Inspired Blog
Anti-Inflammatory Juice Recipe
When considering foods that are good for fighting inflammation, you want to look for stuff that will help flush the body due to high levels of water and antioxidants as well as minerals and vitamins. We’re taking vitamin A, beta carotene, bromelain, quercetin, vitamin B6, magnesium, and so many more!
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Top 6 Natural Ways To Improve Memory
It happens to the best of us. Now, while it is widely known that inherited genetics have a lot to do with memory loss, luckily, extensive research has recently confirmed that lifestyle plays a big role in cognition. By this we mean stuff like training the brain muscle, resting the mind, moving the body, eating well, drinking enough water, and taking supplements. In a nutshell, adopting behaviors that boost your overall health will also boost brain function.
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10 Exercises to Do at Your Desk - Get Fit While at Work?!
As the digital age continues to take over workforces worldwide, more and more people are stuck sitting at a desk for upwards of eight hours a day, five days a week, year after year. Sort of a Catch 22, on the positive side, modern technology has reduced the need for manual labor that involves blood and sweat is less needed, while modern increasing productivity, profitability, and connectivity. But, unfortunately, on the negative side, more time spent sitting has led to greater health and wellness risks. This idea is explained in an article by Forbes entitled ‘Why Sitting Increases Your Risk Of Dying Sooner”. Essentially, the fact of the matter is, when sitting for a long period of time you are not contracting your muscles or moving your body, which is the very thing that stimulates blood flow and flushes toxins. And, many reputable health organizations, the NCBI included, have openly stated that physical inactivity leads to issues like high blood pressure, weight gain, diabetes, and more. That is why they recommend moving at least a half-hour a day. Now, in this light, figuring out ways to stay active even with a sedentary work routine will certainly improve your overall wellbeing. To help you get your muscles contracting and flushing toxins, besides suggesting you hydrate with great tasting, ultra-hydrating Alkaline Water, we put together a list of 10 exercises to do at your desk. So, without further ado, let's get fit while at work! Whole Body Photo by Miriam Alonso from Pexels Seated Stretching Something that you can do while on a call or when taking a break, seated stretching can be done throughout the day, as needed. Be sure to stretch your entire body including the neck, shoulders, legs, core, arms! We promise it will feel great. Desk Plank To perform the desk plank, stand up, move your chair away from the front of your desk, place your elbows on the edge of your desk, and move your feet back. Once in a comfortable straight body incline, hold for 1 minute. Jumping Jacks Great if you have little space but want to bump the blood, after putting your body in an X shape, pop your feet in and out while also bringing your hands up and down. Do 1 minute of jacks and slowly work your way up to 5, 10, 15 minutes. Arms and Shoulder Photo by Miriam Alonso from Pexels Seated Shoulder Press To perform (you can hold a water bottle in each hand or nothing at all), sit upright in your desk chair, with each hand bent at shoulder height. Make sure your palms are facing away from you and your feet are firmly on the floor. Then, press up. Repeat the movement 15 times then rest and go again. Tricep Drips For this one, you want to face away from your anchor (desk or chair) and place both of your palms on the ledge behind you. Then, extend your feet away from your body to create a slight incline. When ready, bend your arms and slowly lower your body down. Once at the bottom push back up until your arms are locked. It is important to note the further your feet are away from your body, the harder this move is. Arm Pulses/Circles Simply sit straight up and extend your arms parallel to the floor. For circles, move your hands, gradually making bigger and bigger shapes. After a minute or when burnt out, reverse direction. For pulses, in the same T shape with your arms, move hands up and down. Legs Seated Leg Lifts When in your chair, sit up straight, brace yourself with your arms, and slowly lift your legs to a 90-degree angle off the floor. You can do both legs at a time or one. Seated or Standing Calf Raises Straightforward and super simple, with both feet on the floor, push through the balls of your feet so that your heels raise up. Hold at the top for a few seconds then lower down. Repeat 20 times, rest, and do the movement again. Core Photo by Miriam Alonso from Pexels Seated Bicycle Push away from your desk, but stay seated. Then, with both hands on your head, lift one knee at a time and touch the opposite elbow. This movement will create a torso twist. Pick up the speed as you see fit and try to reach a max number. Oblique Twists If you have a twisting chair, this is a great option. When seated, with your back straight, swing your feet on one side, while keeping your upper body facing forward. It may help to brace your body with your hands on the desk. Do at least 20 on each side. Cheers To A Healthier, Fitter Future There we have it, 10 exercises for all kinds of people, with all sorts of fitness levels. We hope this helps keep you get moving throughout the day!
