The benefits of drinking mineral water

Source: Maroco Design

I was in Portugal in May of 2016 when I was introduced to the magic that is mineral water.

I’d heard of it before, I had even tried it, but for some reason, it took a while to actually like and enjoy.

Fast forward to now, I really love it, I even crave it, particularly after finding out the benefits of it. Let’s face it, all water is good. And if you’re hydrating with something other than pop or those garbage energy drinks, you’re golden. But there’s nothing like finding something you truly enjoy that doubles as a good health practice.

Here are a few reasons you should indulge in bubbly water.

Decreases risk of heart disease

According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff, there are a ton of reasons that people who drink regular water are more likely to have heart disease, but it likely has to do with the sulfur in mineral water.

Admittedly, I was really bad in science class and was under the assumption that sulfur isn’t something you want to ingest. But if the doctor says it has health benefits and tastes yummy, then science is exactly the reason I indulge in this stuff.

Helps clear skin

For someone like me with sensitive skin, this makes mineral water even more attractive. I often experience random breakouts despite coming up with several tactics to maintain a fresh face.

The high quantities of silica in mineral water is said to help strengthen cells between elastin and collagen fibers and slow wrinkle formation.

Some go as far as to use mineral water as a face toner or cleanser, and I don’t doubt that that works wonders. But considering I’m already paying for water that otherwise comes free from a tap, I just drink it, enjoy it and hope it does what it’s supposed to.

Maintains muscle performance

If you suffer from aches, pains and cramps, it’s often a sign of magnesium deficiency. Luckily for you, there’s mineral water! According to the New Health Guide, the magnesium in it is essential for our bodies, especially for those who exercise and stretch on a daily basis.

Magnesium helps our muscles to relax and contract properly. The calcium in mineral water is also beneficial to bone function. So drink up, buttercup.

Lowers blood pressure

A study found that mineral water drinkers who indulged in a litre everyday lowered their blood pressure.

Another way to do this is to eat foods like beans, avocados, sweet potatoes and kale. Mineral water is an easy way to keep your blood pressure in check.

So not only does it taste good, but works wonders for our health. If you’ve never tried it, or if you have and didn’t enjoy it, try to reintroduce yourself to it slowly. The next time you’re out at a restaurant and they ask if you want tap or sparkling, go for the bubbly!

5 easy ways to add self-care to your daily routine

Lately, I’ve been indulging in self-care. Unapologetically.

There are different levels and realms of self-care and all of them are of equal importance to your overall well-being. What’s emotional self-care without physical or mental self-care? And what’s social self-care without practical self-care?

For the sake of this post, I’ve narrowed it down to five main areas that require attention. The problem for most people is not having enough time to pay attention and apply self-care practices consistently. But like anything in life, it’s not about what you have time for, it’s about what you make time for.

One of the big misconceptions about self-care is that it requires time and money—a costly visit to the spa, maybe a vacation? But that’s not what self-care is about.

I get it. We’re busy. We have priorities. We have jobs. We have kids. We have partners and families and houses to maintain. But stopping to take some time for ourselves is critical in having enough fuel in the tank to tend to those daily activities.

So here’s how you do it if you’re short on time (and money.)

Social

Use social media to reach out to your friends.

Most of us use social media every single day. According to a BBC report, Facebook lurking actually makes you miserable. So while much of our usage comes in the form of mindless scrolling, a little bit of judgment and some stalking here and there, there are better, more mindful ways to use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

  

The next time you find yourself aimlessly using social media, pick an old friend you haven’t spoken to in a while and reach out to them. Either send them a message, check in on them and ask how they are, or go the extra step in setting up a coffee date.

Physical

Squeeze in a workout at your desk.

Desk jobs are directly related to increased weight gain and health risks. But there are a lot of stretches and workouts that you can do without getting up and without stopping work.

Personally, I bring a resistance band with me to the newsroom. I tie it around my ankles and do a series of resistance exercises throughout my day. Every 45 minutes, I pause for a few minutes to do some stretches and look away from the screen.

But desk workers aren’t limited to just these. There are a lot of options available to those stuck with desk jobs. Check out Shape magazine’s suggestions on how to lose weight while sitting at your desk.

Mental

Stay on top of your emails.

Don’t underestimate the power of a clean inbox. At my job, most emails a day old are unnecessary, so it makes maintaining my inbox easy. However, my Outlook receives about an email a minute, so staying on top of everything is key.

Always check your email before you get into work. This helps you be in tune with the day, have advanced notice on any important events or communication threads that will be of use to you throughout your shift.

