photo credit: Adam UXB Smith

Fitness and health is so much more than eating well and going for the occasional jog. In fact, fitness and health start with the mind. If your head is in the wrong space then it is very difficult to achieve any long term fitness, weight loss or health goals. In this post I am going to talk about 8 attitudes that cripple your long term health and well being. They might even be making you fat!

1. Jealousy
If you go to the gym you will probably know what I am talking about. The green eyed monster is extremely bad for our health and well being because we are constantly comparing ourselves to other women at the gym. Sometimes I actually feel like the gym is a lot like high school; everyone checking out what the other girls are wearing, talking about and how they look when they do certain things. It can be quite stressful. If you go to the gym worried about how all the other women look better than you do then you are going to set yourself up for disaster. You will end up quitting out of frustration.

2. Playing the victim
I hate to say it but most of my friends play the victim. Every time I see them for coffee or dinner they talk about how hard done by they are and create a thousand excuses for why they haven’t been going to the gym or eating healthy. The sad fact is that none of them know they are doing it. They all think it is normal. And to some extent being the victim is very normal in our society. The fact of the matter is you have a choice. You can choose to be a victim of your own circumstances or you can choose to make a change. And if you want to look and feel good, live a long healthy life and be happy with your own situation you are going to need to stop playing the victim.

Here is an interesting article about playing the victim in Psychology Today that has some excellent insights about where the victim game leaves you in the end.

3. Laziness
If you took a look back at the last 10 times that you skipped a work out or got take away instead of cooking a meal I would wager that at least eight of those times it was because you couldn’t be bothered. Laziness is probably the most damaging attitude there is when it comes to health and fitness because, unfortunately, health and fitness are so damn hard to maintain. Working out at the gym is not easy, shopping for the right foods each week is even more annoying. However, laziness is even more annoying because it will cause you to have future regrets. One of the most painful things you can ever imagine is getting to your 50s, 60s and 70s and realizing that you wasted your life being lazy. Stop today.

4. Stress
Stress is an interesting one because a lot of you will disagree with me that it is an attitude. Most people think it is just something that occurs that we have no control over. And while I believe that is true some of the time, I also understand that a lot of women out there use stress as an excuse. They say that they are too stressed to go to the gym or cook a meal. The funny thing about that attitude, however, is that going to the gym and eating healthy are two of the most powerful cures for stress!

photo credit: Juliana Coutinho

I also think that part of the reason women get stressed is because they are not achieving their weight loss goals. But if you made exercise a priority you would find that less stress occurs.

5. Insatiability
As a regular gym goer I constantly see women come and go. Some of them stick at it for a few months, other only last a week or so. And while there might be a whole host of reasons for this lack of consistency I understand that a lot of women are completely insatiable when it comes to exercise. In fact, I would go so far as to say that every single person (male and female) has experienced this when it comes to their exercise programs.

Insatiability means that you are impossible to satisfy. You become bored easily and as such you struggle to finish your goals. The fitness world is rife with this problem because fitness and weight loss goals take so long to achieve. After a week of the same workout you get bored and either move on or give up. I think this has a lot to do with our modern world of iPhones and Twitter and Facebook where we need to be constantly entertained. You can change your workout a few times but after a while you need to tackle the boredom otherwise you will end up giving up like everyone else.

6. Procrastination
We all do it and we all know its bad. Procrastination is an attitude that will send you to an early grave and an obese waist line because you simply never get around to it. Strongly linked to laziness, procrastination is much more sneaky. Why? Because it happens one omission at a time. Laziness is a general attitude that is very easy to spot but procrastination might only occur once or twice a week – just enough to sabotage your progress. You can bet your bottom dollar; the second you hear your mind saying “I’ll just finish this first” or “I’ll make up for it later” you are on your way to a lifetime of putting things off. Nip it in the bud as soon as you can.

photo credit: Looking Glass

7. Impetuousness
I have to admit being a very impetuous person. When I first started becoming interested in working out at the gym I just dived in as if I was an expert. Bad idea. Within a month I had obtained a pretty serious injury that plagues me to this day. Being impetuous means that you rush into things without really thinking them through first. This is a crippling attitude because, when it comes to health and fitness, you need to know a lot of information in order to do it correctly. If you go back and read our article on why you can’t lose weight you will see that it is extremely important to read and study and talk to experts before you try to play around with your body. Information is power and a lack of information is often crippling.

