Acupuncture and More…

If you’re experiencing problems sleeping, there’s a good chance you aren’t getting enough exercise. Both mental and physical exercises are effective ways to help you experience a deeper, more restful sleep.

For some people, exercise is enough on its own to overcome their insomnia. When you exercise, you’re placing extra stress on your body and, in order to compensate for this added stress, your brain dictates a greater need for deep sleep to aid in recovery.

Bright Light and Your Internal Clock

Have you ever noticed during the warmer months, when you’re outside and active, you tend to get tired earlier in the evening? This is due to the extended amount of time you’re exposed to sunlight and the physical activity.

Exercising in a brightly lit area with a lot of sunlight increases your energy levels. Also, increasing your exposure to sunlight helps control your body temperature rhythms that regulate sleep.

What Are the Best Exercises for Fighting Insomnia?

Almost any physical activity can help you combat insomnia. However, there are a few particular exercises that seem to work better than others.

Here’s just a sampling of exercises to overcome insomnia:

•    Treadmill - Best when used next to an open window with plenty of sunlight pouring in
•    Bicycling - The movement and constant concentration needed are especially effective.
•    Stationary Bike - Not as effective as a real bicycle, but works great on rainy days
•    Jump Rope - A good exercise to do that’s stationery and requires little equipment
•    Dancing - One of the most enjoyable ways to get exercise
•    Walking & Jogging Outside - This is probably the easiest way to get exercise, exposure to sunlight and beat insomnia.

What Time is the Most Effective?

The best time to exercise is about 4 - 6 hours before bedtime. If you exercise just before you retire for the night, your body won’t have enough time to cool down properly. This can make it harder to get to sleep. Remember that you should avoid caffeine or eating late, as well.

Get Your Mind Active, Too!

When you exercise your body and mind at the same time, you’ll notice you’ll get a deeper and more fulfilling night sleep. It’s very easy to exercise your mind while you’re involved in physical activity.

Some ways to do this while you’re exercising are:

•    Doing simple math problems in your head
•    Reciting something you need to remember
•    Listening to an audio book or podcast
•    Reading a book, newspaper or magazine

Avoid doing the same exercises every day. Mix things up so your activities keep your body and mind fresh and active. Monotony causes the effectiveness of the activities, both physical and mental, to wane.

You may also want to keep a journal of your exercise activities and your sleeping hours. Once in a while, you can analyze what combination of exercises - both mental and physical - gave you the best sleep results. And once you’re equipped with this newfound knowledge, you can create a custom workout, which will improve your health and help you beat the insomnia bug for good!

Everyone has heard the expression, “You are what you eat.” This very simple saying means more and more each day as we gain a greater understanding about how foods affect us.

•    The food you put into your body has an effect on your physical appearance, energy levels, bodily processes and how well your brain functions.

Your brain is a system of chemical connections firing off at each other so fast that it’s almost impossible to fathom. Well, the food you eat affects the chemical make up of your brain, altering how it acts and works.

Feelings and emotions also affect your brain. Obviously feelings are born in the brain, and, depending on the emotion, they can alter the brain chemistry. For example, some people with mental health issues do not produce certain chemicals in their brain, which radically changes their behavior patterns.

There are things you can do to regulate this chemical reaction on a daily basis, and it’s simpler than you may think! Eating certain foods can specifically affect different functions of the body, the chemicals in your brain, and your emotions.

Here are some healthy foods you can eat to help optimize both your body and mind:

1.    Omega-3 Fatty Acids. Eating foods high in Omega-3s has a great deal of health benefits, including improving your brain’s development and functions. The Omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, is an important polyunsaturated fat found in the brain.

•    Fish is a great source of Omega-3 Fatty acids, including DHA.

2.    Choline. Choline is a chemical building block of every cell in your body. Choline has also been shown to help with retaining information in your memory. The more choline your lifetime diet includes, the less likely you’ll be to face extreme memory loss as you grow older.

•    Eggs yolks have a high concentration of choline in them.

3.    Antioxidants. We all recognize the health benefits of antioxidants in fighting diseases, but did you know a cup of hot cocoa has a higher concentration of antioxidants in it than either red wine or green tea? It’s true – as long as you use a dark chocolate.

•    Serve a cup of rich dark hot cocoa after dinner, and know you’re actually taking good care of your health!

4.    Green Tea. Have a glass of green tea every day to help keep the cognitive functions of your brain in tiptop shape. Studies have shown 70% of people who drank green tea showed an improvement in the functions of the brain.

5.    Cranberry Juice. This beverage is not only good for your body, specifically, kidney and urinary functions, but it can also help prevent a stroke. Cranberry juice has also been shown to help reduce brain cell damage after a stroke.

6.    Mangosteen Juice. This botanical was shown to reduce certain parameters of inflammation and to improve weight and body fat in an overweight population, this has positive implications in the future prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Eating a well balanced diet that includes fruits, vegetables, protein, and some fat is the best way to nourish both the body and mind. Our bodies are highly complicated machines requiring many different things to function properly, and what we eat determines how it functions.

By taking simple steps to optimize your nutrition, you’ll also optimize your mind and body. Start making healthy, nutritious food choices today and enjoy looking, feeling, and thinking better.

With your hectic daily routine - getting ready for work, getting the kids ready for school, making sure your socks aren’t floating in the dog’s water bowl, a busy day at work, coming home and fixing dinner, cleaning up the house and getting everyone, including yourself, to sleep - exercise is usually the last thing on your mind!

