The demands and pace of modern day life can lead to stress and anxiety. On a regular basis, we are dealing with the stresses of work, commute, family, bills, and other responsibilities. Stress is often overlooked but it is important to minimize stress and find relief because it can be harmful to your health and quality of life. Stress can lead to heart issues, headaches, high blood pressure, digestion issues, depression, and other strains to the body. Fortunately, there are simple ways that you can reduce stress by activities such as exercising, eating healthy, and taking herbs for relaxation.

Here are some tips on how you can reduce stress in your life and make some steps towards improving your well-being.

1. Try to dedicate some time to meditation. Find some quiet time during your day to clear your mind and breathe. Just 10 minutes is all you need to take out of your busy day. Find a quiet place in your home to sit still, close your eyes, and concentrate on only your breath. You may find your mind wandering back to all the stressful aspects of life but with time, you will learn to focus your mind to the present moment.

2. Take herbs for stress and relaxation. There are many natural options available to help provide stress relief. Some herbs and supplements include Seditol, St. John’s Wort, Valerian, Passion Flower, Scull Cap, Hops, Chamomile, and Gingko. These herbs have shown to promote tranquility and mood stability.

3. Get the recommended 7-9 hours of Sleep. The body needs rest in order to endure the day’s activities and to be alert. Sleep will also strengthen your immune system to prevent illness.

4. Eat healthy foods and avoid overeating. Eat foods that strengthen your body and provide energy throughout your day. Try to incorporate fruits and vegetables into your meals as well as whole grains. Stress can often time lead to overeating without realizing it. Make an effort to cook meals and avoid eating unhealthy fast foods.

5. Get exercise on a regular basis. Getting exercise can reduce stress by relieving tension in your muscles as well as releasing endorphins that give you energy and leave you feeling energetic. Practicing Yoga can provide exercise as well as a means of meditation and reflection.

6. Prioritize how you spend your time. Stress can be due to a hectic schedule and feeling overwhelmed. Be more deliberate in how you spend your time and make some tough decisions to eliminate some tasks if necessary. Maintaining a calendar or checklist can help keep you more organized and in control.

7. Talk to a therapist. If there are serious causes of stress in your life, try talking to a professional who can provide advice and some objective perspective. A therapist can also recommended further actions for you to take to relieve stress.

Take the steps that you work for you in reducing stress and promoting relaxation. There may be some activities that are more or less effective for you. It is recommended that you consult with a professional before adopting a new diet or take supplements.

Here is a list of easy meal and snack ideas to ensure that you are getting your super antioxidants:

Breakfast: Incorporate blueberries into your meal. You can add them to your cereal, yogurt, or cottage cheese to get your antioxidant boost or you can have them in your bagel or muffin. If you’re in a hurry, you can always pack some fresh or dried blueberries to go. Another quick and easy option is to have a prepackaged blueberry cereal bar.

Lunch: Have an antioxidant rich salad. Having a salad with leafy greens such as spinach will deliver antioxidants but you can mix in additional vegetables, fruit, and nuts for more. Possible vegetables to add include tomato, carrots, squash, corn, and broccoli. For fruit, try mango, peaches, mandarin oranges, or melon. Top it off with some walnuts or flax seed and you’ve got an antioxidant hearty meal.

Snacks: Treat yourself to something sweet. Fortunately for your palate, eating foods with antioxidants does not mean sacrificing taste or favorite sweets. Peanut butter is a good source of Vitamin E which acts as an antioxidant. Have peanut butter as a dip for carrots or bell pepper or spread it on a piece of whole grain bread. Feel free to have a cup of tea or coffee during your break but beware of your sugar intake.

Dinner: Serve fish with a side of vegetables. Grill some tuna with a side of kale, broccoli, or brussel sprouts. Start with some whole grain bread or a baked yam. You can even toast to your health with a glass of red wine.

Dessert: Break off a piece of dark chocolate. Try for the higher percentage cacao in order to limit the percentage sugar in the chocolate bar. You can get your chocolate fix and antioxidants at the same time with this dessert option.

Vitamins and Supplements: You have the option to take supplements as your source of nutrients. There is a numerous selection of supplements now available to ensure you get your antioxidants. Some options include Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, CoQ10, and Alpha Lipoic Acid.

As you can see, being healthy and getting your antioxidant intake does not mean starting a boring diet. Super antioxidants can be found in many of your favorite foods and are commonly found in your grocery store.

It is a challenge to lose weight in this modern, on-the-go time that we live in. Busy people often times choose fast food over a home cooked meal or drive a short distance over walking. However, it is as simple as choosing the healthier alternative to get you to consume fewer calories, burn more calories, and ultimately lose weight. In addition, there are natural supplements and vitamins available give your body that extra assistance to lose weight . You don’t have to commit a large amount of time in order to lose weight.

Here is a list of 10 quick and simple ways of how to lose weight for busy people; these tips will not take much more than 30 minutes extra out of your day. Joining a formal weight loss program or hiring a personal trainer can be costly in both time and money. These weight loss tips will show you the results and fit into your busy lifestyle. Whatever you are willing to commit is at your discretion; you know your body and limits best so only do what feels right to you.

