Sassy September Slimdown: Introduction

If you are looking to add lean strong muscle to your body, as well as boosting your strength, then Sassy September Slimdown is for you! This challenge is ideal for women who would like a dedicated strength and muscle building program that delivers real results. Within this challenge, you will find the key information and resources that you will need for sustainable and effective muscle building. Apply this and stay consistent to it and you will achieve great results.

Below you will find some further details on what to consider during the challenge.

Nutrition

The primary goal of the Sassy September Slimdown is to ensure you gain lean muscle mass every month. This means you do not need to gain excessive body fat with this process. 

To ensure your body only adds lean muscle, your diet will play an important factor throughout this challenge. You can do all the training in the world to add muscle to your body, but if you don’t support it via nutrition optimally, you will see poor results. 

An important aspect to get right is to understand how much you are eating on a consistent basis. Therefore, our primary goal for this challenge is to calculate how many calories you need to consume daily. We also know the importance of how your daily protein, carbohydrate and fat intake are too, so that must be calculated before starting. You will find more info on how to do this soon.  

The meal planner provided is to give you a basic structure and an ideal template to follow. Use the suggested meals from it to create great tasting food every day. You don’t need to eat every meal suggested on this plan; it’s simply a template for you to use to guide your daily decisions and choices. 

Make sure you create great tasting, varied and nutritious meals. Don’t just eat a plain chicken breast with some boring veg, spice it up and get creative with it all. You know you have got this right when you actually look forward to your meals and enjoy eating.

So, without starting out too complicated, I want you to focus on the following: 

1. Calculate your recommended calorie and macronutrient intake
2. Aim to be within 5% of your recommended macronutrient intake daily
3. Use a food tracker such as www.MyFitnessPal.com to record and track 

Training

The Sassy September Slimdown has been created to optimize muscle building and strength. It is simple yet highly effective, and it’s recommended that you stick to it as closely as possible. A key component to it will be ensuring you are progressing on a weekly basis. Along with the addition of some advanced muscle building techniques, this creates the perfect muscle-building environment. 

Also to consider is your rest and recovery rate, as this is also critical to your results. You do have to train hard and heavy to add lean muscle mass, but you must also learn how to recover from this type of training too. When you can find the perfect balance between intense training and recovery, you will see the best progress. This means reducing or limiting any cardio or extra exercise as much as possible during this program. So be sure to train as hard as you can when required, and then get plenty of rest in-between. 

When it comes to the Sassy September Slimdown, quality over quantity is the motto. 

In this challenge you will also receive a training planner, which outlines an ideal template for the suggested workouts. Just like with the nutrition plan this doesn’t need to be set in stone for your success. It can and likely should be adjusted to suit your routine and schedule. 

Lifestyle

We have already put into place the most important factors for your success. So, for the mean time, I simply want you to focus on the above and make those consistent changes to your current routine. But aiming for 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night and finding some time to unwind or relax daily will greatly improve your health and wellbeing too.

Participation

To participate in the Sassy September Slimdown you will need to be a member of the Brand New ME Community on Facebook.  Join today and get to know our little family ahead of the challenge.  Stick around afterwards and enjoy the support and community to help you continue on your journey to reach your health and fitness goals.

Stressed Out? A Good Night’s Sleep Can Cure What Ails You

Your child brings home a report card filled with low marks.  Your dog just bit your neighbor, and the kitchen sink no longer works.  You feel you’re under major stress.  As a result, you find yourself tossing and turning at night, unable to get a good night’s sleep.  This is truly unfortunate, because sleep can re-charge a person’s batteries, enabling him or her to better tackle the stressors that come along the road.

Stress-induced insomnia can take a variety of forms.  For instance, you may have difficulty falling asleep in the first place.  Or you may wake up hours earlier than you should.  You may find yourself waking up several times during the night.  Or you may even find that you feel tired when you wake up in the morning because you didn’t get good quality sleep.

