Have you ever wondered how sleep can play a role on hair-loss, depression, obesity, cardiovascular disease.  The media is always informing us how Americans are a nation of sleep deprived workaholics that are sacrificing their well being for overloading and over-scheduling themselves to maintain the modern lifestyle.  But what about those people that sleep beyond the seven to eight hours per night.

There are new studies that have concluded that sleeping nine hours or more per night may have a negative impact on health.  The evidence however, is much more conclusive that too little sleep can lead to illness, accidents, and lowered productivity.  We also know that depression can rise about in individuals who suffer from insomnia.

Here are some tips for better sleep, which will yield to better health.

Do not use sleep to overcome emotions:  When some people become overwhelmed they can become lethargic and start to fall asleep when feeling threatened.  While this may not seem that harmful, it clearly shows that a person is not dealing with the issues at hand and is not a good indicator that their night sleep will be disruptive.  Try going through the period of discomfort with a different activity such as exercise to lessen anxiety.
Do not nap too much:  Lately naps have gotten some bad press in the United States, but there has been a trend in the last few years to try a power nap.  Power naps are basically a short 15 to 20 minute sleep session that will act as an afternoon refresher, and it was speculated that Leonardo Da Vinci used this method often.  Current studies show that these power naps are an excellent way to revive yourself and sustain your energy and focus for a more productive day.  However, if the power nap turns into a traditional multi hour nap, this amount of sleep will disrupt your sleeping pattern at night.

Do not use the weekends as a sleepathon:  When our work schedules keep us busy we may sometime indulge in sleeping in on the weekends.  This behavior falls into the same pattern as overeating, and has no benefit at all.  You cannot catch up on your sleep, its all about consistent hours of sleep every night.
Nutritional Supplements help with sleep:  There are many great nutritional supplements that will condition you to fall asleep and stay asleep.  The first of these is Melatonin, which is secreted by the pineal gland and with age becomes less.  Supplemental Melatonin may help with this condition, and many users report its effectiveness form the first night of use.  Another great supplement to relax and get you ready for bed is Valerian root, this is an herb and is usually taken in a capsule or brewed as a tea.  Lastly, taking calcium before bed may also help in assisting with better sleep.

While there may be some moral benefits to abstinence, there is now conclusive proof that having regular and enjoyable sexual activity offers a host of health benefits for men and women.

One of the most credible and comprehensive studies conducted by Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of 1,000 middle aged men over the course of a decade. The study was published in the 1997 British Medical Journal, in which men who reported the greatest frequency of orgasms had a death rate of half from the stragglers. There are other studies that show that having sex even a few times per week has an affect on the following:

-An improved sense of smell: Production of the hormone prolactin surges after sex, which in turn develops new neurons in the brain’s olfactory smell center.

-A reduction for risk of heart disease: There was a follow up to the Queens University study which showed that men who had sex three or more times per week, reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half.

-Overall fitness and weight loss: Sex, can be considered exercise. A vigorous jaunt can burn about 200 calories or about the same as running 15 minutes on a treadmill. The pulse rate of an aroused person rises up to 150 beats per minute from 70, the same as an athlete in training. Muscular contractions during sex work the pelvis, thighs, buttocks, arms, neck, and thorax. Sex also increases testosterone production which leads to stronger muscles and bones.

-Depression reduction: Prostoglandin, a hormone which is found in semen, can be absorbed in the female genital tract thus regulating female hormones.

-Pain relief: Levels of the hormone oxytocin increase up to five times their normal level right before orgasm, which in turn releases endorphins that alleviate anything from a simple headache to arthritis. In women this can even reduce symptoms of PMS.

-Less Colds and Flu: A study conducted at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania shows that individuals who have sex once or twice per week have 30% increased level of immunoglobulin A, which boosts the immune system.

To keep your body healthy for sexual activity a good multi-vitamin is recommended. Anti-oxidants such as vitamin A, C, E, and coenzyme Q10 are essential for proper recovery and healthy semen production. Ginkgo Biloba may also help with sexual activity as its ability to improve blood flow to the brain and its antioxidant properties.