8. Impatience
Impatience is the final attitude that I want to talk about today. It is closely linked with almost all of the other attitudes and, like the other, it is extremely harmful for women who are trying to lose weight, get healthy and change their lives. The thing you need to realize really early on is that weight loss and fitness take a long time. They take years to really pull off in a long term way. And not only that, they take a long time on a daily scale. You need to exercise and eat healthy every single day if you want to make long lasting progress. If you are impatient you kill your progress at the very root because you just won’t stick it out.

If you want to learn to become more patient you need to really work on yourself because it is a long held habit. The article in the link is a great starting point for everyone out there.

Conclusion

Everything that you do in life starts in the mind. If you have a healthy attitude with a good motivation you will find that you can achieve all sorts of successes. If, however, you live your life choked by poisonous attitudes you will end up failing at everything you touch. Really examine yourself and see whether you are harboring any of these 8 attitudes that cripple your health and well being. Recognizing them is the hardest part.

photo credit: egor.gribanov

Take a poll of 100 women who have strayed off the weight loss track and 90 of them will tell you they are just too busy. It is an extremely common problem in today’s modern world where women are expected to be super women; cleaning the house, caring for the kids, going to work and then trying to find time to exercise. But there are some solutions. All is not lost. This article is the busy woman’s guide to staying toned, sexy and healthy.

How busyness kills exercise

The first thing we need to look at, obviously, is why being busy kills your exercise, weight loss and health goals. Why is it that most of us aren’t able to maintain the routine when we are run off our feet. It is an interesting question that doesn’t have a straight forward answer. Some women find that by the time they are free to think about working out they are completely zapped of energy. Others find that they are just too busy to even put aside 20 minutes for a jog around the block.

But the thing that ties all of these problems (excuses) together is actually very simple. It is what Oprah would call and “ah ha moment”. The reason you aren’t working out is not because you are tired or don’t have enough time; it is because you have not made it a priority. If exercise, eating healthy, etc. was a priority you would make sure you had time for it, just like you do for other important tasks. And here’s the real kicker – your workout is one of the most important things you do because it plays a big role in your quality of life. Without exercise you will put on weight, become unhealthy and feel miserable. But it’s still not a priority.

Making exercise and health a priority

photo credit: gbSk

If you are a busy woman you need to make exercise a priority. If you continue to put everything else before your workout then you will never get toned, sexy and healthy, no matter how much you long for it. Making exercise and health a priority is a mental act as well as a physical one, it is important that we acknowledge that.

How to make exercise a priority
If you want to make these things a priority in your life in order to allow yourself to achieve them there are a few things you need to do:

• realize that you need to exercise
• realize that you need to exercise regularly
• realize that without exercise you cannot be healthy
• realize how important being healthy is to you and your loved ones
• realize that if you don’t make time you will never achieve the results you desire
• actually make time, today

The most important one here is the last one; make time today. Today is the time you need to start because if you don’t do it today, the word tomorrow will always be in your mind. So many women out there promise themselves that they will start their new life tomorrow. But tomorrow is too late because it usually means never.

How to stay toned, sexy and healthy

photo credit: marko8904

Now that we have looked at the important preliminary items of why busyness kills exercise and making exercise a priority we can get into the main ideas of this article. What follows is a bunch of ways that busy women can stay toned, sexy and healthy. Adopt as many as you can and you will be well on your way to success.

