Here’s How Pregnancy Changes Your Brain to Make You a Better Mom

Thinking about having a baby, but worried you’re not cut out for motherhood? You may take some comfort in this news: Pregnancy causes changes in a woman’s brain that appear to make her better able to care for her child, say researchers in Spain. Their new study is the first to show that giving birth involves long-lasting changes—for at least two years afterward—in the structure of a woman’s brain. It’s long been known that pregnancy causes hormonal and chemical surges throughout the body, but until now its impact on the…

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This Is Exactly How Cold Weather Helps Your Body Burn More Calories

This time of year is filled with opportunities to pack on extra pounds. Think Christmas cookies, eggnog, lazy days when your only exercise is shuffling from the couch to the fridge … you get the idea. But if you live in a cold-weather climate, you have at least one calorie-burning weapon in your holiday arsenal: that arctic blast that hits you when you step outside. Yup, cold temperatures can boost calorie burn. We already knew this, thanks to recent studies on brown fat and the hormone irisin, both of which are…

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7 Best Anti-Inflammatory Foods You Must Add to Your Diet

Let’s begin by understanding what inflammation means. Our body has a natural defense mechanism that fights anything unrecognizable that enters it such as microbes, viruses or chemicals. This process is called inflammation and it helps in protecting your health. However, sometimes when the immune system overreaches it may start attacking the healthy tissues and cells. This is when inflammation can become detrimental to your health and can cause chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, arthritis or even depression. One of the most powerful ways to combat inflammation is to fortify your…

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Feeling down? Take a break from Facebook to lift your spirits

If you are feeling blue and cannot figure out why, taking an occasional break from Facebook might do wonders, suggests a research. The study showed that regular use of social networking such as Facebook can negatively affect your emotional well-being and satisfaction with life, but you do not have to quit Facebook altogether. Simply changing your social networking behaviour and taking an occasional break from Facebook may lift your spirits, said the study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour, and Social Networking. In the study, Morten Tromholt from the University…

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Bask in the sunlight to energise your immune cells

Bask in the sunlight to energise your immune cells Apart from helping for a healthier living by producing vitamin D, getting some sunlight may also energise T cells — immune cells — that play a central role in fighting infections in the human body, a study has found. “We all know sunlight provides vitamin D, which is suggested to have an impact on immunity, among other things. But what we found is a completely separate role of sunlight on immunity,” said Gerard Ahern, Associate Professor at the Georgetown University in…

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Can social jetlag harm your health?

Social jetlag can cause several health problems (Thinkstock) There are times when you wake up bright and happy but through the day end up feeling tired and sleepy, thus compensating for those lost hours of sleep on weekends. This, in turn, causes a sleep deficit during the weekdays. According to a study, researchers in Europe have coined the term ‘social jetlag’ to describe the all too-common practice of following a different sleep schedule on weekdays versus the weekend. “Sleep plays an important role both in the physiological and psychological development…

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