Month: November 2019

Should you Meditate?

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Should you Meditate?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the practice of meditating, it is quite simply the habitual process of exercising and training you mind to focus and conscientiously redirect your thoughts. The popularity of meditation continues to increase with Americans as more people discover what meditation really is. The majority of people who meditate use the practice to help improve their overall health. Personally I have found meditation to be enthralling, and I have been regularly meditating everyday for some time now. Some benefits I have observed have been my overall increase in self-discipline and my sleep. In the last couple of months, I have found my sleep to be far more restorative, even though I am sleeping much less than I used to. Although I may not be able to attribute this significant change in my health solely to my practice of meditation, I do think that the documented benefits of meditation are too potent to ignore. The benefits of meditation obviously vary from person to person, so if the thought of getting better sleep doesn’t intrigue you, here are some scientific based benefits of meditation on your body.

 

1. Mediation may reduce your stress and help you control your anxiety.

Mental and physical stress typically cause elevated levels of the stress hormone in our body known as cortisol. Harmful effects of having an irregular amount of cortisol in our system include the release of inflammation-promoting chemicals called cytokines. The effects of too much distress on the body can disrupt our regular sleep pattern, encourage negative thoughts, and increase depression and anxiety. In an eight week study conducted with over 3,500 adults, a meditation style called “mindful meditation” greatly reduced the inflammatory response caused by an excess of stress. Simply put, less stress normally means less anxiety. In High School,  we have a lot of pressure put on us from multiple different sources. We are often expected to maintain good grades from school, have a healthy social life, and contribute to our school in a multitude of ways. Sometimes these pressures and stressors can become overwhelming and cause significant depression. Meditation is a healthy way to try and introduce more control into your life.

2. May help you increase self-awareness

There are so many different types of meditation out there for you to try, and many of them may help you enhance your self-awareness and overall understanding of your mind, therefore helping you grow into the best possible version of yourself. Some forms specifically aim to teach you how to develop a greater understanding of yourself and how you interact with those around you. Other forms might air to teach you how to recognize harmful thoughts and steer them instead toward a more constructive mindset.

3. Lastly, Meditation may help you increase your attention span.
This makes a lot of sense. When you meditate it is essentially like weight lifting for your attention span. Every time you practice your focus, it helps increase the strength and endurance of your attention span. The best part about this benefit is it does not take long to observe an increase in your attention span. One study found that even just four days of continued practice was enough. An increase in attention span will help you focus on the more meaningful components of your life instead of mindlessly wandering day to day. If you desire to live a more productive and driven life, meditation might be able to help you.

In conclusion, meditation is a healthy way to spend your time. There are a variety of observed benefits that may improve your quality of life. I suggest you give it a try. Some platforms I have used that I would recommend include Headspace and Calm. Thanks for reading!

Quit Social Media

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Hello and welcome to the next installment of my blog series on personal health. As it is suggested by the title, today I will be diving into what actually happens to us when we stop using social media. Social media, as a whole, offers a variety of ways to connect with the world around us. It allows us to broadcast our talents and passion to the world around us, as well as helping us grow life-long friends. There are definitely aspects of social media that may lead to self-improvement, but recently it has become more common for social media to begin to take over our lives. It is estimated that 210 million people suffer from social media and internet addictions worldwide. If we give social media for a day, week, month, or even a year, scientists and researchers say that we will experience some pretty amazing things.

One of the first benefits you might notice after giving up social media is the genuine connections you will make with other people while you are off your phone. Without social media, we are forced to make eye contact instead of passing time with an illuminated screen, mindlessly scrolling through online memes or random Facebook posts from two weeks ago. Secondly, you will notice a strong increase in productivity. Although checking social media to like a post or to view a status only takes a couple of seconds, it takes far more time to refocus on what we were previously doing and additionally disrupts our chain of thought. Checking your phone again and again, time after time, essentially leads you to multitask your life as you balance reality with an online perceived reality. Multitasking your life is certainly no proper way to live as it definitely drains productivity and quality of life.

What else?

