Planning Healthy Meals

Planning healthy meals can be difficult, especially if you are cooking for a family
who is stuck in a rut of unhealthy meals. With some basic nutrition knowledge,
however, you can have your family eating healthy without them really even
realizing it.
The key to creating healthy meals is to plan. Plan your week’s meals ahead of
time and ensure you have all of the necessary ingredients. Don’t put off
preparing healthy meals because you don’t have a tomato. Plan your meals out
and go grocery shopping. While shopping it is important to get only the foods
that are on your list and stay away from the cookie and ice cream aisles to limit
temptation. This will also allow you to keep your food costs to a minimum
because you are buying less expensive whole foods instead of processed foods.
Huge time savers such as slow cookers and microwaves are also helpful and
everything that comes out of the microwave doesn’t have to be unhealthy. A
slow cooker will allow foods to cook all day while you are at work. When you get
home, you have a delicious and healthy meal waiting for you.
On the weekends you can prepare meals ahead of time and put them in
microwave safe dishes. When you have busy nights such as evenings that are
full of sports games or practices with your children, all you have to do is pop their
healthy meal into the microwave. There are several mircrowavable healthy
meals that you can make at home and save for the rest of the week. These are
also good if you are a single person living alone and have a hard time cooking for
just one person. Divvy up the meals for the rest of the week.
When you are planning meals for the week, create a chart of each day’s meals
and your daily schedule. This will help you decide which days are best for
certain meals. For example, maybe you have time to cook something extra
special on Friday nights, but the rest of the week is so hectic you don’t know if
you are coming or going. You can place those special recipes you have been
wanting to try on Friday and then come up with healthy alternatives for your busy
days.

Effective Steps for Managing Anxiety

Have you ever been in a situation that brought on sweats, rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath? You probably weren’t having a heart attack but an anxiety attack.  If you suffer from anxiety disorders, learning to manage it is the first step to overcoming it.

Anxiety is characterized as extreme reactions to fearful situations.  When someone follows you into a dark alley, those anxious feelings of a racing heartbeat and sweaty palms gives way to heightened senses and a rush of adrenalin that can save your life.  This is the fight or flight syndrome. 

In the case of frequent anxiety, the fearful feelings are dread of a particular situation and not the situation itself.  Getting caught in traffic can cause an anxiety attack over what might happen when you get to work late.  Starting a new job can bring on anxiety attacks.  You don’t know anyone and fear of that unknown can send you into a panic.

Everyone experiences panic or anxiety in small ways.  Like the fight or flight example, it can save your life.  In new situations, we get panicky but when the outcome we fear fails to materialize, the anxiety stops.  For someone with chronic anxiety, this is not the case.

Every situation that brings anxiety is not life-threatening.  More than likely it is an extremely stressful situation that has brought on the anxiety as a way of dealing with it.  Unchecked anxiety of this type can lead to depression.

If you suffer from anxiety attacks on occasion or a more frequent anxiety disorder, there are steps you can take to keep your anxiety under control. 

1. See a professional.  This is always a good first step.  Self-diagnosis of any type of physical or mental condition is unwise and can be dangerous.  A professional psychologist can help you understand your anxiety and prescribe medication or other effective techniques.

2. Get a good night’s sleep.  During the sleep cycle, your body repairs itself.  You feel more rested after several hours of restorative sleep, reaching the REM stage.  Most people need eight hours a night which varies within an hour or two each way.

3. Exercise on a consistent basis.  Exercise helps you to use oxygen more efficiently.  It helps to get more oxygen to the brain.  It also increases focus which may help you see solutions to problems rather than simply worrying about them. 

4. Meditate.  Meditation is more than chanting mantras.  Yoga is an exercise that involves quieting the mind and controlling your breathing.  Simple mediation such as taking 5 minutes to clear your mind everyday can work wonders in the fight against anxiety.

5. Manage the worry.  When you feel your pulse start to quicken, count backwards from ten.  As you count, focus on the situation.  What has actually happened? Resist the urge to read anything more into the situation. 

6. Don’t use alcohol.  You might think that the glass of wine is relaxing your tension but alcohol is a depressant.  In anxious situations you could rely too heavily on it and gain another problem in the process.

7. Find some relaxing activities.  Stress can rob you of your energy.  On a regular basis, do something you like such as gardening, painting, reading or listening to music.  

Anxiety can come into your life at any time.  It’s normal.  When the anxiety becomes frequent you could be at risk for more serious conditions.  If you feel your anxiety is starting to take over your life or increasingly causing you problems, seek professional help immediately.  There is no need to suffer this terrible condition in silence.

Symptoms of GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease)

The most common symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is regular heartburn, a painful, burning feeling in the middle of your chest, in the middle of your abdomen, and behind your breastbone. Not all adults with GERD have heartburn. GERD is characterized by symptoms and/or tissue damage that results from repeated or prolonged exposure of the lining of the esophagus to contents from the stomach. If tissue damage is present, the individual is said to have esophagitis or erosive GERD. The presence of symptoms with no evident tissue damage is referred to as non-erosive GERD. GERD symptoms are often persistent, such as chronic heartburn and regurgitation of acid. But sometimes there are no apparent symptoms, and the presence of GERD is revealed when complications become evident. Symptoms of GERD vary from person to person. The majority of people with GERD have mild symptoms, with no visible evidence of tissue damage and little risk of developing complications.

Other common GERD symptoms include :

1.    Bad breath

2.    Regurgitation, the backflow of stomach fluids into your mouth

3.   respiratory problems  such as Asthma. Asthma and GERD often occur together. Some theories about the connection between GERD and asthma are: Small amounts of stomach acid backing up into the esophagus can lead to changes in the immune system that trigger asthma. Acid leaking from the lower esophagus stimulates the vagus nerves, which run through the gastrointestinal tract. These stimulated nerves cause the nearby airways in the lung to constrict, producing asthma symptoms. Acid backup that reaches the mouth may be inhaled (aspirated) into the airways. Here, the acid triggers a reaction in the airways that causes asthma symptoms. There is some evidence that asthma triggers GERD, but in patients who have both conditions, treating GERD does not appear to improve asthma. Other Respiratory and Airway Conditions. Studies indicate an association between GERD and various upper respiratory problems that occur in the sinuses, ear and nasal passages, and airways of the lung. People with GERD appear to have an above-average risk for chronic bronchitis, chronic sinusitis, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis (lung scarring), and recurrent pneumonia. If a person inhales fluid from the esophagus into the lungs, serious pneumonia can occur. It is not yet known whether treating GERD would also reduce the risk for these respiratory conditions.

4.   Nausea
5.   pain in your chest or the upper part of your abdomen
6.   problems swallowing or painful swallowing
7.   vomiting
8.   Sharp or burning chest pain behind the breastbone. This is also known as heartburn. It is the    most common symptom of GERD. Heartburn may be worse when you eat, bend over or lie down.
9.   Hoarseness, especially in the morning
10.   Coughing, wheezing or repeatedly needing to clear your throat

Chest pain may indicate acid reflux. Nevertheless, this kind of pain or discomfort should prompt urgent medical evaluation. Possible heart conditions must always be excluded first. Relief of symptoms after a two-week trial therapy with a proton pump inhibitor (a prescription medication that inhibits gastric acid secretion) is an indication that GERD is the cause. This can also be confirmed with pH monitoring, which measures the level of acid refluxing into the esophagus and as high as the larynx.