Green Tea Benefits Athletes?

A study in Japan Studies found that mice given green-tea extract for 10 weeks could swim up to 24 percent longer than a control group. Interesting. So could it be that along with green tea's beneficial antioxidants, this wonderful beverage may also increase athletic endurance?

Studies on people sill need to be done, but the researchers suggest that drinking four daily cups of green tea might boost endurance in athletes.

Healthy Broccoli Salad

Yum! Here is a heart-healthy recipe for a broccoli salad that is delicious, easy, and oh-so-healthy for you!

What You Will Need:

2 heads fresh broccoli
1 red onion
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup sliced almonds
1 cup light mayonnaise
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

To Make:
Cut the broccoli into bite-size pieces and cut the onion into thin bite-size slices. Combine with the bacon, raisins, your favorite nuts and mix well.

To prepare the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, sugar and vinegar together until smooth. Stir into the salad, let chill and serve.

A Berry Tasty Way To Improve Women's Bones

Can eating fruit help women's bones be stronger?

According to a study at the University of Ulster in Ireland, the more fruit a teenage girl eats, the stronger her bones become.

Researchers evaluated the diets and bone density of 1,345 adolescents in Ireland between the ages of 12 and 15. The strongest correlation appeared in 12-year-old girls who ate the most fruit (7 daily ounces or more). Compared to moderate fruit consumers, these girls had higher bone-mineral densities, an indicator of bone strength. The researchers speculate that fruit may help to buffer the normal acids in a diet. In the absence of fruit, the acids may cause calcium to be released from the bones as a substitute buffer, resulting in a weaker skeleton.

Interesting. More reason than ever to eat penty of fruits everyday!

source

Exercise To Help Beat Stress

Feeling stressed? Get moving and sweat the stress out!

There are many studies that support the idea that exercise has a powerful impact on mood. A recent article in the journal Nature Medicine reported that cardiovascular activity stimulates a specific area in the brain that controls mood and stress.

And people who suffer from panic attacks who took a 30-minute walk when they felt on the verge of a meltdown were twice as likely to dodge an anxiety episode as those who rested quietly.

Researchers at the University of Georgia at Athens have also found that the more workouts people managed to fit in each week, the more energetic they felt.

How much exercise and sweat does it take to de-stress your mind? For each person, it most likely will vary, but a study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas suggests that walking as little as 2 miles a day, every day, can help relieve your stress and improve your mood.

So the next time you are feeling stressed out, get up, get out, and move your body.

Sweat away your stress, and improve your mind and health!

Sun Protection For Summer Fun

Sumer is here! Kids are out of school, and summer activities are on the board! From camping to surfing, summer means outdoor activities for parents and kids alike.

From baseball games to beach parties, there is a lot of exposure to the sun's rays in summer time and therefore extra precautions need to be taken.

Whether your favorite summer past time is bird watching or baseball, the sun's ultra violet rays can be very damaging to our skin, but also to our eyes.

Over-exposure to the sun's UV rays has been linked to a number of eye problems, such as age-related cataracts, pterygium, photokeratitis and corneal degenerative changes, according to the American Optometric Association.

But protecting our eyes can be done simply by wearing a brimmed hat and wearing Sunglasses that properly absorb UV radiation.

The AOA offers the following advice about sunglasses:

Wear protective eyewear any time your eyes are exposed to UV radiation, even on cloudy days and during the winter.

Purchase quality sunglasses that offer good UV protection. They should block out 99 percent of UV-A and UV-B radiation and screen out 75 percent to 90 percent of visible light.

Also, make sure children and teens wear sunglasses. They typically spend more time in the sun than adults.

So before you head out to have some summer fun with your kids, remember to pack sunglasses along with cameras, baseball bats, binoculars and everything else that says "vacation" time!

Cancer From Your Lip Gloss?

That shiny glossy lip gloss women love to slather on their lips is probably hurting your lips more than protecting them.

The slick, shiny nature of the gloss could be making the sun’s UV rays hit even harder on your lips, some experts say. And of course, wearing any lip product without SPF doesn’t help protect your lips either.

Lip glosses can make more of the light rays penetrate directly through the skin instead of getting reflected off of the skin’s surface,” says Dr. Christine Brown, a dermatologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. The resulting sun damage can lead to potentially fatal forms of skin cancer. An estimated 3,500 new cases of skin cancer of the lips are diagnosed each year, and 90 percent of those cancers are squamous cell carcinoma. While that form of cancer isn't usually particularly serious, it can be more aggressive on the lips than on other parts of the skin.

