Karen

 We’re in the first month of 2020, and many of us are still figuring out or trying to keep our new year’s resolutions. Many of our resolutions are health and fitness related. After all, we all want to lead the best lives we can – able to do as we please, when we please, and not suffering the symptoms of negative health consequences that can disrupt our happiness and wellbeing. If you’re planning on leading a healthier lifestyle, a good place to start is cutting out foods that are bad for you. Here are a two foods that you might want to consider cutting down on or waving goodbye to!

 Alcohol

 Alcohol can be fine to incorporate into your diet. It’s a legal substance and it is easily accessible. Many of us base a lot of our social lives around drinking with friends – picking up an alcoholic drink in the grocery store, in your local pub, at a bar, in clubs, or even at restaurants where you are casually dining. Some of us drink at home over a meal, some of us go out to drink. As an occasional thing that we partake in every now and again, alcohol is fine. But it’s important to remember that there are a whole host of negatives that can be associated with excessive alcohol consumption whether it’s binge drinking or drinking too much on a regular basis.

Alcohol can inhibit your mental capacity, resulting in you making bad or regrettable decisions. It can cause alcohol poisoning. It also comes hand in hand with a whole host of long term health consequences to your liver and other organs. If you believe that you may regularly be exceeding the recommended alcohol consumption limits, or if you are ever concerned that you are becoming dependent on alcohol, you will need to cut down your consumption or remove alcohol from your lifestyle altogether. There are various steps that you can take to achieve this and the best for you will depend on the severity of your over consumption. It’s generally best to consult your doctor who can take a look at your individual needs and give you personally tailored advice. They may recommend alcohol support groups or attendance at an alcohol rehab center.

Sugar

 Sugar is sweet and the majority of us find it delicious. There are various evolutionary theories set out to explain this. But at the end of the day, we are very different from our ancestors. Sugar is so mass produced nowadays that we are eating it in much higher volumes than people seem to have ever consumed it before. The bad news is that sugar can have a detrimental impact on our overall health and well being. It’s extremely bad for your oral health and can cause tooth decay, toothache, and the need for many dental procedures. It also has no nutritional value – it doesn’t provide any essential vitamins or nutrients to our diet, which means that when we eat it, we are filling up without getting any health benefits. So, reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. If you need a sweet snack, opt for fruit, which contains natural sugars.

Cutting out foods that are bad for you is just one step in the right direction to better health. These are just two foods you should seriously consider cutting down on throughout the rest of the year! You’ll feel all the better for it!

With so much focus on beautifying your face with makeup and trying new tips and tricks with various products to try and make you look younger and more flawless, many people neglect the base care of their skin as a whole – and this includes all over the body, not just the face. Proper skin care is essential, especially as you get older and your needs change, so here are some relevant ways to take better care of your skin and remain healthy.

Protect Your Skin from UV Rays

Protection against the sun’s harmful rays is essential, no matter your age. Make sure that you are buying skin care products with an extra UV protection factor or ensure that you’re incorporating sun lotion into your skincare routine before you leave the house – and top up when necessary.

Not only can UV rays increase the risk of skin cancer, but they can also quicken the signs of aging, which include fine lines and wrinkles.

Invest in The Right Products

Simply using products isn’t enough; you need to be using the right products. A general moisturizer, for example, might be the wrong kind for your skin, or you may be using products that are more suited for a completely different skin type altogether. Understand your skin needs and buy the right products for it.

You can look for great deals on quality products with discount cosmetics online.

Stay Hydrated

Drinking enough water is paramount for good health in general, but if you want your skin to remain healthy and glowing, then staying hydrated is a key way to achieve that. Drinking enough water can help your body to battle a variety of skin problems, including spots and eczema. Water can help to flush out toxins from your body, which results in a better complexion and healthier skin.

Tailor Your Routine to Your Needs

You may have always had a thorough skincare regimen, but needs change as your skin ages, and you need to be aware of how this happens. As you get older, you may need different kinds of products, more of a certain product, or to apply a product more often throughout the day than you used to do.

If you’re unsure of your skincare needs, you can always speak to a beauty professional regarding specific issues, such as fine lines, wrinkles, or dryness. Tailor your routine and products to the age of your skin.

Eat Right

Your diet has several consequences on the body, and this doesn’t just mean gaining weight. An unhealthy diet can have negative results on the skin, such as oily skin, increased spots, and a pallid complexion. Just as with consuming water, consuming healthier ingredients in your diet – and particularly those that can offer more hydration, too – will leave your skin in a better, healthier, and more glowing condition.

Exercise Regularly

Exercise promotes better blood flow and circulation – as well as being an essential pastime for a healthy lifestyle – which means that your complexion will be healthier and will help to target toxins. Exercise also helps to tackle stress, which then results in battling any signs of stress on the skin, such as a tired appearance.

There are many myths about being a senior, such as that becoming a senior citizen means you will become physically incapacitated, automatically fall into dementia, or at the very least, lose much of your memory. The plain fact is, with the right habits and the right activities, seniors can live very fulfilling lives. And a big part of that is attitude. Accept the things you can’t change, do the things you can do, and re-invent your health as you age.

Do this and you can quite often live a very enjoyable life as part of your senior years.

 Important things you can do: 

• Attitude adjustment

  Probably the best thing you can do is to evaluate every challenge you will likely face now, or in the future, and then change your attitude about those challenges. Instead of moaning the loss of what once was, or what regrets you might harbor, be grateful for everything you can muster.

