Although we have luxurious 500 thread count sheets, noise machines, and beds with adjustable comfort levels, studies show Americans struggle to get a good night’s sleep now more than our caveman ancestors did. While approximately 48% of Americans occasionally experience insomnia, 22% say they have insomnia nearly every night.

Many people wish they were the type of person who wakes up early to workout each day, takes time to meditate, enjoys a healthy diet, follows a cleaning schedule–but the truth is, we all have the capability to be that person.

Within the first year, 25% more people began experiencing anxiety and depression worldwide as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization. Although life has begun going back to “normal,” many of us don’t feel “normal.” Residual stress from years spent worrying about becoming infected and how to navigate socializing safely is to be expected. Take a moment to recognize the traumatic event you experienced and then tread carefully to address what you need to move forward.

If you’ve gone to the doctor recently and were diagnosed with prehypertension, you’re very fortunate–but you’re not off the hook. Even though your numbers are under 140/90, there is still reason to take your diagnosis seriously.

Magnesium directly influences brain development, memory, and learning because it regulates the body’s N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. When the body has healthy magnesium levels, NMDA receptors only stimulate nerve cells when necessary. However, if the body is deficient in magnesium, nerve cells can be over stimulated and wreak havoc on the brain.

When it comes to blood pressure and cholesterol, numbers don’t lie. It’s important to know what your numbers are and how they affect your health. Depending on where you rank, you may need to make changes to your lifestyle in order to lower your numbers and decrease your chances of heart disease or stroke. Both high blood pressure and high cholesterol are often considered “silent killers” because there don’t always exhibit noticeable symptoms, requiring tests to reveal their reality.

Stress arises for many different reasons throughout the course of a person’s life. Whether it’s due to taking the SAT test, getting married, navigating finances, or contemplating a career change, it can impact one’s quality of life in several different ways. 

You can’t live forever, but you can certainly live for longer. With so many things to do, places to go, and people to spend time with, we all want to have as much time as we can on this Earth.

It is a fact of life that our bodies and their processes change over the course of our lives. As we begin to experience the effects of aging, we might spend more nights in and fewer days running ourselves ragged. While you may feel this shift noticeably in your muscles and joints, the digestive system also changes in ways that are not as obvious.

While it’s critical to eliminate inflammatory foods when on an anti-inflammatory diet, it’s equally as important to add certain foods to help encourage a normal inflammatory response. Here are the top foods to help make your diet more effective!