Exercise is important for our health and is generally broken into two categories.  Endurance and strength training are vital for proper muscle fitness.  A friend who happens to be a patient of mine posted a link to a website called hundredpushups.com
This friend who happens to be over 60 is on the program to do 100 consecutive pushups, all from a challenge from his older sister.  I have looked over the website and its simplicity to increase strength using the basic pushup.  We have all done pushups or been exposed to it.  As a coach, I will often tell my athletes to do pushups.  With the goal of doing 100 consecutively in a 6 week program, the accomplishment is attainable by everyone.  Pushups work not only the chest and arms, but your abs and torso.  It can easily be done anywhere, does not need special equipment, no need to go to the gym and their program of working out 3 times per week takes about 10 minutes per day.  You will be doing close to 100 pushups in the beginning  to 150+ in the later weeks.  Can't do a good form regular pushup, do one that is modified (against the wall, stairs) and work your progression up.  Endurance training works the same with goal to finish a race or 50 mile bike ride.   Don't cheat, be honest with yourself and you will be rewarded.   I have started the challenge myself and invite all of you to do the same. 

Since we spend a great portion of our life sleeping, I am often asked  how to choose a mattress.  There are many new options for mattresses, Air, memory foam, combo foam are some of these choices.  While they are very viable, they can be very expensive and may not provide the best fit for you.  I generally recommend the tried and true spring mattress.  When thinking of mattresses, we need to have support and it needs to adapt to the contours of our body.  As a general rule, the more springs in your mattress, the better.  The reason is the springs provides the adaptability  to our different shapes.  Stiffness to a mattress is generally controlled by the gauge or thickness of the springs.  Like wires, the smaller the gauge, the thicker the steel used in the coil.  Since most companies use the same size gauge on their mattresses to allow it to adapt, I don't usually concern myself too much with that.  My bottom line rule is, get as many coils as you can afford.  In other words, if I had a choice of 700 coils in a queen size mattress or 800, I would buy the 800.  There is even one company (Duxiana) that puts up to 3000 coils into their mattress.  While this would definitely offer better contouring to the body, the cost is very high.  The springs need to intertwined by hand as I understand it.  My other recommendation is to go with the top of the line model with in a company, for instance Sealy Posturepedic.  Within the Posturepedic line, there are many bells and whistles, the extras that can add highly to the cost.  Having fancy pillow tops does little for the overall mattress but are expensive add ons. 

To complicate your sleeping choices, mattress companies will often put different names on a mattress depending on which store they are selling to.  Macys, Sleep Train may have the same mattress, only named differently which makes comparing them difficult. 

So there it is, I do not recommend any particular brand as all companies usually have different levels of mattresses and it is almost impossible to judge a mattress after lying on it in a showroom for 5 minutes.  Use  the springs numbers to help you compare. 

Pareben Free Skin Products: Recent studying and continuing ed. classes has led me to explore the effects of things we put into our bodies through our skin. Parebens in many forms are widely used as a preservative in lotions, sunscreens and soaps. They are estrogenic or hormone disrupting and have been linked to cause cancer. Begin reading the labels on most of the products we put on our skin and you will find parabens and other chemicals. Even many of our very expensive skin care products will have these chemicals in there.

The majority of sunscreens have these and other micronized chemicals that are readily absorbed into our blood stream via the skin. Look for sunblocks that contain titanium or zinc oxide.  These are larger molecules that are unable to cross through the skin into our blood stream.  When applied, these will leave a light white film on your skin.  That is what is blocking the UV rays. 

Many of the pain relieving gels out on the market also have parabens in them. Our office no longer stocks pain relieving gels that have unwanted chemicals in them. We have found pain relieving gels, lotions and sun blocks that are paraben free.  For more information, do internets search on parabens.