Benefit From An Ayurvedic Wake-Up Routine

If the mantra ‘rise and shine’ seems to pass you each morning, you might benefit from an Ayurvedic morning routine. According to Ayurvedic philosophy, the choices you make regarding your daily routine either build-up or knock down your resistance to disease. Getting the body ready for the day is important in order to approach it with confidence and bountiful wellbeing. Adopting one or more of these practices can help to radically alter your experience for the day. You may even look forward to the mornings!

Beat the Sun

This might be the hardest of all the practices to adopt but it could offer some of the best benefits. Try rolling out of bed at least 20 minutes before sunrise – vata energy fills the atmosphere during these hours before dawn, and vata is known for movement. By waking up before sunrise, you’re exposing yourself to the special energy in the air. It’s the perfect time to wake up, get out of the house and enjoy the morning air. When the sunlight brightens up the sky, vata energy is replaced by kapha or muscle energy which is why sunrise is such a vital time to get up and moving.

Activate Your Insides

The philosophy believes the first item you ingest sets the mood for the remainder of the day, so if you start the day with a glass of lukewarm water flavoured with lemon or lime, you’re more inclined to eat fresh ingredients. The idea behind the water is that the warm water stimulates the gastrointestinal tract and the citrus fruits are high in minerals and vitamins to loosen the toxins in the digestive tract. Begin your day with this simple beverage and you’ll notice that you have a lot more energy throughout the day.

Face Value

Sleep is quite harsh on your face, so rinsing your face the moment you wake up is an easy way to disperse heat and prepare the skin for the day’s challenges – in particular, heat, stress and pollution. Mishra recommends splashing the face seven times with cold water. The face is the most exposed area of the body so rehydration in the morning is crucial. You’ll be amazed at the difference this small but significant addition to your routine makes.

Be Sense Sensitive

An ear massage is helpful to the whole body, which many people don’t realise. Begin at the top of the ear and use the thumbs and index fingers to rub the rim of the ear, moving slowly to the lobe. You can then place a few drops of sesame oil just outside of the ear canal opening, to keep drying vata energy in check. Ayurveda considers the nose to be the pathway to the brain so you may find it helpful to add a few drops of sesame or olive oil just inside the nostril to clean the sinuses and ensure mental clarity.

Eat Wisely

It’s important that you eat breakfast each morning, but you shouldn’t overindulge. From sunrise to 10am is considered kapha time, which is the period during which you should be exercising and moving. A light meal won’t overload the digestive fire which doesn’t peak until noon – it’s recommended that you begin your day with something fresh and light, such as fruit, vegetable juice, non-fat yoghurt, or grains such as muesli and granola.A healthy diet is crucial for improved wellness and resistance against disease and infection, but how you start the day really makes an impact on how you feel for the remainder of it.

Categories: Ayurveda, energy, face, healthy routines, Morning, Routine, vata energy, Water

Little Bits of Fitness Add Up To a Healthier You

Life is busier than ever, and finding a way to fit weight loss and fitness into your daily routine is harder than ever before. It doesn’t matter how much you know that you need to look after your wellness and wellbeing, other things just seem to grab your attention and take top priority.

 

Lack of time is the most common reason for not doing a proper workout, but did you know that there are exercises you can do in just ten minutes per day? Research has proved that little bits of exercise can add up and are just as beneficial as doing a big chunk of exercise all in one go.

 

You don’t have to have an ‘all or nothing’ mentality. There is most definitely a middle ground between hour-long workouts and not doing any exercise at all. Accumulating short spurts of exercise can provide loads of health benefits for our body.

 

It is easier than you think to build these ten minute workouts into your life. You should remember to treat them in the same way that you would a regular workout, taking time to warm up at the start and cool down at the end, to avoid any injuries. Make sure that the highest intensity section of your workout is in the middle of your session.

 

It’s important to work out at quite a high intensity level if you do a short session, in order to get all of the health benefits. Work hard to raise your respiration and heart rates from workout to workout. Make sure that, like any other workout, you include flexibility, strength training and cardio. Either try to squeeze all three into your routine, or just make sure that you mix and match these from routine to routine, fitting in all three over the course of the week.

Categories: bits, exercise, fitness, Health Benefits, minutes, nbsp, Routine, Workout

Fitness in 30 Days: Are You Up to the Big Challenge?

