Mind

Regular Sleep is an important part of your daily life. Adequate sleep is required to maintain optimal health and well-being. Sleep is as important as regular exercise and a balanced diet. It is one of the pillars of your health. Getting regular and optimal sleep every day has its own benefits.

World Sleep Day is celebrated on March 19, 2021. The slogan for this year is ‘regular sleep, healthy future’. 

Effects of lack of sleep on your health

Sleep deprivation alters your brain activity. It affects your performance and productivity. It is one of the risk factors for obesity. It leads you to eat more. The duration of sleep has many health risk factors. There is an increased risk of heart disease and stroke if you sleep less than 7 hours per night. There is also a heightened risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. Poor quality of sleep is also linked to depression and long-term body inflammation.

Why do you require a good and regular sleep?

Here are some of the reasons why good and regular sleep is important for you:

Health benefits

Sleep has a host of health benefits. It lowers the risk of heart disease and reduces inflammation. Good sleep helps the body fight off infection. As the body heals during sleep, you can have more energy, better coordination, and better overall health.

Improves productivity

You can sharpen your brain’s ability to learn and preserve information by having a regular sleep. Sleep improves your concentration and lowers the feeling of burnout. It improves problem-solving skills and enhances memory. 

Improves immune function

Regular sleep boosts your immune system.  When you are asleep, your body takes time to rest and recover. It heals the damaged cells and helps to recover, thereby rebooting your body. 

Prevents depression

Sleeping disorders such as insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea cause depression. It is estimated that 90% of people with depression complain about sleep quality. Thus getting a good night’s sleep can be an important part of your plan to manage depression.

Lower weight gain

People with sleep deprivation tend to eat more, which leads to obesity. A good sleep calms down your body and helps a person to consume fewer calories.

You can be emotionally intelligent

Adequate sleep will lead to improved mood and healthier emotional well-being. It is the key to build emotional intelligence. It helps us manage our emotions, builds empathy, and sparks creativity.

Tips to have better and regular sleep

• Have a comfortable bed and cool room
• Reduce caffeine intake after 5 PM
• Take a walk after your dinner
• Avoid taking an afternoon nap if you have trouble sleeping at night.
• Finish your daily chores and dinner by 8 PM
• Avoid binge-watching TV/videos.
• Avoid fights and arguments with anyone before bedtime — makeup with them before going to sleep.

Sleep is often neglected as a part of our routine. It is an important component of your overall health and well-being. It enables the body to repair and be fit and be ready for the next day. 

Sleep regularly and have a healthy future. 

Have trouble sleeping? Try tracking your sleep with the help of the JoyScore app. The app can also help you lead a healthy and quality life. Download the app now.

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.” –Oprah Winfrey.

Affirmations are part of your life. It is just anything you say with confidence. It is more important to know that your thoughts will be quite negative. Research says that 80% of the 50,000 subconscious thoughts that you have in a day are negative ones. You need to think and speak in a positive pattern to change your life. 

The affirmations open the door. It is a path to change. If you are talking about affirmations, you are consciously choosing words that help you to eliminate negative aspects of life and create something new.

What are Affirmations?

Affirmations are positive statements that help you overcome negative thoughts. They allow you to be in control of your thoughts and act as a self-help tool. 

Here are few examples of Affirmations that help you see a positive change in your life:

• I am overflowing with joy
• I am healthy and my mind is brilliant
• I acknowledge my own self-worth; my confidence is soaring.
• I am blessed with an incredible family and wonderful friends.
• I am growing stronger each day
• I am a unique and responsible person.
• I am confident and capable of what I do.

The power of Affirmations

Affirmations are powerful when used in a correct manner. They are more effective if you use them along with positive thinking and goal setting.  You need to embrace powerful and positive affirmations to achieve success. You can reap the benefits of the Affirmations if you practice them regularly.

Do Affirmations really benefit you?

The benefits usually depend on how you use them. They tend to provide the most benefit when they center on specific traits or achievable changes you like to make to those traits.

Affirmation boosts self-esteem

Affirmations allow you to believe in yourself and the potential of an action you desire to manifest. It provides a reassurance that our wish words become a reality. You can tell yourself that you are motivated and capable. You will be able to view the best version of yourself.

It changes the negative thought patterns into positive ones 

You will be aware of your daily thoughts, thus reducing the risk of negativity. Negative self-talk habits can be altered for positive changes by practicing daily affirmations.

Affirmations lead to better health

“Our greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another” – William James

You will feel better if you think positively. Practicing daily affirmations reduces the negative thoughts and also the stress levels. You will feel better both mentally and physically.

They set you up for success

Simple and positive affirmations help you to focus on all the good in your life. You would be more open to learning new things.  Your beliefs and thoughts will shift in a more positive direction. You will experience success which improves your quality of life.

