Focusing On Your Health to Have a Happier Life

We can sometimes look to external things for our happiness, such as material goods, travel adventures, and even other people. But these should be considered extras that put the cherry on top of our happiness; they’re not the primary source. Happiness can only come from within. While it’ll consist of various aspects, perhaps the most pressing will be your health. If this is in tip-top condition, then you’ll find it much easier to be at your brilliant best. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the key matters to focus on that’ll have the biggest impact on your life.

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How to Relax

We’re a pretty stressed society. And is it any surprise? We’re all working more than ever before, there are global concerns, and sometimes even our version of fun can cause us to feel more stressed, such as in the case of smartphone use. One of the best ways to improve your health and be happy is to learn how to relax. This might seem difficult to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed, but there are some tried and tested ways to make it much easier. For example, you can try meditation, listening to music, and just sitting still and watching the trees sway in the wind. Even ten minutes of these activities can help. 

Eating Well

The stomach is the gateway to happiness, and to a healthy body. It really is worthwhile figuring out your relationship with food. Are you, for example, eating as well as you could do? Are you giving your body all that it needs? There’s a big difference between eating well and eating junk food. You’ll find it hard to maintain your body weight, for starters, but the bigger issue is that unhealthy eating can cause so many other problems further on down the line, such as heart disease and diabetes.

Handling Problems

While there are some health issues that we can all keep at bay through eating well, exercising, and so on, there are some others that are more specific to us, and which may require medical intervention. If you’ve got a problem that’s disrupting your enjoyment of life, then it’s recommended that you take steps to correct the issue. There’s nearly always a solution. If you’re experiencing heavy bleeding during your period, for example, then myolysis could be the right treatment solution. It’s not always convenient, having to treat professional help for medical issues, but it is worth it in the long run because of the positive impact it’ll have on your lifestyle. 

Spending Time Outdoors

Finally, it’s recommended that you build in some good habits into your lifestyle, ones that can significantly boost your health and happiness. One of the more underrated -- yet effective -- things to do is to spend time in the outdoors. The natural world can bring a whole host of benefits to your life, including giving your mood a boost and helping you to get fitter. Indeed, just two hours in nature each week can significantly decrease anxiety and boost happiness. 

Dealing With the Loss of a Loved One

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Death isn’t something that we want to focus on or talk about. It’s a grim subject. It can be a scary subject. It can make us feel lost, confused and nervous. But, unfortunately, it’s a sad reality of life and the loss of a loved one is something that all of us are going to have to face at some point or another. Now, more than ever, we’re more aware of loss. We’re in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and, on top of the usual tragedies that happen on a daily basis, we’re being faced with an unprecedented number of deaths at the hands of coronavirus and Covid-19. Considering this, now might be a good time to consider how to deal with the loss of a loved one. Hopefully, you won’t have to use any of this information. But understanding some of the steps around the process could help you to help someone else or is simply good to be aware of and have in the back of your mind.

Grieving

Grief can be a long and difficult process. The pain of the loss of someone close to you can be extremely overwhelming and can pass through multiple stages until you feel ready to face the world again. Here are some of the basics of grief to help you understand.

What Is Grief?

Grief is an entirely natural response to loss and many people will go through it at some point or another in their lives. There are various forms of loss, ranging from divorce to the loss of health, the loss of a pet, a miscarriage, retirement or the loss of any other thing that feels important in your life. But the most common form of grief that springs to mind when the word is mentioned tends to be the most severe - the loss of a loved one. Grief comes hand in hand with sentiments of emotional suffering but you may feel a much wider array of emotions than sadness alone. You may find that your grief consists of shock, anger, disbelief, guilt, profound sadness and much more. Sometimes, the emotional aspects of grief aren’t all. You may suffer from physical symptoms too, such as an inability to focus, an inability to sleep, a lack of appetite or a lack of energy, for example.

The Grieving Process

When it comes down to it, there’s absolutely no right or wrong way to grieve. This is a profoundly individual experience and experiences of grief will be unique to every individual. The ways in which you grieve can vary according to your circumstances and other factors, such as your personality, your coping style, your life experience, your faith and how significant the loss was to you. One thing that tends to hold true to most experiences of grief is that recovering from grief is generally a long and slow process. It takes time to heal from this kind of hurt and you can’t force or rush the process. For some people, grief will last for weeks. For others, feelings of grief will be overwhelming for months or even years. The most important thing to try to do is practice patience with yourself and to allow your grief to unfold naturally.

Support

There is, of course, plenty of support out there for anyone suffering from grief. Where you seek support will depend entirely on you as an individual. Some will seek support from friends, family and other loved ones. Some will want to speak to a doctor about their grief. Some will want to talk to a therapist. Some will reach out to helplines. Some will attend support groups. What best suits you will be entirely down to what happens to make you feel better at the time.

