  Science has proven that many diseases affecting us are related to our diet intake and exercise.

Our bodies require carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, vitamins, fats, fiber and most importantly water.  While there are numerous ways to achieve a proper nutrition on a daily basis, a summary of these tips is listed below:

* Drink water.  Our bodies comprise 70% water.  We therefore need a water intake of at least 8 glasses a day in order to balance the functioning of our body.  The temperature of your water does not really matter.  Fruits and vegetables can provide a big percentage (about 20%) of your water needs.

* Don’t skip meals. Eat breakfast lower your calorie intake over lunch and dinner.  Your body responds to skipping meals by converting the food you eat (when you eat) into energy.  It tends to go into a survival mode and this greatly affects your metabolism.  You end us storing excess glucose or food as fat.  Therefore, if you do not skip meals, your metabolism is balanced and you will be healthy naturally.

* Vegetables and fruits should also be eaten in plenty.  Five servings of vegetables and fruits each day contribute to good nutrition tips.  These foods are high in vitamins and fiber and low in calories.  Instead of feeding of sweetened snacks, take fruits in-between meals as snacks instead.  Ensure you have fruits and vegetables in your daily menu. Good vegetables to eat

* Control your protein intake.  Lean protein is recommended as it contains low cholesterol levels.  Foods to avoid when you have high cholesterol, Cholesterol healthy foods

Protein is also good for muscle build up and is an excellent source of iron.  Consider eating fish and white meat as these have little cholesterol.

* Take a daily fiber diet every day as this enhances your bowel function.  Whole grains help you achieve your fiber needs daily.

Continue reading Longevity nutrition – healthy nutrition tips

Strawberries health benefits – Find out diseases that can be prevented or treated with these miraculous berries.

You’ve heard it before that a diet reach in vegetables and fruits can help you combat cardiovascular disease, cancer, and prevent or delay the onset of many of the effects of aging. It’s a statement that can’t be denied. About strawberries has been said a lot of things and many of you know about allergy caused by these berries. But we’ll try to focus only on positive qualities of strawberries.

Strawberries are an excellent source of vitamin C, manganese, dietary fiber, iodine, potassium, folate, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, vitamin K, riboflavin, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium and copper.

It has been shown that strawberries significantly reduce liver cancer cells due to ellagic acid present in them. It also can be found in many red fruits and berries including raspberries, blackberries, and cranberries and of course strawberries. Ellagic acid prevents the destruction of P53 gene by cancer cells and can also bind with cancer causing molecules making them inactive.

Studies have shown that strawberry consumption can increase anti-cancer activity on cancer cells of the breast, oesophagus, skin, colon, prostate and pancreas.
An interesting study was carried out on a group of 1000 elderly people, and found that those eating the most strawberries had a risk of developing cancer that was only 33% of the risk in those eating none.
A study published by Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry shown that regardless of the cultivars, strawberries reduce significantly the rate of cancerous liver cells.

Like many other berries, strawberries contain high amounts of antioxidants; in particular anthocyanins type 2 and ellagitannins. Anthocyanins have been shown by several studies to be effective in reducing risks of developing cancer, cardiovascular disease and inflammation-related diseases. Anthocyanins have a function similar to cyclooxigenase inhibitors (such as aspirin) but without side effects being a safer version of aspirin in their anti-inflammatory proprieties. A study at Lane University suggests that the high levels of antioxidants in these berries help neutralize the destructive effects of free radicals helping repairing the tissues by giving a boost of vitamin C. Strawberry extracts have also been shown to inhibit COX enzymes in vitro, which inhibits the inflammatory process. Anthocyanins contained in strawberries greatly reduces the rate of mutation in cells, which is a direct measure for the risk of developing cancer and diseases such as atherosclerosis.

Continue reading Strawberries health benefits – healing properties of strawberries

Lonely people are often sick

Know the ‘side effects’ of loneliness and of being unsociable. It’s more serious than you ever thought.

Psychologists are convinced of the fact that loneliness is not less harmful for people than smoking or overweight.

The lack of relation with other people not only makes us unhappy, but has a negative influence on the health of our body and soul. This conclusion was drawn during a scientific research.

The feeling of seizure and isolation increase the blood pressure, the stress and the general level of tiredness and increase the chances to get Alzheimer disease.

