Tag: health

How Much Melatonin Should You Take To Reap Its Benefits?

Posted on by simonc

Melatonin is yet another hormone that we can find in our bodies naturally. Its main purpose is to regulate our sleep and wake cycle, which directly correlates to our night and day cycles too. If you have trouble falling asleep, you probably have lower melatonin levels. While melatonin is certainly powerful for situations like jet-lag, or daily sleep cycle changes; you should dose it appropriately. You can actually “overdose” on melatonin, so it is good to know how much melatonin should you take to gain the most benefits!

Can You Actually Overdose On Melatonin?

Taking too much of a melatonin dose from supplements can actually do the opposite of what you want – disrupt your sleep-wake cycle (circadian rhythm). Other than that, some negative side effects may occur. You may feel tired and very sleepy during the day because of the circadian rhythm disruption. Also, you may get some excessively vivid dreams during the night. Other common symptoms of too much melatonin are dizziness, headaches, nausea, anxiety, and muscle joint pain. One dangerous cause of too much melatonin is increased blood pressure.

Determining the melatonin overdose is often hard because it depends on several factors. These factors are age, body weight, and sensitivity to melatonin itself.

So, you can overdose on melatonin, technically. Of course, the overdose won’t be fatal, as this is just a hormone. Nevertheless, you should pay attention to your melatonin dosage.

So, How Much Melatonin Should You Take For Optimal Benefits?

Most studies conclude that taking melatonin in low doses is the most effective way to reduce insomnia and promote better sleep quality. Generally, you should start with doses between 0,2mg to 5mg, as this range is the safest starting dose. Make sure to dose melatonin an hour or hour and a half before sleep. That way, you will ensure the best sleep quality for yourself.

Of course, the recommended dose of melatonin depends on your age, your body weight and height ration, as well as your sensitivity to the hormone. If you don’t feel the benefits of melatonin on your sleep quality, you can increase your dose for a bit. Just don’t go over the top with the dosage, and always take the melatonin supplement before you go to sleep at night.

Also, please don’t take melatonin supplements with alcohol and caffeine, as these two substances interfere with your sleep-wake cycle and your natural production of melatonin.

Melatonin supplementation is certainly effective for increasing your sleep quality, and is actually one of the best approved supplements for depression! Nevertheless, for some people, melatonin will just make things harder. Some people are overly sensitive to its effects, even at low doses. If you notice that this supplement isn’t helping you sleep better, even with the higher dosage, you should consult with a specialist to determine the cause.

Anyway, we hope that now you know how much melatonin should you take to reap its benefits! It certainly has many benefits, from improving the sleep quality to boosting the moods.

20 Most Common Exercise Myths Debunked

Posted on by simonc

True or false? Good or bad? Myth or reality? These are some of the most common questions we ask ourselves when making a decision. They also appear when we do exercises because we are not all experts on this subject… That is why in this article, we will answer some of the most common exercise questions so you will know which ones are true and which are still myths!

1. Sweating is synonymous with losing weight: MYTH.

Sweat is synonymous with dehydration. Sweat only makes the body cool when the temperature rises. If you lose a lot of water during exercise you may lose weight, but this is due to the volume in plasma that the blood and muscles lose.

2. If I exercise three hours in one day, I fulfill the quota of the week: MYTH.

Doing three hours only one day a week, helps as a general maintenance of health, but must be accompanied by nutritional support to see some result. This is not the most recommended, the best is at least a minimum of three days a week with a routine made by a professional, all according to what the person requires.

3. There are more recommended times to exercise: MYTH.

Some people recommend mornings due to an increase in testosterone (which causes muscle strength). Others say it is suitable in the afternoon, since, at this time, the body has reached all appropriate physiological values. However, what is recommended is that the person should stick to the schedule they chose for their training.

4. “Love handles” disappear only with abs: MYTH.

The abdominals, as well as all anaerobic work (weights), help tone the muscles in specific areas, but the famous “love handles” are accumulated fat that will disappear only with combined work of cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise, abdominal exercises and proper diet.

