4 Ways To Improve Your Daily Walk

If a daily walk is part of your exercise regimen, then you’re already ahead of the curve! But are you walking the right way?

Pick Up The Pace

The type of walking that I recommend for getting the maximum health benefits, is brisk walking.  That means a pace of around three to five miles per hour ideally (a 12- to 20-minute per mile pace).  Judging by your breathing, you should walk at a pace that’s intense enough so that you can carry on a conversation, but you should not be able to sing.  If you can sing a song, stop singing and pick up your pace.

Break It Up

Of course, to get the same distance walking as running takes nearly twice as long.  Since walking in several short sessions has the same or greater benefits as one long walk each day, one great strategy is to break your daily walks up into several sessions.

Walk Before And After Meals

Walking in the morning before breakfast is my favorite way to start the day, rain or shine, light or dark.  I like to think of a morning walk as something that takes no net time, because even if I’m investing 20 or 30 minutes walking, my productivity boost over the next two to three hours makes up for the time spent walking.

The time after lunch and dinner is also a prime opportunity to add some walking to your schedule.  Walking after a meal helps reduce the spike in triglycerides that typically follows a high-fat meal, according to a study performed in Kyoto, Japan.

Take It Outside

While all walking seems to show benefits, I believe that walking outside, especially in green spaces like parks and trails, has additional benefits.  Trees clear the air, and the air even just a few meters inside a park can be cleaner than the air in the busy streets around its borders.  The sight of trees and nature can also clear your mind.

What do you do to make your daily walks more interesting?

 

 

Detox Your Brain Tonight

Ever heard of a brain detox? Toxins can build up in the brain at an alarming rate.  Brain cells have a very taxing function.  So much so, in fact, that it appears that they are not able to do their work and clear out the toxic by-products of their metabolism at the same time.  This is different than most other cells in our bodies.  Our heart cells, for example, need to keep operating without a break every second for our entire lives. What the very latest research seems to show about brain functioning is that brain cells have such a tough job of that they are constantly running in overdrive mode just by being conscious.  The only way to really clear out the toxins is for the brain to power down into sleep mode…or detox mode.

While we’re awake, our brain cells accumulate various metabolic by-products such as the inhibitory neurotransmitter adenosine, which diminishes our mental focus.  New research shows that during sleep, some brain cells shrink, opening up the interstitial space between cells by about 60 percent so that cerebrospinal fluid can wash away neurotoxins and other by-products of brain cell function that accumulate while we are awake.

An entire system of plumbing for this has only recently been discovered, in part because it nearly disappears while we are awake.  This is the primary way that the brain detoxes, and it works ten times better while we sleep than it does when we’re awake.  In addition to adenosine and other metabolites, this system has been shown to clear out beta-amyloid, a neurotoxin associated with Alzheimer’s disease.  One understanding of diseases like Alzheimer’s is that it they are accompanied by an accumulation of beta-amyloid into plaques around brain cells, so it is quite possible that “rinsing away” the neurotoxins through more or better sleep could play a beneficial role.

So, one vital function of sleep is to help the brain detox. It detoxifies like an oil change for your car, and it has similar consequences for going too long between treatments.

What do you do to get a good night’s sleep?

 

 

The Power Of Going Barefoot

How often do you go barefoot? Our ancestors rarely wore shoes. In many parts of the world today, people do not wear shoes at all.  We have come to associate being barefoot with poverty or counter-culture. But there’s some surprising new thinking about the value of going barefoot over constantly wearing shoes.

Introducing some barefoot time to your day can strengthen your feet, improve conditions like plantar fasciitis and, in my experience, reduce pain in the neck, back, and knee.

Of course, for feet that have spent most of their lifetime wrapped in protective shoes, barefoot walking can be quite an adjustment.  The barefoot- or minimalist-style athletic shoes that reduce the amount of rubber between your foot and the ground brings some of the benefits of real barefoot walking, such as reduced joint pain and stronger feet.

Wearing shoes also disconnects us from the earth’s natural grounding current. It’s an extremely low electrical current that grounds the electrical charge of all things and beings connected to it.  But wearing shoes with non-conductive soles has cut us off from this natural grounding current.

Being disconnected from the earth’s natural grounding current and associated stream of free electrons is one cause of the free radicals in our bodies.  Free radicals are unstable molecules that cause accelerated cell aging. They have a positive electrical charge that is neutralized by the low but constant negative electrical charge of the earth. This counteracts the free radicals’ negative impacts on our health.  Contact with the earth’s electrical grounding may also help maintain an optimum pH level within our bodies.  And by reducing the free radicals, it appears that oxidative stress is reduced and healing is improved.

