Category: Wellness

From increased illness immunity to better stress resilience and decreased inflammation, it’s been a huge health boost.

Even if you’re crazy about keeping your figure, there are still foods you can eat without limitations.

Charles F. Haanel wrote about a substance that he claimed can “perpetuate health and long life.”

I want to die young. But Dr. Sanjiv Chopra (Deepak’s brother) won’t let me.

Happify, a website and app that uses science-based interactive activities aimed at making you happier, created this graphic to demonstrate the potential scientific perks of looking at the glass of life half full:

Now, I've been meditating for more than a year — and my life is completely different.

The benefits of mindfulness meditation, increasingly popular in recent years, are supposed to be many: reduced stress and risk for various diseases, improved well-being, a rewired brain.

Pranayama teaches us the proper way to breathe. We are so used to breathing with our chest that we don’t take advantage of our total lung capacity. By breathing to our full lung capacity we actually increase the amount of oxygen that goes to our brain and our tissues and organs.

But you don't have to go to extremes to get focused. Here are some science-backed ways to help you stay focused throughout your day:

Your home should be your sanctuary, a place for you to retreat from the world and feel at ease.

How many times have you dreamed of a day of pampering and then thought "Oh that’s too expensive!" or "I need to use that money to pay my ____ bill?"

The next time your boss catches you watching a compilation of cat videos, don't minimize your browser window; just explain that you're maximizing your productivity.

This is my humble offering of five strategies that have worked for me to become a happier and healthier human. Perhaps they will work for you as well.

Can’t sleep? Try the 4-7-8 breathing technique that claims to help you nod off in 60 SECONDS.

It’s no secret that we often associate certain smells with specific feelings and experiences. When you smell a rich perfume you might think of luxury, and when you sniff a coworker’s divine lunch you may be reminded of your own hunger. But is it possible for certain smells to inspire productivity?

Sometimes—no matter how hard you try—solid shuteye just isn’t in the cards. And while a regular sleep schedule (waking up at the same time, going to bed at the same time, and logging seven or eight hours of sleep every night) is hugely important for your overall health, a few sleep-deprived days aren’t the end of the world. They just feel like they are. Consider this your guide for surviving those days you feel like a zombie.

What people who don’t practice yoga might not realize is that there is much more to it than body contortions and chanting. Yoga is not just reserved for tofu-eating hippies and acrobats…

The most important rules of strength training for men over thirty years its all about how to create a sporty and muscular figure after adolescence.

So stretching is important. But what stretches work for what muscle groups? Vicky Timón, a yoga expert and author of “Encyclopedia of Pilates Exercises,” created 36 beautiful illustrations to show you which muscles are affected by different stretches.

Brad Lloyd, a personal trainer in New York City, has developed a workout technique using just two dishrags. The man knows fitness; prior to his nine years of personal training experience he was a linebacker for Eastern Michigan University.

Although we often associate the food with unhealthy and sugar-filled treats, the cocoa bean itself is actually an antioxidant-filled seed that has a bitter flavor. Native to the Americas, cocoa has been used for centuries, and it not only tastes good, but is filled with a wide array of health benefits.

While a great shift from simply making a resolution that you know you won’t keep, a problem still exists. Actually implementing new behaviors and setting up successful systems to support that behavior seem to be the missing link between starting and maintaining that new healthy habit you’ve committed to. Changing behaviors really is a process that involves a sort of planning in advanced. You have nine mental process that you must go through when changing a behavior, and six actual stages in the implementation of the change.

Runners, in particular can reap gigantic benefits from practicing yoga — deep stretching after a run will keep your muscles long and loose as well as prevent soreness and stiffness caused by the buildup of lactic acid. Not to mention, it can teach you to cope with the discomfort and intensity of both long runs and tempo runs — practitioners of yoga see a heightened ability to control emotions while running. We're not saying you have to attend an hour yoga class twice a week — you can hold poses or run through a quick sequence before or after your runs.

People always say health is the most important thing but how many people live by this belief? We need to start today. In order to help us stay on the path to health I have translated an extract from one of the Shaolin Classics. Written by a monk who was a great martial artist and scholar, here he gives advice to lay people as to how to stay young and healthy.

If we could just have one less unhealthy food per month, by the end of the year we would increase our energy, decrease our risk for many diseases and improve our over all quality of life. What we put into our body has a direct correlation over time with how we feel both physically and emotionally. We all know about the "sleepiness" that comes after having a meal loaded with carbs … or the indigestion that may come with having a large meal too close to time for bed… or even how having too much dairy or red meat and not enough water may make us constipated. There are many foods that cause inflammation, and disease and while we don’t have to eliminate everything that we love to feel healthy, there are a few that we should consciously avoid whenever possible. Here are 5 foods to consider removing from your diet this year!

