All posts by HealthyLife

HealthyLife is a part of www.WeRIndia.com, an all India – centric website (https://healthylife.werindia.com) and is solely owned and operated by WeRIndia.com. It is a Indian nutritional portal providing educational articles.This nutritional port was launched on February 5th, 2015.
Healthy eating tips

Healthy eating tip: Set yourself up for success

To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change.

If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.

  • Simplify. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your diet will become healthier and more delicious.
  • Start slow and make changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking. As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more healthy choices to your diet.
  • Every change you make to improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts.

Think of water and exercise as food groups in your diet.

Water. Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated—causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices. Exercise. Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries, or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

Image credit: Photo by Whitney Wright on Unsplash

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: September 6, 2017
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Grandma's tip

12 Handy tips from Grandma

Try these handy tips from grandma while working around the home.

1. To avoid smell of cabbage during cooking keep a piece of bread in the vessel.

2. To get rid of garlic odor from hands, wash stainless steel vessels.

3. People chew gums and stick it to furniture. To remove gums, keep a cloth in freezer and take it out. Use this cold cloth to remove stuck gum.

4. To keep banana fresh for few more days, wrap the top of the banana bunch with a plastic wrap.

5. Soak lemons in hot water for few minutes then cut and squeeze. Soaking in hot water helps to release more juice from lemons.

6. To remove refrigerator odor, add a Tbs of baking soda and lemon juice in warm water. Keep it inside refrigerator for few hours. OR use same mix water to clean the refrigerator.

7. If you are constantly sneezing for no reason, press your tongue against the back of your upper teeth to reduce sneezing.

8. Keep an onion near your pillow to reduce stuffy nose while sleeping.

9. Sometimes we laugh for no reasons and it may cause embarrassment.  To avoid this just pinch yourself twice.

10. Use sprite or coke to clean the mirror! (and toilet!!)

11. Add 1 tsp of baking soda to 150 ml water and mix well. Use it as mouthwash to stop bad breath.

12. To remove ink from clothes saturate the ink stain with hairspray, and then blot at the stain. Then, wash the items immediately with laundry detergent and color safe bleach (or chlorine bleach if it’s a white item).

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: September 5, 2017
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letapose

How Yoga Calms the Mind and Body ?

Leta Koontz-Stuyvesant

What’s the difference between a cheerleader and a yogi practicing back bends and splits? From a distance, the two would appear to be doing the same thing. But if you looked a bit closer, you might notice that the yogi is breathing more smoothly, slower, and more evenly. You might even observe that while the cheerleader is looking around, smiling at everyone, the yogi’s face is relaxed and his or her gaze is focused. While externally the differences between the yogi and the cheerleader may seem slight, the internal differences are significant.

Most yoga classes in the West focus exclusively on asana, the physical postures of yoga. While it’s a good thing to stretch and tone, it’s an even better thing to stretch and tone while slowing down the breath and incorporating other yogic meditation techniques. One such technique is the use of drishti, focusing the gaze, which helps to quiet the mind. When the gaze is fixed on a single point, the mind is less likely to be distracted by thoughts provided by visual stimuli (the carpet in here is ugly . . . I can’t believe that guy is wearing those pants…). These thoughts distract and pollute the mind, causing it to constantly churn and fluctuate.

Yoga is famous for its ability to heal and bring peace of mind. But how does the practice of yoga accomplish this?

There are two nervous systems in the human body: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic, commonly known as the “fight or flight” system, causes the blood pressure to rise, the breath rate to quicken, and stress hormones to flood into the body. Historically, this occurred to prepare the body for fighting dangerous animals. But in today’s world, we experience this response while we are sitting in traffic or feeling stressed at the office. When this system is overly stimulated, we can experience health consequences such as ulcers, migraines, and heart disease.

The parasympathetic nervous system lowers blood pressure and slows the pace of the breath. When the blood no longer has to rush to the muscles, it is free to travel to the digestive, reproductive, glandular, and immune systems – systems made up of organs that are more necessary to long-term survival. The body now has time to heal the damage accumulated during our daily battles. Studies have shown that long, deep breathing encourages the actions of the parasympathetic nervous system and allows relaxation and healing to occur. The yogi practices breathing meditations called pranayama, which encourage the actions of the parasympathetic nervous system.

So while the yogi and the cheer leader both gain strength and flexibility from practicing back bends and splits, the yogi is able to reap additional health rewards from the addition of pranayama. But even more is happening within the yogi. The yogi is working to calm the fluctuations of the mind.

