7 Best Ab Exercises You Can Do At Home Easily

Everybody wants a flat and slim abdominal. But not every one has time to go gym regularly. But there is a way, you can do exercises at home daily with or without small equipments. 

Your abdominal is one of the important part of your overall look and personality. A bloated  and fat tummy makes you  look fat and unhealthy. At home you can do body weight exercises for your overall fitness. Include ab exercises for a flat and strong abs.

Here are the 7 best abdominal exercises you can do at home.

JACKKNIFE SIT-UP

• Lie on the floor in a supine position with legs straight out in front and arms extended behind the head. Keep the elbows and knees straight throughout the exercise. 
• Simultaneously bring legs and arms together in a position as close to a vertical position as possible while bending from the waist. 
• Lower the limbs to the supine position to complete each repetition. 
• Do not rest while in the supine position. 
• Inhale as you lower the legs.

BENT-LEG SIT-UP

• Lie flat on your back with hands clasped behind your head.
• Bend the knees to about a 45-degree angle and have someone hold your feet to the floor. 
• Bend at the waist and bring your elbows up to your knees. 
• Lower your body slowly and let your shoulders touch the mat. 
• Exhale as you bring your body up and inhale as you lower it down. 
• Repeat the exercise without pausing in order to keep tension on the abdominal muscles

BENT-KNEE CRUNCH

• Lie on a padded surface and place your legs on a bench so that your thighs are at a 45 degree angle. 
• Clasp your hands behind your head and pull your head and upper body from the floor using only the abdominal muscles. 
• Lead with the elbows as shown in the photos . Beginners should start with a partial sit-up, lifting just the head and shoulders off the mat. 
• As strength and endurance are developed, increase to 45 degree sit-up. This exercise is very effective when 15-25 sit-ups can be completed in succession with no pauses in between repetitions.

PLANK

• Lie on your front propped up on your forearms and toes. 
• Keep your legs straight and hips raised to create a straight and rigid line from head to toe.
• Your shoulders should be directly above your elbows. 
• Focus on keeping your abs contracted during the exercise. 
• Hold this position for 25 to 60 seconds and increase the holding time if you feel comfortable. 

OBLIQUE CRUNCH

image source:- wikihow.fitness

• Lie on your back, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart. 
• Roll your knees to one side down to the floor. Place your hands across your chest or behind your ears.
• Slowly curl up towards your hips until your shoulders are about 3 inches off the floor. 
• Hold the position for a few seconds and lower down slowly. 
• Perform 12 oblique crunches and repeat on the opposite side.

SIDE PLANK

image source:- wikimedia

• Lie on your side propped up on an elbow. Your shoulder should be directly above your elbow. Straighten your legs and raise your hips to create a straight and rigid line from head to toe.
• Keep your neck long and your shoulders down and away from your ears. 
• Keep your abs contracted during the exercise. 
• Hold this position for 15 to 30 seconds and increase the time as you feel comfortable. 
• Repeat the exercise on the other side.

BICYCLE CRUNCH

• Start by lying on the ground, with your lower back pressed flat into the floor and your head and shoulders raised slightly above it.
• Place your hands lightly on the sides of your head, don’t knit your fingers behind. 
• Lift one leg just off the ground and extend it out.
• Lift the other leg and bend your knee towards your chest.
• As you do so twist through your core so the opposite arm comes towards the raised knee. You don’t need to touch elbow to knee, instead focus on moving through your core as you turn your torso. Your elbow should stay in same position relative to your head throughout, the turn that brings it closer to the knee comes from your core. 
• Lower your leg and arm at the same time while bringing up the opposite two limbs to mirror the movement.
• Repeat this exercise for at least 10 reps on each sides.

A good eating habit is the key to get a healthy stomach. Eat good food and avoid junk food, it only gives you more fat and diseases. Do regular exercise and drink plenty of water. A good stomach is responsible for your good health.

Best Tips To Avoid Your Risk Of Diabetes You Never Know

Check Your Blood Sugar Label Regularly

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your blood glucose, also called blood sugar, is too high. Blood glucose is your main source of energy and comes from the food you eat. Over time, having too much glucose in your blood can cause health problems. Although diabetes has no cure, you can take steps to manage your diabetes and stay healthy. Common types of diabetes are type-1 and type-2.

