Sunday Seven: Seven more ways to fine-tune your health

Filed under: Environment, Diets, Stress Reduction, Obesity, Sunday Seven

I promised two weeks ago when I wrote Sunday Seven: Seven ways to fine-tune your health that I'd be back to offer seven more grand ideas for optimizing your physical and emotional well-being. Here I am, with a mini-list of suggestions I gathered a while back from a newspaper article. If you don't already practice these strategies, then why not give them a try.

Eat breakfast

It's the most important meal of the day -- really. A breakfast high in complex carbohydrates and protein creates energy. Energy kick-starts metabolism and helps our bodies burn fat. We all know what fat does. It weighs us down and contributes to all kinds of health problems.

Get your sleep

Sleep restores our bodies. Sleep-deprived folks secrete more leptin, a protein hormone that increases appetite. Larger appetites increase food consumption. Increased food consumption spikes the risk of obesity. And so on. You know the drill.

Get your Omega-3

These are essential fatty acids and are -- you guessed it: essential to a healthy body. Our bodies don't produce these acids, though, so we must acquire them through diet. Fish is a good source of Omega-3. So are fish oil tablets.

Go with yoga

Yoga helps reduce anxiety, depression, and illness-causing stress. Need I say more?

Keep the dark chocolate

Cakes, cookies, and candies are not good for us, but dark chocolate seems to have some redeeming qualities. You don't need much -- a 1.6-ounce bar is enough -- to lower your blood pressure and fight cancer's free-radicals. Don't forget to burn the calories you eat with this sweet treat, though. That small 1.6 ounce bar contains about 210 calories.

Wear sunscreen

How many times have we written about this? Wear your sunscreen. All over your body. And make sure it contains one of these two active ingredients: zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. If zinc is way down on the list at one percent, it's not worthwhile.

Pick up the art of meditation

Now go find a quiet place and practice the art of meditation. Let go of unproductive thoughts and feel your stress level diminish. Meditation is said to be the process of attaining total awareness through the cessation of thought. So stop reading now -- and free your mind.

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[Source: The Cancer Blog]