Are the effects of shift work putting your heart at risk?
According to the bureau of Labor Statistics, 15 million people work evening shift, night shift, rotating shifts or other schedules outside the traditional 9 am to 5 pm work day. These non-traditional hours are called shift work.
Some shift workers include nurses, doctors, firefighters, police officers, flight attendants, pilots, waitresses, and truck drivers.
Shift work had been linked to various health conditions.
Health effects of shift work
Cardiovascular disease: Shift work increases cardiovascular disease on average 40%. The longer you perform shift work, the greater your risk.
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Action Plan for Health Success
Outlining the steps you need to take to achieve your health and weight loss goals is critical to your success. This includes recognizing your big vision, setting a goal, outlining your action plan, identifying your motivators, and seeing the expected outcome.
Your action plan is basically your map for moving from where you are to where you want to be. The steps you’ll be taking. After you’ve outlined your action plan you then need to pick 1-2 steps to focus on. Trying to change too much at once can set you up for failure. So, identify your first two goals or steps to tackle. Now, this is where you need to go deeper and develop what I’ll call “sub-steps”.
It is very important that you are specific about how you are going to make your action plan a reality and I want to give you an example of what I mean.
Here is the example on the Action Plan for Health Success template:
I commit to walking 45 minutes 3 times per week starting tomorrow.
That is a great action plan step and I’m going to use it here as an example of how you need to go further.
- What days of the week are you going to walk?
- What time of day?
- Are you going to have to get up earlier, go to the gym on your way home, or alter your lunch schedule?
- If you have children – are they going with you or do you need to line up a sitter?
- Do you have walking shoes?
Try to think of everything that could impact your decision to walk when the day and time you’ve set rolls around.
Next, grab your schedule. Continue reading
Healthy, Wealthy & Wise Gifts 2 Giveaway Offers 400+ FREE Health and Wellness Related Products, Services & Memberships
I wanted to let you know today about a Health and Wellness site that will allow you to download 100’s of self help gifts. And the best part is that it is absolutely FREE!
If you’ve had enough of plodding along year after year and you want to improve yourself and your health to make this your BEST ever year, then you need to go here: http://healthywealthywisegifts2.com/go/467
The 2nd annual Healthy, Wealthy & Wise Gifts will be open only for a VERY LIMITED TIME from June 14th to July 5th, 2012. When you go there you’ll find a multitude of products – all FREE – provided by Health, Fitness, Wellness and Prosperity experts from all over the world. Here is just a small sample of what you will find:
- Ultimate Life 21 Day Challenge – Ginny Dye
- Extreme Health Resolution Secrets – Vint Atkinson
- Your Income And Your Health – Tom Corson-Knowles
- Quantum Soul Clearing Small Book of Quotes – Michelle Manning-Kogler
- The Self Confidence Report – Drifa Ulfarsdottir
- Vision Board Master Class – Pamela Moss
- Starved, Stressed and STILL not losing weight? 7 Steps to Eliminate Dieting from Your Life FOREVER – Lianda Ludwig
- Use Your Breath to Free Your Life – Maggie Ostara
- Affirmations For a Wealthy Mindset Audio – Elaine Lockard
- Allow Abundance Gratitude Meditation – Wendy Betterini
- 20 Mistakes to Avoid in the Gym – Earl Netwal
- And TONS (OVER 400+) MORE!
Almonds for a Healthy Heart
In previous posts we’ve covered the health benefits of a couple different nuts:
Heart-Smart Pistachios
Walnuts Equal Healthier Blood Vessels
Nuts are an excellent source of nutrients that provide heart health benefits, such as fiber, protein, and certain minerals.
Let’s turn our attention to almonds.
Almonds are a good source of monounsaturated fat. This is a heart healthy fat in that it does not cause an insulin response or lead to increases in blood cholesterol. A study has shown a decrease in cholesterol levels, including LDL cholesterol, when almonds are consumed as a regular part of the diet.
Almonds also provide vitamin E in the form of gamma tocopherol and glutathione. Both of these nutrients act as antioxidants to prevent cellular damage associated with free radicals.
Almonds also contain calcium to support bone and tooth health, along with healthy blood pressure levels.
A one-ounce, 164-calorie serving of almonds, not only provides vitamin E, monounsaturated fats, and calcium, but also magnesium, fiber, protein, potassium, phosphorus, and iron.
Add Almonds to Your Diet
Here are a few tips for adding almonds to your diet:
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Marriage – Is it Making You Fat?
With the Valentine holiday just behind us, here’s an interesting bit of information on love and health.
Monitoring weight gain after marriage and divorce
Did you know Ohio researchers followed 10,071 individuals from 1986 to 2008 to evaluate weight gain during the two year period following marriage and divorce.
A variety of factors that impact weight gain were taken into account, such as pregnancy, education, and socioeconomic status.
Do men or women gain weight after marriage?
The study determined women are more likely to gain weight after their wedding day than men. This may be due to the larger role women play around the home leaving less time to devote to physical activity.
The study found men experience positive health benefits linked to married life and it’s divorce that leads to weight gain.
Interestingly, the study also found those who marry after the age of 30 years-old are more likely to experience weight shifts. . .up.
What do you think?
5 Tips for Planning Your Workout Routine
We are three weeks into the new year, how are you doing with your New Year’s resolution?
If you are working to improve your health, physical activity must be a part of your plan. There are numerous benefits associated with physical activity, such as weight loss, lower blood pressure, improved arthritis, pain management, and improved cardiorespiratory fitness.
Research indicates that you need at least 150 minutes of moderate level activity each week in order to see the benefits of exercise. This can be broken down into 20 minutes each day or 30 minutes 5 days a week and should include both aerobic and strength training.
This isn’t a lot of time, but if your days are already packed scheduling time for a workout can be a challenge. Here are five tips to keep in mind as you plan your workout routine.
- Workout in the morning if possible.
Research has shown those who exercise in the morning tend to see more success. This is partly due to getting exercise out of the way first thing before obstacles can get in the way.