One important point to remember is that you are not alone.  Just about everyone suffers from lack of sleep at some point in life.  That said, dealing with insomnia can be exhausting.  You might feel run down during the day and have difficulty concentrating.  You may turn to coffee in order to keep awake during the daylight hours, which can lead to a feeling of restlessness.  You may even try taking a nap in the mid-morning or late afternoon, only to find that you have difficulty sleeping again at night.

While old age, depression, and substance abuse can all lead to insomnia, it might be said that the number one cause is stress.   If your insomnia persists for a week, you should contact your doctor.  He or she may prescribe medication to enable you to get to sleep more quickly.   But you should be aware that there are other techniques you can use to deal with stress-related insomnia.

To begin with, try to determine the root cause of your stress.  This might be your job, your home life, or even some of your recreational activities.  Next, determine whether you are overscheduled.  By eliminating some of your commitments, you might be able to seriously reduce your stress level.  Then, do some problem-solving.  How can you make a stressful situation better?  It could involve engaging in positive thinking, changing your attitude about the situation, or coming up with solutions to resolve the situation.

There are also some concrete steps you can take to improve your sleep.  For instance, make sure that your bedroom is conducive to sleep.  This means finding the most comfortable bedding available, decorating your room with soft, subtle colors, and eliminating clutter or other signs of work in progress.

In addition,  condition yourself to associate your bed with sleep.  This means resisting the temptation to do work in bed, or study for your classes while lying down.  You should even try to avoid watching TV programs in bed.  The idea here is to eliminate stimulants from your sleeping area which could prevent you from falling asleep.   If you like to read in bed, make sure that you read only fun, fiction books, not significant non-fiction that could keep you up at night.

One other helpful tip is to set up a regular routine prior to going to bed.  It may involve taking a bath or shower to relax you or drinking some milk right before settling down to sleep.  Also, try to get up at the same time every morning so that you are following an established schedule.  In addition, make sure that you do not engage in drinking beverages with caffeine or alcoholic drinks after dinner.

Insomnia is one of the most dangerous side-effects of stress.  It can rob you of your energy, strength, and endurance.  It can make the simplest tasks difficult to handle during the course of the day.  And it can even lead to major depression.  If you find yourself having trouble getting to sleep at night, take immediate action.  Don’t wait for your body to feel the stress of night after night of sleeplessness.  The more proactive you are, the greater the likelihood that you’ll be able to combat insomnia, as well as the stress that goes with it.   Refreshed and renewed, you’ll be able to take on the challenges that come your way, once you’ve gotten enough sleep.

Balancing Cortisol for Weight Loss and Health

Some have called it the “master” of all hormones. Others curse it for its ability to wreak havoc on our body’s fragile endocrine balance. In spite of the mixed opinions one thing is certain: cortisol is a powerful hormone necessary for life. But if its level is not optimal in your body, your health could suffer.

What is Cortisol?

The hormone cortisol is produced in the adrenal glands and is primarily responsible for regulating blood sugar, helping to metabolize fats, protein and carbohydrates and assisting in managing our stress response. We all have times of stress in our lives, and cortisol helps us to function during these times.

When the stress goes up, cortisol kicks in and delivers help. We get a quick burst of energy, our memory sharpens, our immunity increases, and our sensitivity to pain decreases. These are all important and natural functions of cortisol and ensure that we are able to weather the curve balls that life throws at us.

However, if the stress doesn’t let up, neither does the cortisol. Unfortunately, what is healthy in small bursts becomes dangerous over the long term. If you have persistent stress in your life, then you have cortisol levels that are out of balance: your body makes so much cortisol that it detrimentally affects your health. This leads to adrenal fatigue.

When you have prolonged, high levels of cortisol in your bloodstream

• you will crave foods that are high in carbs (like cake and cookies), 
• you will gain weight in your abdominal area (which increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes), and 
• you will have trouble sleeping

Cortisol and the Circadian Rhythm

Our bodies produce different chemicals during the day and night that control our sleep, energy and mood. The natural rhythm of this cycle is known as the Circadian Rhythm, and cortisol is a key player.

Under normal circumstances, your body produces cortisol in amounts largely determined by the clock. Levels tend to be higher in morning—triggered by the emerging daylight--giving you a boost of energy to jumpstart your day.