1. Make a written commitment to yourself. A big step in losing weight is making the mental commitment in order to stick to your weight loss goal. Write down your goal officially and maybe choose a timeline in which you wish to achieve your goal. Post it on your refrigerator or mirror as a constant daily reminder. This should not take more than 5 minutes.

2. Tell your friends about your goal. Peer motivation is proven to help people in meeting their goals. Tell some friends or family about your weight loss goal and ask them for your support. They’ll be sensitive to your dietary needs and also act as supporters by simply asking how your progress is. Maybe they’ll even want to join you and then you have a friend to exercise with. Find time to bring it up during your regular conversation.

3. Write in a dietary journal. You’ll be more accountable for the food that you eat if you keep a log of everything that you eat on a daily basis. Simply carry a small notebook with you and write down the foods that you consume. You’ll be less likely to have that extra cookie if you know it’ll be recorded in your journal. This should only take a few minutes after each meal.

4. Drink about 8 glasses of water. Staying well hydrated is known to increase metabolism and hence burn more calories. It is also necessary to keep your muscles hydrated when exercising in order to effectively build muscle. This should not take more than 5 minutes.

5. Choose walking over driving whenever you have the chance. When given the opportunity to walk to the store or to run errands, choose walking over driving. That extra travel time can be put towards your exercise time. This is also the environmentally friendly alternative since you’ll be burning calories instead of gas. The time sacrifice depends on the distance but this can be counted towards your exercise time.

6. Eat a healthy breakfast. It is proven that having breakfast helps with metabolism throughout the day and can also control your appetite. Have some fruit, low sugar cereals, oatmeal, or yogurt. Try to skip the bacon, sausage, and pancakes. Or you can have a quick cereal bar on the go which should not take more than 5 minutes.

7. Skip dessert. Sweets are delicious but they are also high in sugar and calories. Trade in that cookie for a piece of fruit or have some yogurt instead of ice cream. There are healthier ways to get your sweet fix without the guilt. This takes no additional time out of your day.

8. Order salads at restaurants. Next time you find yourself choosing from a menu, order the salad. They can be quite delicious as well as good for you. Avoid creamy dressing and toppings such as fried chicken. Do say yes to vegetables, nuts, fruits, and healthy protein. This takes no additional time out of your day.

9. Exercise for atleast 30 minutes a day. It’s easy to make the excuse that you don’t have time to exercise but set aside atleast 30 minutes a day for some activity. Exercise can range from sports to running to yoga. There are a variety of fun and creative ways to get your exercise time in without necessarily going to the gym.

10. Take natural supplements and vitamins. There is a great selection of supplements out there to provide weight loss support in the form of appetite suppressant, increased metabolism, or reduced fat absorption. Examples of weight loss supplements include Fucoxanthin, cider vinegar, and hoodia. This takes only a minute out of your day.

Super Antioxidant

What is a super antioxidant?

A super antioxidant or antioxidant is a general name for substances including all of the vitamins, polyphenols, carotenoids and minerals that help protect the body from the harmful effects of free radicals. It is called a super antioxidant because of the nature in which it helps prevent disease in humans. Antioxidants accomplish this by reducing the damaging effects of from oxidation of free radicals.

What are free radicals?

Free radicals originate from oxygen molecules in your body that become electrically charged from natural cellular activity and from outside factors that you’re surrounded by, including radiation from your environment and tobacco smoke as well as many other harmful environmental factors. These free radicals try to steal electrons from molecules in your body like DNA and cells, causing damage as it goes through your body. These dangerous molecules cause a chain reaction of free radicals that damage cells and play a part in the aging process and the development of diseases such as cancer.

How do super antioxidants fight dangerous free radicals?

Antioxidants help to stop the free radical chain-reaction by giving their electrons to the free radicals, thereby neutralizing them so they are unable to cause more oxidative damage to the cells in your body.

How are super antioxidants able to stop this chain-reaction?

Super antioxidants end the chain-reaction by giving up their electrons instead of other molecules giving them up. Super antioxidants are able to do this without being negatively affected because they do not become reactive after losing electrons, effectively stopping free radicals from doing any more damage once they have been neutralized.

What diseases are associated with free radical damage?

Several degenerative diseases are linked with free radical damage, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, cataracts, stroke and cognitive impairment. Aging is also associated with the damage done by free radicals. The nature of super antioxidants makes it possible to reduce the likelihood of occurrence of these diseases.

Where are super antioxidants found?

