If you’re looking for a list of good carbs and bad carbs, you might need to change your ideas about dieting a little. While certain carbs that are worse for your body than others, there aren’t really good carbs and bad carbs, just good amounts and less healthy amounts.

Counting Carbs
It seems like more and more people are counting carbs, or at least paying more attention to the amount and type of carbs they eat. Popular diets such as the Atkins Diet have convinced people that there are good carbs and bad carbs, and the bad carbs need to be avoided and the good carbs limited.

While it’s a good idea to keep your intake of “bad” carbs in check, many health experts recommend that carbohydrates should make up at least 55 percent of a person’s total caloric intake, while others say that number should be as high as 65 percent.

This is fairly high so you don’t want to discount carbs. At the same time, it’s clear these people aren’t talking about the carbs you’ll find in candy, cookies and other highly processed foods, so that’s where the idea of a list of good carbs and bad carbs comes from.

A List of Good Carbs and Bad Carbs
If you had to make a list of carbs that you should eat more of versus carbs you should avoid, it basically breaks down into simple carbs being “bad” and complex carbs being “good.”

Complex and simple are terms that have to do with how the food is broken down into energy (sugar) in the body. Simple carbs are broken down quickly, giving your blood sugar a spike and sending you running back to the kitchen or snack machine within hours of your last fix.

Complex carbs are the ones that give your body the best fuel. They are usually found in foods high in fiber, which break down more slowly, giving you a more steady blood sugar level through the day and making you feel less hungry and irritable when mid-afternoon rolls around.

It’s a great idea to get more of these carbs into your daily diet.

Here is a list of good carbohydrates :
- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Whole grains and foods made from whole grains, such as bread and cereal
- Beans
- Nuts
- Legumes

Bad carbohydrates are :
- Refined grains like white bread and white rice
- Processed foods such as cake, cookies and chips
- Soft drinks
- Alcohol

Just because these foods have less desirable carbs does not mean you should kick them out of your life forever. A list of good carbs and bad carbs should not be seen as a strict rule. Yes, you should get most of your carbs each day from the “good” list, but you certainly don’t have to cut our alcohol or skip the birthday cake, as long as you don’t make it an every day or every meal thing.

Cutting carbs for Weight Loss
Cutting back on the bad carbs can help you lose weight, as well as give you a feeling of more energy and less irritability. Carbs are the fuel that makes your body run. Putting the right fuel in your engine makes a world of difference.

Because the good carb foods tend to have higher fiber and lower calories than many processed bad carb foods, you’ll find yourself feeling fuller while eating fewer calories though it’s possible you’ll be eating a bigger volume of food.

If you think about the kinds of foods you’re adding and the ones you’re giving up, then this makes sense.

It would take a lot more fruit to equal the same number of calories you’d eat in a candy bar, and you’ll probably feel satisfied after one piece or serving of fruit which is much lower in calories than the candy bar. Even better, you’ll feel satisfied for a long period of time and won’t feel the need for another unhealthy snack later in the day.

Meditation can help you become smarter. So just breathe..relax and read this article

About meditation
Everyone knows that meditation reduces stress. But with the aid of advanced brain scanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory.

One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain’s cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results last November that showed that the gray matter of 20 men and women who meditated for just 40 minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not. Unlike in previous studies focusing on Buddhist monks, the subjects were Boston-area workers practicing a Western-style of meditation called mindfulness or insight meditation. “We showed for the first time that you don’t have to do it all day for similar results,” says Lazar. What’s more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age.
The forms of meditation Lazar and other scientists are studying involve focusing on an image or sound or on one’s breathing. Though deceptively simple, the practice seems to exercise the parts of the brain that help us pay attention. “Attention is the key to learning, and meditation helps you voluntarily regulate it,” says Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Since 1992, he has collaborated with the Dalai Lama to study the brains of Tibetan monks, whom he calls “the Olympic athletes of meditation.” Using caps with electrical sensors placed on the monks’ heads, Davidson has picked up unusually powerful gamma waves that are better synchronized in the Tibetans than they are in novice meditators. Studies have linked this gamma-wave synchrony to increased awareness.

A quick nap or meditation?
Many people who meditate claim the practice restores their energy, allowing them to perform better at tasks that require attention and concentration. If so, wouldn’t a midday nap work just as well? No, says Bruce O’Hara, associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky. In a study to be published this year, he had college students either meditate, sleep or watch TV. Then he tested them for what psychologists call psychomotor vigilance, asking them to hit a button when a light flashed on a screen. Those who had been taught to meditate performed 10% better—”a huge jump, statistically speaking,” says O’Hara. Those who snoozed did significantly worse. “What it means,” O’Hara theorizes, “is that meditation may restore synapses, much like sleep but without the initial grogginess.”

Firms jumping on the opportunity
Not surprisingly, given those results, a growing number of corporations—including Deutsche Bank, Google and Hughes Aircraft—offer meditation classes to their workers. Jeffrey Abramson, CEO of Tower Co., a Washington-based development firm, says 75% of his staff attend free classes in transcendental meditation. Making employees sharper is only one benefit; studies say meditation also improves productivity, in large part by preventing stress-related illness and reducing absenteeism.
Another benefit for employers: meditation seems to help regulate emotions, which in turn helps people get along. “One of the most important domains meditation acts upon is emotional intelligence—a set of skills far more consequential for life success than cognitive intelligence,” says Davidson. So, for a New Year’s resolution that can pay big dividends at home and at the office, try this: just breathe.

