Essential Life Skills You Need to Teach Your Daughter
When you are raising a girl, you want her to be independent and one day able to take care of herself and her own home. To be sure this happens, you should teach her some essential life skills. The following ones are things every girl (and boy) should know how to do.
Basic Planting
An excellent skill to teach your daughter before she moves out on her own is basic planting and growing skills. If she can plant a seedling, that is good to learn how to do it. Many children will learn the basic skill during their early years of school, but you might want to give her a few more lessons when she gets a little older. Teach her how to plant a vegetable or herb garden, how to prune roses, and how to water plants and know which ones need watering. This can also be a fun activity for you and her.
First Aid
It is good for every child to learn first aid, so teach your daughter some simple first aid techniques. She should know how to treat a bee sting, what to do when she gets a deep cut, and how to dress a burn or laceration. You want to know that when she is on her own, or when your daughter is younger and playing outside, she knows the basic rules of taking care of minor injuries and cuts. This ensures she can avoid infection and know how to take care of herself, as well as to know when she needs to go to the doctor or hospital.
House Repairs
A good skill to start teaching your daughter when she is around 12 or 13 is how to take care of home repairs. She should know just minor things around the house that she might want to do on her own one day. For example, make sure your daughter knows how to clear a clogged sink or toilet, and how to use an auger instead of calling a plumber every time. She should know how to change light bulbs, put new batteries in the smoke detectors, and hammer nails. You might also want to teach her how to paint interior walls, as well.
Finances
Another life skill your daughter should know how to do is to budget her money, pay bills, and balance her checkbook. A lot of this is now done online, but she also needs to know the basics of budgeting and how to save money. Teach her about saving at least 10 percent of her income and how to come up with a realistic budget and stick to it. This will definitely help her in the future.
The real reason why stay at home Moms don’t get anything done is due to….information overload.
What Is Information Overload?
Have you ever started something new – a new job, a new sport, even a new game and you’re trying to learn the information and it feels like your brain might explode? That’s an exaggerated symptom of information overload. But, most people are experiencing it daily from normal life due to fast access to information via the internet. Stay at home Mom’s especially are dealing with an incredible amount of information overload.
Information overload can cause the following symptoms:
Headache
Stress
Moodiness
Overweight
Cardiovascular issues
And more…
Plus, often it can cause problems in interpersonal relationships and work relationships. The reason is that most information overload is a choice you make. You choose to be on social media all day; you choose to watch every single news station and every single pundit on TV talk about whatever is the topic of the day.
It’s Like Drinking Water from a Fire Hydrant
Anytime you want to learn something, it’s tempting to start gathering tons of information. And due to the net, it’s easy to get drawn down into the rabbit hole of unending information. It becomes hard to determine what information is good and what information is bad.
It Leads to Poor Information Filtering
When you are bombarded with so much information, your brain can’t filter it properly. Your brain does something called twigging, which means that instead of filtering information in terms of importance it just generalizes all information as being the same. This is terrible for decision making.
It Leads to Bad Choices
If you can’t properly filter information to determine what is true, what is right and what is wrong, you’ll have a hard time making the right choices. The information overload causes you to choose wrongly on any number of issues because with so much noise going on you can’t determine what is right.
It Harms Your Relationships
Information overload can harm your relationships. If you’re always reading your smartphone, looking at social media and aren’t present in your life, it can hurt intimacy. If your partner and friends are complaining, take heed.
It Leads to Black and White Thinking
The world is not black and white. The world is colorful, black, white, gray and everything in between and more. The same can be said for a lot of issues. There are very few issues that are either right or wrong, black or white. If you have too much information at your fingertips and are rating everything the same, it’s easy to see things as black and white, which can make it hard to negotiate a happy life and successful business.
