Strokes on the Rise in the Young

Strokes are on the rise in one segment of the population, young people.

For years strokes have been thought of as a problem that gets worse as we get older. But even though we didn't use to think they affected younger adults, that's the one group were the number of strokes are actually going up. And that's raising alarms in the medical community.

Recently a lot of effort has been placed on preventing strokes. The message has gotten out—controlling high blood pressure and cholesterol, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking are your best bets to keeping your risk of having a stroke as low as possible But this message has been mainly targeted at us as we get older. And it's worked! The rates of strokes in the elderly have improved over the last few years.

But a new group, surprising some experts, is actually showing an increase in strokes! Since 1993, there's been a rise in stroke victims younger than 45. Experts think it's because prevention messages haven't been targeted to this age group, but are hoping that will change soon. And they say the message is the same, whether you're 40 or 80. Exercise, eat well and quit smoking. Hopefully this message for all groups will cut everyone's chances of a stoke over the next few years.

Snacks and Childhood Obesity

When it comes to fighting childhood obesity, it might not be the meals they eat we need to worry about, but the snacks.

Because as much as kids as snacking these days, it's almost like they are constantly eating , and that's the problem. Just about everyone's heard it by now, childhood obesity is a continuing problem and experts point to plenty of reasons why it's happening and how to fix it. But this new group of researchers has found the amount of snacking kids do during the day can be part of it. After looking at the eating habits of over thirty thousand children they found a large amount of snacking---meaning foods eaten outside of regular meals. On the average, the kids in the study ended up snacking around three times per day and this snacking totaled over one fourth of the calories they eat in a given day. And the main choice?---salty snacks and sweets.

Although this might only add around 100 calories a day to their diet, if you think about that's over 35,000 extra calories a year. That can pile on the pounds. So you best bet is to get rid of the tempting snacks in your pantry and think twice about what you put in their lunch. An occasional snack every now and then isn't necessarily bad, you just want to make sure they aren't eating something all day long.

A Secret the Athletes Have Been Using for Years

Want to work out but never seem to have the time?

It's a secret the elite athletes have been using for years but researchers weren't sure the average person would be able to do, until now. We're talking about intense interval training, and they say you can get a weeks
worth of workouts in just one hour.

We've all been there, you want to work out but got home to late from the office, or had too much to do that day. So the workout suffered and you never ended up exercising.

Well, for years researchers have known that interval training can help elite athletes compete but were afraid that it would be too hard for most of us---that we simply wouldn't be able to stand how intense those workouts really are. But recent studies suggest that older people and even those with some health problems can do it. And this type of training not only saves them time, but works well to get them in shape.

Interval training is intense and consists of working very hard for a few minutes, but having rest periods between sets. Those rest periods are as important as the high intensity work periods, allowing you to recover so you can max out the intervals. Most people tested in these studies were running or cycling, but this also applies to other sports like swimming.

There are a different ways you can do these workouts, but some experts recommend 4 intense four minute workouts with a three minute rest in between. Of course, check with you doctor before you start this intense of a workout regime, but interval training might be the answer to the ever present dilemma of not enough time to work out.

5 Things That Make You Happier

You want to be happy right, who doesn’t.

What we’re talking about are 5 things that researchers have found can make you a happier person.

Up until now, scientists have thought that happiness mostly came about because of things outside our control. They felt it was controlled by genetics, health, our livelihood and other things we couldn’t easily change. But new research, just reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, has found just 5 things you can do that will improve your happiness.

Number one, be grateful. Researchers found when people wrote letters of gratitude, even if they didn’t send them, they also reported an increase in happiness that lasted weeks and even months in some cases.

Number two, be optimistic. Study participants that visualized a good outcome for some future event, and wrote about it in a journal increased their feelings of well being.

Number three, count your blessings. Researchers found that those writing down three good things that happened to them every week showed significant boosts in their own happiness.

Number four, use your strengths. Study participants that identified their greatest strengths, and used them in new ways also reported being happier.

And finally, the fifth step is the “do unto others” principle. People that helped others also ended up helping themselves. Those who donated time or money to a charity, or helped someone in need, also felt happier themselves.

Although some of these steps might seem obvious, scientists in this study have been able to show that these simple moves can help you feel better about yourself.

Midday Siesta

A little midday siesta seems to be just what you need---or more importantly what your brain needs.

As American's we tend to walk around for the most part sleep deprived. Just take a look around and you'll see plenty of people yawning or nodding off during the day. And now it looks like that same sleepiness might also be keeping us from being as smart as we could be.

Researchers organized two groups of college students into those taking a 90 minute nap at 2pm and another group staying awake all day long like most of us do. During the day, both before and after nap time, the students performed different learning tasks. Those who remained awake during the day ended up also being worse at learning. The nappers ended up doing much better on the tasks and even improved how much they learned during the day.

This improvement comes about because of how our brains work. We store fact type information---like numbers, names and addresses--in a part called the hippocampus. They only stay there for a while then get sent to more permanent storage in the prefrontal cortex. This study's scientist liken it to you email inbox. If it doesn't get cleared from time to time, you won't be able to add more information.And that's where the nap comes in. It allows the brain to do what it normally wants to do. That clears out areas so you can learn more later on.

So although your boss, or more importantly your spouse might not buy it just yet, a nap a day can help keep you sharp as a tack.

Bored to death

We all talk about being bored to death from time to time. But it looks like that might be more true than you'd think.

You can be bored to death.

At least that's the consensus from researchers out of England. They found the more bored you are, especially at work, the more likely you are to die early.

These researchers had looked at over seven thousand civil service workers in London from 1985 to 1988 and asked how bored they were at work. Then they tracked down how many of them had died by 2009. after analyzing both surveys they found those reporting being bored at work were also two and a half times more likely to have died because of a heart problem.

Experts say boredom itself probably isn't deadly but being bored is connected to other risky health conditions like depression, poor eating habits and a lack of exercise----things that can directly effect your health. They also think being bored might release dangerous hormones in the body. All of these can take a toll and could be what lead to the earlier deaths seen in this study.

Now we all get bored from time to time at work so is this something to worry about? According to these researchers---no---it's only those who are constantly bored that seem to have health issues from it. And if you are constantly bored--- be on the look out for depression and seek counseling if it seems to be something affecting you or your lifestyle. On top of that, realize that when any of us are bored we tend to eat more, so have healthy snacks around. A bag of carrot sticks can substitute for that bag of chips. And try to exercise when you can. These steps can help keep you healthy even if your job is boring you to tears.

Couples Fighting

All couples fight from time to time. But how well you end up making up could depend on one simple word---we.

This is a little hard for me to understand since I never get in any disagreements with my wife--I think she's watching this morning--but if I did I now know how to make it better---it's that word "we".

It turns out that what word you use when you refer to you and your partner can also give a hint as to how satisfied the two of you are with your marriage. Researchers out of the University of California at Berkeley analyzed conversations between spouse of over 150 couples. The found the ones using words like we, our and us tended to also behave more positively toward one another and showed less stress. Couples using words like "I" "me" and "you" to emphasize their separateness also ended up being less satisfied in their marriages, especially as they got older together.

According to these researchers, even though individuality is something that is ingrained in our society, giving up part of the "me" to become more of a "we" couple may be worth it. These couples just tended to do better overall.

So the next time listen to how you describe you and your spouse. Having the "we" words in there might go a long way to a long lasting relationship.