Health

What is the Best Lifestyle For You?

November 30, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

We are all on a constant search for the best lifestyle. Perhaps you are the kind of person who likes to jump on every superfood or fad diet trend, or maybe you have thrown yourself into a new fitness regime every January and then given up by June in favor of something else. It might be that you simply read all the articles on health and wellbeing but never quite get around to trying anything new.

The thing is, that even when you do set out on a brand new healthy lifestyle, how do you know that it’s working?

Do Your Research

Start by researching the change you want to make. You might start by reading blogs like healthandfitnessvitality.com to get some inspiration and see what other people have tried. You might also like to read magazines or ask around to see what your friends are doing.

The key thing to remember when you do your research is to look for a reason to doubt what you are reading. So, if you are reading a blog about a particular diet, look for a reason that the person might benefit from showing you that information. If they are making money through recommendations, the source probably isn’t that reliable. On the other hand, reading sources like WebMD, NCBI or any academic research site will be more likely to be impartial and give a more critical understanding.

Start Tracking Your Data

If you want to measure a change, you first need to monitor your current condition. Keeping a diary of your current habits and data is the best way to do this. So, if you are concerned about how your diet affects your energy, you might track what you are eating and give yourself a mark out of 10 for your energy levels a few times per day. Various apps might be able to help here but a basic diary will probably be a cheaper option.

Only when you know your baseline can you begin to see where the changes might be.

Begin Tracking and Analyzing Changes

Once you know what your baseline is, you can start making small changes. It’s important that you only make one change at a time if you want to test the results clearly. While you could completely change your lifestyle all in one go, you are more likely to struggle with your changes and give up. Small steps are usually most effective.

There are all kinds of tiny changes that can have a big impact on the way you feel. Sticking with food for a moment, you might be surprised that plating your vegetables before your carbs can make portion control easier. Similarly, easing your bedtime back by 5 minutes a day could help you get the sleep you need and help you fall asleep faster.

Analyzing the differences between results on your baseline days and your change days will show you categorically whether an intervention has worked. If it has, carry on; if it hasn’t stop putting in so much effort and try something else!

This post was a collaboration.

Thank you for reading!

Beauty Health

The 101 Routine To Reverse Sun Damage

November 28, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

Reversing sun damage sounds ambitious. Let’s be clear from the start: You can’t undo what has been done on the spot. In other words, if you’re looking for a secret remedy to tame an unexpected sunburn, this is not the article for you. While direct sunlight exposure is beneficial for your mind and body, it’s fair to say that you can have too much of a good thing. After a hot summer, your hair can feel dry and brittle. Blond hair, especially, tends to take a turn for dull yellow hues. As for your skin, you may notice a lasting sensation of tightness. Unfortunately, once the damage is done, it doesn’t disappear as the sunlight reduces. While you can cover up with rich creams or vibrant hair dye, you also need to address the problem in the deeper layers of your cells. Winter is the best time to tackle the summer damages, as you’ve got plenty of time to heal before the next hot season.

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Your Hair Deserves Some Attention

You need to nourish your hair from within if you want to get it back to health. Dry hair especially can feel unruly and messy, which in turn forces you to use additional styling products and heat – and you can guess that over-styling damaged hair is the last thing you want to do. Therefore, if you find that you haven’t been able to manage your frizzy and unruly locks, you should look for a combination of products that can repair the sun damage. The Joico Defy Damage hair care line is an excellent tip for anybody who is trying to regain full hair health. It’s also a good idea to stay away from the blow dryer for a while, and embrace the natural drying process to keep heat damage to a minimum.

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Help Your Skin to Heal

Switching your skin care products for winter moisturizers is the best thing you can do to keep your skin hydrated and healthy in winter. However, if your skin isn’t healthy to begin with, then you’ll need to consider treatments that can help to heal the sun damage. You can look into professional support to boost your collagen production in the areas that have been affected by the summer sun. Med spa treatments tend to offer dedicated skin care cures, such as CO2 laser skin resurfacing, for instance, which triggers the healing process. Skin lotions can only address surface damages.