1. Do some exercise, whatever it is, every single day
At the beginning it is extremely important that you do some exercise, whatever it is, every single day. Even if you only work out for ten minutes it is so much better than doing nothing. Why? Because more than anything else you are creating new habits. More than getting fit and toned you are teaching yourself the discipline that will last you a lifetime. If you do some exercise every single day you will find that, over time, you will naturally increase the amount and push yourself further. You can do easy things like:

• 50 squats, push ups and crunches when you wake up in the morning
• a walk around the neighborhood after dinner
• a quick gym session on your lunch break
• park the car 20 minutes away from work and walk

All of these things are so easy you will hardly notice you are working out but they will make a massive difference to how you look, feel and how you approach your exercise. You have, all of a sudden, made exercise and fitness a priority in your life.

2. Control your portion sizes
When you don’t have a lot of time for exercise your portion sizes become extremely important. Why? Because over time those extra large meals add up. They are calories that go straight to your hips and thighs because you aren’t doing the exercise to burn off the excess energy. Let me explain.

In our guide to losing weight we looked at the mathematics of weight loss. This talked about the fact that in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in. And portion sizes play a massive role in this equation. For example, if you go back for seconds after dinner every night you might be taking on 150 extra calories. That works out to over 1000 calories a week. And seeing a there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, that means you have put on one pound of fat in three weeks JUST from your seconds! Now add up all the other big meals you have; breakfast, snacks, lunch, etc. and you see why it is so hard to lose weight.

If you don’t have a lot of time for exercise it is really important that you control your portion sizes. This will help keep you toned and at a healthy weight. Do not worry too much about eating more serving of vegetables and fruit, it is the pasta, rice, bread and sugars that you need to look out for.

3. Eat protein and fiber rich foods
You have probably heard this a million times but it is really important for busy women to remember as it relates heavily to controlling your portion sizes. Protein and fiber are extremely important for maintaining a healthy weight and keeping your body toned because they help to keep you full. If you have a high fiber meal it is very unlikely that you will feel hungry afterward. These foods are also very rarely high in calories so you can rest assured knowing that you are eating something healthy. Foods that are high in fiber include;

• Flax seeds
• Garbanzo beans
• Kidney beans
• Lentils
• Bran cereal
• Oats
• Avocado
• Carrot

Try to include one or more of these foods in every meal. For example, you might have oats for breakfast, avocado in your sandwich for lunch and carrots with your dinner. Easy! These foods do a lot more for you than just increasing your fiber, they are full of valuable vitamins and minerals.

4. Do resistance exercises often
Women often shy away from resistance exercises. Big mistake. Weights are extremely important if you want to keep your body toned and fit, especially if you don’t have a lot of time for working out. In our article will weights make women bulky we discussed some really important reasons as to why women need to weight train and one of them is that it burns a lot of calories and keeps your metabolism up during the day.

photo credit: lululemon athletica

So how can you fit in weight training if you are busy? Here are some simple ideas that will work no matter what your situation:

• do ten squats, push ups or crunches on the hour, every hour
• walk up the stairs two or three at a time every morning
• do bicep curls or weighted lunges with your heavy backpack or suitcase
• etc.

The possibilities are endless. All you need to do is find something heavy and lift it a few times using proper weight lifting technique. Your body weight exercises like push ups, squats, crunches, sit ups, lunges, etc. are really all you need. Take a few moments out of each day to do a few reps and you will see changes in your body in no time.

5. Meet with your workout girls daily
One of the most powerful ways to stay toned and healthy is to meet with a group of girls every day or a couple of times a week. This is an extremely potent tool for busy women as you come to depend and rely on each other. This means you will find it a lot harder to make excuses like being too tired because there are people waiting for you in order to do their exercises.

Exercising with other people is also a lot more fun and will probably prevent you from getting bored. Sure, it has its downfalls like the fact that we often stand around talking for 15 minutes, but if you can find a disciplines and focused bunch you will probably find it an extremely rewarding time.

The best thing to do is hire a personal trainer for a couple of weeks and get some ideas from them. Once you have learned the techniques properly and memorized the workouts you will be able to carry on without the trainer and just add your own little touches as time goes on. For example, some friends of mine recently adding boxing into their workout. One person holds the pads while the other does 100 punches then they both sprint to the other side of the oval and swap. Repeating this for 25 minutes and you get an amazing workout.

