Category Archives: Health

Apr16

Dancing As A Way To Keep A Healthy Lifestyle

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Dancing As A Way To Keep A Healthy Lifestyle

If you are looking for some low-impact activities that can be beneficial to your health, you might want to go for something that offers a good balance of strength training and cardio. Dancing offers a good way to have fun while keeping your body fit and healthy. It has many benefits, like some of the following. But, before you decide to take dancing lessons, you need to buy the right uniforms. You can either shop at a physical store or buy online from sites such as Just for Kix. Let’s get to it:

Boosting Cognitive Health:

Dancing has been used effectively to treat people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Moreover, studies have shown that dancing boosts your memory. When it comes to the health of your brain, learning how to dance engages the major parts of your brain: cerebellum, motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, and basal ganglia. According to a certain study, out of all of the activities that elderly people partake in, only dancing was shown to reduce the risk of developing dementia.

Improving Lung and Heart Health:

Different types of dance offer an aerobic workout that aids in strengthening your lung and heart muscles and this averts chronic conditions such as heart disease later in life. The harder you breathe and the faster your heart beats during dancing, the better the workout your cardiovascular system gets. If you have a strong heart, it will be able to pump blood throughout your body with less effort, lowering your chances of suffering from stroke and high blood pressure.

Alleviating Stress:

Dancing is an activity that provides the brain with double the pleasure because it involves listening to music and physical movement. If you have a dancing partner, your stress levels will decrease as your serotonin levels increase. This allows you to leave your worries behind as you focus on dancing with your partner. And, as exercise and music therapy gets into your brain, you will develop a positive mindset that reduces anxiety and stress.

If dancing to destress sounds exactly like what you need, you can find countless spaces that allow you to do just that. Groups like Ecstatic Dance SLO (or a similar one in your local area) focus on pillars like alleviation of stress, socialization, and providing a drug and alcohol free space to move to the music and let loose. No pressure settings where the purpose is to have fun and create can work wonders for your mental health, practice a new hobby, and make friends too.

Encouraging Social Interaction:

Dancing is a social activity that allows you to interact with other people. Social engagement improves your outlook and mood whilst reinforcing strong brain health. When you interact and converse with other people, you reinforce the brain’s neural pathways; this helps your brain cells to communicate effectively into old age. When you enter a search for “dance schools toronto” (or your local area), you are sure to find several options for adult dance classes. This could be a wonderful way to make new friends on top of the excellent workout you will have. Don’t be afraid to ask your classmates to grab some grub or a coffee after your lesson. It could become a new after class tradition!

Enhancing Flexibility:

The stretching, warm-ups, and reaching that occur in dancing will aid in loosening and lubricating your joints as well as strengthening your muscles. Stiff and tight muscles result in the inflammation, pains, and aches that happen during injury recovery and aging. When you increase your muscle pliability, you will be optimizing your coordination and preventing injury.

Strengthening Muscles and Endurance:

Activities like dancing usually tone and strengthen the key muscle groups: core, legs, arms, and back. The moderate movements burn calories, make you sweat, and aid in muscle growth. When you exercise, microscopic tears occur in your muscle tissues and this tells the body to rebuild the muscles bigger and stronger.

Increasing Spatial Awareness and Balance:

The coordination that you need to dance promotes your agility while improving your balance skills. This is very important for older adults because they need to retain their mobility to prevent debilitating falls. Although they can just install staircase railings and suction grab bars to hold onto, exercises like dancing strengthen their spatial awareness and agility, which helps in all aspects of life.

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Dancing has a wide variety of benefits for people of all ages. You do not have to start dancing when you are worried about your health; you can do it at any point of your life. The earlier you begin, the better you will be – and it’s fun!

Apr16

Tried And Tested: Medicinal Weight Management

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Tried And Tested: Medicinal Weight Management

You can find loads of guides, posts, and other content around the web that is dedicated to helping you to manage your weight without changing your lifestyle. They will promise that you can lose weight without diet and exercise – which we all know is untrue. This is a shame, as it holds a lot of people back from their ultimate goals. To help you out, this post will be exploring some of the tried and tested methods of weight management, all with a strong background in the medical field:

Getting Bigger:

For a lot of people, gaining weight in the form of muscle will be the key goal in mind, and this will take a lot of dedication if you want to handle it correctly. Your body will need to have the right balance of different nutrients for the results you desire. Along with this, though, there are also some other chemicals at play which can have an impact on your ability to gain weight.

