TOP 10 WAYS to Improve your Health

in 30 Days

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It's the little things that you do each day that add up to being healthy and fit. While we do what we

can to be as health-conscious as we can, it is always a work in progress since there are many

elements to a healthy lifestyle.

Use these tips as a guide on your journey on the path to good health.

OVERVIEW

Habits

Kick Your

Bad

1

Well, some of them at least. The other ones you might just be able to cut back on. Habits in the "quit" category would be smoking, drugs, unsafe sex and other unhealthy addictions. There's just no way to do any of these in a "healthy" way. It might take some time, but it's worth it if you want to lead a healthy lifestyle.

On the other hand, there are some habits that are not so bad, but can easily become a problem if taken too far. These include alcohol, sugar, caffeine and junk food. These things in moderation or on a "once-in-a-while" basis are doable, as long as the majority of your choices are mindful and healthful.

How to kick bad habits

Smoking, overeating, nail biting, or wasting away the hours on YouTube; whatever your bad habits may be, there’s a good chance you’ve tried to give them up at one point or another, and perhaps you actually managed to ditch the offending behavior after a few months of exercising some extreme willpower.

But if you tend to find yourself raiding the pantry for chocolate chip cookies just two hours after you solemnly pledged to eat more healthily, you’re not alone.

According to research from the Journal of Clinical Psychology, approximately 54% of people who resolve to change their ways fail to make the transformation last beyond six months, and the average person makes the same resolution 10 times over without success.

So why is it so hard for us to make lasting changes to our behavior or attitudes?

Psychological scientists believe that the key to kicking bad habits lies in understanding our mental patterns and working with the brain rather than fighting against its natural processing system.

So next time you’re trying to turn over a new leaf, give some of these psychology-based tricks a go.

1. Figure out why and when you’re doing it.

There's usually an underlying reason for your bad habits, such as boredom or stress, and if you pay attention, you'll notice that all of your vices are tied to certain situations or routines.

These bad habits generally also reward you with something: smoking rewards you with stress relief, and wasting time on the Internet temporarily rewards you by diverting your attention.

Identifying how your vices are rewarding you, as well as when they occur is the first step to eliminating them from your life entirely.

For instance, you may notice that you drink more alcohol when you’re around certain people, or maybe you tend to overeat when you’re home alone. Knowing what triggers certain behavior can help you to come up with the right strategies for changing these unhealthy patterns.

2. Find a replacement habit.

Research shows that it’s far more effective to replace a bad habit with a better one than to simply cut out the old habit.

Why? Replacing a habit takes less mental effort than completely eliminating it, and believe it or not, willpower is actually a limited resource.

Once you've figured out how your vices are rewarding you, you can establish new habits that will reward you in similar ways, but without the same negative side effects, or at least fewer side effects.

For example, if you need to improve your diet, making an effort to snack on fruit instead of junk food would be a lot easier than not eating anything at all, and replacing your smoking break with another less damaging activity, like eating a small snack, would be more effective than doing nothing at all.

3. Don’t try to suppress your thoughts.

When trying to kick a bad habit, people often attempt to think about everything but that one activity, which of course, causes them to think about nothing but that one activity.

Why? Studies show that when we try to suppress thoughts, they actually come back stronger, because our subconscious doesn’t differentiate between “do” and “don’t” and will inevitably fixate on the one thing we’re trying so hard to ignore.

Psychologists have dubbed this phenomenon “ironic process theory.”

So, for instance, if someone tells you not to think about pink dinosaurs, you will immediately begin to think about pink dinosaurs. If you tell yourself not to think about having a smoke, all you’re going to be able to think about is going for a smoke, and you’ll start seeing the temptation everywhere.

4. Make changes to your routine or environment.

New situations make you more conscious of your behavior and choices, so changing something in your routine or environment, even if it isn’t directly connected to the habit you are trying to break, can make it easier to welcome new habits.

This is why big changes like moving to a new city or ending a relationship are often accompanied by smaller changes, like exercising more frequently or following a new diet.

