How you can reduce personal exposure to heavy metals.

365 days per year all of us are exposed to heavy metals.

These may include lead, arsenic, and mercury, (and a host of lesser known nasties!) that can harm your health.

Eliminating toxins from our environment is, it seems, even beyond the ability of our glorious leaders, but there are things you can do now. I like to think of them as my real life insurance policy. No premiums, no payout except a long and happy life!

Review your daily food choices:
One of the most common causes of heavy metal exposure is from our food. Certain foods are known to be a higher risk for containing heavy metals. Tuna, king mackerel, marlin, shark, swordfish, bottom feeding crustaceans and tilefish,are all risky. Mercury is commonly found in large, predatory fish.
Arsenic is typically found in rice, and lead
is usually found in – would you believe it?) bone broth from factory herds. This doesnt ímply that you should completely abstain from these foods – just choose the right ones.

There are some small hacks to getting elss heavy metals that work in some cases and not others. Cooking rice in a coffee pot can lower its arsenic content, but cooking bones to make bone broth won’t because bones store lead.

Eat detoxifying foods:
There are also foods that can protect you from heavy metals. Include foods like cruciferous vegetables, fiber, phytates, probiotics, cilantro, and black sesame seeds. These foods can help eliminate heavy metals from the body.

Drink good water via a filter that removes heavy metals!
You may want to consider getting your water tested for heavy metals, especially if you have a well or if your house has older plumbing. Heavy metals can contaminate the groundwater through soil contamination of underground aquifers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 20 percent of the water systems in the country have unsafe levels of lead. Here`s a link to a report last year on lead in Australian homes.

Invest in a high-quality water filtration system that is shown to remove heavy metals for your home water.

Discriminate in choosing cosmetics and personal care products:
Widely-used personal care products like sunscreen, nail polish, makeup, whitening toothpaste contain heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and aluminum. These toxic chemicals are actually used as added ingredients in consumer products. There are plenty of safer alternatives.

Get an air purifier for your home:
You may also be exposed to heavy metals through the air you breathe, so getting an air purifier that filters out these toxic chemicals for your home makes good sense. One of the most common heavy metals that exist in the air is arsenic. Cadmium, chromium, and nickel are also airborne heavy metals. These toxic substances are in the air primarily due to human activities like using aerosol products, driving cars, and running heavily-polluting industrial businesses.

Minimize your exposure to these metals by the simple act of removing your shoes before entering your house. Your shoes may contain heavy metals from outdoors and may spread it around the house.

Why should you be wary of heavy metals.

Exposure to heavy metals can lead to heavy metal poisoning. This occurs when these toxic chemicals accumulate in the soft tissues of the body. The symptoms of heavy metal poisoning vary, depending on the type of heavy metal. In general, it can lead to an autoimmune disorder, reproductive problems, infections, weakness, brain damage, and bone loss, to name a few.

Seriously bad news and not what my natural life insurance policy includes.

#TITLE#The Way to Organize Your Desk: Easy Tricks To Help You Receive Your Space Back#/TITLE#

 If you have been having difficulty getting things done at work, have a look around you. Is your work space a mess? In addition to being visually unpleasing, having a cluttered desk can make it harder for you to focus and process information, according to study published in the Journal of Neuroscience. In other words, it has got to go.

Why having a clean desk is significant

According to Psychology Today, placing your workspace so that boosts your performance on the job at least according to two recent studies published in PLOS One. One of the studies was conducted in 2000 from Alberto Ascherio and Francine Shapiro in Harvard University. The studies found that eliminating clutter in the workspace increased attention and mental sharpness, even though there were several caveats: One study noted that it took approximately six weeks to regain full productivity after a clean desk, while another study said it only took 2 weeks for individuals to see increased mental clarity after cleanliness.

The science supporting clutter

Past research indicates that, for the typical adult, clutter creates stress and makes it harder for one to focus and complete your daily activities. As you might guess, this probably doesn’t make for the most pleasant workspace environment, particularly in regards to productivity. Every moment, the investigators removed an item from the pupils’ desks and led them to sort through the clutter. Then, the pupils were given an opportunity to relax and unpack the materials that was removed — and at that point, they have been given a grade for functionality.

3 Easy Steps to Receive your space back

1. Set up in the exact same manner every day. Based on research published in Science Direct, as soon as you’re comfortable with a certain setup, it can become a default setting. So why don’t you start off with that system for your workplace? Try out one of the following templates for a month to produce your new workspace as orderly and organized as you can. As you’d do in your house, here are five points to consider while developing a work space: Design your desk Select out the things you use most frequently at work. They should be visible and readily accessible. Decide where you’re place all of your notebooks, files, binders, and significant documents so they are accessible and handy. Select out the items which you want to put on display, like your kids’ artwork or family photos.

Take a miniature mental break

If you are too tired to do a large clean up rightnow, give your desk a rest and de-clutter only a little bit. Shut off your computer, get up, grab a pad of paper, and do a few fast planning for the coming week,”so you can feel more in charge of your workload,” suggests Dan Schawbel, senior partner and research manager at Future Workplace, a consulting and research company that helps organizations develop future-ready teams. “Your environment affects your ability to achieve things,” he adds. If you can’t fully organize your space, at least you’re able to clear a route to it. Get your stuff organized in 15 minutes per day Everyone knows that you need to handle a big project one section at a time, so why not consider yourself an organized person for only one day each week?

Since our desks can affect our mental and bodily well-being, consider making it a priority to organize them. With the help of the above mentioned tips, you can go from a cluttered space to a creative sanctuary, where you can focus on the activities that matter to you.