Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #10 Be Honest

Be Honest: I think that of all the ways I have said can help you live a better life, this one is the hardest by far and I will tell you why. We all think of ourselves as honest, but in the end are we really? Are you really honest to your partner everyday. How about your boss or your kids? What is even harder is being honest with ourselves. I know I am not honest with myself everyday, and if I can't people honest with myself who can I be honest with? I tell myself it is ok that I said that mean comment, or its not my fault that this or that happened, but really that is not the truth. Most things that happen to me in a negative way in the day our overall my fault in the end, cause maybe I put myself in that situation or I started the whole ball rolling. In reality, we can only expect so many reactions from our own behavior. If I start out being disrespectful can I really expect you to be respectful back? Should I really eat that fourth donut, or drink that fifth soda, no but I tell myself its ok this one time. So really truly try to be honest with yourself. You will thank yourself in the end, I really do think so. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/is-honesty-the-best-policy.html

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #9

Do Something You Love: In my opinion, life is not complete unless you enjoy what you do in it. It does not have to be your career, though that would be best, but at least spend some time each day doing something that you love to do. http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2011/03/03/how-loving-your-job-helps-you-succeed As for me, I do not do what I love for my job but include what I love in everyday things. For example, I love to watch movies and would love to be a movie critic, but of course I am not, but I still enjoy movies as often as I can. I also love to read books and dream of some day being a full time writer, creating stories that people love to read and talk about. I also do my best to be involved in charities, my true passion is helping the world through activism and volunteering, so I do all that I can with in spare time. Spending my spare time on something that I love gives me great pleasure and makes me much happier, allowing me to also enjoy the rest of my life even more. http://stress.about.com/od/funandgames/a/The-Importance-Of-Hobbies-For-Stress-Relief.htm So please find something you love to do.

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #8

Be Thankful: I know it is easy to get wrapped up in how hard life is, what we don't have, or unfair things can seem. Overall though, most of us have everything we really need to live and we should be grateful for that. Most of us do not go to bed hungry, we have a roof over our head, and people that love us. You do not really need the superficial items that you think you do. I understand that you want them and most times deserve them, but overall they most likely are not what will make you the happiest in the end. Being thankful and appreciating all the good that you have in your life will. http://understandingyoursubconsciousmind.com/why-should-you-be-grateful/ Here are some fun Scientific reasons why we should all be thankful to be alive today. http://www.science20.com/truth_universally_acknowledged/20_reasons_be_thankful_medical_advances

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #7

Laugh: They say that laughter really is the best medicine,(http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200504/laughter-the-best-medicine) but I am not a doctor, so I can't claim it is true, though I can say that laughter makes me feel better. In my experience, laughing has always made a bad/sad situation or day feel at least a little bit better. Plus, laughter releases dopamine which is good for brain function and makes you feel good. http://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20031203/funny-thing-about-humor-brain. So come on, try it out.....go rent a funny movie or read a good book that will make you laugh, it won't hurt you to try ;)

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #6

Be Positive: I will be honest, this one can be difficult to pull off at times. Life is challenging and not always fair. And honestly, some people and experiences can just suck. But the power of postitive thinking has its place in the world and really can benefit you emotionally and physically : http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/positive-thinking/SR00009 You may not believe in it, but it really would not hurt to just try it out for a week to see for yourself. Truthfully though, most people would rather be around a person who has a positive attitude than anegative one. So let's try to be better people here and bring out our positivity! http://www.self-improvement-advice.org/power-of-positive-thinking.html

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #5

Relax and breath: Most people are stressed out and just need to relax and take a deep breath. Simple 5 minute breathing exercises can be done throughout the day and are beneficial in so many ways. Here is a website with and expert on breathing exercises and thier benefits: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00521/three-breathing-exercises.html Try it, you feel the benefits immediatly and if you continue to do them, you should begin to feel much happier. http://www.onepowerfulword.com/2010/10/18-benefits-of-deep-breathing-and-how.html

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #4

4. Get Enough sleep: I love sleep. I think it is pretty safe to say that we all love sleep, but most of us get too little sleep or maybe even too much. Sleep is important for your health and happiness http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221,00.html Most of us want to get a good nights rest but cannot or find sleep to be difficult. Here are some tips to help you get a more restful night’s sleep http://www.wikihow.com/Sleep-Better

