Exercise Can Improve Your Ability to Parent

Everyone knows that getting regular exercise is important. Exercise helps you lose weight, tone muscle, and stay healthy. Did you know that exercise can actually improve your ability to parent your children? This revelation could give parents a whole new reason to start exercising. Stasia Bliss wrote an article at Liberty Voice about the many ways that exercise improves parenting. She notes that when you are exercising you are nourishing yourself. Personally, I see what she is suggesting as “me time”. When you are exercising, your entire focus is on yourself and what your body is doing. It is a … Continue reading

Reducing Holiday Stress

A fit lifestyle encompasses more than just eating right and exercise.  It includes getting enough sleep, cutting out bad habits such as smoking and other areas that affect your overall health. In fact, stress can wreak havoc on your body and may even contribute to weight gain.  With the holidays in full swing, its time to think about the impact that stress can have on your body. Medical experts say that this is the time of year in which people are prone to heart problems, such as heart attacks.  Stress can be physical, emotional, financial or a combination. Learning how … Continue reading

Exercise Each Days Keeps Illness Away

In my blogs, I talk a lot about the long-term health benefits to a fit lifestyle. I emphasize how fitness is about more than just losing weight; it is about preventing serious diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Well last week I read an article about immediate health benefits you can reap as a result of exercising. It was found that it could reduce the number of days you miss work because of respiratory illnesses, such as the common cold. Are you one of those people that always seem to catch a cold? Do you find that you … Continue reading

Men Exercise More Than Women

I recently read in an article that the recommended guidelines of getting in at least 30 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity at least four to five times a week is more likely to happen with men. Yes women, men are apparently doing better at meeting fitness guidelines. The importance of exercise cannot be understated. It can prevent more than just putting on extra weight. It can ward off serious health problems. One of the biggest concerns in this country is a condition called metabolic syndrome. It usually strikes individuals who are obese. It is a set … Continue reading

Benefits of Exercise When Pregnant

With three teenagers, having a baby is the last thing on my mind. But with so many women I know around me carrying a child, I was thinking about how differently I might have felt nearly 18, 15 and 13 years ago when I was pregnant if I had been more active. Exercise may be the last thing on earth you feel like doing when you are pregnant. You may be dealing with nausea and a lack of energy. You may feel big as a house. But many of the aches and pains that come along with pregnancy could be … Continue reading

Work Related Stress

Sometimes, having even a small, part time home – based business can cause a lot of stress. The stress could come from having too much work and too little time to do it, conflicts between work and personal commitments, the nature of the work itself, or other things. It is important that each home – based professional realize that the potential for work related stress exists so that they can identify it when it happens and cope with it appropriately. Having a plan for coping with work related stress is sometimes easier said than done. We may not be able … Continue reading

Is Your Brain Shrinking? A New Study Says Stress Can Do It

Okay, it wasn’t bad enough that we are only using a small percentage of our brains. Now a new study shows that stress may actually be shrinking our brains. Suffering stressful events, such as a divorce or break up, an accident or other stressful life situation will actually shrink the brain. Now this is another good reason to do that yoga. The study found that being stressed out by these types of stressful events led to less gray matter in a particular part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, and important little piece of your cranium that regulates emotions and … Continue reading

Parents Need to Make Time to Release Stress

Often, the things that are the most difficult to do end up being the most rewarding. Parenting fits this description. Children are a blessing, but they can also the biggest source of a parent’s stress. Parents of kids who have special needs experience high amounts of stress. It is very important for parents to make time to release that stress in a healthy, appropriate, way. Parents want to make sure that their children have everything they need. Parents of kids who have special needs frequently end up focusing so much of their attention on their child that they forget to … Continue reading

Combating Stress with Fitness

How do you handle stress? What do you turn to? While some may turn to junk food, the television or shopping…others are learning that the best way to not only combat stress but even help prevent it is through exercise. Stress management is something many of us could learn today. Life is coming at us in all directions and it can easily cause us to feel overwhelmed and sucked under. It can also lead to serious health problems. So learning how to combat stress is the best way to stay healthy. If you engage in regular physical activity, you are … Continue reading

Exercise With Your Kids

It is important to take care of yourself, even when you are a single parent, and that includes exercise. At the end of the day there is so much that has to be done, how can we make time for the things we would like to do but are not an urgent need? First, we have to remember that exercise is important, not only for our health but for our emotional well being too. I know that when I take the time to exercise, that half an hour to an hour that I feel guilty for, I’m a much more … Continue reading