How to Calm Those Jittery Nerves

There are so many reasons for people to feel jittery. In addition to winter weather which can add to this feeling of nervous restlessness, this time of year is notorious for post-holiday job layoffs and cutbacks which lead to an increasing fear of employment security.

The bills that loom after all that holiday spending increase worries about how quickly you can pay them off and not suffer the high interest fees added to the actual amount of what you purchased. The fact that it gets dark quicker means less opportunity to spend outside in the sunshine, which is an important source of Vitamin D as well as mental health, can lead to even more jittery feelings.

Spending time with family and friends can curb loneliness that many of us feel during winter, but it can also be the source of bad nerves. Being with family and friends too much can have similar adverse reactions experienced by not seeing them enough. Although it might seem like a lot of life’s troubles are out of our hands, here are some things we can control.

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·      Eat what’s in Season – The experts were serious when they said you are what you eat. Foods that aren’t in season tend to be loaded with preservatives to keep it fresh which a lot of times adds up to a lot of empty calories. If you aren’t sure what’s in season, check with your local farmer’s market or organic grocery store.

·      Drink Enough Water – Drinking enough water, about 8 glasses a day, is ideal to keep everything running smooth. It flushes toxins out of your body. It clears up your skin, and helps lift the fog caused by preservatives in our foods which gives us the power to think more clearly and make wiser decisions, which also reduces our jitters.

·      Exercise – It was probably one of your resolutions anyway. Even if you just take a walk around the block at lunchtime it’s better than nothing – and you get the added bonus of Vitamin D from all that sunshine. If you’re still jittery, try some kind of a gentle exercise, like meditative yoga or Pilates to help relax.

·      Get Enough Rest – Ask doctor how much sleep you need, & how you can take healthy steps to do it. Cut out caffeine, use blackout curtains, add white noise, and do whatever else it takes while maintaining a healthy lifestyle to get the minimum required sleep. Insomnia leaves us feeling jittery an on edge.

Sometimes an upcoming lifestyle change can cause us to feel jittery. Weddings, funerals, a big presentation at work, college exams, and similar things can add a lot of stress to our lives. This is the time to cut out caffeine and make sure you schedule some time for you in your day planner to avoid nerves getting the better of you. If you find that your jittery nerves are interfering in your life to the extremes then see your physician.

Working for a Living: Careers that make you Happier!

Do you whistle while you work? Careers that make you happier might have you whistling a happy tune.  But what makes people happy?

Careers come in all sizes and varieties. You may work in a job that does not require special degrees or experience, or you may have gone to school for many years to qualify for your job.

Is money the answer? In a word, no.  We all want a nice paycheck, with enough to meet our needs (and a little bit more… chocolate isn’t free, after all) but at the end of your day, money has less to do with actual job happiness than most people assume.

In statistical surveys, here are the factors that most often influence career happiness.  Which of these does your current career offer?

Top Factors That Increase Happiness in Your Job

• Non-traditional office environment.  Jobs that allow you to work in places other than a traditional corporate type office with desks and cubes rate much higher on the happiest careers scale.
• Interaction with people.  Even if you don’t consider yourself a traditional “people person” most of the happiest careers often give a lot of interaction with others.
• No “career ladder” to climb.  People who work in a corporate environment that is based on climbing that old ladder to success are often the least happy in their jobs, particularly if their advancement rests in the subjective opinions of others who rate and review them vs. their own actual achievement.
• Helping others.  Careers that give you the satisfaction of helping others – or even that just focus on others so your attention is on them rather than dwelling on your own issues - often rank high on the happiness scale.
• Control over your day.  Working at something in which you control more aspects of your day gives higher satisfaction.

So just what are some of the careers that rank high in making people happier?

• Doctors, nurses, and dentists.  These are all higher paying careers that require a lot of education and certifications but all of them also fit most of the factors for happiness in your job.  Added bonus? Career demand and higher paychecks for most of these jobs. For nurses, some of the happiest are operating room nurses.

• Hairdressers and Beauty Professionals.  These careers allow you to work in various environments, with people, and allow a flexible control to your workday and hours.  They also offer a wide range of pay.

• Childcare workers.  You have to love kids, obviously, but if you do, this allows you to focus on them in a fun environment.

• Creative careers.  Writers, artists, and other people who have particular creative skills can often freelance from home in their pajamas while doing something they love. Pitfalls here include finding personal and work balance since you often do them both in the same space, and regular paychecks to keep your, “I’ve paid the rent this month” feelings happy as well!

• Plumbers & Electricians.  You need training and specific skills, but these careers are in non-traditional offices and give you different people to interact with daily along with the mental stimulation of finding and fixing problems for others.

