10 Surprising Reasons to Drink More Water

More than two-thirds of your body weight is water. Without adequate water your body’s biochemical and electrical (yes electrical, read on!) processes begin to break down. The list of reasons your body needs water is as plentiful as the functions in your body, so due to space limitations, here are 10 good reasons to drink more water:

1. Your blood is over 80 percent water and needs water to make healthy new blood cells.
2. Your bones are over 50 percent water and, you guessed it, need water to make healthy new bone cells.
3. Drinking more water actually helps lessen pain in your body by getting your lymphatic system moving. The lymphatic system is a network of nodes, tubes, vessels, and fluid that move waste out of your tissues. It requires water to function properly.
4. Water helps to eliminate wastes and toxins from your body through the lymphatic system, kidneys, and intestines.
5. Water lubricates your joints and helps reduce joint pain and protect against wear and tear.
6. Water regulates your metabolism so if you’re overweight chances are you may need more water.
7. Water balances body temperature.
8. Water helps to ensure adequate electrical functioning so your brain and nervous system function properly. Your brain and nervous system send out electrical signals to function properly. Researchers estimate that your brain gives off about the same amount of electricity as a 60 watt light bulb. So, there’s some truth to the image of a light bulb going on when someone has a good idea.
9. Water alleviates dehydration (and I’ve already mentioned that most people are chronically dehydrated).

10. Every cell and organ in your body requires adequate water to function properly.
So, one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve your health is to start drinking more pure water every day. Be sure to drink water an empty stomach or you’ll simply be diluting your digestive enzymes and making your digestion less effective.
And, choose purified water as much as possible (but get yourself a BPA-free water bottle so you won’t pollute the planet with all those plastic water bottles. In wealthy, developed nations with plentiful access to water, we really have no excuses for not drinking enough water.

Optimize Your Sleep for Better Health and More Free Time

Getting too much sleep is hazardous to your health — it may lead to higher risk for obesity, diabetes, and premature death. We’ve been brainwashed to think we need 8 hours of sleep a night, but sleep requirements vary greatly by age, stress level, and health. In fact, research suggests 7 hours might be the ideal amount of sleep the average adult needs per night, and getting 8 or more hours can lead to increased mortality — even more so than too little sleep!


All this talk about how we are sleep deprived and how we need more sleep is enough to, well, put me to sleep. Even the good folks here at Money Watch have pounded the table that “improving job performance may be as easy as getting a good night’s sleep” and that “getting a good night’s sleep is the single best way you never thought of to improve your abilities and human capital literally overnight.”



Not only can too much sleep be bad for your health, it can rob you of your other 8 hours. If you work 8 and sleep 9, that only leave 7 hours for you to pursue your goals and live your life. Every hour, minute, and second you sleep more than you need to is a complete waste of time and your life.
Too little or too much sleep can lead to low energy and mental sluggishness. Your goal is to get an optimum amount of sleep, which I define as the least amount of sleep possible while still feeling physically energized and mentally alert. So how do you know how much sleep you need? Test, test, test. Here’s what to do:




Step 1
Start with 8 ½ hours of sleep. Make sure you get the full 8 ½ hours. No more and no less.

Step 2
The next day, complete the Sleep Optimization Form. This is a simple form to gauge how you feel (physically and mentally) at different times during the day. Because stress, eating habits, and a host of other factors can influence our energy levels and outlook, try to keep all other variables constant (i.e., unchanged as possible).

Step 3
Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for four nights in a row.

Step 4
Reduce your sleep by 30 minutes and start the sleep/test process again for four nights in a row. Keep cutting your sleep in Step 1 by 30 minutes until you reach 7 hours.

Step 5
Analyze the data. Review your Sleep Optimization Form and identify which days you felt the best (based on higher scores). If you find that you feel good on 8 ½ hours of sleep, but you also feel good on 7 ½ hours of sleep, you’ve just saved yourself an hour a night and given yourself an extra 30 hours a month to create something.

If you really want to get fancy, you can test 15 minute increments (e.g., 7 hours and 45 minutes versus 8 hours). Remember, we’re trying to identify the absolute minimum amount of sleep you need because every minute you aren’t sleeping is another minute for you.

Late Night Eating Tips to Help You Lose Weight and Stomach Fat

What and when you eat at the end of the day can have a large impact on your body. If you eat the right thing at the right time you can actually lose fat while you sleep. Eat the wrong thing at the wrong time and you can plan on waking up with a little more body fat in the morning.

To successfully loss weight, you'll need to stop eating two hours before going to bed. You should not feel hungry before bed, but you should also not feel completely full. When you're trying to lose weight, going to bed at night feeling slightly hungry is actually a good thing. It's your body telling you that what you did that day is working and you're losing body fat. If you don't feel this way when going to bed, you're probably not losing fat.