  • Energy Levels: When you go to the gym and find yourself struggling to complete exercises because of your energy levels on a regular basis, it can be hard to make sure that you’re getting the most from your workouts. To help you with this, energy supplements can be a great place to start. Of course, you have to be careful, as some of these products can be bad for your liver and other essential organs.
  • Testosterone: For both men and women alike, increasing the levels of testosterone in your blood will have a range of effects. TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) can boost energy, making it easier to work hard. It can improve your metabolism, making the food you eat go a lot further. Most of all, though, this hormone will promote muscle development at a much faster pace than you normally expect. For anyone looking to gain some muscle weight, supplements from tongkat ali australia could be a great benefit to you in your journey, especially if regular practices are not having the desired effect.

Getting Smaller:

On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of people at the gym are also there because they’d like to lose some weight. This process is slightly different, and the methods you use will often have to be given to you by a doctor. Even with this barrier in the way, it shouldn’t be too hard to get started with something like this once you have an idea of what is out there for you to try.

  • Diet Pills: The human body is very easy to control when you have the right tools to do it. If you find yourself very hungry a lot of the time, losing weight can be extremely difficult. To avoid this, appetite suppressants can stop your hunger in its tracks, making you feel full when you haven’t eaten. It goes without saying that you have to be careful with an option like this, as it is easy to under-eat when you’re doing it. Peptide therapy injections can also have similar effects as diet pills and is another option to consider. To find a practitioner near you, simply enter a search for “weight loss clinic florida” (or your local area) and think carefully about all of the options you are given before making a decision.
  • Shrinkage: Your body uses the capacity of your stomach and how much of it is taken up to decide when to tell you that you’re hungry. If your stomach is bigger, it will be harder to fill it, and you will need to eat more to satisfy yourself. A gastric bypass procedure from Bay Bariatrics can solve this for you, shrinking your stomach and making it faster to fill.
  • Psychology: As the last option to consider, it’s time to think of a different kind of medicine. Playing tricks on your mind is an easy way to stop yourself from eating too much. Drinking water, for example, can make you feel full without having to eat. Likewise, a lot of people find that certain activities will trigger their food cravings, making it hard to keep on top of a diet.

Controlling the size of your body is an art that a lot of people struggle with. With all of the complex food planning, exercise, and other life changes that you often have to make to achieve the results you want, it can feel impossible to even think about the work that you have ahead of you. It can be wise to talk to a medical professional during your journey, as their support will be one of the greatest tools you have. After a couple of weeks, most of these routes will start to show their success.

Featured Image By: Unsplash

Apr11

Back To Your Best: Back Care Advice

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Back To Your Best: Back Care Advice

At one point or another as you get older, you are likely to suffer from some sort of back issue. Our modern lives involve a great deal of sitting down in hunched positions, which can lead to problems further down the line. As well as this, being overweight and having poor posture can all contribute towards pain and discomfort. And, as anyone who has suffered from back issues in the past will know, they can be quite debilitating. So, let’s talk through a few of the ways that you can take better care of your back so that you can reduce your risk of developing problems.

Prior to implementing any changes, it is a good idea to schedule an appointment with a doctor for neck and back pain treatment near you. The solutions might be simple like some of the ones below or they could be more involved. It is important to know that beforehand to prevent your situation from worsening.

Your Choice of Footwear:

It may come as no surprise that high heels cause more stress on your spine, but you may be shocked to learn that ultra-flat shoes like ballet flats and loafers can also be problematic. You should also avoid wearing flip-flops and other backless styles of shoes. All of these footwear types involve you tensing your feet, which will, in turn, put stress on your back. If you are going to wear heels, you are better off wearing small ones (around one inch). Even if you wear trainers all of the time, you need to remember that these wear out over time and will need to be replaced.

