Camp Your Way to a Healthy Life!

For those of you who love camping, I’m sure you don’t need a reason to plan your next outdoor adventure. For those of you who have thought about camping but aren’t sure what all the hype is about — check out some of the benefits it could have on your health!

camping tent on cliff during golden hour
Photo by Jack Sloop on Unsplash

Stress Relief
Many of us are living life running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We are all just trying to make it through the work week. We have multiple obligations that keep us rushing home, rushing through activities and rushing through life. It’s time to catch a 5-minute break.
Camping is basically a break for the duration of your trip! The great thing about camping is you are exposed to the fresh air. Oxygen releases serotonin in your brain– the chemical that boosts your happiness and mood– therefore leaving you feeling more relaxed. Stress can take a toll on our health in all sorts of ways, so seizing every opportunity to relieve us of it is crucial. Pack your bags, the relaxation train is headed to the campground!

silhouette photo of three person near tall trees
Photo by photo-nic.co.uk nic on Unsplash

Exercise
It is certainly no secret how important physical activity is for our health and overall well-being. Camping involves lots of exercise! You exercise even in preparation for your time away. Hiking equipment to a campsite can be a tad awkward due to the size/shape of tents and other gear, essentially forcing you to utilize muscle and get some cardio going. When you’re outside with no television or video games, you wind up spending most of your trip walking, hiking, fishing, etc., which all involve moderate to extreme exercise. Again, exercise is a serotonin booster, so you’re likely to feel exhilirated instead of run-down and sluggish like we can often feel throughout our normal routines.

reflection photo of trees

 

Clear Your Mind
Some people use yoga and meditation to clear their minds and relieve tensions. Others claim that just taking a long walk in nature will do the trick. All of these things are good for resetting your brain and revitalizing your quality of life. Camping can (figuratively and literally) bring you back down to Earth. When you’re out of your home, you’re not worrying about cleaning the house, doing dishes, doing laundry or keeping anything organized. All you have to worry about is exploring, playing and maybe the occasional wild animal. 😉

person standing in rock on forest during daytime

Take Away Those Distractions
Leave the electronics at home! Get back in tune with yourself, nature, your friends, your family. Camping is one of the easiest ways to leave distractions behind and enjoy the company you have, even if your only company is yourself. It brings us into a simpler time and simpler environment, making our emotions simpler as well.

Gather your friends, family and/or dogs, and head for the hills! Make sure to visit our website and check out our new camping/lake designs to wear on your adventure!

5 Ways to Laugh

Is laughter, really the best medicine?

What better time to delve into this age-old question then now with International Moment of Laughter Day coming up this April 14th. The day was created with a very simple intent; to encourage people to laugh. How does one laugh? It’s an involuntary reaction to certain external or internal stimuli. It could be a joke, a story, thought, or physical reaction to being tickled – the possibilities are endless as to what could make you laugh.

To get your celebration started here are 5 of our top ways to create a giggle:

  1. Hang out with your pet. There is no way to be around a dog or cat (or any pet) for long and not laugh. Don’t have a pet? Let us introduce you to quite possibly the funniest animal video on YouTube (in our opinion).
  2. Learn to laugh at yourself! Running late to work and miss the yellow light turning red? No worries.. just gives you more time to turn up the radio, have a dance party and laugh at yourself! Don’t take life so seriously.
  3. Sign up for a joke of the day to be delivered right to your inbox! We like A Joke A Day but any would get the job done! Be ready for dad jokes that will make you chuckle and probably roll your eyes. If you don’t want an email a day, a desk calendar of your favorite cartoon or quotes is a great daily way to laugh, too! (I have a Dilbert day to day – forgot how funny this comic is!)
  4. Befriend a funny person. You should have at least one person in your day to day life that makes you laugh. Go seek them out when you need a pick me up. If there is someone that has a quick way with words, a unique outlook or just a great sense of humor, befriend them, immediately.
  5. Do something that makes you laugh. This one seems easy, but when is the last time you REALLY belly laughed?! What were you doing at the time? Go do that again. Unless it was a misfortunate incident with laundry or something of the like. (Did you laugh? Okay I tried…)

Laughing has shown to increase the blood flow in our physical makeup (by taking in huge gulps of extra oxygen!), lead to reduction in stress and to also release endorphins. So, while you may still need to go to the doctor for the flu, perhaps catching up on the joke of the day is what you need to turn your day around. Our Live Happy shirt on sale now is sure to stem positive feelings anytime you wear it.

Inspire yourself (and others!) in the New Year

The new year is knocking on our door. And now’s the time you’re probably thinking about the things you want to change in your life during the next 365 days. Maybe you want to eat healthier. Exercise more. Plan your meals or make your bed every day. A resolution is all about words you want to live by — making a firm decision about something you will or will not do, and usually, it’s something that you hope will make you a better, stronger person in the year ahead.

Continue reading Inspire yourself (and others!) in the New Year

Protect your workplace against the flu

It’s fall, and we hope you’re planning all of your favorite things right now — decorating with fodder shocks, painting pumpkins, picking apples and getting lost in corn mazes.

You can enjoy none of them, though, if you’ve got the dreaded flu, which also rears its ugly head this time of year. This highly contagious respiratory illness is caused by viruses that infect the nose, throat, and sometimes lungs. It can be mild or severe, and, in some cases, lead to death.

Continue reading Protect your workplace against the flu

Don’t let your desk job kill you: Stretch to stay healthy

If you’re reading this while sitting behind your desk at work, there’s a good chance some not-so-great things are happening to your body right at this moment.

You + 85% of America’s workforce.

Desk work is a necessary evil for millions of Americans, but sitting doesn’t have to kill you — though experts say doing it for 8 hours a day most certainly can. Increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels, not to mention the strains you put on your neck, shoulder and back muscles, are all byproducts of working for a living behind a desk.

Continue reading Don’t let your desk job kill you: Stretch to stay healthy

Strategies for achieving work-life balance that’s best for you

With the constant presence of technology in our lives — smartphones, computers and tablets that deliver notifications at any time of the day — it’s easy to remain attached to your job well beyond closing time.

And it can happen with the best of intentions. At first, you decide to respond to just one e-mail. Shouldn’t take too long, right? But then that e-mail turns into an hour of responding to e-mail. Then you get lost in a spreadsheet a coworker, who’s also burning the midnight oil, has questions about. Before you know it, your family has long been asleep and you’ve allowed yourself to be virtually on-call 24 hours a day.

Continue reading Strategies for achieving work-life balance that’s best for you