Your lifestyle choices play a major role in your health and wellness. As a family, living a responsible lifestyle helps you avoid sickness, keeps your body and mind in shape, and minimizes any medical expenses. That said, it can be tricky to modify your family’s lifestyle, especially habits that have been ingrained in your day-to-day routine. Without prior planning and preparation, it can lead to loss of energy and motivation, higher costs, and even resistance from family members. Here are six tricks to steer your family’s lifestyle in the right direction:

Build an Indoor Gym
It doesn’t have to be a professional gym with a dumbbell rack, sauna room, private trainer, and other luxuries. You can install exercise rubber mats in your garage, a pull-up bar on one of your door frames, and a set of dumbbells that are weight-adjustable. Other equipment to invest in for a home workout setup include jump ropes, kettlebells, punching bag, and medicine balls. Having an indoor gym makes it easier for the whole family to work out after school or work without having to make the time-consuming commute to and from the local gym.

Be Proactive in Your Children’s Financial Education
This tip talks about a different, albeit equally important, aspect of health. Financial education is something that will offer your children better choices in the future. By starting early and at home, your family can avoid toxic debt, leverage savings, and retire early. Financial problems of any one member can have a ripple effect towards the rest of the family. By making sure everyone knows how to responsibly manage their income and expenses, you lessen any future financial problems and the stress and relationship strain that come with it.

Make Sleep a Priority
Your family’s sleep routine is also a major contributing factor to your overall health as a group. Oftentimes, parents are too laxed when it comes to their children’s bedtime as well as their own. Sleeping late means you either wake up late or wake up early and not get adequate rest. Either way, this impacts performance as a professional at work or as a student in school. Lack of sleep can also result in heart complications, weight gain, and other health problems. In addition to banning devices at a set time each day, you should also establish a strict lights-out time for your household.

Control Your Family’s Screen Time
The most popular pastime of the modern household often involves a screen, whether it’s a large flatscreen television or a modest smartphone. But uncontrolled screen time, especially for younger users, can have detrimental long-term effects on both mind and body. The more hours your family spends in front of a screen, the less physical activity you collectively get. Left unchecked, this can lead to weight issues, anxiety and depression, addiction, and other serious side effects. Establish rules as to how long you and your children can use your devices each day. For instance, you can set a 10 PM curfew on all devices in the household.

Take Natural Supplements
Natural supplements, such as from Supplement Source, can help fill the nutritional gaps in your family’s diet. For instance, a vegetarian or vegan diet may lack essential vitamins, including B12 and D3. You may also have a deficiency in creatine, carnosine, and taurine, all of which are important nutrients that your body needs. While most natural supplements are harmless and can be integrated to a diet without any issues, consult your physician to make sure it doesn’t conflict with medication that you or a family member is currently taking.

Allocate Time for Travel
Travel is good for your family’s spiritual health and can be an educational experience for all ages. A day trip to a national park or visiting historic sites out of town are all feasible trips to take with your family at least once a week. In addition to boosting your spiritual health, travel is also a good way for your family to bond.

Conclusion
A healthier lifestyle doesn’t necessarily have to cost you money. All it takes is the willingness and effort to make a conscious shift towards healthier choices. By purging unhealthy and unproductive habits, all aspects of your family’s health improve, including your physical, mental, financial, and spiritual well-being.

There are a lot of obstacles and factors to consider when losing baby weight. Your body went through extraordinary pain and physiological changes during childbirth. It needs enough time, rest, and proper nutrition to heal and recover. Hence, losing weight after giving birth must be done carefully and in a healthy way.

Timing is critical in getting back into shape after pregnancy. It can take you longer to recover and avoid the risk of illness by losing weight too soon. It is important to allow your body to heal before starting any weight loss routine. Give it at least 6 to 8 weeks to be safe. Anyway, half of excess fats from pregnancy often comes off naturally after 6 weeks.

Taking care of the baby involves a lot of physical activity and sleepless nights. It can drain you easily and may cause drastic weight loss which is unhealthy. You need a good amount of energy and nutrition to take care of the baby. Crashing into diet or doing exhausting activities is not a good idea during this stage. It may weaken your body which is the opposite of what you want when having a baby.

Do not skip meals or do a fad diet that limits certain types of food. Staying healthy while losing weight should be your goal. Go for fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and proteins. Eat 5 to 6 small meals a day instead of 3 large meals to help your body digest well. Include fiber-rich foods or proteins when grabbing snacks. Fiber helps burn fats fast and protein keeps you full which prevents cravings. Choose broiled or baked rather than fried food. And avoid sweets such as soft drinks, juices, and cakes as they contain high calories.

