Oh My Heartsie Girl

May 11, 2018

4 Ways To Reduce The Signs Of Aging

We all get older, of course, but that doesn’t mean that we all have to enjoy the process – or what it does to our skin. There are ways, however, to age gracefully, and to keep our youthful appearance for as long as possible, despite the passage of years. Here are some great ways to stay looking young and to reduce the signs of aging.

Take Care In The Sun

It’s crucial that you protect your skin from the sun as much as possible if you want to stay looking youthful. Not only will the sun cause premature aging, but it can also be the cause of skin cancer, so you can see why you should always be careful. Make sure you use sunscreen every time you go outside, even when the sun doesn’t seem so hot – a hazy day can cause just as much damage as one full of bright sunshine.

Ideally, you will want to use a broad spectrum sunscreen that protects you from both UVA and UVB rays from the sun, and look at using SPF 15 or (better still) higher. To add to your protection, remember to wear a hat and sunglasses on hot days.

Get Enough Sleep

When we sleep our bodies have the chance to repair themselves – every cell, including the skin, rejuvenates overnight. ‘Beauty sleep’ actually has a basis in fact because the better quality sleep you get (ideally for seven or eight hours a night), the better your skin will look, so you’ll appear much more youthful.

Always getting a good night’s sleep (or at least as much of the time as possible; we all have late nights from time to time) will also reduce the risk of developing conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, so it’s important for many different reasons.

Quit Smoking

Smoking speeds up the aging process; you can’t help but notice how smokers will often have many more lines on their faces (especially around the lips) than non-smokers do. It’s the nicotine that is the main problem, as this reduces the amount of oxygen that can get to the skin (and other cells). When your skin is starved of oxygen, the collagen breaks down and that reduces the elasticity, leading directly to wrinkles. Lack of oxygen also causes the skin to look dull and unhealthy.

If you’re a smoker, you’ll know it’s hard to give up, but you’ll also know how important it is for your overall health and to keep you from aging before your time. To reduce the effects of wrinkles and fine lines, turn to tobacco E juice as an alternative.

Lower Your Stress Levels

When we’re stressed, our bodies release hormones and chemicals – it’s to put us into fight or flight mode which in some cases is extremely useful. However, chronic stress when we are permanently in that mode and our bodies are flooded with hormones and chemicals can have a detrimental effect on our health, including how our skin looks.

Too much stress compromises the skin cells making them difficult to repair themselves. Again, this leads to wrinkles and unhealthy looking skin.

May 11, 2018

How to Design a Productive, Functional Home Office

If you’re one of the almost 4 million U.S. workers who work remotely, you probably understand how important your home office is to your productivity.

But simply having a home office won’t make you a productive worker by itself. You need to put some consideration into the design and layout of your space. Making sure that everything is in order will ensure that the workday does not go to waste.

Here are some of our best tips to help you design a functional and StressLess home office.

Location, Location, Location

Most homes do not have a specific place designed for a home office or study. If you don’t have a dedicated office, then you may have to choose a space that was meant to be a formal living room or a dining room, or spare bedroom. Whatever location you choose, make sure that it works well for your work needs as well as the needs of the rest of the family.

No matter what space you choose, ensure your family understands that during your work hours your office needs to be as low-traffic of a space as possible. It may take some negotiating if this is a common space, such as a den.

In some instances, a small outdoor shed or another outbuilding (if space permits) can be converted into a great workspace.

Meeting Space

Depending on what you do for a living, you may need space in your office to meet with people. Even if it’s only on a rare occasion that you have a real meeting in your home office, it’s a good idea to plan for those moments. Having space set aside for meetings helps you and your space make a more professional impression than if you simply grab a folding chair.

Types of Desks

There are a lot of options available when it comes to desks. When choosing your desk, consider your work process, what you need easy access to, and how much storage you may need.

Another thing to consider: Ideally, your home office desk and furniture should match the details of your existing home furniture—especially when the home office blends into the rest of the larger home.