Careers that often have low levels of happiness? Administrative and secretarial staff, telephone customer service, inside sales representatives, and other jobs that require you to work in a traditional office for set hours at a desk and face job performance evaluations that determine advancement.

Happiness is in the eye of the beholder… no matter what your job is, what do you do to help yourself be happier?

• Be healthy & happy.  Eat well, exercise, get regular sleep and do things that are fun with friends and family. Keeping the non-work you happy and healthy can spill over into your work life too.

• Work to live – don’t live to work.  Keep work in perspective and don’t let it overbalance the rest of your world.

• See the positive, and be positive!  All jobs and careers have good and bad points; know the good ones and focus on those, fix what you can about the bad ones and let the rest go.

• Make a change.  If you are truly unhappy, evaluate your options for a change. It might take a while – schooling, training, waiting for a better job economy – but if you have a goal and a plan, it will help you feel more positive in the interim.

We all spend a lot of hours doing “work” so being happy and fulfilled while doing it can make your whole life more whistle-worthy!

For more information about All Natural Detox Solutions, visit our website.

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New Year, New You… What Are Your New Plans?

Happy New Year! There’s something so exciting about the start of a new year. Possibilities are endless and the feeling of fresh starts is in the air. So what kind of plans do you have for this shiny New Year?

Even if you don’t have official resolutions in mind, most of us have some thoughts on things we’d like to do better, do more of (or less of!) or try once the calendar turns to January.

And I don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that health is at the top of many lists! 

Can I give you some advice? Stay calm. I know, I know, you are super excited to start working out and eating right and losing the extra weight or toning up the chicken arms (sorry, that was totally not personal, just a guess about what some of you may think you see in the mirror) and I love that enthusiasm, but it can be dangerous.

While January is shiny and bright with possibilities, February can be fraught with failures.  If you jump in too fast with too many things on your “To Do” list for the New Year, you may just end up overwhelmed and give up on everything.

Some Ideas On Going Slow… But Still Getting There!

·                                             Losing Weight:

o   Be specific about your goals.

o   Be realistic about your goals.

o   Set small goals as part of a larger plan.

o   Celebrate small victories!

o   Don’t weigh yourself every day.

o   Don’t let one ugly moment in the candy bar isle cause you to give up. Each day is a new day; let yesterday’s chocolate frenzy go.

o   Consider your current life – if you live by a donut factory and love donuts, then work out a plan that gives you 1 donut a week so you can live with your plans and still lose weight.

·                                             Exercise:

o   Make an investment: new shoes, join a gym, hire a trainer, something that will be inspiring to commit.

o   Be realistic. Set goals that you can achieve and feel good about, then increase them if and when you are ready. Starting out at 3 hours a day 7 days a week in the gym is going to sandbag your efforts from the beginning!

o   Try something new!  Shake things up from last year with a fun new class or a challenging new routine of some kind. Just because exercise is already part of your life doesn’t mean it can’t be more rewarding… and if those rewards include a somewhat tighter behind? Awesome!

o   Never think, “I can’t” because almost all of us can. Talk to your doctor if you have special concerns and find out what is appropriate for you. Then do it!

Healthy Eating:

o   Find some simple ideas to try with new veggies, or healthy recipes.

o   Go experiment in the spice isle and see what new exotic flavors you can bring to a healthy meal to give it some zapp!

o   Have fun trying to eat a rainbow every day (and not just from the Lucky Charms box please.)

o   Try something new like being a vegetarian one day a week, or super low fat meals every Wednesday. Small changes can have surprising impact!

Your plans might be more in the mental health category, to start reading more books, going out to lunch with a special friend each week, or being kinder to those around you each day. Kudos! We all need a world full of kind, lunching-with-friends readers! 

Outside beauty? How about a new hair cut, or maybe even some highlights or color (guys too!) for a beautiful change of pace?

You don’t have to tell me what your plans for the New Year include, but I hope two things are on the list:

1.     Something that makes you feel good about who you are (you are wonderful!)

2.     Dropping by my blog regularly this year – I love having you visit!

Happy New Year!

Check us out: All Natural Detox Solutions

Resolutions - Great advice for a happy and healthier you

We are saying goodbye to one year, and preparing to welcome a new one with open arms! The tradition of making resolutions for the New Year is one most of us are familiar with and one many of us do each year.

What are you thinking about? Something about the end of one thing and the start of something new tends to energize us all, cleaning out the mental closets and vowing to be better citizens all the way around. Kinder, tidier, healthier, thinner, thriftier… there are a lot of very common themes that enter our lives. Health, finances, and relationships top most lists.

The key to resolutions in your own expectations. It is a great thing to want to improve, but you do yourself more harm than good if you set the bar so high it isn’t something realistically achievable, or you don’t give yourself a way to get there.

