Drew Todd’s Neighborhood

Learning the correct way to breathe deeply can make a total impact on your health and also help you lose weight. Breathing deeply is something that most of us never really think twice about but maybe it's time to focus on breathing and train ourselves to breathe properly. The beauty of retraining ourselves to breathe properly and implementing some easy breathing exercises into our daily routine is that in a rather short time, you will feel the difference and it's not that difficult. Let me explain. . . -- Simply lay down totally flat on your bed, your couch, or floor. Relax for a second or two before taking a deep breath. Now breathe in deep through your nose. Push your belly up while taking the air inside. Stick your chin on your chest and watch your belly rise. When you've got as much air as you can hold, stop and hold your breath. Try holding it for ten or twenty seconds. If you're like most people, you're dying to let it out at the end of the twenty seconds. Go ahead. Pitiful isn't it? Not only that, but did you feel your lungs stretching out? You don't feel that very often do you? It feels good and bad at the same time, right? That's because you're not used to it. -- Try it a couple of more times. It gets easier each time, right? Don't you feel relaxed and refreshed at the same time? Your body is saying thank you, thank you! Just that very tiny bit of deep breathing and your body feels better. This is an immediate reaction. Now, think about this and how it works. . ..that extra oxygen you allowed into your body is now moving through your bloodstream, slightly increasing your flow, and getting rid of excess waste and fat. All that in a matter of seconds! Makes sense doesn't it? Think about it... Oxygen is fuel for your body as is food. There are no calories in oxygen. You can breathe in all you want for as long as you want and still no calories! Not only that, but the extra oxygen you take in will cause the chemical reactions in your body to take place much faster, thus, you burn more calories than you take in. This in turn speeds up your metabolism and makes you burn more fat. There are many other benefits to making breathing deeply a part of your daily routine. They include improving your immune system, flushing out those unwanted toxins, makes your blood pressure rock steady, helps you sleep deeply like a baby, adds more oxygen in your body which increases your energy, and increases blood circulation. The list of benefits goes on and on. Clean and unpolluted oxygen is the key. -- Keep practicing. Get used to how deep breathing feels. Close your eyes and sense the rhythm of the deep breath you're taking. Memorize it. Now sit up. Again, try to accomplish the same deep breath while sitting up. Sit up straight. Start breathing in through your nose -then slowly stick your chin on top of your chest and watch your belly inflate with air. This may be a little harder because you might unconsciously revert back to shallow breathing. You'll know that this is true if your belly isn't inflating and you feel all the air in your lungs high in your chest. Don't give up. Concentrate on inflating your belly. Once filled as much as possible, hold it for twenty seconds and release through your mouth. You should practice sitting up and deep breathing a few times to get used to it. Now you can do it anywhere! You should, by now, have a real sense of how to breathe deep. Take a day or two and just practice the techniques (lying down and sitting up). After a day or two of practice, you're ready to make deep breathing a part of your daily program and routine.

Quitting smoking may just be the hardest thing anyone will have to do in their life. It was definitely difficult for me. I took the hard-core, cold turkey route as opposed to using any stop smoking aids, but today those looking for relief and freedom from their nicotine addictions may not have to fight so hard. Nicocure is a new, all-natural stop smoking aid that claims anyone can quit smoking in 30 days or less. That certainly is quite a claim, but is it all just marketing hype and fluff? I am not 100% sure what to think about nicotine addiction. I quit smoking myself cold-turkey without the use of any stop smoking aids such as Nicocure. I felt that if my desire was truly strong enough that I would be able to overcome anything. It still took over 20 attempts even then. My own mother struggles with it daily and has tried to quit numerous times with a variety of methods. Maybe this really has nothing to do with willpower or desire, but instead we should recognize that this addiction is so powerful we could all use a little help. So where does one turn? Nicocure claims to have that answer. There are so many different products on the market today all claiming to help people quit smoking. This is definitely BIG business, but if these products all did what they claimed they could do, I do not think I would see so many people struggling. The developers of Nicocure would agree and they cite one major reason for the failure of these other products that really caught my attention. The two major types of stop smoking aids on the market today are gums and patches. According to Nicocure, the problem with all of them is that they contain nicotine. nicotine is the substance of the addiction in the first place so a serious question arises here. Is it beneficial to fight nicotine addiction with nicotine? Once you finish the gum or patch program what have you accomplished? It seems to me that you have accomplished nothing except keeping nicotine in your system. You get off the patch and the gum and you still have the same problem. Withdrawal is just around the corner. This is why Nicocure was developed and why it claims to make the difference that other products cannot. Nicocure patches offer what seems to be an effective and alternative to the nicotine-derived products we are so used to seeing today. As a 100% all-natural and herbal formula, Nicocure claims to mimic nicotine just enough, so that the brain is satisfied, while the body completely removes the addictive chemical from its system. It allows your brain to continue releasing dopamine just as it did while you smoked. The point here is that you will be able to rid your body of that nasty nicotine chemical without having to go through the physical and psychological anguish that causes so many to fail early on. So the question remains...does it actually work? Nicocure wants to put this question to rest, so they offer a guarantee. If Nicocure does not help eliminate your cravings for nicotine, and end your smoking habit permanently within 30 days of purchase, they will refund 100% of your money. As always I remain skeptical, but I also know how much easier my battle could have been if Nicocure was available at the time. With the dangers of nicotine so great, and the benefits of quitting so numerous, this is a guarantee I would be willing to accept, and one I will be introducing to my mother.

