Exploring a Plant-Based Diet

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Tips and Resources for Getting Started with A Plant-Based Diet

Healing, satisfying, nourishing and delicious. Are those the words you would immediately think of as describing a plant-based diet? If not, you might want to think again. As the experts I went to affirmed what I’ve already learned firsthand, a plant-based diet is more than just a way of eating, it’s a way of life, a way of healing and a way of looking at the world around you. As we help you to explore different ways of eating here at Peppermint Tea & Me, a whole foods plant-based diet is something that I hope you’ll at the very least come to understand a little better, and at most, possibly embrace for yourself. If so, these tips and resources for getting started with a plant-based diet will help to make your transition easier and will help to put you on a path to lifelong wellness.

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Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

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Getting Started with Yoga

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Tips for Beginners

Downward-Facing Dog, Eagle Pose, Garland Pose, Half Moon Pose and Lotus Pose – just to name a few. This is the empowering language of yoga that can leave even a beginner wanting more. More flexibility, more strength, a stronger core, better muscle tone and even more focus. Can one practice really deliver all of this? Yoga Instructor RJ Lisander  offered a resounding Yes! when I went to her to find the answers that many women who are curious about yoga want to know. As RJ makes clear in this Q&A, getting started with yoga doesn’t have to be intimidating and it doesn’t have to be scary. Everyone who tries this ancient practice is a beginner at some point, but as most find fairly quickly, yoga is not only good for your body, it’s great for your mind as well. I think RJ put it best when she said, “It helps you find balance between the extremes of everyday life on and off the mat.”

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6 Tips for Better Sleep

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Why Sleep is so Important

“I can sleep when I’m dead. I have more important things to be doing…” If you’ve ever had those thoughts, you’re not alone. In fact, I count myself among the worst offenders on this. But the reality is, we do need sleep, and lots of it. But why is it so important, why aren’t we getting enough of it, and most importantly, what can we do about it? The answers to these questions, plus our 6 tips for better sleep could just change your entire outlook on life. So, before you quit your job, consider divorce, or do anything else drastic, keep reading. It may be that you just need more sleep!

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HPA Axis Dysfunction (Adrenal Fatigue) and What It May Mean for You

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Stress, Our Modern Lifestyle and the Toll They May be Taking on Our Health

Let’s face it, the way we live our lives every day is full of stressors – both real and perceived. The food we eat, our commute to work and the toxins in our environment are just a few of these, but they’re all taking a toll on our bodies. One way this may show up is through what’s commonly referred to as “adrenal fatigue.” In reality, this syndrome of signs and symptoms that tells us our bodies aren’t functioning properly is more accurately called HPA Axis Dysfunction. Since this is an incredibly frustrating and often misunderstood condition, I read numerous studies and research articles and went to Dr. Daniel Gonzalez, a Certified Functional Medicine Doctor, to find out more. What I learned could help shed some light on what you or someone you know may be experiencing and how it could be treated with and without medical intervention.

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Getting back on Track with Your Health

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10 Steps for Restoring Wellness with Nutrition and Exercise

We’ve all gotten sidetracked at one time or another when it comes to healthy eating and exercise. Life happens, we get bored or we might lose sight of why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place. It’s not the end of the world. The most important thing is recognizing what’s going on and getting back on track. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but it’s probably easier than you might think – especially if you use these 10 steps for restoring your health and wellness to guide you along the way.

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Photo by Albin Berlin from Pexels

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Hotel Fitness Center Tips

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6 Ways to Stay in Shape While Away from Home

You’re traveling for work or pleasure, and the hotel fitness center looks like your primary means of getting in exercise. What can you do to make the most of what equipment is available? Plenty! You just have to get a little creative. While hotel fitness centers can vary, most have fairly standard pieces of equipment that you can count on. Keeping those in mind, here are six ideas to get you started so that you can stay in shape while away from home.

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Strengthening Your Core and Your Life with Pilates

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6 Tips to Get Started

Slow, methodical, intentional and controlled. How many moments in our lives can we describe this way, let alone when we’re talking about how we exercise? For many of us, exercise is all about speeding up, pounding it out or moving at a frenetic pace to energize ourselves or to work out the day. While that can be good and sometimes it’s just what we need, it can also be beneficial to slow it down, focus on your breath or be so in the moment that you can feel every vertebra as you roll your body up or down. That’s what it’s like to be in the world of Pilates and after one micro-session to see what it’s all about, it’s a world I definitely want to go back to.

Going into this experience, I had done plenty of cardio, lots of strength training, some yoga and even occasional high intensity interval training, but I had never done Pilates. When I asked Pilates Teacher Scotti Harwood, PMA-CPT with Source Pilates if she could tell me all about this method of exercising, she not only agreed but invited me to come walk through some of the exercises. What an eye-opening experience! I learned that you really can strengthen both your core and your life with Pilates, and with Scotti’s tips to get started, you may just find that this is one system of exercising you can’t live without.

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Scotti Harwood, PMA-CPT

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Integrated Wellness While on Vacation

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How to Keep It Relaxing, Fun and Healthy

When we go on vacation, we want it to be relaxing and fun. In most cases, the last thing we want to think about is whether we’re being healthy or not. After all, this is our time to take it easy on ourselves. While that’s definitely true, if we do everything differently than we do at home, we may end up feeling run down, tired, having digestive problems because we’re eating differently and just not ourselves before the vacation is even over.

That’s why integrated living is an important concept all of the time and not one that you can really take time off from. But that’s the whole idea. Recognizing how everything is connected shouldn’t be a burden, a hardship or create a lifestyle that isn’t enjoyable. It isn’t something that you should need a break from and is a mindset that you should want to take with you wherever you go. Yes, when you are in a different place or have a different schedule, you do have to be flexible. But you don’t have to compromise on everything and your health certainly shouldn’t suffer. That’s why we’re going to take a look at a few ways you can keep it relaxing, fun and healthy all at the same time.

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Summer Skin Care Dos and Don’ts

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Tips on Ingredients to Look for in Sunscreen and How to Build up Your Body’s Internal SPF

If you love being out in the sun as much as I do, I have some good news. It appears that not all unprotected sun exposure is bad for us. That doesn’t mean we can go crazy and spend hours outside in the summer with no protective clothing or sunscreen, but it does mean that slathering ourselves in the highest SPF possible may not be necessary all of the time. As it turns out, a growing number of studies* show that a limited amount of unprotected sun exposure is not only okay, it’s actually good for us.

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Skin Cancer Awareness in the Summer Sun

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Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness Month

I am a fair-skinned redhead who loves, LOVES being in the sun. As a teenager, laying out in the sun was very soothing and relaxing to me, but unfortunately, I grew up in the days of slathering on baby oil to attract the sun. Then we got wiser and used a maximum of SPF 4 – still barely anything compared to today’s SPF standards. Let me repeat – I am fair-skinned with freckles. The only way I turn tan is for my freckles to run together.

Given the kind of damage I did to my skin early on, I count myself as very lucky that so far (knock on wood), I haven’t had any skin cancer scares. But since we know that skin damage accumulates and can become cancerous decades later, I now get checked regularly and have several places that the dermatologist is keeping an eye on. It would have been much easier if I’d been better informed and as conscientious when I was younger, but there’s always room for us to change our ways. Since May is Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness Month and before we head out into the summer sun, we should all take the opportunity to learn about the different types of skin cancer, possible causes and what to look for.

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