We’ve all had moments where we feel like our hearts are going to beat out of our chests. Where we feel like the hectic nature of our day will never let up, and that we won’t catch a break until we’re laying in our beds sleeping that night.

When you catch moments or even whole days like this where you literally can’t find a few moments to just sit there and take a deep breath, these are the moments when it becomes even more important that you take a few minutes out of your day to breathe deeply, and rejuvenate your body by sending fresh oxygen to every cell and muscle, reawakening your energy and your basic bodily functions.

The sad thing is, most of us don’t know how to breathe properly. It took yoga to help me figure out that I was breathing much too shallowly most of the time. I felt the invigoration of deep breathing, the powerful way that it calmed my body and the way that the deep yogic breathing’s sound actually helped further quiet my mind and allowed me to think straight and in an unencumbered way that I hadn’t experienced before.

You see, when you breathe properly, it instantly de-stresses your muscles, joints and even your mind.  When you don’t breathe properly, it actually restricts the amount of oxygen flow that your body is getting, and you tend to not be able to breathe as well and this actually leads to even shallower breathing, which sometimes gives you a panicky, light headed feeling.

You may want to actually close your eyes when you are doing deep breathing techniques. Doing this helps you to shut out the outside world and helps you to focus more on the sound of your breathing, which can be very relaxing and invigorating.  You also will want to focus on a place far away. I like to imagine that I’m on a beach, with no one around, with only the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I imagine the warm sun is bearing down on me, and warming my body with it’s radiant heat, and that my whole body is relaxed.

I actually try to steal away to the bathroom at work when I do this. It helps me to escape any prying eyes, and lets me be by myself during this very quiet and restorative time.

In a sort of about-face when it comes to the conventional wisdom on what is best for patients during cancer treatment, doctors are now advising, and finding, that more exercise seems to be better for their patients, not taking it really easy during treatment  as was previously advised.

New guidelines that have recently been put in place actually advise that as much physical activity as possible be practiced while patients are undergoing chemotherapy, which is, in itself a very taxing therapy on the body. However, as you all know, exercise releases all types of excellent endorphins and other healthy chemicals that help counteract sickness.

Exercise actually helps increase energy levels, although it may feel hard to actually get up and do it when chemo is zapping your energy, so ultimately it ends up helping your energy levels not hurting them. It can be extremely challenging to will yourself to get up off the couch when you’re already emotionally exhausted from your family, your worries about your illness, the financial drain and the inevitable emotional drain when you have cancer.

However, researchers are saying that the benefits you will reap will outweigh the toughness of it at first, and ultimately you will be better able to come through your treatment as a whole, healthy person.  Roughly 20 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per day should do it for cancer patients, if that is possible.  They should find that they feel better after working out, like most everyone else, and in the end the physical activity will help their bodies stay strong and fortify their defenses against the side effects, helping them to maintain strength during the recovery period.

I used to go by the traditional thought that food was ok before a workout, as long as it was an hour or more before hand, so that you could have the right amount of energy to get through your workout and actually not have your blood sugar dive.  I even would make sure I had a few sips of a smoothie or something else really light right before I worked out so that I could assure myself that I would not bottom out while I was exerting myself. 

Of course, I am somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to eating every few hours. I get really hungry every few hours, so for me, eating right before I worked out was more a matter of necessity since I tend to go through my food pretty quickly.  Well, apparently there is new research that says you may actually burn more fat and calories if you work out on an empty stomach. 

This could be a catch twenty two of course for those of us who are pretty sensitive to drops in our blood sugar and who need a constance flow of sustenance and nutrients to be able to get through a rigorous workout, like me.  I wonder, what’s more important, that I have an empty stomach completely, or that I just haven’t eaten in a few hours? 

It’s almost like asking a car to go up a really steep hill with no fuel, no? 

Reasearchers compared the amount of fat that was burned by bicyclists who ate before they worked ou and ones who did not eat before they worked out, and found that the cyclists who did not have a pre workout snack actually burned more fat than the ones that ate before working out.  Many athletes actually eat before they workout, because of the traditional thought process that muscles use carbs as fuel to workout, and without that “fuel”, you won’t be able to get through your workout.

