Smart Living Tips

 

Measuring heart rate gives very important information about your health. Any change from normal heart rate can indicate a medical condition. It can help determine if the patient's heart is still pumping particularly in emergency situation.

The pulse measurement has another use as well. During exercise or immediately after exercise, the heart rate can give information about your cardiovascular fitness level and health. To receive the complete benefits of workout, you need to stay in your working heart rate range for at least 20 to 30 minutes continuously. Therefore, proper pacing during exercise is important.

There are three different heart rates which you should keep in mind:

Resting Heart Rate

This is a person's heart rate at rest. The best time to find out your resting heart rate is after sitting quietly for a while or before you get out of bed after a good night sleep. The normal resting heart rate is about 60 to 80 beats a minute when we are at rest. Resting heart rate usually rises with age, but generally lowers in physically fit people. Moreover, resting heart rate is used to determine one's training target heart rate and to find out if you are over-trained.

Working Heart Rate

Working heart rates let you measure your initial fitness level and monitor your progress in a fitness program. This approach requires measuring your pulse periodically as you workout and staying within 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. The table below shows estimated target heart rates for different ages.

Working Heart Rate Range
Chart Beats Per Minute (BPM)

Resting Heart Rate	Age
	30 & Under	31-40	41-45	46-50	51-55	56-60	61-65	Over 65
50-51	140-190	130-190	130-180	120-170	120-170	120-160	110-150	110-150
52-53	140-190	130-190	130-180	120-170	120-170	120-160	110-150	110-150
54-56	140-190	130-190	130-180	120-170	120-170	120-160	110-150	110-150
57-58	140-190	130-190	130-180	130-170	120-170	120-160	110-150	110-150
59-61	140-190	140-190	130-180	130-170	120-170	120-160	110-150	110-150
62-63	140-190	140-190	130-180	130-170	120-170	120-160	120-150	110-150
64-66	140-190	140-190	130-180	130-170	130-170	120-160	120-150	110-150
67-68	140-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	120-160	120-150	110-150
69-71	150-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	120-160	120-150	120-150
72-73	150-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
74-76	150-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
77-78	150-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
79-81	150-190	140-190	140-180	130-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
82-83	150-190	140-190	140-180	140-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
84-86	150-190	150-190	140-180	140-170	130-170	130-160	120-150	120-150
87-88	150-190	150-190	140-180	140-170	130-170	130-160	130-150	120-150

Recovery Heart Rate

One way to determine if you are gaining the benefits from exercise is to calculate your Recovery Heart Rate, a measure of how quickly you return to your resting heart rate after a workout. Nevertheless, the heart rate is a convenient and reliable indicator of the intensity of your exercise. It is good to monitor it so that you can adjust depending on your fitness level and the goals you want to achieve by exercising. Thus, heart rate monitoring brings benefits to all levels of users.

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Fatigue, insomnia, headaches, sore muscles, cold limbs … etc. All these are common stress symptoms amongst the busy city-dwellers with a hectic lifestyle.

But how these symptoms occur?

From some medical research findings, one of the causes of these illnesses is the accumulation of acidic toxins. These acidic toxins come from the positive ions released by the usage and presence of electrical home appliances, mobiles and industrial wastes around us. In order to tackle these acid toxins, alkaline negative ions are necessary as a neutralizer to balance off the environment, facilitate blood circulation and raising body temperatures to enhance metabolism.

Negative ions mostly present in the natural environment like the soil and water. Mountains and forests contain the most negative ions and that is one of the reasons why we feel relaxed and relieved when we go hiking or visit to the suburb on the weekends or holiday. So next time when you feel tired and cannot sleep well, take a break, go under a tree, take some deep breathes, it may help reduce your stress ...

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Here are 10 simple energy and power saving tips helping you to save money, reduce your carbon footprint and to live a more eco friendly life.

Make sure you are not standing by
The average family can save 150kg of CO2 a year just by turning things off? Appliances left in standby mode account for around 10% of UK household energy use - so unplug devices when not in use. You will also save you around £40 per year.

Energy efficient lighting
In most homes, lighting accounts for 10 to 15% of the electricity bill Switch to low energy and energy saving light bulbs - you'll be amazed at the difference, and at how much you can save (about 80% of the energy of normal bulbs, actually).

Rechargeable Batteries
In the UK we throw away over 650 million batteries every year, polluting the soil and filling landfill sites. Rechargeable batteries save energy and the slightly higher cost is recovered in the first five charges. Recharging costs are also minimal.

Turn down you Washing Machine
Washing your clothes at 30 degrees instead of 40 degrees reduces electricity consumption on average by 41%

Only fill your kettle with what you need
At first glance, the idea of only putting the water you need to use into the kettle seems pretty finicky as, boiling an electric kettle to make a cup of tea only requires about 0.03125kWh of electricity and generates around 0.015kg CO2.

However, according to the UK Tea Council, as a nation we guzzle 165m cups of tea and 70m cups of coffee each day. If, as some figures suggest, we habitually boil twice as much water as we need, we could be needlessly wasting some 3,525 tonnes of CO2 every day

 

Have a shower not a bath
If everyone in the UK swapped just one daily bath for a five-minute shower, the water saved would supply the annual water needs of over 15000 households .

Even if you forgo the luxury of a bath in favour of a shower just once a week, you can save about 30kg of CO2 emissions


Put on a Jumper
When wearing a jumper you can turn the heating down. Lowering your thermostat by just 1.5C can save up to 10% on heating bills and reduce the greenhouse gases your household produces by up to a tonne.

Also don't forget to regularly bleed your radiators to get rid of inefficient air bubbles.

 

How about a solar powered or wind up alternative?
Why not switch to a solar powered or wind up household gadget. It’s the little things that add up. Why not check out our new solar powered clocks and weather stations

Close your curtains
Close your curtains or window shades during the night to keep in heat and open them during the day to let the sun warm your room and reduce heating needs. In the winter, opening curtains and shades in the day can let in sunshine and heat up your home. Closing curtains at night will prevent some heat from escaping and will reduce the chill from windows.

Turn off your tumble dryer
Household appliances that give off heat such as tumble dryers, use lots of electricity. Whenever you can hang your clothes outside to dry. Turning off the tumble-dryer is a 100% energy saving solution. ...