Cardio drill workouts you have never tried

Cardio Drill

Drills that are way more interesting than pounding the treadmill

Does your treadmill workout make you feel like a rat on a wheel? Then it’s probably time to change up your routine and turn to more fitness exercise . And not just because you’re bored. “The human body wasn’t designed for conveyor-belt training or repetitive, one-dimensional movement,” says Dan John, a fitness coach in Burlingame, California, and the author of Never Let Go. So try one of John’s novel cardio drills below. Or better yet, try all three. You’ll blast fat and improve your fitness quickly. And the best part: You won’t have to find ways to distract yourself during these workouts—you’ll be too busy getting in shape.

The “55″ workout

Start his fitness exercise tby doing one body-weight squat and 10 pushups. Rest for 30 seconds, and then do 2 squats and 9 pushups. Gradually work your way up to 10 squats and down to 1 pushup. You’ll complete 55 reps of each exercise by the time you’re done—and reap both the cardiovascular benefit of aerobic training and the muscular pump of a strength session. And if you like this routine, you’ll love The World’s Most Efficient Workout of fitness exercise.

10-meter sprints

Find an area in your gym where you can sprint for 10 meters. Once you’ve covered the distance, pause just long enough to inhale and exhale once through your nose. Sprint back and pause, this time inhaling and exhaling twice through your nose. Continue the drill breathing normally as you sprint, and adding an additional nose inhalation and exhalation when you pause—until you can no longer breathe through your nose. “It takes more effort than breathing through your mouth even during rest which increases the intensity of the exercise,” John says. The result: more gain in less time and distance than on a treadmill.

Jumping-jack pyramid

Do as many jumping jacks as you can in 10 seconds. Rest for an equal amount of time. Next, do as many jumping jacks as you can in 20 seconds, and rest 20 seconds. Then do 30 seconds of jumping jacks followed by 30 seconds of rest. Now work your way back down the pyramid (30, 20, 10). Repeat three times. This will change the way you think about jumping jacks forever.

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Cardio drill workouts you have never tried

How often should you wash your hair?

How often should you wash your hair?

Introduction of your Body You’ve had your sebaceous glands for some time now — for your entire life, actually. They began to appear beneath your skin during your fourth month in the womb and are found in their highest concentration along your scalp and face, although they are found everywhere on your body except for …

You’ve had your sebaceous glands for some time now — for your entire life, actually. They began to appear beneath your skin during your fourth month in the womb and are found in their highest concentration along your scalp and face, although they are found everywhere on your body except for the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.
These glands are usually connected to an individual hair follicle (except on hairless places like your eyelids and lips, where they work alone). Now that you know what they are and how they formed, you might want to know what they do. Sebaceous glands are responsible for secreting sebum, the natural oils that moisturize and waterproof your skin and hair. Deep in the skin’s dermal layer, specialized secretory cells that absorb fats from the body enter the sebaceous gland and disintegrate. At this point, these cells become sebum. The sebum is expressed into the lumen (shaft) of the hair follicle, where it’s excreted up to the skin’s outer layer, the stratum corneum. In other words, your body burps excreted fats and cellular debris onto your skin and hair.
No wonder we use shampoo.
As gross as it sounds, it provides a necessary function. As we’ve seen, sebum waterproofs and moisturizes your skin and hair. Without this stuff, the skin can dry and shed prematurely, leaving thriving cells exposed to the elements. But isn’t allowing sebum to accumulate on our hair and skin the same as being unwashed and oily? In modern Western culture, it certainly is.
Our bathing and hair washing routines are based on a strange system of depleting the skin and hair of their natural oils by lathering up with soap and shampoo and then replenishing them with moisturizers and conditioners. We carry out this (usually) daily ritual for a couple of reasons: By Western standards, the appearance of oily, unwashed hair is generally unacceptable — and it just feels kind of gross to go without a bath or shower for more than a couple of days. Secondly, these natural oils can lead skin conditions like acne vulgaris, where sebum becomes backed up in the hair follicles, creating a smorgasbord for bacteria, which break the fats into fatty acids. These create an allergic reaction that presents itself as acne.
But if there are benefits and drawbacks to both washing and not washing your hair, it seems like there’s a balance to be struck. How often should you wash your hair, exactly?