Now let’s say you follow your brain's directive and eat close to bedtime, your body will not dip into the fat it has stored away, and will probably even store some more. Every time you eat, your metabolism increases slightly. However, this effect is minimized late at night. You don't get the same metabolism boosting benefit when you eat just before bed, because a couple of hours after dinner, your body will start preparing for sleep. This natural slowing down of your metabolic rate overrides any metabolic boost you might get from eating. So once you hit the pillow, the only calories you're going to use are the basic calories you need to keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing and allow your eyes to move in REM sleep. This is only a minimal number of calories.

Believe it or not, eating late at night can also inhibit your calorie burning potential the next day. Say, for instance, that you treat yourself to some pasta and fruit at 10 PM one night and go to bed by 11 PM. When your alarm goes off the next morning at seven, the last thing on your mind is going to be breakfast, because you're still full from the pasta and fruit you ate the night before. Chances are you're going to skip breakfast and lose all the great metabolism boosting benefits you'd get from eating a balanced morning meal. Also a number of different studies have suggested that individuals who skip breakfast are more likely to over eat, and make very poor food choices, during lunch and dinner.

Important Tips:

• Eating too much food, especially starchy carbohydrates, late at night increases your body fat stores.

• Eating high-glycemic carbs (pasta, potatoes, white rice, sugar, etc.) right before bed will spike your insulin levels and lower nighttime Human Growth Hormone production. This is very bad, because not only will lowering nighttime Human Growth Hormone production make you fat, but it will also speed up the again process and make you look old. About 80% of this fat-burning and anti-aging "super hormone" is released during sleep.

Here are a few simple tips to make sure you get the most from your last meal of the day:

• Eat about 3 hours before going to bed, you'll have some time to burn off calories but you probably won't get too hungry before going to sleep.

• Eat frequently throughout the day, small, healthy meals and snacks spaced about 3 hours apart to minimize hunger cravings at night.

• Your last meal should consist mainly of a lean protein like chicken breast, low fat cottage chesses, fish, turkey, and low glycemic carbohydrates like vegetables and fruits. You should avoid all starchy carbs close to bedtime like breads, pastas, rice, potatoes, and cereals. The only time you should be consuming these starchy carbs close to bed is if you workout late at night, because then they will be stored in your muscles for energy instead of being stored as fat.

• If you get major carb cravings right before bed, then eat some carbs. Just make sure they're the high-fiber, low-glycemic kind like apples, berries, peaches, plums, citrus fruit, fresh vegetables or vegetable juice.

• If you're currently strength training to build lean muscle, a great late night meal option is low fat cottage cheese of skim milk, because it is full of slow digested casein protein.

7 Food-Groups to Avoid If You Have Heartburn and Acid Reflux

Do you experience the pain associated with Constant Heartburn and Acid Reflux? The good news is by avoiding some food-groups you may be able to totally eliminate the painful symptoms and discomfort of these conditions!
For many of us, our first choice for any physical discomfort is usually medication. 

You just want something to take the pain away. The problem is the affects usually wear off and you certainly don’t want to become dependent on this type of quick-fix.
A healthy lifestyle can really improve your symptoms by making simple nutritional changes to your diet. Avoiding foods that trigger your condition and increasing the intake of specific food items can help reduce or eliminate the incidences of heartburn and reflux disease.
However, simply changing to a healthy diet is not the answer; It is a very specific group of foods that can cause these reactions. By targeting these food groups and avoiding them as much as possible, you should experience relief.
What Are These Food Groups?
What you eat contributes to the delicate inner balance in your body. There are known food groups that directly aggravate various GERD conditions. These food groups should be consumed in smaller amounts or avoided if possible. Understanding your food-choice options is the first step in reducing the pain and suffering that comes from Heartburn and Acid Reflux..
Here are the 7 groups:
1) Caffeine Products & Coffee: Beverage products that contain caffeine increase the acidity levels in your body and should be avoided. Coffee is the big culprit and by simply limiting yourself to 1 cup or possibly 2 cups per day will help. If you can eliminate coffee from your diet and switch to tea or even herbal teas you will reap many health benefits and likely reduce your Heartburn symptoms. If you do prefer to drink coffee be sure to not consume it before bedtime.
2) Alcohol: Another beverage of choice should also be avoided Alcohol which can irritate the stomach and relax the LES muscle increases acidity and contributes to acid reflux. This is a difficult one for many people; however, once you begin to experience less and less pain from your Heartburn condition, it will be well worth the sacrifice.
3) Fatty Foods: Foods which ake a long time to digest such as high fat foods are a big problem for acid reflux sufferers. Because they do not move through the body easily and take longer to be eliminated they increase the changes of GERD symptoms. The only exception is the omega-3 fatty acids food group, which comes primarily from fish and fish oil, and are in fact powerful anti-inflammatory agents. High fat foods are generally not healthy choices so think of this as a health decision as you enjoy better tasting, fresh foods as an alternative.
4) Chocolate: This one really hurts because it is most people’s favourite food – Chocolate. Unfortunately chocolate contains a lot of fat and caffeine and can increase acidity and worsen digestion. If you absolutely have to have some. Try sticking with dark chocolate and organic varieties if you can get them. Even with that I would limit yourself to a small amount each week.
5) Dairy and Milk Products: From the Milk family - Milk and milk-based products should be avoided before bedtime due to the large proportion of calcium. These products can be very hard for some people to digest so if you think you have a dairy sensitivity check with your doctor.
6) Mint Products: Strong mint products such as peppermint and spearmint can also worsen acid reflux symptoms. You should avoid foods that contain strong mints, including mint-based herbal teas.
7) Acidic Foods: Foods with high acidity such as oranges and tomatoes can also promote acid reflux symptoms. Also cruciferous vegetables which include: onions, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and spinach, as they act to promote the opening of the oesophageal sphincter, thus increasing acid reflux. Unfortunately these are also healthy foods so try doing without them by rotating one at a time. If you find there is a difference in your Acid 
Reflux then you may have identified the specific triggering food group.