One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that a new environment can remove the automatic guides for performing certain habits and help people to make new or different decisions about their daily routines.

Even small changes can make a big difference. For example, if you tend to overeat while watching TV, make an effort to sit at the table and turn off the television during meals so that you can be more conscious of your eating habits.

CheckupsGet

Your

2

Get to your doctor for your annual physical just to make sure everything is as it should be. If you have insurance, usually these services are covered, so take full advantage of your benefits.

That being said, know your own body so that you are aware when something seems awry. Do breast or testicular self-exams, and get suspicious moles checked out. Get exams regularly even if you are healthy, so that if and when something is abnormal, you know about it and can take action, in conjunction with your doctor.

The rising cost of healthcare combined with busy work schedules means that many people are putting regular checkups on the back burner. But the hard truth of the matter is that regular doctors' visits can mean the difference between life and death.It is essential that you have regular medical, eye and dental checkups if you want to live a long and healthy life. Doctors are able to spot issues early on as well as offer practical advice on healthy living. Not convinced? Read on for information on some of the many ways doctors' visits are so important.

1. Prevention is better than cureRegular checkups will provide doctors with a way to spot any health issues early on. Checkups incorporate several tests, including preventative screenings and physical examinations, to check patients' current health and risks. If any problems are found, your doctor will provide information on treatment plans and ways that you can prevent health issues in the future.

Popular health checks include:Cervical smear tests (Pap tests) for womenBlood pressure testsCholesterol level checksBody mass index (BMI) and obesity testsDiabetes checks

If you have any more specific health concerns, then your doctor will be able to advise you on these and conduct the proper checks.While doctors' checks will help pot any issues early on, you can follow a few steps to support a healthy lifestyle and to complete a number of health checks at home. It has been said that women should regularly check their breasts for lumps, while both men and women should study the skin for changes in moles or freckles. In addition, you should have a nutritious and balanced diet, exercise regularly, and maintain a healthy weight range. If you notice anything unusual, schedule a doctor's appointment as soon as possible.

2. Cut healthcare costsFor many, the thought of a large doctor's bill is enough to put off scheduling a checkup. However, there are several ways that you can find great savings on health care. Checkups could also save you plenty of money in the long run as they help to minimize the risk of potential health issues that will lower the risks for surgery or more extensive medical care in the future.

Discount coupons will let you save on checkups and other medical or health expenses in places in your area of town. Also, check with your insurance company or your employer if and how they help to cover medical and health costs.

3. Dental careAs well as appointments with a doctor, you should also schedule checkups at the dentist. It can be a tricky task knowing how often you should visit the dentist. According to The Journal of Dental Research, the amount of times you visit the dentist depends on your level of risk for periodontal disease. While many say that visits should be made every six months, those with dental problems may need to have their teeth checked more regularly.

Good oral health plays an important role in the overall health of your body. After all, inflammatory gum disease can lead to tooth loss, while bacteria buildup in the mouth has been said to put you at increased risk of heart disease, according to WebMD. In addition to having regular appointments with the dentist, you should maintain a good oral care regime that includes frequent brushing and flossing. 4. Eye careWhile doctors are able to provide some information about eye issues, it is important for people of all ages to schedule vision and eye care tests. Optometrists and eye doctors can check for glaucoma and provide vision reports and possible glasses or contact lens prescriptions, should you need them. People between 50 and 65 should have eye checks at least every two years, while those over the age of 65 should have a test every year. People with increased risk of having eye issues should talk to their eye doctor to see how often they should visit.

You can lower your chances of developing health issues in the future by maintaining a healthy diet; exercising regularly; having a good oral health routine; and booking regular medical, dental and eye checkups.

Sleep

3

Sleep affects our physical and mental health tremendously, and many of us do not get enough. Lack of sleep adversely affects metabolism, mood, concentration, memory, motor skills, stress hormones and even the immune system and cardiovascular health. Sleep allows the body to heal, repair and rejuvenate itself in a way it simply cannot when a person is awake.

