Showing posts with label yourself. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yourself. Show all posts

3 Tricks to Get Yourself Exercising



At any age, you might find it difficult to exercise on a regular basis. Work, family and other responsibilities simply take priority in life. During the retirement years, you have more time on your hands that can be dedicated to exercising. Ideally, working out for about 150 minutes a week is optimal. Get this time in by using these basic tricks and get yourself exercising. Feeling and looking younger than ever is a reward for every 50-something.

1. Do it First Thing

One of the most common reasons why workouts don't happen is the time factor. You promise yourself to exercise in the afternoon, and shopping or babysitting gets in the way. For most of the week, you hope to exercise but nothing occurs. Trick yourself into exercising most days of the week by simply doing it first.

Get up in the morning, brush your teeth and head to the gym. When you make exercise a priority with breakfast and dressing yourself, there are no other excuses to create and miss that workout. You'll feel energized afterward, which helps with every other task during the day. It might be necessary to wake up a little bit earlier than normal, but the effort is worth the rewards. As you grow into the senior years, exercise becomes a critical activity for your overall health. Add in aerobic and resistance training to round out your morning regimen.

2. Make it Social

By nature, humans are social animals. Every task in life can be social, from cooking dinner to solving a problem. Exercising is another activity that definitely benefits you from a social perspective. Find a friend that encourages and inspires you. Commit to a weekly workout goal together. It's much harder to skip a workout when your friend is urging you to join him or her. 

During the buddy workout, each person offers their own challenges to the other participant. The faster person inspires the other one to pedal harder on the bike or to run faster on the treadmill. These small challenges make each workout more fun than the next one. Because you'll notice a more toned body as a result of the challenges, you'll want to exercise even more with the friend. This scenario continues on its cyclical pattern as you get healthier each day.

3. Create a Reward System

You may have heard of reward systems before and wondered about their value. Many people perceive a reward as a fatty snack or food, which negates the health benefits of the workout in the first place. Think of a reward that's not food based, such as watching a favorite movie or buying art supplies for a project. These rewards cannot be achieved in any other way besides working out on a regular basis. 

As soon as you complete the workout, reward yourself. The brain responds to this situation by associating exercise with a positive outcome. Although a healthier body should be the reward, it helps to have a more tangible prize to focus on. Continue to reward yourself so that a pattern emerges in your mind. The workout habit will be ingrained in the mind after only a few sessions.

Don't forget that household chores can count toward your exercise goals. Vacuuming the entire house is essentially an aerobic routine. Consider all of the activities that you perform in a given day so that you can add up the exercise time. You may be more active than you first thought.

Tips to Protect Yourself from Ticks and Bedbugs



The weather may be getting warmer so you want to spend more time outdoors. Spring and summer are fun-filled days for humans, but they're also a prime time for bugs too. Insects thrive in warm weather because they're coldblooded; they depend on the warmth to loosen up their bodies for reproduction purposes. In particular, ticks and bedbugs tend to be common in most parts of the United States. Learn how you can protect yourself from these bugs as you head outdoors to enjoy the weather.

Keep Clutter to a Minimum

Both ticks and bedbugs look for hidden areas to hide and reproduce. Your home's exterior should be free of any clutter, such as mounds of wood or rusted items. Ticks will replicate in these areas and possibly hop onto you. Bedbugs also look for such opportunities in furniture and linens within the home. Between mattresses is the most common location for bedbugs where they can hide during the day and emerge at night. Removing and disturbing any cluttered areas simply forces the population to be found and eradicated. 

Vacuum Your Furniture

Vacuuming is one of the single most important things to do when ticks and bedbugs are in season. Consider a household-wide cleaning session of every upholstered item. Vacuuming physically removes a large population of bugs. You may not eradicate every bug, but it's still effective.

Spraying insecticides instead of vacuuming an area can actually be counterproductive. You might kill off many bugs, but they'll eventually become immune to the chemicals. Vacuuming removes them without giving them a chance to evolve from a chemical perspective.

Inspect Your Animals

Your home might be filled with furry friends, including both dogs and cats. These animals tend to be transports for ticks and bedbugs. On a regular basis, take a close look at your pets' furry bodies. Pull back the fur in several places so that you can see the skin below. If you notice any ticks, remove them one by one. Bedbugs are more difficult to visually pinpoint. Look for any reddened areas on the pets' skins in order to narrow down a possible infestation traveling on your furry friends.

Wear Pants

A simple yet effective way to protect yourself from any bugs is by wearing pants outdoors. As you walk through any brush or grass, bugs can latch onto your legs. By wearing pants, they don't have access to your skin. Be sure to shake or wipe the pants off before you go indoors, however. Once indoors, the bugs might detach and hide in other areas. Protecting your skin is the easiest way to avoid any bites.

Apply DEET Products

For an added level of protection, wear repellents with at least 20 percent of DEET. This particular chemical is safe for humans, but wards off most bugs. Be aware that it needs to be reapplied in a timely fashion. Bugs that come into contact with it will refrain from biting you entirely. If you miss a skin area, however, the bugs will make use of this opportunity. Be thorough about your application so that the bugs simply look for other targets.

You may be inclined to scratch your bites, but refrain from doing so. As you grow older, your wounds at the bite site may become infected if you scratch the area too much. Gently rub around the bite if you must, and apply an anti-itch cream. In most cases, the bites will fade away in time.