Monitoring your calories plays an important role in your weight loss journey. Reducing calorie intake is helpful in losing weight. However, your body requires 500 kcal more than you need before pregnancy. It is essential for breastfeeding as low-calorie diet may affect your milk supply.

Breastfeeding is one of the best ways to get back into shape after childbirth. It is natural and ensures that your baby is getting the right nutrients. Breastfeeding can burn at least 500 kcal a day. Furthermore, it stimulates shrinking of the uterus which is helpful in getting rid of bulging belly.

Daily exercise is of course another healthy way to lose weight. Once your body is ready to burn some pounds you can start working out. Safely and slowly by taking a walk in your block with your baby in a stroller. Then increase the intensity day by day. Take it slowly, especially if you stopped your usual routine exercises during pregnancy.

Time is one of your biggest challenge in losing baby weight. Taking care of a baby is a lot. It can consume almost all your time. You have to feed the baby and change diapers 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. It is hard to manage time during this period especially for first time moms. You have to deal with sleepless nights and body pains from carrying the baby. Working out may be your lowest priority. But with enough motivation, it is possible.

It is important to be realistic in your weight loss journey. It can be harder and may take more time than you expect. Be patient. You’ll get there. However, be prepare that your body may not return to your exact shape pre-baby. You may have a larger waistline, wider hips, or softer belly. That’s okay. Remember that you gave birth to a beautiful baby who adores every inch of you.

A vital part of the system, the thyroid aids in the production of the many important hormones and proper functionality of the human system. There are a variety of plausible thyroid diseases and disorders which will affect the traditional working of the gland. The most ideal approach to learn the main irregular symptoms you are encountering is by going to the top hospital and getting a thorough checkup.

Hyperthyroidism and Hypothyroidism

The two most common disorders include hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. The previous imprints a condition wherein the organ overproduces thyroid chemicals against the sums required.

The latter on the opposite hand may be a condition wherein the gland fails to form sufficient quantities of needed hormones. Understanding hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism symptoms may be a great way of diagnosing the matter.

Despite the fact that hypothyroidism is more normal than its partner, yet thinking about hyperthyroidism side effects is similarly significant.

Common hyperthyroidism symptoms

Sleeping Disorder and Fatigue – People with hyperthyroidism find it difficult to nod off too easily, and hence, feel more tired and exhausted. An overactive thyroid triggers a sleeping disorder because of fretfulness and tension and makes resting hard.

Weight Loss – one of the main hyperthyroidism symptoms is weight loss. No matter if an individual eats his/her normal diet or quite usual, hyperthyroidism constantly loses weight.

Mood swings and Mental Changes – In hyperthyroidism, an individual is more likely to experience anxiety and panic attacks – typically feel he/she cannot relax in the least. Also, the presence of excess quantities of hormone within the bloodstream causes difficulty in concentrating.

Muscle Pain – The condition is understood to cause a spread of joint and muscle problems, typically including firmly holding objects, reaching arms above the heads, and even climbing stairs.

Irregular Periods and Infertility – those that experience infrequent, shorter, and lighter periods are likely to suffer from infertility problems. Having regular and normal periods is very important.

Skin Changes and Hair Loss – The condition of hyperthyroid can cause hair loss usually on the top and even cause thin, fragile skin.

Cholesterol Levels – With this disorder, most people are likely to experience unusually low cholesterol levels.

Blood Pressure Levels – within the event of the presence of hyperthyroidism condition, the systolic, upper value of vital sign reading rises, while the diastolic or the lower reading remains constant or goes down.

Heart Rate – the guts beat faster than usual and an individual is probably going to experience heart flutters or palpitation. Immediate care is recommended.

Other than these, overabundance utilization of liquor, ordinary smoking, torpid way of life, and an imbalanced eating routine make for certain reasons for hyperthyroidism, which lead to surfacing of these, above recorded side effects.

Premise the aftereffect of these tests, a genuine thyroid issue treatment is formed by the best endocrinologist. The sooner you get treated for a thyroid-related treatment, the better is the result. Hyperthyroidism is a chronic condition most common among women.

Almost everyone is familiar with the disease cancer, we may call it by various regional language names, but the fear and deaths associated with this disease is palpable at every section of society. When our own body cells grow and spread at an abnormal and uncontrolled rate it is called Cancer. Both external and internal factors may cause cancer to develop in body.