Why Is Sleep Important?

Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.

The way you feel while you're awake depends in part on what happens while you're sleeping. During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development.

The damage from sleep deficiency can occur in an instant (such as a car crash), or it can harm you over time. For example, ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others.

Healthy Brain Function and Emotional Well-Being

Sleep helps your brain work properly. While you're sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. It's forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information.

Studies show that a good night's sleep improves learning. Whether you're learning math, how to play the piano, how to perfect your golf swing, or how to drive a car, sleep helps enhance your learning and problem-solving skills. Sleep also helps you pay attention, make decisions, and be creative.

Studies also show that sleep deficiency alters activity in some parts of the brain. If you're sleep deficient, you may have trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling your emotions and behavior, and coping with change. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.

Children and teens who are sleep deficient may have problems getting along with others. They may feel angry and impulsive, have mood swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation. They also may have problems paying attention, and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.

Physical Health

Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.

Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of obesity. For example, one study of teenagers showed that with each hour of sleep lost, the odds of becoming obese went up. Sleep deficiency increases the risk of obesity in other age groups as well.

Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don't get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you're well-rested.

Sleep also affects how your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes.

Sleep also supports healthy growth and development. Deep sleep triggers the body to release the hormone that promotes normal growth in children and teens. This hormone also boosts muscle mass and helps repair cells and tissues in children, teens, and adults. Sleep also plays a role in puberty and fertility.

Your immune system relies on sleep to stay healthy. This system defends your body against foreign or harmful substances. Ongoing sleep deficiency can change the way in which your immune system responds. For example, if you're sleep deficient, you may have trouble fighting common infections.

Excercise

4

Even if you just get out for a walk a few times a week, exercise is important for being fit and healthy. Cardiovascular exercise helps to strengthen the heart and lungs, strength training helps to strengthen the muscles and stretching helps to reduce the risk of injury by increasing flexibility. Exercise also improves circulation and body awareness, and regular exercise can help combat depression.

If you don't exercise, your muscles will become flabby and weak. Your heart and lungs won't function efficiently. And your joints will be stiff and easily injured. Inactivity is as much of a health risk as smoking!

Helps Prevent Diseases

Our bodies were meant to move -- they actually crave exercise. Regular exercise is necessary for physical fitness and good health. It reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and other diseases. It can improve your appearance and delay the aging process.

Improves Stamina

When you exercise, your body uses energy to keep going. Aerobic exercise involves continuous and rhythmic physical motion, such as walking and bicycling. It improves your stamina by training your body to become more efficient and use less energy for the same amount of work. As your conditioning level improves, your heart rate and breathing rate return to resting levels much sooner from strenuous activity.

Strengthens and Tones

Exercising with weights and other forms of resistance training develops your muscles, bones and ligaments for increased strength and endurance. Your posture can be improved, and your muscles become more firm and toned. You not only feel better, but you look better, too!

Enhances Flexibility

Stretching exercises are also important for good posture. They keep your body limber so that you can bend, reach and twist. Improving your flexibility through exercise reduces the chance of injury and improves balance and coordination. If you have stiff, tense areas, such as the upper back or neck, performing specific stretches can help "loosen" those muscles, helping you feel more relaxed.

Controls Weight

Exercise is also a key to weight control because it burns calories. If you burn off more calories than you take in, you lose weight. It's as simple as that.

Improves Quality of Life

Once you begin to exercise regularly, you will discover many more reasons why exercise is so important to improving the quality of your life. Exercise reduces stress, lifts moods, and helps you sleep better. It can keep you looking and feeling younger throughout your entire life.

How Often Should I Exercise?

The benefits of any exercise program will diminish if it's disrupted too frequently. A "stop-start" routine is not only ineffective, but can cause injuries. Being consistent with exercise, therefore, is probably the most important factor in achieving desired results.People often assume that more is better. Wrong! Doing too much too soon or performing intense exercises on a daily basis will have deleterious effects, such as muscle/tendon strains, loss of lean tissue, and fitness-level plateaus.