The winter weather can play havoc with your weight loss and fitness regime, and yet it is at this busy time of year that you should work even harder to protect your wellness and wellbeing. It’s easy to lose sight of your fitness and nutrition goals when you are either bored or frantically busy, and it’s also very easy to give yourself lots of excuses for not sticking to your goals.

 

One of the best things that you can do is to set yourself a 30 day fitness challenge. The best thing about this is that you don’t need to be super-fit or even belong to a gym to sign up to take part in this challenge, and – best of all – the routine can be tailored for your interests and individual needs.

 

The point of the 30 Day Fitness Challenge is to help you do something different every day (fitness related of course) so that every muscle in your body gets a workout at some point and in some way, and you do not become bored with your fitness regime. The structured nature of this kind of plan helps you to follow it and stick to it, and the changing nature can be really beneficial if you are feeling a little bit of the January blues. The fact that the routine changes each day also gives your muscles a good amount of recovery time in between each exercise.

 

In order to make your own personal Fitness Challenge, you first have to draw up a chart with 30 spaces, and in each space you should allocate a different type of exercise. These exercises should be in the form of mini challenges.

 

There are all kinds of challenges you can set yourself, such as doing 100 push ups, doing 100 crunches, moving a mile in any way you like, doing plank exercises and so on.

Categories: big, bored, challenge, day fitness, fitness, fitness challenge, fitness regime, nbsp, Routine

Five Steps, Seven Days: How to Clean Up Your Diet

If you feel like you need a fresh start with your diet, you’re not alone. Whether you’re feeling fatter and sluggish after Christmas, or you’re just having one of those weeks where you just abandon wellness in favour of convenience, it’s time to clean up your diet and take control of your wellbeing! Below, we’ve got a seven-day clean eating challenge that can help you on your journey to a healthier diet but, don’t worry, it’s not as strict as it sounds.

 

‘It’s easy and the payoffs include skyrocketing energy, weight loss, better control over your appetite, and even better looking skin,’ explains registered dietician Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, author of S.A.S.S! Yourself Slim: Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds and Lose Inches. ‘You don’t have to stick to a strict meal plan—we know that’s not realistic for everyone. Instead, we’ve outlined five simple rules to follow…You’re free to pick and choose your favourite recipes or create your own (as long as you stick to the rules).’ A diet plan where you have the freedom and control? Sounds like a winner to me! Try implementing the following five rules for just seven days, and see what a difference it makes to your diet and overall wellness.

 

1. Eat whole foods only: Rule number one of this challenge means that you need to ditch your blueberry muffin in favour of eating oats and blueberries in their whole forms. Sass instructs, ‘When you eat packaged foods, only buy brands that contain “real food” ingredients—ingredients you easily recognise, can pronounce, and would use to make a “from scratch” version in your own kitchen. If a food contains even one ingredient that makes you think “huh?” skip it, at least during the clean eating challenge.’

 

2. Keep meals simple: ‘Delicious, healthy food doesn’t have to contain a lot of ingredients,’ Sass asserts. ‘Keep your meal ingredients to a minimum—just be sure to include a source of whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fat at each meal. For example, veggies and shrimp stir fried in sesame oil over a bed of brown rice seems restaurant quality but can be whipped up faster than takeout.’

 

3. Eat more slowly: If you grew up with brothers and sisters, you might have learned to eat quickly to stop irritating siblings nicking the food off your plate. However, you’re not in survival mode anymore, and eating slowly and mindfully has been proven to help with weight loss. To help you eat more slowly, Sass advises, ‘Put your fork or spoon down between every bite, and focus on the flavours and textures of your food.’

 

4. Schedule your meals and stick to your routine: Not only does this mean eating your meals at regular times; you also need to schedule in your snacks so you don’t stray off the path. ‘Try not to let more than about four hours go by between meals or snacks,’ Sass recommends. ‘Steady meal timing helps regulate your digestive system, blood sugar and insulin levels, and appetite.’

 

5. Listen to your inner compass: Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight will attest to the fact that you need to pay attention to what your body is telling you. So often, we binge on unhealthy foods not because we are hungry, but because we are bored, sad or simply not paying attention. Sass urges, ‘Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, meaning satisfied, not stuffed…get used to relying on your hunger and fullness cues to tell you when to stop and start eating.’

Categories: diet, Eat Slowly, eating, eating challenge, Food, nbsp, Routine, sass, Weight Loss, whole foods

Could Going to the Gym Together Ruin Your Relationship?

