That's Fit

I don't always feel like exercising when I'm down in the dumps. But I know it's good for me and whenever I force myself into physical activity, I always cheer up. I usually turn to running when I want to banish my blues. But according to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, mopping my floor may be enough to boost my mood.

As little as 20 minutes a week of any sort of physical activity can help alleviate psychological distress, say researchers from University College London. While vigorous activity has the most effect, you can still enjoy an emotional lift with minimal effort. Clean the house, work in the garden, or walk around the block, and you could enjoy a 41% lower risk of feeling blah.

Personally, I subscribe to a pretty active fitness routine for overall health and happiness, but it's good to know I can bust out of my bad mood with a little light housecleaning.

You've only got a limited time to enjoy the summer, now that we are already into August. If you are like me, many of the fun things on your summer fun to-do list either haven't gotten done yet, or seem so monumental that you don't feel like attempting them anymore... canoeing with a three-year-old comes to mind....

Never fear, you can enjoy summer with some easy activities that keep your body active and your mind serene. Ten healthy ways to enjoy summer include:

• biking
• yard-saling
• enjoying nature
• brewing sun tea
• enjoying a good book
• grilling
• fishing

Visit Monica Resinger's original article for all ten ways and then go out and have a healthy rest of the summer.

When emotions run high, a lot of people run for the fridge. Emotional eating is a complex habit. For many people, it's a habit that they've practiced for years and years -- maybe even since their childhood. Many people who eat due to emotions such as sadness, anger, depression, boredom, stressed, or loneliness, are fully aware that they are emotional eaters. Even though they're cognizant of their eating habits, in the heat of the moment it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between real hunger and emotional triggers. But knowing your body and finding healthier outlets for your emotions is important for health.

Everyday Health shares some tips on determining real, physical hunger from emotion-based hunger:

• Physical hunger builds gradually, causes your stomach to growl, isn't accompanied by a sense of compulsion, occurs hours after you last ate, and goes away after eating.
• Emotional hunger develops suddenly, is a more mental craving (when you "get a taste" for something), makes you feel like you urgently need to eat, is unrelated to the last time you ate, often has specific cravings, persists even when you're full, and leaves you feeling guilty after eating.
  

FitSpirit explores the mind-body connection and the intangible benefits we gain from our efforts to stay physically fit.

Let's talk sanity. I'm not talking legal sanity here. I'm talking peace of mind, emotional balance, a general state of mental wellness. It's not so hard to attain, you know. Here's how.

• Say it like it is. Expressing your feelings appropriately is key. Let people close to you know when something is bothering you, when you're angry, when you're sad. Keeping feelings bottled up takes extra energy, can weigh on your mind, and can cause problems in your relationships and at work or school.

• Think it out. Since emotions can be powerful, give yourself some time to think before you say or do something you might regret. Allow yourself a cool-down period if anger takes you over. Let your tears dry a bit before you begin talking about your sadness. Give yourself the gift of a right frame of mind.

• Balance it out. Make time for things you enjoy, focus on the positive things in your life, pamper yourself, and see how the stresses in your schedule don't seem so bad.

• Take care of you. Physical health can affect emotional health -- so take care of your body by exercising regularly, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol either.

FitSpirit explores the mind-body connection and the intangible benefits we gain from our efforts to stay physically fit.

Caring for others -- a demanding child, an ill spouse, an aging parent -- can make you sick. Caregiving can be draining. It can suck up time, weigh on your emotions, and cut chances that you'll care for yourself. Keep on your toes with these recommendations, though, and you might just keep yourself in tip-top shape.

• Develop a sense of humor -- it takes away tension.

• Find a support group. Find a group in your city or try an online option. Sharing, venting, and commiserating can do the body good.

• Exercise. It's not just good for your bones, muscles, and joints. It's good for the soul too.

• Take a break. Hire some help, turn to your faith, get a massage, or read a good book. Just do something with only you in mind.
  

A recent study found that although Americans claim to be happier to than those in other countries, we're generally less able to take minor disappointments and setbacks in stride -- we totally let them get us down.

Making a conscious effort not to let small things (like parking tickets or a messed up lunch order) throw off your whole day or week is a big part of having a happy successful life. Maintaining a positive outlook will help you feel more energetic and will benefit all areas of your life. Keeping a mood journal can be a useful tool for keeping perspective, or just taking a step back and looking at the big picture when you catch yourself getting upset over something small.

I guess at times I'd consider myself an emotional eater. Sometimes I eat for comfort. Sometimes I eat when I'm stressed. Occasionally, I eat to satisfy a craving that seems bigger than my power to keep it at bay.

Emotional eating stops many of us, especially women, from reaching our healthiest weights. To get a handle on this type of eating, you've got to look at the problems behind it, says Susan Lolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Yale University and author of Eating, Drinking, Overthinking.

Some emotional eaters indulge in the form of celebration when they're happy or excited. Many more eat when sad, stressed, lonely, or angry. In one study, women ate 23 percent more than normal after suffering a blow to their self-esteem. Why exactly does this happen?

Need a pick me up? The power of positive thinking is a very real thing, and taking some time to focus on the good things in your life can do amazing things for your motivation and your overall attitude and approach to things in life. So what are some of the best things in your life? Can you come up a top 10 list? This guy did, and I think it's a good idea for all of us. We all have different priorities in our lives and different "small things" that mean something to us but it's easy to lose sight of them in the midst of our hectic everyday lives.