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What's In a Sports Enthusiast’s Diet? Here Are the Best Foods for You
Just like working out is essential for optimal athletic performance, so is fueling your body with proper nutrients through a balanced diet. As you exert more energy through training, exercise, and playing a sport, you need to replenish burnt calories and lost nutrients, which can be quickly done by eating the right foods.
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The Secret Behind Great Tasting Water
Short and sweet, the secret to great-tasting water is mineral content or, in other words, total dissolved solids (TDS). Even better, these taste-alerting minerals often have positive side effects!
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How to Hack Brain Chemicals to Boost Happiness
What is happiness? For humans, it’s the feeling of joy, cheer, pleasure, etc. However, did you know that happiness is different for everyone? Yes, that is right. Reality is, happiness is a combination of nature and nurture that results in unique chemical -- hormonal -- reactions in your brain.
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Always Have A Bloated Stomach? Here Are 10 Reasons Why!
Something that can sneak up quickly and result in extreme discomfort, luckily, for most people, bloating is temporary and can be avoided pretty easily. This is true even if bloating has become a more regular occurrence. All it takes is a little understanding of what causes your belly to inflate in the first place.
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9 Proven Health Benefits of Pineapple + Recipes
A large tropical fruit with a rough brown exterior and a succulent, juicy, bright yellow interior -- is undoubtedly a sweet treat that countless people around the world love. But, did you know that pineapples are also high in vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants?
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The Human Microbiome: How It Works + A Diet for Gut Health
Header Photo by Christine Siracusa on Unsplash The human body consists of as many as 100 trillion microbes. If you put this in another way, human cells get outnumbered one to ten by microbes. Of these, the majority are found in the gut and large intestine, and play a crucial role in our gut health – which further impacts our overall health. Known as the flora and fauna of the human gut, these microbes command our whole health ecosystem. Not only your physical health, but even your mental health can take a significant hit if the right balance and a nurturing atmosphere aren’t maintained in your gut. Considering the importance of gut microbes, we will discuss what is the microbiome, how it works and the diet plans you should adopt to foster the growth of the microbiota in your body and improve your overall health. What is the Microbiome? A microbiome is the community of micro-organisms living together in a particular habitat. The bacteria inside the gut's microbiome are primarily responsible for proper digestion of food, regulating the immune system, protecting from harmful disease-causing bacteria, producing vital vitamins such as Vitamin B, B12, thiamine and vitamin K that are responsible for proper blood coagulation. Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels The interest in the human gut microbiome has been on the rise for the last few decades, owing to the fact that several promising findings have been made that exhibit great potential on the role of the microbiome in regulating various physiological functions. What is the Role Of Microbiomes in the Human Body Microbiomes have a very important role to play in the development and maintenance of the human body. Some of the key processes where microbiomes play their part include: They launch the immune system when needed. They also train the major components of the adaptive immune system to generate a required reaction when called upon. They make a significant contribution to the nutritional requirements of the body. As they helps break down indigestible and complex dietary constituents and makes them readily available for absorption. They help in avoiding various diseases - For example – vaginal microbiomes can aid HIV-prevention drugs work more effectively, gut microbiomes can help generate a better response to chemotherapy in cancer patients and so on. Studies are still ongoing to establish links between microbiomes and diseases such as autism, obesity, diabetes and even anxiety. They protect from Pathogenic Organisms – Pathogenic organisms that usually enter our body when we consume stale and contaminated food or water can be very dangerous. Microbiomes work to suspend their overgrowth and provide protection from their harmful effects. Probiotics and Microbiomes Photo by Tim-Oliver Metz on Unsplash Since microbiomes are so important for our health, it is equally important on our part to ensure that we maintain a good environment within our bodies to allow them to foster and survive. Your dietary intake has a huge role to play here, and including probiotics in your daily diet could help to improve the quality of microbiomes in significantly less time. Probiotics are available in both natural forms and as supplements. These contain active live colonies of helpful