Try a Reduced Salt Intake Diet and Save Your Heart

Salt Shaker PictureReducing the salt in your diet is beneficial for a wide variety of reasons. You’ll avoid the risks of dehydration and you’ll be in better shape. But one of the most important reasons to follow a reduced salt diet is to help your heart. High salt diets are linked to heart disease and high blood pressure.

If you’ve been diagnosed with either one of these conditions, or you suspect that you may have them, following a reduced salt diet can help your symptoms.

When following a reduced salt diet, you need to keep in mind that this way of eating should be viewed as a lifestyle change and not simply a diet. The changes that you make should be permanent if you hope to become healthy. Fortunately, there are a lot of low salt options that make it easy to stick to this type of diet.

The first thing you need to reduce and ideally eliminate is processed meats. Lunch meat, canned meats and other heavily processed protein products have lots of sodium in them. Avoid pre-seasoned meats since the seasoning normally has a lot of salt. You can greatly reduce your intake by eliminating these foods entirely. Instead, buy fresh meats that you can prepare yourself.

The same goes for bacon, ham, beef jerky and corned beef. These meats have high levels of salt as do hot dogs and pepperoni. Basically, your protein options should consist of meats that you can find exclusively at the butcher counter. Avoid any meat products that are available in the center aisles of the grocery store.

Since canned meats have high salt levels, it’s only natural that canned vegetables do as well. Canned vegetables like green beans and corn are often available in low sodium varieties. Make sure to read the labels on all canned vegetables that you buy.

You can also reduce salt by limiting or avoiding naturally salty canned foods. These foods include sauerkraut, pickles and other pickled foods. By reducing these foods in your overall diet, you’ll greatly reduce your salt intake and improve your health at the same time. Continue reading

Three Weird, Wild and Unusual uses for Hair

Palm Tree Buzz CutHair has been curled, sprayed, cut, dyed and crimped over the years depending on the current trends in hair styles. But through time, hair has been used in a wide variety of ways that some people would consider to be strange. Whether a weird hair use is an old art form or a new way to advertise, it just goes to show that hair is multi-functional.

One of the most traditional weird ways to use hair is in the form of artwork. Hair artwork was very popular in the Victorian period, and the collection of hair art pieces is on the rise due to recent interest. Hair art was just as common as needlepoint and crocheting during the nineteenth century. Women practiced the art form in order to preserve the hair and memory of loved ones, especially the deceased.

Hair from a loved one was commonly braided into jewelry like bracelets, rings and earrings. This way the creator could wear their creation, or give it to someone else to wear. Jewelry made from hair was a common way to mourn the dead. This specific type of jewelry was known as “mourning jewelry.”

Besides weaving hair into jewelry, the Victorians also created other types of art with hair. Hair was arranged into roses, woven around wooden frames and stitched into fabric. Hair could be used in all of the ways that yarn or thread were used. Today there has been a renewed interest in not only collecting vintage hair art but also creating new hair art to preserve family history.

Hair also has more practical uses, especially when it comes to cleaning up oil waste. In an attempt to put the 200,000 pounds of hair that go into landfills each day to good use, Alabama hairdresser Phil McCrory patented a oil-soaking pillow made of human hair. He got the idea while watching footage of the oil spills in Alaska in the late 80s. He realized that human hair would attract oil the same way that otter hair did.

He contacted NASA for help with the project after designed a prototype for an oil absorbing pillow made of hair. NASA saw potential for the project and did a few simple tests. They determined that hair absorbs five times its weight in oil. Best of all, the oil can be wrung out and reused. So the next time you get a trim, your hair could be going toward saving the environment! Continue reading

Improve your Health by Eating more Organic Foods

Health Benefits of Organic FoodsThere’s a lot of hub-bub over organic foods these days, and with good reason! With more foods being treated with harmful chemicals, and coming from suspicious origins, it’s no wonder that organic foods are becoming high in demand.

If you haven’t jumped on the organic bandwagon, it’s time to start making your produce, grains and meat selections more health-friendly.