If you are keen to kickstart 2014 with a  great new weight loss and fitness routine, then getting your partner to join you in the gym might sound like an ideal way to help you both stick to your resolutions – but is it really such a good idea.

 

On the one hand, doing a shared activity such as this can really boost your emotional wellness and wellbeing. If you are in the early stages of your relationship, gymming together means that you spend more quality time together than you would otherwise, and it can be really fun to work out together. It’s also quite a ‘hot’ way to spend time together (quite literally) and can lead to very good sex afterwards, as the hormones associated with sweat can be quite arousing.

 

Working out together can also make you feel more attracted to your partner as you work towards a common goal together, and see them really putting in the hard effort to better themselves.

 

There are some ways that gymming with a partner can be a bad idea, though, and one of those is if you and your partner are at different fitness levels. If one of you is slowing down to match the pace of the other, this will compromise their performance and may also make the ‘slower’ partner feel belittled. This can lead to problems in the relationship such as unhealthy competition and resentment.

 

The same also occurs if your commitment to your fitness regime isn’t in sync with your partner – you have to motivate and inspire one another. If one of you is happy to skip gym sessions, the other will feel that they are being let down by their partner.

 

You won’t know if you are gym-compatible workout buddies unless you give it a try, so the best way to go about it is to try a few sessions and see how you get on.

Categories: feel, fitness, gym, nbsp, partner, relationship, Routine

How to Make Exercise Part of Your Daily Routine

Many daily household activities could actually be as good for helping you lose weight as a regular fitness routine, according to a recent study. This looked into the effects of normal household chores such as gardening and home repairs on people’s wellness and wellbeing, and showed that being active with various daily chores may dramatically reduce your chances of having a heart attack or suffering from a stroke.

 

Not only that, sex may also be considered a type of exercise, according to the study. The researchers found that men can burn around 4.2 calories for every minute of a sexual workout, and women can burn 3.1 calories a minute.

 

This all goes to prove that getting into a good fitness routine, and sticking to it, is just a case of finding something that you enjoy and that works as part of your daily life.

 

Don’t cancel that gym membership just yet, though, as a bit of light cleaning is not going to fulfil your entire calorie burn requirement for the week. This is one of the dangers of calling daily activities ‘exercise’, as it may lead people into a false sense of security, where they go about their lives convincing themselves that they are actually doing exercise, when in fact they are not active enough to keep themselves healthy and to burn enough calories.

 

In other words, whilst the chores and the sex do count as exercise, they are probably not going to be all the exercise you need. You should schedule in some traditional workouts too, and make sure that you think carefully about how you are going to maintain this schedule long term.

 

Getting hold of an exercise buddy is an excellent way to make sure that you stick to a fitness routine, as you feel indebted to them to go to the gym, even when you don’t particularly feel like it, and the company can also make it seem more fun and less like a chore.

Categories: burn, chores, daily, exercise, fitness routine, nbsp, Routine, Sex

Has Your Weight Loss Plateaued? How to Get Back on Track

When you are focusing hard on your weight and fitness, you will often find that things go brilliantly at first and then after a while they plateau. Continuing to exercise will, of course, benefit your wellness and wellbeing, but it can be quite disheartening to do so if you feel that you are not really seeing the results.

 

The good news is that this happens to everyone. No matter how hard they work or what they do, everyone inevitably hits a stage where their goals just seem a little bit unattainable. This happens because your body has adapted to the workout routine, and it happens to both newbies and seasoned fitness experts. You can break through this plateau, however, and continue on the path to getting the results that you want and you deserve.

 

Most people start a fitness plan by losing weight and gaining some muscle tone, but it is typically around the four to six week mark that they notice that the scales suddenly aren’t dropping like they were, or that your waistline won’t shrink the way it was previously. This should be taken as a sign that you need to change your fitness routine. Your body has adapted to the exercise that you have been doing, and you are not putting the same strain on it that you were at the start of your new routine. It is important, therefore, that you mix it up and start varying the exercises that you do. This is called Muscle Confusion.

 

Muscle Confusion is when you add different exercises and alternate the exercises that you do in your fitness routine. This forces your muscles to adapt, and this makes them stronger and more defined. In addition to varying your workout, you should also increase the number of reps that you do of your exercises, as this will help to increase the number of calories that you are burning, leading directly to weight loss.

