The Gift of Life

Our body is made up of over seventy-five percent of water. That is why, we cannot live without water and we can only survive for three days without water. However, in our modern world, water has been replaced with sugar sweetened refreshments and soft drinks in most diets today.

Water is very important and our own personal need for water depends largely on weight, temperature, and exercise. Studies show that many of us do not get the water we need on a daily basis. We should keep in mind that drinking water regularly will replenish our body and keep it hydrated and functioning as it should be.

Here are some advices from the experts on drinking water:

1. We should not wait until we get thirsty before we drink water because by that time we have already lost more than two glasses of the body’s water supply. This means we should drink water regularly.

2. Don’t substitute your beverages with alcohol and caffeine for water. Alcohol and caffeine act as diuretic. You might feel and think that you’re getting more water through these beverages but the truth is you’re letting it go as fast as you consume it.

3. You need more water everytime you exercise. Your body loses quite a lot of water due to perspiration when you exercise. Hence, you need to drink two cups of water for each pound you lose due to exercise.

4. Your body loses water even when you go to sleep. Drink a glass or more of water before going to sleep so you’d wake up with your body functioning as it should be.

5. When you are sick, especially when you have a cold or the flu, your body dehydrates quickly and so you’ll need more water during these times to avoid dehydration.

6. Always keep a bottle of water with you and drink it throughout the day. Learn to drink water instead of drinking other beverages that don’t actually replenish the nutrients your body needs.

Keeping an embarrassing, difficult, or traumatic experience in the past can weigh down on you emotionally and may interfere with your healthy habits and social life. At times, it becomes a challenge for you to even make connections with people you care for.

Studies show that there is a link between health and secrets when they asked people to recall a deep secret and just keep it to themselves. When they were asked to think about physical challenges, they felt quite exhausted. For them the roads seemed longer and the hills looked steeper. They did not even feel like doing a physical favor, much like carrying groceries for a friend. This is because a big secret is like an albatross around your neck. It’s gonna weigh down your mind and compromise your health.

Here are some ways you could deal with those secrets and improve your health and social life:

1. Share your secrets to the right person. Choose to divulge sensitive information to a person you know will be supportive and be able to keep your secret. However, if your secret is about an extremely hurtful experience, a trained therapist or professional support could be the best way to work through them and heal.

2. Describe your secret by putting them into words. Share what happened, what you actually think about it, and how you it makes you feel. Don’t shun from negative emotions even if it may be risky because people who share only the positive side of a secret might not get the same health benefits.

3. Writing down your feelings and memories will help you gain perspective. It also frees you from feeling isolated. Set aside a few minutes of your time to write expressively about your big secret as this will release you from its grip. People who put their secrets into words feel more comfortable and connected with others and their minds actually worked better.

By the way, expressive writing is quite easy. You just need a quiet, private time and place and then write when you will not be disturbed, can relax, and go with the flow. Be it by computer or by hand, just start writing! Write for at least fifteen minutes everyday for three to four days. You don’t have to care about your grammar, spelling, or punctuation since this story is “for your eyes only.”

We can’t buy happiness as it is not for sale, right? Even kind-hearted people can be self-centered or antisocial, too. This usually happens when they don’t get what they want. Experts say that being unhappy is a sign of depression.

So, what really is the formula for real happiness? A lot of people say that being genuinely happy is being able to count on others and being generous in spirit, too. It is actually focusing on what you have and not on what you do not have. But how can you do that? Here are some ways of achieving real happiness:

1. Believe in yourself. If you’re comfortable with yourself and open to others, you develop friendship naturally. This will eventually help you build enough humor and compassion for yourself and enable you to reach out to other people who might be just like you: shy and unsure sometimes.

2. Hang out with happy friends. Happy people can spread their feel-good vides far and wide. So plan a lunch or a walk together with a friend. It could have far-reaching benefits for your mental health.

3. Trade your endless to-do list for some playtime. It will benefit your health, mood, mind, job and also your relationships. Take a mini-vacation from deadlines by enjoying a silly moment with your spouse, cooking up a new recipe, or hosting an impromptu gathering.

4. Count your blessings. You should be conscious of all your blessings and learn to appreciate them. At the same time turn your negative thoughts into positive thoughts and affirmation. Squash negativity.

5. Connect with your friends and loved ones by talking to people you care for or if they’re far away, you may keep in touch with them through email, video chat or phone calls. It’s one great way of coping with stress.

