Photo: Courtesy of Harmony Books

Before a run or jog, does your typical warm-up involve queuing up a fast-tempo playlist and setting the volume level to "block-out-the-world"?

There's nothing wrong with that, but for variety's sake, you might want to try tuning in to a different kind of audio during your next workout--like your breathing, and the sound of your feet hitting the ground, and the swish of your arms. Sakyong Mipham, the Tibetan lama and leader of the Shambhala Buddhism community, is (naturally) a strong advocate of this kind of in-the-moment workout. The Sakyong (his title means "the king" in Tibetan) may spend a fair amount of time on a prayer mat, but he's also an athlete who has completed nine and a half marathons, and his recently-published book, Running With the Mind of Meditation, serves as a guide for integrating elements of meditation into the physical act of running.

Basically, the Sakyong advocates tuning into how the run makes us feel (even if the answer is, "pretty crappy"), and claims this will help strengthen powers of concentration, bring clarity and calm to our day, and might even bring us a little closer to enlightenment. Considering the Sakyong's fitness level and appearance (he's nearing 50, but looks much younger, as you can see in the photo to the left), he's definitely on to something, whether it be running, meditation, or doing both at once.

We figured that it might be kind of tricky to skim the Sakyong's book while pounding the pavement, so we asked him to create a mini-meditation that you can listen to on your computer while stretching, on your iPhone while you're on the road. As the Sakyong says, "Let's go for a meditative run."

Keep reading:
Meditate while you work out
More mini meditations you can incorporate into your day

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Berries bring us back to the carefree summer afternoons of our childhood--that is, unless you happened to spend a summer picking berries on a farm, like a friend of ours did (he's doesn't look back on those days with quite the same amount of fondness).

The rest of us will be delighted to hear about a new long-term study showing that berries don't only play a role in the creation of happy memories, but they can also help us hold on to them. Research published in the journal Annals of Neurology explains that women who ate strawberries and blueberries more frequently over a period of time showed slower decline in memory and attention as they got older than those who at them less often. This welcome research suggests that the tasty fruits may play a role in keeping aging brains healthy.

Based on this study, the sooner you start eating berries, the better it will be for your brain. Fortunately, this year's early spring means that strawberries already growing in the South. Pop them plain, or try one of these berry-centric recipes:

Start your day with a Blueberry Brain Boost Smoothie
Make Arugula with Berries and Feta for lunch
Mix Balsamic Strawberries into a dinner salad, or serve on top of chicken
Surprise someone with a dessert of Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

Keep reading:
More ways to keep your brain young

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While extreme pizzas with quadruple formaggis and cheeseburger crusts are practically a health hazard, there's reason to believe that a piece of traditional pie may actually be good for you, especially if you ask for extra tomato sauce and sprinkle on the herbs. We've known that tomatoes are packed with vitamin C, folate, potassium, and lycopene, which may reduce risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer. And now, the spotlight is on oregano, which researchers at Long Island University are calling the next "super-spice" because of its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as new evidence that compounds in oregano may be able to destroy cancer cells. This news calls for a party! Who's in for a slice?

Photo: Thinkstock

Take a look at your lunch. You probably think it's pretty good for you, right? Well, yes, there's a burger on your plate, but you had a light breakfast, so you're starving. And hey, you skipped the cheese (which you really wanted) and got a side salad instead of fries. With the iron-packed beef and low-cal greens, your lunch is a respectable B+ -- to you, at least. Your coworker would probably give it a C at best, especially as they tuck into their salad (which, you've noticed, is covered with croutons--don't they realize how fattening those are?). This is because others tend to find our unhealthy eating to be more detrimental than we do. Overall, 72 percent of foods are rated healthier by the eater than by everyone else--for example, an observer would rate your burger 2.8 times less healthy than you would.

These nuggets are from a compelling series of infographics from the makers of a food-tracking iPhone app called The Eatery (see them all here, and learn more about the app at www.massivehealth.com). There are lots of interesting facts about what, when, where and how we eat, compiled using crowd-sourced data that included 7.68 million food ratings by Eatery users from over 50 countries, but what we found most interesting had to do with perception. Not only do we think we eat better than others think we do, but we tend to have some interesting ideas about good and bad foods: half of the Eatery users considered coffee to be "unhealthy" (they must not have had a chance to read the latest pro-joe research) and 1 in 5 think diet soda is "healthy" (it has fewer calories that regular soda, but since when is artificial sweetener "healthy"?!).

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Boot camps and sculpting classes will whip you into shape and make you feel sore from head to toe. Despite their thoroughness, even these exercise programs tend to ignore a key muscle group--and that's a huge deal, because this area can cause embarrassing and frustrating problems. We're talking about the pelvic floor, and even if you're not familiar with it, if you suffer from incontinence, you know what weak pelvic muscles can do (or, um, not do).

