We can’t guarantee 100 years to all of you but if you follow these tips for a healthy body and mind, you may be able to live a longer (and healthier) life…..

You’re the life of the party

Outgoing people are 50 percent less likely to develop dementia. Researchers speculate that their more resilient brains may be due to lower levels of cortisol — studies show that oversecretion of this “stress hormone” can inhibit brain cells’ communication.
You run for 40 minutes a day

Middle-aged people who run for a total of about five hours per week lived longer and functioned better physically and cognitively as they got older. They didn’t just get less heart disease — they also developed fewer cases of cancer, neurological diseases, and infections.

You like raspberries

Dietary fibre helps reduce total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, improve insulin sensitivity, and boost weight loss. Raspberries are high in fiber.

You feel 13 years younger than you are

Feeling youthful is linked to better health and a longer life. It can improve optimism and motivation to overcome challenges, which helps reduce stress and boost your immune system and ultimately lowers your risk of disease.

You embrace techie trends

Learn to Twitter, Facebook, or Skype to help keep brain cells young and healthy. Stay connected to friends, family, and current events, and you feel vital and relevant.

You started menopause after age 52

Studies show that naturally experiencing it later can mean an increased life span. Women who go through menopause late have a much lower risk of heart disease.

You make every calorie count

Men and women who limit their daily calories to 1,400 to 2,000 were literally young at heart – their hearts functioned like those of people 15 years younger

You had a baby later in life

If you got pregnant naturally after age 44, you’re about 15 percent less likely to die during any year after age 50. If your ovaries are healthy and you are capable of having children at that age, that’s a marker that you have genes operating that will help you live longer.

Your pulse beats 15 times in 15 seconds

That equates to 60 beats per minute – or how many times a healthy heart beats at rest. Most people have resting rates between 60 and 100 bpm, and the closer to the lower end of the spectrum, the healthier. A slower pulse means your heart doesn’t have to work as hard and could last longer.

You don’t snore

Snoring is a major sign of obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder that causes you to stop breathing briefly because throat tissue collapses and blocks your airway. In severe cases, this can happen 60 to 70 times per hour. Sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, and depression.

You have a (relatively) flat belly after menopause

Women who are too round in the middle are 20 percent more likely to die sooner, even if their body mass index is normal. At midlife, it takes more effort to keep waists trim because shifting hormones cause most extra weight to settle in the middle.

Simply know this: Your thoughts and feelings support your actions, your actions support your steps, your steps support your behavior and your repeated behavior becomes your lifestyle.

Take a look at how the small choices lead to a lifestyle:

Become aware of emotions you associate with the experience of exercise. Tune into your well-being and joy when you are active. Choosing to be active is much easier when your mind says, “This is fun!” or “This feels good!”

Visualize walking around the block to get your mail and playing with your kids or grandkids. Let those thoughts inspire creativity, so you begin to make other feel-good exercise plans.

Live in the present, which is the only “place” where you can be active. Actions happen now, not in the past or future. In-the-moment opportunities, such as walking up the ramp at the mall instead of taking the escalator, riding a bike instead of driving or taking a walk on your lunch break instead of gobbling fast food, provide ways for you to fit in fitness and should be part of your daily exercise routine.

• Create your belief system, make your choices and take a step. After experiencing the endorphin release caused by physical activity that can reduce pain, believe that exercise can make you feel better and make exercise plans. Choose to be active over being still. Accumulated in-the-moment choices are the actions that become the steps that establish a lifestyle.

• Cultivate and engage. Each day we engage in activities that care for our body, such as taking a shower, eating, sleeping and brushing our teeth. These actions have become a lifestyle and, more than likely, there are aspects of each one that you enjoy while you are engaged in it. The same can be said for exercise. As you cultivate a relationship with exercise, you create and live an exercise lifestyle, and your actions – and life – become extremely rewarding and enjoyable.

If you want to get a better relationship you should know some romance tips.

Once the first flush of romance has passed, all relationships lose their sparkle and passion.

And, if you don’t do something about it, you can easily become strangers and problems can surface.

So check out our 40 top tips to enable you to reconnect with each other and put some life back into your relationship…

1. Kiss each other
It’s one of the most intimate things you can do with your clothes on and will help to maintain and build up the romantic bond between you

2. Leave notes for each other
Get a pack of sticky notes and write little messages you can leave where your loved one will find them. We’re not talking about ones that say: ‘Remember to take the bins out’

3. Go away together
Sometimes, it takes some distance and time together to remind you how much you love and enjoy each other’s company. Get someone to look after the kids and get away for a night or weekend, where you can just do fun things together that you can never do at home.

4. Have a power cut
Imagine that the juice is cut off for a night. This means no TV, no music, no lights. Just you, your partner, some candles and conversation.