Affirmations can be a refreshing way to use positivity to reverse negative messages and to motivate ourselves. The real secret of happiness is knowing that it’s an inside job. It’s about understanding that life doesn’t happen to you; it happens for you. After working on yourself and your growth, you’ll notice a high sense of self-worth or high self-esteem, and knowing you are worthy of being happy is the secret to true happiness and leading a complete and joyful life.  Download the JoyScore app to get more insights on living a Joyful life.

Mental health is the talk of the day. A mood is an affective state which is a mix of feelings and emotions. It can be positive or negative. It is affected by your nutrition intake, hours of sleep, and facial expressions.

Your mood affects your personality. Tracking your mood is a powerful way to take care of your mental health. It helps you to appropriately attend to your feelings. Everyone has mood changes throughout the day. Identifying and tracking moods can be an effective tool to ensure better mental health. You can use mood trackers to learn about yourself and your health, self-manage symptoms, and improve your quality of life.

Why should you track your mood?

Gain control of yourself

You can self-manage with good health habits by tracking your mood. You can recognize and be aware of the dangers/problems ahead of your different moods and can control those. Keeping a check on yourself encourages you to work on problem areas. Mood tracking can help you bridge the gap between your thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.

Find out what you need to get the best out of you

If you recognize your feelings, you can understand what is required to take care of yourself. You can control the outcome of your mood. If you are happy, be thankful; if you are sad, share it with a friend. You will respond intentionally rather than immediately by paying attention to your moods.

Identify the patterns and triggers

You need to understand what factors trigger your moods. Triggers are those which bring out emotions and behavioral changes. These may be physical exercise, the food you eat, the amount of sleep, interactions with others, relationships, and the external environment. It’s good to know if there is something specific contributing to a particular mood. Tracking these and making simple lifestyle changes can help you feel good.

Share your feelings with others and their impact on others

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.” ― Charlotte Bronte

Open up your inner child. Share what you feel. This can help you to recognize how other people are affecting you. If you are angry with others, create a boundary and communicate it clearly with them. Also, be grateful to others if you are happy because of them. 

Get support from a therapist/psychiatrist

You can seek out help from a therapist/psychiatrist if you are struggling to manage your emotions. They can easily assess and help you if you share the data of the mood tracker. If you can record how you are feeling throughout the day, it can help identify and guide an appropriate course of treatment.

Keeping a mood chart can tell you a lot about the timing and impact of your different moods. It is only you who can take charge of your life. Start taking note of your moods, their triggers, and patterns, you will see an amazing discovery. You can track these easily on JoyScore’s mood tracker feature and see which activities have the biggest impact on your wellbeing. Give it a try today!

Have you heard someone from your friend’s group or family talk about facing a Thyroid issue, Hypothyroidism? Have you been curious about it or are you someone who is suffering from it? If your answer is yes to any of the above questions, did you know that this issue can be managed by making subtle lifestyle changes?

Hypothyroidism is a condition where your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormones, which are required for your well being and is commonly referred to as the ‘Thyroid Issue’. It affects women more frequently than men and also among people over the age group of 60. 

The signs of hypothyroidism vary, depending on the severity of the hormone deficiency. Problems tend to develop slowly and steadily, often over some time. At first, you may not notice the symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as tiredness and weight gain. Or maybe you attribute them to getting older. But as your metabolism continues to slow, you may develop more problems like elevated blood cholesterol level, stiffness or swelling in your joints, and thinning hair.

But it is possible to live well with Hypothyroidism. Bringing about subtle lifestyle changes can help you better manage your symptoms. Here are 4 simple lifestyle changes you can habituate:

Eat a clean and balanced diet everyday

Clean eating includes a diet pattern that comprises fresh, whole foods. These are minimally processed, real foods that are close to their natural state. To keep your energy levels stable it is important to go for a balanced diet which includes, green leafy vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats. 

 Exercise Regularly

Moderate intensity workout suits the best to maintain Hypothyroidism. Overdoing it might affect the body’s ability to convert inactive thyroid hormone to the active form. If this process is hampered it can cause visible symptoms of Hypothyroidism. A brisk morning walk or a jog and yoga is recommended. You can try different and simple activities on the JoyScore app as well.  

Meditate for Hypothyroidism

Having a chronic disease, even if it is monitored by the doctor, can be stressful and might do much harm than good. Hence, it is suggested, we take control of our well being by striving for a balanced state of mind. Being in a meditative state helps raise our awareness towards our inner self as well as our surroundings. It consciously helps in reducing the stress that we face in our day to day lives. JoyScore is an app which can help you reach this meditative stage by raising your awareness towards your inner self. 

 Practice restorative sleep habits

Hypothyroidism can make you feel tired all the time. But having a schedule and sticking to it helps a lot. Sleeping at a particular time and waking up early every day- including the weekends, can help you drift off easily at night. Have a warm tea before you sleep as it helps relax your mind and sleep quickly. 

 Joyscore can aid you with implementing these changes through guided meditation, breathing, sleep management, and stress reduction tools. With the help of such activities and games in the app, you may be able to maintain or even reverse thyroid. With JoyScore, you can enhance your living and lead a joyful life. Download the app now.