The body is designed to be flexible. If you dropped anything to the floor, you should be able to bend and get that thing back. That novel on the top shelf should be able to be easily attained by you. For most people those are uncomplicated movement. Not a big deal about them since you barely need to stretch out. However, if you face complication in performing such basic motions then you have to push the boundaries of your stretching limits and this article will give you an introduction into stretching program. The action of extending your body to its entire maximum length or even a part of it is known as stretching. This exercise involves stretching or straightening the build or the limbs. To execute stretching is quite easy. As mentioned above, it is involved in our daily activities and can be performed by anybody no matter what is their age. The difference though is that the amount or magnitude of stretching and flexing are unique to each individual. The array of joint mobility can be limited and thus preventing a more active lifestyle. So as a person aged, they will realize that bending and flexing motions are minimized. This is the reason that you need to incorporate stretching as an important part of your routine. Basic stretches can be practiced everyday and it will easily gel with your daily tasks and lifestyle without taking much of your time. Stretching has a critical role in any training program or sport and are advisable for you to perform it before any strenuous sessions. By stretching your body and limbs you will be in better shape for a more rugged activities. You can observe that some athletes would perform the sit and reach whereby they sat on the ground with their legs extended and start reaching for the tip of their foot using the tip of their hand. Such stretching activities are demanded by athletic coaches before of their games or training sessions. The optimal length of time to do the stretching is 10 minutes. By giving it that much time, you allow the body adequate opportunity to flex the muscles and put it into motion. This will help the body to adapt better for more rigorous and elaborate movements. However, fitness experts would not recommend going too far beyond 10 minutes. If you do stretching for 30 minutes or more, your body will already grow weary. This would not be a good idea If you are preparing for a competition. There are many benefits in performing stretching consistently. You will get to increase your range of bodily motions. As you perform your stretching exercises regularly, the length of the muscles and the tendons are extended. This way the limbs and joints are able to maneuver, way before an injury can occur and you will absolutely be able to count yourself as physically fit. Your ability to carry out a certain skills will be boosted. The various range of movement that you possess will allow you to do more activity. You can leap higher and when you land back to the ground, you will not feel any discomfort in your body. You can take up a new sport or sharpen your skills better in your current sporting activities. This ensure that you maintain an active lifestyle. Stretching is known to help avoid injury to joints, tendons and muscles. Having a well-flexed muscles and tendons will maintain them in good working order. It promotes rapid recovery and will help minimize any soreness. The muscle of the body will be able to absorb strenuous and rigorous motions with low chance of being injured. Your muscle are less like to contract due to regular workouts and stretching and this can reduce muscle tension. Any muscle pain or complications can be avoided. With stretching, you will discover that your body is capable of performing many things that seems impossible before. This will motivate you to participate in new activities in the future and thus enhancing your energy level. Prolonged stretching like yoga are proven in research to be effective in the reduction of cholesterol in the body. It works best with a diet of healthy food. Such activities like yoga could also stop and even reverse the hardening of the arteries that can cause some coronary disorders. You will get to enjoy a lot of things in the future if you integrate stretching into your daily lifestyle. The benefits are something nobody can say no to. It is not a hassle at all since it can be activities that you do as you go about your everyday life like bending and flexing. Go ahead and do what it takes to maintain a healthy body as fitness is everything.

