How to Breathe

Breath guru Alan Dolan explains the ins and outs of improving your breathing and, as a result, your health.

Familiarise yourself Take some time to get to know your breath better. Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your upper chest, close your eyes and take a big inhale through your nose, and let it out. Take note of which hand moved the most – the bottom or the top. Eighty per cent of us are upper chest breathers, 20 per cent belly breathers. Discovering which you are can help you make the most out of your breath

Upper chest breathers… The upper chest is associated with anxiety and stress. When you start breathing from your abdomen, it induces calm. Sit back at about 45° and make sure your neck is supported. Put your hands on your abdomen and breathe through the nose, imagining there is a balloon where your abdomen is. Take a deep inhale, inflating the 'balloon’ . Feel the abdomen rise. Then let it go, and repeat. Keep doing this for five minutes. If you find it an effort, put a book flat on your abdomen for a bit of weight, and breathe to push the book away. I use Harry Potter because it’s so heavy. Read more

57 Bodyweight Exercises for Killer Home Workouts

Mike Roulston demonstrates how to perform 57 bodyweight exercises that you can use in home workouts.

Quit Smoking with Exercise

When you decide to stop smoking, you'll bring on other changes in your life as well.  Smoking is a very addictive habit. Exercise can be a big help to you when you decide to quit. If you have an addictive personality, substituting exercise can create a positive addiction to replace the negative addiction of smoking.
Try to set a new routine, such as working out or going to the gym.  If that isn't possible, you  should try waking up earlier and going for a short walk.  If you can turn that walk into a run or a  jog, it is going to be very stimulating and the best way that you can start your day.

Keep in mind that exercise doesn't necessarily mean  pumping iron.  If you don't have the time to stop by the gym every day, then it isn't really that big of a problem, as you can always choose to work out at home.

Whether you choose to workout at home or at a gym, you should always remember that regularity is the key.  It isn't getting started that's the difficult part, it's sticking to a regular exercise program that is difficult and proves to be stumbling block for most people.

Some people have a great start.  They will buy  track suits, gym wear, running shoes, and a lot of other gear, so their first day at the gym is almost like a celebration.  As the days go by,  they find it very difficult to meet the demands and their routine will slow down a lot and finally come to a complete exercise burnout.

One mistake that several people make is choosing the evenings to exercise.  If evenings fit your lifestyle, then it's fine.  For most people, however, the evening hours are when they are completely pooped.  By the evening most of us are drained, and simply too tired for exercise.  Therefore, it is always best to set some time aside for exercise in the morning.

In the morning, wake up a half an hour or so  earlier, put on your shoes, and hit the road.  Most roads are less crowded in the morning and less polluted as well, making it a wonderful and relaxing way to start the day.

One of the unintended "benefits" of quitting smoking with exercise is that  you will come face to face with how much lung capacity you've lost from smoking, especially if you attempt to jog or swim. However, that shouldn't make you quit. It should motivate to keep going and get it back, which you can. How much depends on how long you've been smoking, but no matter how long you've smoked, the day you stop is the day you stop doing damage to yourself.

How Much Nutrition Do You Really Need?

Bill Sardi discusses which nutrition chart you should rely upon, the RDA, RDI, AI, EAR or DV, or how much nuutrition do you really need?

It is so strange, in an era of overly processed foods and refined sugars, nutritionists continue to maintain the American diet is sufficient to meet the nutrient needs of Americans. This drivel continues despite the fact recent studies do not confirm the consumption of fruits and vegetables significantly reduces mortality rates for heart disease and cancer, the number one and two chronic diseases that drive mortality rates. Even the 9-13 servings of plant foods-regimen now recommended by health authorities still is an unproven measure.

If you are totally confused by the array of acronyms RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), RDI (Reference Dietary Intake), AI (Adequate Intake), EAR (Estimated Average Requirement) and DV (Daily Value) used to inform Americans how much nutrition they need, join the crowd. For various reasons, all of these should be disregarded, as explained below. Read more

Want to Be Happier and Slimmer? Get Up Earlier

Want to be happier and slimmer? Get up earlier, says a new study.

The next time you are tempted to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock, hold fire.

Research suggests that early risers are slimmer, happier and healthier than those who get up later in the day.

Worst off are night owls, with late nights seemingly taking their toll on health and happiness. Read more

Researchers Find Natural Way to Cut Stroke Risk by Half

Researchers have discovered a side effect-free natural way to cut stroke risk by half: eat white fruits and vegetables.

It is common sense that eating a healthy diet should help prevent disease. But Big Pharma must surely have superior elixirs, pills, potions and shots when it comes to serious prevention of the big killer diseases like stroke, right?

If the drug companies have a prescription drug, without any side effects, that can slash the risk of a stroke by 52 percent, please write and let NaturalNews know - because we can't find it anywhere in the scientific literature.