This would be fine for professional athletes who are almost constantly training and pushing their bodies to the max, but for us schmoes who are really just trying to get the most fat off of our bodies in the least amount of time, it may be a good idea to just workout on “E”, so to speak.

The best time to burn the most fat is when the insulin levels are low, and this is only accomplished by not eating for a few hours. Of course, the amount of time it takes for insulin levels to dip after eating differs per person, so you have to know your body to determine when the best timing is for you.

Being woman today is not all that easy. The days of staying home and taking care of the little ones and cooking dinner are over, we super women are now in charge of making half the money for our household, and on top of that we have a million other things we have to do.

The combination of being soft, beautiful, loved and understood in every moment of the day in the same time, includes performing of the most professional duties, to cook, to put some clothes and hygiene in the home, to cope with the problems of the children etc. These quiet heroines take care of their families and very often have no adequate form of quality use of their free time. In the world of football fields and gambling, loud cafes and fitness centers, the women must fight for their place.

When it comes to good health, despite the healthy and natural food, healthy lifestyle, it is underlined the importance of the physical activity. The exercises are important for all ages. When the organism starts to function well and balance the energies, wakes up the natural physical and psychological needs when the woman spontaneously begin to be interested in healthier lifestyle.

Since yoga has spread to the West, many women have become its supporters. Perhaps it can always find what they need moderate psychological activity, harmonizing personality, finding a healthier lifestyle, spiritual recovery.

It is known that the yoga releases stress, improves the elasticity and strengthens muscles. According to some medical experts, yoga can have significant role in the treatment of serious health problems.

The atmosphere in which yoga classes take place is calm and supportive. This is very good for pregnant women. These women want not to be disturbed, in complete peace and concentration to be in contact with their body and soul. The exercises provide better mobility and strengths, better circulation throughout the body, sense of balance and fulfillment with energy. During pregnancy, these exercises are a good friend for the future mother reducing the pain in the back and waist, sleeplessness, anxiety, variable mood etc.

The woman is fully involved in exercise and consciously harmonizes the activities of the body, mind and breathing. When she performs exercises her breathing is adjusted to the movement of the body.

Healthy lifestyle is the natural need of the body and mind, and that’s why yoga is the perfect addition to any woman’s workout regimen !

Pregnancy is a wonderful thing, by and large. Except the parts that aren’t so great. Like morning sickness, water retention, the general feeling of being stuffed with something, and the hormone swings that some women experience. Of course there are a bevy of advantages and disadvantages to being pregnant, but the fact that your ab muscles get stretched all to hell and back isn’t one of the good ones.

Because you know what, I hate to say it, but Jillian Michaels controversial statement about how she “just couldn’t do that to her body” when referring to pregnancy are absolutely right when it comes to the damage that pregnancy can do to your abdominal muscles. Even if you lose all the baby weight and then some, mothers often complain that their abdominal areas are just never quite the same after they have their babies.

I have several friends that have had children that are very thin, but they still say that their abs have never looked the same. Unless you get an ab tightening treatment after birth, which is where they surgically go in and tighten the ab muscles again, you need to help retrain those muscles to snap back into place, because they have been so stretched out from having a baby in your belly for nine months.

Some of the best ab moves that new moms might want to try to ease their ab muscles back into tip top shape are yoga-derived. Yoga moves really help to subtly engage the abdominal muscles instead of an all out crunch, so they help to gradually reshape them until you can do the more rigorous moves. Moves like downward dog help get the body warmed up, and plank is an excellent way to get your core burning on both ends, the transverse abdominal, upper and lower abdominals are engaged during the plank move.

Not only that, you also get a terrified arm workout in because your arms are supporting your body weight. Any exercise in which you are working two major body parts like this will have the additional benefit of burning more calories than if you were exercising just one part of your body at a time. This means that the extra fat you are burning will translate to a leaner stomach area, faster.