Give Your Body The Supplements It Needs

Last but not least, your body produces its own collagen. However, this production reduces over time. Collagen promotes skin healing, elasticity, firmness, and healthy hair. If you want to reduce the visible signs of sun damage, you need to help your body boost its natural collagen production. The easiest way to get more collagen is to consume it as a supplement. Not only does it help to reduce fine lines, but it also restores moisture to the skin cells and strengthens your hair.

Ideally, you need to protect your skin and hair from extreme sun exposure. However, once the mistake is made, the best course of action is to address the problem directly in your skin cells and hair follicles. Don’t cover it up, but build health from within!

•How do you protect your skin from the sun?

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Thank you for reading!

Fitness Health

Refrain From The Pain! Exercising When You Have An Injury

November 21, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

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If you are an avid gym-goer, it becomes part of your life. You can’t imagine yourself without it. Even something simple like walking turns into a rapid sprint. But if you have this enthusiasm for hitting the gym, there will be times when you do too much, even though you think you can push it that little bit more than normal. By all means, pushing it in the gym is what helps us in the long run, but if we do it too much we could end up with an injury. It’s something we’ve all had on occasion, overdid it and got sidelined for a while. And while we need to give our body the chance to heal, we have to remember that there are ways around exercising with an injury. So, how can we do this?

Listen To Your Doctor

If you’ve been going to a shoulder surgeon, and there’s been a constant issue with this over months, if not years, you must listen to the medical advice. Sometimes your shoulder can feel okay, and as shoulder injuries are one of the most common because the muscles in the shoulders are the least developed, understanding when to cut back is crucial. Your doctor can help to guide you with relevant training to keep you strong while recovering. A lot of people choose not to listen to medical advice. But you have to do the exercises for as long as they recommend.

Make The Relevant Modifications

With a specific injury, you have to learn to train around it. If, for example, you have a knee problem, it may be recommended you avoid any cardiovascular or lower body strength activity. But this doesn’t mean you can’t work on your upper body. It’s about making those modifications to ensure that you are exercising around the issue. You can switch to a workout routine that involves you sitting down, rather than standing up and running around. This means no squats or deadlifts for a while. And while this may sound limiting, consider it to be an opportunity to figure out a different routine so that there is no pressure on the offending muscle or joint.

When There’s Pain, Stop

We can feel that, after a couple of weeks, there are minimal or no pain anymore, so we feel that we can go back to 100% exertion. But avoid the temptation to go back into your normal routine. We are constantly told that pushing through the pain is crucial to building muscle and strength but if the pain starts to get worse before you begin to develop new pains in a related area, go back to the doctor. If the pain carries on while you are doing a modified workout, play around with routines and try something else. But unfortunately, it may be best to stop, especially if you are using the improper form to get the reps.

Reducing pain is crucial, and this means you need a good time to recover as well. It’s worth trying the POLICE principle which can help you to reduce sports-related injuries, but it’s not just about protection. You have to remember that maintaining is as important especially after you’ve made a full recovery.

This post was a collaboration.

Health

Keeping Yourself Safe and Healthy Over Winter

November 20, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

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Across the country, people are getting ready for the holiday season. They are planning presents and scouring their attics searching for decorations. The holiday cheer is undoubtedly in the air.

While this is an excellent time of year to reconnect with friends and family and enjoy not just the end of the year, but the end of the decade, you also need to make sure that you look after yourself. There are a lot of things that could affect your safety and health over the winter, so knowing what to look out for will allow you to navigate the season confidently.

Slips, Trips, and Falls

Some of you may live in the sunnier parts of the country (like me!), but those who need to deal with several hundred pounds of white nonsense every winter understand that it is nothing to take lightly.

