Natural Health Tips

Archive for the ‘Supplements’ Category

Clearing your office space and getting it organized is a good thing to do every once and a while. As you create your space and plan your schedule, you can incorporate tools and leave time for mini-spa experiences within your workdays. You can do many easy things in your office environment to give you powerful rejuvenating opportunities. Here are some tips for either your home office or your corporate office:

1)You can create a 5-minute “mini-steam” right at your desk. This can open your sinuses, your pores, and your mind and give you a much-needed highly rejuvenating break in your workday. Pour hot water in a cup. Put 2 – 3 drops of an essential oil such as eucalyptus, lavender, or peppermint in the cup. Put your face over the cup and take a large file folder capping over your head to create an enclosed environment. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Write on the outside of the file folder in black marker “Taking a 5 minute spa break - Do Not Disturb!”

2)Give yourself a 2-minute acupressure session with points on your face. Some people call this a non-surgical face-lift. This uses the Asian principles of opening up the channels of energy or “chi”. It can give you an instant uplift, alleviate a headache, clear mental fog, and bring a glow to your face. Using both hands with the pads of your first 2 fingers press firmly all over both sides of the face.

3)Take a 4-minute fantasy vacation. Close your eyes, put your feet up on your desk, take a deep breath and picture your favorite vacation spot. See yourself there feeling good and having a great time. The unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between a real or imagined event. Your body will thank you!

4)Rap over a wrap. Have a spa cuisine lunch with a good friend. Sandwich wraps filled with veggies and protein are a good healthy lunch. Combine that with a “heart to heart” conversation for great stress reduction.

5)Give yourself self-administered foot reflexology sessions right at your desk. Keep a foot roller at your feet to roll your feet on (shoes off) during the day. This can stimulate reflex points on your feet that can relax and invigorate your entire body. Along with foot rollers you can also use a golf ball, racquetball, or tennis ball. Don’t forget to keep a pair of comfy slippers under your desk for times you just need to relax your feet.

6)Share a healing touch with an office mate. Exchange a nice shoulder rub with each other to relax those “computer tight” shoulder and neck muscles

7)Walk outside. Take a 10-minute nature break – and that doesn’t mean the rest room! A stroll outside in nature can do wonders for you.

Freshen your environment. Diffuse essential oils in your office or cubical area so that it smells good, cuts down on unwanted bacteria, viruses, fungus and mold, and delivers more oxygen to your work space.

9)Have a voluptuous jade plant on your desk near your computer. Not only does the shiny green color relax you, but the jade plant helps to absorb electromagnetic frequencies that come off of your computer screen.. In fact, many common houseplants detoxify the environment. Keep several types of plants nearby in your workspace. Peace lilies, spider plants, and English Ivy are all good plants to use.

10)Fish are fun and relaxing to look at. A pretty and low maintenance fish to have on your desk is the Betta fish. It doesn’t need a filtered aquarium to live in and lives on just a few pellets of food a day.

11)Keep healthy snacks in your desk drawer to keep your blood sugar levels stable, especially during stressful days and days you skip meals. Mixed nuts, trail mix or healthy protein bars are good to have on hand. Ningxia Red juice packets for on the go are a great healthy energy boost.

12)Music soothes the soul and our souls often need soothing especially when we are stressed at work with issues and deadlines. Have your iPod or MP3 player with some of your favorite relaxing tunes on it playing lightly in the background.

Finding the best nursing home is easier than you might think. That is assuming there is more than one nursing home in your area so that you have something to compare. The sad part is that the best nursing home is just the one that meets your expectations better than its competitors. That doesn`t mean it is a good nursing home, it might even mean that it just isn`t the worst.

A good source of information and feedback on local nursing homes is the attending physician for the residents. The staff at the physician`s office works closely with the nursing home staff scheduling appointments and transportation, prescribing medication, and treating ailments as well as serious medical conditions. We found the best nursing home for my grandfather from the recommendation of our cardiologist`s nurse.

One of the most valuable tools to compare nursing homes is a nursing home report you can get through Check My Nursing Home.com. This report will tell you about complaints against the nursing home, inspections of the nursing home, abuse and neglect cases, and other valuable feedback that potential residents need to be aware of.

This report is definitely a necessity, but the most valuable tool to compare nursing homes is personal interviews with residents, staff members, and family members. Remember when talking to residents and caregivers that we all compare things based on our own perceptions. For example, my grandfather is getting excellent care and unbelievable attention at his nursing home, but thinks he is being abused and neglected because the food is so bad.

Most of us try to look and feel our best with diet and exercise. Few consider the most important measure of our health should be given to our skin. The epidermis is the body’s largest organ and also the most telling when something is wrong. Unfortunately, the largest organ frequently gets the least attention. Your facial complexion reflects health and life as well as disease, so we should all pay special attention to our face. Here are a few ways to make your skin reflect your good health.

1. Diet and Supplements

One of the best ways to maintain a healthy balance is to nourish your skin at the cellular level. When you are getting the proper nutrients and hydration, your skin will exude a healthy glow. A diet rich in dark green, leafy vegetables and plenty of fruit and fiber are key to healthy living. In addition, supplements play an important role to add the extra nutrients lost when cooking food. Vitamins C, E and beta-carotene replenish tired, dead skin cells and replace them with vibrant living cells. When taken regularly, these powerful building blocks, called antioxidants, are one of the best anti-aging tools in your arsenal to combat the ravishes of time. And to keep your skin firm and elastic, there are a few simple rules to follow costing very little time or money.

2. Rest

Sleep is an important component to healthy glowing skin since it’s the time your skin cells use to regenerate themselves. It’s hard to do with jobs and children, but try to get at least eight hours of sound sleep and pay close attention to your sleep habits. Some people need to sleep face down or in a three quarter turn, which presses their face into the pillow. With a traditional feathered pillow, this can spell disaster for your skin. When the delicate facial tissue is compressed for hours, it is not able to breath and can deteriorate quickly. Try using a memory foam pillow that is designed to mold to the contour of your face and neck. This will keep compression off your face and protect the elasticity in your skin.

3. Hydration

The importance of eight glasses of water daily is key to good overall health, especially in the skin. After just a few days of 64 ounces a day, you’ll see immediate results in your skin’s suppleness and elasticity. Water flushes away the impurities embedded just below the surface of the skin, leaving you with a freshly cleansed appearance all day. In addition, you will notice that fine lines fade as the hydration process plumps and firms your face. Water is the only answer to flush away toxins. Beverages such as coffee, processed juices and sodas also contain water, but they can add to the impurities lodged in the skin, so go easy on these choices.

With all of the anti aging wrinkle creams that are available in stores, why is it that I cannot seem to find one that works? The anti aging skin care products that the cosmetics industry sells makes for the bulk of their profits every year, and with all of the money that they have coming in from this niche one would think that they could develop a better product.

In all honesty, the major cosmetics companies do not put a lot of the money that they make back into the research and development of new products, and really why should they? The public seems willing to continue to buy anything that these companies offer up, so why make changes. All that a company has to do is update the packaging on last year’s hot product and sales will continue.

Most anti aging wrinkle creams will do little if anything in order to help you to achieve younger looking skin. As you may have noticed, most of the formulas that you see contain ingredients such as collagen and elastin as the answer to your problems. These ingredients will not help you in any way, because they are incapable of penetrating your skin.

It has been well documented that collagen and elastin are too molecularly dense to be useful as ingredients in a topical skin care formula, but people still buy these products in droves. This probably has to do with a slick marketing campaign on the part of the cosmetics industry, but how many times can a consumer go to the well and come up dry before they quit spending money on these products.