Making these dietary changes coupled with a healthy motivation to alter your lifestyle, can help you overcome Oesophageal Reflux Disease symptoms and improve the quality of your life. You can choose to prevent the recurrence of Constant Heartburn and Acid Reflux Disease by making simple dietary and lifestyle changes. 



Yes, there are a variety of Natural Solutions to help reduce or eliminate your Heartburn and Acid Reflux Symptoms. Dietary changes are just the beginning.

14 steps to a healthy summer diet!

Here are some useful lifestyle tips you can follow to beat the summer heat.
1. Water is the best option to quench thirst.
It is a key ingredient in keeping the body cool. With high humidity levels, sweat will not evaporate quickly. This prevents the body from releasing heat in an efficient manner. This is why it is necessary to hydrate and drink water, even when you are not thirsty. Increase water intake regardless of your activity levels.
2. Avoid caffeinated or carbonated beverages, alcoholic beverages, and those high in sugar.
All these drinks contain preservatives, colours and sugars. They are acidic in nature and act as diuretics. They cause loss of fluids through urine.
Many soft drinks contain diluted phosphoric acid, which damages the inner linning of the digestive tract and, therefore, affects its functions.
An excessive intake of soft drinks increases phosphorous levels in the blood. This separates calcium from the bones and moves it into the blood.
This calcium displacement from the bones makes them porous and brittle. It also causes plaque on the teeth, kidney stones, arthritis and bone spur.
Soft drinks also reduce mineral levels in the body to such an extent that enzymes are unable to function well, resulting in indigestion.
3. Do not drink very chilled liquids.
They do not really help cool you down in summers, though they make you cool for some time. Drinking really cold liquids when feeling hot may lead to a slight constriction of the blood vessels in the skin and decrease heat loss, which is not advisable when trying to cool down.
4. Limit all strenuous activity.
5. Eat light, nutritious and non-fatty meals.
6. Reduce intake of heaty vegetables and fruits, like spinach, radish, hot peppers, onions, garlic, beetroot, pineapple, grapefruit and ripe mangoes (if you cannot resist mangoes, soak them overnight in water).
7. Minimise the intake of dried fruits. Increase the intake of fresh fruit.
8. Use sabza (tulsi seeds) in your drinks -- this has very cooling effect on the body.
9. Include lots of fruits and vegetables in the form of salads and fresh juices, preferably without sugar, in your diet.
10. Drink lemon juice, coconut water and thin buttermilk, to replenish the fluids that are lost in sweat.
11. Avoid sugary foods, especially honey and molasses, and stick to natural sugars available from fruits and veggies.
12. Minimise the intake of hot, spicy foods and extremely salty foods. The body retains salt in the organic form found in fruits and veggies; the inorganic salt, meanwhile, is digested and needs to be thrown out of the body. And this is why you need to drink water!
13. Cut the intake of fried foods, like vadas, samosas, chips, bhajias, farsans, etc. Fat has a thermal effect.
14. Maintain good hygiene levels.
Since the sultry heat of summer increases with each degree rise in the mercury, by rooting ourselves to nature's provision of healthful food choices we can experience the bloom of our health and vitality.

