Practice Mindful Eating
These days, it’s common to chow down with your eyes glued to a screen, but eating when you’re distracted leads to overeating. Take time to slow down and pay attention to your food, pausing to put down utensils between bites. “When you eat mindfully, it’s easier to notice when you feel full, plus you’re more likely to enjoy the foods you eat,” says Johns Hopkins dietitian and research nutritionist Diane Vizthum.
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🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Happiness strengthens your immune system
Happiness strengthens your immune system
Do you know a grumpy person who always seems to be getting sick? That may be no coincidence: Research is now finding a link between happiness and a stronger immune system. In a 2003 experiment, 350 adults volunteered to get exposed to the common cold (don’t worry, they were well-compensated). Before exposure, researchers called them six times in two weeks and asked how much they had experienced nine positive emotions—such as feeling energetic, pleased, and calm—that day. After five days in quarantine, the participants with the most positive emotions were less likely to have developed a cold.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Laughter is the Best Medicine
Have a Laugh
Read a few pages of a funny book, watch a clip of your favorite comedian, or call a friend who always cracks you up. Laughter obviously lightens your mood, plus it stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles. It makes your brain release more feel-good endorphins. And it can relax your muscles and help your circulation.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Christmas Day
Modify Eating Your Times to Jive with your Relatives’
Do your in-laws’ meal schedules fly in the face of yours? Here’s how to compromise: Say they wake up later than you do and serve a late breakfast at 10:30. Then they skip lunch and serve Christmas ‘dinner’ at 3 p.m. To keep your blood sugar steady without overdoing it on calories, have an early-morning snack (such as a piece of whole-grain toast) before your relatives rise and shine. Their late breakfast will count as your ‘real’ breakfast, plus some of your lunch. Enjoy the 3 p.m. meal – but don’t overdo it! – and have a small snack at around 8 p.m.
🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Counting Your Blessings Really Works!
Make Time for Gratitude and Appreciation
Creating a routine of writing down three things we feel grateful for each day helps us focus more on what we’re grateful for in life. Starting a gratitude journal can help too.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Need a Mood Boost?
Indulge in some tasty foods such as dark chocolate, leafy greens and other folate-rich foods, blueberries, chamomile or lavender tea, and magnesium-rich seeds such as pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Nutrients in these foods are thought to be related to emotional health.
🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Make Date Night a Priority
Date night. Make your marriage a priority and get out for some grown-up time. Connecting and communicating with your significant other is good for your health.
🍎 Health Hack ~ 3 Tips for Healthy Holiday Eating
- Take 10 before taking seconds. It takes a few minutes for your stomach’s “I’m getting full” signal to get to your brain. After finishing your first helping, take a 10-minute break. Make conversation. Drink some water. Then recheck your appetite. You might realize you are full or want only a small portion of seconds.
- Distance helps the heart stay healthy. At a party, don’t stand next to the food table. That makes it harder to mindlessly reach for food as you talk. If you know you are prone to recreational eating, pop a mint or a stick of gum so you won’t keep reaching for the chips.
- Don’t go out with an empty tank. Before setting out for a party, eat something so you don’t arrive famished. Excellent pre-party snacks combine complex carbohydrates with protein and unsaturated fat, like apple slices with peanut butter or a slice of turkey and cheese on whole-wheat pita bread.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Believe in the Incredible Power of Your Mind
In a 2014 study conducted at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine under the direction of lead researcher Brian Clark, 29 volunteers had their wrists wrapped in surgical casts for four weeks. Half of the participants were instructed to sit quietly and visualize flexing their immobile wrist for 11 minutes a day, five times a week. The other group did nothing. When all the casts were taken off, the researchers found that the wrist muscles of those in the visualization group were twice as strong as the wrist muscles of the control group. (Clark et al., 2014).
🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Catch a Ride on the Sun
Get Outside
Step outdoors for a few minutes to pull some weeds, sit in the sunshine, or just get some fresh air. Research shows that time outside can give you more energy, a better memory, and less anxiety. Even if you’re in a city, notice trees, flowers, and parks. Soak up nature to give yourself a boost.
