Rosemary Is Good For Your Health

Rosemary is a herb that is used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. The rosemary plant is native to the Mediterranean area, but it is found in other regions such as France and even as far south as South Africa. The plant itself is an evergreen and has leaves which resemble the needles of an evergreen tree. The rosemary plant is has leaves that are considered to be thick and leather-like in appearance, and they are accented with blooms which can be blue, white, pink or purple in color.

Another feature of the rosemary plant is its very aromatic smell and the wooly white substance that can be found on the underside of the leaves. The rosemary plant can reach heights of over five feet. The name rosemary is Latin for

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6 Heart Health Myths and Facts: Is Your Heart in Danger?

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Obama Defends Health Care Law, Offers Fixes

Jan. 25, 2011 -- President Barack Obama defended the health reform law against Republican attacks in his State of the Union address Tuesday, offering to tweak the law but refusing efforts to gut it.

The president’s speech came less than a week after the newly empowered GOP House majority voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It was seen as a largely symbolic act, meant more to fulfill campaign promises than to actually make substantive changes to the law.

Still, voters remain largely negative about the law in polls, particularly the part that requires most Americans to have health insurance by 2014. Obama used part of his prime-time speech to beat back the repeal effort while still signaling that he is open to altering the law.

5 Steps To Help Baby Sleep Well

Mark Twain once said, “I have never taken exercise except sleeping and resting.” While this is true for most of us (heh), it is especially true for sleeping babies. Sleep produces 3x the growth hormones for a baby's tiny body!!!

For new mothers, there is nothing more comforting than watching the baby sleeping. Not just because she doesn't have to put up with the crying --- it also creates relief for the mom, fully knowing that a sleeping baby equates to someone capable enough to provide comfort to a tiny newborn baby --- she's doing something right.

To help you get from fully awake baby to comfortable sleeping baby, here are a couple of tips:

1. Create a Bedtime Routine. Filipino babies clock in among lowest in sleep time compared to other Asian/Caucasian babies. Setting a nightly routine should help the baby realize that it's about time to sleep.

2. A Clean Baby = Baby Sleeping. A warm gentle bath right before sleep should help the sleeping baby from getting itchy at night, causing night time awakening.

3. A Relaxed Baby = Baby Sleeping. After drying the baby after the bath, lay the baby down on a flat surface and start giving downward strokes, from the chest, the arms, the legs. Touch Therapy has been proven to contribute to a baby's healthy growth.

4. A Dry Baby = Baby Sleeping. Put on a comfy diaper or lampin, some nice soft clean clothes on the baby. If the baby is dry during sleep, it may help prolong sleeping time.

5. Sing a lullaby, rock the baby, gentle/quiet time. Bond with the baby! Introduce bedtime stories or lullabies to help put the baby at ease just right before sleeping. Rock the baby gently to maybe help get to sleep. This may vary from parent-to-parent (or baby-to-baby) but overall, this 5th step is for getting the baby to go to sleep.

Follow these steps and notice how much longer you could watch the baby sleeping. Maybe even take pictures (without flash!) to keep for memories.

How The First 40 Years Of Life Will Impact The Rest Of Your Years

Life doesn’t end when you turn 40 --- unless you want to think of it that way.

There are things in your life that you will learn the hardest possible way --- and you’ll carry that for the rest of your life. It starts from the way you were raised … ‘til the day you pass. Here are a couple of ways on how your first 40 years of life will impact the rest of your years.

Better, faster, stronger – You know better --- less and less things excite you. You tend to see the patterns of relationships, businesses. It’s like gaining a brand new sensory organ. It should help you avoid common pitfalls, or ‘rookie mistakes.’ The downside is … you’d have to find new things that you won’t be able to predict --- a life of knowing is a life less exciting. Hence the life goal of looking for new things to feel passionate about. As you know better, do better.

Honest with yourself – You might’ve gone through a “hippie” phase, an 80’s phase, the 90’s attitude phase and the 00’s technological upgrade --- but you know yourself better now. In your teens, trying to fit in was the reason for undergoing phases, and it might’ve affected how you are now as a person, but in your 40s? It’s like you’ve made it --- you’ve got nothing more to prove. You tend to find out who you really are. Being honest with yourself means you could then become honest to the people around you --- especially the lucky ones who stick even after finding your ‘true’ self.

Fearless – You’re a champ! Monsters under the bed might’ve frightened you as a 10-year old, but you know that it isn’t true. Your child getting into a squabble with other kids? That used to petrify you, but not anymore! (Not that it’s a good thing to get used to kids getting sent to the principal’s office) You can try hang-gliding, or rock climbing without it scaring you anymore.

Faith – No matter your religious belief, you’re gonna have to raise your children on a foundation of faith. If you lived a moderately religious life, it’ll teach you to be grateful for what you have in the present. Nothing wrong about being grateful, right?

Become dependable – Growing up, you may have depended on people to help you on several occasions --- it will have taught you the importance of helping and being helped. Now that you’ve made something of yourself, it’s time to give back and be dependable to those who look up to you.

Effects Of Stress In The Body

Stress is the body’s warning system that it can’t cope. Much like a 486x running today’s computer applications … the body just can’t deal with the stress.

Stress and the mind.

