Author Archives: Melanie Wilcox

Breathe Deep – It’s Good For You!

Who knew that one of the most simple, most automatic bodily functions could actually improve your health? While I was at a yoga class yesterday, the instructor had us do several minutes of deep breathing. I assumed it was to get us ready to coordinate our breath with our movement, but she told us that…

Snacking Before Bed Can Help You Sleep

Despite the many warnings out there to not eat a certain number of hours before going to sleep, not snacking before bed could be costing you some z’s. If you seem to be having trouble sleeping, one of the best ways to remedy the problem is to eat a light, sleep-inducing snack an hour or…

Choosing the Right Yoga Class for Beginners

Yoga has a number of health benefits, but deciding to go to your first yoga class can be a bit intimidating. With so many different classes, it can be difficult to choose which class will suit your physical abilities. Of course, anything with “beginner” in the name should be suitable, but here are a few…

Why You Should Add Weight Training to Your Exercise Plan

Whenever I go to the gym, I see people running on treadmills and sweating on elliptical machines in the hopes of burning calories and losing weight. Unfortunately only a fraction of those people start on continue their workout in the weight training area. Unless these people are training for a marathon, this is a huge…

Loosen Chest Congestion with Steam

One of the worst symptoms of the common cold is that tight feeling in your chest caused by congestion. It can make it difficult or even painful to breathe, and you can it can keep you up all night as you cough it up. Worse than coughing all night, however, is when the mucus is…

Cold Feet Catching You a Cold?

Perhaps cold feet aren’t just for commitment-phobes; some studies suggest if you allow your feet to get cold (as in the temperature, not the colloquialism,) you may be at a greater risk of catching a cold. But cold-causing viruses can’t just attack us through our skin, right? So how does walking around in bare feet…

Eat Garlic to Fend Off a Cold

Winter cold weather means an increase in colds and flus caused by viruses. Although flu vaccines can help prevent the flu by helping your body build up immunity, what do you do when you’ve already caught a virus? Many people seem to run to the doctor for antibiotics, but this expensive fix isn’t really a…