With the cold comes snow, and with snow comes ice, which can be dangerous to everybody from you to your grandma to your postman, and even your car. The risk of injury increases exponentially over winter with harsh conditions, so make sure to equip yourself with snow boots and snow tires.

These may not be enough, though, so if you suffer an injury while out and about, a personal injury law firm can help ease the pain and help you afford any medical bills your insurance may not cover.

Illness In the Air

With cold weather also comes illness. Flu season is ready to strike, and if you spend a lot of your time with children or the elderly, you put them at risk as much as you do yourself.

A flu shot now is essential to keep you at your best over the holidays, but you should also make sure that everyone you hold near and dear gets theirs, too.

However, you can’t just keep yourself hidden away inside in hopes that you’ll stay healthy, as this can affect your immune system, so exposure to these potential illnesses will give your body the ability to overcome them later.

Overwhelmed With Responsibility

It’s not just injuries and illnesses that can affect your holiday happiness. You also need to watch out for doing too much for too many.

There are so many things to do over the Christmas period that you’ll find little time in the day for some essential self-care. So, it’s crucial that in between work, shopping, seeing people, and other preparation that you manage to make time for yourself.

This can be a quick soak in the tub, reading your favorite book, or fitting your hobby in while the kids are busy doing homework. It won’t take long, but the benefits will astound you.

Personal Health and Safety

It’s too easy around the winter months to take on as much responsibility as you can, but doing too much could end with you getting hurt, injured, or overwhelmed by it all. This time of year is something you should embrace and enjoy, and also take the chance to give yourself some time to recharge. When you do, you can stride into the new year and the new decade with renewed energy ready for whatever 2020 has in store.

•How are you keeping safe and healthy this winter?

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Beauty Health

How To Protect Your Teeth As Best You Can

November 20, 2019 By lyndsinreallife 2 Comments

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Dental health is likely only something you think about when you’re experiencing an issue. For the most part, healthy teeth are not noticeable, but we all know how terrible toothache can feel, especially if we are in need of major restorative work. Even most of us who have been through the ‘retainer’ period as children may find that in adulthood, we forget about our dental health unless there is a problem.

However, it’s important to note that our teeth are not infinitely restorable, and so it’s best to look after them while they’re there. This is also an important practice to follow within the household, because the habits and practices we teach our children will set them up for their dental health (or a lack thereof) for life.

Of course, sometimes, such as in the case of emergency issues, you will need immediate help and the ability to cater to your particular needs. However, the following advice is geared towards the yearly sustenance of your teeth that you can adopt on a habitual basis. Let’s see what that may look like!

Cut Down On Sugar

Cut down on the sugar you consume. This can sound quite harsh, especially when the festive season is coming up. Of course, depending on your sugar intake and how that impacts your teeth, varying degrees of harm can come. Eating a fruit cake? Likely not as bad as drinking can after can of full-sugar Pepsi. It’s important to note that nutrition does have a real impact on your dental health though, and so trying your best to eat non-processed, or non-artifically-sweetened goods can be important.

Visit A Professional

Visit a professional if needed (though you’re supposed to go every 6 months!). Sometimes, we may find that our teeth are starting to hurt, and this dull ache or sharp pain may be difficult to assess where the pain is coming from. If you’re not used to something like this, and we hope you’re not, it can be hard to get a grip on what is even happening at this point. This is why it’s very important to visit a professional and try to ensure that you can have the problem taken care of, rather than letting it grow. Often, a wisdom tooth dentist is the most common form of help you’ll need, particularly in your late teens to early adulthood.

Care For Chips Or Pains

If you find that your teeth are hurting, or feel very sensitive while eating ice cream, that could signify a need to change your daily habits. Using sensitive toothpaste, going for more regular checkups, ensuring that you’re not being irresponsible with the foods you eat, sticking to healthier beverages such as water or green tea, and staying away from high concentration whitening kits can all have a positive effect. If your teeth become chipped or are in pain, always ask a dentist about the restorative work you can have done.

With this advice, we hope you can care for your dental health correctly!

