Most of us are aware that being outdoors is healthy for us. The fresh air, the sounds and views of nature, and the opportunity to move about more freely contribute to good health. Of course, it is possible to take all of this a step further. After all, your own garden or yard is part of that healthy environment. Are you taking care of yours so it can help take care of you?

The Active Gardener

Your garden can help you increase your core muscle strength and mobility. Tending a well-stocked garden takes a lot of physical work. You might find yourself digging, forking, and edging. Maybe you like the idea of mowing and trimming bushes, hedges and shrubs? Then, of course, is all the potting, planting, and pruning. It’s busy but enormously rewarding. Imagine having freshly cut flowers directly from your own garden as often as you like? Best of all, you’re keeping active, fit and healthy.

Imagine what you could create while getting fitter and healthier. Image source

The Stress Relief

A good garden can offer relief from stress every day. Start with the scents and aromas. Lavender is well known for aiding relaxation. But the floral bouquets from a flower garden can all offer stress relief. They encourage you to inhale deeply. Breathing techniques are a good way to reduce anxiety. Then, of course, you have all the visual beauty to admire. Flower beds and pots full of color can be enormously enjoyable. They’ll put a smile on your face in the toughest of times.

Imagine the view from your home office. What if you could shape and color that view to bring beauty and life to your working day? Even working from home can be stressful sometimes. A few moments staring out of the window when you have a magnificent view can be the perfect release you need.

The Environment

Of course, you don’t have to stay indoors when you work from home. You can sit in the garden and enjoy a wonderfully natural home office instead. Sit on the grass, or enjoy the added benefits of an alfresco dining set. All you need is a beautiful lawn and a little shade so you can stay outside for longer. Good lawns do need Pro Irrigation types of sprinkler systems to be adequately watered. This does mean that there might be moisture on the lawn at certain times of the day, though. Make sure you’ve set the timer for your irrigation correctly, or you might damage your laptop!

Color, aroma, and shape. Image source

If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere quiet, you might even enjoy the sound of the birds twittering nearby. A well-stocked garden full of shrubs and flowers will attract insects and birds. This might make your garden a wildlife haven. You can enjoy watching them come and go. You might even enjoy attracting them to the garden by considering your planting choices and providing feeders. Working this close to nature can be enormously beneficial to your health.

Your outside spaces are the perfect places to nurture if you also want to nurture your own health. Take care of the trees, grass, shrubs and plants in your garden. Then enjoy sharing it with birds and wildlife.

If you’re reading this, then there’s about a 90% chance you’ll end up catching a cold this winter. Colds are like opinions; everyone has them! Today, we’re going to take a look at some of the most annoying symptoms of the common cold, and how you can make them a little less annoying for you.

Don’t let a blocked nose ruin your sleep. Credit

Blocked Nose

A blocked nose is probably the worst symptom when it comes to a common cold. It’s bad enough during the day but gets much worse at night. You struggle to breathe, meaning you have to sleep with your mouth open. Needless to say, this is phenomenally uncomfortable. Thankfully, dealing with this problem is a lot easier than you think. There are loads of nasal sprays you can buy with a built-in decongestant to help unblock your nose in minutes. Use one before bed, and you’ll breathe easy at night. Or, check out the advice here https://www.healthline.com for some ideas that don’t involve any form of medication.

Blocked Ears

No doubt a blocked nose is bad, but I absolutely despise having blocked ears. You feel like there’s too much pressure in your head, and your hearing becomes slightly muffled. What’s more, it’s often impossible to unblock them yourself, making the feeling incredibly annoying. How can you solve this? Well, as noted here https://georgiaent.com, you can visit an ENT doctor for issues with your ears. They can give you a proper checkup and might be able to prescribe some drops that reduce swelling inside your ears and unblock them for good.

Drink a warm lemon drink to soothe your throat. Source

Sore Throat

A sore or tickly throat can be a real pain when you have a cold. It makes it hard for you to swallow, and the tickly sensation can be very hard to get rid of. It’s almost like an itch you can’t quite scratch. There are two main solutions here. The first is to gargle a saline solution to help clean your throat and kill off any bacteria. I found a helpful video that I’ll attach under this point to show you how to make this solution. The second is to drink a hot honey and lemon drink, as it will soothe the soreness in your throat.

Heavy Eyes

I’m not sure if this is a proper medical symptom, but it’s one we can all relate to. You know when you have a cold, and all the congestion in your head just makes your eyes feel heavy? That’s what I’m talking about here. You feel like there are two weights attached to your eyelids, causing them to droop down. You look in the mirror and feel like a panda, it’s such a horrible feeling. The only real way to cope with this is to sleep and rest! Let your eyes close, and try to wake up feeling more refreshed.