5. Cook your favourite meals
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well, maybe it’s not quite that easy, but cooking his favourite food shows how much you care.

Ninety-three percent of participants consumed more calories from fat than they should, 85 percent consumed too much saturated fat, and 92 percent took in too much sodium.

Researchers compared what study participants reported eating to the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Institute of Medicine’s Dietary Reference Intakes.

These guidelines call for no more than 30 percent of a person’s daily calories to come from fat, for example, and no more than 10 percent from saturated fat.

“You displace other healthy foods if you consume high levels of fat, [and] fat is high in calories,” cautions Mara Vitolins, the study’s lead author. Vitolins is an associate professor and vice chair of the department of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University’s School of Medicine.

The research serves as a heads-up to all type 2 diabetics—not just the newly diagnosed—since it found that people who had lived with diabetes for the longest periods of time were no more likely to maintain a healthy diet than people who’d had the disease for shorter periods. Whether you were diagnosed many years ago or only recently, here are seven tips for starting and maintaining a healthy type 2 diabetes diet:

Figure out what you’re eating. To replace high-fat foods in your diet with low-fat foods, first write down everything you eat and then analyze your list, advises Sue McLaughlin, president for healthcare and education at the American Diabetes Association. Some online tools, such as the ADA’s My Food Advisor, can help you determine what your actual intake is and where you are lacking in nutrients. As you analyze your food intake, “choose one or two of the highest fat-content foods and replace them with a colorful serving of fresh fruit or vegetables,” says McLaughlin. By doing this, she says, “you have decreased your fat and calorie intake and increased your intake of fiber and vitamins and minerals and moved one step closer to improving blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and overall health.”

Get serious about your fruits and vegetables. Strive for two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables per day, Vitolins suggests, and two servings of dairy and six servings of grains. And try to stick with low-fat dairy products and grains. The study showed that less than half of study participants took in the minimum recommended daily servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and grains.

Plan your meals. Careful planning can prevent mindless eating. Adults should get 45 to 65 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, 10 to 35 percent from protein, and 20 to 30 percent from fat, Vitolins says. For some people, diabetic diet planning tools, such as counting carbohydrates and the create-your-plate method (which involves drawing imaginary lines on your plate to divide it into three sections, then putting nonstarchy vegetables in one section and starchy foods and meat/protein in the other sections), may be useful for meal planning.

Don’t assume you know everything. Just because you’ve been diabetic for a long time doesn’t mean that nutrition education won’t help you. “In my opinion, people with type 2 diabetes may not be getting the amount of nutrition education they need to consume a healthful diet,” Vitolins says. “I think people with type 2 diabetes need nutrition education ‘boosters’ or continual re-evaluations of their food intake over time.” Ask your doctor for a referral to a dietitian or nutritionist if you think you could use a refresher.

Develop a support system. Identifying a person who McLaughlin calls a “champion”—someone who will listen and provide support for the healthy changes that you are trying to make—can be beneficial for diabetics. Ask this person to encourage you to consume healthy foods and engage in physical activity as a part of your daily life.

Be picky about where you eat. Select restaurants that specialize in healthy foods or that are willing to substitute high-fat foods for healthier ones.

Along with refining your dietary habits, it’s important to take stock of your physical activity. You should “do something that requires you to move the large muscles in the body [arms and legs] for a goal of 30 minutes or more, five days a week or more,” McLaughlin recommends. Research shows that restricting calories alone will result in loss of lean muscle mass and body fat, while a program of both exercise and calorie restriction should lead to a loss that is primarily body fat.

Sources: health.usnews.com

These easy remedies will eliminate all of life’s little annoyances – and improve your wealth, health and sanity

Take care of the small things – maintain your kit, clean your room, say you’re sorry – and life improves in big ways. Little fixes cut stress and build a reassuring sense of control.

“Once I have success with one goal,” says Dr Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, “it increases my happiness, wellbeing, satisfaction and self-confidence. And that motivates me to do more.”

It’s like the broken-window theory that big-city cops swear by: correct the little eyesores and it’s more likely the community will pull together to overhaul everything in sight. Try it in your life, starting now.

CLEAN THE COFFEE STAIN (before your 9:30 meeting)
Stain removers are excellent. Don’t keep one in your desk? Find a sink fast. Use soap and hot water and blot out the stain, pouring the water through the fabric if you can (take off the shirt if you’re in the bathroom). Whatever you do, don’t rub it. Blot dry with paper towels, or if there’s a forced-air hand dryer, crank it up.

FIX YOUR POSTURE (while you work)
Use the 20-20 rule. “Trying to sit up perfectly straight all day is impractical and will only tire you out,” says Dr Alan Hedge, director of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory at Cornell University in the US.