Cardio

If you are a beginner, start off slower than you think you should. Three days per week is realistic, safe and effective. If you are experienced, do cardiovascular (aerobic) exercises such as walking, jogging and bicycling for no more than 200 minutes per week with no more than 60 minutes per session.

Lifting Weights

Weight training should be done no more than three times per week targeting the same muscle groups. Exercise the same muscle groups on non-consecutive days because muscles need adequate time to recover and cannot be effectively trained if they are tired or sore.

Stretching

Many people forget to stretch or make the excuse that they don't have the time. Flexibility is important, so make the time! Stretching can be done every day, but stick to a minimum of three times per week in order to reap the benefits. When the body is warmed up, such as after a workout session, perform five to 10 stretches that target the major muscle groups. Hold each stretch for 10-30 seconds.

Eat

5

Healthy

Get as many fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into your diet as possible and make them the main part of your overall diet. Include lean sources of protein such as poultry, fish, tofu and beans. Eat balanced meals and do not overeat. Stop eating before you become completely full and give yourself a chance to digest your food. Snack on whole foods such as fruit, vegetables and nuts. Avoid highly processed foods that contain artificial sweeteners or colors, hidden sugars or excessive fat.

Why is eating healthy important?

A nutritious, well-balanced diet – along with physical activity and refraining from smoking – is the foundation of good health. Healthy eating includes consuming high-quality proteins, carbohydrates, heart-healthy fats, vitamins, minerals and water in the foods you take in while minimizing processed foods, saturated fats and alcohol. Eating in this manner helps you maintain your body’s everyday functions, promotes optimal body weight and can assist in disease prevention.

Overall Health

The nutrients in the foods you eat support the activities of day-to-day living, protect your cells from environmental damage and repair any cellular damage that might occur. Protein rebuilds injured tissue and promotes a healthy immune system. Both carbohydrates and fats fuel your body, while vitamins and minerals function throughout your body in support of your body’s processes. Vitamins A, C and E, for example, act as antioxidants to protect your cells against toxins, and B vitamins help you extract energy from the foods you eat. Calcium and phosphorus keep your bones strong, while sodium and potassium help to transmit nerve signals. Without a healthy diet, you might compromise any of these essential functions.

Weight Control

In addition to the quality of the foods you consume, the quantity matters when considering good eating habits. Taking in the same number of calories as you burn ensures your weight remains steady over time. Consuming more than you burn, on the other hand, results in weight gain as your body converts extra calories to fat tissue. When you accumulate fat tissue, you increase your risk of developing one or more health problems, including heart disease, hypertension, respiratory issues, diabetes and cancer. A healthy meal plan without excess calories helps you not only feel better but can prolong your life.

Disease Prevention

Obesity is not the only nutrition-related cause of disease onset and progression. Too much or too little of certain nutrients can also contribute to health issues. For instance, a lack of calcium in your diet can predispose you to developing osteoporosis, or weakening of your bones, while too much saturated fat can cause cardiovascular disease, and too few fruits and vegetables in your nutrition plan is associated with an increased incidence of cancer. Consuming foods from a wide variety of sources helps ensure your body has the nutrients it needs to avoid these health problems.

Considerations

If you are not used to eating a healthy diet that promotes your well-being, making gradual changes can help you improve the way you eat in the long run. You can substitute water for high-calorie, sugary drinks, for example, and switch from full-fat to low-fat dairy products. Selecting lean meats instead of fatty cuts and whole-wheat grains instead of refined grains can lower your intake of unhealthy fats and increase your dietary fiber intake. Fresh fruits and vegetables contain less sodium than canned, and snacking on fresh, crunchy produce like carrots, apples and cucumber slices is healthier than the fats and salt in chips.

6

Drink FreshJuice

I am firmly convinced that the benefits of juicing are the keys to giving you a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal health.

I've said this in the other levels of this nutrition plan, but it's so important I'll say it again - valuable and sensitive micronutrients become damaged when you heat foods.