Cancer is one of the leading cause of deaths worldwide. It is a rapidly emerging deadly disease which causes enormous suffering and pain, not only to the patient but also to his or her family. But timely diagnose can prevent this cruel disease to destroy our health and happiness, hence it is very important to undergo routine screening. So, this world cancer day let’s explore why regular screening is the need of the hour?

Cancer in figures

Only in United States, around 1.8 million people are diagnosed with this destructive disease annually. Breast cancer in most diagnosed cancer among women while in men prostate cancer is increasing at a lethal rate. Lung cancer has result in maximum number of cancer related deaths followed by colorectal and pancreatic cancer. Did you know more men die of cancer than women?

What is screening

Getting your body routinely checked in absence of symptoms is called as screening. In screening for cancer, tests and physical exams are designed in a manner to detect occult cancer even before symptoms are appearing.

Why is screening so important

Cancer is not direct result of any infection. Our own body cells behave abnormally and grow at very unrestrained manner. This accumulation of cells called as tumor, can be benign (harmless) or malignant. For symptoms to appear it takes time. By the time you have symptom, cancer usually gets at an advanced stage in most of cases.
Screening detects this growth even before symptoms appear. Screening makes cancer to be diagnosed when it is still treatable.
The ultimate objective of screening is to reduce number of cancer deaths and cancer sufferings.
One of the important benefits of screening is prevention of cancer due to awareness.
Screening detects very slow growing tumors which grows silently without causing any trouble to patient.
Screening provides immense mental relief when negative and decreases your stress.
Early detection prevents spread to other body parts and can be treated with better recovery rate.
When detected early, it saves both money and time taken for treatment.
In simple words,early detection of cancers equals to better survival rate.
Types of screening

Clinical examination: This is focused on physical exams like checking for lumps, lymph nodes, any growths, breast exams, skin check (for skin cancers) etc.
Mammography: This is done to detect breast cancerand is a X Ray based test.
Blood test: Certain cancer blood markers are checked in blood to detect cancer followed by advanced tests, if required. This is also not a routine but done in high risk cases. Also, simple Blood counts can detect any abnormality like increased white blood cell counts or change in Red blood cells morphology; which can detect certain blood cancers in assistance with advanced and specific tests.Prostate Specific antigen is checked in blood to detect prostate cancers. However, this is not a specific test and needs further investigating.
PAP test: This test is used as screening tool to detect any presence of pre- cancerous or cancerous cells in cervix of female. This can prevent many cervical cancers. Also strain of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) can be detected from samples of vagina or cervix. This virus is associated with increased risk of cervical cancer.
Scopy: Various scopies like colonoscopies, sigmoidoscopies where flexible & lubricated tubes are inserted in rectum to detect colo-rectal cancers are also used.
Stool and urine test: Simple laboratory tests may not detect cancers but can tell a lot about your general health. Any deviation from normal figures may lead to further probe and may prevent many diseases including cancers from becoming advanced.
DNA tests: This is not a routine. Being a time consuming and expensive tests these are restricted for people with strong family history of cancers.
X Rays: Simple X Rays can sometimes detect any growths like lung cancer etc.
Rectal exam: Prostate cancer is a leading cancer is men and it can be detected at early screening tests by rectal exam where doctors uses his gloved fingers to check prostate gland for any surface irregularities.
Specific tests: Highly advanced screening, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomographic scan (CT scan) are done as per requirement of individual case. They are not done on routine basis but can be done in high risk cases only.

However, screening has it’s own limitation too. It cannot always diagnose cancer and may provide you false assurance. Also, it can be sometimes over diagnosed you and may unnecessarily subjects you to a battery of tests. But overall benefits of screening, surpasses it’s limitations.

When is screening advised?

In women, PAP test is advised after 21 years age, every 3 years
Mammography for women above 40, every 5 years
Colonoscopy should be priority in men after 45 years age along with PSA test for screening prostate cancer
Note: Screening should be discussed and done as per doctor’s advice, since it may vary with individual case.

On this world cancer day, let’s also have some tips for preventing cancer:

Stop smoking and say good bye to alcohol and tobacco
Eat organic and fresh foods free of chemicals and preservatives
Eat balanced diet and exercise regularly
Avoid pollutants as far as possible, wear anti-pollution mask
Avoid Sun exposure in mid noon
Avoid too much of chemical treatment for skin and hair
Stay away from infections as far as possible
Opt for regular screening

In a nutshell, this WORLD CANCER DAY,let’s pledge to defeat Cancer. CHOOSE screening,SAVE lives; because each life matters.