Sun damage can also cause premature aging, making the already thin skin on your lips even thinner. Brown spots that look somewhat like freckles can form on lips that have been damaged by the sun's rays.

So what is the solution? What can you do for your dry lips? Use a lip gloss with SPF. And if your favorite lip gloss does not have SPF, then you can always get lip balms with sunscreen and reapply often. That way, you can use whatever lipstick or gloss you love and still protect your lips.

What's even better still? Using a balm, gloss, or lipstick that also includes vitamin E, which is both a rich moisturizer and a powerful antioxidant that can fight whatever sun damage you do incur.

5 Ways To Spice Up Your Romantic Relationship and Keep It Healthy as Well

We make resolutions all the time to improve our health, exercise more, watch what we eat, and so on. But sometimes we may forget how important it is to take care of our relationships with our significant others as well.

So here are 5 tips that I read on Yahoo Health that I found to be simple yet very meaningful ways to let your someone special feel special and keep your relationship healthy.

1. Give Foot Massages Often. Now I have to say here that a foot massage is just about my most favorite thing ever! When I read this tip, I fund myself nodding in agreement with the author. And as the author points out, if there's one thing that couples crave more and more as the relationship grows, it's non-sexual touch - touching that's sensual with a touch of sexual.

An unsolicited loving foot massage will definitely say to your significant other that you care about them.

2. Give a Gift that is Personal. Plan ahead for a birthday, anniversary, or 'just because' gift. Show that you cared enough to sleuth around, shop around, checked out online auctions, whatever, to find just the perfect gift that is meaningful to your special person. No ties, flowers, candy, and especially no more gift cards. Touch your significant other with a gift that shows you care about them and their passions in life.

3. Initiate the Passion. Yes, this may be hard if you are tired, burned out from kids, work, cleaning, cooking, etc., but it will be such a turn on for your partner if you start something once in a while ( at least). Now don't yell at me through your monitors for this one,please, I am just the messenger, really.
But I agree, even though I kind of wish I didn't, with the author on this one. Surprise your significant other sometimes and watch how much spice this brings to your romantic relationship!

4. Make an Effort to Fix the Little Problems. OK, so big things like money and work can impact heavily on relationships, but sometimes taking the effort to fix smaller issues in a relationship can actually reflect positively on the bigger issues.

Think about it. If your man were to start taking the time to put down the toilet seat and put a fresh roll of toilet paper on the holder, you'd probably take notice and appreciate these little gestures, right?

So if leaving your pantyhose on the shower rack irritates your guy, maybe you could change that habit. You get the picture. Ad it may not get noticed right away, but it will get noticed.

5. Don't Let Your Partner See You Naked. The author's point with this tip is that what you'll be doing here is building up the mystery until your partner absolutely has to see you naked. Have a robe, or sheet, or pair of pants all around you, until it's absolutely time to disrobe. The build-up, the anticipation, the mystery it's the "nectar" of new relationships that often gets spoiled in old ones.

Easy to do tips to keep your relationship healthy and spicy. Have any of your own tips you'd care to share?

related posts: Too Stressed For Sex?

Best Foods For Sex

Fighting Wrinkles From The Inside Out

Did you know that Vitamin C is good for your skin because it helps fight thinning and dryness which will likely mean less wrinkles!

And the wonderful fruit, Papaya, just happens to have loads of Vitamin C. The nutrient is essential for making collagen, the protein fibers that give skin its strength and resiliency. And being a powerful antioxidant, Vitamin C also disarms free radicals that would otherwise chip away and weaken collagen.

Walnuts are another fantastic source of nutrients for healthy skin care. Diets rich in linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid in walnuts, can also mean moister, plumper skin.

Magnesium and B vitamins can help with the regeneration of skin cells, so it is good for skin when you eat foods with whole grains. Foods like brown rice, barley, and soba noodles, are a great source of whole grains.

Another "good for your face" foods are carrots. The crunchy veggie is loaded with vitamin A, an antioxidant that a good for women's eyes and that appears to be great for skin, too. It helps balance the pH of the skin’s surface, making it slightly acidic. That’s good news, because slightly acidic skin fends off bacterial invaders.