6. Enlist help
One of the hardest things for us women to do is ask for help. We hate it. We often see it as a sign of defeat or we don’t want to hand over the responsibility because we don’t think anyone else can do it properly. This attitude has to stop. You need help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help every now and then. In fact, you will appear stronger and more independent if you do – especially because you will get more energy and strength from doing a workout.

Help can come in many forms. If you have children you might need to ask your husband or boyfriend to watch them for 30 minutes three times a week while you go for a bike ride. Or, you might want to set up a fitness baby sitter group where each week you take it in turns looking after the kids while the other mums go for a workout at the park. All you really need to do is find someone to help you free up 30 minutes a few times a week and you are cooking with gas.

The most important person to ask for help, however, is yourself. You actually need to verbally ask yourself to help yourself. Everyone else could be bending over backwards for you but unless you acknowledge that you need to give yourself some time to take care of your fitness and health then you aren’t going to get anywhere. Do it now. Take a deep breath and then tell yourself that you need help achieving these goals. It is a very powerful exercise.

7. Learn how to sleep better
Something that a lot of women don’t consider is the fact that their sleeping patterns might be making it difficult for them to get the energy they need for a daily workout. Part of being a grown up busy working woman is learning how to sleep better. It really can change your life.

photo credit: calleecakes

Firstly, read our posts on how to get up when your alarm goes off, how to get more energy and never feel tired and how many hours of sleep do you need each night. These will give you a good base knowledge for the type of sleeping habits that you should be working towards.

There are three key things that you need to know if you want to sleep properly. They are:

1. Try and wake up and go to sleep at the same time every day
   This is the most important thing because your body is a machine of habit. If you teach your body to get up at 6am every day for a workout then, over time, it will become natural to you. If, however, you stay up til midnight one night and then 8pm the next night your body is going to get confused and your sleep will be affected.
2. Do not drink coffee, red wine or eat chocolate before bed
   These three foods are the worst things you can drink/eat before bed because they are gut irritants. Even if you can get to sleep after eating them you will find that your sleep is not very deep and you often wake up feeling terrible. Ironically they are the three foods our culture usually has in the evening.
3. Do not go to bed thinking about work
   Stress and worry will stop you from getting a good night’s sleep so make the firm resolve to stop thinking about work as soon as you get home. Thinking about it will not help you get the job done and will, in fact, make you less likely to do it properly as you are so wound up about it. Let go.

If you can get your sleep on track you are 50% the way to being a busy women who can stay toned and sexy. Why? Because you will not have the obstacle of extreme tiredness weighing you down. It is also important to remember that you sleep extremely well after exercise so the more you do the better – its a very healthy cycle.

8. Exercise with whatever you have around you
You don’t need to go to the gym in order to get a workout. Sure, the gym is probably best because you are forced to do something but sometimes it just isn’t an option. For all of those busy weeks you should be creative and find things to workout with that you normally wouldn’t think of.

• At home
  do step ups on to a solid table or ledge, reverse crunches on the sofa, push ups with your feet on the coffee table, bicep curls and should lift with some heavy books, etc.
• At work
  walk the stairs on your breaks, park far away and brisk walk to the office, do isometric exercises with your desk as the counterweight, do some squats while waiting for the kettle to boil, etc.

The possibilities are endless. If you are super busy you often need to be creative and find different ways to get your heart rate up or push your muscles. These things will rarely be a substitute for a proper workout but they can tide you over until you get to the gym or the running track.

Add your tip…

The best way to find out how busy women stay toned, sexy and healthy is to talk to each other. If you have any other tips please leave a comment and share them. Hopefully over time we can amass a great resource of information for busy women all over the world.

As you all know, if you want to lose weight you need to get your heart rate up. And the best way to find out how hard your heart is working is with a quality heart rate monitor watch. To thank all of our fans and friends Free Women’s Fitness is giving away a free Mino Breeze Women’s Heart Rate Monitor Watch to one of our lucky readers.

