Controlling Stress

Controlling Stress:

Healthy living is not just eating the right kind of food; it is a way of life based on four principles or four lifestyle habits. The four habits are:

• Eating right kind of food.
• Regular exercises
• Being stress free
• Reading the updates on this site regularly

Friendly-tips.com has already dealt with eating smart & exercising; today we will look into some simple tips to reduce stress.

Being stress free would mean abstaining from certain stress inducers & cultivating stress bursting habits.

Let’s look at these stress inducers & de-stressors.

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Brown rice Vs White rice

One of the peculiar food patterns in my ancestral village is a staple dinner  which is rice porridge, normally consumed with  pickles. Can you imagine that?  So much of carb, & only that for dinner! Despite doing that, most of them are in excellent health & shape.  On closer scrutiny, one will realize that they are in fact feeding on brown rice & not white rice.

Majority of world’s population is feeding on white rice which is also known as polished rice & I prefer to call it processed rice. Rice manufacturers process rice so that it can have a longer shelf life. We as consumers not only pay for the processing but also get an empty calorie product in return.

What is a brown rice?

The process of making brown rice involves removing only the outermost hull of the rice. By doing so most of the nutrients in the rice are retained.

Many are not even aware that rice is rich in minerals, fiber, phytonutrients & B complex vitamins.

Some astonishing facts about Brown Rice:

• People who eat brown rice weigh less and are less likely to gain weight ( As researched by Harvard Medical school)

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It is often said that the ability of the brain reduces with age.  However, modern research has proved that just like any other part of our body, brain could be maintained in a great shape with regular exercise.

Our brain has the ability to develop new neurons at any age.  There are many ways to exercise the different parts of our brain.  In this article, we are looking at physical exercises that can be done in the morning to maintain an active & healthy brain.  Continuing to have a healthy brain is essential part of aging gracefully.

Exercise I : Wriggle the toes.

We all love to snooze for a while, after the alarm.  This time could be used for stretching & wriggling the toes.  There is no set pattern to do this exercise.

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Eating healthy in a budget:

I read a lot of tweets today which said “Love to eat healthy but its expensive”.

This is exactly what some of you must be thinking after reading my previous blogs.  Eating healthy is not all about indulging in exotic fruits and expensive nuts.  Healthy eating are just small little changes in lifestyle!

Lets look at what healthy eating could mean:

• Healthy eating could mean eating only when you are hungry.
• Healthy eating habit would mean substituting table salt with sea salt.
• Eating healthy may also mean avoiding milk in your tea.
• A healthy eater is someone who abstains from processed foods.
• A part of healthy eating would be to use all the gifts of nature like eating the skin & seeds of fruits.

Come onnnnnn…….. All these certainly does not cost more.  In fact, they save money!  We are not even talking of your reduced medical bills here.

Here are some more tips to eat healthy within a budget:

1. In most of the markets, vegetables are much cheaper than the meat products.  Going Vegan is good for economic reasons too.
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How to eat fruits:

Is there a right way to eat fruits?  Is there a right time to eat fruits?  Or is there a right combination of eating fruits? The answer to all the above is YES .

We all know the immense health benefits of eating fruits.  However, most of us fail to get the maximum out of a fruit because we are blinded by our preset notions about eating fruits.  Through this article I intend to break some of these myths.

• Myth 1: Fruits & all other desserts should be had after a meal.

  Nothing can be further from the truth.  From a dental hygiene point of view, it make sense to have food containing sugar at the end of a meal.  The sugar present in the fruits is in its most digestible form and do not harm our teeth.  It is best to have fruits on empty stomach as this will permit our body to absorb the maximum nutrients from it.  Fruits are digested much faster than any other food substance.  Thus, when we have fruits after a meal, the sugar in the fruits is not absorbed immediately by our body and thus turns to acid due to fermentation.

• Myth 2: Dry Fruits are better than Fresh Fruits.

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Tips for a healthy day in office:

Today, I read some of my previous posts & realized that I may have started sounding like a Granny!  Let me clarify that I have a full time job which keeps me pretty busy & an 8 year old son at home who is even more demanding than my job.  Where does all this leave time for exercise?   More & more of my friends are spending increasing amounts of time within their cubicles glued to their monitor.   Here are a few tips for people who spend more than 6 hours a day sitting at their desk.

• Hit the stairs.  This an oldie, let me suggest a variation:  Taking 2 steps at a time will phenomenally increase the calories you burn in the process.  (Please do not try this while climbing down the stairs.)
• Park your vehicle further away from the building.  This may be the only walk you get in the whole day.
• Keep your phone on the ground, this way you will end up doing crunches every time the phone rings. (This is my favourite one) Read More…

Nuts – the power packed food

If you are not yet a nut lover, it’s time to Go Nuts over nuts!  Well, many of us still think that nuts will make us fat. On the contrary, nuts may help one to loose weight  .

Lets look at the benefits of eating nuts in a NUTshell.

• Nuts is one of the best known sources of dietary fiber, this plus the fact that nuts digest slowly- will prevent us from overeating.
• Nuts is great for your heart. Studies have found that regular consumption of nuts can reduce the risk of heart attacks by 30-50%. Read More…

How to start eating healthy

Its confession time ! Haven’t we all experimented with low carb food, naturo food  or controlled diet & found it an extremely unsatisfying experience? Experts say that this failure is because of  of a sense of deprivation. As soon as we go on a diet we crave for those goodies , because we feel that we are depriving ourselves of those wonderful tastes. Here are a few tips to make your healthy eating habit, a permanent one.

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www.paypal.com - The safest online payment processor

Yikes! I almost forgot that I had a “Useful Sites” page in my blog. let me start this page with the most useful site of modern times.
For anyone serious about online transactions, paypal.com is a must have.  Paypal is owned by ebay company since 2002.  This site is your bank, credit card, debit card, payment processor – all rolled into one.  The best feature about this site is that it is available free of cost and takes only a minute to sign up.  Here are some facts about paypal.com

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