•Have you had your wisdom teeth removed? What is your best advice to keep healthy teeth?

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Health

5 Symptoms Of Serious Health Problems You Should Not Ignore

November 16, 2019 By lyndsinreallife 1 Comment

We all want to be healthy, and a big part of that is not allowing any serious illnesses to develop. Of course, there is only a certain amount that any of us can do about that, but we should do whatever we can. One of the most important things is to pay attention to the body, and in particular to know when a symptom has appeared which you should not ignore. In this post, we are going to look at some of those very symptoms, and what they might signify.

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Dry Mouth

As is often the case, this is an example of a symptom which can either be indicative of nothing at all, or of a very severe problem. In the worst case scenario, a dry mouth can be an indication of medication misuse, a bad response to illicit drugs such as methamphetamine, or Alzheimer’s disease. Clearly, a persistent dry mouth should not be ignored, as it could be any of these things. It could also be nothing at all, so the first thing to do is to try and treat your dry mouth – you can get hold of lozenges for dry mouth for instance, or see if you are merely dehydrated. If it persists, you know to go to the doctor.

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Weak Limbs

If you ever experience suddenly weak limbs, you should be careful not to ignore it, as it might be an indication of something quite serious. Most importantly, it might be a sign that you are having a stroke, which is obviously something that you will need to go to the hospital for straight away. If you have heart-related conditions, you should pay careful attention to this in particular, as they can make a stroke much more likely.

Shortness Of Breath

Shortness of breath may indicate nothing particularly important at all, especially if it only lasts for a short time. But if you have persistent shortness of breath, or if it is sudden, it could be a much more serious problem. In some cases, it may even indicate that you are having a heart attack, especially if you have other symptoms present at the same time, such as pain in your chest. Never ignore serious shortness of breath.

Indigestion

Everyone has had the experience of indigestion from time to time. But if you are not expecting to have it, for instance, because you have not just eaten, then it is a symptom you should be very careful about, and be sure not to ignore. That’s because indigestion seemingly out of nowhere and very suddenly can be an early warning sign of a heart attack.

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Chest Pain

Speaking of heart attacks, here’s another sign that you need to pay attention to, should it occur. Chest pain is the primary signifier of a heart attack, and if you find that you’re experiencing pain, you should take yourself to the hospital or call 911 as soon as possible. If it is a heart attack, you will want to catch it early.

•What are some health symptoms you suggest shouldn’t be ignored?

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Health

Keeping Yourself Healthy When Going Through A Tough Time

November 6, 2019 By lyndsinreallife 1 Comment

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Tough times can often lead to a sense of stress, and this can wreak havoc with your emotional health. However, it’s important to recognize that keeping yourself healthy when going through a tough time is not only something you should focus your mental health towards, but also your physical health. In fact, they inform one another in various ways. For example, caring for your mental health will make you much more likely to exercise, while exercising can help you reduce stress and anxiety, and help you live the rest of the day with optimism.

It’s impossible to separate your physical and mental health efficiently, because you are not separated into two distinct categories yourself. However, keeping yourself healthy when going through a tough time often calls for a worthy approach. Sure, you may be working on your stress and mental struggles by taking forthright action and relying on the support of those closest to you, but are you also maintaining your physical health in the best way you can?

It’s these questions we hope to answer, and we hope to answer them as follows:

Superfoods

Superfoods are extremely worthwhile measures of ensuring your body is able to restore itself, as high levels of nutrition and the replenishment of vitamins and minerals can mean plenty for energizing you, and helping you fight off issues relating to a tired immune system. You may learn how to make v8 juice at home, providing you with that necessary health kick you may be after each day. Eating kale, drinking green tea, nuts and seeds and ginger can be jus tthe start, but a thoroughly worthwhile start at that.