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #3

3. Exercise: We all know we should exercise. All of us. There are no excuses, NONE. I am a busy person too, I understand that life is hectic, but everyone has 15 minutes a day to do something. Go for a walk, do sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks while you watch TV, play games outside with your kids, anything that requires a little physical activity. Anything is better than nothing. http://www.prevention.com/fitness/fitness-tips/fitness-25-fast-and-easy-ways-fit-10-minutes-exercise Plus not only do you benefit health wise from exercise, it has multiple benefits to your well being, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/slideshows/7-mind-blowing-benefits-of-exercise and in the end you will be happier. You may think you don’t have time or can’t, but we all know it’s just BS and we have to get off our butts and just do it.

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: #2

2. Eat Right: Another thing we learned as kids, you remember the food pyramid, well they did not preach it to us for no good reason. If you eat healthy, you will feel better and be happier. I’m not saying you have to suffer, I love sweets more than any other food and will always eat them, just eat sensibly. My three best pieces of advice are: 1) Try to drink as little soda as possible, and cut out all diet soda, artificial sweeteners are worse for you than sugar, 2) try to cut High Fructose Corn Syrup (the food devil) out of your diet, 3) and Try to cut down on red meat, it is really not the best for you and is also bad for the environment. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/

Tammy’s Common Sense Ways to Live a Better Life: Be Nice!!

1. Be Nice: Treat others as you would like to be treated. We learn this motto at a young age, but still today I know many adults who never learned, forgot, or choose not to live this way. I know life can be hard and some people can suck, but I do know that generally if you are nice to others, they will be nice back. So come on, give it a try and see what happens. http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-research

10 Steps to Being Happier!

Hi Everyone, I have not written in a while, and will do a better job of posting from now on. I am one of those people that believe that we are the key to our own happiness. I have found, in my own experiences, that there are 10 simple steps to leading a happier life. I will list them here and in the next couple of weeks I will post more information for each one seperately. I hope that they work for you. 1) Be Nice -- Really, we just all need to learn to be nice to one another 2) Eat Right -- We all know that eating healthy makes us feel better 3) Exercise -- Again, everyone knows that a little exercise is beneficial in many ways 4) Get Enough Sleep -- Another no brainer, we all need our sleep 5) Smile and Be Positive -- I know it can be hard, but it does make you happier 6) Be Honest -- To ourselves and others, in the end it benefits everyone 7) Laugh Everyday -- There is the saying that laughter is the best medicine 8) Be Thankful -- Some days may suck, but we all have things to be thankful for 9) Do Something You love -- Doing things you love is bound to make you smile 10) Breath Deep -- There are known health benefits to breathing excercises I will bring you more on each of these in the near future. In the mean time, try a few out for yourself. At least one of them should make you happier:)

Calorie Counting:

I am writing this post today, because my husband watched this documentary on PBS (Eat, Fast and Live Longer with Michael Mosley, http://www.wptschedule.org/detail.php?epid=76916) about how limiting calories or fasting might actually be good for you. I have never counted calories in my life, cause honestly I have never had to, but I was curious what I would come up with if I did. So I found a website to help http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ which had everything that I wanted and was free :) and put in all my information for one day. I was not really surprised to learn that I naturally limit my calorie intake, but not because I don't eat ;) I love food! But because I mostly eat healthy food. Though I will be straight forward. Most people would not or will not eat like me because it is not easy, though I have not always ate this way I will tell you it is worth it. I am healthier now than I have ever been on my life, and I am just an average 33 year old. I ran cross country in High School, ten years ago I was in the military (I was in great shape during Basic Training, but am in better shape now), I ran a marathon 3 years ago (still in better shape now, all because of how I eat, I swear by that, it is all that is different in my life. I use to not care what I eat and could eat whatever I want, but like most people as you get older you start to add pounds. A year and a half ago I decided to change what I ate, but I only changed 5 things, but they are big things: I limit myself to only one, maybe two sugary drinks a week and I only drink soda that does not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup or Artifical sweetners, only good old sugar; I do not eat anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup or Artifical sweetners, again only sugar (I really think that this is key to being healthy); I do not eat food with Hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil; I try to eat mostly organic fruit, though it is hard to find where I live and more expensive, but at least try to get organic apples and berries, most important I feel; And last I try to eat as little beef as possible, I choose fish, poultry or pork first. There you go, and it may seem annoying or hard at first, but you get into a habit of doing it, like reading all labels, and then it does not seem that bad after all. Plus I really do feel that your body will thank you. I am glad I did I lost weight, I have more energy, and my metabolish increase. So just give it a try for a couple of weeks and see what you think, it can't hurt. Oh and one more thing, that I would like to add, I only eat out once a week and do not eat at very unhealty fast food places, but I never did that before. I do feel that it is not healthy to eat out all the time or eat at fast food places, so I would eliminate that too. Well good luck and let me know how it goes!