Imagine a car that's idling too fast. It's revved up and working hard but nothing useful is happening. The motor's burning more fuel, creating more pollution and experiencing added wear and tear. Well, it's kind of the same with muscle tension. It doesn't help you move and it certainly doesn't make your muscles stronger. So really your muscles are working hard but not doing anything useful or accomplishing anything. In fact, muscle tension causes a lot of wear and tear on your body. It strains tendons (which hold your muscles to your bones). It pulls joints tighter together (leading to grinding/crunching sounds and worn out cartilage). It limits your movement, interferes with your co-ordination and may even make you more accident-prone. Tension also burns up the fuel in your muscles (which makes you feel tired) and creates toxic waste products called "metabolites" (the equivalent of car exhaust) which fatigue your muscles and make them feel sore and achy. WHY CONTROL TENSION ? • You'll feel more comfortable. • You'll prevent problems from occurring (like kinks in your neck). • You just know from experience that tension isn't good. 2 CAUSES OF TENSION 1. Stress is one of the major sources of muscle tension. When under stress, you become like a turtle trying to pull its head into its shell. So your shoulder muscles might simply tighten up or they might round forward and lift up as your head pulls back. And if your stress level is high, you may actually notice your shoulders around your ears. 2. Just sitting or staying still for periods of time causes your muscles to tighten up. By remaining "static", you're basically training your muscles to lock your back or neck in a certain posture. Then when you begin to move, your muscles remain tense in an effort to maintain your position. Plus it takes some time for your muscles to realize that they can let go and relax. So the longer you sit without moving, the more you train your muscles to lock into position and the longer it takes to release them. KEY TENSION AREAS Simply based on the way tension is created, the areas most vulnerable to tension are your neck, shoulders and back. Although tension can develop in any muscle in your body, these are the areas that are most commonly affected. TENDERNESS AND TENSION One of the best indicators of tension is tenderness, which is the discomfort you feel when you press on a muscle. Blood vessels normally deliver oxygen and nutrients to a muscle and flush away waste products. But, when your muscles are tense, they're essentially squeezing their own blood vessels. So now, the muscles are working hard and creating lots of waste that's not being washed out of the muscle. And as these "metabolites" (i.e. waste) begin to accumulate, they start to irritate pain nerves. If the tension is significant, you'll actually start to feel achy. If the tension is less severe, the nerves become sensitive and any added stimulus, like a squeeze to the muscle, can cause discomfort. 1 EASY WAY TO RELIEVE TENSION Massage can play an important role in helping you deal with your tension and your massage professional, like a mechanic, can adjust how fast your "muscle motors" are idling. Basically, massage does two things: First, it helps induce a relaxation response. This reduces the common defensive reactions in your body, including that "turtle-in-the-shell" action of your neck muscles. Relaxation also causes your brain and nervous system to slow down, which in turn lowers the tension level of all the muscles in your body. Second, massage pulls and stretches, which physically releases the muscle. In addition, the sensations that your muscles feel, both conscious and subconscious, give your brain information about the level of tension that exists in your muscles. This helps your nervous system adjust your muscles to a normal level of tone. Remember too that the effect of a massage on tension is almost instantaneous. You feel the tension leaving your body immediately. You don't have to wait days or weeks to see results. Also, regular massage both reduces your tension and trains your muscles to maintain a lower level of tension. And when your muscles are healthy and relaxed, they won't be tender and you won't feel any discomfort, even when you're receiving a massage. 1 EASY WAY TO PREVENT TENSION One of the areas most likely to get tense is the shoulders. (In the nearly 8 years that I've been doing chair massage, the shoulders are still the Number 1 area people ask to have massaged because they're experiencing tension there.) The muscle that makes up the shoulders is called the trapezius, often referred to as the "traps". It's an easy name to remember because this is the muscle that "traps" a lot of tension. The good news is you can help prevent tension from building up in this muscle. If you're sitting or standing still for any significant period of time, be sure to move this muscle through a full range of motion, at least once in a while. Something you can try is the "20/20 Rule": For every 20 minutes that you are inactive, spend 20 seconds moving. This helps ensure that your muscles don't have the chance to lock into any particular position. Use the two simple exercises in this article to bring your "traps" through a full range of motion and keep your muscles relaxed and tension-free. Download your exercise illustrations here: http://www.bodyworkbiz.com/courses/downloads/illustrations/s7937ks9.zip If you have specific health concerns, consult your medical doctor. The information in this article is educational only and is not intended to replace the advice of your personal health care provider(s). Chris Simon is a Certified Chair Massage Practitioner specializing in relaxation massage for muscle tension and stress. He's been providing on-site chair massage to people in their homes and employees at their workplaces in Hamilton and throughout Ontario since 1999.