Besides, this feeling decrease the strength of will and persistence, a fact that influence the health, the capacity of body to follow a healthy way of life.

The result of the researches in this sense were presented by professor John Cacciopo from the Chicago University on the yearly conference of the American Association of Science Development.

According to professor Cacciopo loneliness not only lead to a change of mood, but is also connected with the development of resistibility of normal blood flow through cardiovascular system.

Loneliness lead to the increase of the stress hormone called cortisol which influence the immune system and lead to the increase of the arterial pressure and development of depression.

Loneliness or social isolation leads to the disturbance of deep sleep and fast progress of Alzheimer disease.

As the professor states in many cases the difference between a lonely person and a popular one is equivalent to the difference between “a smoker and a non-smoker”.

Professor said: “This discovery overwhelmed us.  My colleagues and I were surprised to find out the consequences of the social isolation. It proved how important is the communication for each of us”.

Lonely people are usually weak. They make less physical exercises, consume more calories. In order to fill their sensation of comfort these people eat much fat and sweet food.  

Continue reading Be afraid of loneliness – loneliness health effects

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Facts about a healthy, restful sleep – Easy and natural ways to beat down your insomnia.

Some popular classicist once said: Life is sleep. The opposite is also correct: Sleep is life. It is possible that sleep for a human being is more important than food or water. This is why in Middle Ages one of the most brutal forms of torture was the wakeful state to last for a few days. As a result the person became crazy and consequently died.

Sleep is life!
For most of the people even a little lack of sleep for one or two hours per day may have serious consequences.

A permanent deficit of a healthy sleep lead to damaging of the immune system, to decreasing of intellectual capacities, there are also negative consequences for the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract organs. Even the way we look depends directly on the fact how well do we sleep. The unhealthy color of our face is a consequence of sleepless nights. A proven fact is the direct connection between the insomnia and the obesity. The scientists state the fact that the growth hormone which regulates the distribution of fat throughout the organism is synthesized mostly during our sleep and people who pay attention to a healthy night sleep have more chances to preserve their figure and shape.

For example, the statistics prove that people that sleep 4 hours per day have 74% more probability to get fat  than people that have a normal sleep of 7-9 hours per day. In case a person sleeps 5 hours per day he has 50% probability to get fat, in case of 6 hours of sleep, the percent is 23.  According to the last statistics the rate of mortality in people sleeping 6-7 hours per day is lower than for the rest.

These are average statistics, but the situation is individual for each persons: for some of us 4 hours is enough to regenerate, for other it is necessary to sleep for about 10 hours. It is important to base on your own sensations: if you woke up without alarm clock and feel rested it means you had a good night sleep. But you feel weak and tired during the whole day, you loose the sense of concentration, fell apathy, irritability, it means you had a bad, incomplete night sleep. The symptoms of insomnia are unique.

Continue reading Tips for healthy sleep – solutions for insomnia

Stimulate brain activity – best way to stay young

Human brain. The last studies about brain activity and about what can influences our mind.

As many of you know the intellect is in strong connection with growing old. If you keep and increase your intellect when growing old you may forget about such diseases as Alzheimer’s and many other aging problems.

Life in a modern technological society requires of us a stronger amount of intellectual inputs. Mankind wishes to accelerate the intellectual growth by using different artificial methods. One of these methods is meditation. The neurophysiologist Richard Davidson (Wisconsin University (USA)) and his colleagues made the brain scan of some Buddhist monarchs who had advanced experience in meditation process as well as of several voluntaries who meditated for the first time. The experiment proved that monarchs during meditation process have an increase in activity of the brain waves (the so-called gamma-waves).
Learn to meditate for a better relaxation, concentration, for a better health and for a clear mind. There were written a lot of articles and books about meditation and its techniques but the quickest way to learn how to meditate is to quieten your thoughts and mind and let the positive thoughts scatter your mind.

The hypnosis may also regulate the activity of several parts of the brain, which are responsible for solving of so-called cognitive conflicts, connected with the attention.
Continue reading Increase your intellect and stay young

Antioxidants. A close view

Antioxidants and their power on human’s organism.

Some of the antioxidants are so powerful and so close to us but we don’t even know their names or the products that contain them.

Bisabolol. It is contained in the flowers of chamomile. It has a calming and anti-inflammatory effect.

