The effects of stress extend to our mental and emotional health. Persistent stress can lead to anxiety, depression, and irritability, clouding our judgment and making it harder to concentrate. The mental strain of constant stress can be as debilitating as its physical effects.

The good news is that we’re not powerless against stress. By actively choosing how we respond, we can protect our health and well-being. Engaging in regular exercise, practicing relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and meditation, and spending time in nature are all effective ways to manage stress.

In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that your body simply isn’t designed to run optimally when continuously fed. If you eat throughout the day and never skip a meal, your body adapts to burning sugar as its primary fuel, which down-regulates enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat. As a result, you start gaining weight, and efforts at weight loss tend to be ineffective.

You are how you sleep. Both in quality and quantity. The better you sleep, for the appropriate amount of time, the healthier you will be.

Sleep is vital for good health. The evidence is overwhelming that insufficient sleep contributes to a variety of unhealthy conditions including diabetes, depression, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Poor quality sleep is also attributed to an increase in worksite accidents and automobile accidents.

While the quantity of your sleep – 8 hours, on average, is important, the quality of your sleep is even more vital to your overall health. Your body needs sleep to heal and rejuvenate and to help you handle stress and manage pain more effectively.

When it comes to lower back pain, how you sleep can make a big difference in how you handle it.

Common household products are harming your hormones and overall health. These harmful substances are known as endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with normal hormone function. Often derived from petrochemicals, these compounds accumulate in body fat cells and persist in your body for years, leading to imbalances in your natural hormone levels.