It Can Lead to Mental Issues Like Depression
When you get to the point of information overload, a lot of people experience mental problems such as short-term memory issues and even depression. If you find that you’re just feeling mixed up a lot, forget appointments and aren’t doing your best at home or work, consider information overload as a potential culprit. Information overload can be a big problem for a lot of people. People are wrecking their cars due to not being able to turn away from looking at their text messages. Who knows how much money is lost in overall productivity due to information overload. You can do your part by trying to limit information overload for yourself and your family. You can also encourage co-workers and employees to avoid multitasking and focus training on smaller topics rather than broad ones.
Let’s talk about forming new habits. We all have times in our lives where we intentionally want to change our behavior for the better and create new habits for ourselves. This could be getting in the habit of eating healthier and drinking more water. Or it could be moving more and taking our pet for a daily walk. Or it could be work-related, spiritual, or anything. There are so many areas in our lives that could be improved and made easier if we only created new habits. Getting into the habit of doing something is often easier said than done. We seem to acquire bad habits without any effort, but getting into a “good” habit can be a little more challenging. (why thank you reticular activating system!)
Let’s break it down into a three-step process that makes it easy to follow until we’ve internalized the new behavior and made it a true habit – something we do automatically without having to think about, like brushing our teeth.
Decide What You Want To Do
The first step is to decide what you want that new habit to be. Be as specific as possible. Don’t just tell yourself you want to exercise more. Instead, say something like “I will go for a 30-minute walk every single day”. Deciding what your new habit will be and committing to when and how you’re going to do it, is half the battle.
Remind Yourself To Get It Done
The next few days should be smooth sailing. You’re motivated and excited to get this done. Sticking to your new habit isn’t an issue. But a few days in you’ll notice that it’s easy to slip back into old habits. Maybe it’s raining and you don’t really want to go out and walk. Or maybe your day just gets away from you. This is when it’s important to have a daily reminder.
Set an alert on your phone
Add the new habit to your daily to-do list for a while
Reach out for help
Gain accountability
Make It Part Of Your Routine Until It Becomes A Habit
Which brings us to the last step. It takes some time before a new behavior becomes a true habit. Until then, a routine will work to your best advantage. Even before the new behavior becomes automatic, a routine will help you get it done without having to spend a lot of willpower or relying on daily reminders. Make that daily walk part of your after-dinner routine, or change from grabbing a snack at the vending machine at work at 10:00 in the morning to packing a healthy snack. Congratulations! Decide to create the new habit, practice the routine until it’s second nature and you’ll be well on your way to forming a new good habit.
If you suffer from mild to moderate depression, you may be interested in natural treatments. Even cases of severe depression may benefit from natural remedies in conjunction with medication.
Natural treatments run the gamut from supplements to lifestyle changes to alternative therapy. Here are some natural treatments that may help this disorder.
Dietary Adjustments
Natural health experts generally agree that diet is important in managing depression symptoms. Some dietary changes you can make include:
Eat nutrient-dense foods. This helps make sure your body has all the vitamins and minerals it needs for proper brain function. Fresh produce, nuts, and whole grains tend to be rich in vital nutrients.
EFAs, or essential fatty acids, may help boost mood in depressed individuals. EFAs can be found in healthy oils like olive or safflower, and in fish and nuts.
Cut back on refined white sugar and corn syrup. These refined sweeteners tend to cause blood sugar spikes and slumps, which contribute to the symptoms of depression.
Eat whole foods, such as whole grains and fresh produce. This not only provides depressed individuals with much-needed, healthy carbs; it also minimizes artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives from the diet. These artificial substances may contribute to depression in some individuals.
Chiropractic and other Body-Oriented Treatments
These alternative therapies seem to be gaining acceptance among medical experts. Techniques like chiropractic adjustments, massage, acupuncture, and others may help relieve depression symptoms. This may have to do with improving circulation or the elimination of toxins from the tissues of the body. Other body treatments include:
Dance therapy
Acupressure
Martial arts
Yoga
Exercise
Working out daily can be hard even if you don’t have depression. But it’s even more important if you do – exercise has been shown to help relieve symptoms of depression. This may be due to the ability of exercise to boost brain chemicals that make you feel happy. Exercise brings balance to your life, balancing activity and rest; a balanced lifestyle itself can be very helpful in dealing with depression.
