by Susanne F | Nov 23, 2015 | Health
Laughter and other displays of positive emotions are essential secrets to our well-being. For great health, diet plays an important role. Yet that’s not all there is to it. To achieve optimal health, you need a combination of a healthy diet, exercise, and a positive mood. This is where “Laughter is the best medicine” comes in.
Every fall I travel to the South of Europe to a nice warm village to stay in over the winter. Usually, it’s a great time of the year. I enjoy planning and packing. But this particular year was stressful for me. It started the month previous, not knowing if we were going at all. Something was needed and fast. Then I remembered Laughter Therapy – after a few laughs I started to feel much better, I stayed stress-free and enjoyed planning, packing, and travel.
Laughter releases tension
Laughter is often infectious. When you hear the sound of laughter, you can’t help but laugh yourself. When giggles are shared among others, they create a bond between people. It increases both intimacy and happiness.
It is well known that smiles trigger healthy bodily changes and healthy changes in the mind. Laughter can increase your energy level, lessen pain, strengthen the immune system, and protect you from stress. Laughing is the best medicine because it is free, fun, and easy.
Laughter is strong medicine
Laughter can be a strong antidote to conflict, pain, and stress. There is nothing else that works more dependably or quicker to bring your body and mind into balance than laughter. The use of humor can lighten your burdens, connect you to others, inspire your hope, and keep you focused, alert, and grounded.
With this ability to renew your health and heal you, laughter can be a great resource for whatever problems you may have. It can also strengthen your relationships. It can support your emotional and physical health and well-being.
How are giggles good for your health?
Laughing can have many benefits for your health, including:
- an increase in the strength of your immune system. It can decrease the level of stress hormones within the body and increase the number of immune cells and antibodies you have, which will help you become more resistant to disease.
- helping to relax. A wonderful laugh can relieve you of stress and physical tension so that your muscles can be relaxed for up to 45 minutes following laughing.
- a release of endorphins. Endorphins are the body’s feel-good hormones. When your endogenous endorphins are released, you feel a sense of well-being and a reduction in the sensation of pain
- support for the heart. Laughing can increase the ability of the blood vessels to nourish all parts of the body. It can increase your blood flow, which can help prevent heart attacks and other types of heart diseases.
The benefits of being happy
Laughter is known to have many health benefits, including physical, emotional, and social benefits.
Some of these include the following:
• Decreases stress levels
• Increases immunity
• Relaxes muscles
• Protects the heart
• Lessens pain
• Lessens fear and anxiety
• Relieves stress
• Adds joy to your life
• Enhances mood
• Improves resilience
• Attracts other people to us
• Promotes the bonding among group members
• Improves teamwork
• Strengthens relationships
Happy emotions can help your emotional health
Having a good belly laugh simply makes a person feel good. This good feeling persists even when you are done laughing. Laughter helps you maintain an optimistic and positive outlook. Which means you can easier get through situations of loss, disappointments, and other difficult situations.
Laughing often is more than just protection against pain and sadness. It gives you the strength and courage to find other sources of hope and meaning. Even when you find yourself in the most difficult of times, laughter or even a smile can take you far when it comes to feeling better. Laughter really is a bit contagious. When you hear someone else laugh, it primes your brain and sets you up to join that person in laughing, too.
Laughter and mental health
Laughter is associated with better mental health. Some things laughter can do to improve your mental health include the following:
• Laughter allows you to relax. A good laugh can lessen stress and increase your energy levels so that you can remain focused and get more things accomplished.
• Laughter can lessen distress. It is hard to feel sad, anxious, or angry when you are instead laughing.
• Laughter shifts your perspective. It allows you to see things in a less threatening and more realistic light. Being humorous helps create a psychological distance between you and stressful events so that you don’t feel so overwhelmed.
Laughter has social benefits
When you use humor and engage in playful communication with others, your relationships become stronger. You trigger positive emotions and an emotional connection with those you are laughing with. A positive bond develops—one that can act as a powerful buffer against disappointment, disagreements, and stress. When you laugh with others, this is a more powerful thing than when you laugh alone.
