Nutrition Corner

Why Grocers Should Elevate Health & Wellness Benefits in Private Label: Customers are paying particular attention to nutritional benefits in store brands.

How to Start Eating Healthier: 13 Attainable Tips From a Registered Dietitian: What does it really mean to “eat healthy,” to follow a “balanced diet,” to make “smart nutrition choices”?

Recipe for The Day

The Best Hash Brown Recipe, According To Our Food Editor - The Secret: After one bite, we knew we had a winner. These hash browns were incredibly crispy...and not just the edges—every single bite! Julia snuck some matchstick carrots into the potato mixture, then blew my socks off with a punchy, springy topping of feta, mint, dill, and chives. Mint and hash browns? You bet your biscuits! Combined with a fried egg, it was absolute breakfast heaven.

Lifestyle & Fitness Focus

4 ways meditation boosts brain power

• Meditation improves concentration and attention: If you have a mind that wanders too often, try meditating for a few minutes every day. A 2013 randomized invesitation, the effect of a 2-week mindfulness meditation training course was examined. The result showed improvement in GRE reading comprehension scores of the subjects, as well as their mempry capacity. Meditation was essentially found to help control the mind from distractions.

• Slows down brain ageing: Research says that a person’s brain begins to deteriorate in volume and weight in the mid-20s. These changes can trigger the onset to functional problems or an increase in the risk of neurogenerative issues. Meditation has found to have a positive effect on cerebral well-being. A 2015 study cited in the Frontiers in Psychology journal, looked into brain-related atrophy and the impact of meditation. It found that age-related gray matter loss was less pronounced in meditators.

• Meditation can impact brain structure: Believe it or not, but researchers have looked into how meditation can alter brain structure. A 2011 study led by researchers from Harvard reviewed how Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) impacted the brain. It was found to increase cortical thickness in the hippocampus, which has a key role to play in learning and memory-related issues, as well as emotional control.

• Meditation leads to stress reduction: Ask those who practice it and they can tell. Meditation brings a sense of calm and inner peace to their lives. Various studies have looked into the benefits of meditation for stress reduction for students and professionals. According to a randomized study at the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic in 2016, mindfulness-based techniques, including meditation, can reduce stress levels in a workspace.

Health Benefits of Eating Watermelon

• Keeps You Hydrated: Water isn't in the fruit's name by chance. One cup of watermelon contains approximately five ounces of water (about the size of a yogurt container). Consuming adequate fluids—including water-rich foods—has several health benefits, such as: Preventing dehydration, Regulating your body temperature, Lubricating your joints, and Protecting your spinal cord.

• Helps Lower Blood Pressure and Improves Circulation: L-citrulline is a natural substance in watermelon, particularly in the white part of the rind. L-citrulline may improve artery function and lower blood pressure by helping blood vessels relax and improving circulation.

• Might Reduce Muscle Soreness: In a study published in 2017, researchers asked people to drink 16 ounces of watermelon juice enriched in L-citrulline two hours before running a half-marathon. The researchers found that those who drank the watermelon juice had less muscle soreness for up to 72 hours compared to a placebo group.

• Supports Digestion: Watermelon is not very high in fiber. Still, the fiber in watermelon helps support a healthy gut. The fruit contains fluid and prebiotics, a fiber that stimulates the growth and activity of "good" bacteria in the large intestine.

How to fall asleep fast: Three ways to get a better night's sleep now

• Practice relaxation techniques If you want to fall asleep faster at night, reducing stress around bedtime can help. Mindfulness has been known to work for people who struggle with insomnia. Mindfulness is essentially a radical form of self-awareness.

• Commit to a consistent sleep schedule: Typically, it takes an adult with a relatively good sleep schedule 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep. If you're not already, you should also buffer that time with a calming winddown period before you hit the hay each night. This could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, so try to find what works best for you -- and stick to it. Adhering to a consistent sleep schedule can be beneficial to your health, leading to better sleep quality as well as reduced time spent tossing and turning in bed at night.

• Balance your nights with healthy habits during the day: Cementing healthy routines at night isn't the only trick to improving your sleep quality. If you find yourself restless or wide awake while trying to fall asleep at night, this may be a sign you need more daytime activity to balance out a good night's sleep. Light exposure during the day has been shown to improve sleep duration. Fitting in a bit of exercise during the day can also help tire you out and better prepare your body for a restful sleep. If you can, limiting caffeine intake can also help regulate stress.

5 Best Resistance Band Exercises for Strong, Toned Legs

• Fire Hydrant: The gluteus maximus—the largest muscle in your glutes—gets the most love when it comes to butt exercises, but doing more exercises that involve abduction—moving your legs away from the midline—can help you target the smaller muscles. This fire hydrant exercise activates the gluteus medius and minimus by moving against the resistance of the band.

• Tabletop Glute Kickbacks: This variation of kickbacks fires up your glutes while tightening your core. The challenge here will be to keep your upper body and hips square and stable. A good visualization is to imagine pushing the wall behind you with your heel. You can really feel your glutes working. While this exercise primarily works your lower body, it's important to press your hands down on the ground to keep your shoulders in place.

• Glute Bridge Pulses: Glute bridges are an excellent way to strengthen the pelvic floor and open up the hips. When you place a resistance band just above your knees, as shown here, you're also engaging your outer thigh muscles to drive your knees out. Just be careful not to lift your hips too high to prevent overarching the low back.

• Glute Bridge With Alternating Leg Raise: Your lower abs and stability get tested with this glute bridge exercise. Lifting one leg at a time with a resistance band around your thighs offsets your balance and makes your glutes work harder to keep them lifted off the ground.

• Clamshell: Working your inner and outer thigh muscles, the clamshell exercise forces you to move with control and focus on proper form. Widen your thighs so the band stretches as high as you can before lowering your knee back down.

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