5 Steps to a Great Race

It is not uncommon to be nervous the day of a race or even a few days before. Whether it is a high school track or cross country race or a street race, everyone has nerves, and it can be even more nerve-racking if you don't know how to prepare for your race. However, there are many things that you can do before a race that will make your racing experience slightly more enjoyable.
1. A couple days before your race, you should start to taper. Don't do as hard of work outs or you'll be too tired and sore the day of your race to perform well. Many people believe that going hard the days leading up to the race will help your performance, but those couple days will not change your time or fitness level.
2. Eat Carbohydrates. The night before a race you should eat a good dinner full of carbs. I usually eat pasta and bread sticks but anything with carbs is alright.
3. Stay hydrated. It is important to be drinking eight to ten glasses of water per day leading up to the race. On the day of the race make sure to keep hydrating but stop about 30 minutes before the beginning of your race. However, be careful. It is common to believe that sports drinks containing electrolytes will improve your race performance, but if you don't normally drink sports drinks during your training then you should avoid them.
4. It is important to warm-up before your race. Not too long, but jog for about 5 minutes to loosen up your muscles, and stretch out your legs and arms. Loose muscles are important so that you don't strain your muscles or pull anything.
5. Run your own race. Chances are you aren't going to be the fastest person in the race and that is perfectly okay. You just have to run the pace that feels right for you. 
Following these steps won't guarantee you a perfect race but hopefully it will make the day a little bit more fun.

Stress Less, Sleep More, Live Longer

Wouldn't it be great if we could live forever, or would it be? I don't think that I would want to live forever, but it's not a bad idea to want to extend your life by a few years. The truth is we are all going to die, but how long we live is pretty much up to us. Of course there are ways to die that you can't prevent such as car accidents, but there are things that you can do that may lengthen your life or increase your chances of living longer.

This may seem silly, but the first thing that you can do is floss your teeth. Not flossing your teeth can cause gingivitis, which is linked to heart attacks. Flossing your teeth reduces your risk of having a heart attack by 50 percent! Flossing also whitens your teeth, you can score a higher paying job if you have whiter teeth which will eventually lead to a high IQ and higher confidence and self-esteem. If you feel better about yourself, you will have better health in the long-run, leading to a longer life.

Another simple thing you can do is get a proper amount of sleep. Most doctors recommend at least 8 hours of sleep every night, but let's face it, our busy schedules don't always allow for that much sleep every single night of our week. However, you should at least be trying to get a good amount of rest. This means that if you have a busy Tuesday night, like me for example, it's a good idea to go to bed earlier on Sunday or Monday night, even if this means skipping the newest episode of Castle or Dancing with the Stars. Sleep may not seem like it matters that much, it may seem like 6 hours is enough, but people who sleep for less than 6 hours a night have a 50 percent higher chance of viral infections and a higher chance of having a heart attack or a stroke.

One other thing to lengthen your life is to stress less. This doesn't mean that you don't have a care in the world. There are going to be stresses in everybody's lives, the trick is to find a way that will help you minimize or deal with stressful things in your life. For example, if school is stressful, it may be helpful to do your homework as soon as you get home, that way there will be no stressing about time and if you need help, you can call a friend. Stress isn't always an easy fix, sometimes it takes more than just starting your homework earlier. For some people, exercise helps to relieve stress and clear your mind, for others its meditation or dedicating a small piece of your time to something you enjoy doing. There may come a day when you have bigger stresses such as divorce or bankruptcy, which can take up to 7 year off your life. The point is to find a way to deal with everyday stresses, so that when you have to deal with something bigger, you already know how to cope.
Other things that you can do to lengthen your life are taking daily vitamins, staying fit, maintaining a healthy weight, eating healthy and making healthy choices. Also, stay happy and laugh a lot, keeping a good attitude about life isn't necessarily going to make you live longer, but it will at least make your life a little bit more enjoyable.

High Risk Fashion

People may be surprised to find out that many popular fashion trends in today's generation can actually be harmful to our health. A few of these things include tanning, heavy purses, and shoe trends such as high heels and flip flops. People don't always realize the harm in such things because they are such a popular thing in our culture, but they can be really harmful.
Both tanning in a tanning bed and laying out on a beach are equally dangerous to your health. About 2.3 million teens visit tanning salons every year. Visiting a tanning bed more than ten times a year increases your odds for melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, by about 800 percent. This does not include the damage your skin receives from the sun's ultra violet (UV) rays if you choose to lay out and tan directly from the sun. The UV rays from the sun and/or tanning beds cause premature aging, wrinkles, dark spots on the skin, and skin cancer. Personally, I believe that getting a spray tan may not always turn out perfectly, but it would be better to get a bad spray tan than to get skin cancer.
Another popular trend is large and heavy purses. Many women notice pain while carrying heavy purses but continue to carry them anyway. This leads to back and neck problems. Doctors often recommend that bags be less than 10 percent of our weight. Another danger of purses is thin straps, these can dig into the skin and if the bag is too heavy, can cause nerve pain. Girls should only carry the necessities in their purses, optional things can be left in your car.
Lastly, footwear trends have been leaving girls with body aches and pains. Flip flops and heels are common shoes causing these problems. Flip flops have no foot support leading to high risk injury to your feet, ankles, knees and lower back. They also cause a person to walk differently while trying to grip the shoe with your toes, causing you to use different muscles. High heels can cause premature arthritis, knee pain, and back pain. Also, cramming your foot into an uncomfortable shoe can cause nerve damage in your feet. I believe that is reasonable to wear heels to a school dance or special occasion and wear flip flops to the beach, but be cautious as to how often you wear non-supportive footwear.
These are just a few pop culture trends that are dangerous to your health. There are many other things that you should think twice about such as piercings and tattoos. At least stay away from tanning, large purses and non-supportive footwear for most occasions.

Just Dance

This weekend, our school's homecoming dance took place. And speaking of dancing, surely people are aware that dancing is great exercise and burns a great amount of calories, but do you know about the other great health benefits to dance? It is a great stress reliever, increases memory and has plenty of other great benefits.

Dancing does, believe it or not, improves your memory and decreases your chances of memory loss as you age. The aerobic exercise reduces volume loss in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory. As we age, the hippocampus often shrinks, leading to memory loss. If dancing can reduce the shrinking, your chances for memory loss are lower or it may occur later in your life than it would have had you not gotten extra aerobic exercise.

Dancing also reduces your risk for heart disease. Studies show that dancing is even better for your heart than running/walking on a treadmill or cycling. Also, people with congestive heart failure that took dance lessons showed to have better quality of life results as well as slightly better mood and sleep.

Another health benefit to dancing is that it increases energy levels and physical performance in teenagers and adults. Dancing is considered aerobic and if you make it a routine, it can get you into really good shape. Therefore, you will have more energy during the day and you will be more athletic so your physical performance will also improve. 

Lastly, dancing is a social event, whether being a school dance or a dance class. Meeting new people and making new friends improves your health by increasing your happiness, relieving stress, and creating a stronger immune system.

There are also other benefits to dancing such as an increase in flexibility, stress relief, a decrease in depression, and better posture. It also burns calories and helps you lose weight. I encourage students to attend their school dances and teens and adults to enroll in a dance class and/or just dance around your house. You will be amazed by how much it improves your mood and makes your day better.