Cooking and processing food destroys these micronutrients by altering their shape and chemical composition. In this advanced nutritional level, you avoid all processed foods and eat only organic vegetables and fruits, unless not otherwise possible.

Virtually every health authority recommends that we get 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruits per day and very few of us actually get that. Juicing is an easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables.

While you can certainly juice fruits, if you are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, it is best to limit using fruits until you normalize these conditions.

The exception would be lemons and limes which have virtually none of the offending sugar, fructose, that causes most of the metabolic complications. Additionally lemons or limes are amazing at eliminating the bitter taste of the dark, deep green leafy vegetables that provide most of the benefits of juicing.

Benefits of Juicing

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal health program:

Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to "pre-digest" them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.

Juicing allows you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. If you are a carb type, you should eat one pound of raw vegetables per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Some people may find eating that many vegetables difficult, but it can be easily accomplished with a quick glass of vegetable juice.

You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. But with juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.If you are new to juicing, I recommend a mid-priced juicer. The cheap centrifugal juicers (like the Juiceman) break easily, produce low-quality juice, and are very loud, which may contribute to hearing loss. They also don't last very long.

My favorite are the single gear juicers which are relatively fast, less expensive and easier to clean than more expensive juicers like twin gears or even the $2000 Norwalk juicers. Here is my current favorite juicer. Many people initially think that juicing will be a real chore, but the majority are pleasantly surprised to find that it is much easier than they thought it would be.

7

ReduceStress

Stress Management - Ways to Relieve Stress

The best way to manage your stress is to learn healthy coping strategies. You can start practicing these tips right away. Try one or two until you find a few that work for you. Practice these techniques until they become habits you turn to when you feel stress. You can also use this coping strategies form to see how you respond to stress.

Stress-relief techniques focus on relaxing your mind and your body.

Ways to relax your mind

Write. It may help to write about things that are bothering you. Write for 10 to 15 minutes a day about stressful events and how they made you feel. Or think about tracking your stress. This helps you find out what is causing your stress and how much stress you feel. After you know, you can find better ways to cope.

Let your feelings out. Talk, laugh, cry, and express anger when you need to. Talking with friends, family, a counselor, or a member of the clergy about your feelings is a healthy way to relieve stress.

Do something you enjoy. You may feel that you're too busy to do these things. But making time to do something you enjoy can help you relax. It might also help you get more done in other areas of your life. Try:Ÿ A hobby, such as gardening.Ÿ A creative activity, such as writing, crafts, or art.Ÿ Playing with and caring for pets.Ÿ Volunteer work.

Focus on the present. Meditation and guided imagery are two ways to focus and relax your mind.

Meditate. When you meditate, you focus your attention on things that are happening right now. Paying attention to your breathing is one way to focus. Mindfulness-based stress reduction is one form of meditation that is very helpful with managing stress and learning how to better cope with it.

Use guided imagery. With guided imagery, you imagine yourself in any setting that helps you feel calm and relaxed. You can use audiotapes, books, or a teacher to guide you.

8

ExpressYourself

There is a unique quality in human beings, which gives them an edge over all the other creations of God -the ability to express their feelings.

Expressing feelings or emotions is a simple way to understand information for, and about, us. The art of expressing a ‘feeling’ is nothing but the creative de-coding of how exactly the ‘feeling’ wants to come out, so that you can avoid ‘feeling’ the worse for it.

Sadly, in today’s materialistic and fast-paced world, expressing one’s feelings or emotions is often considered weak, or foolish. But, it should also be known that the inability to express one’s feelings is a facet of emotional immaturity. The art of expressing emotions need to be taught, at least to those who have problem in understand their own feelings.

The best way to express one’s feelings is to talk about them… share them with someone; this keeps us from sulking into depression. But it often happens that, even through personal interactions, people are not able to express their feelings completely. They tend to hide or suppress what they are feeling either because they don’t want to reveal their feelings in front of anyone, or because they don’t know how to express them. Whatever the reason, the act of suppressing one’s feelings can cause mental illness (depression), which is the major cause of many health issues today. Almost 80% of the health issues today are related to stress and other forms of emotional baggage.