How to enter to win the free watch

Entering this competition is extremely easy. And to make things easier we are giving you two options:

1. Subscribe
The first method is to subscribe to Free Women’s Fitness by entering your email address in the box below. This means you will get all of our updates in your inbox for free. Don’t worry, you can unsubscribe at any time in the future – but we’re sure you won’t want to.

2. Comment on an article
The second way to enter to win the watch is to leave a comment on any of the articles from the site. Each comment you leave will count as an entry so the more you leave the more chance you have of winning the prize! Make sure the comment is relevant and interesting otherwise it might not get past our spam filters.

Remember, you can enter using one method or both. The more entries the better!

Announcing the winner

We will announce the winner on the 1st of June 2010 on our Twitter page so make sure you are following @fwomensfitness in order to be notified. We will choose the winner using a random number generator and then applying that to the contestants. Good luck!

photo credit: jessica.garro

One of the most common complaints that modern women have is that they do not have enough energy and they always feel tired. I know the feeling, I’m sure you know the feeling too. We have to get up early, perhaps do some exercise, go to work and come home and cook dinner. We have to see friends, go out on the weekend, pursue our hobbies, eat junk food when were busy… the list is endless. In this post I am going to show you a few ways to get more energy and never feel tired.

Why am I tired?

In order to solve any problem you need to know the cause. If we don’t know the cause it would be impossible to target what is exactly going wrong. Imagine trying to treat heart disease if you didn’t know you had heart disease. It would be impossible. The same is true of low energy levels. You need to firmly establish why it is that you are tired. Without this knowledge we really are just stabbing in the dark. And how to we find out what the cause is? Go to your doctor. Your GP is the only person who is authorized to make an official judgment about why you are tired. The rest of us can guess and make suggestions but only your doctor can advise you. Go and see him/her this week and then revisit this post for some extra help.

That being said, there are some very common reasons why people get tired. Take a look at this list and see if you fit into any of the explanations. These might be some good things to bring up with your doctor:

• you eat less than four handfuls of vegetables a day
• you eat less than two handfuls of fruit a day
• you drink mostly sugary drinks and not a lot of water
• you go to bed at different times each night
• you stay up late for no reason
• you don’t sleep well because you are stressed
• you exercise less than four times a week
• you are anxious about work, family or something else
• you have a history of insomnia or some other health issue
• etc

If you think that any of these sound like you then I have good news for you. We can solve the problem. But rather than relying on a blog post for health information, go to your doctor and just make sure you are on the right track. He/she will also be able to tell you if your blood is healthy and whether there are any other issues that might be hiding in the background.

How to get more energy and never feel tired

photo credit: daveynin

So you have been to the doc and they have given you a clean bill of health. Now that you know there are no underlying issues we can start the methodical process of changing some habits in your life so that you don’t feel tired anymore. The tips that follow can be used individually or all at once. The more you can adopt the better. But, most importantly, don’t just adopt them for a week or two. Try and make these permanent habits that you take with you for the rest of your life.

1. Eat more fruit
Fruit is not given enough attention in today’s culture. We hear a lot about the benefits of vegetables but due to the fact that it is made up of sugar, a lot of people make the mistake of ignoring fruit. Let’s be clear – fruit won’t make you fat. Fruit is an extremely natural food that humans have been eating for thousands of years. Our digestive systems are designed perfectly for fruit. If you are feeling tired and low on energy then you need to start taking in more fruit, especially early on in the day. The vitamins, minerals and, yes, even proteins, will make you feel energetic for a long time during the day.

2. Get your sleep habits right
Obviously, if you are feeling low on energy we need to look at the sleep habits. I have written about this a few times before and as such I don’t want to rehash it again. Basically, you need to be going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time every day. If you can’t do it every night of the week then just do your best. Your body needs to know the routine and the habit, if you muck up your sleeping arrangements your body’s clock gets extremely confused and can actually become “jet lagged” for up to three days after. Some other posts on sleep include:

• how to wake up when your alarm goes off
• how many hours of sleep do you need each night

You might be surprised to know that the idea of eight hours sleep per night is just a myth. In fact, it is a harmful myth. Get your sleep in order if you want to get more energy. This point is not really an option.