Instead, we've found a mountain of evidence from peer reviewed studies showing that natural substances in food can help prevent and heal a multitude of illness. And now there's another dramatic finding that shows eating an abundance of certain foods can help protect against stroke -- specifically the white flesh of foods like pears and apples. Read more

Shy Children at Risk of Being Diagnosed with Mental Disorder

Children who are merely shy or sad are at risk of being diagnosed with mental disorders and given powerful drugs, experts warn.

Psychologists say that new guidelines being developed in America will lead more young people seeing their common problems regarded as illnesses that must be treated, rather than just being given support.

They fear that pupils who are quiet at school could be diagnosed with “social anxiety disorder” while those who become withdrawn after suffering a bereavement are classified as having a “depressive disorder”.

Children who just talk back to adults or lose their temper regularly could be diagnosed with “oppositional defiant disorder”.

As a result, those found to have these increasingly broad mental disorders could be prescribed powerful medication such as Prozac or Ritalin to control or alter their behaviour. Read more

The Ultra-Nourishing, Anti-Inflammatory Immune Booster

Edward Groups gives eleven reasons why goat's milk is far healthier than cow's milk.

While cow’s milk remains one of America’s most common daily drinks, it is interesting to note that it may also be the reason why many Americans experience gas, bloating, mucous and other forms of indigestion.

Moreover, in a world where the common cow is pumped full of growth hormones, antibiotics, GMO feed, vaccinations and exposed to toxic conditions, it is no wonder that many humans experience negative effects of consuming pasteurized cow milk.

Goat’s milk is a much healthier alternative, especially if it is consumed raw and from a good organic source. The most common form of milk used on a global scale, it is estimated that around three fourths of the milk consumed worldwide comes from goats, not cows. And most of the people drinking this milk are not fat and do not have allergies or digestive complaints.

The Benefits of Goat Milk

Goat’s milk offers a wide variety of health benefits, with very few of the negative side effects of drinking regular cow milk. Read more

Targeting Heart Health May Improve Sex Life

Erectile dysfunction in middle-aged men may be a sign of more serious health problems. Improving their cardiovascular health may improve their sex lives, too.

Middle-aged men who take steps to improve their heart health by eating better, getting more exercise, or taking cholesterol-lowering drugs may end up improving their sex lives as well, according to a new analysis of existing research.

Nearly 1 in 5 men in the U.S. has difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection, a condition known as erectile dysfunction (ED). The new study, which appears this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that ED drugs such as Viagra aren't the only solution and aren't always enough to address the problem, says coauthor Dr. Stephen Kopecky, M.D., a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"If you do take care of your lifestyle—eating right, exercising, losing weight—you respond much better to the Viagra, the Levitra, the Cialis," Kopecky says. By the same token, he adds, if these drugs become less effective "that should be a sign that...you need to take care of your lifestyle.'" Read more

The Acid-Reflux Nightmare

Mark Sisson discusses the symptoms, causes, and remedies for GERD.

The symptoms can be abject misery: searing abdominal pain, debilitating stomach cramps, an excruciating, rising burn, acid-filled hiccups, tightened throat, constant sleep disturbance, and even the rare but terrifying bouts of choking from nighttime acid inhalation. I’m talking of course about acid reflux or GERD as it’s commonly called these days. I personally suffered from occasional bouts of GERD and experienced all the symptoms above for years during and even after my endurance days. (It wasn’t until I gave up grains that my GERD completely disappeared.) Maybe you’ve had it. Maybe you know someone who’s had it. GERD, by the way, isn’t your run-of-the-mill occasional heartburn (which isn’t much fun either) but a chronic pattern of heartburn in which you experience symptoms at least a few times a week. I get emails about it all the time, and it’s little wonder. Statistics suggest that 25-30% of American adults experience GERD related heartburn multiple times a week (PDF). Of all the pharmaceutical categories, proton pump inhibitors (a predominant prescription for GERD) have ranked consistently in the top twenty for years. And that doesn’t even take into account the old-fashioned antacids like Tums and Rolaids that people pop like candy. What, for the love, is going on here? It used to be heartburn was generally confined to women in their last months of pregnancy or to the annual Thanksgiving overindulgence. It certainly wasn’t a chronic condition plaguing a large percentage of the population. I sense a familiar pattern here, no? Read more

How to Tell If You're Running Low on Vital Nutrients

Tired? Feeling ratty? It may time to ramp-up some vital nutrients, says Angela Epstein.

Despite following all the healthy eating advice about getting your five a day, experts suggest many of us lack the vitamins and minerals essential for keeping us fighting fit.

Though we are advised to try to get as many of these as possible through our diet, pills may help top up our levels.

Indeed, a recent study revealed that you will recover from a cold 40 per cent quicker if you take zinc supplements.

So, what other symptoms and ailments indicate a nutritional deficiency?

Here, we reveal which vitamins and minerals your body may be lacking, and how to boost your levels. Read more

Advanced Upper Body Workout

This core workout is not intended for the faint of heart. If you want to strong and sexy abs then this is for you.