Finding a workout routine or a gym membership that fits our needs can be both frustrating and costly. Most doctors now agree that simply taking a 30 minute walk or bike ride can do it wonders for us, even gardening is considered a workout. There's no real need to do hard-core activities to get our hearts pumping.

Are you ready for a vacation? Good because vacation time can have very positive effects on our health by lowering the risk of premature death. But don't get too excited and take all your vacation days at one time. Believe it or not, studies have shown that there is no real benefit from a vacation that is longer than 5 days - and it takes 3 days to actually unwind. Your vacation should include some exercise, good sleep and time to relax. That means no working on you vacation, which 42% of Americans tend to do. You should try to stay away from your laptop as difficult as that may be, or keep your phone on silent unless you are really expecting an important call. Try to minimize your daily stresses while on vacation.

If you work hard, you will get stressed and that stress effects your diet, your sleep pattern, and your social life. Stress can also effect your mental well-being and that can result in physical issues, mainly increases in blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and a shorter lifespan. Take it upon yourself to depart from stress. Step away from you desk for a few minutes, take a walk around the office to get your circulation flowing. Remind yourself to breath deeply every so often. Clear your mind because just thinking about stress can take its toll on your body.

The age old idea that eight hours of sleep every night is what we should be getting is still valid. The lack of sleep affects your hormones, that regulates your appetite which in turn can lead to obesity. Twenty millions Americans are now affected by insomnia usually due to stress. That sleep loss can impact your lifespan. But there is also no benefit for sleeping more than 8 hours so play it safe by starting a good sleeping pattern. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time everyday and cut back on the food, caffeine, and alcohol before you go to bed.

A lot of people get sucked into extreme dieting tactics like the ever so common cabbage diet (which is really just a liquid diet), the grapefruit diet, and the very popular Atkins diet. There seems to be an assumption that dieting is a temporary phase, you can loose the weight in a short amount of time, reach your goal and then stop. However, what we should be doing is making changes in our eating habits, real long term adjustments that we can live with. Making small replacements in our diets like replacing a soda with juice or water. Replacing red meet like beef with chicken or fish, and cutting back on the size of the meal will have a massive impact on our health.