3. Do an “energy” based exercise
We all know how to run and lift weights. We know how to tense certain muscles and we know how to move the body in a variety of ways. But how many of us know how to control our internal energies? Not many. And that is something we need to work on.

If you have been abusing your body for years with junk food, late nights and alcohol there is a good chance that your internal energies are a little out of whack. If you go to a Chinese doctor he/she will be able to tell you what energies are damaged by looking at your eyes and tongue and listening to your pulse. I have so many friends who, having tried every western form of medicine, gave acupuncture a go and found that it cured them completely. And this is because it corrects your chi or internal energies.

Tai chi and yoga are the two best forms of “internal” exercise. These ancient disciplines have been keeping people healthy for thousands of years by using certain poses and breathing techniques to move the energies of the body in a certain way. Don’t believe it? Good. You will be all the more surprised when you give it a go and feel amazing!

4. Drink green tea
If you are a regular reader of Free Women’s Fitness you will know that we love green tea. And with good reason! Countless studies have shown that green tea is an amazing health food due to all those antioxidants that it has. People who drink green tea are less likely to develop heart disease, cancer and, yes, it can help you feel more energetic.

photo credit: ?Debs?

The reason green tea can help is twofold. Firstly, it has caffeine in it and as such it will give you that little pick-me-up that we so often need. Secondly, the hot water mixed with the health benefits of the tea can really serve to clean out your system and rejuvenate the mind. Remember, if your body is toxin free your mind is likely to be clearer and that is, a lot of the time, the only thing you need to feel more energetic.

Remember, you need to drink green tea without milk if you want to get the most health benefits. Studies have shown that the protein in milk can destroy some of the goodness in the tea and as such you do not extract as much from it as you could.

5. Cut out refined sugar
One of the absolute worst things you can do for your body is eat refined sugar. The problem? Americans are addicted to it. It is in every cereal, snack and even some supposedly healthy meals. Take a look at anything that says “FAT FREE” and you will notice it is full of sugar. And it is sugar that makes you fat! So why is no one worried about it? But I digress.

Refined sugar is a very simple sugar that carries zero nutrition with its energy. That means you are taking in lots of calories but getting no benefit. Compare that to a bowl of fruit where the sugar you eat comes with minerals and vitamins and goodies that you can’t get anywhere else. Sugar is bad. And it makes you feel low on energy because it causes spikes that are followed by a sugar low. And in order to get yourself out of that low you need more sugar. And so the cycle continues.

If you need to get a sugar hit go with natural raw honey or fruit. Try and get rid of anything in your house that has processed sugar in it and see how you feel after just a few weeks. I bet you feel better than every and I bet you lose weight without even trying.

Conclusion

If you can adopt at least one of these points, great. If you can adopt all of them, fantastic! Each one will give you more energy and stop you feeling like a zombie all day long. If you have any other suggestions please let us know by leaving a comment. I’m sure a lot of our readers have some wonderful tips.

photo credit: heipei

Easter is fast approaching. And that means chocolate. Lots of chocolate. But you’re not allowed to eat any. Right? Well, maybe not. Science is now telling us that some chocolate is extremely good for you. And that chocolate is the dark variety.

Why is dark chocolate food for you?

The good news with dark chocolate is that is is proven to lower blood pressure. Perhaps that is why there is nothing better than a good bit of choccy after a really stressful day? Studies have shown that eating a small amount of dark chocolate on a regular basis can lower your blood pressure and leave you feeling more relaxed and healthy.

But that’s not all folks. Dark chocolate can also help prevent certain types of cancer due to the high levels of antioxidants found in the stuff. A warning though, just like with the antioxidants in green tea, you cannot eat milk chocolate or even eat your dark chocolate with a glass of milk. Scientists believe that the protein in milk damages the health benefits of the antioxidants.