Loved Jack Reacher!

I love movies! I could sit on my couch all day watching them. Growing up my dream job was being a movie critic, but that dream never came true :( Well life goes on. I will every once in a while give you my best short critic on movies I have seen. This one is about the movie "Jack Reacher". I love action movies! This one was not a disapointment. I know some of you may not want to see it because of Tom Cruise, and I can understand that, but you might want to give it a try. Tom Cruise does an excellent job playing the calm, not likely, kick-ass hero. Also, the story is a great one. He investigates a a set of murders that of course has a twist, so do yourself a favor and rent this movie when it comes out, or if you are lucky you can still see it in budget cinema. http://www.jackreachermovie.com/mobile.html

Tarot Card Readings

Hello Everyone! So I know this post might be a little out there for some people, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on this today. I have always been curious about Astrology, Tarot Cards, Psychics, etc. and have read many things about them, have my own tarot deck and have paid for a psychic reading, I know crazy right. Well, I do all of this for fun, not to make huge life decisions and find it to sometimes just give me a nudge in the right direction. I wanted to share a fun website that will give you a free online tarot card reading, or numerology reading to just let you have some fun today and maybe help us all be a little more spontaneous and believe in the forces of our universe :) http://www.free-tarot-reading.net/free.php

Happy Music!

I did not have the best day today and need a little music pick me up. I don't know about you but good music always brightens up my day! Here are youtube links to my favorite Happy songs! Share yours! My absolute favorite song of all time: "Man In The Mirror" : http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQAie8ABLE My cutest song of all time: "You Don't Know You're Beautiful" " http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F#/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E" My new cant hear this enough song: "Madness" "http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F#/watch?v=Ek0SgwWmF9w" I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do :)

Click to Donate

I will be adding many things to this blog over the next few weeks to get it going, but first I would like to share with you some simple and free ways to help out charities.  I for one think that we all should be as charitable as we can be.  Most of us really have more than we need and there are many out there who do not have enough and need some help and the systems out there and the world in general is not out there to help the little guy but the big rich guy.  So I do what I can when I can, and I am sure that I do not do enough, but doing something is a start and better than nothing.  Every day I log onto a few websites and click for charity.  And they really do donate money to charity.  I checked.  So here they are and please log onto them every day to help out others in need!

http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/ths/home

 

My favorite one, I use it for many things, including the email J, is:

http://www.care2.com/

 

http://clicktogive.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

One site that leads to you multiple click for charity sites:

http://www.oneclickatatime.org/

 

 

 

 

 

And a few more that have multiple links to other click to donate sites:

http://www.cleanbreath.org/

http://www.dailyvisits.com/daily.html

In General this is how they work:

When you click on their donation button it redirects you to a thank you page with advertising banners for sponsors.  They corporate sponsors agree to pay a certain amount of money each time the ad is displayed.  And the good PR is great for them. 

Who I am and Why I want to blog!

Hello to Everyone reading this!  My name is Tammy and I have decided to write a blog, not because I think every one wants to hear what I have to say, but because I wanted to create an organized blog full of useful, common sense information for every day life.  I have many interests and hobbies : Running, reading, writing, watching movies, baking, knitting, Tarot card reading, Charities, and much more.  I hope that this blog will bring all my many interests together, and eventually adding some of yours into one place that most people can find helpful in some way.  I am the kind of person that wants short bursts of information with links to find out more if I want. So, I will not talk in length, but will give you the facts then add links that you might find useful.  I am open to suggestions and hope to someday add some of your posts too!  I hope you come back often and bring friends.  I look forward to hearing from you, but be warned, I will not be mean in this blog and hope that you all will also follow  in that manner, or some posts may have to be deleted.  Remember treat others as you would like to be treated :)