So, go for walks several times a day. Walk with a friend, when possible. And slip off your shoes for part of the walk so your feet can move, too.

How do you stay active?

 

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

How much sleep we actually need has been the topic of much debate. So, are you getting enough sleep? Sleeping less than eight hours per night appears to trigger some powerful reactions in our bodies.  Recent studies have found that getting just six hours of sleep per night for two weeks makes a person as impaired as someone who has gone for 24 hours without sleep!

Getting six hours of sleep is clearly not enough. But what about seven?  Researchers have looked at that, too.  And while they find less impairment than in those who get six hours of sleep, even that extra hour isn’t enough sleep to let someone operate at optimum performance.  According to one study, each day they get just seven hours of sleep per night, people become less and less able to perform a standard test of alertness and mental focus.

According to recent studies by the National Sleep Foundation, Americans average 6.9 hours of sleep per night on weeknights.  One study in Michigan found that of their random sampling, people got an average of 6.7 hours per night during the workweek and 7.4 hours per night on weekends. This would mean that the people surveyed really never got enough sleep.  They were chronically sleep deprived on average.  Which means that for every person in the study who was getting the proper eight hours, someone else was severely deprived.  However, after two weeks of sleep deprivation, the subjects of these studies report only being “slightly sleepy,” regardless of the fact that their performance scores had dropped to their lowest levels during the study. In other words, we are very poor judges of just how much our sleep deprivation is affecting our function.

Our current level of sleep deprivation is a relatively new phenomenon for humans.  It’s a product of modern life that has rapidly accelerated over just the last few years as new technology has become commonplace. Putting effort into getting a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep will work wonders for your health. Sleep tight!

 

The #1 Habit Fit People Share To Lose Weight

If your goal is to lose weight, then tracking your progress is just as important as listing your tasks.  For example, if you are following an exercise program to reach a fitness goal, you’ll find that writing down your progress on each exercise day helps keep you more motivated.  For people trying to lose weight, simply writing down everything you eat has been shown to be a highly effective weight loss tool, even if you’re not actually dieting!

Several studies have shown that when a person writes down the foods they eat regularly, they lose weight at a higher amount than those who don’t keep a food diary.  A study performed at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research and published in 2008 found that the more the subjects tracked the foods they ate, the more weight they lost. While this is a great tip if you want to lose some weight, I mention it here because I think it applies to the progress improvement you can see in any goal you undertake by writing down your actions and accomplishments.  Weight loss is just a convenient way to measure the effect of this over long periods of time for challenging goals.

Journaling your progress keeps it in the forefront of your mind.  In the case of food, people who track their food consumption in a food journal are more aware of the food they eat.  This awareness makes it easier to maintain controls during tough times and feel the reward of sticking with their goals.  Tracking exercise progress has a similar effect, in my experience.

People have long debated whether it’s better to measure progress frequently or occasionally.  Some believe that it’s better not to focus too much on tracking progress, because it could make people obsessive (especially about goals like weight loss).  Others argue that consistent monitoring is more effective, because it maintains awareness.  In fact, research in this field indicates that frequent monitoring is far more effective than occasional monitoring!

 

The Positive Side of Being Selfish

Being “selfish” isn’t always a bad thing, especially when you are practicing “generous selfishness”. I’ll explain this concept in a moment, but first remember that all progress comes at a price.  You will need to make some decisions and stick with them if you expect to see changes.  That price is often in time or commitment.  The rewards for living your best life are immense, so I encourage you to figure out the price.

Change is rarely comfortable.  Even positive decisions—such as exchanging four hours of daily TV-watching for extra sleep, exercise, and social time—may still feel hard to actually do in the beginning or on challenging days.  Setting goals and envisioning the rewards can help you stay focused.

To live your best life, you will have to practice what I call “generous selfishness” and protect your health.  Being selfish in this way does not mean being anti-social or petty with your time.  By selfishly guarding the time and priority you give your health, fitness, nutrition, and sleep, you will be generously protecting those who love you and rely on you.  Maybe you are providing for a family.  Maybe you have children or parents who rely on your care.  Maybe you just have people who love you and want to spend time with you.  Your ability to do all of these things depends on your health.

When you dedicate time, energy, and focus to your health and well-being, this is both selfish and generous.  It’s selfish because you aren’t necessarily helping others while you are out on your walk or taking extra time to prepare a healthy meal with fresh ingredients.  But it’s generous when you look at the big picture: Staying healthier lets you be there for others longer, molds you into better shape mentally and physically, usually puts you in a better mood, and maybe even makes you a better provider for you and your family.