As the day wears on, cortisol levels should drop, helping to prepare you for a good night’s sleep. Likewise, Melatonin (another hormone that affects your energy and sleep habits) levels should be lower in the morning but as the daylight fades, they should increase, helping you to begin relaxing and preparing for sleep.

However, if you are under constant stress or if your adrenal glands are not functioning properly, your cortisol level may not drop off during the day. Instead, it may actually rise and stay at a dangerously high level. By the time bedtime rolls around, you will not feel sleepy. You will feel “tired but wired,” and be unable to relax and fall asleep.

Reset Your Circadian Clock

If you suspect that your natural, circadian rhythm is disrupted, don’t despair. There are several things you can do to reset your clock so you can start sleeping better at night and waking up more refreshed in the morning.

Try the following tips:

• Reduce stress. Easier said than done, I know. But many times our stress levels are correlated to our response to stressful situations. Learning how to cope with stress more effectively may be all it takes to balance your cortisol.
• Be consistent. Going to bed and getting at the same time each day will help to regulate your circadian rhythm. Practice this habit to slowly coax your body into a schedule.
• Use light wisely. Since your circadian rhythm is partially controlled by light, darken your room well when you go to bed, and flood it with light when it is time to get up. Try using a full spectrum light in the mornings.
• Avoid naps. If your circadian clock is off, you may find that you get very sleepy in the afternoon. However, taking a nap may make it more difficult to fall asleep at night. Try to resist naps.
• Eat most of your calories early. If you can eat the bulk of your daily calories earlier in the day as opposed to later in the day, you may find that you can recalibrate your circadian rhythms more easily.

Good Morning Snore Solution Product Review

When 3 sleep studies show the only issue you have is snoring you're on the lookout for a solution.  So of course I jumped at the opportunity to try out the Good Morning Snore Solution.  I received one appliance and storage case for free in exchange for my honest review.

Putting on the Appliance

"Snoring is frequently caused when the muscles in the back of the throat relax during sleeping and block the airway flow through the mouth.  The Good Morning Snore Solution alleviates snoring by pulling the tongue forward in the mouth and maintaining an open airway."

This explanation of the cause of snoring makes an oral appliance sound more effective than a nasal one. The Good Morning Snore Solution definitely keeps your tongue forward.

The wide part of the appliance goes in between your teeth and lips.  I have no problem getting it into position.  I have to squeeze the bulb and suck the air out several times because I almost immediately start a saliva build up during this step.  It's like my glands know something weird's going on.  Once I feel the saliva has sufficiently decreased I insert the tip of my tongue into the bulb.  This part is not one bit comfortable.  My tongue feels like it's super wide and getting mashed by my teeth.

The Good Morning Snore Solution makes me think of a pacifier with the bulb in reverse.  When sucking out the air it feels like I'm practicing for a pacifier.  It's a weird feeling.

Removing the Appliance

Removing the Good Morning Snore Solution is even more awkward than putting it on.  You gently squeeze the bulb and remove your tongue.  Every time my tongue feels a little sore from being locked into position and my mouth is super dry.  They say these side effects improve and go away over time but how long do you have to wait?

So Does it Work?

I kept waiting for Benny to say something other than laughing at the way I looked wearing the appliance.  So I had no idea whether or not the Good Morning Snore Solution was working.  I finally had to break down and ask him point blank if he heard me snoring when he came in the room (or even outside the door because you know snoring can get pretty loud).  Benny said that he has NOT heard me snoring since I started wearing the appliance.

That's what I say about using the Good Morning Snore Solution.  If I'm really not snoring wearing the appliance then I can deal with the uncomfortable part of it.

Who should NOT use this?

If you have any of these conditions they say you shouldn't use the Good Morning Snore Solution:

• Severe Sleep Apnea (Severe only as it's a registered treatment for mild to moderate apnea.)
• Severe Respiratory Disorders
• Periodontal Disease
• Under 18 (not sure why on this one)
• Have orthodontic or other oral devices - consult with your dentist first
• Blocked nasal passages (because you'll have to be breathing through your nose)

So if you're not experiencing any of the above go ahead and give the Good Morning Snore Solution a try.  Get comfortable being uncomfortable as it actually appears to stop snoring!  Visit their website to see the purchase options...