A hard day at work, your kids getting in trouble at school, or just a bad encounter at a restaurant can cause stress. When the threats --- real or perceived --- overcomes a person, stress becomes harmful to the body. Stress starts in the mind --- when the mind thinks that there is a threat nearby, it starts firing signals down to the adrenal glands to produce adrenalin and cortisol.

Down to the body.

The rapid surge of adrenalin increases the heart rate, blood pressure and energy. The cortisols, at the same time, increases blood glucose levels. To further complicate the situation, the muscles and the liver releases glucose from the muscles and the liver. Meanwhile, the pancreas releases insulin and glycogen to regulate glucose.

In the long run.

All of the energy required to release the hormones and glucose (and both regulate them) are taken from the body’s main activity processes --- the ones used to maintain and regulate balance in digestion, for example. Imagine that everytime a person undergoes a stress episode, the body releasing hormones THAT WEREN’T NECESSARY in the first place.

A continued lifestyle of constantly stressing over nothing will take its toll on the body. The muscles will become tired and the organs will wear out eventually. Life won’t be the same --- the worn-out organs will make way for serious diseases in the long run.

During your 40s, a continued lifestyle of stress will have the most impact, since this is the time when you want to be in tip-top shape. Stress is something to avoid if you want a healthy heart lifestyle. Imagine what the heart undergoes from constantly trying to keep up with perceived stress, or over things that don’t require to stress over for. It may even lead up to heart diseases, real, not perceived.

Combine that with a family history of disease, lack of exercise, a pending mid-life crisis and several bad habits you might’ve picked up along the way --- and it might just go off in one of the worst ways possible. Certifiably unhealthy.

This might be, or any other instances before it, the best time to give stress a more in-depth looking into --- its lethal.

Want to talk about your back ache or memory gap and improve them? go and join this online forum at over40andfighting.com

Keeping Your Eyes Healthy

Don’t watch TV too close! Don’t read on with a dim light! Don’t do this, don’t do that. Does it remind you of your mother when you where young? Actually, for people who didn’t follow that, they might be suffering from poor eyesight now but, that’s not it. You don’t need a research to show you that one sign of ageing is having a deteriorating eyesight.

Sad but, we need all we can do to prevent our eyesight from deteriorating. The question is, how?

4 easy things to do to help you from having a poor eyesight.

1. Go to the doctor for regular check-up and follow their advice. Ask for 2^nd and 3^rd opinion if they suggest an open surgery. Laser treatment is another popular way to improve eyesight without having to wear those thick-as-a-vault lenses.

2. Eat veggies. Your mother would say, “Eat carrots! It has beta-carotene and vitamin A that improves your eyesight.” Although that is not the only determining factor for having good eyesight, eating vegetables actually helps in more than maintaining your eyesight.

3. Take in vitamins and minerals. It’s the fastest way if you hate eating vegetables like I do. Most kids also don’t love them but we force them to. You can always have them take in vitamins to help fill-in the lacking vitamins they need in their body. This also goes to us, older people. An ounce of prevention is better than cure. We don’t want to spend our savings in the hospital right? Start investing in those vitamins right now!

4. Reduce eye strain. Computers and big screen plasma LCD’s are in nowadays. Try decreasing the number of hours spent staring at those huge gadgets. Straining your eyes will of course just hasten your way to blurry-eye-ville.

So now, you understand why your mother nags you about those stuffs while you are watching your favorite tv show! Don’t wonder why now, your kids won’t listen to you. They won’t understand it unless they get to our age.

If you want to ask and discuss about your health, go to this forum: http://over40andfighting.com/theworld.asp

Habits that put you at risk

Here are so-called lifestyle choices/habits that are dangerous to your health.  But you knew that already, so here’s what’s topping that list.

It could be one of those bad habits you might’ve picked up from youth, or something that you’re taking too much of, without realizing that it’s doing the body harm.  If you are guilty of any of these, and find that it’s too hard to quit, remember, health is a commitment not only to yourself, but for your family.

Smoking.  Think about it, other than probably making you look cool when you were younger, what else is smoking good for?  Every time you puff on a cigarette, you are inhaling about 400 different toxic substances, most of them carcinogens.  Cigarettes are just bad for your heart and lungs --- unless you want an intervention, give yourself and your family the gift of quitting the habit. 

Alcohol.  Alcohol is a twisted wonder --- enough of it will provide you with pleasure, but abuse the drink, and you’d have a lifetime of troubles.  While it’s been proven that a moderate amount of alcohol is actually good for you, but remember, alcohol is a depressant; however fun a night of drinking is, there’s no guarantee that a smile will still be on your face once it catches up in the morning.  Excessive drinking also puts you at risk for several types of cancer, heart damage, high blood pressure and heart damage.

No exercise and improper eating habits.  Lack of activity and an unbalanced diet is a killer.  If you’re always substituting junk foods for proper meals, combined with hours in front of the computer, you are more likely to become overweight.  Eating mostly processed foods may lead to type-2 diabetes, and having more weight puts you at risk of many types of cancer and heart disease.

Breaking the rules you make.  By far, this is the most important habit that’s affecting your health today.  Every time you say, “just another bite/sip/stick,” you’re putting your life at risk once again.  The first step of any life-change is acknowledging what areas in your life you want to change.  Next is coming up with the proper regimen, remembering to set aside time for exercise and planning your meals.  The third is sticking with it.  But if you keep telling yourself to do better next time, then what’s the point?  Sticking with a lifestyle choice can give you something that lasts longer than the cheap thrills of a bad habit.