Categories: exercises, fitness, fitness routine, Muscle, muscle confusion, plateau, Routine, weight, Weight Loss

Lose Weight With The Dancing With The Stars Workout

Many people love to watch reality TV shows that see people dancing. One of the world’s most popular is Dancing With The Stars, which sees celebrities competing in a dancing competition to see who can jive their way to victory. For some reason people really love to watch famous people attempting to learn dance moves and perform them in front of a live audience, even if they aren’t particularly good. While many people are bemused by the popularity of the show, there can be no doubt that these sorts of dancing shows have re-popularised dancing to a very strong extent and more people than ever are taking up dancing classes or using dancing as part of their weekly workout regime.

 

If you are someone who thinks that dancing would be a great way to stay in shape, we’ve got a fantastic exercise regime for you. It’s the perfect way to get your body moving and make the calories slip away while doing something that you genuinely enjoy. And what’s more, it comes direct from Cheryl Burke, one of the dancing pros on Dancing With The Stars. But before you get started on the workout itself, it is important to get in the right state for it, both physically and mentally. Indeed, most of us are not naturally flexible – and that even goes for Cheryl.

 

“I am not one of those girls who can just land in a split – I need to warm up to be flexible,” she says. And it’s very likely that it is the same for you. So she recommends going through a warm-up routine before you try to do any of the demanding dance move that the routine asks of you. So spend eight minutes stretching and getting your body ready for the workout – it may seem like a waste of valuable time but you will definitely reap the benefits in the end of being able to perform the dance moves with far more agility and skill.

 

First off you should start with the ABC leg raise. To perform this move you should stand up straight, then extend your right leg with your toes pointed, then use your foot to ‘write’ the first three letters of the alphabet in lower case. Take a 30-second rest and then repeat the motion except writing the letters as upper case instead. You should then repeat the whole process with your left leg. The follow this move with other stretches including your thighs, groin and quads.

 

So now let’s get down to business with some dance moves to get you into it. One of the most popular dance routines is salsa. This is an energetic routine that burns off loads of calories while also being a lot of fun to perform. “The salsa is based on 3 counts, making it one of the easiest dances to learn,” Burke says. You should perform the salsa routine four times a week for 30 minutes each.

 

To learn a salsa routine it is strongly recommended that you visit a professional dance class in order to be shown the moves and how to perform them correctly. If you attempt to do them without really knowing them properly you risk injuring yourself and causing more harm than good in your attempt to lose weight. Once you know the routine you can really get into it and improve on it over time. As with most things, the more effort you put in, the more you will get out of it and not only will you know how to perform the dance impressively, you’ll also burn off more calories every time you do it.

Categories: dance, dance moves, Dancing, Dancing With The Stars, Lose weight, people, perform, Routine, salsa routine, Slim

Tis the Season to Be Saucy: How to Have Great Holiday Sex

At New Year’s you get a good smooch when the clock strikes 12, and everyone gets a little passionate come Valentine’s day, but is Christmas sexy? I mean, you eat until you’re gassy and bloated, bicker with relatives and slouch around the house in a big, cosy onesie – that doesn’t exactly scream sexual health to me! However, Jill Di Donato, Adjunct Professor of English at The Fashion Institute of Technology and author of upcoming book 52 Weeks of Sex: Diary of a Single Gal, argues that Christmas isn’t just a time for peace and goodwill, but sexual wellness too!

 

Di Donato recalls, ‘I’ll never forget the Christmas I unwrapped a training bra in front of all of my relatives, and with all the teen angst and melodrama I could muster, threw the package – ribbons flying – at my mother. Pre-puberty, there was something profane about mixing anything even remotely sexual into the holidays. In adulthood, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Why does no one tell you in some sort of advanced 18-and-over sex ed class, “The secret to handling your mother and the I-didn’t-bake-at-all-this-year-again guilt and the dress that won’t zip and the thing you accidentally said to your co-worker at the holiday party is to have a lot of sex?”’ With all the cooking, wrapping, carolling and general festivities to stress about, your sexual wellbeing may be the last thing on your mind. However, with Di Donato’s guide to good holiday sex, Christmas will really be the season to be jolly (wink wink).

 

1. Sneak around: Di Donato remembers, ‘One of my best times was on the cold bathroom tile in a boyfriend’s mother’s house with Christmas music blasting in the background. As we were unmarried, his family didn’t find it appropriate for us to share a bedroom, so we had to sneak around like we were teenagers all over again – except this time we knew what we were doing!’ The thrill of breaking the rules never gets old, so why not jingle his bells when there’s a vague possibility you might get caught.