A little bit of stress is good for the body, but when it builds up we need to learn how to deal with it, so take a deep breath and get working for a better mental health.

First : Identify the problem
Try to view stress as a warning that some aspects of your life might need changing. In order to beat stress, you’ll need to work out what these aspects are. OK, it sounds simple, but often we are unaware of just how much stress a relationship/job/lifestyle is causing us. Try and think about the causes of your stress and make a mental note of them. Once you have identified the causes you need to tackle them.

Second : Think positive
“Everything’s getting on top of me”, “I can’t cope”, “My life feels out of control”. Most of us find ourselves having thoughts like this from time to time, but it is possible to take control of these negative tendencies. Just a bit of positive thinking can turn you back onto the path of happiness and healthiness. Clearly, negative thinking can make you sick. Tests have shown that people who focused on bad times had weaker immune systems and also displayed increased activity in the part of the brain associated with mental problems such as depression.

My best advice here is to use NLP on yourself.
If you think you’re not good enough on something -> Repeat yourself you’re the best. Litteraly, just tell yourself ‘I’m the best’ and keep going. Yes you gotta keep going and repeat this to yourself day and night for weeks, then months until this becomes second nature. This just works

Third : Relax
There are endless ways to relax your body and mind; it can be as simple as closing the door to the world and having half an hour on your own with a book, but introducing some formal relaxation into your life will really pay off too. Here are a few suggestions:

Breathing: OK, so we do it all the time, but very few of us do it properly. Re-train your breathing patterns and you’ll soon see an improvement in anxiety and tension levels as well as your state of mind. Mental health charity Mind can suggest some simple breathing techniques.

Massage: Use this hands-on remedy and feel an instant improvement to your body’s built-up tension. Try to find a masseur, it’s usually 30 pounds an hour outside London. Really well worth it. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, ask a partner or friend to work on your body tensions instead.

Exercise: Choose the right exercise and you’ll feel both energised and relaxed. As a general rule, yoga and Tai Chi are excellent for reinstalling calm by focusing on breathing and centring the mind, but any physical exercise will reduce stress by using up adrenalin and other hormones that the body produces under stress, as well as relaxing the muscles. If you’re skin just watch some Youtube Yoga video and copy the moves

Orgasm: Unlikely to be prescribed by your GP, but the powers of letting off steam in the bedroom can work wonders. Can you honestly think of a time that you’re more relaxed than those post-coital moments curled up in bed? Thought not.

Other stress-busters:
Eat a healthy diet: Processed foods, too much salt, sugar, alcohol and caffeine can all drain energy and often leave you with that ‘wired’ feeling.

Get enough sleep: The best way to do this is to regulate your sleeping hours by going to bed and waking up within a time slot of 1-2 hours.

De-clutter your life: Take anything you don’t use to a charity shop, recycle old magazines and clear away the pizza boxes from under your bed. Then go to work/college on Monday and give your desk the once over. This is the quick-fix of all de-stressers.

Just say “no”: To demanding colleagues/friends/family. You know how much you can cope with, so pick out the important stuff and delegate the rest. Prioritising lists can often help you decide what really needs to be done – and what can wait.

Try to set aside at least 30 minutes each day to switch off from the world, unwind and focus on what has stressed you during the day.

Laugh: Of course laughing works, it does improve our mood, it also relieves stress and improves our immune system. The next time you find yourself with a frown on your face, consider this: four-year-old children laugh on average 400 times a day, whereas adults only laugh 14 times. So go on, get those funny videos out and invite your friends over for some serious cheering up.

Allright, in London it’s getting cold and it’s only October !

I thought i’d write about all the natural remedies i have seen on the web to deal with a sore throat. Please contribute, add your comments and give me your recipes.

Cure number 1 : Drinking tea with ginger powder or fresh ginger.

Cure number 2 : One way to help is to gargle salt water. However salt water gargling is only good for miner sore throats some people say.

Cure number 3: Throat Home Remedy. Mix Together in a mug: Hot water + Juice from 1/4 of Lemon, 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and a pinch of cayen pepper. Adding honey also soothes and sweetens!

Cure number 4: Sore throat can also be cure by adding hony in black pepper powder. Another version of this is Hot Lemon with ginger honey and black pepper.

Cure number 5: For painful throat with tonsils gargle by mixing 1 ts of salt, a pinch of turmeric and 1 disprene in one glass hot water juice of half lemon can be added

Cure number 6: Try getting a big bowl of hot, steaming water then cover your head with a towel to keep the steam in. Just relax and breathe in the steam to help soothe a sore throat.

Cure number 7 : Put about 6 teaspoons of runny honey into a mug, and add the juice of half a lemon. Then mix whilst adding about the same volume again of hot water. Drink it slowly in small sips – you will feel the honey ’sticking’ to the sore bits of your throat. Honey is a natural antibiotic (it is the only foodstuff known to man, that does not go off with age – it has been found in Egyptian tombs – still fit to eat !) and the lemon juice helps with vitamin C.

Cure number 8 : Gargle with a soluble aspirin then spit it out. Note that not everyone can take aspirin, for example people with stomach complaints or people who take warfarin medication.

Cure number 9: Hot Slippery Elm tea (coats the throat, instantly soothing) with lots of fresh squeezed organic lemon juice (antiseptic) and raw local honey (antibiotic).

Cure number 10:  What I’ve done in the past is suck on a lemon or a lime with a little bit of salt, it sounds gross and its an acquired taste, but it definitely makes my throat more tolerable

Please contribute, add your comments and give me your recipes.