Diabetes can cause several other problems like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, eye problems, dental disease, nerve damage and foot problems.

You can avoid diabetes by making a few lifestyle changes. The same changes can also lower the chances of developing heart disease and some cancers.

Control Your Weight

Over weight can never be good for your body. It causes many problems for your body. Excess weight is the single most important cause of type 2 diabetes also. It increases the chances of developing type 2 diabetes seven times more. Being overweight or obese makes you 20 to 40 times more likely to develop diabetes than someone with a healthy weight.

Check your weight and BMI, if it is above the healthy range then it is good to loose some weight. Losing weight around 7 to 10 percent of your current weight can cut your chances of developing type 2 diabetes in half.

Move Your Body

Your physical inactivity promotes type 2 diabetes. Regular exercise make your muscles work harder and improves their ability to use insulin and absorb glucose. This puts less stress on your insulin-making cells and avoid diabetes. 

To make your body active, you don't need intense exercise routine. Findings from the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study suggest that walking briskly for a half hour every day reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 30 percent. 

Similar study also reported similar diabetes-prevention benefits for brisk walking of more than 5 hours per week. This amount of exercise has a variety of other benefits as well. And even greater cardiovascular and other advantages can be attained by more, and more intense, exercise.

Avoid Television

Do you watch television more often? if yes then it's time to switch off your TV set. Television watching appears to be an especially detrimental form of physical inactivity. 

Studies suggests that if you spend 2 or more hours watching TV increases the chances of developing diabetes by 20 percent. It also increases the risk of heart disease, obesity and early death. The more television people watch, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. 

Choose Whole Grains Foods

Choose whole grain food because there is convincing evidence that diets rich in whole grains protect against diabetes, whereas diets rich in refined carbohydrates lead to increased risk. The bran and fiber in whole grains make it more difficult for digestive enzymes to break down the starches into glucose. This leads to lower, slower increases in blood sugar and insulin, and a lower glycemic index. 

In a study researchers looked at the whole grain consumption of more than 160,000 women whose health and dietary habits were followed for up to 18 years. Women who averaged two to three servings of whole grains a day were 30 percent less likely to have developed type 2 diabetes than those who rarely ate whole grains. When the researchers combined these results with those of several other large studies, they found that eating an extra 2 servings of whole grains a day decreased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 21 percent.

Skip The Sugary Drinks

Like refined grains, sugary beverages have a high glycemic load, and drinking more of this sugary stuff is associated with increased risk of diabetes. In the Nurses’ Health Study II, women who drank one or more sugar-sweetened beverages per day had an 83 percent higher risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to women who drank less than one sugar-sweetened beverage per month.

Studies also suggests that for every additional 12 ounce serving of sugary beverage that people drank each day, their risk of type 2 diabetes rose 25 percent. Studies also suggest that fruit drinks, fortified fruit drinks, or juices are not the healthy choice that food advertisements often portray them to be.

Water, coffee and tea are also good calorie-free substitutes for sugared beverages (until you mixed sugar in it). And there’s convincing evidence that coffee may help protect against diabetes, emerging research suggests that tea may hold diabetes-prevention benefits as well, but more research is needed.

Choose Good Fats

Choose good and healthy fats in your food. The types of fats in your diet can also affect the development of diabetes. Good fats, such as the polyunsaturated fats found in liquid vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds can help ward off type 2 diabetes.

Trans fats do just the opposite. These bad fats are found in many margarines, packaged baked goods, fried foods in most fast food restaurants, and any product that lists “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” on the label.

Eating polyunsaturated fats from fish also known as “long chain omega 3” or “marine omega 3” fats does not protect against diabetes, even though there is much evidence that these marine omega 3 fats help prevent heart disease. If you already have diabetes, eating fish can help protect you against a heart attack or dying from heart disease.

Limit Red Meat And Avoid Processed Meat

Red meat has higher level of cholesterol. The evidence is growing stronger that eating red meat (beef, pork, lamb) and processed red meat (bacon, hot dogs, deli meats) increases the risk of diabetes, even among people who consume only small amounts.