To Shampoo or Not to Shampoo

So you want to maintain your status as an acceptably non-smelly member of society. Good for you. Where does this leave you? How often should you wash your hair?
It turns out the answer to that question is based on personal preference. Even among medical professionals that specialize in the skin, hair and scalp — dermatologists and trichologists — there’s disagreement about the usefulness of shampooing and just how frequently one should use shampoo, if at all. Some advise against frequent shampooing, pointing out it leads to overproduction of sebum to compensate for its constant removal . Others say shampooing is necessary to prevent sebum from collecting in the pores and hair follicles and leading to skin problems like acne.
The concept of daily home shampooing is a relatively new one. Back in the 1950s, it was common for women to have their hair washed and styled once a week at the hairdresser. These folks got by just fine, and the trend has made a resurgence in recent years as more salons report clients that have chosen to shift shampooing to a weekly rather than daily ritual.
Around the turn of the 20th century, women tended to go for about a month between salon visits. A 1908 advice column in The New York Times, however, helped usher in a sea change in shampoo usage when it told readers that shampooing every two weeks is perfectly acceptable.
Others have learned to postpone shampooing for even longer periods. An uncontrolled and impromptu study of the effects of going without shampoo was inadvertently launched in 2007 when a guest on an Australian radio show mentioned he hadn’t washed his hair in a decade. After calls to the show came in, a six-week challenge was issued and 500 listeners participated. After six weeks of going without shampoo, 86 percent of the respondents reported their hair was no worse or better than it was when they used shampoo regularly.
Others use different means to keep their hair clean. Dry powder products are available on the market that absorb some of the natural oils. The remnants are removed by blotting with cheesecloth and combed out . Baking soda also serves a similar purpose. Coupled with a raw egg and a final rinse with lemon juice, it provides an all-natural hair cleaning regimen.

hair wash

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How often should you wash your hair?

What you really need to know about meditation

You really need to know about meditation

 

The main purpose of meditation isn’t just to relax. If you want to do that, best have a beer and put your feet up or have a hot bath. Meditation is about cultivating present-moment awareness and reaping the countless benefits that come from the practice. This includes activating your body’s natural healing powers, increasing self-awareness that leads to more conscious choices, and becoming less reactive in daily life. Meditation is mental training that helps you become alert and aware. So to say it’s about relaxation is misleading.

With consistent daily practice and learning to sustain mental stillness or present-moment awareness, the depth to which meditation can promote deep changes within is without limit. The reason meditation is associated with the ancient wisdom traditions is because it has a profound impact on consciousness, which is another word for self-awareness. Over the course of a lifetime, consistent meditative practice and maintaining present-moment awareness continues to peel away aspects of your psyche that are unconscious and conditioned, and makes them conscious.

The more aware you are, the more you notice things. The more you notice things, the more you’re likely to take mindful action around what you see and perceive. Your ability to live more of your life in a state of present-moment awareness creates a broader range of experiences, enhanced creativity and spontaneity,

Learning how to do it takes some commitment. Depending on the level of mental busyness you naturally have, the more challenging it may be to slow down your thought process. One of first things you begin to notice when learning mindfulness meditation is the persistent thinking nature of your own mind. You become aware of your internal dialogue or inner chatter and the habitual nature of your mind.

As you reorient yourself to present-moment awareness you become more aware of the details of your sensory faculties in the moment — what you see, hear, and feel inside yourself and in your immediate environment. This is distinguished from thoughts of the past and future. Eventually you readily recognize the difference between being present versus becoming preoccupied with your thoughts, because only in the present moment are you fully aware, alive and creative. Conscious breathing helps bring your focus into the present moment simply because your continuous stream of breathing is always present.

How to do Mindfulness Meditation Practice:

1. Find a comfortable place to sit down, either on the floor or in a chair. Sit with your spine straight, yet relaxed. Rest your hands in your lap or by your side.

2. Close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths of air to settle yourself.

3. Place your attention on the inflow and outflow of your breath. Notice the continuous movement of your breath in the present moment.

4. When thoughts of the past or future come to mind, simply acknowledge them and return your awareness to the inflow and outflow of your breath. There may also be distractions or sounds in your environment, or sensations that you feel in your body — simply acknowledge them and return your awareness to your breathing.