I'm really gonna have to do some brainstorming to come up with a solid top 10 list for me personally, but I know one thing for sure: 'laughing babies' is going to be on there somewhere (they crack me up!).

A new report out this week stated that teenagers who smoke cigarettes may become more susceptible to depression and alcohol/drug abuse. The actual figures stand at nine times more likely to abuse alcohol and 13 times more likely to abuse drugs. All from smoking cigarettes.

So, although smoking, for some reason, is still seen as "cool" or "hip" for many teens, the effects pile up towards a bigger predisposition to substance abuse in their futures. Yeah, smoking is neat-o.

Although the report was published and funded by the anti-tobacco group Citizen's Commission to Protect the Truth, there is no agenda besides trying to get teens off cigarettes (or prevent them from trying).

Most relationships start off hot and heavy -- everything between you and your partner was new and exciting, and you probably couldn't keep you hands off each other. So it could be kind of disappointing when, further down the line, that energy wears off and regular life begins to interfere with your formerly fab sex life.

If you've found that you're at the point where work stress, kids or just being a bit bored, has began to get in the way of getting intimate with your partner, check out this piece for some advice on how to boost a sagging sex life. The article offers five healthy tips (both physical and emotional) to help get things back on track.

You can try exercise (releases feel-good endorphins and helps you feel good about your body), quitting smoking (male smokers are more likely to be impotent) and eating right (protein and low glycemic index carbohydrates will help you retain energy throughout the evening). For more info, as well as the rest of the tips, take a look here for the full article.

Whether you support the current Iraq war or not, it's hard not to adamantly support the soldiers that return from the battlefield. Are we not a country founded on freedom principles? We sure are, but when those soldiers take off the uniform and try to relax back into a civilian lifestyle, physical ailments sometimes are the least of their problems.

Thoughts of suicide, depression and other emotional maladies plague thousands of returning soldiers these days, and the apparently lack of care being shown to many of them are downright disturbing. Why is this?

Not only are some of these heroes physical casualties, but more and more are becoming economic casualties if they come back to attempt a normal life in the country they've served. Whereas some citizens poach on the system to pay for anything and everything, the welfare of soldiers stands on the line, says experts. To me, it's not a tough decision.

Who out there has become a Facebook 'addict'? It's tough for many to not go overboard adding photos and searching out friends from high school and earlier. I think it's fun to see what everyone is up to and have the chance to send quick notes to say hello.

But quick notes don't equal a real, lasting friendship and the study reported on here discusses how those who use social networking sites and 'collect' dozens upon dozens of friends, will likely not be able to forge any true relationships with the friends they make on the site.

A real friend is someone who will be there for you physically and emotionally when you're in need. They'll make you laugh and keep you company when you're feeling lonely. The people you meet on Facebook you may never even see face-to-face, so if you're joining these kind of sites in the hopes of making new friends, it may be a better idea to join a local recreational sports team or hobby group.

Considering retirement? We all dream of the day we can kick our feet up and start having fun instead of being a slave to the timeclock. But new research suggests that many men and women make the decision to retire for the wrong reason: because they're depressed.

Of course I'm sure it's rarely a conscious influence, but experts say that 1 in 10 working adults will experience depression in any given year and that adults who have symptoms of depression are more likely to retire earlier. The study included 3,000 adults from Finland, where (in theory) depression should have a lesser effect than here in the States due to a better post-retirement "safety net" provided by the Finnish government. I guess it makes sense that unhappy people are less motivated to continue working, but it's sad that a negative state of mind can influence such a major decision in somebody's life.

So if so many people suffer from depression, if it's such a common occurrence, what are we doing wrong? What can be done to avoid it?

On pretty much every TV show about hospitals there's always a hot-shot surgeon or sexy intern who seem to care more about their image than consoling patients. They use overly-complicated medical jargon, rush through a diagnosis and give patients little emotional care -- they help heal the patient but they don't really make them feel better.

Does this sort of thing just exist on TV? It looks like no according to a study done at the University of McGill in Montreal. The study examined results of a clinical skills exam taken by over 3000 doctors in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The physicians who scored low on the test also had more patient complaints lodged against them, and the majority of these grievances were communication issues. Doctors who, just like the hot-shots on shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy, were judgmental, condescending and ignored what patients had to say.

So while being a good communicator doesn't necessarily make one a better doctor, the best doctors definitely know how to communicate.

Until this year, I never owned a scale. I always judged my weight by how my clothing fit. I think this is a great plan. Still, I've taken the plunge and purchased my very own digital scale. It sits on my bathroom floor, and I find myself "weighing in" every day.

I bought my scale because I want to closely monitor the effects of my lifestyle overhaul. Seeing the pounds melt away is a great motivator for staying the course with my healthy diet and active fitness schedule. Watching the scale can be a little nerve-racking, though -- especially on the days when progress is not evident or the numbers start ticking in the wrong direction.

While matters of the scale may rattle the nerves, it won't make you blue. A University of Minnesota School of Public Health study found no link between stepping on the scale and clinical depression. In fact, weekly weighing was determined a good practice for those wishing to lighten the load.