Hangover cures 1/2

All the partying left you worn out? You don’t feel that good in the morning? Hangover? Before we skip to the solutions, let’s try to understand the problem. After drinking a lot of alcohol, you will feel bad later on. I have found this illustration, somewhere online a few months ago, which explains how alcohol impacts your body. 

Enlarge the picture for the detailed information and for the credits.

Here are some of the solutions I got out of personal experience. Out of these, I didn’t only use one solution, though I am an avid user of the others. Here they are:

1. Water – Get re-hydrated. Alcohol drains the liquid out of your body, so try to up the intake of it. Don’t overdo it, or you might not get enough sleep.

2. Magnesium – Take some magnesium pills and put them in a glass of water then drink. Alcohol depletes your body of valuable Mg which leaves you feeling drowsy in the morning, so taking Mg again will contribute to you feeling better.

3. Gatorade – A lot of my friends drink it after a night out, I tried it once, didn’t really do it again.

4. Food – My usual method is after I’m done with drinking to go eat and drink water. Though the effects of food on your hangover are questionable (you might just throw up after you eat) but eating while you are drinking is a different story. That way the alcohol intake is slowed down.

5. Beer - Now for this I am not sure. Some friends do this... They wake up hungover and then take another drink, claiming they feel better. I did it once and still didn't feel better, I think it just prolonges the alcohol "high" duration.

This is all for the hangover cures part 1. Join up in part 2. If you have any personal experience or recommendations write them in the comments section or send me a message, I'll include them in the next post with credits to you. Take care!

Yoga 2/2

First of all, sorry I didn't update this sooner. I was on vacation! The seaside is awesome and I had a great time swimming around and doing nothing all day. But that is past. Now it's back to the old routines. Oh well...

About the yoga post which I made. I thought to continue it on this one. In the first post I wrote about general stuff. Now I'll write about that one breathing exercise which everyone can do and which is easy to learn and practice. It takes no space at all, little time and little effort but the effects are great.

Image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl3a7Tz5XiVlmvPrn478zWt8e4k7hXLlFsE-ypcGyGolOMcYxpHvTsG__5L67iOc8Fqls6_ixoq2jWrdVE3P8hbxdkjmtfNME08gS63mVYd3-LoytMsd0l-FkYzvvz2OmW8AIop-4_myg/s1600/hatha-yoga-pradipika.jpg

Lets get started:

1. Vent your room - Chances are your room stinks of foul air (no offense) so vent it. Let in some fresh air.
2. Make room on the floor and lay down - The floor is the best place to do the breathing exercise. You can do it also on your bed or sitting but this way it's easier to learn and easier to do.
3. Lay down "lifeless" - Lay down as if you are about to be placed in a coffin. It's a grim comparison but that is the most natural way a body can be placed on the floor. Try to relax yourself as much as you can. Imagine you are floating on water. Don't be in a strain. Relax.
4. Commence "lower abdomen" breathing - Focus on breathing "with" your lower abdomen. Just breathe and make your lower abdomen move. Don't do it so by contracting your muscles, do it so with air. It takes some practice. Also, remember to keep quiet while breathing. Don't make noise. Repeat this breathing for 30 times or as much as you think it's good enough for you to get a hang of it.
5. Commence "middle abdomen" breathing - Now try to eliminate the lower part of your belly and try to focus to breathe and move your ribcage apart. Breathe with the center of your body, that is make that part move. Try to fix the other "breathing parts" so this only part moves.
6. Commence "higher abdomen" breathing - After you get a hang of both your lower and middle abdominal breathing, try breathing with the highest part of your lungs. The area just above your heart. Again, keep the air flow natural in and out. Don't force your muscles or don't move your body so that this part of your "breathing parts" moves.
7. Connect Lower-Middle-Higher abdomen breathing - So when you think you got the hang of breathing all of these parts individually... Relax. Take a deep breath out. Make sure that all the "stale" air which was in you goes out - Exhale as much as you can then hold it. Now, when you start to take air in, it will go more naturally. Fill up your L then M then H parts. Then exhale in the same order (L-M-H). Repeat until perfection!

Vital notes: Do not rush this.
Breathe quietly, that ensures that you don't force yourself.
Don't be in a strain and don't flex your muscles. It's all air movement.
Relax.
Close your eyes for better concentration.

And there you have it... It doesn't take much time and you can do it whenever and wherever you want. It's great to pump up blood in other parts of your body if you are sitting too much studying or doing work at your computer. Also note, this is just my short "sport" version of the exercise based on an old book I read. If you really want to get more into it, I suggest researching other, more professional and expert material. Good luck and stay healthy!

Yoga 1/2

That's right... Yoga. Now hold on. Don't think that yoga is something that women in their late 50s do to preserve their youth. No no. Also don't think of some monks with shaved heads breathing deeply and trying to transcend out of this body or something...

In my opinion, yoga is an exercise. Breathing exercise. See, when we think of exercise we always think of running, playing sports, gym and doing similar activities. But breathing itself can be an exercise. A great, cheap and very useful one. Possibly more useful then any other exercise. These breathing "exercises" should go forward to become something normal to you. A way of life, you can call it.

In modern times we do a lot of things. We stress out about something trivial. We are constantly in a strain to achieve things (from school, to work and so on). If someone had experience with anger management or with some fast decision making or even with marksmanship, you might have gotten the advice that before you rage/make a decision/shoot you should breathe deeply. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself.