The objective of mindfulness meditation is to allow all aspects of the present moment to be held in your awareness without focusing or fixating on any one thing, other than using your breathing to keep you aware of yourself and in the moment. This mental training naturally develops your ability to focus in daily life when you need to and to be less reactive as well.

Begin with five minutes per day and work up to establishing a 20-30 minute practice. It may be challenging at first, though with consistent effort you will learn to sustain present moment awareness and deepen into the practice to experience the benefits.

 

What you really need to know about meditation

 Are you on stress!!

Feeling anxious? Are you on Stress!! Whether it’s work, kids, or the economy, some people worry more than others. Here’s why you feel stress, and what to do about it.

I was late to work. What if I lose my job? How will I find time to grocery shop? My family is going to starve. Could this headache mean I have cancer?

Even if your head doesn’t spin with these exact worries when it hits the pillow at night, there’s probably something similar whirring through your brain, keeping you up just when you should be powering down. As a psychiatrist and contributor to the Today show, I see many women who battle with anxieties, and not just at night. They obsess about their children, their marriage, their finances, their job, their parents; about sickness, accidents, disappointments and assorted other upsets that come under the heading Bad Things That Could Happen. This is the nature of anxiety—an unpleasant emotional experience caused by the unpredictability and uncontrollability of the future and the ways that it could hurt you and one question you ask to your self in front of mirror Ares you on Stress!!

We all experience anxiety. It’s the mental part of fear, which is a biological response to a threat or danger. From an evolutionary perspective, fear is what has helped us humans survive for so long: It impels us to run away or hide if we see, say, a bear approaching. And if you are in a park known to have many bears, it’s totally normal and logical to feel anxious even if you don’t see one, because this makes you cautious and keeps you from leaving food out at your campsite. But what if you are at work and you start thinking about a camping trip you might take with your family and grow very worried that you could encounter a bear that might maul you or your kids, resulting in utter tragedy? This is when anxiety no longer serves a useful function and becomes a real problem—when you can’t stop obsessing about the possibility of something terrible happening, no matter how small or remote it is.

Trying to have it all just adds to the anxiety many women feel. I hear frequently from Today watchers and my New York City-area patients that the burden of balancing a healthy relationship and turning out great kids while remaining financially afloat (and looking young and staying fit, of course) leaves them fried and fretting. A patient I’ll call S.W. came in reporting that she was exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night concerned that she wouldn’t get the next big project at work, her son wouldn’t make the basketball team, her husband wouldn’t get that raise and they wouldn’t be able to afford a down payment on the house she wanted. Then, when she was awake, she felt little jolts of stress all over again. S.W. did not have an anxiety disorder per se but rather a normal, albeit hefty, dose of worry.

It is possible, though, to retrain an anxious brain. I helped S.W. learn how to lower both the frequency and the amplitude of her worry so she could sleep better and be much more productive during the day as a result—and you can learn how, too.

Why we worry

S.W.’s story isn’t unique, nor is the fact that her husband doesn’t tend to fret about this stuff: Believe it or not, it’s partly because of the way women’s brains are wired. A woman’s limbic cortex—the area responsible for emotional processing—is larger on average than a man’s, leaving more potential space for worry to live. Guys’ brains also tend to produce more of the soothing neurotransmitter serotonin. Then there’s the psychological impact of society’s expectations for women. While, over the years, husbands have certainly stepped up the domestic duties they perform, women often still feel that they’re responsible for the household. And while men may consider it a job well done if they’ve made an effort, we often stress out if we don’t do every little thing flawlessly—from getting a balanced meal on the table to making sure our kids’ hair is combed—even though perfection isn’t always under our control. One group of worriers I see growing, in fact, is the smart and successful woman. She’s juggling a lot, and she understands not only how many balls she has in the air but how many can drop. She may also worry about worrying so much, which makes her feel worse.