The boat pose, where you literally look like a boat is excellent too. This one has you sitting on your bum on the floor, with your legs in the air and squared off to the floor, and our arms extended out in front of you, tightening the abs the whole time . Getting a good yoga dvd might be helpful to get your eased back into killer abs like before baby!

Have you ever woken up to a bright, sunny day and said to yourself that you can’t wait to get up and get moving. And by moving, I mean getting up and working out – sweating, really kicking some butt – yours namely? While I’ll admit this rarely happens to me except on occasion and I must take absolute advantage when it does, it does happen, and it actually occurred today of all days. It’s a gorgeous day, sunny but not too hot, and I woke up to birds singing and the pleasant smell in the air that only a spring day can bring, and had instant energy.

Sometimes it’s not easy to want to work out. You wake up on a cold, gray day, and even though you know that setting foot on that gym mat or elliptical machine will make you feel a hundred times better when you’re done, you still can’t bring yourself to do it.

It’s almost like a vicious cycle, where your body doesn’t get enough exercise but you also have no energy to do much of anything else, so you are stuck in this sort of never ending limbo world where you keep making things worse by not moving and subsequently not getting the energy you need.

Exercise promotes high energy, that is probably one of the biggest reasons that I still work out to this day, and why I couldn’t imagine my life without being physically fit and wanting to work out.

This has been something I’ve struggled with for the last year. Ever since I heard, about a year ago, the first murmurings from friends that liked to work out like me, that static stretching was actually found to do more harm than good before a workout, it blew my mindset that had been present for years.

My mindset since I started working out at the age of 16 (now 19 years ago), was that you needed to stretch your muscles in a static fashion before every workout, or you not only risked injury, but you also risked great cramping and discomfort after your workout. Now, experts are saying that static stretching is a no-no before working out, and instead you should do dynamic stretching.

Dynamic just means you are moving around, but at a slower pace than you would be if you were working out vigorously. It usually can consist of a slow, paced job if you are warming up for running, or side to side steps if you are warming up for some sort of aerobic workout that required lots of jumping around.

It can be anything that gets your heart pumping and gets the body actually physically warmed up, the circulation going, so that the body’s temperature elevates and the muscles warm up as well. The goal is to get the heart pumping blood to all the muscles, and the get the circulation going so that your muscles aren’t deprive of oxygen and blood when they are being worked out.

Experts say that warming up with static stretches actually over exerts your muscles, and can make them more prone to injury because we often push them too hard and over stretch them. It is dangerous because your body is not physically warmed up yet, and it is like stretching a cold muscle with no blood running to it yet.

You are note “primed” to stretch your muscles to this extent because you haven’t done any dynamic stretching, so this often can cause the muscles to over burden themselves and be even more prone to tearing, over stretching and lactic acid buildup which leads to soreness the next day. Start off with a very light jog before you work out. Jog in place or down the road, and see how this works out for you.

Just don’t make the activity heavy. The idea is that you are warming up the body to begin a more rigorous workout.

This piece of info really came as no surprise to me. Look, I’ve been working out literally since I was about 14 years old. Don’t ask me how that happened. I remember reading a book called Fit for Life, that I picked up for ten cents at a local book sale when I was with my grandma and grandpa in Cleveland, and ever since then, I became a sort of somewhat obsessive health nut – at a very young age.

My healthiness, while it started off as genuinely healthy, eating right, exercising and the whole shebang, quickly deteriorated into a full blown eating disorder, which I have battled my whole life, but gotten under control now for several years. However, one thing I did learn is that when I exercise regularly, I love what it does for my brain.

I swear, I actually FEEL smarter when I’m working out regularly, and conversely, I also feel dumber when I’m not getting the right amount of physical activity in my daily routine. It may have something to do with the fact that anxiety levels are highly associated with lack of exercise, and your focus is just much better when you are working out consistently, but for me, I have always been smarter, more of a producer and achiever, when I’m working out.

