A little over a month into 2010 many of the resolutions that you made in January probably has fallen by the wayside. When the ball dropped on New Years Eve you might have resolved to go to the gym more often or to eat less fast food on, now, in February those promises seem as stale as the fruit cake in the back of your refrigerator. You might be feeling that you still want to change a few things this year but your earlier resolutions didn’t work out; below you will find 10 tips to bring a positive change to your life in 2010:
1.) Make room for mini meditations through out your day, close the door at your office, hold your calls, and just relax for five minutes. Hubert Benson, the co-founder of Harvard’s Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine, recommends doing this a few times throughout the day. It allows you to turn everything off and recharge.
2.) With states increasing cigarette taxes and cities banning smoking in bars and restaurants there has never been a better time to quit smoking. Many employers, faith groups, and even some local governments offer resources to help you stop smoking for good.
3.) Make an effort to have a social life. Getting bogged down in the stresses of daily life is easy to do. Make a promise to yourself to hang out with your friends at least once a week.
4.) Be aware of your health. Get a physical this year, even if you had one last year you need to make it an annual event. Being proactive is the best way to maintain a healthy life.
5.) Stay positive. It sounds simple, but if you try and keep a positive outlook on life you will find that you enjoy your work, family, and life in general a lot more.
6.) Cut the calories back. This year instead of trying the next fad diet resolve to simply cut back your calorie intake.
7.) Exercise daily. That doesn’t mean become a gym rat it means incorporate some kind of physical activity into your daily routine. It could be something as simple as going for a walk through the park every day, or going for daily bike rides.
8.) Make “wellness” a verb. Don’t think of health and wellness as something to reach for, or something to achieve. Think of as the way you live your life.
9.) Cut back the caffeine. Instead of drinking a pot of regular coffee every morning switch to a 50/50 coffee or caffeine free soft drinks.
10.) Add a little “green” to your life. Mom really was right growing up, be sure to add fruits and vegetables to your meals every day.
These changes, for the most part, are easy to work into your daily life and maintain all year long.

Many people suffer from a sleep disorder known as insomnia. Insomnia is caused by many different factors including stress and an irregular sleep cycle. Most people opt for the chemical method of dealing with it because it doesn’t take any effort or thought. Take a pill, go to sleep. What they don’t consider is the side effects that come from these types of pills, not the least of which is addiction.
Caffeine is classified by the FDA and generally recognized as safe and there has been no evidence produced that shows caffeine to be harmful to health. The American Medical Association holds a similar view as long as the substance is consumed in moderation.
Smoking not only affects your body physically, it affects your emotional stability. If you have been a heavy smoker and have not had a cigarette available when you wanted it, you know the feelings that lack of nicotine cause. There are many different triggers that make you want a cigarette and many of these triggers are simply habit, such as having one with a cup of coffee, having them after each meal, having one when socializing and a multitude of other reasons.
In today’s world, we seem to be moving at a lot faster pace but not getting any exercise. Our movement seems to be by computer, telephone, car, train, plane and a multitude of other fast paced modes of transportation along physical and informational highways.
Most of us suffer from some form of depression at times in our life. Live isn’t always easy and it isn’t always fun, it is normal to feel depressed once in a while. It’s when the feelings of despair and deep darkness take hold and won’t let go that you may be suffering from clinical depression. This is more than just the blues, it’s a feeling that affects every facet of your life, making it impossible enjoy your life and function well in society. You lose interest in things that used to captivate you, such as hobbies and friends, you feel tired and listless all the time and just getting through the day may seem like an insurmountable task. Many people that suffer from clinical depression don’t feel sadness, they feel empty and lifeless, apathetic. They may have a completely bleak outlook on life and have no interest in anything including eating and sleeping. They may suffer from self loathing and engage in harsh criticism of themselves. There are a whole host of negative feelings that come with clinical depression, even the possibility of suicidal tendencies. If you are suffering from what you believe is clinical depression, you need to get help from a professional that understands the symptoms, the feelings, and what steps to take in what progression in order to help you escape from the depression and regain control of your normal life.
The quality of food we consume has a strong effect on our body health and function. This is profoundly true with ADHD. With some people, nutrition alone can effectively treat ADHD.
Many people suffering from OCD will not seek help even if they have known for a long period of time that they have a problem. Since therapy is a crucial part of treating OCD, this is detrimental to the person’s healthy life.