Plenty of Sleep

You need to sleep when under intense stress. It’s your body’s way of being able to refresh and replenish its systems, and without a good snooze you may find yourself unable to comfortably or rationally think your way through a situation as you may have. Sleep requires great sleep habits, and while eight hours is often the recommended maximum, for certain difficult periods of your life even nine to ten hours may be customary to help your body adapt to the expanded sense of exhaustion it may be going through right now.

Getting Out In Nature

There’s a sense of real peace in nature, because to some extent it doesn’t care what your emotions are. That tree you walk past may have been there two hundred years ago, and is still sat there, living, calm, blowing in the wind. There’s a timeless aspect to nature. It was here before you and it will be there after you are gone. This sounds scary upon first analysis, but it’s simply a fact of life. Keeping yourself healthy then, can often mean stress reduction, and a safe natural environment is perhaps the best way to bust stress. You’ll look at things differently after walking in the park for an hour, and you can trust us on that point.

With this advice, we hope you can stay healthy when going through a tough time.

•How do you stay healthy when you’re going through a tough time?

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Health

Sneaky Reasons Why You’re Not Losing Weight

November 4, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

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When it comes to losing weight, everyone struggles. Although it might seem like others drop pounds without trying, that just isn’t the case. After all, the body isn’t happy about weight loss. Instead, it fights back, so even if you can lose weight quickly at first, it gets harder before long. Regular workouts and food journals will only get you so far. When weight loss begins to slow down, you must reassess. With that in mind, here are six reasons why you aren’t losing weight.

Staying Up All Night

Quality sleep is necessary for good physical and mental health. Even if you’re happy staying awake all night working or playing video games, your body likely isn’t. Lack of sleep is linked to many harmful health conditions, including obesity. Because of this, you must make sleep a priority. Get yourself into a sleep routine, as well as other healthy habits, like avoiding caffeine.

Eating The Wrong Foods

Everyone knows you must avoid overeating to lose weight. However, this will be difficult if the foods you eat aren’t filling you up. Rather than ingesting empty calories, you should add more Umami foods to your diet. Umami is one of the basic tastes and is often found in high-protein foods. Just remember that eating these foods won’t help if you’re also indulging in junk food.

Missing Out On Weights

Many people, when trying to lose weight, stick to cardio workouts. After all, this is known to burn calories and fat. Nonetheless, you must spend time strength training too. Lifting weights is an effective way to reduce body fat, as well as maintain muscle mass. Without weight training, you might lose some muscle mass too. Lifting weights will also help to prevent metabolic slowdown.

Drinking Too Little Water

The 8×8 rule might be outdated, but you must still keep yourself hydrated. Drinking water is incredibly important when it comes to shedding pounds. Not only does it help with portion control by suppressing your appetite, but it can improve metabolism too. If you have trouble drinking enough water, then carry a water bottle around with you. This will remind you to take sips.

Letting Stress Build Up

Trying to lose weight can definitely be a stressful process. Along with this, you might have other problems to worry about in your life. The trouble is, this stress can make losing weight more difficult. Stress hormones affect your body in many ways, but will directly impact fat storage. For this reason, you must learn ways to tackle your stress and keep it from overwhelming you.

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Accepting Drug Side Effects

Every medication has side effects. The trouble is, most people don’t pay attention to them. If you’re having trouble losing weight, or, worse still, have been gaining weight recently, then look at the drugs you take. One might impact your energy levels or increase your appetite. Thankfully, there are often alternatives you can try, so speak to your doctor for advice.

Losing weight can be difficult, but the advice above should make the task much easier!

What do you do to lose weight? Comment below!

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Beauty Health

How to Improve Your Look- Without Focusing on Fashion

November 2, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

If you feel as though you don’t look good in whatever you wear, then you will know how debilitating this can be. You may feel as though nothing you do works and that your confidence is going to suffer as a result. You have to know that it doesn’t need to be this way, in fact, there are plenty of ways for you to improve your look without focusing on fashion at all.