Try this little exercise: take a break from reading this article and spend the next five minutes concentrating on the breath and nothing else.

You probably discovered that your mind wants to think about everything but the breath. Our minds have a tendency to wander, to disconnect from our bodies, to daydream and fret about the future, to reminisce and stew over the past. Humans have evolved the ability to automatically breathe even while sleeping. While breathing does not require conscious awareness, focusing your attention on your breath will force you to focus on what’s happening right now, at this very moment. Focusing on your breath doesn’t allow your conscious mind to drift away, but encourages it to stay connected in your body and in the now.

But why shouldn’t we allow ourselves to daydream or reminisce, it seems harmless? Well, frequently when we are reminiscing about the good old times we begin fear to these events won’t occur again. The more time we spend in reverie, the less open we are to the good things that are happening right now. Often, even when we are the midst of a good time, we begin to worry about it ending and start plotting to make it happen again. We miss out on embracing the moment fully while it is unfolding. And while having goals in life is a good thing, spending hours daydreaming won’t get you any closer to making your dreams come true. Being lost in fantasy can often lead to disappointment when reality hits.

The quality of the breath reflects the quality of the mind. There is a connection between our mental, emotional and psychological states and the pace and depth of our breath. For example, when we are frightened, we take short, quick, shallow breaths. When we are deeply relaxed or asleep, we take long, deep breaths.

While our mental state influences our breathing pattern, we can choose to change our breathing pattern and thereby change our mental state. When you relax and slow the pace of the breath, the pace of the mind is similarly calmed and quieted. Over time, you begin to act and think from a state of peace. The more time you spend in this place, the more likely you are to act with patience, understanding, and compassion.

The breath also helps us to stay connected to the present moment. Staying in the now frees us. We can move on from past grievances and sorrows and can view the world as it really is, without false expectations. We learn to accept ourselves and others as we and they currently are. Being in the moment allows you to be fully present when you spend time with the people you love.

Our mood is also affected by how we feel physically. Ever try to be friendly when you have a stomach ache? Asana helps to keep our muscles, joints, and fascia strong and flexible. The practice of asana also helps reduce blood pressure, stimulate the immune and glandular systems, reduce insomnia, and heal the body in innumerable other ways.

The simple practices of asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breathing), and drishti (focusing) lead the yoga practitioner to not only a state of optimal physical health, but to a state of peace. These practices help to connect you to the present moment, to others and to your true self.

Leta Koontz-Stuyvesant has been studying yoga since 1998. Her first instructor was Lori Brungard. In 1999, a trip to India focused her interest in Ashtanga yoga. She teaches at Schoolhouse Yoga in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

For more visit: http://www.yogamovement.com/resources/howyogacalms.html

Image credit: Photo by Elly Fairytale from Pexels (Free for commercial use)

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: September 4, 2017
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Ragi Manni For Babies

Ragi manni for your baby

Ragi or finger millet is very rich nutrient food. It serves all nutrients that a baby needs for growth. Ragi has calcium, iron and many more important nutrients. Major portion of ragi is carbohydrate about 80%. The fat percentage is quite less which is good!. Protein and fiber contents vary but range from less to moderate. Do you know? Ragi mudde is a favorite dish from Karnataka, India. One ball of ragi mudde serves good amount of energy. Ragi manni is a simple dish made out of ragi flour as one of the important ingredient. It is good for young little stomach. It is also known as “super food of babies“. It is a traditional food and is gaining more popularity with young parents as they now know the value of ragi ! Ready made ragi manni flour will be available easily. But, homemade flour is better and safe for the babies.

To start with one can feed baby (4 month and above) ragi manni made out of only ragi flour. Eventually, you can add other ingredients can be introduced to this ragi manni one by one. Watch for allergic reactions. If you see any allergy then take out the particular ingredient.

Ragi manni FULL Ingredients:

  1. ¼ cup wheat
  2. ¼ cup jowar
  3. ¼ cup green gram
  4. 1 cup ragi/Finger millet

Preparation method:

  1. Wash and soak above ingredients separately overnight.
  2. Next morning drain the water and allow them to sprout. You can sprout them (separately) by tying a cloth or use sprouting utensils.
  3. After 24 hours, take out the sprouted seeds and dry them under hot sun. There should not be any water content left.
  4. Grind dried sprouted seeds to powder. Strain the powder to get very fine powder.
  5. Store the powder in an air tight container.