Planning the Funeral

Of course, when someone passes, someone will have to take on responsibility for organising the funeral. This can be a difficult process to carry out, but it’s often an essential one and, generally speaking, funeral directors are well experienced in the area and can often take a whole lot of the weight off your shoulders.

Dealing with Funeral Costs

When arranging a funeral through a funeral director, it’s important to bear in mind that you will be responsible for the costs incurred. It’s important to ask for a price list before arranging the funeral so you know what can be afforded in a budget that you should set out in advance. There are various ways to pay for a funeral. Sometimes, the person who has passed will have already taken out a funeral plan, which will cover the costs. This may be mentioned in a will or they may have mentioned this to close friends or family. If not, you may have to find a way to pay for the funeral yourself. It’s important to get a written estimate with a breakdown of all costs incurred to ensure that you are charged correctly.

Services to Consider

Funeral services can vary drastically based on budget. A basic funeral will generally require:

• A plain, lined coffin
• Transport of the body of the person who has died to the funeral director's premises
• The care of the person who has died until the funeral
• A hearse to take the body to the nearest crematorium or burial ground
• Providing the necessary people to carry the coffin

Further services you might want to consider could include:

• Flowers
• A more expensive coffin and fittings
• An organist
• Fees for religious services
• A burial or crematorium fee. The burial fee will usually include the costs of preparing the grave
• Extra cars
• A memorial, such as a gravestone or flat grass grave markers

Helping Others to Grieve

Of course, it’s important to be able to help others while they grieve too. If someone you know is suffering from a loss, it’s absolutely essential that you help them in any way you can. You can help them through the grieving process and provide them with much needed support at what can be the hardest time of many people’s lives. Here are some ways to help someone else grieve.

Offer Your Condolences

It’s important to let your loved one know that you are there for them through this awful time. Let them know how sorry you are for their loss and how you’re there for them if they need anything at all. Generally speaking, many people will send cards or flowers with a note to express this. You can also check in with a text message or call. Have patience if you don’t hear straight back from this person. As long as you know they’re physically okay, you need to practice patience and allow them to reach back out to you in their own time. It could take a while until they feel up to speaking to anybody.

Listen

If they do reach out in response, listen to them. Let them talk. Share in their grief. They may simply want to remember memories with the person they’ve lost. They might want to talk about what happened. What’s most important is that you let them talk and that you encourage them to share how they’re feeling.

Of course, this isn't the most positive subject matter. But it’s important to know what to do if tragedy does ever strike. Hopefully, some of the above information will help you through this difficult process and these trying times.

Summer Reading Update #1 2020

Happy Memorial Day! I couldn't sleep last night, so I was up at 2 a.m. reading Little Fires Everywhere. It's one of the books on my Summer Reading List 2020 (click the link to check it out).

Here's my Goodreads profile, if you'd like to follow me and check out my progress and notes (and reviews) on each of the books I'm reading.

I'm doing additional "updates" posts here on the blog because things change fast around here, plus books I'm reading to my kids are not on the original list. We read year-round here at my house, and I wanted to share some of what we're loving (or not).

You'll find over on Goodreads that we're reading:

Little Fires Everywhere for fiction fun that makes me think, touches a nerve here and there, and makes me want to write fiction because it's so well done.

The War of Art to help kick my butt into some creative and life action.

Junior Great Books Series 5 Second Semester is what I'm reading to my three youngest kids (ages 10, 12, and 15) for the rich short stories, including Shirley Jackson's Charles. I may have bought 6 more of these books since we love them so much. These are also going to translate into a fabulous class at our homeschool co-op, pretty much from grades K-6+.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman is what I plan to start with my teen boys this week when they're not working or busy (ages 17 and 18).

Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford is what I'm reading to my 15-year-old daughter. It's the follow-up to Greenglass House, which we loved.

Hope you're gearing up for a wonderful summer! I'd love to hear what you're reading this summer!

Here's a post I wrote on Goodreads: I love being a homeschooling mom of 5, which means we are always reading lots of different things. I'm usually working on a fiction book and a nonfiction book for myself, then we love read-alouds at my house, so I might be reading something different to each of my kids, who are ages 10, 12, 15, 17, and almost 19 :-) It's such a great bonding activity and a chance to talk about different issues.

What You Need To Know About Life Insurance

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Life insurance is one of those things that we all need to think about at some point or another. When it is approached in the right way, it can be a hugely important and useful resource for many people, and it’s something that you should not simply ignore. However, if you are thinking about getting life insurance, you need to make sure that you are going to be aware of what you need to do here, and that means knowing about some of the most important concerns when it comes to life insurance. In this article, we will take a look at some of those important things so that you can make the right decision about it in the future.

