Diet and physical activity have a major effect on your cholesterol. Eating healthy foods and exercising regularly can help you lower your cholesterol or maintain a normal level. Likewise, lack of physical activity and poor food choices can send your cholesterol soaring.

Foods to Beware

Saturated fat is the main food culprit for high cholesterol. Saturated fats are mostly found in marbled meat, poultry with skin and full-fat dairy products. Experts recommend limiting saturated fat to less than 10 percent of your daily calories. Lowering your consumption of saturated fats has been proven to lower LDL cholesterol.

It is also important to be mindful of the cholesterol in food. Experts say not to consume more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol each day. Eggs, cheese, sour cream, butter, meat and poultry all contain cholesterol.

Lastly, the trans fat in packaged baked goods like crackers, cakes and cookies, fried foods and some margarine is a worry. The latest recommendation is to keep harmful trans fat intake below one percent.

Foods to Fill Your Plate

At the same time, there is a universe of foods that when eaten in abundance can help lower your cholesterol.

Fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, beans and oats all have proven cholesterol-fighting benefits. Studies have demonstrated that fiber lowers cholesterol. It also makes you feel full, which can help control weight. Experts recommend eating 25 to 38 grams of fiber daily, depending on your sex and your age. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets oat makers put a “heart-healthy” claim on their products because of oats’ ability to decrease total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.

Fish are low in saturated fat and high in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids that can help lower cholesterol. Experts advise eating at least two servings of baked or grilled fish each week. Wild salmon is a top choice because it is so healthful, but other good fresh fish to consider are flounder, trout, tuna and halibut. Walnuts and flax seeds are some non-fish sources of omega-3 fatty acids. In September 2004, the FDA okayed a “heart healthy” claim for foods with omega-3 fatty acids.

Soy foods such as soy milk, soy burgers, tofu and edamame (whole soybeans) may lower your risk of heart disease when eaten as part of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, according to the FDA. The advice is to eat 25 grams of soy protein each day, which is the equivalent of a little over three cups of soy milk.

Nuts, including almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pecans, macadamias and pistachios, help lower cholesterol. Experts believe this is due to the combination of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats they contain. When weaving nuts into your diet, keep in mind that they are caloric.

Experts believe that polyunsaturated fats (including nuts, seeds and safflower, sesame and corn oils) and monounsaturated fats (including avocados and canola, olive and peanut oils) may help lower your cholesterol when you consume them instead of saturated fats. All the same, nutritionists advise using all fats sparingly.

Exercise

Working out on a regular basis lowers LDL cholesterol and raises HDL cholesterol levels. It also helps you achieve and maintain a healthy weight, which is beneficial not only for your heart health but for your overall health. Experts say to aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise each day.

Family History

Another risk factor for high cholesterol is genetics. Some people have high cholesterol because it runs in their family. If you have a family history of high cholesterol or heard disease, it is more important than ever to eat right, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight.

Neither a break-up time bomb nor a recipe for relationship disaster, long-distance relationship offer the best of both worlds!

I’ve interacted with many couples who are in a long-distance relationship and my conclusion after looking at these happy couples is that it does provide the best of both worlds. Take the case of Kelly Page. Married to a shippie, she meets her husband twice a year for 2 months. “It is certainly the best time in our lives. We are now married for 14 years, but even today the thought of meeting him sets my heart a flutter. Also all these years have made me fiercely independent and I have my own set of activities and social circle, but yet the time spent with my husband is what I cherish the most. I prefer this space in our relationship”

Like Kelly there are many who are totally for long distance relationships. It gives them the space to be themselves and at the same time they are able to preserve the freshness of their relationship! Here are a few learnings from them you could use, if you are also getting into one.

1. Trust matters: One of the most important factors in any relationship is that of trust, and when you are in a long-distance relationship it becomes all the more vital. But you need to be smart too; the idea isn’t to trust blindly. Make friends in the vicinity of your mate’s house, and subtly keep a check on him without both knowing you are doing so. Never make it obvious. Once in a while drop in unexpectedly, but don’t make a habit of it, it will become obvious.

2. Keep communication open: Be in touch with your mate. Online chats, telephone conversations and having him on your mind plays an important role in maintaining a long distance relationship. If you feel something isn’t right, talk openly about it, resolve all your fears and insecurities. It will only strengthen the bond.