To feed baby: For 4 month and up:

  • To 1/4 cup milk add 1 to 2 Tbs water and 1/2 tsp of ragi hittu.
  • Mix well and transfer to a container. Cook this mix well on medium to low heat. Make sure there is no lumps left.
  • Take out the manni, add little ghee/clarified butter, very little salt or sugar or date syrup and feed the baby.
  • See how baby feels with salt or sugar – accordingly you can add either one of them.

Read more at: Healthylife.werindia.com

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: September 3, 2017
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Sweet Potato Peanut Bisque

Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque

Makes: 5 servings, about 1 1/2 cups each

Active Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 large sweet potatoes (10-12 ounces each)
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 small yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced
  • 3 cups reduced-sodium tomato-vegetable juice blend or tomato juice
  • 1 4-ounce can diced green chilies, preferably hot, drained
  • 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1 15-ounce can vegetable broth
  • 1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter
  • Freshly ground pepper to taste
  • Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

Preparation

1. Prick sweet potatoes in several places with a fork. Microwave on High until just cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until it just begins to brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute more. Stir in juice, green chilies, ginger and allspice. Adjust the heat so the mixture boils gently; cook for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bite-size pieces. Add half to the pot. Place the other half in a food processor or blender along with broth and peanut butter. Puree until completely smooth. Add the puree to the pot and stir well to combine. Thin the bisque with water, if desired. Season with pepper. Heat until hot. Garnish with cilantro, if desired.

Tips & Notes

Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Thin with water before reheating, if desired.

Nutrition

Per serving: 291 calories; 16 g fat (3 g sat, 8 g mono); 0 mg cholesterol; 30 g carbohydrates; 1 g added sugars; 10 g protein; 6 g fiber; 474 mg sodium; 1011 mg potassium.

Nutrition Bonus: Vitamin A (300% daily value), Vitamin C (100% dv), Potassium (29% dv), Magnesium (15% dv).

Carbohydrate Servings: 1 1/2

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: August 30, 2017
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Sleeping student

Sleep is essential for college students

Getting enough sleep is an integral part of staying healthy and relaxed while studying.

How to get enough sleep when you have so much to study and do lot of project work?

Listen to grandma what her experience has to say about getting enough sleep that is essential for college students.

  1. Take a nap: A short nap for 15 minutes can do wonders for the energy levels. Don’t nap in the evening hours close to during supper/dinner time. Ideal time to nap is after your lunch time.
  2. Sit on chair to work: Don’t make a habit of working on the bed. It makes going to sleep harder. Keep the work space and bed separate.
  3. Get full sleep: Whenever it is possible get full sleep. 7 to 9 hours sleep is needed for young adults to be active and to get full energy. If not possible every day, try it as many days as possible.
  4. Schedule: Keeping sleep times at same time can help to get good sleep. It might be harder with lot of work, but try.
  5. When you are sharing room with someone naturally you can be distracted with laughs, talk and discussion. Work with your roommate to get into a sleep schedule. If you don’t sleep enough, then concentrating in your lecturing classes can be tough.
  6. Study time: You may feel like studying longer hours in the night. Why not study from the beginning, make notes and review often. This will help you to perform better in your exams and projects. Not getting enough sleep can result in under performance regardless of how hard you study.
  7. Drinks: Avoid any type of caffeinated drink in the evening hours. Coffee can keep you awake for longer hours even if you want to go to bed.
  8. Dairy: Keeping a dairy and keeping track of your activities every night at same time will help you to get good sleep. As you speak your mind in the dairy you feel relaxed and it helps.
  9. Plan your day in such a way that you get enough sleep. Early to be, early to rise attitude helps. Train yourself to wake up early and early bird catches many more things than others!
  10. If someone is making fun of you for going to bed early, be it. Don’t worry. Your health is in your hand. When you are studying, you know your mind and body best. If you need to catch enough sleep then schedule your day accordingly and don’t bother about what others are saying.
  11. If you are unable to focus on your study at night and your performance is not up to the mark, then your body is trying to tell you that you need to change your habit and probably you need to make change in your routine – to wake up early and study. Early morning after a good night sleep, it is easy to focus your mind on studies.
  12. Keep your gadgets – smartphones, laptop, tablet , audio devices away when you go to bed. As you know light emitting from these devices can disturb your sleep.

A good night sleep is important not only for your health, also for your school, college performances and to do better in your all activities.

Listen to grandma: www.healthylife.werindia.com

Image credit: Image by Michael Drummond from Pixabay

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: August 23, 2017
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Tattoo to monitor blood sugar level

Tattoo to monitor blood sugar level

How cool it would be to get a tattoo that is patient friendly? Well, researchers at MIT and Harvard joined the two concepts to create tattoos that can change color based on blood glucose level of the person wearing them.