Good Morning Snore Solution - Because Good Nights Equal Good Mornings.

A post shared by Cassandra Schmigotzki (@longandwindingroadtowellness) on May 5, 2017 at 7:32pm PDT

5 Natural Ways To Improve Your Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep can be refreshing and rejuvenating. For millions, though, a good night’s sleep seems just out of reach. People of all ages across the globe suffer from occasional to chronic insomnia.

Insomnia is a condition that interrupts your ability to fall asleep or stay asleep. If you are suffering from this sleep disturbance, you may be hesitant to turn to harsh medications to help you fall asleep.

Here are 5 ways that you can help improve your sleep naturally.

Reduce the Caffeine

The morning cup of coffee seems to be a staple beverage for many people. However, caffeine is not just in coffee. Caffeine can be hiding in the soda you drink, the tea, and even some of the foods you eat. While eliminating caffeine out of your diet 100% may not be possible, try to limit your consumption of caffeine to the mornings only. Prevention Magazine tells us that ingesting caffeine, even 6 hours before bedtime, can disrupt sleep.

Exercise

Not only does exercise help you maintain a healthy body weight and better mental outlook but a Sleep Foundation study found that those who exercised were less sleepy during the day and slept better at night. While a new exercise routine may leave you a little tired at first, regular exercise will give you more energy and help you fall asleep at bedtime. This may have to do with the chemicals released by the body when you exercise. The neurotransmitters released by the brain during exercise have all sorts of beneficial properties and improved sleep is one of them.

Meditate

Meditation has a restorative effect on the brain. There are all sorts of benefits that meditation can have for a person. Many of the benefits of meditation include reduced stress and a better ability to cope with difficult issues in one’s life. Meditation is also great for insomnia. A Harvard study found that mindful meditation helped combat insomnia. It invokes a relaxation response in those who participate helping them relax enough to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep through the night. If you are not familiar with how to meditate there are many guided meditation audio programs that you can buy or check out from your library.

Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene is a practice to help you sleep better at night. It has to do with environmental cues. Alaska sleep notes that these environmental cues should be taken into consideration if you aren’t sleeping.

• Use the bedroom for sex and sleep only
• No electronics
• Keep the room dark and quiet
• Keep your room cool
• Have a good mattress
• Set your alarm clock away from your bed
• Get Up Every Morning

Getting up at the same time every day and avoiding naps helps your body follow a circadian rhythm. According to Verywell we need this to sleep well at night. There are two really important elements to this step.

1. Stop hitting the snooze and train yourself to get up at the same time every day. If you hit the snooze button once or twice (or 6 times), you are not really training yourself to get up at the same time every day. If you know you do not need to get up until 7:30, stop setting your alarm for 7. Save yourself the 30 minutes of interrupted sleep and set the alarm for 7:30, get up the first time it goes off.
2. NO NAPS. If you are not used to getting up in the morning, then this may be the hard part for you. Napping can throw you off for sleeping at night because you simply are not tired enough to get to bed on time. Skip the nap (and the caffeine), and stay up so that you can get a good nights sleep. 

Now you have an arsenal of information that should help you fall asleep faster at night. Remember, finding what works well for you may take some playing around. So, if you don’t get it right the first night or two don’t give up. These sleep strategies are proven to work. They just take time. Give them a few weeks and you should be sleeping soundly.

8 Quick Strategies to Optimize Your Sleep

I want you to get the best night’s sleep possible, and since at least fifty people have asked me, I decided to give you my best advice and put together these eight quick sleep strategies... 

1. SOAK IN SOME WARMTH 
Try taking a hot bath a couple of hours before bed.  The rapid cooling that happens when you leave the warmth of the water is like a memo to your body that it’s time for bed.  For a relaxing and detoxifying bath, fill the tub with hot water and add two cups Epsom salts, one cup baking soda, and 1/3 cup hydrogen peroxide.  Soak for twenty to thirty minutes.  You will sweat in the tub and lose toxins.  It is important to drink plenty of water while you soak.  Take a lukewarm to cool shower after getting out of the tub to rinse off the salts or you may itch. 