The #1 Way To Get Better Sleep Tonight

To get better sleep, we need to promote melatonin production.  Daylight signals our bodies that it is time to stay awake.  Even small amounts will do this, so it’s important to minimize these.   It takes at least an hour of dim light for melatonin levels to begin to rise.  Dimming your lights is very helpful since not only does it lower the level of the light in a room, but with incandescent bulbs, dimming also shifts the light toward the orange end of the spectrum.  If you want to read and still be able to sleep, a reading light with a small incandescent bulb may still be a good solution.  The thing you absolutely want to avoid is placing the backlit screen of a tablet or similar computer right up to your face where all that light completely halts melatonin production.

Once you go to sleep, your bedroom should be as dark as possible.  Even the light from a small clock can interfere with melatonin production and reduce the quality of your sleep.  If you can’t completely darken your room, an eye mask to block all light can be extremely beneficial at increasing your quality of sleep.

Starting at least an hour before bed, but even earlier, if possible, lower the lights in your house.  Turn off lights in rooms where you don’t need them or put them on dimmer.  Light chores like cleaning up the dishes are fine.  Reading under a low light is excellent.  This hour before bed should be a mini digital-detox.  Avoid bright lights, TV and computer screens close to your face.

On my computer, I use a free program called F.Lux that matches the color spectrum of the screen to the outside natural light shades and Apple smartphones and tablets now have a brightness setting called “Night Shift” that eliminates much of the blue spectrum, both of which make a tremendous difference for me on those nights I have to work late and then try to get right to sleep.

What do you do to get a better night’s sleep?

 

Probiotics Beyond Yogurt

There are countless benefits to adding probiotics to your diet. While most people think yogurt is the best source of probiotics, there is much more to the story.

Intestinal microflora has long been used to improve health.  Most people’s understanding of microflora starts and ends with yogurt.  Yogurt is an ancient food present in numerous cultures around the world.  Originally developed to preserve milk in the days before refrigeration, it appears to have been used medicinally to cure diarrhea since the 16th century and probably much longer.

Yogurt is traditionally milk fermented with a variety of bacteria.  The manufacturers think it sounds more appealing to call them “cultures,” but it means the same thing.  Some of these bacteria include Lactobacillus and Bifidus species and Streptococcus thermophilus.  If these sound similar to some of the enteric bacteria that colonize our intestines during infancy, that’s because they are.   Supplementing with these probiotic yogurt bacteria can recharge our intestinal flora and push out harmful bacteria that may have taken up residence there.  In the rainforest metaphor, eating yogurt and other probiotics is analogous to planting new seeds for the kinds of trees that we want to grow.

Yogurt typically contains just a few strains of probiotics, and they are usually listed on the package.  However, our gut flora consists of around 500 strains (some researchers believe the number is closer to 1,000) and the majority of these strains cannot be cultured outside the body. It seems that yogurt and a few other probiotics might help recharge a very small part of our microbiome, but just a part.  We need to take good care of the rest of our gut flora because it is not as easily recharged.  Furthermore, most yogurt does not contain a high enough level of probiotics to do much good and the typical yogurt cup is loaded with more sugar than a Twinkie so we need to look beyond yogurt for balancing the gut microbiome.

 

The Best Detox Is Digital.

I strongly recommend  a digital detox- a vacation from cell phones, social media, websites, twitter, TV, and any other form of digital entertainment.  If this sounds like a shocking idea—something impossible to actually do – then that’s a great indication that you may desperately need one.  Ironically, if you feel that going without all these devices for a week would be a piece of cake, then you may not need a digital detox.  This practice is gaining popularity in crowded and stressed-out cities like Tokyo and Korea, where “forest bathing” (spending time in forests) is actually prescribed by some psychologists for their patients. And the research is building that social media overload has negative effects on mental health.

Try it for a few days over a weekend, then for a week.  Stop using the Internet, social media, and the rest.  (You may want to post a status message saying that you’re taking a week off from the Internet so people don’t worry that you were abducted.)  If your work requires email access, limit it to one session of reading and answering emails per day.

The first thing you’re likely to learn is how hard this can be.  You may initially get a new appreciation for how much you were hooked on digital device stimulation.  However, after a week of adjusting to an existence less fraught with constant pings and buzzes, many people report feeling less distracted and more productive.

After you’ve completed a digital detox, you may want to keep up your regained focus with a weekly digital day off.  A digital day off is a one-day mini-digital detox without any devices or email.  Saturdays and Sundays make terrific digital days off.  This lets you set aside the constant hum of digital life to focus on what is really around you.  For me, a digital day off each week lets me retune my focus.