Diabetic people who must self-care and especially who are insulin dependent must monitor their blood glucose level. Many patients check sugar level with handheld meters that requires pricking finger to draw blood testing.  This test can be inconvenient and painful. Moreover, the tools required for testing can be expensive. Researchers are working on new ways to track sugar levels that does not involve pricking finger or needle to the body in any way.

Earlier in July, researchers at MIT announced the development of “Dermal Abyss”, (or d-abyss) a bio- sensing tattoo that changes color based on the levels of diabetic patients’ interstitial fluid.

A very thin, flexible, disposable device that sticks to skin like a rub-on tattoo has been developed by these researchers. This device holds small, tiny electrical sensors that can measure blood glucose in the fluid just beneath the skin. Instead of using regular ink, the Dermal Abyss’s biosensors can reflect the amount of glucose, alkali and sodium in the body.

The diabetic friendly tattoo will not show up in pharmacy any soon. Per Katia Vega, a post-doctoral associate at MIT and member of research team “the Dermal Abyss is a proof-of-concept that illustrates the potential of culturally and medically integrated biosensors”. They are biosensor tattoos that visibly react to changes in the metabolism. The purpose of the work is to light the imagination of biotechnologists and stimulate public support for such efforts”.

The technology is still in a very early stage of development and the study was designed to show that the concept is good. To sense glucose levels in actual numbers and continuously and to display in user friendly ways – work is going on. Using a liquid with biosensors instead of traditional ink, researchers want to turn the human skin surface into an interactive display. So far, the team has developed three different inks that shift color in response to glucose level change in interstitial fluid. Interstitial fluid sloshes around between our cells and compromises about 16% of the human body weight. When the blood sugar level rises, the sensor changes its color from blue to brown.

Even though the study is preliminary – the investigation indicates that the tattoo based iontophoresis-sensor platform holds considerable promise for diabetes management and can be extended toward noninvasive monitoring of glucose level. Not only the glucose levels, tattoos sense changes can monitor pH, which indicates dehydration and changes in sodium ion, which can give indications of hypertension. The ink that shifts from pink to purple in relation to pH levels, a vibrant green hue under UV light to show rising salt levels and the third ink blue to brown color change shows increase in blood sugar level.

Device is tested on few people and need to be tested on more people to prove that they are safe and accurate before they are approved for general use.

Image and reference video : https://vimeo.com/216203028

References:

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: August 22, 2017
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Eggless Dates cake recipe

Eggless Dates cake recipe

By consuming dates we get several health benefits. If someone wants to put on some weight date is one of the best option. Dates contains organic sulfur, calcium, iron, manganese and copper. It also supplies dietary fiber and vitamins. Daily dates consumption gives balanced nutrition to body. Other health benefits of dates include: easy digestion, energy booster, immune system booster, treats anemia, cures allergy, boosts nervous system functionality and health, good for heart health, relieves intoxication, reduces sexual weakness and recent studies show that it reduces abdominal caner risk.

An eggless dates cake recipe is below.

Calorie per serving: 420

Total serving : 11

Ingredients:

  1. Dates – 20
  2. Milk -3/4 cup
  3. All-purpose flour – 1 cup
  4. Sugar – ¾ cup
  5. Baking soda – – 1 tsp
  6. Dry fruits – Cashew, walnut, sliced almond and few raisins – together ¼ cup
  7. Butter – ¼ cup
  8. Vanilla extract – 1 tsp (optional)
  9. Pinch salt (optional)

  Baking mix preparation:

  1. Remove seeds from dates and add to milk. On medium heat boil milk with dates for 2 to 3 minutes.
  2. Allow it to cool and grind. Add sugar and butter to grinded mix.
  3. Add all-purpose flour little by little followed by baking soda and dry fruits – pieces of walnut, cashew and raisins. The consistency of cake mix should be slightly thicker than dosa and idli batter.

Baking procedure:

  1. Now, apply little oil to baking pan and Sprinkle little all-purpose flour inside the container.
  2. Transfer the baking mix to the pan. Thickness of the baking mix at least should be 2 inches for easy lifting.
  3. On top of the mix place slices of almond.
  4. Bake the content at 350F for about 35 to 40 minutes. After 35 minutes using a knife check whether the content is baked or not.
  5. Remove and allow the cake to cool.
  6. Date cake is ready to serve now.

Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: August 21, 2017
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