Pelvic floor training, or doing regular exercises designed to strengthen the pelvic muscles, can be effective in curing urinary incontinence--and has far less side effects than the other popular treatment of estrogen therapy, concludes a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Best of all, you don't need a gym membership or a set of weights to do these exercises, although you might benefit from a session with a women's health physical therapist who can help you develop a regimen. With approximately a quarter of young women and up to 57 percent of middle-aged and postmenopausal women having these kinds of problems, it's never too early add pelvic workouts into your fitness routine. To start, make sure you're practicing Kegels correctly, and then challenge yourself with these more advanced pelvic clocks.    

Keep reading:
Physical therapy for your lady parts
The two exercises every woman should be doing

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For many of us, Tax Day (tomorrow, April 17) is like this big, stressful stain on a month otherwise colored cherry-blossom pink and arbor green. The anxiety starts in January with that first W2 form in the mail. But tax-related stress can induce more than just snapping at the dog and tearing apart the house for any leftover chocolate Easter eggs. Here are two more reasons to squeeze in some restorative yoga, a brisk walk or some other proven stress-reducer tomorrow:

1. Filing may lead to distracted driving: A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the risk of fatal car crashes goes up on Tax Day. The researchers examined 30 years of data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and found that there were 6 percent more car crashes on days when taxes were due than on days that fell one week before or one week later. Scientists at the University of Toronto told Time magazine that, "Stressful deadlines lead to driver distraction and short-term human error...Other reasons could include sleep deprivation, inadvertent distractions and less tolerance towards hassles on tax day." Try to get to bed early tonight, and be extra-vigilant on the roads tomorrow.
2. Taxes can make you sneeze: It's not just the pollen level; it's your anxiety level. While there's no proof that stress triggers allergies, it's been shown to exacerbate their symptoms, says Sakina Bajowala, a board-certified allergist and immunologist with a private practice in North Aurora, Illinois. Make sure you're already taking your allergy meds, and bring tissues with you to the post office or the accountant's office. (Check out Dr. Bajowala's advice for dealing with seasonal allergies). 

If the stress is unbearable this year, remember that you can always file for a 6-month extension.

Keep reading:
5 ways to cope with money stress
Simple ways to calm down

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Eating right is all about making healthy choices. You choose to have almonds instead of M&Ms, seltzer instead of 7-Up, yogurt instead of a Twinkie. Right? Wrong! At least, if you're keeping an eye on your sugar intake (and who isn't, especially after the recent news reports linking sugar not only to obesity but also to type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease?).

The Huffington Post's Healthy Living section has an eye-opening slideshow about foods that contain more sugar than a Twinkie. The one that really threw us for a fruit-loop wasn't kids' cereal but yogurt, that calcium-rich, go-to treat for for nutritionists, athletes and the nutrition-obsessed everywhere. HuffPo reports that an 8-ounce container of vanilla yogurt can have around 31 grams of sugar, while a 6-ounce container of the fruit-flavored kind can have around 32 grams. That's almost almost double the amount in a spongey, "cream"-filled snack cake!

But before you toss that tub, check the nutritional info, as sugar and portion sizes vary widely. For example, we found that that amount of sugar in Stonyfield Farms yogurt seems to increase in inverse proportion to the fat content: for French vanilla flavor, the non-fat had 17 grams, low-fat had 21 grams, and whole milk had 22 grams--more than a Twinkie, but less than the unspecified brands of yogurts HuffPo was referring to. Their slideshow did include this great piece of advice: When in doubt, or if nutrition info isn't readily available, go for Greek yogurt, which naturally has less sugar because of the straining process used to give it that thick, rich consistency. (Check out the slideshow to find out what other foods are more sugary than Twinkies--and let us know if any of these surprised you).

Photo: Thinkstock

It's not a good year for those who suffer from seasonal allergies: an early spring meant that trees released their pollen ahead of schedule (official recording of the levels doesn't start until April), which triggered itchy eyes and runny noses as early as February.

But it's really not a good year for allergy sufferers who happen to live in Knoxville, Tennessee—recently ranked as the most challenging place to live with hay fever by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). These rankings of the 100 largest US metro areas are based on pollen scores, number of allergy meds used per patient, and number of allergy specialists per patient. You can see the full list, and find out where your city ranked, by checking out the AAFA's web site. You may also want to head over to Weather.com, which has some interesting explanations of how cities broke into the top ten--for example, Louisville, Kentucky (#3 on the list) is plagued by poor air quality, and air pollution tends to exacerbate allergy symptoms.

Are you already sick of sneezing (and the season has just begun!)? Maybe you're taking your antihistamines at the wrong time, or maybe you just need a little more practice with the neti pot. Read more about these and other doctor-recommended allergy busters: 6 Reasons You're Still Suffering from Allergies

You wouldn't be able to pick Naomi Kutin out of a line-up at the yogurt place at the mall. Sure, she's trim, with strong little legs...but you'd still never suspect that this wide-eyed 10-year-old is a weight-lifting champion who just broke the women's world record for squatting (that's women's record, not girls). Naomi, who's been training for years, recently lifted 215 pounds (over double her weight of 93!)--watch the NBC sports video to see how the pint-sized powerhouse was able to do this. On her Facebook page, Naomi says she's now focused on a bench press and deadlift contest the end of April. We hope it's only a matter of time before she starts training to lift cars off of trapped elderly people in order to hurl them at villains.



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