Apna Khayal Rakhna!: How To Look Younger & Beautiful

Apna Khayal Rakhna!: How To Look Younger & Beautiful

How To Look Younger & Beautiful

1. Make sure that you drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. It will help your body stay hydrated and flush it free of toxins as well. At the same time, it will make your face glow and shine. 

2. Always wear a sunscreen lotion when you go out in the day, to protect your skin from harmful ultra violet (UV) rays. Make sure that you are using a sunscreen with at least 15 SPF.

3. Visit your hairdresser for a younger hair makeover. Rather than sticking to an old-fashioned hairstyle, go for a younger and more carefree look. You will drop years from your age, this way.

4. Pay attention to the lipstick color. Always avoid bright red and brown shades and stick to neutrals, like beiges and pinks.

5. Do not overdo with your eyebrows outlining. Subtlety is the key when it comes to eye makeup that makes you look young.

6. Get manicures and pedicures done on a regular basis. Go for a facial sitting at least once in a month.

7. Avoid wearing round neck blouses, which may draw attention to a drooping posture. You should always prefer wearing V-neck clothes, which direct the eye up.

8. Always maintain a proper and confident posture. It not only makes you look younger, but also help you appear slimmer than you are.

9. A young fragrance always makes you seem much younger than you really are. According to a survey, women wearing scents with pink grapefruit in it appeared, on average, 6 years younger than their actual age.

10. Try to get at least 7-8 hours sleep on a daily basis. It will help you feel younger as well as extremely refreshed.

11. It is said that love can make you feel as well as look years younger than your age. Fall in love with your spouse once again. Better yet, fall in love with yourself.

12. Avoid processed foods as well as those food items that have too much sugar in them.

13. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Increase your consumption of food items that are rich in proteins.

14. If you are overweight, try to lose those extra pounds, by sticking to a healthy diet and indulging in exercise. No crash dieting please!

15. Include the basic steps of cleansing, toning, moisturize and nourishing your skin, in your daily routine.

How to Apply Makeup in 10 Easy Steps

Put your best face forward armed with beauty secrets from cosmetics industry pros. These 10 simple makeup tips are sure to speed up your daily routine with head-turning gorgeous results.

1. Apply a concealer that is one shade lighter than your foundation. Dot it on over any blemishes or under-eye circles and blend with your fingertips or a makeup sponge. If your concealer tends to cake, apply eye cream first.

2. Choose foundation that matches your skin tone exactly. Apply it in dots over the central part of your face, and then blend it out with a makeup sponge or your fingertips until it covers your entire face.

3. Use a loose or pressed powder to keep foundation and concealer on longer. Use pressed powder to touch up when you're away from home.

4. Do your eyebrows next. Use powdered eyebrow shadow on brows instead of pencil, which can often look unnatural. Apply it with a hard, slanted brush.

5. Choose three colors of eye shadow: light, medium and dark. Use the dark only to line your upper eyelid, in a fairly thin line along the upper lashes. Use the medium shade for the crease and the lightest shade for the area under the eyebrow. There are many variations on eye shadow application techniques.

6. Apply eyeliner. Use cake eyeliner with a damp, thin liner brush, or an eyeliner pencil, and line the lower lid below the lashes. Line only the outer two-thirds of the lower lid, or all the way across if you're trying to achieve a darker look. Line all the way across the upper lid (just above the lash line and as close to the lashes as possible), or start the line where your lashes begin.

7. Apply mascara to upper and lower lashes, in two thin coats to avoid clumpiness. Choose brown mascara if your coloring is fair; black or brown-black works well for darker coloring. Or try a colored mascara such as navy or plum for fun, but don't go too bright if you want to be taken seriously.

8. Smile to find the apples of your cheeks, and apply blush to the apples or below, whichever you prefer. If you have to blend in blush, it's too bright.

9. Choose a lipstick color that's suited to your skin tone and that's perfect for your day look. You can mix colors and textures to suit your moods and your outfits.

10. Line lips after applying lipstick, not before. That way you won't end up with a dark circle of lip liner after your lipstick has worn off. Avoid combining very dark lip liner and pale lipstick.

Tips & Warnings

·        Follow the steps in the order given, and remember to clean and moisturize your face before applying makeup.

·        Choose brighter or darker tones for a stronger look.

·        Clean makeup brushes by gently washing them in warm water and mild gel shampoo. Air-dry them overnight.

·        Don't skimp on makeup tools. High-quality tools make application easier and faster.

·        If you decide to curl your eyelashes, do this just before applying mascara, never after. Insert your eyelashes into the curler, squeeze just once, and hold for a few seconds.

·        Bacteria can grow in older cosmetics, which can lead to infections. Be on the safe side: Toss anything that's seems old, especially mascara, and avoid sharing products with others.