How to create more opportunities to laugh
There are things you can do to increase your chances of laughing. Here are some you might try:
• Attend a comedy club
• Watch something funny on television
• Watch videos of funny animals there are tons on YouTube, or just add the search term “funny into the YouTube search bar
• Read the comics in the newspaper
• Be with people who are funny
• Share a funny story or joke with another
• Read a funny book
• Sponsor a game night with your friends
• Play with your pet
• Play with children
• Do something you think is silly
• Engage in activities you consider fun
Laughter can do a lot to help you feel better on a physical, emotional, and cognitive level. Don’t be afraid to share a good laugh with others for overall better health.
by Michaela Kennedy | Oct 29, 2015 | Lifestyle
Deficiencies in our diet is not something many of us think about until we get sick. The more committed I become to a vegan lifestyle, the more people I meet say they are ex-vegan because it was not a healthy way to live. What? Check out the sexy young woman here below who is committed not only to compassionate living, but to keeping herself healthy, too. Yes, it does matter what we eat. Take care of your vitamin and mineral deficiencies (if you have any). It’s the best way to feel great, stay healthy, and preserve your vegan sexy self.
Here’s the video, where RawYogaNurse talks about what she discovered from her blood test. The two main deficiencies she found, B-12 and Vitamin D, are not only problems with vegans but meat eaters, too. Check out what she has to say:
[videoframes src=”https://allveganfoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/watch?v=1aoq5iqV10E” skin=”10″ autoplay=”1″ controls=”1″ ]
If you put flaxseed in your recipes, you may find yourself feeling healthier – and yes, more sexy. Do you know why some chicken egg cartons tout high levels of Omega-3 essential fatty acids? It’s because they are feeding all those chickens flaxseed! I think I’ll choose the flaxseed over the dead chicken.
According to WebMD, studies show that it may help fight heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer:
Although flaxseed contains all sorts of healthy components, it owes its primary healthy reputation to three of them:
- Omega-3 essential fatty acids, “good” fats that have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.
- Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities. Flaxseed contains 75 to 800 times more lignans than other plant foods.
- Fiber. Flaxseed contains both the soluble and insoluble types. [Read more at WebMD]
When we know our health deficiencies long before getting sick, we can ward off a number of preventable illnesses that plague our society today. It may make all the difference in enjoying life and keeping your vegan sexy.
by Michaela Kennedy | Oct 28, 2015 | Lifestyle
The road to a healthy lifestyle has not been an easy one for me. Sure, I love being active, but I can’t honestly say I’ve cared that much about my eating habits over the years. Then I started volunteering in an animal sanctuary and making friends with the exotics that, through whatever unfortunate circumstances, found themselves living there. These animals should be free. But because of human folly, they lost their rights to live in freedom.
The only things we volunteers been able to give these unfortunate beings is a safe place to live and a healthy diet. I saw transformations before my very eyes from animals who had come from homes whee all they were fed was junk. I found a great reason to care about healthy foods.
Changing focus to a healthy lifestyle
No, it’s not easy. Many of us see the horrific news shows and declare, “I’m a vegan now!” But then someone offers us ice cream, or we get sick and blame the illness on a lack of meat. Rubbish. Rationalization about why we should eat meat, or addictions to habits we are too lazy to break is just not good enough. I’m not preaching here. I’m the first to admit that I forget and enjoy a piece of cake that has eggs in it. There was a time when I kept my mouth shut and ate what was put in front of me, because I couldn’t stand the ridicule for not eating meat. Trust me, I’ve got plenty of weaknesses, and they don’t spell healthy lifestyle.
Yet, it’s a wonderful thing to start questioning our choices and trying new things. Habits do not change overnight (and I do wonder why so many vegans use the saying “cold turkey” — isn’t there a vegan alternative for the phrase?). We don’t need to beat ourselves up for making bad choices, nor beat others up for their choices. We can, nevertheless, help ourselves and help others to make baby steps towards a more healthy lifestyle.