• Eat well

  You probably don’t have to be told what to eat but rather you have simply turned a blind eye to how important it is. The plain fact is, for most people, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, a decent amount of protein, and laying off the simple carbohydrates and sugars is the best plan you can have to ensure you remain healthy.

• Get plenty of rest

  Sleeping is often difficult for seniors and it would be fair to say many are sleep deprived. So get a great bed. We prefer Purple as the best mattress, but whatever you do, make sure to sleep on a comfortable mattress. Also, the age-old advice, early to bed, early to rise still holds true. If you go to bed early, you’ll get better sleep than watching old Perry Mason reruns after midnight while falling asleep in your easy chair.

• Drink plenty of water

  Fabgrandma.com not only supports eating well and getting plenty of rest, but reminds seniors that dehydration is a real problem with older adults. Keeping a chart of how much water you drink, infusing water with a little fruit juice to enhance the flavor, and buying a small flask so you are never without water pay huge dividends in helping to re-invent your health.

• Get enough exercise

  If you want to be vital past age 75, you had better exercise. No, you don’t have to lift weights like Arnold Schwarzenegger, nor run marathons, but to keep your blood pumping and your joints loose, most doctors recommend seniors get at least 30 minutes per day of exercise. But what exercise is useful for a much younger person may be contrary to what a senior should do.

  The Huffington Post article, Exercises for Seniors, has a fantastic article on suggested exercise routines for seniors, and it’s an article well worth reading.

• Find new joys or revive old ones

  If you want to live a long and healthy life, for heaven’s sake, turn off the television set and get involved in things you enjoy. Whether it’s finding a new hobby like trout fishing, joining a club, traveling to countries you’ve never seen before, or pitching a tent in a national park, the difference between just existing until your time expires and living is how you engage your time. Continually be on the lookout for things to fulfill your life and you’ll be much happier.

• Stay connected

  There is a reason people become crossing guards for schoolchildren or volunteer at clubs. Connecting with others makes you feel alive instead of feeling alone. Even if you are a widower or your grown children don’t visit as often as you’d like, that’s no excuse for wasting away in your room.

  Are you in a park or neighborhood where there is public chess? Set up a board and await people to play with you as well as converse, even if it’s a 9-year-old. Volunteer at your local school or library to read stories to young children. Join a bacca ball league. There are literally hundreds of things you can do to fill your time, and you’ll feel so much more connected as a result of it.

• Learn something new

  The rather famous painter, Grandma Anna Mary Robertson Moses, began painting at age 78. Colonel Harlan Sanders really began franchising his chicken cooking technique at age 65. At age 95, Nola Ochs became the oldest college graduate in the U.S. when she received a bachelor’s degree from Fort Hays State University, Kansas.

Age can really be a state of mind if you learn to take care of yourself and re-invent your health.

Chronic stress is now considered a national epidemic for all ages and genders across the US with 57% of people saying that they feel ‘paralyzed’ by their stresses. Stress, when experienced infrequently, is an entirely natural response to difficult situations but when experienced continuously for extended periods of time can become chronic leading to more complex health issues. Rather than popping pills or managing their stress with medication a lot of people first try to fight their stress with natural remedies which can very often be just as effective. Here are 5 natural ways to cope with stress.

Meditation

The power of meditation is often underestimated by people who have yet to try it, with just as little as 10-15 minutes a day providing lasting benefits. To get started with meditation simply find a quiet space to sit or lie down and then focus on your breathing as you allow your thoughts to run free. Don’t dwell on any one thought just acknowledge them and then let them go. If you have previously found that meditation isn’t something that comes naturally to you then meditation apps such as Headspace can make great teachers and will guide you through your practice.

CBD Is A Great Natural Way To Cope With Stress

CBD has been widely associated with helping those suffering from stress and anxiety and has been used in many forms over the years. As a cannabinoid from the Cannabis Sativa plant, CBD can be ingested as an isolate, producing no high effects or in countries where cannabis is legal, it can be ingested as a part of the whole plant when purchased from a weed dispensary. Many users of CBD hail its ability to help with stress almost instantaneously and the compound is praised widely amongst those who practice more natural medicine.

Exercise

Exercise is often labeled ‘meditation in motion’ allowing the individual to steady a hurried mind and realign their thoughts. Alongside being an effective way to meditate, exercise is also responsible for releasing happy hormones called endorphins within the body that can help improve a person’s mood and reduce their cortisol levels, making them feel less stressed. Just 15 minutes of exercise a day can have a real impact and the activity needn’t be strenuous either. 

Herbal teas

Herbal teas such as chamomile, kava kava, and passionflower have long been considered remedies for stress, anxiety, and insomnia with some studies showing them to be comparable to certain drugs. These herbal teas act as natural relaxants and help the body to decompress, and the ritual of sipping on a hot cup of tea is in itself considered to be relaxing and calming. Drinking herbal tea is probably the easiest of these 5 natural ways to cope with stress.

Remove the Stressor

Perhaps the best natural way to reduce your stress levels is to tackle whatever it is that is causing you stress in the first place. Sometimes taking a step back and evaluating why you feel the way you do can help you to put plans in place to help you cope. If you are able to, then try to eradicate your stressors altogether, but if that’s not an option then speak with someone about how you can lighten your load or reduce the stress you feel on a daily basis.