Spring is finally here, and as the days warm up the call of the water gets stronger. Just as April showers bring May flowers, bringing some water into your life through swimming can make you bloom with health. And if swimming isn’t your thing, there are plenty of other aqua-activities to try.
Swimming laps is fantastic exercise because it is both cardiovascular and strengthening. It uses all the body’s muscle groups and therefore gives a whole-body workout. It is also low impact, which benefits those with joint or weight limitations (or advanced pregnancy), yet a vigorous swim burns as many calories as running a 10-minute mile or playing competitive soccer (around 600 cal/hr). By using different strokes you can focus on certain muscle groups, and few other activities give you as good of an upper body workout.
Swimming is an exercise that can be done throughout your life, unlike many other sports, and it is an excellent way to cross-train. It is also often recommended for rehabilitation after injury or surgery.
If you are a competitive lap swimmer, or want a challenge, join a local U.S. Master’s Swimming group. They rank swimmers by age group, topping out at 100 years and older!
If you don’t enjoy swimming, or never learned, there are many aquatic exercise classes that use water’s resistance to give you a workout that is safe for all, including seniors with fragile bones, and you never have to put your face in the water. You can also walk in the shallow end of the pool, which is good exercise because of water’s resistance. If you try a water aerobics class, you can do many of the same moves on your own. Kicking using a kick board or holding onto the edge of the pool will get your blood moving yet keep you cool. If you’d like to learn to swim, almost all pools offer lessons for adults, as well as children.
So where will you head for a swim? You don’t have to be a member of a country club to find a good place. Cities and most towns have public pools with set lap-swim times plus a variety of classes at very reasonable prices. Check with your local park and recreation department. You can also try local schools and colleges, which may offer public swimming on weekends and during summer break. Some hospitals have warm therapy pools and offer classes. And don’t forget about open water swimming, my personal favorite. Whether in the fresh water of a lake or off a beach at the ocean, nothing beats swimming in the warm sunshine.
Remember to always check with your healthcare provider before beginning any new exercise regime.
- Rebecca Taggart
Sleep is controlled by our 
What could be a more evocative image for our future than a child’s palm full of seeds? A shipment of seeds from 
Grants for the USDA program are available to elementary schools where 50% or more of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. If you are a school administrator, or think your child’s school could be eligible for the FFVP, 
If we only receive ALA from plant sources, our body can manufacture EPA and DHA from the ALA, but the process is not efficient, and can be further disrupted by the intake of another group of essential fatty acids called omega-6s, which are often present in large amounts in plant-based oils. In Western diets, people consume roughly 10 times more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3 fatty acids. This is in part why the 
If you love juice, try making your own from fresh fruit. There are many juicers available, from simple spoon, silent motorized models, and extractors, to sleek retro chrome presses that look cool on the counter. Valencia oranges are the best juice oranges, but all are good. To juice, the fruit should be room temperature; roll it on the counter (good job for a kid) first to soften it a bit. The juice of two oranges makes about one four-ounce glass of the genuine article. And the container is 100% compostable!
Pranayama is simply defined as lengthened inhalations followed by lengthened exhalations. In his book “Light on Pranayama”, 
Maybe it’s the rain, or the cold, or the winter light, but at this time of year those Calgon-take-me-away-moments seem nearer. One of the best for me was a few winters back: at a small restaurant I was helping my twin toddlers and my young son, who was wearing his favorite stuffed green parrot wrapped on his arm, to use the restroom. The room was small. My son handed me the parrot because – well, you can’t use the restroom with a parrot looking over your shoulder – and was now washing his hands. The twins were squirming like fish. As I tried to manage one and then the other in each arm, and then wash their hands while “Hey, stop opening the door” and “Don’t fill the back of your sister’s pants with air from the hand dryer,” I leaned over and, in the slowest of slow motion, with little helpless plastic parrot eyes looking up at me whispering “Why?,” the parrot, my son’s constant pirate companion, slipped from my hands into the depths of Davey Jones’ porcelain commode. There was a muted splash and then a moment of shocked awe. Kids were frozen in place, one was wrapped in toilet paper, another had washed and dried her hands, but her clothes were soaked. My son just stared in horror. All three opened their mouths and sucked in air to power the loudest cries of horror that the 10’ x 6’ restroom had ever known. Trudging home in the rain, parrot finally blown dry but forever changed, kids red faced and still crying as passersby asked if they were alright, I wanted nothing but to be taken away. I’m sure the kids felt the same way. Winter and just the complexity of life can often fray our nerves. But whatever triggers stress for you, remember this: get your Folic Acid, it may make you happier.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=649ebcd1-a160-4a5f-b6ec-454122f83f46)
The obvious response to all this information is to increase your vitamin D intake, at least in the winter. But that isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. Our skin naturally manufactures adequate vitamin D for us, so long as the sunlight is sufficiently strong and we bare some skin. But in winter the sun is too weak north of latitude 34°, roughly a line between Los Angeles and South Carolina. For up to six months a year most of us cannot manufacture our own D because we spend most outdoor time covered up, in sunlight too weak to produce the vitamin.
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