In the game, Help Sterling Hit the Ball

Sterling is a first grader at East Lake Elementary school.  Like most students, Sterling loves going to recess, and hanging out with friends in class.

Spring is coming around and it’s baseball season again.

While talking with his friends, Sterling finds out they signed up for Little League baseball.

Sterling, being very athletic and goal seeking, also young and without many fears, tells Dad that he wants to play baseball with all of his friends who just signed up.

Dad is athletic and very competitive. He is a tough coach, but only because he knows the potential of his players.

Sterling
“Dad?”

Dad
“Yes, son?”

Sterling
“I want to play baseball with all of the kids at school.  They are all on the same team and want me to play.  Can you sign me up?”

Dad
“Of course, you can do anything you want to!”

Sterling
“Yippeee!!”

Help Sterling Hit the Ball

Positive Effects of a Sauna

Healthier Skin

The organ effected most from the heat is your skin (yes your skin is an organ).  Creams, deodorants, oils, dead skin cells, etc. will clog skin pores and lock waste in.  Skin conditions like acne, pimples and blackheads can be caused by clogged and infected pores.  The skin is meant to be a pathway for the elimination of toxins and waste material from your body.  The heat produced in the sauna causes profuse sweating.  Sweating is good, as it helps eliminate toxins from the body and stimulates the function of other organs.

Healthier Heart

The heat causes blood vessels to dilate, increasing blood demand to the skin and thus, relaxation of the muscles.  Muscle relaxation occurs with the increased blood flow and distribution of oxygen.  The increased volume of blood vessels occupied by the same volume of blood causes blood pressure to drop.  Your heart will beat faster and more efficiently to compensate.  This is why time in a sauna includes a mild cardiovascular workout that is comparable to walking.  

Weight Loss
Weight loss from a sauna can be more than temporary.  The increased heart rate in a sauna will burn calories.  Some studies estimate around 300 calories are burned in a 15-20 minute session in the sauna.  Not too bad for just relaxing.

Blood Flow

Blood flow is important in almost every aspect of a functioning body.  If our heart decided to take a break, we would die.

Ways To Increase Blood Vessel Size

There are many ways to do this.  As we know, the harder the heart pumps, the larger our veins and vessels need to be to keep up.  We can easily achieve this through two cardio excercise: swimming and cycling.  You were probably thinking running, right?  Caught ya!  Running is a great excercise to losing weight, both fat and muscle.    There are two reasons for this: muscle weighs three times more than fat given the same volume.  Another is diffusion is extremely slow, and in order to get nutrients to the outermost muscle fibers, the muscles have to be small if going for a long time to keep up with energy output- which is why running over long periods of time that your body actually eats away at your muscles to get the nutrients to the skin faster- which is not a good thing for fat loss, because muscle burns fat.  With cycling and swimming, we are able to get more oxygen to the lungs and burn fat while keeping muscle.  Running doesn't always break down muscle.  Fast spurts of energy in sprinting build muscle as well as a stronger heart, but does not increase vascualar size as easily.  High blood pressure is optimal, only when we can control it.  High blood pressure while working out increases our ability for long term energy and increased vascular size (being with more pressure).

How To Control Blood Flow

Our blood is measured in two ways, usually in a notion such as a number over another.  Our blood pressure increases (going towards our feet) or decreases (towards our head) 10 mmHg per 5.4 inches.  That is a ton of pressure!  Everyone has experienced this- you sit up too fast and... you get light headed and see stars.  This is a result from lack of blood.  Since our blood from laying down to sitting up increased by roughly 50 mmHg our heart has to work very hard to pump the blood back to our brain.  Our blood pressure is taken by wrapping a band around our upper arm (located directly parallel to the heart)  This is to get the best estimate of our hearts blood pressure, the top number.  If you raise your arm to shoulders length, the top number will show roughly 10 mmHg less than what the actual rate is.  Knowing this, we can control blood flow just by moving our body.  Raising your legs up while doing a bench press pushes the blood to give more oxygen to the brain, as well as more blood to chest muscles.  Simple but brilliant tricks that increase strength and performance.