 

2. Pretend you’re on holiday: Christmas shakes up everyone’s routine, even if you’re not going away for the holidays. ‘Use the disruption in your schedule to stir things up in your sex life by doing something sexually you wouldn’t normally do,’ Di Donato advises. ‘In other words, go into vacation sex mode.’ Researchers at the Kinsey Institute have found that couples have better sex when they’re on holiday because they are temporarily released from the monotony of everyday life.

 

3. Give generously: ‘Generosity is contagious this time of year, and there’s no reason not to bring it into the bedroom,’ Di Donato points out. ‘Rather than focusing on your big finish, try concentrating on your partner’s pleasure. Don’t let him or her put on hand (or any other part) on you; this is all about him or her. Ask what your partner wants and if you’re doing it juuust right. At the end, if there’s an attempt to reciprocate, refuse. It can be your turn another time. Moments of selflessness are good for the soul.’

 

4. Get nostalgic: If you’re single and going home for Christmas, the chances are you’re going to bump into an old flame or two. Di Donato comments, ‘If you’ve always wondered what might have been, there’s no harm in flirting with a person who intrigued you way back when and seeing where it leads. Not only are you older, wiser, and sexier, but your worldliness gives you new perspective on that one who got away. It might be a welcome holiday distraction, or as treacly as it seems, something more…That said, while holiday hook-ups may seem like a good way to avoid a silent night – they can be dangerous territory. Indulge with caution.’

Categories: Christmas, di donato, donato, holiday, holiday sex, nbsp, nostalgia, Routine, sexual

Winter Weight-Loss Secrets: Staying Fit Through the Holidays

Staying fit through the holidays can be tough, especially if you attend lots of parties where tempting foods are sold. It’s okay to slack a little on your diet and exercise plan to allow for holiday fun, but remember that it will take you longer to meet your goals if you allow yourself too many treats.

Wake up and Exercise

Even if you only have 15 or 20 minutes to exercise when you wake up in the morning, make an effort to start your day with cardio. It will help your body wake up and get your heart rate up. Exercising first thing in the morning will also help you feel healthier and burn more calories throughout the day. Treadmills are a great tool for people who want to exercise in the morning without making much noise or going outside in the cold.

Park in an Inconvenient Location

Running errands during the holiday season can help you ramp up your exercise routine. Just pick a parking spot that is near several of the stores you need to shop at. Carrying your shopping bags and walking from one store to another will help you stay fit, especially if the stores you need to visit are at least a block apart.

Change up Your Routine

Exercise can get boring, especially if you do the same routine over and over. If your body is used to lifting weights, try running or taking an aerobics class. The change in routine will jump start your metabolism and challenge your body in new ways. Ellipticals are a great choice for people who are used to lifting weights at home and want to change their routine without having to go to the gym.

Exercise with Friends

You may find yourself so busy during the holiday season that you have to say no to friends who want to have lunch or visit. Combining exercise with spending time with friends helps you maximize the free time you have during this busy season. Try taking a walk to look at Christmas lights or asking your friends to go shopping with you for presents. Having plans with your friends will help you stick to working out daily even when you don’t feel motivated on your own.

Start a New Hobby

Spending time in the kitchen is popular in the winter, but your free time may be better spent taking dance classes or trying out a new sport. You could even buy classes for you and a friend to try together as a present.

Categories: exercise, free time, Friends, holiday season, Lifting Weights, Routine, Spending Time, staying fit, time, Tips, Weight Loss, winter

Lose Weight without Losing It: How to Maintain Your Sanity

You want to look and feel your best, but putting in the effort to get there doesn’t seem worth the misery of dieting. When you do attempt to cut carbs or take up triathlons, all it seems to do is drain your emotional wellness, which does no good for your relationships – how are you supposed to be a loving partner or parent when you haven’t had chocolate in 17 days?! Clearly, you need some stellar advice for losing weight while still maintaining a shred of wellbeing.