6. Volunteer by spending your spare time at a school, hospital, or any organization that needs your helping hand. This will allow you to bond with people who need your support and this will in turn define your purpose in life. Remember, being happy is not all about being high on life all the time but it is about slowing down to share your natural gifts with others.

7. Have an adventure. Time or money spent on doing something brings greater happiness than money spent on getting something. Also, spending time with Mother Nature will make you feel more enthusiastic, alert, energetic, and simply happy!

8. Turn on some music. Music that makes you feel good will increase your heart and breathing rates. It also makes your brain release dopamine, a feel-good neurotransmitter. Hence, it will give a boost to your mood and make you feel happy, less stressed and more energetic.

9. Meditate and pray. This can help to slow down breathing and brain activities, and reduce heart rate and blood pressure. When you pray or meditate, you’ll more likely be filled with positive emotions which eventually will lead to positive physiological responses throughout your body.

10. Be realistic. This means accepting the fact that life sometimes really does stink. But it is not there to discourage you. This little unhappiness is actually there to push you to work out those problems and think about what gives you happiness and will help you set new directions that could change your life for the better.

Life is a gift, right? So, it’s only best to take care of our lives to the best of our ability. Now, one way of taking care of it is by staying healthy. But how do we stay healthy? They say that being active can make us healthy and strong. Hence, I believe that apart from eating the right foods, it is advisable for all of us to workout regularly to stay fit.

So, how do we know if we’re eating the right kind of food? A person can consult with a dietitian or a health professional to really help plan a good diet program. It starts by evaluating a person’s lifestyle and his health before any program can be made. Generally, a good diet should include food from all the food groups which is made up by 2 things: carbohydrates and fats.

A lot of these carbohydrates come from oats, rice, potatoes and cereals. The best still come from vegetables and fruits since these have phytochemicals, enzymes and micronutrients that are essential for a healthy diet. Fat, on the other hand, should come from mono and poly saturated food sources rather than animal fats. Since fat contains more than double the number of calories in food, this should be taken in small quantities to gain or lose weight.

Another way to stay healthy is to give up some vices. Most people smoke and drink. Smoking has been proven to cause lung cancer and other diseases as well as complications for women giving birth. Excessive drinking has also shown to do the same.

If you don’t smoke, it is best that you stay away from people who do since studies have shown that nonsmokers are also at risk of developing cancer due to secondary smoke inhalation.

I want you to listen to your thoughts and tell me exactly what thoughts fill your head right now. Are these thoughts positive or negative? Do you think anyone who sees you would be able to guess what’s on your mind? Well, people might not be able to tell exactly what’s on your mind but they’ll have an idea of how you actually feel.

Thoughts are quite powerful and could affect your attitude in general. The kind of attitude you have reflects greatly on your appearance and also affects the people around you. Hence, a negative thought and attitude creates a sapping effect on other people and will make you look gloomy and sad. On the other hand, a positive thought and attitude attracts people.

The kind of attitude you have depends largely on you. If you choose to focus on negative things then you’re likely to have a negative attitude whilst if you choose to focus on positive things then you’ll surely have a positive attitude. A positive attitude promotes better health and enables a person to handle problems and stress better. A person with a positive attitude has more friends, is confident, satisfied, and loves himself the way he is. A person with a negative attitude, on the other hand, has a twofold drawback. He feels bad about himself and at the same time makes other people feel the same way.

It may be impossible to keep ourselves away from the negative things around us but there are things we can do to help us have a healthier outlook in life and think happy thoughts. Activities like watching funny movies, playing with children, or telling jokes with friends could fill us with positive energy which actually promotes a positive attitude.

Having a healthy, positive attitude is a great way to deal with the difficulties in life. After all, who does not have a problem in this world? There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad, gloomy, or angry but let us not dwell on these thoughts too much for it isn’t healthy at all. Let us focus on the good things in life and not lose hope. Studies show that a positive attitude actually delays aging, helps us develop a better stress coping mechanism, keeps us healthy, and creates a positive effect on other people.

Life is not sweet all the time and there are times when I feel like the world is just too heavy. However, when I look around and see other people live wonderful and fascinating lives, thoughts run into my mind. I begin to ask why they live such sweet life and how come they still manage to play around and laugh despite of their busy and stressful life. And then I figured, maybe I need to work on myself.