Conclusion

This Easter ask for dark chocolate. Enjoy it with your family and don’t feel too guilty about eating it as you now know that small amounts can be really good for you. And remember, no milk chocolate allowed!

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan (booleansplit)

Most of us are coffee drinkers. Especially in the United States, tea is not as popular as its dark brown counterpart. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that drinking tea is one of the best things a woman can do for her long term health. In this post I want to show you why every woman should drink green tea, every day.

Types of tea

Did you know that there are actually five types or categories of tea? The five are:

• Green Tea
• Oolong Tea
• Black Tea
• White Tea
• Pu Erh Tea

All of these teas actually come from the same plant but are given different names after undergoing a variety of fermentation processes. Also, some teas come from the leaves whilst others are made from the buds.

Of all the teas it is said that White Tea and Green Tea are the best for you as they contain the most amount of antioxidants. However, it is Green Tea that has been the subject of the most scientific investigation and as such we can’t really tell which is the most healthy.

Should I add milk?

It is very important to know that milk can actually destroy the goodness in tea. Recent scientific studies have shown that the proteins found in milk can actually damage some of the healthy properties in the tea leaves. The message? Drink your tea with just the tea and hot water. It is much better for you.

Why every woman should drink green tea

photo credit: ajari

So now for the bulk of the post – why should women drink green tea? What is it about this ancient drink that is so beneficial? Well the answer is simple – it prevents cancer, especially breast cancer.

A recent study has shown that women who drink four or more cups of Green Tea per day are up to 80% less likely to get cancer. 80% is a massive number! As far as I know there is nothing else that can reduce your chance of getting cancer more aside from quitting smoking. With such powerful statistics we would be crazy not to increase our tea intake.

So why does Green Tea prevent cancer?

Well, actually, scientists aren’t sure. They think it has something to do with the high levels of antioxidants found in tea but this cannot be the sole reason as many other foods with high antioxidants do not have the same powerful anticancer effect.

One more older study suggests that it has something to do with the chemicals in the tea leaves killing an enzyme that is associated with cancer cell production. This would make sense and could potentially be useful in the treatment of cancer down the track.

Conclusion

Start drinking Green Tea. Go out and find yourself a nice tea cup and some pure Green Tea. Make the experience enjoyable and remind yourself how good it is for you while you are drinking it. If you can replace your morning coffee with a morning tea you will be in good stead to live a longer and more healthy life.

Yoga is a fantastic way to beat stress. Every day millions of women around the world use yoga as a means of combating anxiety while strengthening and toning their bodies. Today I would like to show you one simple pose that everyone can do in their home or office in order to reduce their levels of stress. It is called the Child’s Pose or Balasana in Sanskrit and it is one of the best ways to get your anxiety under control.

When you do this pose make sure you breathe deep into your belly and really feel your ribs expanding and closing. Make sure your hips are not too wide but wide enough to let your buttocks rest back as far as possible. Breath through your nose and rest your third eye point on the mat.

Some benefits of this pose include:

• Decreased stress levels
• Increased blood flow to the head
• Improvement in muscle recovery
• Increased back health
• Better sleep

This pose is also said to be good for extroverted women who want to slow down their mind and become more gentle, relaxed and quiet. Try it and see how it works for you.

photo credit: !ana mercedes

I am often asked about how much sleep you need each night. Is it 8 hours? Perhaps 7, 6 or even 5 hours is enough? Or do you need an amount closer to 10? In actual fact, none of these amounts are correct. In this article I want to show you exactly how much sleep is enough.

Why “eight hours of sleep” is wrong

The traditional number that is thrown around is “eight”. People have been telling us for years and years that you need eight hours of solid sleep per night in order to feel rested, happy and healthy. In actual fact this is simply not true.

In fact, the phrase “eight hours of sleep” is actually bad for you. Why? Because every day that you wake up and realize that you got less than eight hours sleep you will feel tired, groggy and angry. But it is not your body that is tired – you are telling your body that it should be tired. It is a mental trick.

So how much sleep do I need?

