Abdominal pains, swelling and irritability are common during menstruations. Nonetheless, when symptoms escalate into paralyzing pains, heavy bleeding and fatigue, doctors start using the term dysmenorrhea, a menstrual complication that can affect the quality of life of a women, hindering their everyday performance.

Even if studies are yet to determine how many women suffer from dysmenorrhea, with investigations that go from 16% to 91%, this sickness is known to affect a great amount of teenagers, and is usually mitigated by age and pregnancies.

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Different studies have confirmed over and over again the risks of spending too much time sitting down, especially when that sedentary lifestyle is not counteracted, during the rest of the day, by some type of physical activity.

Nonetheless, those who lead busy lives and work eight hours at an office job know how difficult it is to incorporate some movement into the routine. For those who can’t achieve the 30-minutes-per-day suggestion, here are some recommendations for working out without leaving your desk.

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One every three adults worldwide has hypertension, one of the most common lifestyle diseases nowadays. The low prevalence of control and treatment also makes high blood pressure responsible for half of the deaths by cardiac disease and stroke.

Complications and health risks ensue when blood pressure readings reach high levels for a long time without receiving any treatment. Continue reading →

Stress has many ways to manifest itself in our day to day life, altering our performance. One of its most common manifestations is a specific kind of headache that includes the accumulation of tensions on the neck, the cervical area and the shoulders.

Here are some advices to avoid the pain, the lack of concentration and the poor performance caused by stress headaches.

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Every weight loss diet is a world within itself with its own limitations about calories, carbohydrates and proteins. Nonetheless, there are some nutritional needs you can’t evade if you want to keep healthy.

When people aim to burn fat, calories are usually targeted as the worst enemy. Even if consuming very little calories is one of the prefered techniques by people who follow strict diets, the World Health Organization (WHO) has very clear numbers of caloric intake for each sex: among men, it’s recommended to eat 2.000 to 2.5000 kilocalories per day, and among women, 1.500 to 2.000, these numbers can be changed according to weight and height.

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Besides being your body’s largest organ and your natural barrier against the outside world, your skin is also a reflection of what’s happening with the rest of your body. Because of that, guaranteeing its hydration and care should be considered as a fundamental way to ensure well-being.

A healthy and glowing skin can be achieved by monitoring your diet and incorporating these simple habits that won’t affect your budget nor your daily routine.

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Ancient civilizations had no doubt about it: laughing improves your well-being. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until 1960 that laughter began to be considered in scientific studies, which aimed to reveal its different health benefits.

Laughing not only allows you to exercise your face muscles and your stomach, it also generates changes in your blood flow. Researchers from Maryland University, in the United States, studied the effects of comedy in the human blood vessels, comparing its consequences to the body’s reaction to drama. According to the results, the blood vessels of the participants who watched comedy films contracted and expanded more fluidly than those of their drama-watching counterparts.

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Being bored can be fruitful. It can motivate creativity, imagination or put us in motion. Having a few boring moments can activate cerebral cortexes that allow us to “daydream”, which can help solve problems or come up with projects.

However, when boredom turns into a persevering and prolonged sensation, the risks can be greater than the benefits. Continue reading →

Utilizing your smartphone last thing at night and first thing in the morning has already become a habit shared by many. Checking social networks, news or mails before sleeping can seem harmless, but it actually affects our sleep in a more meaningful way than we expect.

Studies have shown that the nighttime exposure to blue light from smartphones, laptops and tablets can prevent the brain from releasing melatonin, a hormone that tells our bodies that it’s nighttime and helps us fall asleep. Blue light is interpreted by our bodies as daylight, and the nighttime contact with this type of light communicates to the body that it’s not time to sleep yet.

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