bacteria that promote digestive health. Probiotics are one of the most sought-after products, highlighted by the fact that the sales of probiotic supplements exceeded $35 billion in 2015 and are projected to easily cross $65 billion in 2024.Microbiomes aren't as robust in children and the elderly as amongst the youth. Probiotics can be extremely useful at these stages and they can help improve the bacterial colonization process significantly. For those unwilling to take supplements, naturally occurring probiotics such as yogurt and pickles can be good alternatives and equally effective sources. Microbiomes and Our Diet The microbiota that lives inside our body are dependent on multiple factors – including the environment they live in, the medication we consume from time to time, our family genes and most importantly the diet that we consume. Combined together, all these factors eventually result in creating a unique microbiome for every person. Photo by Dose Juice on Unsplash Speaking of diet, the type of food you eat has a huge say in how the microbes grow within your gut. Food with high dietary fiber often affects the quantity and type of microbiomes negatively. This is because dietary fiber can only be broken by enzymes released by the microbiota, and this process of fermenting down the fiber releases short-chain fatty acids that lower the colon’s pH and hampers the growth of the microbiomes. On the other hand, foods having indigestible carbohydrates and fiber like resistant starches, inulin, gums and pectins feed the beneficial microbiota, create a growing atmosphere and help them to expand the microbiomes colony within the gut. Taking these factors in mind, below are some recommended diet plans and suggestions on what to eat and what to avoid. Following these suggestions might help you to increase the overall quantity of helpful microbiomes in your body and improve your overall health: 1. Try our Microbiome Diet Plan This microbiome diet plan consists of three phases aimed at eating microbiota-promoting food that eventually reduces weight, improves gut health, eliminates cravings and boosts metabolism. The idea here is simple and direct – eat the right food to keep your gut microbiome healthy and achieve optimum health as a result. Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash A) The first phase as part of this diet plan is ‘The Four R’s’, wherein you focus on: Remove – the foods containing toxins and harmful chemicals that may create a hostile environment for the gut bacteria. Repair – Repair the damage already done by switching to plant foods that heal the body from within. Replace – Replace the food items that spoil the pH balance of the stomach with certain herbs, spices and supplements that replace the digestive enzymes and the stomach acid to promote the growth of quality bacterial microbiomes. Reinoculate – Simply consume prebiotic and probiotic-rich food or take supplements to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria. B) The second phase of the microbiome diet plan aims at boosting your metabolism. Photo by Ella Olsson from Pexels Herein, a bit more flexibility is allowed and you can include dairy, eggs, legumes and gluten-free grain alongside your plant-based diet that you started in phase 1. This phase also allows eating all kinds of fruits, even those with high starch content like mangoes and melons. This phase makes your gut microbes stronger and allows microbes to survive longer and in tougher conditions. C) The third phase is just about maintenance. Now that the microbiome in the gut has flourished in an encouraging environment and is becoming stronger even in tough conditions, the aim is to maintain that and not let it go back to the state from where you began. In this phase, you can eat whatever you want one time a day, and stick to the controlled diet you adopted in phases 1 and 2 for the other two meals in the day. That being said, you should still try to avoid alcohol, processed food and added sugar as much as you can. 2. Food that Helps Photo by Laker from Pexels Fruits and vegetables are a great source of nutrients for the microbiome to flourish. Besides, legumes, beans, fermented food, prebiotic food, whole grains, and polyphenol-rich food are also quite important for the microbiome. You should include the following food items in your diet to help the flora and fauna of your gut: Raspberries Artichokes Broccoli Lentils Chickpeas Beans Kimchi Yogurt Kombucha Tempeh Grape skin Almonds Blueberries Green Tea Red Wine 3. Food to Avoid While the above-mentioned food items help positively, there are certain items that you should try to avoid if you want the microbiome in your gut to grow and prosper. The items include: Artificial Sweeteners (Ice Cream, Colas, Soft Drinks, Gums and similar processed food) Fried Food Excessively Fibrous Food Spicy Food Cabbage and its cousins Following the suggestions outlined above not only improves the chances of a variety of microbiomes to foster inside your gut and survive for long, but it also opens a window for these microbiota to play their role and help your body in multiple ways. Eventually, it allows you to stay healthy and avoid diseases and health problems, leading to a fulfilling and happy life.
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