Image source: http://www.pickyourdrugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/yoga124.jpg


Try paying attention to your breathing. Do you breathe properly? Now what sort of a question is that? From what I researched, there are actually three types of "breathing":
1. Lower abdomen
2. Middle abdomen (solar plexus area)
3. Higher abdomen (lung area).
Don't get confused here. We are breathing with our lungs. But go out to the bathroom and look yourself in the mirror... Watch your body. What part of these three listed areas does move when you breathe? It's characteristic that the lower abdomen moves with men. The middle abdomen usually moves with athletic individuals. And the lung area usually moves with women. All of these breathing movements have a reason, but I will not go trough them that much.

What is wrong here is that if you don't see one of these areas moving properly, you probably aren't breathing with full capacity of your lungs. Not breathing efficiently can have effects, bad effects, on your body. Your blood circulation stagnates and blood may not go everywhere where needed. Lack of blood circulation can effect your feet, brain, movement... Everything. Breathing also helps your kidneys function better, helping them process waste. Proper breathing also helps you digest. It helps you focus better, keeps your mind clear... And so on and so on...

This is just a short intro about yoga and breathing. In my next post we'll go trough the details of breathing exercises. Until then, stay healthy! :)

Lower back.

I got a suggestion to write a blog about the lower part of the back - more precisely about lower back pains. A while ago a friend of mine told me how he was experiencing strange sensations and discomfort in his lower back. We did a little research and found out it was due to him sitting around all the time. He sits at home studying, he sits at college listening to professors, he sits at the computer, he sits in the car if he has to go somewhere and so on and so on... Always sitting. So the most logical explanation to his issue is to exercise.

Image source: http://www.homehealthcompanies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/lower-back-pain-low.jpg

We roamed around online trying to find good exercises and a nice program for him to stick to due to his lack of time. So after a few hours of research we made a set of lower ab exercises and of lower back exercises for him to do. Very easy exercising, nothing too hard. But problem is that he didn't have the time (nor will probably) to do the least of the exercise and he started to take painkillers.

So we talked again and we realized it's best for him to walk fast for short periods of time. The legs activate the lower back area engaging the muscles to contract-expand (may not be the correct terms which I'm using, just writing it down from my memory). But then another problem emerged. If he walks fast everywhere, he'll be sweaty all the time... So the last thing we concluded together is that he should walk fast when he's going to the dorms. That way he can sweat and stink in his place and not outside. :)

The conclusion to this all: If you have some lower back pains try walking fast for a while (do it perhaps 15 minutes per day) and try to lower your time spent sitting. Be more active.

Green tea!

I thought of starting up my blogging with a healthy drink which I really like and appreciate - green tea! How is that connected to students? It's very available (you can buy it anywhere ranging from your local supermarket or pharmacy) and very cheap. So you can save your limited college funds by drinking this. But that's not all...

Image source: http://www.coolhealthtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/green-tea.jpg

Why should you drink it? The right question should be "Why not?". Green tea is very healthy, so far there have been scientific research and work done on it, questioning its therapeutic effects and it is concluded that it helps your immune system, helps you lose weight, regulates heart pressure, has a lot of vitamin C and so on and so on...

You can prepare it very easy. Just take a cup of water, heat it up until boiling point, pour it over the tea, wait a few minutes, dispose the tea and there you have it! It's also tasty and more beneficial to you unlike some other teas (example: sweet strawberry tea). You can add sugar, lemon or honey to your liking.

I drink it almost daily, every morning or somewhere during the day. It's my substitute for coffee since I'm a former caffeine "addict" if you can call it like that. I used to drink 2-3 coffees in the morning and one or two energy drinks in the afternoon so I could focus better on my studies. Needless to say it had an effect on me, a bad effect. I was nervous, jumpy and had a feeling of being stressed out. I remember one time falling asleep in the afternoon and my roommate was just walking around the room and it woke me up. His footsteps woke me up. I was really alert all the time. My sleep schedule was also messed up due to the excessive coffee and energy drinks...

So why should we drink green tea: it's a good substitute for coffee, it's available and cheap so your student budget is safe, easy to make, tasty and most importantly it's very very very healthy!

Introduction!

Hello all!

This is a brand new and my personal first blog ever! Here I will blog about various health, dietary, exercise and fitness topics and issues. Some of my friends from university noticed how I always have a thing or two to add to these sort of topics so they advised me to make a blog where I could keep track of the stuff which I know of and which I find out so I could keep everything up to date and ready for other people to practically use.

I  myself am studying law, which is waaay not related to these sorts of things, but it's my personal interest to research and conduct various activities in which I can improve myself overall. I'm really interested in medicine, in connections between our body and mind, proper diet, exercising, supplements and living healthy.

From where do I start? Hmm... Well what I was first taught by my uncle, who's a doctor, is that we need these three things:
1. Air
2. Water
3. Food
And we actually need these three things in this order. We can't go several minutes without air. We can go several days without water and we can survive a few weeks without food (or not).

But balancing out these three factors is very important, so my blogging will be devoted to these three things mostly which are then individually divided into different categories such as exercise, proper nutrition and so on...

So thanks for reading my first post! If you have any questions or suggestions leave them, I will be sure to check it all out! Stay healthy!