This is a huge part of the reason I’ve become addicted to working out. What started off as a pure vanity thing for me, to stay thin and trim and toned, has now morphed for me (I’m now in my mid thirties) as an empowerment for me. I can think more on my feet, focus better, and actually become ten times more productive when I’m getting my workouts in.

Studies actually tie physical fitness and academic and business success to one another. It’s no wonder that the two are closely related either. Your body, when it’s in better shape, just works better on all levels. Your organs function better, your brain becomes more efficient and your whole body processes oxygen at a faster rate, and also rids itself of toxins and chemicals and hormones that build up and cause everything from obesity to acne. It’s no wonder exercise can be addictive, it makes you into the Super YOU.

Well, us women really have it crappy in this department, among others. I mean, not only do we get periods and unfortunate accompanying fluctuations in our hormones that make us feel like we’ve gone temporarily insane from time to time. We also now supposedly have to get about one hour of moderate exercise per day to keep the average pounds that tend to creep up with age from being added to our frames.

Apparently women are a little more prone than men to put on weight simply due to our age and the changes that come with aging, than men are. Sheesh, and we thought the changes that come with and after pregnancy were bad!

This is especially important for women who are middle aged, as they are extremely susceptible to putting on those middle aged pounds in their belly areas and their thighs and upper arms, and we all know how dangerous visceral (belly) fat can be to our health, so it’s a real concern. Most women (including myself) though, scoff at getting an hour’s worth of solid exercise in a day.

This is exactly the reason that I have found such solace in shorter, more intense workouts like Jillian’s Michael’s intense workouts. I feel like I still get the same amount of good cardio blasting workout and muscle building activity, only it’s not taking an hour out of each of my already jam packed days.

We are already waging a very hefty (no pun intended) war on obesity, and we have instituted many programs to educate people on the importance of exercise, and this is just another one of those random statistics that’s thrown at us that makes the point even more dire. Exercise is an absolute must if we both do not want to get fat and threaten our life with diseases associated with obesity, and also that we must be active in order to live a longer, healthier and more enjoyable life.

Exercising translates into a higher quality life, that’s all there is to it. After all, who wants to go on vacations where they can’t even enjoy seeing the scenery because they can’t get around with ease? Little things like that are the reason that exercising should be a healthy, consistent part of everyone’s daily routine. Or at least 4-5 days a week. Hey, I’ll admit I can’t get to it every single day!

There is another good thing about spring and summer that doesn’t just include the fact that you can walk around in minimal clothing and feel a lot more free, taking dips in pools and the lake and going and getting an ice cream cone without freezing your tookus off.

I love jogging outside. In fact, I’m writing this in the “afterglow” of an outdoor jog. It’s the end of March, and it’s gorgeous here in Northeastern Ohio. It’s actually quite unseasonal to be honest, and everyone is really soaking up the rays and taking advantage of it. Every single house I jogged by had their garage doors open, or they were sitting out on their decks or out on the front porch, just inhaling the fresh spring air and enjoying being uncooped from the house.

You see, it’s around this time in Northeastern Ohio that everyone starts to get cabin fever – big time. There are only so many months that you can stand to be indoors, without being able to really venture outside without bundling into a hundred layers.

There is something that gives a burst of energy and vitality about the sprint time, a feeling of new beginnings, and focusing again on your health and well being. You see to be drawn the healthier foods,even.

And jogging outside, ugh, well it’s simply the best. Not only do you get fresh air and to see great scenery and say hello to people as you pass, but you also get to soak up the sun’s rays and get your daily dose of vitamin D, which sadly, we miss out on too much in the winter time when our skin in barely exposed to the sun’s rays. Believe it or not, they’re not all bad, and sunlight actually boosts our mood and provides a much needed vitamin that cannot be made without the light, Vitamin D.

Since Vitamin D is proving to be a very integral part of health and cancer prevention, we’d do best to really make sure we get some sunlight exposure here and there. I know everyone is all about never going out in the sun, but as long as you do not burn, and you don’t over expose yourself, you do NEED some sunlight exposure.