How To Jump a 4-wheeler

Check out my website on the link below.  Any feedback would be great!

How To Jump a 4-wheeler

Benefits of Yoga

Why Yoga?

I am posting this because for one: I am a guy who is not femanine and is very prideful when it comes to girly things such as dancing and singing; and two, I would have not taken this class unless a gorgeous girl sweet talked me into coming.
After this class, I felt like I could float.  It was a big stress releiver, and I felt much happier after the class.  This class definitely burned my core.  The poses we did helped stretch my muscles in many ways- which is crutial for building lean muscle mass- (girls don't worry, no matter how hard you train, your bodies are not built like a guys, or have anything near the testosterone levels to produce faster muscle growth.)

Yoga poses twist the body, which massages the pancreas and adrenal and thyroid glands, boosting blood flow and improving organ functions.

Yoga also loosens chronically tight areas, like hamstrings and hips, and also realigns your body and releases tension from the connective tissue.
I am very glad I took the opportunity to attend a session of Yoga and strongly recommend it for anyone who hasn't yet gone.

Click on the link below to see more scientifically proven bodily cures because of Yoga.

77 Surprising Health Benifits of Yoga

Increase Your Happiness

Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions.

A recent study at Harvard Law on happiness states that we increase our happiness by interacting with people.

The so called "Happiest place on Earth" shown on the Oprah show in January of 2011 is found in a city of California.
What studies found that brought this group of people happiness are simple features such as: No cars, wider sidewalks, locally owned businesses, parks, no drive-throughs at fast-food restaurants.  All of this leads to one thing, "Interaction!"

What are the happiest jobs in America, and how much do they pay?

1.  Travel Agent
2.  Clergy
3.  Special Education Teacher
4.  Fire Fighter
And guess what?  They all pay less than 50k a year.

There is a saying, "Money does not buy happiness."
Coming from a family of money- living across the street from former Utah Jazz coach, Jerry Sloan, and next door neighbors with Mark Yule, owner of Mona-Vie, a multi-billion dollar company- it sure is nice to have the money stability factor.  From experiences of being both rich and poor- living off government funding when I was first born- having a lot money comes responsibility, as well as more stress.
As I noted in a previous post, stress is the factor that cuts off our brains potential to bring out memory.  It also blocks our levels of seratonin, the enzyme that is released creating so called "happiness", or a state of mind that everything is okay.  There are also many wealthy people who are extremely happy because their job is to interact with many people to build and market their business.  Unfortanetely with government issues, this dream is diminishing over time to many people.  Now less than 1% of America makes over half a million dollars a year.

The key to happiness is not necessarily what job you have or how much money you make, but it is with your own attitude as well as INTERACTING WITH OTHERS.

Effects of Sleeping Patterns

Did you know that regular sleeping habits can actually make your day less stressful?

Just by going to bed early and waking up early can result in a more productive day

I'll give you an example.  When you have an assignment, or a project, or anything on your to-do list that hasn't gotten done and you are starting to feel tired, GO TO BED.

Studies show that going to bed then, and waking up earlier to do that thing, you will be able to be more effective.  Let's say your project will take you two hours.  Go to bed, and wake up two hours earlier.  You get the same amount of sleeping time, but with the added energy provided from sleep, you will be able to finish your project even faster.  Amazing right?  Most people call that common sense; although, naturally, we put off that feeling of going to bed on time to wake up early because somehow we feel we won't have the time so we sacrifice our sleep instead.

Sleep is the only time in our day where we grow and produce energy

Not once throughout the day does our body re-cooperate unless we are sleeping.

Sleep provides more energy than food, daily excercise, and caffeine, (which by the way really doesn't give your body evergy).
The next time you come across the two way path of sleep or staying up, GO TO BED.  You might know you have to get your project done, but your body does not.  You might think because it's a Friday night that you can throw off your sleep schedule.
Your body does not recognize the difference from a Monday to a holiday to a Friday night.  Regular sleep will keep you supplied with more energy.  It's not how much sleep you get, it's when you get your sleep.