Your health: How to make life changes
Roll with the changes
Breaking old habits and creating new ones doesn't happen overnight. While it takes time, energy and commitment, you can enjoy some benefits fairly quickly.
The Harvard Medical School has come up with five suggestions to help promote long-lasting change.
1. Dream big. It's OK to have a goal of competing in a marathon or triathlon or wanting to lose 50 pounds. With perseverance, encouragement and support, you can do it.
2. Break those big goals into small steps, which can build your confidence to tackle — and succeed at — more difficult tasks.
3. Understand why you shouldn't make a change. It's important to grasp why you're sticking to old habits and routines.
4. Commit yourself. Make yourself accountable through a written or verbal promise to people you don't want to let down.
5. Give yourself a medal. Encourage yourself to keep at it by pausing to acknowledge success as you tick off small and big steps en route to a goal.
Tech gear
Tech companies are stepping it up when it comes to pedometers, according to The Washington Post.
Triathlon training has been revolutionized by GPS-enabled heart-rate monitors (from $200) made by Garmin and other manufacturers. The devices provide tons of information to digest about your sports performance. If your goal is to lose weight, however, you'll probably be more interested in the Bodybugg ($165-$219), BodyMedia Fit ($199-$260) and Fitbit ($99).
The first two are armbands that measure movement and level of intensity. The simpler Fitbit clips to your clothes and estimates activity. You can also link to smartphone apps.
Battling bedbugs
The nation's bedbug resurgence has gotten to the point that even the federal government is getting involved.
The Federal Bed Bug Work Group will host its second national summit Feb. 1-2 in Washington, D.C, The Washington Post reports, to brainstorm ideas on how to deal with the tiny bloodsuckers.
The summit is open to the public and will focus on ways agencies in the federal government, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Defense and Commerce, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can control the itch-inducing pests.
Bedbugs have been showing up in apartment buildings, college dorms, luxury hotels, movie theaters, retail stores and office buildings throughout the country.