Stress levels and obesity are at an all time high and health concerns are making themselves a priority in many people’s lives.

However, exercise is the one thing that can energize you to handle such a busy lifestyle with flying colors! Exercising reduces stress, helps you sleep better, and keeps health concerns at bay, while also boosting your self-confidence.

No More Excuses Allowed

It’s a good thing the human body is made the way it is, because there are many exercises you can do anywhere, at any time. All you need are a couple of makeshift weights you can find around the house and the physical weight of your body.

When exercising, remember to get a good warm-up and finish off with a slow cool-down. This is important to prevent injury and is easy to accomplish no matter where you are. Walking works well for both your warm-up and cool-down routine.

Here are 5 simple exercises you can do anywhere:

1.    Tricep Dips. Sit on the edge of a chair or bench with your hands next to your thighs. Lift your body out just in front of the chair, with your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent. Lower yourself down so your elbows bend no more than 90 degrees and push yourself back up.

•    Start off with a few small sets and build up from there.
•    Straightening your legs increases the workout.
•    Avoid this exercise if you have wrist or shoulder problems.

2.    Pushups. Everyone knows the standard pushup position, so let’s try some things to change it up a bit.

•    You can do pushups with your hands wider than shoulder width to get more of a shoulder and chest workout.

•    If you bring your hands together into a diamond shape near the center of your chest you will work more of the triceps and shoulders.

•    Working half pushups - either going only half way down and then back up, or starting from the floor and only pushing up half way and then going back down - will intensify your pushup workout.

3.    Crunches. Crunches are great for your abs if you do them correctly. Done incorrectly, they can put undue stress on your neck and back. To avoid injury, be sure to use the correct techniques.

•    The biggest risk is if you jerk your neck to give you the force to crunch. While doing crunches, keep your hands behind your head and your elbows back while using your stomach muscles to lift your head and chin towards the ceiling.

•    Once you’ve mastered this technique, try lifting your legs off the ground or assuming a bicycle position with one leg bent and the other straight off of the ground.

4.    Squats. Body weight squats are a great exercise you can do anywhere and a fantastic way to learn proper technique. Start off your squat workouts by lowering yourself only a foot or so. Then work up to deeper squats as your muscles become accustomed to the exercise.

•    If you’re feeling a bit advanced and in need of a more intense workout, grab two 2-liter bottles filled with sand and try performing squats while holding one in each hand.

5.    Calf Raises. Calf raises can be done wherever there is a raised surface, such as a stairway. If you need balance, hold onto the railing. Facing the stairs, stand with only your toes on the stair and your feet extending out past it. Standing straight up, lower your body down below the level of the stair and then back up onto your toes.

•    Even though it seems as if this is an ankle exercise, it also works out your calf muscles.

•    The biggest emphasis on this exercise is the ability to go from an extreme negative position with ankle below toes to an extreme positive position, ankle fully raised.

With these five exercises, you have a full body workout. Remember to pay attention to your body and take it easy at first. Soreness is a good thing, but pain means you need to stop. Try these exercises out today and feel the healthy difference of fitness on the run.

Weight loss and weight control is a multi-faceted problem.

A good program includes diet, exercise and stress reduction techniques.

So here’s the million-dollar question:

“What’s the number one reason people do not work out?”

Is it lack of money? Lack of motivation? Perhaps they lack the ideal workout plan?

Nope. It’s TIME. Or rather the lack thereof.

“We know that 50 per cent of the population doesn’t [exercise] and the most commonly cited barrier to exercise is lack of time.” This quote comes from exercise researcher Martin Gibala, a kinesiology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Gibala put his theory to the test in a study that was published in the Journal of Physiology. In it Gibala compared a group who exercised “traditionally” — 90 to 120 minutes per day — with another group exercising far less: Only 20 minutes per day and only three days per week.

That’s a whopping one hour per week folks.

Did you know that Jon Benson’s “7 Minute Muscle” plan calls for only five 7-minute workouts with resistance training (weights or bodyweight) plus only 9 minutes cardio a few days per week?

And that actually works? Yeah… you bet it does.

If you do the math, that’s about an hour per week as well.

This is the “Level 1″ workout. There are three levels depending on your goals and exercise tolerance.

Find out more here — brief is best!

Back to Gibala’s study:

In just two weeks both groups showed improvement in both exercise performance and oxygen uptake. (Remember, fat burns in the presence of oxygen.)

The kicker is that both groups were almost identical in their improvement. Why? Because the brief exercise group trained with greater focus and more intensity — exactly how Jon suggests you train.

This is just one of dozens of studies that confirm the benefits of shorter but more intense workouts.

However, there is a catch: Train too hard and you will shut down your fat-burning furnace.

Your body perceives over-exertion done over an extended period of time as a sign of pursuit. It can trigger an ancient hormonal sequence that says, “I’m being chased by a tiger! Horde the fat!”

The body literally shuts down what it considers to be unnecessary activity in favor of self-preservation. And guess what? Burning off those hips and love handles is not a biological necessity.

You have to learn when to hit it hard AND when to rest and recover.

Finally, you have to put yourself into the proper mental state in order to see greater results in the shortest period of time.

Jon devotes an entire chapter to putting your mind into your muscle to make gains faster than ever before in “7 Minute Muscle.” You can read more here — brief is best!

Just remember these three key points:

1. Time is the greatest barrier to fitness.
2. Workouts can be short and very effective.
3. The body goes where the mind directs.

Until the next time, train smart.