Your Workouts:

We have already discussed how a sedentary lifestyle can contribute towards a bad back, but suddenly launching yourself into an extensive workout routine isn’t going to do you much good, either. Instead, you should build up your physical activity slowly if you haven’t done any for a long time. And it is more important to make sure that you are practicing the correct technique – particularly when you are lifting weights of any kind. If you get into any problems, there is more info about a chiropractor here. Regular stretching is also important, especially before and after any workouts.

Your Mattress:

The type of mattress that you are sleeping on every night makes a big difference to the condition of your back. And while you might think that sleeping on a very hard mattress is the best thing if you suffer from back pain, there are actually many studies which dispel this belief. In fact, mattresses of a medium firmness have been found to be best when it comes to alleviating the most common symptoms of back pain. You should also replace your mattress every few years as it will wear down over time and won’t offer the same level of support that it once did.

Your Desk Set-Up:

Many of us have jobs which involve sitting down for hours on end, so you need to make sure that any workstations that you have are set up ergonomically to reduce any back pain issues which could be caused by your desk. You should aim to position your monitor at eye level to avoid having to hunch over to operate your computer. You should also position your chair so that you can rest your feet comfortably on the floor. Get into the habit of assessing your body position on a regular basis to ensure that you are sitting upright in your chair with relaxed shoulders. If you spend more than a couple of hours a day talking on the telephone, it is worth investing in a headset.

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 How is your desk set up?

Your Baggage:

The bags that you carry around regularly can also play their part in damaging your back and affecting your posture. If you have luggage such as a laptop bag that is always worn over one shoulder, you should avoid always wearing it on the same side as this can cause you to put extra stress it. Better still, you should switch to a rucksack which distributes the weight evenly between your shoulders. It is also worth emptying out your bag on a regular basis so that you are not carrying around any more weight than you need to.

Your Car:

Your car can be a particular source of problems if you spend a great deal of the day driving. Many of the issues are caused by seat set-up, so make sure that you position it to suit your needs and use some extra cushions if you feel like they are necessary. The vibrations caused by the car are a source of problems, so you should make sure to take regular breaks when you can to get out of the car and go on a short walk.

Your Health:

We already mentioned being overweight as a major cause of back problems, so you should take steps to cut down on excess pounds. If you are a smoker, you may be shocked to learn that back pain is on the long list of problems closely associated with tobacco usage. It is believed that smoking reduces the blood supply to the discs between the vertebrae, therefore leading to their degeneration. Too much stress can lead you to retain a lot of tension in your body. You should try to reduce the stress in your life, which can be another contributing factor by engaging in breathing techniques and meditation.

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Or yoga!

Back pain is something that you want to avoid at all costs, and these are just a few of the ways that you can reduce your chances of suffering from it.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Apr3

Is Nutrition Just A Balancing Act?

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Is Nutrition Just A Balancing Act?

A lot of times when we read articles about nutrition or see a nutritionist terms such as “balanced” and “in moderation” show up. Yet, surely nutrition must be a little more complex than one big balancing act? Not necessarily. We as humans like to over complicate things due to our intelligent and ego driven brains when nutrition, like so many basic aspects of life, is a very simple equation.

You’ve probably heard of the saying “you are what you eat”. Indeed, this may have been drilled into you from an early age – but how much attention do you honestly pay to this principle? You don’t need GI doctors to tell you that all that sugar, saturated fat, and caffeine is bad for your health and well being. We all know that excessive sugar, fat, and salt are bad for our hearts and can cause Type II diabetes… yet, we keep on doing the same thing.

Rather than beat yourself up and make all sorts of rules about what you can and can’t eat, the best way to approach the great balancing act of nutrition is to picture a bank account. With a bank account there are deposits and withdrawals. The deposits nourish your bank balance while the withdrawals deplete it. If there are too many withdrawals, the account becomes overdrawn, and you end up in financial trouble.

Using this metaphor as a parallel for nutrition, it’s clear that deposits and withdrawals exist. As an example, drinking a vitamin filled smoothie could be considered a deposit because you are investing nutrients that are going to replenish and revitalize your body. Whereas eating a chocolate bar would be considered to be a withdrawal because it is not doing anything for you.