If you’re suffering from a cold this winter, then I hope this advice will serve you well. For me, these are the symptoms that cause me the most pain and annoyance. So, use my solutions to calm your cold and make it more manageable.

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It’s safe to say that most of us are not getting the amount of sleep that we need. Due to the modern way we live and the requirements of everyday life surrounding that, we’re pretty much always on the go. And while it may feel empowering to be enjoying a fun life filled with adventure, triumphs and excitement, it sure knows how to knock your health for six. Because exhausted bodies can only do so much, and only go so far before they start to shut off and tell us to slow down. And it’s for this exact reasons that we all need to be focus on our sleep levels a little more.

Right now, you might be thinking that you get enough sleep. But unless you can bag yourself a solid seven to eight hours of quality sleep each night as a minimum, you’re not! And can you safely say that you get that night after night? If you don’t, then you could be put your health at risk – and you will be forced to slow down soon enough. To avoid that from happening, you need to start getting better sleep. And we’re going to show you how by walking through the benefits of better sleep, and then how you can go about getting it.

Why You Need It

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So to kick everything off, we’re going to take a further look at the benefits of better sleep and why you should consider getting some!

Better Brain Function

Do you ever feel completely drained and mentally exhausted? When that’s the case, your lack of sleep is not going to be doing you any favors. Because when you get good sleep, you help not only your memory and cognitive abilities, but you boost your creativity levels too. So if you want to be able to perform better at work, or ace any tests, a good night’s sleep is always going to be essential.

More Energy

And let’s talk about that exhaustion a little more. Because it’s not only your mind that can get tired when you’re sleep deprived, you’re going to have absolutely no energy either. Because when we sleep, we conserve energy. There’s a reason that you always feel so chipper when you’ve slept well. A good night’s sleep will always boost your energy levels.

Healthier Skin

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror after an awful night’s sleep and felt like you’ve aged ten years, you’re not the only one. Sleep can affect your skin. And a lack of it for a long time is going to cause you to age quicker. That’s right, a good night’s sleep can keep your skin healthy. Not only will it fight off those awful fine lines, but you’ll look much more radiant too. There really is a reason it gets called beauty sleep.

Healthier Body

From here, you’re also going to want to think about the benefits sleep has for the rest of your body too. And there are plenty – because sleep can help you stay in shape. If you need to lose a little weight, better sleep will help. When you get some quality sleep, your metabolism will always run better. And if you always feel hungry after a bad night’s sleep, that will stop. Because quality sleep helps to regulate your blood sugar levels too.

Happier Disposition

You’ll also be in a much better mood after getting a good night’s sleep too. Just think about it. You’re usually quite crabby when you’ve not slept well – or even if you’ve just gotten used to sleeping for a few short hours instead of the seven or eight hours that you need. When you do get better sleep, your stress levels will reduce and so will your anxiety, so you can say goodbye to being irritable.

How To Get It

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Now that you’re solid on good levels of sleep, you’re probably wondering just how you’re meant to go from an almost insomniac to a sleeping beauty. Here’s how.

Set Yourself A Bed Time

To start with, you need to set yourself a bedtime. And don’t laugh this often. No, you may not be a child anymore, but bedtimes help you to make sure that you get the sleep you need. By going to bed at the same time each night, your body gets into a pattern. And it will find it easier to sleep the required seven to eight hours a night when you do.

Wind Down

But, before you get to that point, you’re going to want to make sure you prepare for your good night’s sleep throughout the evening. This means you need to start winding down before you hit the hay. Switch off your devices an hour or two before you’re due to go to bed. Have a bath and read instead. This will help to get your mind into sleep mode.

Use The Right Equipment

But you also need the right bedroom setup too. If you’re uncomfortable, you won’t sleep well. So you need to do your research to find a solution that works for you. You’ll find that this zinus mattress review compares the two most popular zinus mattress models, but you also need to find a style that suits your sleep needs. And don’t forget your sheets, comforter, and pajamas too.

Be Mindful

Then, when it’s time to sleep, you should try to be mindful. If you really do struggle to get off to sleep, this is going to be ideal for you. By working on some mindfulness exercises, you should find that you can train your brain to switch off and get into the right state for sleep. Then, you won’t have trouble nodding off at all.

Wake Up Early & Exercise

Finally, you also need to think about getting up nice and early and getting a workout in too. When you do, you’ll find that you are more productive throughout the day and that when it comes to the evening, you’re already tired and ready to get to sleep when bedtime comes around. It’s a win-win.

The human body is a wonderful piece of engineering. It moves, bends, flexes, and permits us to do amazing acrobatics. Of course, then we grow up, and while the mind is willing, the body is less happy to move as it once did. There are several reasons for this.