In a combined study, researchers looked at data from roughly 440,000 people, about 28,000 of whom developed diabetes during the course of the study. They found that eating just one daily 3-ounce serving of red meat increased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 20 percent. Eating even smaller amounts of processed red meat each day increased diabetes risk by 51 percent.

Eat Nuts And Low Fat Dairy

Replace red meat food with healthy Nuts. Swapping out red meat or processed red meat for a healthier protein source, such as nuts, low-fat dairy, poultry, or fish, or for whole grains lowered diabetes risk by up to 35 percent. Not surprisingly, the greatest reductions in risk came from ditching processed red meat.

Quit Smoking

Smoking never benefits you and gives only health problems. Add type 2 diabetes to the long list of health problems linked with smoking. Smokers are roughly 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes than nonsmokers, and heavy smokers have an even higher risk. 

Limit Alcohol Intake

If you take alcohol regularly, try to limit it at moderate level. A growing body of evidence links moderate alcohol consumption with reduced risk of heart disease. The same may be true for type 2 diabetes. Moderate amounts of alcohol like up to a drink a day for women, up to two drinks a day for men, increases the efficiency of insulin at getting glucose inside cells. And some studies indicate that moderate alcohol consumption decreases the risk of type 2 diabetes.

If you already drink alcohol, the key is to keep your consumption in the moderate range, as higher amounts of alcohol could increase diabetes risk. If you don’t drink alcohol, there’s no need to start you can get the same benefits by losing weight, exercising more, and changing your eating patterns.

Amazing Benefits Of Meditation To Your Health

Meditation is a kind of relaxation technique which helps to get relief in your daily life. The action or practice of meditating is called Meditation. Meditation can be helpful for stress relief. Practicing meditation includes breathing, sounds, body movements and chanting mantras. This helps your mind to stay focused.

Many studies have investigated meditation for different conditions, and there’s evidence that it may reduce blood pressure as well as symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and flare-ups in people who have had ulcerative colitis. Meditation may ease symptoms of anxiety and depression, and may help people with insomnia.

Mindfulness meditation training involves focusing attention on present moment experience and the non-judgmental awareness of body sensations and emotions.

Mindfulness meditation, in particular, has become more popular in recent years. The practice involves sitting comfortably, focusing on your breathing, and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. Following are the benefits from Meditation.

Meditation For Pain

Studies suggests that meditation activities have positive results on the certain areas of the brain and responses to pain efficiently.

A mindful meditation helps to control pain. This suggests that combining mindfulness with pain medications and other approaches that rely on the brain’s opioid activity may be particularly effective for reducing pain.

A study was conducted by NCCIH on the patients with low back pain problem. As per this study the patients who received either Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) had a similar level of improvement, and it was greater than those who got usual care, including long after the training ended.

Meditation For High Blood Pressure

A study suggests that practicing Meditation may lower the blood pressure of people at increased risk of developing high blood pressure. Meditation includes better breathing techniques which helps to regulate the blood flow through veins.

This study also suggested that practicing meditation can help with psychological distress, anxiety, depression, anger/hostility, and coping ability.

As per the AHA (American Heart Association) study, the use of Transcendental Meditation (TM) to lower blood pressure is beneficial and have positive results.

Irritable Bowl Syndrome

Practicing mindfulness meditation over an 8-week period reduces the severity of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms in women, according to a study published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Anxiety, Insomnia And Depression

Studies suggests that meditation helps to get relief in anxiety, insomnia and depression. Although meditation still isn’t exactly mainstream, many people practice it, hoping to stave off stress and stress-related health problems.

Smoking Cessation

The results of 13 studies of mindfulness-based interventions for stopping smoking had promising results regarding craving, smoking cessation, and relapse prevention. Mindful meditation helps to control your senses hence you can control your desire to smoke. Slowly you can get rid of smoking.

Better Sleep

Meditation also helps to get better sleep. Sleep is important for your health and body. Do meditation regularly. It includes breathing technique with body movements. Studies indicates that regular practicing meditation improves your sleep quality.