Making the occasional withdrawal is fine, as this way, there is still an equilibrium. If you are to withdraw more from this bank account nutritionally then you are putting in is when you run into problems. That’s when serious diseases start to occur. The word disease represents that your body is in a state of dis-ease; meaning it is out of balance.  No matter what your current condition of health is, the best way to ensure a long and healthy life is to keep your bank account in credit and balance the books!

Nutrition is important. And what is equally as important to what we put in our mouths, is how often and how intensely we move our bodies. Just a twenty minute walk at a moderate pace with some good music will do the trick to get you into the “aerobic zone”.  One of the most universal and all around forms of exercise that requires very little equipment, and is accessible for all, is swimming. It is easy on your body and it sure is fun.

The bank account of your health depends primarily on two things; the food you eat and the amount of exercise that you complete. Hopefully, this simple metaphor of the bank account will inspire you to make better day to day choices and keep on top of the balancing act that is nutrition.

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Mar31

Are You Struggling With Your Health?

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Are You Struggling With Your Health?

Are you constantly feeling run down, as though you’ve got no energy left to do anything at all? It’s a common occurrence for people to start feeling like that. There are so many things that we could be doing to potentially harm our bodies, yet we carry on doing them. Even the littlest things like how much sleep we’re getting can dramatically reduce our health within a few weeks. But to get to the point where you feel as though you’re struggling with your health can be pretty worrying, so we’ve got some ways to solve the most common ways that people could be damaging their health:

Toxins:

The main reason why so many people struggle with their health is due to the many toxins that they’re including in their diet. It can be a range of things, but one of the most common ways we’re doing it is through the abuse of alcohol. A cheeky drink at the end of every day can so easily turn into an addiction, and an addiction can be hard to crack. One thing you might want to consider doing if you ever got to this point would be addiction counseling. It is one of the easiest ways to get out of the habit that you’re in, and it is always good to talk to someone about what you’re going through.

Depending on the level of your addiction, you might need something more intensive than counseling alone like an outpatient treatment center or a live in rehab. If this is the route you want to take, be sure to find a facility that fits your preferences. It could be a program that’s out of state, a rehab specific for men or a rehab for women, or a facility with a pretty view to inspire. You want a place that you can thrive so make some calls and take tours to find your best fit. It can feel scary to make a big change and taking tours of different facilities can help ease your mind. That way, you will know exactly what you’re getting into. Take the time to research different Drug and alcohol rehab centers and be proud of yourself. This is a big step!

Other toxins that so many of us are putting into our bodies is through food. We’re going through a time where people are skipping the vital vitamins and minerals from their diet, and replacing them with foods that are high in fats and sugars. If you want to get back on track with your health, consider changing to a diet that includes a lot of leafy greens and fruits.

Aging Problems:

Some things we can’t help, but it is just something that we go through as we get older. For example, menopause for women is not a nice experience to go through. A lot of women actually really struggle with the process, and it can make their health feel really low. There’s the sweats, mood swings, and fatigue, among many others to try and cope with. But, it is a natural aging process that can’t be stopped. Another, possibly more crippling problem, is arthritis. Again, something that can’t be avoided, but can be managed. The best thing to do is use anti-inflammatory gels to reduce inflammation and, more importantly, keep the joints active so that it doesn’t seize up.

Work Related Problems:

The work that we do sometimes can cause us the biggest issues. Even something that might seem so easy as sitting at a desk can cause us to struggle with our health. For one, you’ve got the postural issues to contend with. Sitting at a desk for hours a day will no doubt affect it, but you can get foam cushions that will support your back to keep it up right. Then, there’s the issue of weight gain if you’re a snacker at the desk. It might not seem bad in the beginning, but the lack of exercise during the day coupled with a poor diet will eventually equal weight gain. Try and stay as active and healthy as possible by walking around the office and standing every hour to stretch after a stint in your chair.

Lifestyle choices can be altered and can improve your health for the better, one simple change at a time.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Mar28

Introducing Sleep Hygiene To Your Life

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Introducing Sleep Hygiene To Your Life

If you’re someone who struggles to get to sleep at night, or you’re the kind of person who lays awake for hours just waiting for sleep to catch up with you, then there’s a good chance that you do not have the best sleep hygiene. This is a relatively new concept that’s been getting a lot of attention recently, with more and more people complaining of insomnia and research into sleep disorders becoming a wide medical field.

