A Bloke's Guide to Surviving Dry July
By Dry July on
So the thought of drinking mocktails makes your stomach turn, heading to yoga class is the last thing you want to do on an early Sunday morning and Euro 2016 finished this morning. How do you make the most of the clear headed, hangover free mornings during Dry July? Well we rounded up the blokes in the Dry July office – who are seasoned Dry Heroes, to give us their tips on surviving and thriving during Dry July:
- Socialising doesn’t just have to be in the pub. Why not go out for a winter surf, hit the trails on your mountain bike this weekend, bring your A-game to the table and host a sober poker night.
- Host a BBQ - believe it or not there are some really good non-alcoholic beers around, We're fans or Erdinger
- Be the designated dryver to...
21 Days to Change Your Ways: Just Keep Swimming
By Kirsty Welsh on
Anything great takes time. We look at the best parts of others and compare them to the worst parts of ourselves. Quick fixes, gadgets, ab crunchers, weight-loss shakes, we are suckers for the overnight ‘answers’ to our health issues! No one is healthy and happy without some long-term effort. But the cool thing is, small and realistic changes over time can create massive shifts in our wellbeing! So no matter where you’re at in your health journey, just know that so long as you’re making consistent and positive changes, you’re doing a fab job!
I personally find 21 to be a magic number. It is well known that it takes ’21 days to make or break a habit’ although there doesn’t seem to be any clinical research behind it, but I also find that...
How to Relieve Stress without Booze
By Staff Writer on
Everybody has different methods of dealing with stress. Doing Dry July may be particularly difficult for those who use a drink or two to unwind at the end of the day. Here are some alternative techniques for stress management that don’t include alcohol:
Be Mindful
The buzzword in the mental health world lately is “Mindfulness”. Different mindfulness techniques include focusing on your breathing or other senses in order to clear your mind, doing an Adult Colouring Book (you can find these pretty much anywhere), and of course, meditation. These techniques can be done in no more than 15 minutes, so do them in the office if you have to. The idea is to get all the stressful things off your mind and replace them with calming thoughts,...
Superfoods on Supermarket Shelves
By Jacqueline Alwill on
It’s easy to feel confused by the labeling on foods these days. And especially with products in organic grocery stores. They bring up more questions than they answer. Are they really worth the money? Are they actually a wonder ingredient? Will this overhyped product solve all my problems, make me super healthy and save me from Friday night’s alcohol binge? With this in mind, let’s step away from the bright lights and clever packaging, and look at some of the basic foods found in regular supermarkets, and how they can supercharge our health. Here’s some you’ll find in my basket:
Cauliflower
A member of the brassica family, cauliflower is rich in sulfur containing nutrients and glucosinates, to reduce inflammation and support liver detox...
10 Routine Changes Scientifically Proven to Make You Happy
By Sam Bailey on
Nothing spells a bad day more than spilling coffee on a crisp white shirt come Monday morning, but trivial as it may seem, it can be an instant downer on your mood.
While it’s only natural to get in a funk every now and again – according to a British survey, we have at least 10 grumpy days a year (five hours a week) – it can play an unhealthy part in our overall sense of wellbeing.
The biggest mood booster for women, according to the Healthspan survey is ‘me time.’ So while you can’t out run a bad day, you can shape and mould your routine a little bit each day to care of yourself and make the overall outcome that bit brighter.
Here, scientifically proven tweaks to make life happier.
1. Do exercise you like
With music you like. A McMaster...
4 Fun Workouts If You Hate Getting Sweaty
By Zoe Meunier on
Working up a good sweat is often seen as the benchmark for having had an effective workout. But let’s be honest, not everyone likes getting hot and sweaty. It’s uncomfortable, it means you have to shower afterwards and ladies, two words: blowdry ruined. However, high intensity, sweat inducing workouts aren’t the only path to fitness and good health. Anaerobic and strength building exercises are just as important for maintaining a healthy body, managing weight, reducing injury and making you feel good. The four workouts below are so much fun you won’t even realise you’re exercising, but will see you improving your fitness and wellbeing, no sweat!
Circus school
While probably not top of mind to most people as a form of exercise, classes...
Who Needs A Healthy Liver?
By Dr Cris Beer on
For the first few years that I worked as a general practitioner I had understimated the liver's significant role in the general wellbeing of my patients. I had learnt that the liver was important from a physiological point of view and that it helped keep us alive, but I hadn't fully considered how it keeps us feeling well on a day-to-day basis.
I had been taught how to detect liver-function abnormalities in blood testing and how to feel for an enlarged or tender liver - all signs of obvious and severe liver damage. But as for understanding liver damage well before any obvious clinical signs begin to show, I was completely in the dark. I had seen severe liver damage from chronic alcoholism and from liver disease such as hepatitis, but the...
Managing Sugar Cravings This Dry July
By Peter Rule on
We all seek the taste of sweet foods naturally in our diet, however it can be easy to crave excess high sugar foods for many varied reasons.
We have 5 basic recognised tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury) however we can become imbalanced in our food choices due to stress, low energy, eating on the run, looking for psychological reward or treat or nutritional deficiencies, just to name a few.
Refined sugar is addictive due to the release of dopamine from the brain. Dopamine is one of the principal neurotransmitters involved in creating substance dependence on things like alcohol. The excess dopamine that is produced gives rise to powerful feelings of pleasure; however these excess levels also take a long-term toll on...
Foods For Cleansing This Dry July
By Peter Rule on
Cleansing is something that our body is doing all the time through the organs that manage detoxification and elimination. These vital organs are the liver, kidneys, lungs and skin which work very hard to eliminate harmful toxins and wastes from the body. Toxins can come from a variety of sources such as heavily processed foods, food additives and preservatives, chemicals like herbicides and pesticides, environmental pollutants and excess alcohol, processed sugar and caffeine.
Luckily, nature has a natural pharmacy of foods which can assist these vital organs to cleanse toxins from the body and these foods can be obtained at most fruit and vege outlets.
Here are seven of my favourite “foods for cleansing” and I have been recommending...