5. To avoid injury you should warm up for about ten minutes before exercising: REALITY.

The warm-up helps the body to enter a state of alertness, which makes it prepare for what is coming, which is an increase in blood flow to the muscles, giving them greater oxygenation. The warm-up can be by specific area of the muscle group to work, or at a general level, stretching exercises should be included before and after the routine.

6. The body widens if I exercise with weights: MYTH.

The body does not widen when doing work with weights, the muscles are toned and grow. Many women believe that they will look like men but it is not so, it is very important to remember that all work in a gym must be accompanied by a healthy diet, to achieve the objectives that are set.

7. There are specific exercises to burn fat faster: REALITY.

There are jobs such as aerobic-cardiovascular, which with adequate exercise time, use fat as a source of energy. Examples are walking or jogging more than 40 minutes at an intensity of 30% or 50% of total capacity.

8. If I exercise I can eat anything: MYTH.

Ideally, you should accompany any exercise plan with a diet made by a specialist, in order to follow the caloric requirements of your body. Remember that we are all different, so diets are not universal, they are personalized.

9. I must consume water before, during and after exercising: REALITY.

People, whether athletes or not, can consume from liter to liter and a half of water per day, and when performing an exercise routine, there is no problem in doing so, especially if they are doing cardiovascular work, to avoid dehydration.

10. To lose weight faster, it is better to run and not walk: MYTH.

Both can be done, but it depends on the physical condition of each person. Someone who just starts the adventure of losing weight, can just walk but must do so for periods of more than 40 minutes. Over time, you will acquire better physical condition, and you may think about jogging combined with walking. So, little by little, it will improve your aerobic condition and you can start running.

11. Swimming is the best exercise of all: REALITY.

Swimming is considered the sport that, par excellence, adapts to all types of people. It is the one that has less risk of injury, it is recommended to people in rehabilitation, to women in a state of pregnancy, as preparation for childbirth, since it relieves the back and relaxes the muscles. This sport has more benefits than any other, but always with the necessary care of an expert.

12. Doing yoga does not help at all because it is so passive: REALITY.

Yoga is not considered a sport. If a person’s goal is to lose weight or improve their physical condition, doing yoga alone will not work, since their methods are more relaxing. It would be useful to do it after a training session to relax the muscles and recover them in a more efficient way.

13. An obese person should not exercise much because it is dangerous: MYTH.

Obese people can exercise like any other person, as long as they have a professional at their side guiding them at all times. Also, obese people should be aware of having a medical check-up before starting any training program, in order to know the state of their heart and their overall health. There is a popular saying that can be applied here: “the more obese a person, the faster they lose weight”; provided you have the help of professionals in nutrition and health.

14. Wearing synthetic clothes or sweaters, while exercising, helps you lose weight: MYTH.

On the contrary, they cause the person to become dehydrated because they do not allow evaporation of sweat. It can be exemplified with the engine of a vehicle that does not receive air from fans that cool the water; Then, that engine will be overloaded until the head is damaged. In the body, if the sweat does not evaporate, it does not allow more water to go outside to be evaporated, the body overheats and can generate a heat stroke.

15. When you stop training your muscles become fat: MYTH.

One thing has nothing to do with the other. If you stop training, your muscles lose the volume and strength they gained during training. On the other hand, fat is an adipocyte (fat cell); then, if you stop training, and a poor diet is maintained, it will cause an increase in weight in calories, and there will be a noticeable decrease in the muscles, because the muscle is no longer being stimulated to increase its volume.

16. Taking sugars before exercising improves performance: MYTH.

Performance is determined by many factors that go beyond what is consumed. Sugar causes a decompensation in the body, which does not allow you to find energy. In addition, it decreases the use of fats as an energy source.

17. The more you train, the more you advance: MYTH.

There is a principle called “progressivity”, which must go hand in hand with the workloads that are prescribed to the body. Each person advances differently and, many times, “MORE” does not necessarily mean “BETTER”. Even the body can get used to the routine, so it is necessary to change it.

18. All fats are harmful to athletes: MYTH.

The body needs fats as an energy reserve. Therefore, unsaturated fats bring a benefit in regeneration, and the possibility of generating energy, which is indispensable in competitions, especially those of moderate intensity and long duration.