If you want to introduce it into your life, because let’s face it, at this point you’ll take anything to make sure you get a good night’s sleep, then here’s some basic tips. It’s important to remember that not everything works for everyone before frustration makes you give up on the entire premise!

Get Relaxed Before Bed:

It’s all well and good that you can fall onto the softest mattress from Sterling Sleep Systems, but you need to get properly relaxed before that to make sure that sleep takes hold of you in the shortest time possible. The best way to do this is to implement a routine for the nighttime that gets your body used to switching off and falling asleep, and gets your brain to remember that sleep is its friend!

Make sure that you’re washing in warm water before you head to the dream world, as a bath or shower can release tension from your muscles and give you a very refreshing feeling. You could also try stretching yourself out before you sleep; yes, a bit of exercise before saying goodnight could help you. Your body doesn’t need to settle into a lethargic position before you fall into a restful slumber, after all.

Keep it Dark:

Your brain needs to focus and only focus on trying to get to sleep, and that means your sleep environment needs to be calm and quiet for you to slumber away in. Making sure it’s dark is a good way to indicate to your open eyes that it’s time to rest. This isn’t something everyone finds relaxing, of course, but you can easily minimize the effect of harsh lighting before you go to sleep by turning off the phone or the TV, or dimming these screens down.

Try Not to Nap:

Everyone needs to nap from time to time, but if you’re taking two to three hour naps in the middle of the day, you’re going to suffer at bedtime. This is because your body doesn’t feel tired due to the extra energy, and let’s face it, you already know this is a problem you have to conquer. If you do need to nap, try to limit the time to 30 minutes, with 20 minutes being the optimum. It can erase the tiredness behind your eyes and really boost your mood, so feel free to take these shorter naps.

Sleep hygiene is quite effective to practice and can make going into the land of nod a lot easier.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Mar28

10 K A Day With Pacer

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10 K A Day With Pacer

Hi everyone! On March 17th, I downloaded the pedometer app on my iPod called Pacer. I have been completely obsessed with it, and have tried to complete at least ten thousand steps every day. By walking my dogs and increasing my steps per day whether that be through marching in place or walking around the house, I have been motivated to hit my goal of the ten K mark daily.

In just about a week and a half, I can tell how much my stamina has increased from walking close to four miles every day. I’m also really looking forward to when it gets warm enough so that I can start running outside and really put the app to the test! For someone who has a pretty sedentary job, I am so pleased with walking ten K steps and over each day. Beach body, here I come!!

How do you motivate yourself to work out? Do you use a pedometer app, too? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Featured Image By: Lollipuff

Mar23

Feel Better, Look Better

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Feel Better, Look Better

We all have this obsession with wanting to look perfect. We want to have that killer body, with those pearly whites, and flawless skin. But have you ever thought that in order to achieve those things, you need to ensure that you’re healthy and well on the inside? The healthier that you are, the better you will not only feel, but look too. Ever heard of that saying “my body is my temple”? Well everyone should think this way about themselves – you should worship it and want to do all that you can in order to be better.

Rather than focusing so much on how that girl’s body looks on Instagram and how she got her hair to look that shiny – think about how you can make yourself feel good. One of the biggest mistakes that every woman (and man) can make, is to compare themselves to others. Especially when it comes to a photograph. You need to realize that things aren’t all that real anymore. Those models you see in the magazines – they’ve been picked apart and had all their ‘bad’ areas photoshopped. That means no more cellulite, stretch marks, freckles, scars, or spots. So you can’t possibly compare yourself to that. Even Instagram nowadays is hard to decipher what is real and what isn’t, as there are so many filters and edits that are made within a mere few clicks of a button on a phone – you just can’t win. So put all of that attention into focusing on yourself – you haven’t got time to waste on negative thoughts.