Most of us have suffered from some sort of anxiety during our lifetime; many of us suffer from it much more often. Anxiety produces a large number of different symptoms. Some people become obsessive compulsive, washing their hands over and over again, even though they know they are already clean. Maybe they feel uneasy about something, don’t know why, and see that other people are not affected. Maybe the anxiety is about a certain thing like riding an elevator or crossing a bridge or even going to a social event.
We live in a fast paced world where food is often consumed while driving down the highway over the speed limit and watching for police vehicles. Fast food restaurants have figured this out and are stepping up to the challenge of providing healthier food to all of the patrons that go whizzing by their drive up service windows.
Women aren’t the only ones that want to look their best; men are becoming more and more conscious of their looks as far as their skin, hair, and other cosmetic issues.
Some flu vaccines as well as many other vaccines contain mercury. Mercury has already been proven to pose a serious health threat and has been removed from many things in our lives due to the risk. In times past, hat makers used mercury in their production which is where the term mad as a hatter came from. Now we are putting this dangerous substance in a needle and injecting it into our bodies. The amount of mercury contained in a normal multi-dose flu shot is shown to be 250 times higher that the legal classification of hazardous waste.
It is common knowledge that anyone going out into the sun in summer should wear sunscreen but many people don’t consider that when they go outside during the winter. Even in the winter skin is exposed to UVA and UVB rays and we are more apt to stay out in the open longer when the weather is cooler or even overcast. This exposes us even more to the harmful rays than we would be under summer conditions. UV exposure has detrimental affects on our skin in a multitude of ways. The danger of skin cancer is extremely strong with long term exposure. Short term exposure can cause aging of the skin, wrinkling and dryness.
Obviously, one of the first things you need to do is avoid people that appear to have the flu. Avoiding people with the flu isn’t as easy as it may seem, many people have it and don’t show symptoms till too late. When you are handling things other people have handled, make sure to wash your hands, disinfect the item or both. The more you disinfect things the better off you will be. Don’t rub your face or your eyes with your hands. Hands are wonderful carriers of germs and it appears that most germs we end up fighting have come from our hands. Wash your hands frequently and if you can, carry wipes or disinfectant for hands. Use a tissue to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze or cough, then wash your hands, this will keep viruses from staying on them.
Keeping your skin healthy in the winter is not too much different than keeping it healthy other times, it just requires more of certain things in order to help adapt to the changing weather conditions. Winter tends to bring with it low humidity which has the action of drying out your skin. During these conditions you will want to have a more aggressive moisturizing regimen. Take a hot bath to open up your pores, dry off by patting your skin and before you are totally dry, apply your moisturizer of choice, this will help lock in moisture.
Yoga isn’t just for pretzel people anymore, every day people in any physical shape can perform yoga positions, especially those that are specifically designed for people new to yoga. In the cat pose, you get on your hands and knees and take a deep breath, round up your back towards the ceiling, tucking your head down into your chest, then lower your back down and lift your head back into the starting position. In the dog pose, you stay on your hands and knees and basically reverse the cat pose, pushing your tailbone up towards the ceiling, lowering your mid section down towards the floor with your head and shoulders up. You can rotate between the cat and dog position making it all one yoga exercise. In the child’s pose, you start in the hands and knees position, then sit back onto your legs with your bottom pushing over your legs. Let your arms trail out over your head along the floor. Close your eyes and rest your face on the floor.
There are many yoga positions that can be performed at work without any special tools or space. Many can be done at your desk.
When shopping for skin cream, it is important to know exactly what you are looking for, don’t take a sales person’s advice, their job is to sell you something that is on their shelves, their responsibility ends at that point. In order for your skin to fight off cell damage, you will need to supply it with antioxidants. You can do that through the food you eat, the supplements you take and through the cream you put on.
Your skin is the largest organ of your body, the question is, why do we treat it so badly at times. We expose it to harsh conditions without protecting it. We don’t take the time to exfoliate it so new cells can come forward and we don’t nourish it properly, yet we expect it to be healthy, soft, clear and without issues. It’s easy to rub lotions and potions on our skin to make it appear softer and younger but why not nourish it from the inside.
New skin care products are constantly showing up on the market touting all sorts of different qualities and benefits. This makes deciding on what skin care product to use a very difficult and mind boggling one.