Every 20 minutes, stand for 20 seconds and stretch or shake things out. “Just 20 seconds away from your computer screen reduces fatigue and increases blood circulation,” says Hedge. Now you’ll have the power to sit up straight.

RECHARGE YOUR WORKOUT (and find your abs)
Do something that seems crazy: a one-sided workout. Unilateral training will trick your body into reaching new levels of strength and muscle, says David Jack, director of fitness for US-based Teamworks Centres. One-sided exercises demand stabilisation, so you’ll strengthen your core, improve coordination and (counter-intuitively) prevent muscular imbalances.

Add these exercises to your workout: single-arm dumbbell bench press, single-arm shoulder press and single-leg squat. Start with 8-10 repetitions on one side of your body, then switch sides and repeat the reps to complete the set. Rest for a minute and perform two more sets.

For an extra boost, mix up the order of your unilateral exercises every four weeks and adjust your rep ranges a few times a week. You’ll have to reduce the weight you lift initially, but you’ll soon pack on new muscle.

FIX YOUR KICKS (and save money)
Instead of spending $150 on new shoes, spend less than half that on new soles or heels for your favourite pair. Not a bad price for saving something you really like. Plus, there’s no break-in period. Check out for more information.

STOP PROCRASTINATING (right now!)
Do not make a to-do list. Do not research power tools. Do not clean your desk. Just dive in. That’s the advice of Pychyl, who has studied procrastination. Your to-do list is just another delaying tactic with a short-term rush.

“We relieve our anxiety by making this false schedule,” says Pychyl. Procrastinators aren’t necessarily bad at time management, he says, “they’re just not willing to deal with the discomfort of getting started”. But starting will ultimately make you feel better about working. “Our emotional wellbeing and our satisfaction with life is based a great deal upon the successful pursuit of our goals,” says Pychyl.

FILL YOUR WALLS (and cover that stain)
You don’t have to pay thousands to a sniffy gallery owner for original paintings. But you really should replace your Crowded House poster and VB mirror. Starving artists are everywhere, dying to be taken advantage of. Check out local art schools and shows put together by newly minted Masters of Fine Arts, says Alan Bamberger, an art appraiser and author of The Art of Buying Art.

The US-based has art-school graduates’ works priced from just a few dollars to several thousand. It delivers internationally and even offers a money-back guarantee.

In Australia, offers ready-to-hang oil paintings starting at less than $100. If you’ve got a bit more cash to spend, check out australianartists.ws, an online gallery featuring emerging home-grown talent. Other affordable alternatives: antique prints and maps, and photographs.

FIX YOUR BUDGET (and save your credit rating)
New concept: read your bills. Do you truly understand your mobile phone plan? “Most people don’t thoughtfully take the time to analyse what they’re spending their money on,” says J.J. Burns, founder of the US-based wealth management firm J.J. Burns and Co.

1. Mobile phone: analyse how your plan compares with your usage. Not using all your minutes? Opt for a different plan. And remember: if you’re an infrequent user of your mobile, a prepaid plan may be cheaper.

2. Utilities: do a year-over-year analysis of your bills using a program such as Quicken or Microsoft Money. Unexplained jumps? Make sure your meter’s not being misread. Burns did this, and his water company sent him a refund cheque for almost $500.

3. Mortgage: make one extra payment towards your principal every year to save thousands of dollars of interest and pay off your mortgage earlier. Or when interest rates fall, keep paying the amount you did when they were high.

4. Stuff you buy: some big stores offer to beat a competitor’s price by up to 10 per cent. Spend 10 minutes online or on the phone getting the best price you can, then head to the store that’ll beat it and win yourself that saving.

CONQUER YOUR CRAVINGS (and lose your gut)
Toss out all your chips. Then take this tip from Cornell University: you’re 2.7 times more likely to eat healthy snacks if you place them on the middle shelf of your refrigerator than if you’ve hidden them in the crisper. So stock that shelf with some low-fat cheese and sliced red capsicum to cover your cravings for sweet, savoury and crunchy snacks.

UNTANGLE THAT MESS (because it looks like hell)
Unplug everything. Label each cord. Screw your power strip to the underside of your desk, or to the wall. Tie off excess cordage with cable ties. Reattach your (wisely labelled) connector cords, gathering them as you go and bundling them with more ties or even carabiners to minimise tangle. Now, don’t you feel better?

REPAIR YOUR SCRATCHED BUMPER (yourself!)
Examine the scratch to see if there’s still colour left in the groove. Yes? Good – you’ve only scraped the clearcoat, a finish that protects the paint from sunlight and gives it that glossy sheen. You’ll be able to fix it yourself, says Dennis Parks, the author of The Complete Guide to Auto Body Repair.