Most sources are consistent in pointing out that exercise need not be strenuous, but that it should be regular – 30 to 60 minutes a day for 3 to 6 days a week.
Supplements
A good vitamin and mineral supplement that is high in B12 and B6 is said to be good for alleviating depression. Magnesium is another mineral that tends to be deficient in many people, and that is important for proper nerve and muscle function. You may also find that supplements of evening primrose oil, flax oil, or fish oil will help your mood.
Herbal supplements have sometimes been used with success. St. John’s Wort is probably the best-known herb that may combat depression. Others include ginseng, valerian root, and chamomile. Chamomile can be drunk as a tea, as can another tasty sedative herb – lemon balm.
Always check with your doctor before supplementing with any herbs to avoid any adverse drug/herb interactions. And if you know a qualified herbalist, you can get advice from him or her, too.
10 Home Remedies That Alleviate Symptoms of Depression
Depression is a real disease that warrants medical help. It affects 15 million Americans that accounts for over 6% of the country’s total population. Depression is all-encompassing and can take a toll on a person’s day to day life. If you or a family member is suffering from depression, it is very important to seek help from a medical professional. In some instances, both medication and therapy are needed in order to alleviate the symptoms of this mental illness. Medicine is not the only option though – there are quick and natural remedies you can try. Remember to always check with a professional first. Also, even though these might work for one person it doesn’t mean they’ll work for you. Every single person is different – so you’ve got to find the right remedy that will work for you.
Below are ten of those remedies.
Eat Happy Foods
Food can affect your mood. A few options like coconut oil, cherries, flaxseed, and eggs coax the production of serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that is responsible for your mood. Prescription drugs like Prozac work the same way.
Say No to Coffee
Coffee is great for when you have a lot of things to do and don’t have the energy to do it all. However, the high comes with a significant crash. Being high on caffeine doesn’t do anything good for the chemicals that have a hand in your mood. After the crash, you end up feeling even more exhausted than before you drank coffee.
Drink Green Tea Instead
If you really need a little bit of caffeine, green tea is the way to go. It contains L-theanine, which works with caffeine in order to boost your mood.
Pause and Meditate
With everything that needs to be done day to day, meditation can help. Clearing the mind when you have a lot of chores is a great way to help with your mood. All you need is a quiet place and about half an hour.
Acupuncture
People are skeptical of alternative medicine. However, the Chinese have used acupuncture for thousands of years. The way it works is simple. According to the practice, there are 400 body points in the body, sometimes these points get clogged. Acupuncture opens them up, thus alleviating the symptoms of depression.
Chamomile Tea
When you are depressed, it is hard to sleep. Chamomile tea can help with that. Just boil your water and add a little bit of milk and honey, you can have the restful sleep you need.
Load up on B-Vitamins
B-Vitamins play a role in producing chemicals that get the brain running. People who have a deficiency in them tend to be irritable. Try eating more fish, cheese, shellfish, spinach and bell peppers because they are a great source of this vitamin.
Magnesium
Magnesium is the fourth most abundant substance on earth – often this is the reason why it is ignored. However, this mineral is responsible for a ton of biomechanical functions. It helps produce energy, regulate the heart and synthesize other nutrients.
Snack on Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkin Seeds are unassuming but they pack a lot of vitamins and minerals. They have healthy fat and magnesium that boost the mood. Plus it is also chock full of amino acids.
Exercise
Being active is a fundamental factor in boosting a person’s mood. Exercise releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy. So, whenever you feel down and lazy, get up and go for a run. It might suck at first but you would definitely feel refreshed and happier after! Depending on the depression that you have you can help alleviate the systems with a few changes. Try a few of the home remedies above and see if they work for you! It doesn’t hurt to try and could actually help you in so many ways.