While a great shift from simply making a resolution that you know you won’t keep, a problem still exists. Actually implementing new behaviors and setting up successful systems to support that behavior seem to be the missing link between starting and maintaining that new healthy habit you’ve committed to. Changing behaviors really is a process that involves a sort of planning in advanced. You have nine mental process that you must go through when changing a behavior, and six actual stages in the implementation of the change.

Enticing combinations like avocado, goji berries and lime juice or chocolate chips and peanuts can quench any kind of hankering you may be having while at the same time complementing -- not wrecking -- your weight loss goals. Check out some of the other delectable snack options in the video above, then feel free to thank us.

But why exactly do we have food cravings? And what do they mean?

You need two things to break the smoking habit: The reason WHY you wish to cease the habit. The will to do so.

I’ve worked with many clients who can afford personal training, even a personal chef or tailored meal delivery services designed for weight loss, and yet despite these resources they wind up sabotaging themselves through emotional eating. If you find yourself in the same boat, focus on your feelings first, not your diet and exercise plan. Here are the top four emotions that tend to derail healthy intentions, along with strategies for altering how they impact your habits.

The eight sleep tips in the graphic below are based on actual scientific research, conducted to discover what works best for humans (not mice or monkeys).

When you start a diet, determining how much to eat can feel a bit like playing calorie roulette. Many people turn to a calorie calculator, but they can greatly overestimate the amount of food that you need to lose weight. Here’s how to calculate your own target.

But only 10 percent of those surveyed recognized the psychological component of weight loss, and that may explain why so many people struggle with their weight.

For nausea and vomiting: Start with peppermint and ginger.

So you want to keep an eye on the old waistline, but you hate diets. Join the club. Rather than give you recipes for yummy quinoa-kelp granola, we suggest following these simple rules, rituals, and metabolic sleights of hand. You'll eat better, eat less, and burn calories all day long, even while checking your e-mail.

Have you been feeling sluggish at the gym lately? Even if you’re doing everything right with your diet (that is, fueling up appropriately before and eating well after your workouts) you might benefit from focusing on a few key nutrients.

Replace Your Morning Coffee With This Energizing Routine...

Here’s how to get the most burn for you buck with my top 6 low-impact workouts that blast fat.

Here are thirty flat tummy tips. You don’t have to do all of them to get a flat tummy. Do five or ten of them and you will get a flatter tummy and become much fitter. Fitness matters!

Beating pain, staying fit and feeling good can seem like a Herculean set of tasks to keep up with when most of us are just trying to get through the day. Who can think about hitting the gym when you’re mentally exhausted from a full day of work? Ongoing research suggests that when it comes to your health, it’s a mind-over-matter game.

You look and feel great! But even though you're fit and healthy right now, that doesn’t necessarily mean your daily so-called "good" habits will help you maintain your well-being into the future. Read on to learn about the mistakes you may be making, and how you can avoid them. Your future self is sure to thank you!

Full of vitamin C, antioxidants, and antiviral power, this sunny shot can help soothe sore throats, cure upset stomachs, or just give you an extra boost of energy when you experience the cold-weather blahs.

How common it is, how it happens... and how to banish it, as well as you can.

Learning new information and skills across your entire lifespan helps to keep your brain strong even in the later years of life. Activities that have the highest value for brain health are those that are novel and complex to each particular person. What is easy for one person may be challenging for another, so the things that challenge you the most have the most value for your brain.

Why do I feel like I already have a hangover the same night that I've been drinking? All I had was two glasses of red wine. With dinner.

In this modern day and age, it seems as though everyone is coping with growing older by trying to look younger. With plastic surgery, hair transplants and Botox® readily available, it’s no wonder that so many are resorting to drastic measures to maintain youth and vigor, but it is possible to slow down the aging process without such invasive or costly extremes. Simply changing some food habits can be easy to feel and look younger.

Holistic medicine is a growing and increasingly demanded specialty today, and many doctors are beginning to jump on the bandwagon, adding “holistic” to their taglines in order to gain more appeal and meet the demands of patients. However, how do you know when you are getting a true holistic doctor versus a traditional doctor who is simply calling themselves “holistic” without truly integrating in a holistic mindset into their practice? Here are a few things to look out for, and a few questions to ask when searching for a holistic doctor for yourself and your family:

It is well known that toxic emotions can not only block us from getting well, it can also create illness and even cause existing illness to progress. Many times holding on to emotions that are not healthy for us can bring pain and sickness to the bodies. Other times it is not acknowledging important feelings that allow disease to manifest other ways such as high blood pressure, migraine headaches, and even cancers of some types. The key is to allow yourself to feel whatever emotion your are feeling, and to have a healthy way to express or release that emotion.

Applying ice or heat can provide relief from injuries, aches, and pains, but they shouldn't be used interchangeably. Generally speaking, ice works well after a sudden injury while heat helps to soothe ongoing muscle aches and pains.

Of course nights are great for going on dates, binge-watching Netflix, doing work, chatting on the phone—you name it. But you know what elsethey're great for? Setting yourself up for bigger and better weight-loss results. Just follow these tips to get yourself that much closer to your goal weight.