Tag Archives: SLEEP

Four Tips for Boosting Your Metabolism

Metabolism is a complex scientific system of energy generation and expenditure and is impacted by various functions in the body and brain. It can also be impacted by hormones, stress, genetics, lifestyle choices and more.

Four ways to positively impact your metabolism include:

1. Eating every 3-4 hours and focusing on foods high in fiber, lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats and avoiding processed and enriched foods

2. Moving your body on a daily basis through cardiovascular and strength training to create energy outputs that allow you to burn fat vs. having your body store fat, especially visceral fat in the mid-section

3. Getting sufficient sleep of 7-9 hours per night in order to maintain a healthy metabolic rate and a regulated circadian rhythm

4. Reducing stress through mindfulness practices, time in nature and/or creating healthy personal and professional boundaries, in order to decrease the amount of cortisol in your body, which negatively impacts metabolism

I hope these tips are helpful. If you’re interested in more customized support, feel free to book me for a free consult and subsequent wellness coaching sessions at passionfit.com/coaching-and-consulting!

Stress Is a Normal Part of Life

Stress is an inevitable part of life and being human, and living a stress-free life is just not realistic. Everyone experiences stress on a daily basis just through everyday tasks. Taking a test at school, being handed a new project at work, playing competitive sports, or public speaking can all be sources of stress. And feeling a little anxiety in these situations is normal and totally expected. Major life events such as moving, marriage or having a baby, can also cause stress. Traumatic events such as living through a pandemic, or having a death in your family, can cause stress as well. The good news is that you can manage stress by channeling your energy into certain activities.

The key in managing your stress levels in these various life situations, big and small, is to pay attention to how they’re affecting you physically, mentally and emotionally. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, if you’re temporarily feeling your heart rate increasing, your breathing getting faster and your brain working harder, that’s normal. Your body is just going into fight or flight mode. You can use that stress as a motivator to perform at your best in the moment.

If you reach a point where stress becomes chronic and affects your sleep, moods, blood pressure and digestive system, or causes major anxiety or depression, it has become a bigger problem. These symptoms suggests you could be dealing with an unhealthy amount of stress. In this case, it’s important to deal with it right away so it doesn’t turn into bigger health issues later.

Here are six tools you can use to realistically manage any kind of stress:

To read the full article in Grit Daily, click here.

Ways to Stay Holistically Healthy During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Coronavirus diagnoses and deaths are still on the rise in parts of the U.S. The statistics are changing every day, but one thing remains certain: It’s more important now than ever before to take care of our holistic health to protect ourselves and our loved ones from contracting the virus or to en-sure a quick recovery if we do. Below are ways to do just that.

To read the full article in the Los Altos Town Crier, click here.

4 Tips for Better Sleep for Working Moms

According to the CDC, one in three American adults aren’t getting at least seven hours of sleep per night and that stat is likely even higher for working moms with kids under the age of 18.

Every stage of motherhood poses a threat to our sleep. Obviously the newborn phase is the toughest, when we’re nursing and changing diapers around the clock. Then the infant stage arrives and poses challenges when we’re working on sleep training. The toddler stage is next and is often filled with bedtime tantrums, potty training and bad dreams about scary monsters. The preschool and elementary school stages may still involve some bedtime protesting and bad dreams and the teenage stage may involve worrying throughout the night about missed curfews, peer pressure, getting into college and more.

And this doesn’t even include all of our work stresses that impact our sleep, such as working late nights to finish a quarterly business review presentation, catching an early morning flight at the crack of dawn for an important client meeting and never-ending deadlines and administrative tasks to complete, such as writing performance reviews and submitting expense reports.

However, there’s hope for working moms to take back control of our sleep. It just involves a little organization, planning and discipline. Here are four ways to do just that.

To read the full article in Thrive Global, click here.