 

Sometimes, there is a very good reason to diet. According to Andreas von Bubnoff’s and Joanna Lloyd’s article “25 things you can do take off 10 years or more,” published in MSN Health and Fitness Anti-Ageing Guide, maintaining the weight you had before turning 25 takes years off the ageing process. Another decent reason to lose weight is that you’re actually a better parent to your children – in terms of taking care of them and being more affectionate – if you are at a low enough weight to move around with ease and comfort. Plus, maintaining a healthy weight helps you to control and prevent chronic illnesses, like diabetes, and chronic back pain. So, what can you do to reach your worthy goal, without undergoing the discomfort, pain and struggle of typical weight loss?

 

1. Eat less: Ah, shucks. Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that you are what you eat, both in terms of quantity and quality. Giving up less-than-healthy foods altogether isn’t a sustainable way to maintain your weight, as you’ll only end up craving junk food more and falling off the wagon. Reduce your portion sizes and eat less of what adds weight.

 

2. Take care of your health: Wellness is such an overarching thing that you can take it for granted. You never notice how good it feels not to have a cold, for example, until you’ve just had one. Your health is sacrosanct so don’t do any damage to it. The best way to approach a health-centred lifestyle is to be reasonable and rational. Almost anything is permissible in moderation; just don’t push it to the extremes. I cannot stress this point enough in terms of anorexia. Don’t seek to look anorexic. On a superficial level, it just doesn’t look good, but the fact of the matter is that anorexia is a disorder, unhealthy and just illogical.

 

3. Go slow: You can be so eager to reach your weight loss goals that you try and hurry the process along, and get disappointed when you’re not Gwyneth Paltrow in a week. Don’t be in such a rush; take it slow. You need to take time to adjust to your new weights as and when you need to because your physiological mechanism – which, by the way, is outside the bounds of your control – can take several weeks to several months to become accustomed to a new weight. Be patient and loving with yourself – you’ll get there soon enough.

 

4. Tame your body and your hunger: If you eat meals and snacks at regular times, you can train your body to expect food at these points in the day, and at no other times. Predictability is the perfect, sneaky solution to tame the beast. When you’re planning your eating routine, make sure it doesn’t include eating after eight o’clock at night. Your physiological system needs some Empty time, some Processing time, some Quiet time, before bed. Instead of your go-to bedtime snack, try drinking a cup of organic herbal tea, which can also help relax and prepare you for a good night’s sleep.

Categories: doesn, health, Lose weight, Moderation, nbsp, portion control, Routine, time, weight, Weight Loss

Sleep More, Do More: How to Break that Sleepless Cycle

Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you need to, and so you create more by staying up late until you drop, and getting up early the next day to get a head start. However, sleep is not an enemy, it’s absolutely essential to your wellbeing and, if you’re still concerned about time management, getting enough sleep will actually make you more productive.

According to a new study from researchers at the University of California-San Francisco, women who slept less than six hours per night had far more inflammation than men who slept that amount. While this doesn’t prove the lack of sleep caused increased inflammation, it does raise questions about how important sleep is to your wellness. Inflammation is seen as an important factor in heart attacks and strokes, and so it’s best to avoid it by getting plenty of sleep.

Aside from this, when you get more sleep you’re more focused and effective the next day. It’s important to embrace a lifestyle that will make you happier and healthier in the short-term, as it may extend your life. What’s the point of utilising a few more hours now, when you’ll end up missing out on years later on. All it takes is getting more than six hours of sleep every night (the recommended amount is seven to nine hours). It’s a small change, but it can make a huge difference to your health and happiness.

Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit that you have the ability to reshape your routine and, thus, your life. You may think you’ve been burning the midnight oil for too long to change anything now, but extinguishing that flame might be easier than you think. According to Duhigg, routines begin with a cue; in this case, wanting to get things done. However, for the routine to develop it also needs to be justified with a reward; the satisfaction of checking something else off the to-do list. This is how you get into a sleepless cycle, but you can use this knowledge to create a better routine. Change your mindset to a new cue; wanting to feel more focused and alert. Then, the reward will be that new feeling, and you’ll get the sleep you need.

Categories: change, hours, Inflammation, productivity, Routine, sleep, sleepless cycle

Stuck in a Workplace Headspace? How to Get Out of that RUT

If you run your own business, or you freelance, it can be difficult to draw boundaries between work and home. However, a work-life balance is crucial to corporate wellness – not to mention your family’s wellbeing – so what can you do to relax, switch off and stick to healthy working hours? Get out of that RUT!