Care About What You Sit On

photo courtesy: Ekornes

Sometimes people think they can get by with any old office chair. But, they quickly realize how wrong they were when their backs begin to ache.

You’re going to park yourself in that chair for hours every day, so invest in a good, comfortable ergonomic home office chair Rather than going cheap on a home office chair, spend the necessary amount of money on an ergonomic office chair and your back will thank you. Check out this office chair buying guide for your reference.

Include Storage in Your Design

Nothing will distract you more than a messy workspace. Include ample space for shelving, cabinets, or decorative storage boxes to keep things organized and to keep your desktop from becoming a cluttered mess.

Think about Tech

One of the most important things you can invest in for your home office space is a surge protector and power strips. Typically, a home office has a lot more electrical needs than other rooms, and you’ll find that you may not have sufficient outlets. The surge protector is a good idea for any electronic devices whether they are part of your office or the regular living area.

Don’t forget about cord management—buy a cover for all of your cords. This is as much a safety issue as a decorative issue. You’ll keep your area looking neat and have fewer tripping hazards if you spend some time corralling your power cords.

Add Some Personal Touches

There’s no need to become a feng shui practitioner here, but at least make sure your space is inviting and enjoyable to be in (even if it’s only you in the room) by hanging pictures or posters or simply including some personal items.

Plants are also great for an office, adding color and dimension to a room, but more importantly, they can help improve mood and productivity. A University of Queensland study found that in offices that had plantlife, workers were 15% more productive. This could be due to a number of factors, but mostly it seems to come down to mood—plants improved mood and that can lead to improved work and productivity.

A home office should be a welcoming, comfortable space. It will remind you that working at home should not be a torturous experience, but rather an enjoyable one.

By designing your office area with your work in mind, and using some basic office planning principles you can create a StressLess, inspiring, and highly productive workspace that you’ll enjoy spending your time in. Utilize some basic design principles to make it productive and inspiring, you can make sure you actually work when you’re working from home.

Related:
6 Home Office Flooring Design Ideas: With Pictures
3 Ways to Organize Your Home with Wall Units
4 Factors of Great Office Design
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May 10, 2018October 15, 2020

Fitness Tips: Every Program Needs Strength Training

Fitness is crucial in a human life. Because most people now understand its importance, fitness programs are becoming more useful. One expert who sells steroids like dianabol explained that following your fitness program is the way to go.

For those with no idea of what one should look like, it is advisable that they ask a fitness consultant because fitness programs differ depending on the goal. Some are good at increasing muscles and strength while others focus on weight loss. However, experts have now revealed that strength training is needed in every program to make the body stable and able to endure what is to come. Here are more details regarding fitness and strength training. What Is Strength Training?

The main focus of strength workouts is to bring the body into a position where it can endure and persevere. This happens when the muscular contraction occurs across the whole body part. In today’s fitness world, there are numerous exercises that one can incorporate into her or his program for the strength of the body. It all depends on what people prefer or what they want to achieve.

What Is the Importance of Strength Training?

The first importance of strength training in any program is the preservation of muscle mass. Whether you are losing weight, toning or building muscles, retaining a maximum amount of muscle is very crucial. Another good thing about incorporating this is improving the protein synthesis, which is all a bodybuilder, athlete or any other serious fitness fan wants. This enhances your muscle growth, and the end results are better. That said, some of the best strength training includes the following exercises.

Wide Grip Overhand Pull-Up

This is considered to be an advanced level of strength training. However, anyone can start it gradually and get the same results when done well. Most experts will recommend over five sets of the exercise and that each set has only 3 reps. When the right procedure is followed and consistency maintained, you can rest assured of getting the best results especially on the arms, shoulders and the stomach area.

Flat Barbell Bench Press

If you have been at the gym before, you have probably seen most people run to do the barbell bench press. They are the popular strength training exercises most people know. They allow people to use different weights depending on what is appropriate for them. As a beginner, you can start with a low weight and gradually add more after every week until you reach the maximum or as recommended by your fitness trainer.

