The commonality of bloating can make it seem that bloating is inevitable and that there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But that just isn’t true. So what causes bloating? It may surprise you to find out that many of your common everyday habits attribute to this uncomfortable distention of your midsection. It might also surprise you that it’s not all that difficult to avoid or fight off.

The idea “health is wealth” is a fairly recent attitude shift. Today, we are more concerned than ever with our health, fitness, nutrition, and overall wellness. The trend in health consciousness coupled with medical progress and awareness has resulted in a 30% drop in mortality rates, and a 56% increase in life expectancy, in just 100 years. People are discovering that while money helps to pay for their lifestyle, there would be no life to style without their health. Thus the focal shift is changing from that of a career driven, workaholic society, to a more well rounded and balanced healthy community. More people are embracing the idea that without their health, their wealth doesn’t much matter.

Human socialization is key to leading a healthy and happy lifestyle, unfortunately many of the activities that we have come to associate with socialization are unhealthy and not productive to cultivating lasting or meaningful bonds. More often than not, we rely on restaurants, bars, and other low activity, indoor venues for the setting of our social meetings. We spend our social hour drinking high- calorie cocktails, and eating high grease, low nutrition, fried foods, and statically sitting. After sitting all day at work, it has somehow become natural to meet up with friends and sit some more.

Depression: Are You At Risk?

Depression is a natural and normal emotion that everyone faces at one time in their life or another. It’s when the depression doesn’t go away, and continues to intensify into feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness; then a normal case of depression becomes something more dangerous. Prolonged periods of depression are often categorized as clinical depression, if the patient simultaneously has five or more of the following symptoms, for at least a two week duration:

• A depressed mood for most of the day (especially in the morning)
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt every day (or almost every day)
• Feelings of restlessness
• Insomnia or Hypersomnia every day (or almost every day)
• Fatigue (loss of energy) every day (or almost every day)
• Impaired concentration (indecisiveness)
• Lack of interest (or pleasure) in most activities every day (or almost every day)
• Significant weight loss or weight gain
• Recurring thoughts of death or suicide (not just fearing death)

Do you know the difference between foods that are healthy and foods that are just faking it? Are the healthy foods in your cabinets actually unhealthy foods that have been masquerading for so long that it’s just understood that they are good for you, without anyone ever having questioned the packaging? Use this list to clean out your cabinets and ask yourself “Is It Healthy?” even if you think that you know it is.

Making sure that you are getting enough sleep, and that it is spent in quality REM sleep is imperative to your health. A lack of REM sleep can do more than just make you irritable and disorganized; it can also increase your risk of developing diabetes, heart problems, and depression. So how do you know if you’re getting enough sleep? Check out the chart below to see how many hours you and your family should be getting every night, and if you aren’t clocking in enough hours between the sheets make sure to follow our helpful tips on how to get better REM sleep, and more of it.

Committing yourself to a detox takes dedication and willpower, especially the first time you do one. The unknowns and the uncertainties could drive a person crazy just trying to figure the entire process out. One of the most common concerns to a detox cleanse newbie is what to expect to feel during and after detoxification, and how to deal with those feelings. Here we’ll explore every common feeling, from the pangs of hanger to the discomfort of withdrawal, and explain why in the end, it’s 100% worth it.

First, let’s start at the beginning. Before we scare you away with the physiological side effects of a healthy and fortifying detoxification, I’d like to remind you of why you’re doing this in the first place. Chances are fairly good that you didn’t just wake up one day and decide, “hey, I think I’ll start a detox cleanse today.” You’ve probably started noticing unappealing aspects of your health and appearance that have driven you to the decision to detoxify your body for a while now.

Going on a no sugar diet is by no means easy. This is because your body has likely become addicted to sugar over the years, and in order to cut it out of your diet you’re going to have to first break the addiction. In a 2007 scientific lab rat experiment, it was proven that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. When given the option between water infused with sugar or water infused with cocaine all rats (even those that had been previously addicted to cocaine) choose the water infused with sugar more often than that infused with cocaine. Sugar releases dopamine and opioids that cause strong addictive properties that can be difficult to break, but not impossible.

Staying on track with your nutritional intake is the most important aspect of fitness. While working out regularly is important, it is fairly useless without a proper diet balanced with the correct amount of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body requires on a daily basis to function at peak performance. As with anything else in life, maintaining a diet like this requires personal dedication, the will to succeed, and the right tools for the job. Missing even one of these components put you at risk of failure. Feeling a sense of personal dedication, and having an active will to succeed, are qualities which you must discover within yourself. They are unable to be purchased; they must come from a inner resolve, and a desire to be better than you are today. It takes more than just an appetite for victory though, you must also have the proper tools to get the job done effectively.