2. LOWER THE LIGHTS 
Melatonin is the chemical that is naturally released by your brain to help you sleep.  Encourage its release by dimming the lights as bedtime approaches. 

3. PREPARE FOR THE NEXT DAY 
Develop a nightly routine of laying out your clothes for the next day, pulling back the covers on your bed, and other simple tasks to signal your body that bedtime is near. 

4. WATCH YOUR CAFFEINE INTAKE 
To encourage better sleep, try setting the caffeinated beverages aside in the early afternoon. 

5. DITCH YOUR DEVICES 
Electronic screens may also be keeping your mind overstimulated and causing you to lose sleep.  Instead, try reading or listening to music to relax before bed.  I personally like to listen to podcasts. 

6. COVER YOUR TOOTSIES 
Believe it or not, keeping your feet warm has been linked to improved circulation and better sleep.  Slip on a pair of socks before climbing under the covers to get these benefits. 

7. RESIST THE SNACKING URGE 
Eating right before turning in can cause your digestive track to kick into overdrive.  Try and avoid snacking at least two hours before bedtime.  If you must have a snack, have a one two ounce high-protein snack such as a hard-boiled egg, some cheese, an ounce of meat or fish, or a handful of nuts.

8.  TRY USING A HERBAL SUPPLEMENT MIX 
If you experience poor sleep quality, try using an herbal mix designed for sleep support.  Look for herbal formulas that contain ingredients such as theanine, Jamaican Dogwood, wild lettuce, valerian, passionflower, and hops. Contact me for a specific product recommendation.  If you have trouble falling asleep, use a product called Sleep Tonight! 

Follow these eight quick and easy sleep strategies, and you’ll be rewarded with serene nights and more productive days! 

John is a Health Educator, Family & Consumer Sciences Educator, Master Educator, Certified Holistic Life Coach, and Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Wellness Coach.  He neither rejects conventional methods nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically. Instead, he has been taught that good solutions are based on good science; they are inquiry-driven. He is open to new modalities. Effective solutions that are natural, less invasive, and more cost-effective should be used whenever possible. Alongside the concepts creating a balanced and appropriate plan of action for optimizing peoples' health, he believes the broader concepts of health promotion and the prevention of illness are paramount.
For more information please visit his website at www.OHealthO.com.

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Improving Your Mental Health with Healthy Eating and Sleep

It’s not just our thoughts that lead to changes. Just as important is our biology and our lifestyle and, as I've mentioned before, our bodies and minds exist in a tightly linked cycle of activity.

For instance, when you eat this results in an increase in serotonin. Why? Because foods – especially carbs – contain an amino acid called tryptophan. When blood sugar increases, the body responds by releasing insulin which triggers the absorption of glucose from the blood to be used for activity or stored as fat. But tryptophan does not get absorbed and as such, it remains in the bloodstream. This then gets circulated to the brain, where it is converted into serotonin – that’s because tryptophan is a precursor (building block) for serotonin. This is why your mood tends to improve when you’ve eaten. And this then results in the release of ghrelin to signal that you’re getting fuller and to prevent you from over eating.

Later on, that serotonin converts into melatonin – the sleep hormone. This is why everyone falls asleep after Christmas dinner! That melatonin reduces activity in the brain and this then triggers the release of other inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA.

Did you know that darkness also triggers the release of melatonin?

And meanwhile, the longer you stay awake, the more adenosine (another inhibitory transmitter) builds up in the brain. This is partly what gives us ‘brain fog’ after a long hard day because it is a by-product of the energy process used in brain cells.

What all this means, is that after a long day and big meal, you are sure to start getting sleepy at the end of the day and find it harder to wake up and do something productive. That’s not you being lazy or disinterested, that’s you being at the whim of your biology.

Now let’s say that we want to wake ourselves back up. What do we do? One simple option is to go outside or shine a bright light – sunlight triggers the release of cortisol, which along with nitric oxide will help to wake us up. This is why we should avoid looking at phone screens when we’re getting ready for bed.