Strengthen your mind:

You may think that improvements are to be made on your appearance, but the first place that you should be giving some love to is your mind. This is the place where all of your thoughts and feelings come from. So you know when you look in a mirror and hear those nagging voices in the back of your mind that tell you you’re not good enough? That all comes from your brain, so you need to work on changing your perception of things. One trick to doing this is telling yourself that you’re beautiful every single day. Out loud. It doesn’t matter if you feel silly. Stand up tall, look at yourself, and declare your beauty. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it yet – you will. Say one beautiful thing about yourself, but this doesn’t necessarily mean in terms of your looks. Think more about your traits and qualities. “I am beautiful because I’m kind.” “I am beautiful because I’m compassionate.” These reinforce the whole meaning of what beauty really is.

Give your body what it needs:

Your body needs certain nutrients and vitamins in order for it to function to the best of its ability. You should feel energized and, well, not tired and moody. All of these things are affected by what you put inside your body. Every different vitamin provides you with an essential source. This is why supplements are a good idea for people that are on the go a lot, because they don’t have to worry about not getting exactly what they need if it’s all there in a capsule, instead. KetoMCT is very good at fueling your brain and keeping it focused and alert, as well as supporting your weight management and boosting your immune system. All of these things are vital if you want to live a healthy life. Another trick that you can do is to eat as much of a colored variety of fruits and vegetables as you possibly can. The bigger the array, the more selection of goodness you are making available to your body.

Keep yourself in shape:

If you have noticed that you’ve gained some extra pounds and you aren’t happy about it, then it’s simple – do something about it. One of the biggest things to battle is laziness. We all suffer from it at one time or another, and finding the motivation to fight it can be very difficult. But, this is where you need to start being strict with yourself. If you expect to see a difference, then you need to put in the work. There are plenty of great exercises out there that you can do that are easy, and don’t necessarily require you to go to the gym. If you like the water, then swimming is a great workout, especially if you are a little heavier, because water makes you weightless, as opposed to if you were running. This is why it is so great for practicing mobility without the worry of straining yourself or causing an injury. Then as soon as you feel ready to push further – add some weights to the mix for added resistance.

Support one another:

Us girls need to stick together, not hate on one another. So spread the love and all of that positive energy that you know you have within you. Go out with your girlfriends, shop together, and give each other some tips to update your style a little. Let’s face it, shopping is a lot more fun when it’s done with your besties. Make a whole day of it and put on a fashion show with tons of different looks that you have all picked out. You may learn a lot about yourself that you would have never known if you hadn’t have tried on that weird frilly dress that looked gross on the hanger, but ends up making you look like a true woman. Then, after your long shopping spree, you can hit the fancy restaurant in your just-bought outfit and enjoy your new found confidence thanks to the awesome company you have around you.

Now, of course, you can’t expect things to miraculously change overnight. But with a little bit of patience and persistence, you will have a brighter outlook on yourself – and for good reason!

Featured Image By: Google

Mar17

Pick Up The Pacer

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Pick Up The Pacer

Howdy! While it may not be warm enough to run outside at the moment in Ohio, I do try to walk as often as I can. Whether that be a quick walk around the block with my dogs or walking around the room during my TV time, I try to stay active. I am one of those people that love to have numbers. How many steps did I take? How many miles was it? How many calories did I burn?

Since warmer weather will be among us soon and that means tiny shorts and crop tops, I have been trying to get in the best shape possible. And since I love numbers, I decided to download the Pacer pedometer app. And, I have to say, I’m obsessed.

I’ve been using Pacer for the past week or so and have really been enjoying it. It gives you your step, calorie, and distance count, which is all of the information that I want to know. The counts update every time you view it and, believe me, I view it often. When I see the numbers going up and up during the day, it gives me such motivation to increase it even more to get to that next mile or next thousand steps.

Thanks to Pacer, I can definitely say that I’ve been more active and it’s only been a week of using it! When I’m watching TV, I almost look forward to the commercial breaks so that I can get up and begin my walks around the room and hallway. I even take my steps in place during the actual show so that I can get my walk on and still view my guilty pleasures! It’s not much, but I sure feel good about it!