The Two Main Types

There are two main types of life insurance, and it’s good to know about both of them so that you can make your decision about which to get. The first is term life insurance, which is where the policy runs for a fixed amount of time, the term, and then the money is paid out if and when you die during the policy. If you die after the end of the policy, you will generally not have any money paid out. On the other hand, a whole of life policy will pay out whenever you die, as long as you have made sure to keep up with the premium payments regularly. It’s important to decide carefully between these two major types when you are on the market for life insurance.

Condition-Specific Policies

As well as those two main types, it is also perfectly possible to get hold of some condition-specific policies, and these are worth looking into if you have some condition and you think it might affect your life insurance. For instance, if you have Asperger’s, then you are going to want to look into getting life insurance with Asperger’s Syndrome specifically. Looking for that is going to mean that you are much more likely to get the policy that is right for you. You should consider this for any other condition you might have too, as there is always a chance that you can find one that is perfectly suitable to your situation.

The Four Roles In Life Insurance

It’s also useful to know about the main players in any life insurance policy. The more you know about this, the more you can approach it with a good frame of mind and get the right policy. The four roles are the insurer, the owner, the insured, and the beneficiary. The insurer is who sets out and sells the policy, the owner is the person responsible for paying the premiums, the insured is the person named in the policy whose life is being insured, and the beneficiary is the person who gets the payout upon the insured person’s death. You need to make sure that you are aware of these details if you are going to get a life insurance policy.

Learning How To Clean Doors and Windows

When people come to your home, the first elements that they see are your windows and doors. As such, these aspects play a vital role in creating the first impression concerning your home. Apart from making them operate smoothly, learning how to clean your doors and windows, therefore, ensures that people get the right image about your home. So, according to Total Home Oakville, if you want to create the right impression, you should keep your windows and doors looking clean as possible.

Your exterior doors are exposed to extreme weather elements and suffer throughout the year. The implication of this is that after some time they get damaged due to rain, extreme heat and wind. Besides, they also get dirt from soot, fumes and other particulate matter blown by wind. Naturally your Oakville windows and doors will get dirty and compromise the look of your home, hence cleaning them is mandatory.

1. Natural Cleaning Solutions.

Though commercial cleaners work well on wooden window and door frames, as well as glass ones, caution is needful on what substance is used to scrub the glass. A “self-cleaning “one is more preferred and is highly used by conservatories in the recent years.


Homemade remedies can safely clean your property as they easy and cheap to make. For instance you can make a multi-purpose cleaning solution from few cups of warm water, some baking soda and liquid soap. Spray the mixture on the window frames then wipe using a spongy material.


When cleaning a glass, make a mixture of white vinegar in six tablespoons, a squirt of washing liquid soap and about four cups of warm water. It will perfectly clean almost all marks present in your windows.

2. Door Cleaning.

To perfectly know how to clean doors and windows, start by using a soft rag to wipe all the dust away from the door. This will help in avoiding the muddy streaks and dirty lines that remain indoors when you start with the washing stage directly. After clearing the dust then you can have   wet clean. Always ensure you wipe the door in the same direction with the wood grain.


Once the door is free from dust and debris, soak a sponge in an all-purpose cleaner the use it to wipe the door. Use a soft, clean rag to dry the door. In case of small windows, a glass cleaner is useful. Remember to clean the handles and brass fixtures too.

3. Glass Cleaning.

This is needful so as to clear any water spots and dirty patches that appear in windows. A slightly cloudy warm day with very little wind is the ideal time to clean your glass. This is because a combination of direct sunlight and wind will dry the glass very first leaving streaks .Keeping the glass wet throughout the cleaning time prevents those unsightly streaks.


Spray the cleaning solution to the glass, using a scrubber clean all the debris, and use plain water to rinse the glass surface. The glass window should be cleaned and dried from top, downwards to the bottom using a squeegee; this is done repeatedly so as to have a sparkling clean window.

4. Reasons Why Pressure Washing Is Wary.

Pressure washing is very wary in glass cleaning because the force which a pressure washer exerts is very strong and can damage the windows and doors Oakville easily. Cleaning of windows that are higher up is safer when you use a simple telescopic hose which uses the same amount of effort with a pressure washer. For the doors you can use a chamois cloth and a simple sponge.

5. Keeping Doors and Windows Clean.

Keep regular cleaning of your windows and doors Oakville to prevent them from accumulating dirt and debris. Additionally, ensure that your driveway and garden are clean too. A pressure washer may be useful in ensuring that the pavements are weed and dirt free. Make sure your garden, gutter and paths don’t have leaves as well as any other seasonal debris.


Regularly oil the hinges of your windows and doors Oakville, and in case they have any signs of wear and tear replace them. Anytime you have problems with your locks replace them immediately because the unstacking them get after using lubricating sprays will only work temporarily thus it is just a stopgap measure.


Now that you know how to clean doors and windows, it will be easier to DIY.