Think yourself oh-so-calm

This kind of stressing is normal, but it’s not inevitable: There are things you can do to take the wind out of worry’s sails. First, note that anxiety tends to be future-oriented (What if something happens?) and quickly escalates to the most dire of consequences (Then I’ll be broke, divorced, homeless, dead). But is there really any evidence for these outcomes? Challenging your fears before they get very far prevents them from blowing out of proportion and keeps new ones from cropping up. Ask yourself, “Is this something that’s about to happen or something that might happen in a faraway, imaginary future? Do I have any control over the outcome?” Try to take steps to manage what you can—finally setting up your 401(k) so you don’t go broke, spending more one-on-one time with your spouse to remind yourself of your solid relationship. When thoughts pop up about things that you can’t control, whether it’s being laid off or widowed, say to yourself, “That’s just my mind doing its worry shtick again.” Then move on.

You should also take advantage of the mind-body connection. When you perceive danger, adrenaline surges through your body, which causes you to breathe faster and sweat harder. This reaction in the body feeds back to your mind, making you nervous and often leading your brain to invent dire outcomes that are unlikely to occur. Breaking that cycle can interrupt the worrisome thoughts. To do that, try slow, deep breathing for a few minutes each day or whenever you’re freaking out. Put your hand over your abdomen and breathe in for a count of five, then out for five. Muscle relaxation also calms the body. Sitting in a quiet place, tighten each muscle group in your body—starting with your feet and working your way up to your head—for a count of five, then release. Or use visual imagery: Picture a beautiful and relaxing place you’ve been to or seen.

The truth is, life will never be worry-free. But if you learn how to wrangle your fears, you’ll feel happier in the here and now, instead of spending your energy trying to detect a bear far, far down the road.

Is it just nerves—or an anxiety disorder?

Everyone gets stressed. So how do you know if it’s everyday anxiety or a sign you need help? If worry has been interfering with your work (you can’t focus on the task at hand), affecting your relationships (you need constant reassurance or don’t trust your partner) or limiting your ability to go about your life day to day (maybe you’re afraid to drive on a highway or you avoid stressful situations by staying home) for several months, then you may have an anxiety disorder. Though very common—in a given year, 40 million American adults have one—a disorder can wreak havoc on your life if left unchecked; many undiagnosed sufferers turn to drugs or alcohol to self-medicate. So make an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety and can determine whether you need treatment. Anxiety sufferers often respond well to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which teaches you to reframe your anxious thoughts, or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which focuses on defusing the fear your anxieties evoke. If anxiety is high, medication may be prescribed to ease symptoms. The good news is that anxiety disorders are very treatable, so you don’t have to suffer in silence.

Stop stress this second

In panic mode? These four tips will work right away.

1. WRITE DOWN YOUR FEARS

Write down your fears

Make a list of what’s worrying you at the moment, then put it away. This simple act stops the obsessive cycle of anxiety so you can move on.

2. AMP UP YOUR ACTIVITY

AMP up your activity

Vigorous exercise diminishes stress, and with it, worry. Get your heart rate up for 20 to 30 minutes. Even walking briskly around your neighborhood after work counts.

3. BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND

Be your own best friend

When your mind starts to spiral out of control, say to yourself, “It’s all right—I’m a worrier. That’s what I do. But everything always works out.” Some accepting self-talk can help lower the number and intensity of your fret sessions.

4. FIRE UP YOUR IPOD

Fire up your ipod

Listening to music can distract you from stress, research shows. The same goes for any activity that engages your senses, like reading, cooking or watching a movie.

Are you on stress!!

3 Yoga Poses for Tired, Achy Feet

Yoga Poses…

As women, we’re constantly abusing our feet, whether it’s standing on them all day long, logging long runs, or cramming them into pointy high heels. In yoga class, we get to go barefoot and give our feet a much-deserved rest. Good Healthy World loves how yoga never leaves out a single body part—from our pinky toes to our external hip rotators. And we can’t take our feet for granted once we start practicing yoga regularly. That is why 3 Yoga Poses are being introduced into your life.

Here are 3 of Good Healthy World’s favorite yoga poses to help relieve tired, achy feet. Try practicing these moves at the end of a long day after you kick off your heels or heavy boots.

Staff Pose

 

Photo: Appcession

This is the one of the most important Yoga Poses, you’ll ever see. Sit up tall and extend your legs straight out in front of you. Place your hands by your hips and flex strongly through your feet. Try to spread your toes apart from each other. Stay here for 5 deep breaths. Then point and flex your feet and circle the feet around, first moving away from each other then toward each other.

