Get moving again

Recharging your body involves developing a plan for regular physical activity; discovering activities you actually like doing; working out a program specific to you, your age and your needs; building accountability and having fun moving again; and rewiring a lot of the damage that’s being done by our techno-drive lifestyles.

Music gets you training harder

8 Reasons to Listen to Music While you Exercise

Are your workouts getting you down just as much as the lack of time you have to workout properly? Did you know that music can help you to train harder? Can you think of a better way to reinvigorate your workouts? Here are 8 of the latest reasons why you should get your Ipod up to speed and get the music pumping while you work out!

Read the entire article by Rosemary Marchese

Creating a wellness connection

Many of us would like to change something in our wellness. Whether it be improvements in fitness, eating habits, weight control, stress management or other health behaviours, we know WHAT to do. But we don’t do it. We struggle with the HOW.

In today’s society we are inundated with facts on what is good for us. What we should do, what we shouldn’t do (says who?). Learning how to change our own behaviour is not easy. “Just do it” might be a good slogan for a large sportswear manufacturer but may not work for complex behaviour change. We know we want to lose weight; we know we need to eat less or make better choices, so what do we do? Go on a crash diet, deprive ourselves with an eating plan that leads to low energy, demoralization, rapid weight loss and equally rapid weight regain. And we fail again, which reinforces our lack of belief in our ability to take control of our weight.

Read the entire article by Fiona Cosgrove

Winter and evolution are hiding my recharge button

Many rate a workout with a non-anesthetised tooth extraction. If this is you don’t too feel down about it, you are only doing what evolution has taught you. Our genes are constantly telling us to keep still and conserve life sustaining energy. Today, these features which not so long ago were important for survival, are now a bug in the system that can lead to energy drain.

Our genetic energy conservation coding combined with winter temperatures and time pressure can make leaving your exercise bug in hibernation an easy choice.

Read the entire article by Allan Bolton

Rest is a weapon

In your most hectic times, do you know how much your lack of quality sleep and sustained chaos affects your performance?  Maintaining your hectic schedule to get more done, could actually prove to be a false economy, substantially affecting decision making, energy, concentration, cognitive speed and memory.  How do you maximise your productivity during your busiest work and travel schedules?

Athletes in particular know the importance of rest as a tool to make sure that their training and competition performances are of the best quality; this can also be applied to corporate performance.

Read the entire article by Tony Wilson

Reenergise - exercise

Are you struggling to find the time to exercise? You are not alone! But a routine that involves regular exercise is part of the solution to reenergising your body so it is vital to find some time in your day to make it happen. The National Physical Activity Guidelines for Australians recommend that you ‘put together at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days’. Although more vigorous exercise is needed for physical fitness improvements, it is now known that following these guidelines can improve blood pressure, blood cholesterol and body weight! The other good news is that this does not have to be 30 continuous minutes to produce significant health benefits. Nor does it have to be all at the same intensity. Recent research is showing that interval training (interspersing lower intensity exercise with short bouts of higher intensity exercise) can also have some great benefits!

The 3 levels of energy management

No one can argue that the world has gotten faster. We used to date, now we speed date, we used to read now we speed read and we used walk now we speed walk. The world has gotten fast and the fall out is that we are all busy, time poor and exhausted.

The energy we bring to our day, our work and our lives, is the difference between elite performance and mediocrity. Energy is infectious to the people around you and you have to ask yourself what are you infecting your environment with.

There are 3 levels to energy management physical, emotional and mental.

Click here to read the entire article by Dr. Adam Fraser

Recharge your metabolism

It’s often called ‘the fire within’, but what exactly is our metabolism?

Put simply, the human body is a big bio-chemical fire - a mass of chemical reactions - with a ‘personality’. These chemical reactions result in the tissue and compounds that make up our bodies. They are also responsible for breaking our food down into energy, and then releasing that energy for physical activity. Our metabolism is the name given to all the biochemical processes necessary to sustain life. The body’s ‘metabolic rate’ (MR) refers to the amount of energy our bodies need to stay alive.

Read the entire article by Allan Bolton

Exercise addiction

Exercise addiction has only recently begun to be studied and psychologists have even given it a new term “anorexia athletica”. Andrew May discusses how much exercise is too much.

“While exercise generally enhances your health, when taken to the extreme it can have very disastrous effects on both your physical and psychological well-being,” May explained.

“Exercise addiction is an obsession with physical activity and training for hours and hours a day, every spare morsel of time is spent exercising. It can get dangerous when a commitment to exercise crosses the line to dependency and compulsion and can result in physical, social, and psychological problems.

Watch the interview with Andrew May on the Today Show

Using common “sense” to recharge

Over the past two decades the technological around the clock competitive society has resulted in a “sink or swim” philosophy.  Indeed, many would suggest we are experiencing a time of crisis within opportunity. Significant advances in communication have made it harder to slow down and “recharge”, coupled with increased need to be super productive, all of which leads to the “toxic human”.

In my opinion, prevention of environmental intoxication is about gaining back control. But, how do you get control and prevent becoming intoxicated? Unless pointed out to you, you are probably unaware of just how powerful our senses are and secondly just how easy it is to make very small changes in our every day environment that have massive benefits. I call this call Sensory Manipulation, although it’s less about manipulation and more about awareness.

Read the entire article by Tom Buckley

Recharge - Try a fun run

Feeling sluggish? Overworked? Tired? No energy to play with your kids in the backyard? Why don’t you try a fun run? Running is an awesome escape from the every day grind and a good excuse to ‘switch off’ and focus on something else – well something for you.

For those of you not accustomed to running I may hear you say that “running is not for me”.. Usually that just means your body isn’t trained for running and just needs to get fitter! It’s similar to kids who don’t like maths – but if you are good at it you love it!

Read the entire article by Rosemary Marchese

Beat high blood pressure naturally

Although many Australians are medicated for hypertension, there are also natural ways you can reduce high blood pressure. Maya Anderson investigates.

According to research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects approximately 11 percent of the population, or about 2.1 million people. Perth-based Dr Nico Lauw, a member of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, said hypertension can have devastating effects. “Dangers of high blood pressure are extensive, but the most common ones that we always see are heart failure, kidney failure, stroke and ischaemic heart disease that can lead to heart attacks,” he said.

Read the entire article by Maya Anderson

Busy Mum, no time to exercise?

Are you a busy mum struggling to find time to get to the gym? Can’t even find the time to get out for a walk? You’re not alone! The good news is that research is showing you don’t have to exercise for one hour straight to have some health benefits! As a busy working mum myself, even I (the self-confessed exercise-junkie) had to come to terms with the fact that since becoming a mum there just isn’t always time to get into a full gym program. Since my first child was born over three years ago I have had to re-learn ways to get regular exercise, and yes, get back into my pre-baby clothes, without getting to a gym.

Read the entire article by Rosemary Marchese

Busy Dads…burning the candle at both ends

There’s no doubt that today there is a huge focus on the health of the working mother. With so many more women returning to work it’s no wonder that women are finding it hard to cope. Did you know that between 1983 and 2002 the proportion of families with dependent children with two parents working rose from 39.7 to 56.9 per cent (ABS various years)? But now let’s focus on the dads for a while…compared to 20 years ago the proportion of men working longer hours is higher, and climbing! So what impact is this having on the health of the working dad?

Read the entire article by Rosemary Marchese