Dumbbell Squats

Instead of doing the ordinary squats, which rely on the body, you can add some dumbbells for more resistance. Ensure that the legs are slightly apart and the spine is vertical to increase efficiency. Since squats are tough, experts do recommend sets with about 10 to 15 reps before you pause and proceed to another set.

Conclusion

As seen from these highlights, one cannot engage in a fitness program without strength training. What matters more is how well you perform the exercises and how they get incorporated into the strength training.
Related:
7 Strength Building Strategies That Will Never Fade Out
5 Tips For Getting in Shape For The Summer

May 10, 2018

How Cloud Hosting Works To Benefit Your Blogging Platform

Many bloggers are making the switch from traditional hosting to cloud hosting packages. They are looking into the latest developments in hosting to find the best performance for their blog. Since the cloud hosting options are relatively new, there is a lot to learn about how they work and what they can offer your website. If you are a blogger that has a website with high traffic levels and connects with other blogs, you should be considering cloud hosting solutions. In this post, we’ll cover how cloud hosting works to benefit your blog.

What Is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting uses remote servers to serve your website over the internet. Unlike traditional hosting servers, cloud environments run on clustered servers. The cluster of servers each have a stored copy of your website. Therefore, your website can be served from a “cloud” of servers. As a result, your website gains access to the entire network of virtual resources distributed between the servers or cloud. Put simply, cloud hosting is an hosting environment with a clustered group of servers rather than a single server.

Cloud Hosting Works In Various Ways

Bloggers will typically sign up for a public cloud hosting package. However, depending on the cloud hosting solution, there are many ways to set up the servers. Cloud hosting can be private, hybrid or public. In a private cloud, all of the server clusters are dedicated to your website. However, this might be unnecessary for even the highest-traffic blogs. Secondly, a hybrid system stores some information on premise and the remaining in a cloud environment. Thirdly, the public cloud allows you to share cloud resources with other people. This type of cloud hosting works to service many high traffic blogs and websites.

Public Cloud Hosting Is Scalable

When bloggers sign up with a public cloud host, they are gaining instant access to scalable server resources. Since many public cloud environments have an excess of system resources, it is very unlikely that your website will utilize all of it. Even if one server goes down, all the other web servers in the cluster would pick up the capacity. Using this solution, your website can handle major spikes in traffic from your daily blog tasks. Since the blog would be on a cluster, it would not hit any hard server limits. It will make your blog instantly scalable, more so than a dedicated server.

How The Cloud Hosting Prices Work

Moreover, bloggers can save money with cloud hosting. Once you have hit a certain traffic level, you could end up spending several hundreds of dollars for a dedicated server. As an alternative, cloud hosting pricing works based off of the resources used. That means, your cloud hosting price covers huge spikes in traffic without having to overpay for unused capacity. This type of utility pricing model can be cost efficient for high traffic websites. Additionally, low to medium traffic websites could benefit from costs savings as well. Since bloggers only pay for what they use, there is an opportunity to save money compared to traditional hosting packages.

Managing Cloud Hosting Requires Experts

Additionally, bloggers have to partner with providers because of all the technical expertise required to manage a cloud hosting environment. Reliable providers have technical support teams that manage the distribution of resources and storage of information. If you decide to switch to a quality cloud hosting provider, the would provide you with the expertise to keep your server clusters running. For a pay as you go price model, it’s a great way to make your cloud hosting work without having to do too much yourself. This gives you peace of mind that the cloud hosting works so you can focus on growing your blog.

Cloud hosting works make your website perform faster with higher reliability. It leverages the power of clustered servers to serve your website in a scalable way. Compared to a single server, cloud hosting has better uptime because other servers can take on resources if one of them goes offline. Moreover, cloud hosting can be configured as public, private or hybrid. For most bloggers, you would be able to find cost savings in a public cloud that offers an abundance of system resources. Of course, this would benefit your blog as well as your budget. On top of that, you can partner with a company that manages the entire cloud environment for you. This way, your blog gets all the performance without the additional work. Surely, bloggers who are growing their websites should give cloud hosting a strong look now that you know how it all works.

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