Cobbler’s Pose

 

Photo: Appcession

This pose is aptly named since the cobbler fixes the shoes we wear. Good Healthy World love cobbler’s pose after a long day on our feet. Bring your feet together, pressing the heels firmly and spreading open the insteps as if you’re reading a book. Use your thumbs to massage the inner part of your feet and also try to weave your fingers through your toes and spread them open. Hold for 8 to 10 breaths.

Shoulder Stand

 

Photo: Appcession

Inversions are a wonderful way to take a load off your feet. To come into shoulder stand, lie on your back and roll your legs up overhead. Interlace your hands under your back and press into your shoulders then bend your elbows and place your hands on your back. Use your abdominals to lift your legs up in to the air. If this is too challenging, you can always lay on the floor with your legs up the wall to get the same benefits, or you can place a block under your lower back and lift your legs up. Hold here for 10 to 15 breaths. You can repeat the same foot action from staff pose: flex and point the toes and circle the feet in both directions.

 

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3 Yoga Poses for Tired, Achy Feet

Simple ways to freshen up your home

Ways to freshen up your home

Easy to catch day n night

It can be easy to catch the winter blues when the days turn dark before dinnertime. Until spring comes knocking on my door and we have 5 Ways to freshen up your home, I try to bring as much of the natural elements inside to brighten things up and keep me inspired during the colder months.

With that being said, there are a few simple ways to cheer up your home… and your mood too! So without further ado, here are 5 easy ways to freshen up your home before the spring season.

 Add snappy accents

Add snappy accent

Try filling up a bright, white room with vibrant furnishings and décor to amp up the interest in a dull space. You can also pep up built-ins or bookcases by lining the back of the case with lively patterned craft papers or wallpaper scraps. I suggest using spray adhesive or double stick tape to adhere the papers.

Table toppers

table toppers

Adding loose arrangements around your home is an easy way to welcome spring. In the kitchen, swap heavy ceramic dishware for lighter glass plates, and display them on the dining table for an extra pop of color.

 Cozy glow

cozy glow

Make the most of natural light by pulling back heavy window treatments. If your view is the neighbor’s brick apartment building, add translucent blinds or sheers that let sun in while artfully obscuring your bad view. You can also update your lighting for a quick touch of brightness on gloomy days. Combine large floor lamps and smaller task lighting for the best results.

Reflections

Reflections

 

Mirrors add light to a space and encourage a warm, sunny feeling. With tons of options – modern mirror tiles, ornate hanging mirrors, etc. – choose something that best represents your style.

Shed layers

Shed layers

You can also lighten up a room simply by removing cluttered knickknacks. A couple key pieces will have a greater impact than a messy collection. Donate them, have a yard sale, or store them away for a later date.

Pretty easy, right? I hope these tips inspire you to freshen up your home this season. I’ve learned that when your home is fresh and bright, your mood tends to boost too! Plus… nobody likes that NOT SO fresh feeling.

Simple ways to freshen up your home

10 Habits of Healthy Families

Team approach

Team approach

Every wonder how families stay healthy, fit and thin? and make your family like other Healthy Families, We asked Dr. Oz for his tips on how to build a healthy family strategy. Dr. Oz says families (like the Carroll’s, pictured) that make healthy lifestyle choices together, stay healthy together. Here’s his game plan for your family.

Don’t go hungry

Don’t go hungry

To stay at a healthy weight, you have to eat, not starve yourself. “If you don’t fuel up regularly, you’ll become insatiably hungry, causing the ‘hunger’ hormone, ghrelin, to spike, its not the part of any Healthy Families ” Dr. Oz says. “The problem is, it takes a half-hour for that hormone to return to normal once you start to eat, but in that 30 minutes you’ll likely chow through many more calories than if you hadn’t eaten on an empty stomach.”

Dr. Oz keeps filling almonds on hand—don’t be surprised if you see him nibbling a few on his show.