So be SMART. That’s right, with capital letters. Have you heard of a SMART goal?

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time bound

Specific resolutions are just that – you specify something instead of being vague or too broad. Mentioning things like “Who, What, Where, When, How” can hone in on something specific.

Measurable means you have given a way to measure yourself against the resolution in some way – number of times, or an amount, a percentage, etc.

Attainable means that it is something you have a desire to do and can move towards steadily. It tends to overlap “Realistic” in many ways – these 2 steps often combine when you are planning goals and resolutions.

Realistic is something that you are both willing and capable of doing. You might be willing to lose 50 lbs. in 5 days, but it is not something the human body is realistically capable of doing! 

Time bound is important and often overlaps “specific” and “measurable” by giving a frame of reference. Be careful here to balance it to attainable and realistic. If you want to lose 50 lbs. we’ve established that 5 days is neither realistic nor attainable even though it is specific and measurable. But if you said, “I want to lose 50 lbs. this year,” you have put a time frame on it that is realistic and attainable. If you want to be more aggressive with your motivation, then put a date on it. “I want to lose 50 lbs. by July 1^st” gives you a healthy 7 months in which to achieve it but also gives you the mental motivation of a bull’s eye on a date. And that goes back to being specific!  See how they all work together?

SMART Resolutions:

·      I will walk on the treadmill or around our neighborhood for 30 minutes, 3 times every week.

·      I will lose 50 lbs. by July 1^st.

·      I will hire a personal trainer for one session every week for 12 weeks.

·      I will put 10% of my income into savings every paycheck I get.

·      I will ask someone out on a date once a week every week until I find someone I would like to get serious with.

·      I will take my own 400-calorie lunch to work every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday each week to save money and eat fewer calories on those days.

·      I will do one unsolicited kind thing for someone, friend or stranger, every day.

Not so SMART:

·      I want to lose a bunch of weight and look like a human Barbie.

·      I will be a size 0 for my reunion next week, even though I’m a size 26 this week.

·      I will save money this year.

·      I’m getting married sometime.

·      I’m going to have rock hard abs.

·      People will just give me money so I can spend whatever I want.

·      I’ll be nice this year.

With all resolutions, keeping them SMART gives you a much better chance of moving past those first few weeks in January where all the gung-ho motivated individuals who swore they would be healthier, richer, smarter, kinder or get married have slipped and fallen from their lofty perch of ideals and are now sitting on a sofa they can’t afford eating fried food, smoking cigarettes, yelling swear words at the neighbors out the window, and all alone with nobody to love… don’t let this be you!

The mind is a powerful thing. Use it wisely – be SMART!  And may all of your resolutions motivate you towards a happier and healthier you! 

For information on losing weight naturally and safely, visit our website. All Natural Detox Solutions

What is your resolution for 2013?

Do you always make those resolutions and after a few days, your resolutions go down the drain?  If you answered yes, then you are like most of us.  Here is my advice to you: Don’t make a New Years resolution.  By making a resolution, you are placing too much pressure on yourself.

Here is my philosophy…when you are ready to make that resolution, you can do it at anytime of the year…it doesn’t need to be New Years.

When we set goals for ourselves during other times of the year, those goals seem more achievable.  Therefore, a success.

So, don’t beat yourself up.  Enjoy the holiday and make the resolution when you are good and ready.

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Exercise, Anyone? It’s NEVER Too Late To Start!

Ask any expert – exercise is great for you! It has so many health benefits, like controlling your weight, giving you increased energy, heart health, stamina, flexibility, higher metabolism, releasing endorphins to feel good mentally… the list could keep going.

If you are not currently a devotee of exercise, you might be feeling that you are too old, too overweight, too out of shape to start. Wrong!  It is never too late to start exercising. Even people with special health considerations can find ways to exercise!

(Please check with your doctor before beginning any new exercise routines.)

5 Tips for Starting To Exercise – No matter what point you are starting from!

1.     Start Slow.  A common error is to get fired up with exercise commitment and enthusiasm and over-do it in a big way the first time or two. This can lead to excessive soreness, actual injury, and feeling very overwhelmed with the belief you have to be an Olympian the very first week.  Gradually add exercise to your life. As you build up your fitness levels, you can increase the length of time, number of times a week, and intensity to be whatever works for you. Starting slow is a great way to ease into the idea.

2.     Low Impact.  Choosing ways to exercise that are low impact can really help you when you are starting out. Walking, swimming, and cycling can all give you a great workout for many muscle groups without putting you in a lot of injury risk.

3.     Simple. Don’t make it complicated. You don’t have to figure out sets and reps and machines, you can just find something you enjoy doing that keeps you active and moving more than before. As you get used to being more active, you can try new ways to exercise – or not! Stick with what you like and what works for you, because liking exercise is a huge factor in continuing to do it. And continuing to do it is the point!