Posture

Putting on nice clothes is only half of the formula. You also need to adjust your posture, as this will transform the way that the garment fits you. It will also help you to have a bigger impact on those around you, too. There’s a high chance that having a good posture won’t come naturally to you and this is understandable, but it is possible for you to change this. Stand in front of the mirror, lift your head up and line up your shoulders, hips and ears. When you are standing completely straight, you then need to curve your lower back and pull your stomach in. This will give you a new-found level of confidence and over time, you will start to do it naturally without even thinking about it.

Hair

Before you pay a visit to your local stylist, think about what makes you feel good. Your style will change as you age, and you need to take this into account if you want to get the best result out of your style. A collarbone-length haircut can be versatile and it can also work wonders for your natural weave. Bangs can add an element of precision, too. If you are stuck as to which look you want to go with, then chat with your stylist and channel your personality as much as possible.

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Smile

Researchers have found that forced smiles can increase happiness, and they can also decrease stress. A smile can go a long way in the workplace too, as it can indicate positivity and openness. Even if you aren’t feeling great, try to force yourself to smile anyway. This will improve the way that other people view you and it will also boost your self-confidence! If you don’t feel comfortable with your teeth or your smile for any reason, then you may want to pay a visit to your dentist. When you do, they can then advise you on the best way to fix your problems. You can also find out what you need to know about adult retainers if this is something that you are interested in.

Make-up

If you are not one for wearing make-up, this is understandable. But also, it can work wonders for your look. If you want to help yourself here then it is a good idea for you to wear make-up that compliments your natural skin tone. Don’t go too overboard and cover the features you don’t like, instead, try and bring out the features you do like. This will really help you to get the most out of your look and your style in general.

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Beauty Health

What To Do When Your Toddler Develops A Skin Condition

October 23, 2019 By lyndsinreallife Leave a Comment

Children are out playing in the sandbox, in the mud, and rolling around in the wet grass. It’s what they are supposed to do! Toddlers are meant to be playing rough and finding out about the world around them by simply doing. This will give them a lot of opportunities to feel different textures, realize what is safe and what isn’t. However during this time, their body is growing rapidly and thus, big changes mean vulnerability. Whenever our bodies are growing there is always a risk that we will develop a condition of some kind. This is because our bodies are growing faster in size that the strength of our immune system. Skin conditions are among the most common for toddlers, so being able to understand and treat such ailments is going to be to your advantage as a parent.

Scalp Itch

There are lots of different scalp conditions that toddlers can develop. As mentioned they will be playing in some messy environments so they have a chance of picking something up. One of them is scalp ringworm is called tinea capitis. Ringworm is highly contagious and it’s possible to be spread from child to child. It usually happens when the toddler is between the ages of 2 to 3. The symptoms should be very clear. Look for a red scalp that is itchy and has developed small scales made of skin. The key is to look for hair loss from the scalp. This could be down to itching but also down to the fluid and inflammation building up underneath the scalp. There may be a rash close by the scalp, such as on the ears, head, face and neck as well. Go to the doctor and he or she will prescribe an anti-fungal medication which will be applied to the head. You may get a treatment that you need to apply to the area and leave it in for a while, or it could be a treatment shampoo.

A Wide Deep Rash

Eczema is more likely present in toddlers than at any other age. It’s because the skin is still developing and it cannot produce the necessary natural oils to keep it lubricated and moisturized. Therefore what you might see is that your toddler begins to have a wide rash that slowly gets deeper. For toddlers, a different kind of treatment such as Dermeze ointment cream should be used. More complex creams like E45 won’t always produce the best results. This kind of ointment cream will be delicate and still moisturize the skin, providing a protecting top layer for your child. Not only does it rehydrate the skin, but it creates a protecting seal for the skin. This is useful for keeping rainwater out of the pores so the natural oils can stay on top of the skin.

For toddlers, the body’s largest organ is perhaps at the weakest level it ever will be. Their skin is something that will almost certainly go through trials and tribulations, so prepare ahead for your toddler.

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Thank you for reading!