Automate breakfast and lunch

Automate breakfast and lunch

Healthy Families without a healthy go-to option for each, you’re far more likely to make bad spur-of-the-moment grabs. Plus, having a staple of one or two healthy usual’s makes grocery shopping easier. “You don’t want to reinvent the wheel every day,” says Dr. Oz, who starts his day with a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with flax seed oil, a few walnuts, and some raisins or agave for sweetness—a morning meal that Randy and Kathleen have adopted and now love and now counted in Healthy Families.

For lunch, Dr. Oz recommends a vegetable-based soup (like this tomato fennel soup recipe) or a turkey or tuna sandwich on whole-grain bread. For the kids, you can improve upon the PBJ sandwich (it’s not horrible, but the jelly is all sugar) by using less jelly or turning it into a PB sandwich with a piece of fruit.

Exercise 20 minutes a day—at home

Exercise 20 minutes a day—at home

Why stay at your place? “If you have to go somewhere to exercise, you’re automatically going to need more than 20 minutes, and it violates the flow of your day,” Dr. Oz says. “An hour is a long time; 20 minutes is nothing.” Keeping your daily workout goal short and convenient works, he explains, because none of us want to admit that our lives are so disorganized that we can’t carve out 20 quick minutes.

“What we find is that if we tell people to do 20 minutes, they enjoy it and end up doing more than 20 minutes,” which is even better for your heart, Dr. Oz stresses. Simple ideas that work: Skip rope in your driveway, and alternate with crunches and push-ups; do 20 minutes of a workout video; walk in your neighborhood.

Be the food decider in your house

Be the food decider in your house

“I know this can be tough for parents, but the big decisions about what to eat must be made by you at the supermarket,” Dr. Oz says. Here’s why: If you bring chips and cookies home, your kids (and you) will naturally want to eat them.

And if you try to restrict them, you’ll actually cause your child to crave them more. But if you don’t buy the sweets to begin with, kids won’t even miss them, Dr. Oz promises. Keep good-news snacks on hand (like nuts and pretzels) and fruit and veggies washed and chopped in your fridge. “Kids will eat healthy snacks when they get hungry enough,” Dr. Oz says.

Eat dinner together every night

Eat dinner together every night

“I can talk about the importance of nutrients for good health all day. But studies show that if you want your kids to have an appreciation of how precious their bodies are, you can’t beat just sitting down together,” Dr. Oz says. This simple ritual improves not just kids’ eating habits but their grades and willingness to open up to you, too.

“When families come together to eat, they create an emotional harmony that I think is pretty sacred for long-term health.” If evenings don’t work, turn breakfast into your family sit-down instead.

Play together every day

Play together every day

“In our house, we put on 50 Cent and the kids bop around,” Dr. Oz says. “It’s our very own dance party.”

Just like with exercising at home for 20 minutes, the key is to carve out a reliable pocket of time when you can actually get active as a family. Working up a sweat together is an antiaging move, too: Using your mind to activate your muscles, either to dance or catch a ball, is one of the best ways to keep yourself young,” Dr. Oz says. Play a pick-up game of soccer, have a dance party, or shoot hoops after dinner.

Let your children police you

Talk to your kids about smart-eating goals, and encourage them to call you out if you grab junk food. “Kids love feeling empowered,” Dr. Oz says. It makes them feel like part of the solution, instead of feeling singled out as the only ones who have to follow healthy-eating rules.

Tell little ones a bedtime story

Tell little ones a bedtime story

Or talk to older kids about their day. “That’s the one time that kids let their guard down—when they’re tired and about to go under,” Dr. Oz says. “It’s when you hear what’s really on their minds and you can try and impart some knowledge.”

Make sure you have a bedtime routine

Make sure you have a bedtime routine

A good night’s sleep keeps you young. “Half of American adults have lost the ability to sleep, and not getting about seven hours a night can be a contributing factor to heart attacks and strokes,” Dr. Oz says. Keep your bedroom cool and dark, and nix the technology. If you can’t fall asleep after 15 minutes, don’t beat yourself up; get out of bed and meditate or read to help you relax.

Bond in bed

Bond in bed

Having regular sex can add an extra three years to your life expectancy, Dr. Oz reports. His suggestion? Aim for twice a week. “The love that stems from that blissful moment of being in each other’s arms,” he says, “is crucial for strengthening your relationship—and your health.”

10 Habits of Healthy Families