Over the past few decades, more and more people are now practicing yoga for the benefits: it improves breathing, it’s a workout on its own, but perhaps the best reason for yoga is that it’s a fitness routine you can do in the comfort of your own home. However, while stepping onto the mat itself for the first time can be the most intimidating part for many people, it doesn’t have to be the case for you.

Here are five tips you need to know before getting started with your first yoga session:

1. Warm up

A gentle warm-up exercise loosens your body the same way you would warm-up for any intense physical activity. Be sure to include the following exercises in your pre-session routine:

• Massage the heat, brows, and cheeks for better circulation
• Rotate your neck clockwise and counterclockwise to get rid of any stiffness

2. Dress comfortably

When practicing yoga, it’s important to wear clothes that allow for a wide range of movement since you’ll be stretching your limbs in poses that will really test the limits of your flexibility. Get yourself started with the basics – stretchy pants and a top – and since you’re bound to get sweaty, a change of clothes and a towel is also a great idea.

3. Stay on an empty stomach

Aside from staying hydrated through the day, it’s recommended to practice yoga at least two to three hours after your last meal. This allows your body to focus all its energy in the session rather than in digesting your food.

4. Invest in a sticky mat

For some poses, having a sticky mat is indispensable since the added traction helps your skin stick to the mat, allowing you to focus your weight and hold that pose for an extended period. Beginners will especially love the sticky mat since it allows them to keep their balance with some poses and avoid different muscle problems like spasms and strains the more they practice.

5. Focus on the spiritual part

Yoga is indeed about practicing spiritual awareness and mindfulness, and what brings them all together is the focus on meditation, which is a key practice for getting out of your autopilot and taking active control of your decisions.

Also crucial in practicing meditation and yoga (you can also practice yoga as a way to meditate) is proper, mindful breathing. Actively focusing on every breath can be a challenge at first, but gets easier with practice.

If there is one thing you should keep in mind, it’s that relaxing can be the hardest part of the entire routine, especially if you’re used to earning that rest and it feels strange to give it to yourself.

However, it’s also the reason why it’s special for those who practice it on a daily basis, and the more you practice every day, the more you’ll understand it for yourself.

All around Singapore, boxing gyms like Ares Fight Club, Spartan Boxing, Evolve MMA, and many more, offer trainings and courses for those who want to get into the sport. Either you want to become an amateur boxer or simply want to get a good workout, many gyms are there to give you that opportunity. Boxing is an intense activity and it can give us a lot of benefits- health, safety, and a lot more.

1. Full-body workout
Boxing pushes us to use almost all our muscles, which is why it is great for overall fitness. Some may think that boxing is heavily focused on the upper body. Thinking that the only highlight is on the arms and core isn’t exactly right. When punching, you also draw power from the lower part of your body. You move around a lot and you might even exhaust your legs. Boxing can also be a great workout for the back and the shoulders.

2. Stamina and weight loss
Have you ever felt exhausted climbing the stairs to even just the second and third floors of your building? Boxing can help with that. Firstly, boxing improves our resting heart rate. This means that our stamina and cardiovascular endurance will improve and we won’t get tired too easily. Because boxing can be considered an intense cardio workout, we can be sure that we’re also going to burn a lot of calories. It is said that thirty minutes of punching a bag can burn 200 calories while fighting in the ring can burn 400.

3. Better coordination
Our physical coordination plays a crucial role for us even just as normal, everyday people. Having good physical coordination improves our reflexes and help us to react quicker against things that may threaten us. Punching a speed bag or sparring with a partner can sharpen our coordination because it requires us to hit and react to a moving target.

4. Stress relief
Generally, any kind of intense physical activity can help us relieve stress. But nothing can be more satisfying than using our fists to release stress- of course against a bag and not a person. Boxing can help us release our pent-up anger and stress through the punching bag. And hitting the bag not only helps to relieve tension in our mind and body, it also boosts endorphins that can make us happier.

5. Self-defense
One of the most obvious benefits you get from boxing is learning to defend yourself. Boxing helps us to improve our skills and prompts us to use them when we get in a bad situation. It teaches us when to move and strike at the perfect time. But, learning this involves real combat. Compared to just punching a bag, sparring with someone can emulate a real fight and help us get used to an atmosphere of actually fighting.

The first step to living a healthier lifestyle comes with a conscious effort to make a healthy, productive routine, and the first step to doing that is by turning those bad habits into good habits.

Here are a few that you can start breaking, as well as good habits that you can replace them with instead:

1. Staying Up Too Late
Unless your work has to carry on well into the night (or if you have a passion project that you’re working on), staying up too late staring at a screen can reduce your sleep quality and impact your health in the long run.

Replace With: A pre-sleep routine with slow, deep breathing exercises, dim lighting, and even a few minutes of reading a book before going to bed can help signal your brain that it’s time to go to sleep.

2. Smoking
There’s really no excuse for smoking. It puts you at and the people around you at risk for serious conditions later on in life. However, the good news is that smoking-related conditions are highly preventable.

Replace With: Quitting smoking is not easy, but it can be done. There are a lot of steps you can take, such as drinking more water and cutting off all access to cigarettes and triggers that can tempt you to smoke.

3. Stress Eating
There’s a difference between loving food and binge-eating in that while the former is done out of love for gastronomy, the other is a bad way to cope with stress or deal with emotions, and can easily lead to serious weight gain.