In actual fact it is much more important to get REGULAR amounts of sleep than it is to get a huge amount of sleep. I’m sure all of you out there will agree with me when I say that too much sleep can leave you feeling tired the whole day instead of more refreshed.

Instead of worrying about a set number of hours try and:

• Go to bed at the same time
  Going to bed at the same time each night will give your body a sense of regularity. Up until about 200 years ago humans went to bed when the sun went down. Not anymore. We go to bed when the best TV program is over. Try to make a new habit.
• Wake up at the same time
  If you wake up at the same time each day you will be much more likely to wake up fresh. I have met Buddhist Monks in Tibet who get up at 4am but because they do it everyday they are not at all tired.
• Establish what works for you
  There is no magic number. Some women need 10 hours of sleep or they feel like a zombie. Others only need seven. Experiment and find out what works for you and then try to stick to it.

Remember, if you are a fit and healthy person you will need less sleep. People who are overweight and unfit often experience restless sleep and as such need a lot more of it. A daily workout mixed with a diet high in fruits and vegetables will see you waking up feeling a lot better.

Is there a bare minimum amount of sleep?

Science has shown that sleeping less than six hours a night can actually be dangerous for your health. Your body needs a certain amount of time in order to process information, toxins and other things that go on during the day. Anything less than about six hours and you could be causing problems.

photo credit: Pinkabilly

Meditation is very important to me. I like to spend at least 15 minutes a day on my meditation cushion focusing on my mind and breath. In this article I want to show you seven reasons why every woman should meditate every day.

7 reasons every woman should meditate every day

Have a read through these reasons and see if any of them make sense to you. If they do then I highly encourage you to start meditating on a regular basis – ideally first thing in the morning.

1. It makes you happier
The most important reason to start meditate every day is because it makes you happier. Meditation helps you to get in touch with your thoughts and emotions and work through a lot of crap that you might otherwise just let float around. It also helps you become more focused and mindful which leads to happiness because your actions will start to match your intentions.

2. It is good for you
Science has shown that meditation is extremely good for your health. It relaxes your heartbeat and lowers your blood pressure – extremely important for all you corporate women out there who are busy focusing on deadlines and due dates. Meditation also strengthens your internal energies which will make you less susceptible to colds and flus.

3. It gives you quiet time
These days there is almost no room for quiet time. You are either looking after the kids or your husband or work is riding you to meet with some client – there is no time for silence. But silence is extremely important. It can relax your mind and body and allow you to “process” all the things that are going on. Ten minutes of silent meditation everyday will go a long way to making you more sane.

4. You will become stronger
Meditation masters are always strong people who can deal with any situation that gets thrown at them. The reason for this is because they have become so accustomed and familiar with their own mind that they are able to see through all the trash and just remain calm. After a few months of regular meditation you will find that you don’t get blown around by all the little ups and downs that life throws at you.

5. You will be able to train harder
Along the same lines as the previous point, meditating regularly will allow you to train a lot harder. The reason is simple. When you begin looking at mind you start to see that your thoughts have no real power. They arise and dissolve but they never really have any inherent power to influence you. After a while you will be able to take this realization off the cushion and out into the world with you. For example, when you are running on the treadmill and your mind is telling you “stop” you will be able to see through that game and push on. This is a very valuable skill to have.

6. It removes stress from your body and mind
One of the most fundamental benefits of meditation is relaxation. Meditation allows you to process all the stress in your mind and sort it out. And once it is out of your mind it will soon be out of your body. Your muscles will relax and your joints will loosen. Daily meditation will make you a much more relaxed and easy going person.

7. Your sleep will be peaceful
Another major benefit that I have noticed is that my sleep has become a lot more peaceful. I fall asleep much faster and I am able to wake up fresh. This is extremely important if you have a training session to get to or you need to start work early.

Conclusion

The wonderful thing about meditation is that the more you do it, the more benefits you will get. If you can sneak in five minutes of meditation after work and ten minutes before you go to bed then you will be well on your way to better health and a lot happier living.