As babies, the bones are still small and at different proportions of adult bones. And some of the bones are years away from becoming solid, strong, and reliable. As we mature, the muscles strengthen, the limbs lengthen, and the body tends to be used for fewer actions than through childhood.

Hormones will play a part in flexibility over the years, but the bones will remain relatively unchanged for decades. It is only when those hormones drop for women later in life, that we tend to become more concerned about bone health. Osteoporosis is more common than it needs to be for this age group. Have we left it too late?

Milk’s just for kids, right?

It’s true that a calcium enriched diet is essential for growing and developing bones in childhood. In fact, particularly in young men, calcium should be added to the diet until the mid-twenties. Bones can break quite easily should a diet be deficient in this essential mineral.

Picture Credit: From tiny bones, to senior bones – take care of them for life.

It’s not just calcium that can help to ensure our bones are healthy and strong. An all-round healthy diet makes sure there are strong muscles, tendons and fat stores to protect the bones from impact or excessive movement. Joints also need to be cared for. Without regular movement and good circulation, joints can become immobile.

It seems sensible to include exercise in the mix when it comes to developing healthy and strong bones. Over time, the muscles also develop to support good posture and the bone structure. Is a healthy lifestyle from day one really all you need to make sure your bones are healthy for life?

Unfortunately, no. Genetics will always play a part. Other factors such as the environment can also affect your general health. There are many diseases that can affect the bones, like osteoporosis. Rarely, cancer can also form in the skeleton. This requires specialist treatment from an orthopedic oncologist. This is because primary bone tumors are rare so experienced professionals can be tricky to find.

If you are diagnosed with soft tissue, primary bone, or other musculoskeletal sarcomas, you might contact drallison.org to find out what options are available. Reconstruction of the bone and restoration of mobility might be your priority to get your life back on track following treatment. Diet and exercise will again play a major part in supporting this process.

So what are the secrets to taking care of your skeleton, no matter your age?

You might start with diet. Most of us are fed up with hearing that we should be ditching the sugar and only eating fresh produce. Your bone health might rely on this mantra. Sugar is thought to increase the secretion of calcium from your bones. If you have osteoporosis you might inadvertently be worsening your condition each time you eat a candy bar. Some experts think caffeine might have a similar effect.

Give up the extreme or fad diets though. Starving your bones of key nutrients by cutting certain foods from your meals is asking for trouble. You might not like dairy, but it’s a valuable source of calcium. Even after the age of twenty-five, it’s worth eating low-fat yogurts and drinking milk. If you’re lactose intolerant, look for other foods rich in calcium or choose fortified options. Supplements might be a good idea.

Magnesium is another mineral that is really important for maintaining strong bones. If you don’t take a daily multivitamin, then you can still find magnesium in your diet. Whole grain bread and pasta are great. If you have a wheat intolerance, you might need to search for a suitable supplement.

Picture Credit: Many, but not all, of your bone health requirements can be found in vegetables.

The building blocks of strong bones are quite simple, really. Vegetables can provide much of what you need. Natural sources are usually best. One naturally sourced vitamin that good bones need isn’t so safe, though. The Government and health advisors recommend getting your daily vitamin D from a supplement, and not from sunbathing! Vitamin D helps calcium to be absorbed in the bones. Just as vitamin C support iron absorption, these two pals go together as well.

Protein is also needed because bones are made up of collagen. Vegetarians can look to beans and pulses. Fish and chicken can be good sources for others. ‘Proper’ stock can also take advantage of the calcium from bones, while the meat provides the protein needed. Varied diets are ideal, but perhaps many could still benefit from supplements to support bone health.

Last, but not least, your bones need potassium (found in bananas), and vitamin K. K is for Kale, and spinach can provide a healthy dose of this vitamin too. If you bleed or bruise easily, this could be a warning sign that you lack sufficient vitamin K in your diet. This doesn’t just lead to weakened bones, but can also cause tooth decay, heart disease and cancer.

What about the exercise?

Any exercise is obviously better than none. If you want to exercise specifically to strengthen and protect bones, then look to weight-bearing exercise. Lifting, pushing, pulling and swinging can all offer great activities for this purpose. Best of all, many of these exercise choices can use your own body weight to be effective. No extra equipment is required.

Experts state that cardiovascular exercises like brisk walking, dance aerobics, and jogging are still important for overall health. Conveniently, all of these upright activities can also strengthen the bones due to using your body weight and impact on your legs and feet. It’s important to find exercises that you can enjoy daily.

It’s true that HRT can sometimes help reduce the risk of weaker bones and osteoporosis. But it’s important to remember that 1 in 4 men can also suffer this problem. Look at bone health as a lifelong commitment to good diet and exercise.