3. When you meet, make sure you both have a memorable time: Make a list of all that you want to do when your mate comes over and do it all. Tell him to do the same. This will make both of you look forward to the time spent with each other.

4. Try not to be on your best behaviour when your partner’s around, the advice is to be yourself. This will ensure that there aren’t any false expectations when the two of you eventually start living together.

5. Know each other’s social circle: It is important to know each other’s friends and social circles well. Otherwise when either of you go visiting, it will become awkward if you aren’t familiar with each other’s friends. This will also give you both a feeling of acceptance, which is important in the relationship.

6. Talk out about the future: Don’t keep pushing the issue of who will eventually move in, under the carpet. It is necessary to resolve whatever conflicts arise in this matter in the initial stages itself, otherwise later the issue will snowball into a larger crisis.

Teens that hardly stop talking on their mobile phones are more prone to disrupted sleep, stress, fatigue and restlessness, finds a new international survey.

This in turn is leading to poorer performance at school, and emotional health, including a higher risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The finding is based on two studies that will be presented at the at the Sleep 2008 meeting of Associated Sleep Societies in the US this week.

The first study was conducted by researchers at Sweden’s Sahlgren Academy, who found that adolescents who made more than 15 phone calls and sent more than 15 text messages in a day not only slept poorly, but when compared to kids who made did the same less than five times a day, they were also leading more careless lifestyles, including spending more time on their computers, drinking more alcohol and caffeinated drinks.

Based on this, lead author Dr Gaby Badre, said that mobile addiction could compromise a teen’s health, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The second study was conducted in the US by Fred Danner at the University of Kentucky.

He found that teens that were addicted to their phones slept less than eight hours a night, and as a result got poorer marks at school. In addition to this, he also found that such kids had a higher level of emotional disturbance and risk of developing ADHD.

Does your work necessitate sitting for hours before the computer -something that causes eye irritation? Are you suffering from acidity? Or, have you caught a bad cold or a bout of asthma? Well, there is a single remedy to all the complaints - honey Taking honey regularly improves eye sight, cures acidity and coughYou have been keeping a hawk’s eye on your body weight and are a regular at the gym.

You also drink lots of water and fiber-rich diet. You even follow experts’ advice on taking care of your hair and skin. But what about those eyes? How do you protect them from the stress that is caused by working long hours before the computer? Well, here’s an easy answer to that: Take the traditional route add a little honey to your daily diet.

Yes, whether it’s your grandmother, or the neighborhood doctor, everybody will agree to this fact that honey not only helps protect the eyes, but also help improve your eyesight. While there are plenty of home remedies from honey, we bring you a few here:

Perry Kharpuri is a researcher based in Shillong, a place well-known for it’s large-scale honey production. Perry’s advice is, “mix two teaspoons of honey with carrot juice and consume regularly”, to improve your eye sight and cure problems such as watering of eyes.

Now, Swapan Debnath, a homeopath says that honey can help control your BP as well. According to him, two teaspoons of honey should be mixed with one teaspoon of garlic juice and taken on a regular basis.

Maheep Kohli owns a bee farm in Moga, Punjab and she has a few honey-based remedies up her sleep as well. One of them is a mixture of honey, ginger juice and black pepper powder, mixed in equal quantities. When consumed thrice daily helps to relieve symptoms of asthma.

However, here are also a few words of caution from Maheep: Always make sure that the honey you are taking is not heated, avoid taking honey when you are exposed to high temperature.

In cold, cough and congested chest, two teaspoons of honey with equal quantity of ginger juice should be consumed frequently. This is one of the oldest and most popular remedies that millions of Indians already follow. The other such popular remedy is to take one spoon of fresh honey mixed with the juice of half a lemon in a glass of lukewarm water in order to get cured of constipation, hyperacidity and obesity.

And last but least, never ever mix honey with hot and spicy foods and fermented beverages like whisky, rum, brandy, etc. Honey includes nectar of various flowers some of which may be poisonous and when it is mixed with hot and spicy foods, the poisonous properties get enhanced, sometimes to the extent of being fatal.

The inundation of cricket matches has already started affecting the career spans of promising players,’ former Indian skipper Dilip Vengsarkar was quoted as saying in a national daily recently.‘They want to play for their country but, with the frequency of high-tension matches increasing, they are prone to injury and are struggling to do their best,’ he added.