Routine – Many freelancers don’t stick to a schedule or routine, because freelancing allows you to work whatever hours you want. While this can be helpful if something comes up, more often that not you can end up over-working and forgetting to enjoy some time off. Create a strict schedule in which you begin and finish work at the same time every day, and make sure your clients are aware of these working hours so they know not to constantly bother you. During your scheduled time, sit in a room that’s devoid of distractions, and don’t go near them until your work day is done.

Unplug – Speaking of distractions, delete your Facebook and Twitter apps from your phone or tablet. If your business involves looking after clients’ or your own social media pages, the last thing you want is to be notified of something when you’re supposed to be getting ready for bed. Again, go on these sites during working hours, and log out at all other times. The same goes for your emails and texts. Get two email addresses and mobile phones – one for work and one for personal use. Log out of your work email and switch off your work phone when you’re out of work hours. That way, you won’t have to panic if you get an email or text on Saturday morning.

Talk – The first rule of non-work club is you don’t talk about work. Try to spend as much social time as possible with people who aren’t in your work environment, as this means you’ll be mentally separate from work. However, if you are friends with your clients or colleagues, then just establish a rule to never ‘talk shop’ outside of work. If you need to get some work stress of your chest, talk about it with your friends but then move on and don’t go back to it for the rest of the evening. Whatever the issue, it can almost always wait until Monday morning.

 

Categories: Routine, talk, Unplug

How to Improve Your Fitness in a Few Very Easy Steps

Spring has arrived, and that means that there is no longer any excuse for not getting out of the house and enjoying the weather whilst improving your fitness at the same time. The benefits of exercise are well proven, and if you are seriously committed to improving your wellness and taking care of your wellbeing, you really need to get started on an exercise programme soon – and soon means today!

Fitness doesn’t come for free – it requires lots of hard work and dedication, but we fully recognise that it is difficult to get started on a new exercise regime, particularly after such a long and cold winter as the one that we have just experienced. By following our simple steps, you will soon find that your fitness is increasing, your mood is improving, and your wellness is significantly altered.

1. Getting outdoors is the best thing that you can do. Even if it’s just walking rather than taking the bus, going for a gentle stroll or pottering around the garden, you will be unconsciously taking exercise, letting your blood flow increase and improving your health. Being active all day is even better for you than taking one short burst of structured exercise during the day.


2. Joining a sports club can be a really wise step. Spending time with other people who are exercising at the same time, and sometimes relying on you to turn up and plan, can be really motivating. You’re also likely to make new friends and the competitive spirit of clubs can also help to push you towards being the best that you can be.


3. Start slowly, rather than going at it full pelt and ending up injuring yourself. Fitness has to be built up gradually and the saying is quite literally true, that you should not try to run before you can walk!

How to Improve Your Fitness in a Few Very Easy Steps

Categories: exercise, fitness, Help, improving, Routine, time, Wellness

How To Re-gain Your Fitness Motivation

Fitness is not something that just happens on its own. Nor is it something that, once you become fit, automatically stays with you for life. Fitness has to be constantly worked at and achieved, and taking your foot off the pedal can quite quickly result in a decrease in fitness and wellbeing.

It can be hard to maintain an exercise programme, as sometimes doing the same thing over and over again leads to people becoming bored with their workout. Even knowing something is good for your wellness does not necessarily make it appealing, day after day.

Many people find their exercise routines slipping after a while, and this is when they start to gain weight. This weight gain makes them lethargic and depressed, which then demotivates them further and encourages them to eat more. Very quickly, they can get into a destructive cycle where they eat to feel better and are too tired to exercise. It’s all too easy to come up with excuses not to exercise, especially when life is busy. Injuries also become more common too, as the body gets out of the way of exercising so that when you do take up your routine again, you are more susceptible to getting hurt as muscles have weakened.

The key is to start small. Don’t try to go out and do a massive workout straight away – start with a simple 10 minute walk. Don’t tell yourself that you will go out every single day, try instead to go out just one or two days during that first week. When lifting weights, start with low weights and reps and build your way up slowly. As time goes by and your fitness increases, you will almost certainly find yourself tempted to do more.

Set yourself a small and realistic goal to work towards and clear time in your schedule to achieve this. If you don’t set aside specific time to exercise, it simply won’t happen as you will always prioritise something over it, especially if you don’t much feel like doing it.

Finally, make sure you reward yourself when you do see results, whether that is with a bit of pampering or a nice new outfit that you used not to be able to wear.

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How To Re-gain Your Fitness Motivation

Categories: exercise, motivation, Routine