Why? Simply because we decide to quell our emotions rather than express them, and the only reason certain emotions (for e.g. anger or grief) become a problem is because they’re not properly dealt with. Dealing with emotions is nothing but really allowing oneself to

feel the emotions as and when they arise within us. When we feel angry, we should allow ourselves to feel that anger, and vent it out in some form or the other, without causing any harm to others, or oneself.

Some well known ways to do this are punching a pillow, martial arts, hitting the ground with your cricket bat or badminton racket. But, if you are not comfortable with any of these, then there is a better alternative – penning your feelings down, or the modern alternative – typing your emotions!

Let all those suppressed emotions come alive in an MS-word File, or write an e-mail about them but don’t send it to anyone, or, better still, write a blog. And, if you don’t want people to read it, then keep the posts private. When you search for words to express your emotions, you get in touch with your real feelings. Those who have a better understanding of their feelings, have better ways of coping up with both positive as well as negative emotions.

It is often said that the head and the heart should work together to take better decisions. The reason is that the heart feels (emotional thinker), whereas the head thinks (logical thinker). And when the heart feels, nothing is bad or wrong. The sole objective of the heart is to Love everything that comes its way, even the negative emotions. So, it’s the logical thinker’s responsibility to help the emotional thinker to acknowledge and understand emotions, so that they can be dealt with properly.

9

DrinkWater

Water is the main component of the human body. In fact, the body is composed of between 55 and 78 percent water, depending on body size. Adequate and regular water consumption has numerous health benefits. As an added plus, it has no calories, fat, carbohydrates or sugar.

The amount of water you consume everyday plays an important role in maintaining a healthy body. Experts recommend drinking eight to 10 glasses of water each day to maintain good health.

Furthermore, the Institute of Medicine has determined the adequate intake of total beverage per day (AI) to be about three liters or 13 cups for men and 2.2 liters or nine cups for women.

Water helps keep the body well hydrated, which is essential because almost every cell in the body needs water to function properly.

Health benefits of drinking water

1. Relieves Fatigue

If you often feel tired, there is a high chance that it could be due to inadequate consumption of water which makes the body function less efficiently. In fact, fatigue is one of the first signs of dehydration.

When there is less water in the body, there is a drop of blood volume which causes the heart to work harder to pump oxygenated blood out in the bloodstream, and other major organs also work less efficiently. Thus, drinking adequate water can help your body function better and reduce fatigue.

2. Improves Mood

Research indicates that mild dehydration (even one or two percent lower hydration level of hydration than optimal) can negatively affect your mood and ability to think.

A small study conducted on 25 women and published in the Journal of Nutrition found that being dehydrated can take a toll on your mood and cognitiive function. The color of your urine is a good indicator of your level of hydration. The lighter the color the better the level of hydration and vice versa.

3. Treats Headaches and Migraines

If you have a headache or migraine, the first thing that you can do to get some relief is drink plenty of water. Headaches and migraines are often caused by dehydration.

In a study published in the European Journal of Neurology, researchers found that increasing water intake helped reduce the total number of hours and intensity of headaches in the study participants.

4. Helps in Digestion and Constipation

Water also improves the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. This helps in digestion and prevents constipation. Inadequate water in the body often results in constipation as the colon pulls water from the stools to maintain hydration, thereby making them harder and difficult to pass.

Drinking sufficient water boosts your metabolism and helps the body properly break down food. This helps your digestive system

work well and promotes regular bowel movements. Warm water, in particular, is good for digestive health.

5. Aids Weight Loss

In a clinical trial, scientists found that drinking two eight-ounce glasses of water prior to meals can help suppress appetite and hence support your weight loss efforts. When you drink water, it fills your stomach and reduces the tendency to eat more.