Melatonin. It represents a hormone which is produced in hypophysis. The speed of melatonin formation depends directly on the amount of light which enters the eye retina during 24 hours. It is considered to have a decisive role in regulation of sleep process and wakeful state. Due to its liposoluble character proprieties it penetrates easily the cell membranes, protecting them from peroxide oxidation.

Buy melatonin supplements

Carnosine. It is a dipeptide, which contains the histidine amino acid. It’s present in many tissues, especially in muscular tissue. Carnosine has strong antioxidant properties, a fact that made the dietary supplements and cosmetics manufacturers to use it in their products. It influences the activity of ferments and bind the heavy metals ions, decreasing their toxic effect. Lately, much attention is paid to the research of immune modulating and different healing properties of carnosine.

Bromelain. It is an extract of pineapple which contains a series of proteines – ferments which dissolve the proteins. The dietary supplements using bromelain are very popular. They have anti-inflammatory and fibrinolytic effects, decrease the blood pressure. In cases of local administration bromelain has the property to clean the wounds and increase their healing.

Continue reading Healthy antioxidants – most powerful antioxidants

Green tea, blueberries or whey – be informed about antioxidants and their properties.

Our bodies are constantly utilizing oxygen for a range of vital functions. In the process appears chemicals known as free radicals that have unpaired electrons which traveling inside the body are trying to steal electrons from other molecules. This process is known as oxidation and there are a lot of antioxidants that are the remedy to this problem. Antioxidants have the function to neutralize free radicals; some of the antioxidants have proven to have anti-inflamatory properties.

Antioxidants benefits

Antioxidants are substances that may protect cells from the damage caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals. Free radical damage may lead to cancer. Antioxidants interact with and stabilize free radicals and may prevent some of the damage free radicals might otherwise cause.

Examples of antioxidants include beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamins C, E, and A, and other substances.

Extras of the green tea. It contains phenols – substances that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The experiments proved that green tea decrease the redness and other effects of sunburns; decrease the level of skin irritation, caused by different surface-active substances of washing materials.

Milk Thistle Extract: Milk thistle is a plant native to the Mediterranean. It usually grows in dry, sunny areas. The active ingredient is called silymarin. Consisting of a group of compounds known as flavonolignans, silymarin helps repair liver cells that have been damaged by alcohol and other toxins. Silymarin also has potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Most milk thistle based products are standardized to contain 70-80% silymarin.

Blueberries. Much research has shown that blueberries provide health benefits in the areas of anti-aging, antioxidant action, disease prevention, treatment of urinary tract infection, improving eyesight and controlling cholesterol. Blueberries are powerful antioxidants. Anthocyanin, which is the pigment that makes the blueberry blue, is the key antioxidant responsible for these benefits. Researchers believe that the phytochemicals in blueberries may reduce inflammatory processes in tissues by increasing cells membranes ability to allow vital nutrients and chemical signals to pass in and out of the cell.

Whey. The low-molecular proteins fraction of the whey represents the most active factor, because it contains amino acids, growth factors and antibodies. Whey also contains the amino acid called glutamylcysteine which is necessary for the synthesis of glutathione – one of the main antioxidants.

Continue reading Food sources of antioxidants – health benefits of antioxidants

If you want to live longer, you must nourish well

It is considered that healthy nourishment is a guarantee for a longer life. Nevertheless, it is considered that a constant diet does not guarantee at all the longevity. Certain recent discoveries of the American scientists emerged as a shock: people with excessive weight live longer that thin people!

This fact is proven by the statistics published by an American Center for Prophylactics and Diseases control. In general the researches explain this using the fact that fat people are more preoccupied with their health. Being aware of the fact that they are in a group of risk they permanently check their blood pressure and undertake special physical exercises in order to loose weight.

Slender people, usually, don’t see the necessity to undertake health-improving procedures. But that is not all: fat people, due to their desire to eat, are nourishing much more healthier and their organism always receive the necessary microelements, while thin people restrain themselves from food and as a result they don’t consume a number of useful substances.
The American geriatrician Thomas Pearls came to the conclusion that many of long-living people never respect diets and usually don’t undertake physical exercises. For example, Helen Reichert who has 100 years old at that time eats everything she wants, whenever she wants. The same way of life is carried by her sister which is 98 and her brother which is 90. And neither of them has serious problems with their health.

Continue reading Interesting facts about fat people