First, buy a clearcoat polishing compound. Two good ones are Turtle Wax or Meguiars. Using a soft cloth dabbed in the compound, buff out the scratch, using circular motions.

If the scratch has chipped the paint, clean the area with a wax and grease remover. This removes crud and will help the new paint stick.

Next, pick up a bottle of touch-up paint at a local auto-parts store. (Colours are typically broken down by manufacturer, but for the exact shade, find the tag on your car that lists the paint number. The staff at the store can help you.)

Apply the paint in light coats, allowing it to dry in-between. When you’ve covered the scratch, let the paint dry for at least 24 hours. Moisten a piece of 2000-grit wet/dry sandpaper and gently smooth out any bumps, ripples or runs. Finally, rub on some automotive wax. Smile, and inspect your teeth in the reflection.

LOSE THAT 5 O’CLOCK SHADOW (before your date)
Keep an electric shaver in your desk. They’re much better than they were in Mad Men days. No cords, for starters. The Braun PocketGo ($18.99; is compact, quiet and can be rinsed clean when you’re done buzzing off stubble. She’ll love it.

FIX YOUR GAME (because she’s heard it all before)
Relax and set your approach on Deeply Subtle. Make talking to you her decision, which will make her feel better about herself – and you. Never butt in while she’s with her friends.

Wait until she’s alone, then issue a drive-by compliment (keep it above the neck or below the ankles).

“We’re used to men approaching us,” says Lisa Altalida, the authorof  The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Getting Girls, “but if a man says something and then walks away like he doesn’t want anything, it piques our curiosity.” Now she’ll feel in control. Is she glancing your way? That means you’ve been cleared for approach.

FIX YOUR HEARING (without a cotton bud)
Doctors who peer into ears with otoscopes all day long know a dirty little secret: lots of men have too much wax in there. And many of those men have jammed the stuff (cerumen, technically) deep into the ear canal by using cotton buds improperly.

At-home kits can’t always reach the wax deeply impacted against the eardrum, says Dr Mark Pyle, a professor of otolaryngology at the University of Wisconsin in the US. So have a doctor remove the build-up with saline or suction. Sometimes docs need to use small scoops called curettes. Whatever the method, it’ll be a 10-minute procedure that yields glorious results. (Is your mobile phone ringing? No, it’s that one across the room.)

And while you’re at the doctor’s surgery, why not make an appointment for that check-up you’ve been putting off for years?

FIX YOUR EYESIGHT (without a prescription)
Eyestrain (tired eye muscles) isn’t the only cause of poor vision. It could be dry eye. A study by researchers at Buskerud University College in Norway recently found that people blink 10 fewer times a minute while staring at a computer screen than they do while having a conversation. This causes your “tear film” – the outer layer of moisture on your eyeball – to evaporate more quickly.

“When your tear film isn’t healthy, your visual acuity won’t be as sharp and clear,” says Dr Patricia Sabb, an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Wisconsin. So take a break and close your eyes. (I’m not napping, boss, just restoring my tear film.) If you still need more moisture, try Visine Tired Eyes ($6.95/10ml;.

FIX YOUR STORYTELLING (before people nod off)
Get to the point. Get to the point. Get to the point. Details – about the weather, colour of the bike, height of the rosebush – make people’s attention span collapse. A brief story lets them play along and fill in their own details.

Start telling your tale when the conversation provides a segue and not after someone just scored a big laugh. (If you tank, you’re the bloke who killed the mood.) Tell the story quickly, make yourself the fool and exaggerate. “Take it to the edge of believability. Stuff happens every day to people. You need to make it stand out,” says US comedian Jack Gallagher.

RESTORE YOUR ENDURANCE (and set a PB)
The secret to improving endurance is to go faster, not lengthen a plodding run. Certified strength and conditioning specialist Bill Hartman suggests breaking your run into intervals at your goal speed. If your five-kilometre goal is 25 minutes, you must run a kilometre in five minutes, a half-kilometre in two minutes 30 seconds, and a quarter in one minute 15 seconds. Pick the distance you can hit in that time and run those intervals, resting for as long as you ran. Once you can run, say, four quarters in a time of 1:15 for each, move up to a longer interval. Work your way up to your goal distance.

FIX A LEAKY TAP (and impress her)
Many single-lever taps leak when crud collects and causes a gap in the seal so it can’t shut off, says Danny Lipford, host of US TV show Today’s Homeowner. First, shut off the water supply under the sink, then use an Allen wrench to loosen the screw at the base of the tap handle and lift it off. Remove the washers and movable parts, soak them in white vinegar and wipe them down. Reassemble and turn the water back on.