Does this scenario sound familiar? You’ve been so good all week about staying on your diet. Only high-protein, low-carbohydrate foods and beverages have passed your pure and virtuous lips. You’re starting to feel so good about yourself that you doubt you’ll ever indulge in greasy, fatty, high-carb foods again!

And then it happens. You’re driving by your favorite burger joint, and the sweet smell of grease simply overpowers you. You decide that “just this once” won’t hurt, so you park, go in, and pork out on a double cheeseburger, fries, and a large chocolate malt. Then you spend the rest of the day feeling physically bloated and emotionally disgusted with yourself.

Get off your back—lapses like this one happen to the best of us. Fortunately, now there’s a product that can help you get through them without gaining back the weight you worked so hard to lose. BSN Cheaters Relief acts to stop your body from digesting the carbohydrates and fats from foods like hamburgers, fries, pizza, and hot-fudge sundaes.

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There’s a good reason more stallions than fillies win horse races: Stallions have bigger muscles and more of the muscle-powering hormone testosterone than fillies do. Knowing that, most racehorse trainers would feed prohormone products to the stallions they train for the track if only they could!

Prohormones are hormone precursors that liver enzymes convert to anabolic hormones in the body. Though earlier versions of prohormone products were banned from the marketplace, luckily for human athletes who want to increase their muscle size, strength, and endurance, a new version called 1-Androsterone is available.

Manufactured by Advanced Muscle Science, a company with more than 20 years of experience in producing cutting-edge bodybuilding supplements and ergogenic aids for the sports-nutrition industry, 1-Androsterone offers many of the same beneficial effects that 1-androstendiol and 1-test did—and because the formulation is 100 percent legal, you can take it knowing your body is protected from dangerous substances. Unlike virtually every “methyl” prohormone on the market, 1-Androsterone is completely nontoxic, an orally active compound that occurs naturally in the human body. Moreover, in addition to being exceedingly powerful, it’s also completely non-aromatizable to estrogen.

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Are you getting the best possible results from your daily workout? Do you find that you struggle to develop your body but fail to maintain optimum muscle strength? Do you feel tired and frustrated after a workout, as if your effort isn’t paying off as well as it could?

Supplements can provide you with an answer, in terms of rounding out your exercise routine, and can spell the difference between being in shape and really defining your body to its maximum level of strength and fitness. Nutrex Research’s NIOX makes use of nitric oxide (NO), a molecule that occurs naturally in your body and is produced by enzymes that break down the amino acid arginine. NO is important to you as a bodybuilder because it helps to improve the blood flow to your muscle cells, allowing these cells to benefit from the nutrients found naturally in your bloodstream. This improvement in blood flow positively affects your muscles, helping them to be healthier and stronger.

Nutrex’s new product NIOX is unusual because it offers NO in a liquid form. This helps you get results faster, since your body naturally digests anything in a liquid form quickly, absorbing it like one big sponge. Giving you optimum results, fast. And who doesn’t want that?

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Affecting more than 20 million Americans, diabetes is characterized by the inability to regulate the body’s blood sugar. Of the different types of diabetes, the most common is type 1 diabetes mellitus. Formerly referred to as noninsulin-dependent diabetes, type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 percent of all cases. Although type 2 diabetes is considered an inherited condition, its development is principally a consequence of lifestyle. That is, in most cases, it can be prevented and treated with diet, exercise, and weight control. People who are unable to control their blood sugar with lifestyle changes are treated with oral blood-sugar-lowering medications. In turn, those who are unable to adequately control their blood sugar with oral medications are treated with insulin.

Dire Consequences
Serious health complications are associated with uncontrolled blood sugar: namely, kidney failure, heart disease, and blindness. Faced with these grave risks, the medical community has focused its efforts on measures to prevent the onset of diabetes in at-risk populations and to prevent the complications associated with diagnosed individuals.

Though a variety of medications are available to treat diabetes, scientists are looking to alternative ways to treat this widespread disease. A nutritional supplement marketed toward the diabetic patient, NutraLab Cinnergen is used to enhance the effects of the body’s natural insulin and to decrease the effect of elevated blood sugar. Cinnergen contains a variety of natural substances (16 active ingredients in all); however, the most widely studied of these are cinnamon bark, blueberry leaf extract, and cranberry extract.