Plus, it helps increase the rate at which the body burns fat, and promotes the breakdown and elimination of fat cells.

Calorie-free water is also a great replacement for high-calorie drinks like alcohol, sugary fizzy drinks and sodas that often contribute to weight gain.

6. Flushes Out Toxins

Water is an excellent detoxifier as it helps flush out toxins from your body and get rid of waste primarily through sweat and urine.

It also promotes kidney function and reduces kidney stones by diluting the salts and minerals in urine that cause kidney stones.

Though you need to drink adequate amount of water throughout the day, experts warn against drinking too much water (although uncommon still, it is possible) as it may reduce your kidneys’ ability to filter out waste.

10

Turn OffTech

Technology has some wonderful benefits. I use it almost every day. And I would never, ever argue against the responsible use of it.

However, that being said, it is becoming increasingly obvious that our world is developing an unhealthy attachment to it:

84% of cell phone users claim they could not go a single day without their device.

67% of cell phone owners check their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating.

Studies indicate some mobile device owners check their devices every 6.5 minutes.

88% of U.S. consumers use mobile devices as a second screen even while watching television.

Almost half of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls.

Traditional TV viewing eats up over six days (144 hours, 54 minutes) worth of time per month.

Some researchers have begun labeling “cell phone checking” as the new yawn because of its contagious nature.

But we don’t need statistics to tell us we are over-attached to our technology. We already know this to be true—which is probably why this powerful video has received over 13,000,000 views in less than six days.

But we need to be reminded again and again: Technology has a power-off button. And the wisest of us know when to use it.

Consider again, just some of the Important Reasons to Unplug Our Technology:

1. Powering-down helps remove unhealthy feelings of jealousy, envy, and loneliness. Researchers recently discovered that one in three people felt worse after visiting Facebook and more dissatisfied with their lives. Certainly, not every interaction with Facebook is a negative one. But typically, our own experience validates their research. From family happiness to body image to vacation destinations to the silly number of birthday greetings on a Facebook wall, the opportunity for envy presents itself often on social media. Powering-down for a period of time provides opportunity to reset and refocus appreciation and gratitude for the lives we have been given.

2. Powering-down combats the fear of missing out. Scientifically speaking, the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) has been recognized as a recently emerging psychological disorder brought on by the advance of technology. The premise is simple. Our social media streams are ever-filled with everything happening all around us. Nowadays, we even see the plates of food our friends are enjoying. And within this constant stream of notification, our fear of being left out continues to grow. Turning off social media and finding contentment in our present space is a welcome skill.

3. Solitude is harder to find in an always-connected world. Solitude grounds us to the world around us. It provides the stillness and quiet required to evaluate our lives and reflect on the message in our hearts. In a world where outside noise is coming quicker and louder than ever, the need for solitude becomes more apparent…

… and easier to overlook. True solitude and meditation will always require the intentional action of shutting off the noise and the screens.

4. Life, at its best, is happening right in front of you. Our world may be changing. But the true nature of life is not. Life, at its best, is happening right in front of you. These experiences will never repeat themselves. These conversations are unfiltered and authentic. And the love is real. But if we are too busy staring down at our screen, we’re gonna miss all of it.

5. Powering-down promotes creation over consumption. Essentially, most of our time is spent in one of two categories: consuming or creating. Certainly, technology can contribute to creating. For example, this article was written (created) on a computer. But most of the time we spend in front of technology is spent consuming (playing video games, browsing the Internet, watching movies, listening to music). But our world doesn’t need more consuming. It needs more creating. It needs your passion, your solution, and your unique contribution. Power-down. And begin contributing to a better world because of it.

6. Addiction can only be understood when the object is taken away. Through a recent technological fast, I learned something about myself. I learned I am far more addicted to technology than I would have guessed. But that is the nature of addiction, isn’t it? We can never fully realize our level of addiction until the item is taken away. And the only way to truly discover technology’s controlling influence on your life is to turn it off, walk away, and sense how strong the pull is to turn it back on.