Healthy and Hale

With recent studies declaring that sitting is bad for your health, period, those of us who make our living on our butts are in a heap of trouble. Could sitting really be as bad as smoking? Apparently it’s the truth. People who sit at a desk all day (like yours truly) are at an increased risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity, among other diseases.

What’s even scarier is that people who work sitting and still workout aren’t making a difference to their own health. Two hours of exercise a day wouldn’t even make a dent in 22 hours of sitting. So what the hell are we supposed to do? Quit our jobs and become bricklayers? I would so suck at that. Read more

RelaxWe have become the “pop a pill” society in which the first, and often only, solution to any problem is the latest designer drug. But what if you are not quite ready to become the latest victim, I mean customer, of the pharmaceutical mega empire of the modern age? There are several natural ways that you can tackle anxiety without the harmful side effects of anxiety medication. Read more

Another highly appropriate holiday centered around Valentine’s Day—National Condom Month! You already know that condoms can help prevent pregnancy and STDs if used properly; now test your Condom Quotient and see if you know the answers to the following condom trivia questions.

True or False? The United States sells 200 million condoms a year.

False—the number is much higher. Condom sales are over 500 million per year.

True or False? Condoms are electronically tested to make sure they are effective.

True. Every single condom goes through this test.

True or False? The best place to store condoms is next to where you’re going to have sex. Read more

Next week is Women’s Heart Week, a time to remember to take care of our tickers. Heart disease is one of the top killers in America. Here are 6 ways you can help celebrate this week.

6. Eat a Healthy Meal

And then eat another, and another… Make healthy eating a good habit. Just start with one today—replace your bacon and hash browns with some oatmeal. Or use one of these heart-healthy ideas. Whatever you do, just keep it up and you’ll be surprised at how quickly it becomes a part of your normal routine.

5. Move It, Move It Read more

When I was a little girl, I always knew something was wrong with me. I could never properly see the chalkboard, my dad would always wonder aloud why I couldn’t see what he could (he has better-than-perfect vision), and I would much rather read books close to my face than bike outdoors where things always appeared so blurry when not up close. I don’t know how I managed to get so far in elementary school without them, but I wasn’t diagnosed with nearsightedness and given my first pair of glasses until I was in the fifth grade. Read more

It's winter, which means it's cold and flu season. Ergo, at least one out of every eight of you readers are experiencing some kind of viral misery at this very moment. It also means that TV commercials and Internet banner ads are doing their best to sell you some kind of tincture, pill or spray that promises to make your life while sick a breeze, if not outright cure you. Sorry, folks. If there was a cure for the common cold it'd be in lockdown in some billionaire's heavily fortified mansion waiting for customers who are willing to pay a small fortune for the convenience. For the rest of us, battling that blasted rhinovirus requires some time, a little know-how and some positive thinking. Here are some tips to put you on the mend as fast as modern technology will allow. Read more

The term "kombucha" refers to the fermented tea which results from a kombucha mushroom floating in a jar of liquid.  It all begins with the "mother," which is also variously called the "starter," "culture," "mother of vinegar," "mushroom," or "SCOBY."  The last term, an acronym for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast, is the most scientifically accurate, if the least evocative.

The SCOBY looks like a fat pancake, and floats at the top of the jar.  It bears a physical resemblance to a big flat mushroom, which is why some people refer to kombucha as a mushroom.  But a mushroom is a single fungal entity, whereas the kombucha SCOBY is a collection of several different kinds of bacteria and yeast, all growing together in a spongy mat.
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AlcoholismA few months ago, the LA Times ran an article relating to a study about alcoholics. Specifically, the study focused on an alcoholic’s sense of emotions including how they reacted to faces and how easy it is for alcoholics to feel out other people’s emotions from facial expressions.

The results were unusual- alcoholics, even when they are not drinking, have a much harder time reading people’s emotions than everybody else. This isn’t due to any inherent flaw in an alcoholic, but a difference in the brain’s reaction in the area of hippocampus and the amygdala. Usually, these areas light up after seeing someone’s face, but this doesn’t necessarily happen in the typical alcoholic.
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Natural Medication Guide to Bipolar DisorderI’ve been taking medication for Bipolar I most of the time since I was diagnosed, but am always interested in looking into alternatives to a medication-only regime in hopes of lessening my side effects and maybe even lessening the damage to my internal organs. Recently, I read “The Natural Medicine Guide to Bipolar Disorder” by Stephanie Marohan.
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It’s very important to keep a healthy weight for a variety of reasons. It will save you money, help you find clothes that fit easier, sometimes allow you to live a longer life, save you from various health complications, etc. That said, the average size for women in this country is now a 14 and clothing departments have yet to reflect that. As times change, people change and evolve, and it’s important to change our thinking with that.

This doesn’t mean that we should abandon efforts to live a healthy lifestyle; on the contrary, we should all strive for a weight and lifestyle that allows us to be happy, healthy, and to function to the best to our abilities. However, this doesn’t mean that we should kill ourselves doing that—or that the media or other people should have the right to down us because of the way we look, either. Read more