The main reason to start eating organically is your health. Conventionally grown food is covered in chemicals. These chemicals, while helpful to producing large crops of food that travel well, aren’t beneficial to your health at all. In fact, eating chemically laden food can be detrimental to your health over time. Even though there are people who claim that washing off produce removes chemicals, this doesn’t work. A conventional apple that has been washed may contain over 20 chemicals.

Eating organically can also help you avoid some of the common problems with processed foods. Most organic processed foods have banned the use of hydrogenated fat, MSG, artificial flavors and other harmful chemicals. So organic foods are definitely a better option if you need to buy processed foods.

Organic foods are normally not genetically modified. A lot of conventional produce and animal products are the result of genetic modification. In order to avoid “gm” foods, you can buy and eat organically. The jury is out on whether “gm” foods are entirely safe, and until the results are clear it’s best to err on the side of caution if you can.

On top of the health benefits, organic foods taste better. If you’ve ever bought regular produce and been disappointed by the bland taste, you’ll be happy to know that organics are full of flavor. A lot of people comment that food doesn’t taste the way that it used to when they were kids. That’s because food isn’t the way it used to be when you were a kid! Organic food is closer to the food that you remember. Continue reading

Six Reasons why you Should Start Exercising Today

Six Reasons to Exercise TodayExercise is a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle, although it’s sometimes hard to get started. If you’ve been putting off exercising, you owe it to yourself to learn about the top six reasons why you should start exercising. Once you find out about the many benefits of getting regular exercise, you’ll find it a bit easier to head for the gym or lace up your running shoes.

The weight loss benefits of exercise are already well known. Exercise of any type helps to boost your metabolism, which allows your body to more effectively use the food that you eat. When you work out, you burn calories. As long as you’re eating less than your burning, then you’ll automatically lose weight. According to some studies, exercise actually reduces your need for food so that you’ll eat less than you did before you started your exercise program. Losing weight through exercise will also help you lower your blood pressure.

Exercise builds your muscles and helps keep you from losing muscle later on. With a leaner, tighter body you’ll be stronger and you’ll burn more fat. When you have a lot of muscle, your metabolism is naturally higher and you won’t have to work out as hard in the future to lose weight. Over time, you’ll be able to stay at a healthier weight.

Not only do you exercise your muscles during exercise, but your bones get training as well. When you take part in exercise, you strengthen your bones which can prevent breakages as you age. It reduces your risk of developing osteoporosis and can also slow the aging of your bones.

Exercise has also been clinically proven to help with pre-diabetic conditions. It’s used as a treatment for diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions because it alters the cells’ response to insulin. It reduces insulin resistance and increases absorption. This means that when you exercise your body responds to insulin more effectively. This can prevent the onset of diabetes and help your body better absorb the food that you eat. Continue reading

How to Combat Anxiety: Simple Steps to De-Stress your Life

Anxiety is an emotional state that produces fear and worry. It creates a lot of stress and can sometimes lead to panic attacks, which leave a person feeling psychologically overwhelmed. During a panic attack you can experience chest pains, sweating, hot flashes and nausea. Even if you aren’t having a panic attack, you may find yourself experiencing these symptoms if you let your anxiety get out of control.

Anxiety doesn’t have to be a part of your life if you follow a few simple steps. Obviously if you feel that anxiety is interrupting your daily life or otherwise putting you in danger, you should contact a health professional. Certain types of anxiety like post traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder and panic anxiety disorder should be handled with your doctor or nurse practitioner.

If you find yourself feeling general anxiety frequently, you need to break the cycle now before your condition gets any wore. When anxiety remains unchecked, it can become a big problem that needs medical intervention. The first thing you need to do when you feel yourself becoming anxious is to employ relaxation techniques. These techniques allow you to relax your body and mind, which can reduce stress and help your natural anti-anxiety systems kick in.

When you start to become anxious, start taking deep, slow, even breaths. Getting oxygen into your system will naturally calm you down and provide extra oxygen to your brain. The oxygen will help you think more clearly and get your heart rate normalized. This will help you feel less stressed instantly. Continue reading