Almost everybody at some point in their life has encountered some sort of difficulty with falling asleep and waking up. If I told you that quitting social media would get rid of all of these problems, you probably wouldn’t believe me. That is fair. And true. Quitting social media will not make your life perfect, but recent research has identified a strong disruption in the body’s natural circadian rhythm after prolonged exposure to blue light. While we are busy checking social media we are actually throwing off our body’s natural internal clock, therefore making it much more difficult to wake up and fall asleep. Another important positive consequence of ditching social media to cover is how much more confident you will feel in life. On social media, people typically post the most glamorous moments of their life, showcasing their latest vacation to the beach or fabulous wedding. With all these highlights online, it becomes very easy to compare ourselves to these brilliant lives these people live online. The truth is we do not actually know what is going on with these people’s lives. We only see the highlights but never the lows. Most people online will rarely post very unattractive or unflattering photos of themselves. By getting rid of social media, we are getting rid of so many potential unrealistic lives to compare ourselves to, and in return we will feel happier about ourselves and the lives we live.

 

In conclusion, there are a lot of benefits that you may quickly observe from giving up social media. Social media has many practical and important uses that help us connect with the world around us but if you are somebody who has noticed that social media has taken up a lot of your time, I strongly suggest limiting your usage or completely expelling it from your life for even a short period of time. Even if you only give up social media for a week, or even a day, I think you will learn a lot about yourself and definitely become more conscious, so why not just give it a try. Thanks a bunch for tuning into my blog, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please drop a message down below. Thanks again, and I will hopefully see you in the next installment of my blog.

Sources:

Madormo, Carrie. “What Really Happens to Your Body When You Give up Social Media.” TheList.com, The List, 6 July 2017, https://www.thelist.com/73673/really-happens-body-give-social-media/.

https://www.bustle.com/p/giving-up-social-media-for-a-month-can-have-these-5-benefits-according-to-psychologists-18224866

Bulking and Cutting for dummies.

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Hi peeps!
What is going on, how are you all doing on this fine day? Whether this is your first time viewing my blog or you are returning from my previous blogs, welcome! I write mostly about living in a balanced and healthy state of physical well-being. Today on my blog, I will be discussing bulking, cutting, and fake nattys so buckle in.

Bulking and Cutting
What is bulking and cutting? Together, bulking and cutting make the two distinct lifestyles that serious strength athletes and competitive bodybuilders utilize in order to be successful at building lean muscle and losing body fat. Although it is normally the professionals that follow such strategies of eating and exercise, there is a lot of useful information that the average person might want to understand if they are looking to live a balanced, and healthy life. Bulking, in essence, is putting your body in a daily caloric surplus while regularly strength training in order to put on pounds of quality lean muscle and fat. While bulking, athletes typically experience a large increase in strength and pounds of muscle, while also losing some muscle definition because of the excess fat gain. After one engages the bulking lifestyle for a bit, normally in the winter while everyone is wearing sweaters and warm winter coats, there will eventually come a time for one to begin a cut. People normally begin their cutting lifestyle as summer approaches so they are ready to display their hot and sexy summer body. In theory, cutting is putting one’s body in a slight caloric deficit, while continuing to strength train as well as incorporating cardio into their workouts, in order to cut the fat that was gained during the period of bulking and lean out. During a cut, one would expect to maintain levels of strength while losing fat and gaining muscle definition. The important takeaway from bulking and cutting is the idea of calorie excess and calorie surplus. Everyone burns an amount of calories in a day, an amount that is dependent on age, gender, sleep, diet, and amount of activity. In order to not be reduced to dust, we need to fuel our body with food. The amount of calories we consume directly impacts our body weight. If one is in a calorie deficit, that is one consumes less calories than their body burns in a day, they will lose weight. If one is in a calorie surplus, or they consume more calories than their body burns in a day, then they will gain weight. This is math. If you are trying to lose weight or gain weight, adjust the amount of calories that you consume on a daily basis.

                                     

Fake Nattys

A fake natty or a fake natural is somebody in the fitness industry who claims to be drug and steroid free, but in reality uses all sorts of illegal substances. A fake natural could be a regular gym goer who wants to exponentially boost his progress, or a popular fitness influencer trying to sell their audience a workout program with the promise of getting muscular and lean like them. I personally hate the latter version because they are greedy and manipulative people who sell garbage product to insecure vulnerable people. Fake naturals do not need to bulk or cut and are instead able to put on unrealistic amounts of lean muscle and strength in short periods of time. The majority of bodybuilders with unrealistic body compositions are the majority of the time on steroids. The fitness industry is a business, with the primary goal of many of the influencers being to make money. Remember to look out for yourself and love yourself. Thank you forreading!