Living Older, Better

I learned today that my friend Dean Sweetman is taking his vision of the Wheel of Life into a book. It takes a look on how to balance your life so that you can improve and experience a great life. When I am able to, I'll make sure that I give everyone a link to the book.

As often happens when I begin to work on each of my blogs, one thing leads into another and knowing that Dean is writing his book, a recent article came to mind. This particular article was written by Dr. Tedd Mitchell. Just a short but relevant article providing advice for those of us that are growing older or are of an older age.

He provides these following habits that if followed can improve your longevity and quality of life.

- Stop smoking. It's a big health threat.
- Exercise to keep your body strong.
- Nourish yourself with proper nutrition.
- Involve family members and friends in your health care.
- Observe follow-up orders; partner with a doctor for preventative maintenance.
- Read to stimulate your brain.
- Sleep to rejuvenate your body and recharge your batteries.
- Regularly practice safe driving skills.
- Understand your medical condition(s) and any medications.
- Lose weight. Longevity is associated with light body weight.
- Ensure good vision and hearing through regular eye and ear exams.

With there being so many of our loved ones including ourselves living to an older age, let us enjoy that older age in good health.

Exercise For A Better Life

When you are working towards having a great or better life, your health becomes important so that you can enjoy it. Being in poor health will result in spending your time and money at doctor offices or in hospitals. So taking care of your physical self is just as important as the mental self. I have written previously about this balance in life with my "Wheel of Life" articles.

This physical part of your life can be reasonably easy to maintain. It is said that 30 minutes of exercise a day can be quite beneficial. But where to put this exercise time into your schedule can be difficult to do. You need to find the time and here are a few tips I came upon in an article by Jorge Cruise in an interview with Bobbi Brown, the CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and author of "Bobbi Brown Living Beauty."

- Set your alarm 45 minutes before your family gets up or before you would normally get up.

- Make exercise a part of your social life. "I even asked all my friends to join me for a walk on my birthday," the beauty expert says. For myself (Joe Primm), my church is building a new wing that will house a very modern and well-equipped exercise facility. Open to both church members and the community, a great way to round out your life.

- Cut out the junk. "if you're not eating properly, you're not going to feel like exercising.

- Create any kind of home gym you can -- even if it's just a few free weights or an exercise ball.

- "Music is key," she notes. " like popular rap music; it really keeps me motivated.

So do something, anything, to make your life physically better. You'll feel better, you'll perform better, your life will be better.

Happy Independence Day

To all of my fellow Americans and to our soldiers stationed abroad, thank you for making it possible.

Influencing Yourself

Here we are into the first day of a holiday week here in the U.S. Our independence holiday is on Wednesday, so many people have taken days off and most work schedules are relaxed. There are those of us that are working all week with the holiday itself off. Yet there are many people that will be working on the holiday, as happens around the world on holidays of many kinds. The wheels of business must continue to turn and it takes people to make it happen.

As my week begins, it makes me think of what impact each of us can have upon our own lives as well as others. My friend and pastor, Dean Sweetman recently said, "what you think about is what you are. What you read about is what influences you." Pretty simple logic but it is something we tend to forget.

Everyday we have the ability to influence our own lives by what we choose to read, watch and the people we associate with. Our own lives are ours to choose how to live and to determine those influences. While we have to exist in a world where there are thousands of positive and negative influences, each of us have the power of choice.

I have had people state to me that there is no choice in circumstance. To a degree, circumstance is the unpredictable nature of life itself. But how you react to it, how you position yourself to overcome negative circumstance is the choice you make. You can remain entrenched in negative influences or choose to move out of it.

Placing yourself around other people that are more supportive in nature, changing your reading habits to something more uplifting and choosing positive words will move you towards overcoming the negative. None of this means that you shield yourself from reality or hiding from the bad things. What it means is teaching yourself how to overcome adversity and prevent yourself from being dragged down.

A week like this allows a quieter atmosphere to perform your job and to also take time to think of new ways. The seven minutes of thought for yourself, to develop ways to encourage yourself and to change any negative habits...use those minutes to influence yourself.