19. If you exercise at night, sleep is disturbed: MYTH.

What is working is the muscular part, therefore, the nervous system will not be affected. But there are people who end up with the sympathetic system very disturbed, and can have consequences at bedtime.

20. Any exercise is good: REALITY.

Although, it is important to make clear that, everything in the extreme can be harmful. The important thing, before starting any activity, is to evaluate yourself and put yourself in the hands of professionals who guide the physical work to be performed.

The Amazing Health Benefits of Exercising Outdoors

Posted on by simonc

Running is in itself one of the very best things you can possibly do to improve your health and it has numerous highly beneficial effects on the body. These range from increasing muscle mass in the legs, to lowering your heartrate to helping you to burn more calories.

But while all this is true, it’s not just the running that is so good for you. Equally important is the simple fact that you’re outdoors, which actually has incredible benefits all on its own. Read on and we’ll examine some of these benefits.

Sunlight

The first big benefit of being outdoors comes from the sun. When you run, you expose yourself to the sun’s rays. While these can be harmful in high doses, they’re also critical for our health in many other ways. For starters, they encourage the production of vitamin D. This not only helps to strengthen your bones but also improves sleep and testosterone production. The sun also gives us a healthy, natural glow that comes from being tanned.

Earthing

Nobody is entirely sure if ‘Earthing’ is definitely beneficial but it’s something that a lot of people claim is. Essentially, the idea is that by coming into direct contact with the ground when you sit on it or touch it, you can actually help to restore the body’s correct charge, potentially combating inflammation. Some studies back this up but they aren’t particularly rigorous in their methodology. Either way, it certainly doesn’t hurt anyone!

Fresh Air

Fresh air is also highly beneficial for our health. For starters, it has been shown to significantly improve our circulation and also to improve our breathing in generally. It aids with sleep and it boosts the immune system too!

Nature

Believe it or not, just being in nature can also be very good for us. This is because it has a profound effect on us psychologically – basking in nature helps to encourage the release of ‘feel good hormones’ and to lower stress levels. It has even been shown to increase creativity, which is one reason that you often come up with your best ideas while going for walks.

Weather

And even the weather can be good for you! Contrary to popular belief, getting some exposure to cold air is actually a good thing. That’s because it gently taxes your immune system, acting as a kind of ‘training’ for it and thereby strengthening it in the long run.

How to Pick the Best Fitness/Running Watch

Posted on by simonc

If you’re interested in taking up running seriously, then a running or fitness watch can be highly advantageous. There are many reason for this too. For starters, a fitness watch will allow you to track the number of calories that you burn on a run and how high your heart rate goes. This not only allows you to do things like running to meet a set objective (calories burned, max heartrate etc.) but even to use particular types of running – like zone runs or interval training.

There’s more too. The right watch should also track your runs, so you don’t need to take your phone to monitor your route. It should be able to count your steps throughout the day too and then show you metrics like how your daily step count impacts on your performance when running.

But to benefit from all these features, you’re going to need the right fitness watch. Read on and we’ll take a look at how you can go about selecting that to ensure you’ll get the very most from your new device.

Heartrate Monitor

One of the first things you absolutely need for your fitness tracker or running watch, is an effective heartrate monitor. This will track your heartrate as you are training, which in turn will give you the most accurate picture of how hard you are working and how many calories you are burning. Going on steps alone is simply not very accurate!

But of course it’s not sufficient to just get any heartrate monitor – you need to make sure that it is a good one too. That means it needs to be accurate (which you can find from reading reviews) and ideally it should also be one that checks your heartrate regularly.

GPS

Not all running watches have GPS. So if you want to make sure yours can track your runs, this is also going to be very important.

Data Points and Use

The more data you collect, the fuller the picture you can paint of your health. The Microsoft Band 2 for instance allows you to see an estimate of your VO2 max once it has collected data from enough runs.

Workouts

Another useful function is a band that can provide pre-designed workouts, like interval sessions. These help you to burn a certain amount of calories in a set amount of time and to discover new ways to train.