Replace With: There are lots of ways to better handle stress – the first of which is by opening up to someone you can trust about the problems in your life.

4. Binge Drinking
Having a good time with friends isn’t at all a bad thing, and neither is having a drink to unwind after a long day. However, excessive drinking by yourself is never a good thing, and certainly not a good way to cope with stress.

Replace With: There are other, much better ways to handle stress and the negatives in life that come your way – and it all starts by opening up to someone who you can trust.

5. Being Too Negative All the Time
Seeing the negative side of a situation can be a good thing, but when all you do is focus on the negative side, there’s no room left to grow and improve yourself to overcome obstacles and come out as a better person.

Replace With: A more positive attitude starts by consciously trying to find the positive in every negative situation you run into. Be sure to do this for a week.

It is the time of year to make a list of resolution. To some Singaporeans, the list will serve as their guide all throughout the year but to others, it is useless. Regardless of what we think, we have to acknowledge that a New Year’s resolution list can in fact shape our future.

We only need to make it happen and stick to it but psychologists discovered that we are more likely to accomplish our goals if we divide our resolution into smaller goals. For those who divided their resolution into smaller goals, they felt sense of triumph. It is time that you feel the same.

Here are some tips on making a New Year’s resolution:

• Create one resolution: You do not need a long list. Sometimes, you have to focus on one task and channel all your energy in achieving it. This will make things less complicated and time consuming for you.
• Evade previous resolutions: The point here is to do something that you have never done so making a previous resolution will actually forfeit the purpose of New Year’s resolution. Revisiting the failure of the past will only make you bitter and disappointed.
• Think well: New Year’s resolution depends on the person and it is not good to follow their pursuit. You are your own person and you only know what is best for you. So, instead of making a resolution based on other people’s list, you have to reflect and think well.

• Be practical: Most resolutions fail because they are not practical or realistic. The best thing that you should do is to divide your goal in sequence then create sub goals. The sub goals should be time-based, concrete and at the same time measurable.
• Consider a reward system: If you feel the need to reward yourself for achieving a sub goal, you have to pursue it. The reward will maintain your motivation plus it will give you a sense of progress.
• Expect failure: There will come a time that you revert back to your old habits. No matter how hard you try, there is something drawing you to your old habits. That is normal. Think of the failure as a temporary setback to make you strong. Do not give up. The resolution will be a total failure if you stop and not redeem yourself.

Most common New Year resolutions discuss about health. It is crucial that you maintain your state of health and be at your best. For a start, you can consider losing weight, quit smoking, getting active, drinking less alcohol and the like.     

When faced with a crisis, or is forced to make an important decision, most of us tend to fall into the trap of overthinking and this is what robs us of our piece of mind. It’s the kind of mental exhaustion that keeps us from having a happier and healthier life. The good thing is this shouldn’t be the case. By doing these tricks, you can now lessen your overthinking tendencies and get your peaceful life again.

1. Distract Yourself. One of the best ways to keep yourself from overthinking is by doing activities that’ll keep you distracted. Engage into activities that works your hands like knitting, or activities that requires a lot of attention to distract your brain from overthinking. You can also try watching a suspense movie, to keep you hooked in the present and prevent you from worrying about the future.

2. Steer Clear From Overthinking Traps. Overthinking is often caused by a lot of factors, and the best way to stop it is to stay away from these overthinking traps. If you’re the type who’s obsessed with money, then prevent yourself from constantly checking your bank account. If you have an overly pessimistic colleague that always drags you down, then start taking lunch elsewhere to limit your interaction with that person.

3. Keep a Journal. If you’re into writing then this trick will probably work wonders for you. The thing about overthinking concerns is that most of it just wants to be heard out. So carry around a small journal wherever you go and write down each concern that crosses your mind. Once you’re done, you’ll be surprise as to how clear your mind has become.

4. Be Active Throughout the Day. One of the main reasons why you tend to overthink is because you have the time to do so. You have all the free time to think about all your worries and problems, causing you to overthink the things that might happen in the future. The good thing is you can prevent this by keeping yourself busy and active throughout the day. A good way to do this is to consider doing daily exercises like walking or Pilates. Getting your body tired will surely keep your wheel of thoughts from bugging you at night.

Overthinking is one of the most stressful things that you get to experience every now and then, but by keeping these solutions in mind, you’ll surely be able to stop and get over your overthinking tendencies.

Singaporean teens are hooked with online gaming. Online gaming can be addictive and it can destroy your child’s study habits. As a parent, you need to act upon this before your child loses sight of what is important and just live at the moment.

Here are some ways you can encourage studying and discourage gaming:

• Do not begin with the end in mind: Parents are inclined to emphasize the importance of passing the final exam or the diploma. Sometimes, your child simply wants to enjoy the learning process and not just think of the “end game”. It would be more beneficial if you help your child with his/her goal setting.
• Help your child track his/her progress: Students only need to feel accomplished. With this, you need to help your child track his/her progress every day or every week. This way they will feel they can get far.

• Give challenges that are right for their skill level: If the task you are delegating is not challenging, your child will easily get bored but when you give a challenging task, your child tend to give up right away. You have to be in between. When you give a task, make sure that it is right for his/her skill level.

Maybe there are other things that you can do for your child. The important thing here is you are with him/her. Being addicted to online gaming is not easy as it looks like. If you find things difficult, there are many people that you can ask for help. You must know that there are many coaches and counsellors here in Singapore that can help you and your child.