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Did you know that more than 60 percent of our free amino acids are glutamine? Or that for years, glutamine was considered to be just another nonessential amino acid?

Of course, the term “nonessential amino acid” only means that our bodies don’t manufacture glutamine for us. But recent studies reveal that glutamine is much more important for maintaining health than previously believed. Glutamine, which becomes conditionally essential during times of stress or injury, elevates growth hormone levels and restricts the catabolic actions of cortisol as well. In fact, it is now well documented that glutamine is also essential for cell proliferation and that it acts as a respiratory fuel and boosts immune function.

Nonessential but Important
When our bodies’ glutamine reserves are low, we become much more prone to infections and other immune-system-related problems. Many glutamine researchers focus on the fact that depleted glutamine stores make it much more difficult for our bodies to fend off illness and on the fact that illnesses can further deplete glutamine reserves. But glutamine depletion does not only occur through illness; it also happens through stress caused by exercise.

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Both men and women need a certain level of naturally occurring steroids in the body to build muscles and increase bulk. This is even more important for people over the age of 25, since natural levels of testosterone in males and progesterone in females begin to decline after this age. Bodybuilders and other athletes have long used prohormones to encourage muscle growth and repair, but how effective are they? While some formulas claim to encourage healthy muscle growth and a steady supply of the essential hormone, many fail to produce results.

Used as a prohormone to testosterone, 4-androstenediol (4-AD) is designed to increase the natural production of testosterone throughout tissues in the body, making it easier to build muscle naturally. The 4-AD combination is used in many prohormone blends, but Advanced Muscle Science 4-AD is made with a proprietary blend and can be used both as a pre-workout stimulant and for its testosterone-enhancing effects.

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Maybe you’ve been reading about CytoSport’s Muscle Milk or heard your friends talking about it, but you haven’t yet tried this supplement designed with the goodness of mother’s milk in mind. You might have a long history using whey-protein supplements, with very good reason, and hate to try anything new for fear of losing any gains you’ve made. Not making the switch is understandable, like hanging onto a comfortable pair of running shoes. But maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit and see if Muscle Milk can be of benefit to your workout regimen. If not, you can always return to your previous “whey” of life.

To help you decide, here’s the breakdown on standard whey supplements versus Muscle Milk:

The Taste Factor
When it comes to taste, Muscle Milk is the winner, hands down. Users often can’t believe how good it is, and the same just cannot be said about most whey-protein supplements. A common complaint with these shakes is that they have a chalky taste, but that isn’t the case with Muscle Milk. In addition to the basics of Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry, you have your pick of a wide variety of flavors, like Mocha Joe, Crème Brulee, and Root Beer.

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Garlic has long been a key ingredient in Mediterranean and Eastern cooking, but many people don’t realize its potent effects on our immune and digestive systems. Garlic supplements offer a convenient option to regularly eating raw garlic; these can be used as a dietary supplement to fight infection, reduce blood pressure, and even manage blood-sugar levels. Nature’s Way Garlicin offers a simple way to enjoy many of the health benefits of garlic in a safe, natural formula.

History Lesson
Garlic was commonly used as a treatment for leprosy by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and mixed with other herbal ingredients and antioxidants for its powerful therapeutic properties. Before the advent of modern medicine, raw garlic was prescribed to heal wounds, combat colds and fevers, and neutralize inflammation in the body. Some researchers in China believe that garlic has natural cancer-fighting benefits that can improve the body’s resistance to tumors, helping to prevent cancer-causing agents from circulating in the body.

The most important compound in garlic is allicin, the substance that is released when garlic is cut, chewed, or crushed. This is why many cooking techniques require garlic to be crushed before adding it to meals; the release of allicin makes it easy to absorb the key ingredients of garlic, and standardized allicin is found in a variety of garlic supplements. Since garlic also works as a natural blood thinner, it should not be taken by those who regularly have low blood sugar, or are taking medication that has anticoagulant properties.

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