How do you increase your activity during the day? Who else uses a pedometer to monitor their movement? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Featured Image By: Lollipuff

Mar12

Pregnancy & Mental Health: Overcoming Your Insecurities

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Pregnancy & Mental Health: Overcoming Your Insecurities

Pregnant women go through a lot of both physical and mental stress, which leads to so many insecurities popping up. People often talk about how your physical health suffers when you’re pregnant, but the mental side of things is rarely discussed in detail. As a result, we want to break the stigma and speak about the common mental insecurities you face while carrying a child. Hopefully, this helps any women out there going through pregnancy and feeling some of the things talked about in this piece. Take a look at all of the insecurities, down below:

I Look Disgusting

You wake up, haul yourself out of bed, and look at yourself in the mirror. One thought pops into your head; I’m disgusting. You feel like you look horrible and have just become so ugly. It makes you unbelievably self-conscious, and you don’t want to be seen in public. As a consequence, you retire to the sofa where you comfort eat all day, which fuels these feelings of insecurity.

Needless to say, this is all a mental issue. In fact, many people think women get more attractive when they’re pregnant, and that they have a special glow to them. There are a few things that you can do to overcome this insecurity, some are in your head, others are more practical.

First, change the clothes you wear so you feel more comfortable and aren’t trying to squeeze into your old jeans and tops. You can actually buy loose-fitting maternity scrubs from various websites, and these are great when you’re pregnant as they don’t really show your figure. So, you don’t see anything bulging, your clothes don’t feel tight, and you’re instantly in a better frame of mind.

Second, you need to think more clearly. Understand that you might not look your best because you had a rough night’s sleep or because you were up with morning sickness. Carrying a child is no walk in the park, it takes its toll on your body. So, there will be natural things that happen, which can make you – temporarily – look a little worse for wear. But, you often find you’ll look and feel a lot better after a nice long shower or bath. Try this every morning, and you’ll overcome this insecurity.

I’m Not Ready To Be A Mother:

This is probably one of the toughest insecurities you face when you’re pregnant. Almost all expecting moms go through a phase where they freak out and think they’re not ready to be a mother. For some, it’s right at the start, when they first find out they’re pregnant. For others, it’s right near the end when it suddenly dawns on you that you could be a mom at any moment. Of course, it can happen at any time in between too, and it may last for weeks, months, days, or minutes.

It’s common to feel this way because you’re entering the unknown. As humans, we mentally recoil whenever we’re faced with something that’s not known to us. It’s like walking into a dark cave, our brain sends out warning signals because we have no idea what lies ahead. If you’re pregnant for the first time, you’ve got no clue what could happen. You have no idea if you can be a mom or even how to be a mom, so it’s normal to get some prenatal jitters.

The only way to overcome this is through reassurance. Reassure yourself that you can be a mom and that you’ll make a great one, at that. Often, having others around you tell you that you can do something will make you think more positively, too. Also, get advice from other moms, read books, resources, and just brush up on your knowledge. This helps you learn what to expect, which prepares you for motherhood and helps banish the nerves. If your anxiety is particularly overwhelming, it is a good idea to look into different options for counseling. Read some online reviews, seek recommendations, and visit websites to learn more about their therapy services. Don’t be afraid to shop around for the right counselor or therapist for you so you can get the best help possible for your situation.

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I’m Overweight:

Normally, if you’re insecure about the way you look, you’re also insecure about your weight while pregnant. Now, we’ve decided to separate this insecurity from the first one because they are two different things. Being insecure about the way you look can mean you’re not happy with your hair, face, body; whatever. But, being insecure about your weight means you’re very self-conscious about feeling fat.

It’s dangerous, because feelings like this can often lead to eating disorders. You may refuse to eat food because you think you’re fat, which ultimately starves you and your baby of vital nutrition. The reason most women are insecure about their weight is because of the fact that they look bigger when they’re pregnant. But, this is natural. Another person is growing inside of you, you’re obviously going to look bigger!

You can put your mind at ease by doing some light exercise and trying to follow a healthy diet. At the very least, this will keep you healthy during pregnancy, leading to a healthier birth. On a mental level, the fact that you’re doing exercise and aren’t binge eating will help you come to terms with your extra size being down to the baby and not you being fat.

The mental side of pregnancy doesn’t get discussed much. Hopefully, this has shone a light on how your mental health is affected when you’re carrying a child. Also, we hope it helps you overcome these nagging insecurities if you suffer from them!

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