When I lived abroad I walked everywhere. I did this for two reasons, 1) It was a good way to get to know my new city and 2) It helped clear my head. I was reducing stress before I even knew it. April is National Stress Awareness, so lets hop to it!

1. Walking Puts You In A Meditative State

A study in the United Kingdom found that walking through naturally green spaces can help put your mind in a meditative state. Walking through a park can spark something called “involuntary attention” which allows the brain to be alert but also be reflective. 

2. Spending Time Outdoors Reduces Stress

Walking outside has been proven to reduce stress and help improve your memory and attention. It can even increase your attention span by 20 percent! Even walking outside when it’s cold can help make you feel more energized.

3. Walking Increases Endorphins

Exercise, even simple exercise like walking gives you a rush of endorphins, which help with stress and can even fight mild depression. 

4. Walk With Your friends

Walking with your friends helps create social support and deep bonds. Having these bonds has shown to build up a resilience to stress and lower the level of the stress hormone cortisol. So grab a buddy and gab it up on your walk!

5. Walking Gives Your More Energy and Helps Fight Feelings of Fatigue

Cancer patients showed a lower rate in fatigue after taking 20 minute walks. Also people who have lived lazy lifestyles and then decided to pump it up with just walking saw a 20 percent increase in energy and 65 percent reduction in fatigue.

So next time you’re feeling stressed or a little tired strap on your walking shoes and hop the trail to happy town. 

Photo Credit: photostock

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by Adam Corl

What is my daily cup of coffee doing to my body? This question popped into my head the other day, shortly after I downed my third shot of espresso. I’m probably not alone in wondering what my daily brew is doing to me, as most statistics suggest that over 100 million Americans drink coffee on the regular. 

Thinking back to what I had heard in the news recently, I realized that we have all been getting some pretty mixed messages, and decided to do a little research.

Research seems to show that coffee is a bit of a mixed bag. But fear not my fellow caffeine-junkies, it looks like the benefits of coffee could outweigh their downsides.

The health benefits of coffee go way beyond helping us maintain an – ahem – regular schedule. It turns out that drinking coffee has been linked to a ton of really cool health benefits. 

Coffee keeps your mind sharp. Multiple studies have shown that people who drink moderate amounts of coffee (with caffeine) are less likely to develop disease like Alzheimer’s and dementia. The biggest benefits were seen in those people who drank coffee on a regularly into old-age. 

Grandma isn’t the only one getting something out of coffee though. There is now evidence that coffee helps with short-term recall. Many studies have shown a strong connection between coffee drinking and scoring higher on tests (compared to people who didn’t drink coffee). 

It’s also a great source of antioxidants, which are substances that help our bodies fight damage to our cells. This might explain why drinking coffee has been linked to lower rates of cancer. 

Cancer seems to be a hot button issue when it comes to drinking coffee. Some studies have found substances in coffee that have the potential to cause cancer. I freaked out a little when I read this, and immediately had visions of myself shaking outside of Starbucks doing a mean impression of Courtney Love. But it turns out that despite these findings there has not been any data that suggests coffee gives you cancer, and most scientists believe that the levels of these cancer-causing substances are actually too low to present a real risk to even heavy coffee drinkers. 

There is also no hard evidence linking coffee with blood pressure or coronary artery disease. The studies did show however, that people who drank coffee were more likely to have other risk factors for heart disease (like smoking and bad diets). 

There is bad news for pregnant women and people who have anemia. There is some pretty strong evidence that drinking a lot of coffee could increase your chance of complications during pregnancy. Though this trend was seen much more in women who drank more than 6 cups of coffee a day. Coffee has also been associated with iron deficiency, and has a few substances in it that actually affect your body’s ability to absorb iron and make new red blood cells. 

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Why is calcium important? Because it’s one of the building blocks of the human body – it is critical for the functioning of nearly every cell.

Without it your heart couldn’t beat, your brain couldn’t think, and your bones wouldn’t exist.

Where does our calcium come from?  It comes from our daily diet, from food such as dairy products, vegetables such as kale, okra, collards, soy and white beans, broccoli and spinach, orange juice, and fish such as sardines, salmon, perch and trout. All these also contain Vitamin D, and this is fortunate because without Vitamin D the calcium cannot be absorbed.

So that means our bodies require both calcium and Vitamin D? Correct – but apart from obtaining Vitamin D from food, we also obtain it through our skins. How? From sunshine. We need about ten to twenty minutes per day out in the sun, some skin showing and no sunscreen used. 

Recent research suggests that calcium may help control blood pressure, ease pre-menstrual syndrome, and prevent colon cancer.

A deficiency in calcium is linked to strokes and kidney stones and calcium is needed for digestion, metabolism, hormone production, nerve functions and all kinds of cell activity.

What happens when we don’t get enough calcium from our diet? Well, our body will draw it from our bones, weakening them in the process. Lack of calcium has now become a serious problem in many countries, including the US, because there are certain things in various diets that threaten the body’s calcium balance. These are a high consumption of protein or sodium, the chemicals found in aerated drinks and of caffeine. In fact, many doctors are predicting a large rise in cases of osteoporosis which is the brittle-bone affliction caused by calcium deficiency.

Many people take calcium supplements to ensure their calcium intake is sufficient. These are usually effective, but avoid those made from natural sources such as bone-meal or oyster shells as these may contain contaminants.

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Some people don’t like bathing or swimming in the sea. They say the salt water makes their skins sticky, gets in their eyes or spoils their hair.

But actually, sea-water and the salt in it are good for you. People who complain about the salt making their skin sticky should understand that, instead, sea water nourishes the skin. And how does it do that? Because sea-water contains many elements that all of us need - vitamins, minerals, amino acids, hormonal substances and various  antibiotic producing micro-organisms.

So forget about the stickiness and accept the fact that a swim in the sea can do you a lot of good. And sea-water can help in many other ways such as reducing swellings, getting rid of toxins, and treating acne problems. 

Of course, you have to choose where you swim wisely. These days many seemingly inviting and secluded stretches of sea are heavily polluted. So avoid beaches near industrial installations or where pollution is obvious in the form of floating plastic bags, bottles, and other debris.

But alternatively, if you don’t like swimming, or the climate doesn’t permit or you are too far away from the sea, it’s still possible to obtain the benefits of sea-water by using products based on sea-water ingredients. These include algae (anti-aging), seaweed (detoxifying), and vitamins and acids such as folic and pantothenic, and niacin. So next time you’re at the cosmetics counter look out for items containing these.

And sea-salt can be used as a good skin scrub. However, it should not be used alone as it is too abrasive, but instead should be mixed with oils such as olive, almond or jojoba. For a pleasanter sensation, warm the oil first.

So next time you’re at the seaside, forget the negative feelings you may have had about swimming in the sea – because they are clearly outweighed by the positive benefits contact with sea-water can bring.

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