4.     Be Creative. Exercise doesn’t have to mean “going to the gym.”  If you love to shop, walk each level of the mall an extra 15 minutes before hitting the stores.  Exercise is all about moving more, particularly when you are starting out. Try out some sports like golf or tennis. Take your dog for longer walks – you’ll both enjoy it! 

If your fitness or health won’t allow you to get out and about, look into chair exercising.  A fitness band (long, stretchy, latex band) can be a great exercise tool to work out various muscle groups, and is often used by physical therapists for regaining strength. It allows you to adjust the tension and resistance as your own fitness increases, and can be used sitting, standing, or even in bed lying down. It can help with strength, flexibility, and toning.

5.     Faster than you think! Just adding 30 minutes of moderate exercise three times a week can make a dramatic difference in your health. If that is too much for you to contemplate, don’t focus on that right now. Start with 10 minutes a day and then gradually increase your time and frequency as you being to enjoy it and see improvements in your fitness.  Any exercise you get beyond what you are currently doing is a good thing!

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Losing Weight After Your Baby is Born - Ideas and Strategies

If the arrival of your new little bundle of joy has left you with an unwanted bundle of extra pounds, don’t despair. With the right mindset, and the right strategy, you will be back to your ideal weight sooner than you think!

Babies are such a joy… but also require lots of energy, time, and work! Not many moms can instantly revert to what life was like prior to baby coming along, and that includes pre-pregnancy weight and often exercise routines as well.  You aren’t getting as much sleep, you may be breastfeeding, you are recovering from birth and your hormones are in flux.

Think about what you just went through; 9 months of growing a life, your body changing, giving birth.

1.  Be Patient.  You didn’t gain all the weight at once, and you won’t lose it all at once, either.   Set some realistic goals – maybe losing a pound a week, and 30 minutes of exercise 3 times a week – and focus on one day at a time.

2.  Baby Steps.  Your life is full of change, and it may be a while before a new routine is established that you can count on. So take small steps where you can to regain your health and lose extra pounds, and don’t spend energy lamenting what you can’t do right now.

3. Be Realistic.  A new baby is a lot of work. You need rest, you need exercise, you need healthy meals. Ask for help to make sure your own health doesn’t get pushed to the back of the line.

Here are some great ideas for helping you lose the extra baby weight (even if your “baby” is now a teenager… never to late to start!)

·      Plan regular meals. I know – I hear the hysterical laughter out there. The words “plan” and “regular” aren’t often associated with babies. But you can have salad ingredients washed, chopped and ready to go, microwave steam bags of veggies in your freezer, fresh fruit on hand, and some healthy dairy snacks like yogurt and string cheese to be sure you are always able to eat regular and healthy meals and snacks. That helps your energy levels and metabolism. Don’t forget the protein!

·      Be creative with exercise.  You may not be able to work out the same ways you used to (for a while anyway), but that doesn’t mean you can’t exercise!

o   As soon as you have clearance from your doctor, you can start taking long walks around your neighborhood with the baby.

o   Use the baby as part of your weight resistance! Pick him up and put him down to do waist bends, or arm exercise (keeping the baby safe and secure at all times of course!)

o   Go up and down your stairs more times than you have to just for the exercise, or make extra trips to and from the laundry room.

o   If your baby likes to be walked around for soothing, figure out a pattern in your home that makes a track, or walk around your driveway. Buy a pedometer to count your steps!

o   Use grocery shopping to do some speed walking through the store with the baby securely in a stroller, in a sling you are wearing, or in his baby seat secured to the cart.

o   Use the grocery bags to do some arm curls in and out of the car, and into the house.

o   The mall makes an ideal place to go walking with a baby; no time restraints, perfect for the stroller, a built-in track impervious to weather, and it gets you out of the house for some real life activity.

·      Watch your diet. Many of us indulge while pregnant, but now is the time to put that behind you (particularly since the extra pounds may be behind you as a reminder!) Cut out the high fat, high calorie treats and eat a rainbow of healthy colors each day. It will help you have more energy to care for the baby as a bonus to losing the extra pounds faster!

·      Find something you enjoy!  It is much easier to exercise regularly if you are doing things you enjoy, and the great news is there are a lot of “Mommy and Baby” classes out there for yoga, or stroller walking groups to give you socialization and support.

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Keep a positive outlook. You have a wonderful new baby, and you should celebrate the victories in life. Focus on the things you are doing right for your health, and the pounds you have lost already. Buy a new outfit that fits you as you are now, and one for the next level of weight loss that is closer to your goal.

No matter how many post-baby pounds you would like to lose, feel good about who you are right now!  Goals are a lot easier to reach when you have the right frame of mind.