On the next page (click that round 2 below) you’ll se what I’m talking about.
by Susanne F | Sep 18, 2015 | Lifestyle
A cake mix by itself is vegan, but often not the ingredients given in the directions. You can still use a cake mix and substitute your own vegan choices, like flaxseed for eggs and almond milk for milk, or just water. I couldn’t believe it when I read how to make a vegan cake using cake mix and Coca-Cola! I don’t drink Coke, but my thought was to try with orange juice and canned fruits. Coca-Cola is not strictly vegan, for it contains fish gelatine that stabilizes the color.
I’ve made an infographic. Check out my vegan cake mix substitutes below:
by Susanne F | Sep 2, 2015 | Lifestyle
Vegan Stereotypes Vs. Actual Vegan. Is a great and funny video about vegan stereotypes, yet it’s all about the diet. Let us not forget vegan is about a lifestyle. It’s not just a diet. It is boycotting leather clothing and about using environmentally safe cleaning products. It’s about having your friends and family follow your example. The comments are as one would expect diverted, some are cool, some are funny, some are plain stupid. Some ask the usual question “why is it wrong to kill plants but not animals?”. My answer is “‘I’d rather kill a cauliflower than a cow.
Enjoy the video!
[videoframes src=”https://allveganfoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/watch?v=RIcfrG9iIak” skin=”10″ autoplay=”1″ controls=”1″ headline_text=”Vegan Stereotypes – Not!” headline_color=”#000000″ headline_size=”22″]
by Susanne F | Jan 1, 2015 | Lifestyle
2016 as last year is the year I hope more and more to become – and stay – vegan. In the last few years, I started my vegan research journey simply to find more healthy vegetable and legume recipes. The more I eat vegan, the better I feel, not to mention how much my awareness for animal welfare has heightened. I want to make veganism a true commitment to myself and to the other beings on our Earth.
I started out one day at a time, and here is how you can do it, too if you are struggling to go 100 percent vegan. For example, Meatless Monday is an easy commitment. So is occasionally eating vegan. The challenge is to stay a vegan day in and day out – every single meal – and do it the healthy vegan way – with an occasionally unhealthy vegan snack or meal.
A solution that works for me is to do menu planning, But, yes, there’s a but! I suck at creating a proper menu plan – you (and I) don’t want to cook three different meals and two snacks from scratch every day, not to mention the time it takes. We want a plan that is simple to follow, with leftovers for the next day and with a good combination of vitamins and minerals that make meals nutrition rich. And I want – and I bet you want, too – a plan that includes a shopping list.
Free vegan starter kit menu planners
In order to help me with this goal, I have found three free vegan planners that I have reviewed below. Let me know which one you like the best!
The good news is that there are several free menu planners on the Internet for us to use. I’ve done a search to kickstart this year for at good start at Vegan Menu Planning the healthy way. This is what I found, and more is being added.
1. 21-day Vegan Kit Menu from PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)
My all time favorite is the 21 Day Starter Menu. Not only do they have the menu kit with shopping lists, you can also sign up for a free account and make your own menus with your favorite foods.
When that’s done, not only a shopping list will be generated for you, but also the nutritional values in your meals are calculated. Doesn’t get much better than that. Get it here.
PCRM also has a kickstart program you can sign up for PMRC Kickstart (in English, Chinese and Spanish, there’s also Kickstart for India but in English)- they will send you daily emails with tips and recipes. And it starts the 1st of every month, so sign up Today!
2. “Eat This Much” is your personal meal planner and you will need to sign up for an account, which is free. When you set up your profile page you choose if you want to gain weight, maintain or lose weight, your gender, personal measure etc. you can even choose which price level your food budget is. Very cool – you also choose if you want metric or imperial measures! get it at EatThisMuch
3. PETA has a two week Vegan Meal Plan – it is a two-week sample menu. You can get it at PETA Meal Plan. Also, you can order a Vegan Starter Kit as well PETA Vegan Starter Kit
There you go, three free vegan meal planners for you to use.
Before I close I want to draw your attention to the good people at Veganuary, there’s no meal planning there but it’s so full of other fine vegan stuff that’s it well worth your time to check it out.