To be truly happy, I need to love myself and accept that I am not a perfect being. But behind such imperfections I should have a great ounce of courage to discover ways to improve and recover from those mistakes. At the same time, I ought to be contented with everything I have: my job, the way I look, my family, my friends, my car, the place I live in, and all the things I have now.

I should quit saying and claiming that life has never done any good to me as this will stop me from finding true happiness. I don’t need to have the best things in this world just to be happy. Happiness is about doing and making the best out of every single thing. It is learning to smile at my own mistakes and doing it better next time.

I found out that it is the willingness to stand up again and try that makes any person genuinely happy. It is learning to accept my own faults and my own self. Apart from this, I also need to learn to accept others because they say that for as long as I love and know how to love, I’ll receive love ten folds back. Learning to laugh and laughing over myself will make me genuinely happy for then I just don’t become happy but I also become free!

I am quite sure many of you are just like me. An overcommitted employee who sacrifices or throws away vacation days just to meet deadlines or finish projects. But are we truly aware of the negative health effects of being overworked and stressed. I recently found out that not taking a vacation could make your real age older and that chronic stress and over commitment to work have been linked to increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and mortality.

Whatever your reason or excuse is for not taking a vacation, throw them out of the window. In fact, you are not doing anyone any favor by not taking your time off. Not your employer, not your family, and not even yourself. Studies show that reducing stress and taking regular vacations, once or twice a year, can be vital to your physical and emotional well-being. Vacations also seem to have a positive impact on organizations and families, too.

Individuals and employees who take frequent vacations:

- Are less likely to be tensed, tired or depressed
- Have a reduced risk of mortality and heart disease
- Tend to spend more time with their family and are more satisfied with their marriages
- Report being more productive and more interested in their work when they return from time off

So stop thinking of vacation as a luxury you can live without and start thinking of it as a healthy habit. Besides, the easiest lifestyle change you could do is making vacation or time off a regular part of your life.

For a truly rejuvenating vacation, remember to leave all your work and worries behind. This means you should leave your cell phone, Blackberry, and laptop at home. Likewise, keep in mind that it usually takes two to three days for people to really relax and enjoy vacation time. So try to plan a vacation that is at least seven days since longer vacations come with greater psychological benefits than shorter ones.

You don’t need to break the bank to experience the health benefits of a vacation. Simply remember and follow these tips and improve your odds of returning home relaxed and recharged.

Possibly not… but it sure isn’t a fun job.

Whoah… back up I hear you say, what job?

Ah.. sorry.. let me explain then.

My brother has a job as a construction labourer. He is a nice guy, but didn’t really h ave benefit of a good education, or even an apprenticeship, so working in construction was pretty much all there was for him.

For the last year, he has pretty much been stuck with one of least loved jobs on the project - the man ‘driving’ the plate whacker.

WTF is a plate whacker? I hear you interject.

It has many names, it is the ‘thing’ that ‘whacks’ the ground flat (see some here: plate compactors)

Why is using one a bad job?

Well, to start with, you are usually outside most of the time - in all weathers - which isn’t fun.
But more worryingly, you are likely to suffer from ‘Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome’, ’sometimes called vibration white finger’. If you are lucky, your bosses will have purchased the latest, and most user-friendly, plate whackers, but my brother wasn’t so lucky - his machine was old and rickety and his bosses were pretty much ignorant of his health.

So yes, he now has..
* damaged blood vessels,
* loss of feeling
* possible bone damage
* tingling and numbness
* lack of strength in his grip

We hope some of these will repair over time, but he is now unable to work, and that isn’t making things better for sure.

Was it the worst job in the world? Probably not - but it wasn’t pleasant, and it is hard to keep a positive outlook when that is all you have as an option.

Hello Internet

I haven’t really used a blog before, and this is my first post - so be kind :)

I am 35, going on 36, and feeling older each and every day, and this blog is very much going to be a personal online diary covering the one thing that means the most to me, and should do to you to…. life…. (not me BTW ===>)

I am not going to go all religious on you - in fact, I believe that religion is a very private thing and should stay that way. In fact, I sincerely hope that you will never be able to tell whether I am religious or not just by reading my posts (Go on, try and guess).

So, as the name of my blog suggests, life IS a gift - it doesn’t matter who the giver is - think of it as an anonymous donation of £1M - no need to question who gave it you right? As long as it is legal, just use it or lose it (yes, its a cliche - and yes, I know I should avoid cliches like the plague).

Anyway, if you are reading this, and like what you read, why not comment…. in fact, even if you hate it, comment anyway.

Al