Or how about jumping in a cold shower? This stimulates the release of epinephrine, norepinephrine and testosterone – waking you up and making you much more focussed. It’s the adrenaline that causes the hairs to stand up on your body.

Loud noises can create enough shock to wake you up and so too can hunger. When we’re hungry, we have low serotonin in our brains which in turn increases the cortisol – stress hormone – ratio. That’s why we get anxious when we’re hungry and it’s why some people also get ‘hangry’.

There are all kinds of other interactions like this that can have a huge effect too. For instance, as pain is linked with anger, this explains why we’re cranky when we have aches and pains. It also explains why if you keep flicking your dog’s ear, it will eventually turn around and bite you…

Making Use of Your Biology

So what can we take from all this?

For starters, it’s useful to recognize the role of your natural ebbs and flows and your biology. In other words, try not to get too alarmed if you find yourself feeling very stressed or very tired. Likewise, try not to let anger cloud your judgement. Often we will shout at our loved ones when we’re angry or stressed partly because our perception of events has changed and had a negative slant. We might even find ourselves thinking things like ‘all they do is take advantage of me’. Remember: that’s angry you. That may well simply be the result of cortisol, of testosterone or of all three. Try not to put stock in what you’re thinking.

This also means you can ‘fix’ your mental state in all manner of ways.

You can wake yourself up with a cold shower and some blue light (blue light being the term used to describe light with the same wavelength as the sun). If you’re in a bad mood, then you should try to increase serotonin which you can do with food – or more sensibly by increasing vitamin C. Something else that triggers the release of serotonin is exercise! This is what causes what we know as the ‘runners’ high’.

How do you like to wake yourself up or improve your mood?

If you want to perform at your very best, then use this information to try and improve your sleep. This will help you to wake up with your brain feeling far more refreshed and with much less ‘brain fog’ slowing you down and making you groggy.

Another tip is to sync your routine to these natural rhythms. If you’re going to feel tired and content after a meal, then it’s important to make sure that you’ve already done everything you want to do before you sit down to eat. Want to be more productive in the evenings? Shift dinner back half an hour! Likewise, recognize that you’re less likely to be productive straight after you’ve eaten at lunch. Conversely, if you’re going to try and think creatively – do it when you’re relaxed and calm.

Combating Stress

Also useful to know is that you can use your body to calm stress and event eliminate what would otherwise be a panic attack. That’s because our sympathetic nervous system – which controls our fight or flight response (as well as our opposite ‘rest and digest response’) – is tightly linked with breathing and heart rate. When you breathe quickly, it makes you more stressed and increases your heart rate.

Conversely though, if you breathe more deeply and more heavily, this helps to encourage a much calmer response and puts you more in the rest and digest state. Breathing deeply is thus one of the best ways to calm yourself down and one of the best ways to prevent serious anxiety.

How to Upgrade Your Mental Energy

What’s more important of all though, is that you ensure you have the right diet and that you are in good shape. This will transform the performance of your brain by drastically increasing the ability to create neurotransmitters as needed and by increasing the amount of energy your brain receives.

One way to do this is to consider using some form of multivitamin tablet. This should contain vitamins like B12 and B6, which are used to supply the brain with energy as well as to help create a large number of neurotransmitters. Also used in the creation of many neurotransmitters and hormones are vitamin D, vitamin C, magnesium, zinc and more. If you make sure you are getting these in your diet, then you will find it easier to switch from being highly focused to being relaxed and creative and you will find your brain lasts longer before getting tired. Also particularly important is choline, which is a precursor to acetylcholine found in eggs – this can help improve your sensory perception, your alertness and your memory all at the same time! Amino acids found in protein are also critical for a wide range of neurotransmitters.

What is your favorite multivitamin?