Amazing Health Benefits Of Aloe Vera You Never Know

Health Benefits Of Aloe Vera 

Aloe Vera is a well known plant. It is famous for it's many health benefits. It is used for centuries for its health, beauty, medicinal and skin care properties.

Aloe vera has so many benefits for us which are as following.

HEALING PROPERTIES

Aloe vera can be used as a wound healer. Glucomannan, a mannose-rich polysaccharide, and gibberellin, a growth hormone, interacts with growth factor receptors on the fibroblast, thereby stimulating its activity and proliferation, which in turn significantly increases collagen synthesis after topical and oral Aloe vera.

Aloe gel not only increased collagen content of the wound but also changed collagen composition (more type III) and increased the degree of collagen cross linking. Due to this, it accelerated wound contraction and increased the breaking strength of resulting scar tissue.

An increased synthesis of hyaluronic acid and dermatan sulfate in the granulation tissue of a healing wound following oral or topical treatment has been reported.

BENEFITS ON SKIN

Aloe vera gel has been reported to have a protective effect against radiation damage to the skin. You can apply it on whole of your body while taking sunbath.

By applying Aloe vera gel on the skin, skin generated an antioxidant protein, metallothionein which scavenges hydroxyl radicals and prevents suppression of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase in the skin.

This Antioxidant protein reduces the production and release of skin keratinocyte-derived immunosuppressive cytokines such as interleukin-10 and hence prevents UV-induced suppression of delayed type hypersensitivity.

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY

Aloe vera has good anti inflammatory effect on your wounds. Aloe vera inhibits the cyclooxygenase pathway and reduces prostaglandin E2 production from arachidonic acid. Recently, the novel anti-inflammatory compound called C-glucosyl chromone was isolated from gel extracts.

IMPROVES IMMUNE SYSTEM

Aloe vera is a well known for boosting our immune system. Aloe vera has alprogen inhibit calcium influx into mast cells, thereby inhibiting the antigen-antibody-mediated release of histamine and leukotriene from mast cells.

In a study on mice that had previously been implanted with murine sarcoma cells, acemannan stimulates the synthesis and release of interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor from macrophages in mice, which in turn initiated an immune attack that resulted in necrosis and regression of the cancerous cells.

Several low-molecular-weight compounds are also capable of inhibiting the release of reactive oxygen free radicals from activated human neutrophils.

LAXATIVE EFFECTS

Aloe vera juice has a great laxative effect and benefits our stomach. Anthraquinones present in latex are a potent laxative. It increases intestinal water content, stimulates mucus secretion and increases intestinal peristalsis.

ANTIVIRAL PROPERTY

These actions may be due to indirect or direct effects. Indirect effect is due to stimulation of the immune system and direct effect is due to anthraquinones.

The anthraquinone aloin inactivates various enveloped viruses such as herpes simplex, varicella zoster and influenza. In recent studies, a polysaccharide fraction has shown to inhibit the binding of benzopyrene to primary rat hepatocytes, thereby preventing the formation of potentially cancer-initiating benzopyrene-DNA adducts.

An induction of glutathione S-transferase and an inhibition of the tumor-promoting effects of phorbol myristic acetate has also been reported which suggest a possible benefit of using aloe gel in cancer chemoprevention.

GOOD MOISTURIZER

Mucopolysaccharides help in binding moisture into the skin. Aloe stimulates fibroblast which produces the collagen and elastin fibers making the skin more elastic and less wrinkled.

It also has cohesive effects on the superficial flaking epidermal cells by sticking them together, which softens the skin. The amino acids also soften hardened skin cells and zinc acts as an astringent to tighten pores.

Its moisturizing effects has also been studied in treatment of dry skin associated with occupational exposure where aloe vera gel gloves improved the skin integrity, decreases appearance of fine wrinkle and decreases erythema. It also has anti-acne effect.

ANTISEPTIC EFFECT

Aloe vera contains 6 antiseptic agents which are Lupeol, salicylic acid, urea nitrogen, cinnamonic acid, phenols and sulfur. They all have inhibitory action on fungi, bacteria and viruses.