Super Antioxidants can be obtained easily through safe supplements from NutraYoung as well as through your normal diet. Some of the most well-known antioxidants are:

Vitamin A: carrots, broccoli, kale, spinach, pumpkin, liver, sweet potatoes, collard greens, eggs, apricots, mango, dairy and fish

Vitamin C: bell peppers, red pepper, parsley, guava, kiwi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, persimmon, papaya, strawberry, orange, lemon, cauliflower, garlic, grapefruit, raspberry, tangerine, spinach, tomato, grape and pineapple

Vitamin E: asparagus, avocado, olives, spinach, nuts, seeds, vegetable oils and fortified cereals
Carotenoids: beta-carotene, lutein, lycopene, carrots, pumpkins, leafy green vegetables, red fruits, tomatoes, fucoxanthin and seaweed

Polyphenols: berries, teas, beer, grapes, olive oil, chocolate, cocoa, coffee, walnuts, peanuts, fruit skins, pomegranates and wine

How does this information help me live healthier?

Now that you know about free radicals and super antioxidants, you have an extra incentive to eat a well balanced diet full of colorful fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fruits. Eating healthy will not only help your body gain super antioxidants and fight free radicals, but it can also help you lose weight fast.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Essential for life in higher animals, vitamin D, once linked to only bone diseases such as rickets and osteoporosis, is now recognized as a major player in contributing to overall human health, emphasizes UC Riverside’s Anthony Norman, an international expert on vitamin D.

In a paper published in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Norman identifies vitamin D’s potential for contributions to good health in the adaptive and innate immune systems, the secretion and regulation of insulin by the pancreas, the heart and blood pressure regulation, muscle strength and brain activity. In addition, access to adequate amounts of vitamin D is believed to be beneficial towards reducing the risk of cancer.

Norman also lists 36 organ tissues in the body whose cells respond biologically to vitamin D. The list includes bone marrow, breast, colon, intestine, kidney, lung, prostate, retina, skin, stomach and the uterus.

According to Norman, deficiency of vitamin D can impact all 36 organs. Already, vitamin D deficiency is associated with muscle strength decrease, high risk for falls, and increased risk for colorectal, prostate and breast and other major cancers.

“It is becoming increasingly clear to researchers in the field that vitamin D is strongly linked to several diseases,” said Norman, a distinguished professor emeritus of biochemistry and of biomedical sciences who has worked on vitamin D for more than 45 years. “Its biological sphere of influence is much broader than we originally thought. The nutritional guidelines for vitamin D intake must be carefully reevaluated to determine the adequate intake, balancing sunlight exposure with dietary intake, to achieve good health by involving all 36 target organs.”

Vitamin D is synthesized in the body in a series of steps. First, sunlight’s ultraviolet rays act on a precursor compound in skin. When skin is exposed to sunlight, a sterol present in dermal tissue is converted to vitamin D, which, in turn, is metabolized in the liver and kidneys to form a hormone. It was Norman’s laboratory that discovered, in 1967, that vitamin D is converted into a steroid hormone by the body.

The recommended daily intake of vitamin D is 200 international units (IU) for people up to 50 years old. The recommended daily intake of vitamin D is 400 IU for people 51 to 70 years old and 600 IU for people over 70 years old. Norman’s recommendation for all adults is to have an average daily intake of at least 2000 IU.

“To optimize good health you must have enough vitamin D,” he said. “Vitamin D deficiency is also especially of concern in third world countries that have poor nutritional practices and religious customs that require the body to be covered from head to toe. Ideally, to achieve the widest frequency of good health by population, we need to have 90 percent of the people with adequate amounts of vitamin D.”

About half of the elderly in North America and two-thirds of the rest of the world are not getting enough vitamin D to maintain healthy bone density, lower their risks for fracture and improve tooth attachment.

“There needs to be a sea change by various governmental agencies in terms of the advice they present to citizens about how much vitamin D should be taken,” Norman said. “The tendencies of people to live in cities where tall buildings block adequate sunlight from reaching the ground, to spend most of their time indoors, to use synthetic sunscreens that block ultraviolet rays, and to live in geographical regions of the world that do not receive adequate sunlight all contribute to the inability of the skin to biosynthesize sufficient amounts of vitamin D.”

Found in minute amounts in food, vitamins are organic substances that higher forms of animals need to grow and sustain normal health. Vitamins, however, are not synthesized in sufficient amounts to meet bodily needs. Therefore, the body must acquire them through diet or in the form of supplements.

Because it is found in very few foods naturally, milk and other foods (often orange juice) are fortified with vitamin D.

While deficiency of vitamin D impacts health negatively, ingestion of extremely high doses of vitamin D can cause hypercalcemia, a condition in which the blood’s calcium level is above normal. The highest daily ‘safe’ dose of vitamin D is 10,000 IU.

“More than ever we need to increase the amount of research on vitamin D, with more funding from government agencies and pharmaceutical companies, to meet the challenge of preserving or improving the health of everyone on the planet,” Norman said.

Norman is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Ernst Oppenheimer Award from the Endocrine Society; the Mead Johnson Award and the Osborne and Mendel Award from American Institute of Nutrition; and the William F. Neuman Award from the American Society of Bone & Mineral Research. He is a fellow of the American Association Advancement Science as well as the American Society for Nutritional Sciences.

A grant he received in the late 1960s from the National Institutes of Health to study vitamin D has been renewed consecutively for 41 years, totaling more than $9 million.

Source: http://www.info.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1938