Other nutrients that are very important are those that improve the energy and function of the brain. Any vasodilators for instance, such as garlic, will help to get more blood and more oxygen to the brain helping you to stay alert for longer. Creatine is a bodybuilding supplement also found in red meats and this is great for reducing adenosine and also increasing mental energy – studies show that this alone can be enough to boost IQ! Omega 3 fatty acid improves cell membrane permeability, which means that neurons are better able to communicate with one another. Exercising regularly will help you to create more neural connections in your brain, increasing your ability to learn via heightened plasticity (and brain derived neurotrophic factor). This will also increase your body’s energy efficiency and help you to experience less stress.

What supplements do you take?

In short, it is highly important to eat a nutrient dense diet and to train hard if you want to perform at your mental best. Get more nutrients and substance, avoid junk food and ‘empty calories’ (which spike the blood sugar and throw our entire system out of whack), sleep well, and exercise. As you do this, your brain will instantly start to become hardier, more efficient and less groggy on the whole. And your performance and productivity will also grow to reflect that. 

Next week we'll look at using mindfulness and cognitive behavior therapy for improving your mindset.

Good health at 40: Three quick ways to boost your health & fitness!

This being the first time for guest posting I'm not sure what all to put on an introduction.  Sure I've read several other's guest posts but my things always tend to be different.  I listed my request for guest posters in a few places and of course received some replies with topics no where near what this blog is about.  Carly was the first to respond with relevant topics.  I hope you enjoy!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

They say 40 is the new 30 for women. After all, age is just a number and does not have to define you. While you may not sure if you feel that way right now – with all types of shifts in your body and those hormones starting to rebel – there are some ways to boost your health and fitness so you feel young(er) again.  Here are three ways you can start changing your physical and mental outlook:

1.    Get Moving! Despite running from here and there – between work, taxi service for the kids, and family life – you may still have a sedentary lifestyle that has you moving less than you should. Exercise and an active life are two of the best solutions for stress, anxiety, and troubled sleep. Regular exercise also helps to decrease your chances of chronic diseases by keeping your body in top-performing mode. You will be able to strengthen muscles and alleviate pain while reducing the risk of bone fractures and arthritis. Even 20 minutes a day of brisk walking can make a difference. Working in other movement can be fun and also help keep you from stiffening up. It could be dancing, tennis, or golf.  Plus, if you pick outdoor exercise, you can give your body a little bit extra Vitamin D from the sunlight that helps re-energize you. If you can’t get outdoors, be sure to get up from your desk every half hour and do some stretching and movement to keep those joints working! It’s that old adage, you have got to use it or you will lose it!

Creative Commons image from Pixabay.com 

2.    Take Your Vitamins. As you age, your body’s nutritional needs change. Not staying attuned to these changing needs can lead to vitamin deficiencies that then zap your energy and slow you down. Although the jury is still out on whether vitamins really make a difference – with some swearing by them and saying just one supplement makes them feel on top of the world – it is well worth trying. Of course, a balanced diet can be the best solution for your body, it may be that you are still missing out on certain vitamins and minerals that could help provide you with the energy need to be that super woman. Some vitamins can help with bone health and your immune system, which are important because, as women age, these are trouble spots that can slow us all down. If you are not necessarily keen on taking tablets every day, focus on adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet that are full of some of these same vitamins.

3.    Catch Those Zzzzzs. The power of sleep makes an incredible difference in your physical appearance as well as your mental and emotional outlook. Those who can get between seven and nine hours a night not only look fresh and younger, but they also have a brighter outlook and are more alert. However, many women in their 40s report sleep troubles and chronic insomnia, which they never previously experienced often related to hormonal changes. To ensure a good’s night sleep, there are natural sleep aids, including herbal remedies, which address these hormonal changes. You can also prepare your bedroom and yourself for sleep by creating a quiet and cool environment and removing any stimuli like your smartphone and television. That regular exercise in tip 1 also can go a long way to catching up on your beauty sleep!

Creative Commons image from Pixabay.com

Of course, there are many other important ways that you can look and feel younger, including drinking lots of water, staying social, and balancing work and personal life. However, these three ways can go a long way to creating the physical and mental energy that will have many people guessing you are a lot younger than your actual age!

Carly W is a writer working on behalf of Nature’s Best.  In her spare time she enjoys walking her two lovely doggies and cooking up delicious meals.