Create folders for important emails, and organize them in the most straight-forward way possible so that they’re easily accessible whenever you need to look for them.

Emotional

Write in a journal

After I read “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, I managed to maintain a daily journal from May 14, 2006 through to 2012. I fell off after starting university (story of my life).

Despite picking it back up here and there, I never fully returned to it. But on days that I feel the most emotional, I always pick up a pen and paper and write down what I’m going through and what I’m feeling, and it comes back just like riding a bike.

Journaling can help you to map out your emotions when you need it the most. If you have a few extra minutes throughout your day, jot down what’s happened so far in your day, how you feel about it and what you want to accomplish by the end of the day.

Practical

Budget

I’ve had a budget since I stopped journaling—because, well, adulthood. I use a very straightforward yet detailed template and I simply update it every night before I go to bed.

Having a handle on your finances will bring you more relief than I might ever be able to explain in a post or a conversation. And while it takes time to actually get a grasp on your finances, it doesn’t take long to feel the satisfaction of at least seeing and knowing where your money is going, and where it needs to be redirected.

Map out your payments, your monthly expenses, and keep track of how much money you have coming in and out of your pockets and bank account each month.

And don’t just make a budget, stick to it.

All of these things require no more than a few minutes at once, and can all easily be implemented into your daily routine. Don’t get so caught up in the everyday run around that you forget the peace of mind that comes with being organized and self-caring.

Can you imagine the impeccable care a mechanic must take of their car? How healthy a doctor must be after all that they know and all that they’ve seen?

You deserve to be taken care of in the way that a mechanic’s car is cared for, you deserve to be healthy the way a doctor might be, so who better to ensure that you get the care you deserve than you? 

How I paid off a $22k student loan in six months

In 2016, the average student debt in Canada reached an average of $25,000.

When I graduated last June, finding out that I owed the National Student Loan Centre (NSLC) a whopping $22,000, I was oddly relieved to be just under the average payback amount.

But I was still horrified.

And that only grew when I learned that my payback time estimate was a whole nine years away. That really put things into perspective for me. I instantly thought of the hold it would put on reaching important milestones in my life—home ownership, marriage, children, travel, peace of mind and much, much more.

I spent hours on end thinking of how I could eliminate this massive financial burden from my life until I finally came up with a master plan that would have me debt free just one year after graduating. But once I got the ball rolling, I cut that time in half and was paid in full just six months after shimmying across the stage (literally, I danced off the stage at Convocation Hall the day I graduated).

Here’s how I did it.

Stayed at home

I stayed home for school, despite high school teachers insisting the best education was one obtained by leaving home. By staying in my city, I saved thousands per semester on residence, tuition (if you’re an international student), and everyday costs like laundry, food, gas and parking.

I stayed home on weekends. Sure, I went out once in a while. But I was sure to know in advance whether there was a cover charge, and if I could get in free by a certain time I was in there like swimwear.

And despite wanting to own a home like most people out there, I stayed at home after graduating. Most millennials can’t wait to leave the nest. But moving out before student loans are cleared can have a devastating impact on your finances and make it extra hard to get ahead. Unfortunately, some people have no choice. Depending on where your family lives, what your relationship with them is, or a long list of other factors, living at home is just not an option.

If you have the option of living at home, take advantage of it for as long as you possibly can. With rent and mortgages across Canada increasing at a record pace, put the money that you would’ve been paying towards your rent or your mortgage to your loan. 

Withdrew money from my savings account

While in school, I was earning an (almost) full-time paycheque every two weeks. About two and a half years before finishing school, I set up automatic savings deposits of $100, and that money grew quickly.  In addition, I deposited my tax returns directly into my tax-free savings account (TFSA). Once I graduated, I withdrew nearly everything to make the biggest dent in my debt possible. And it worked!

If you can get ahead while you’re in school and start saving, putting that money toward your student loan when you finish school is a great way to get a head start on repayment. It’s a strange feeling emptying your savings account to put towards a loan that will likely still not be paid in full, but you end up saving a ton of money on interest by using money that wouldn’t earn you half as much in interest anyway.

Worked two jobs

I scored a well-paying job in my field as a freelance digital content editor a few weeks before graduation. And remember that job I had throughout school and did 32 hours a week at? I kept that one too.

This meant that many of my workdays kept me out of the house from seven in the morning to midnight. I was often tired, cranky and just exhausted. But in my eyes, grinding it out for a few months was worth the financial freedom it ultimately brought.

In total, I was funneling (my term for making massive monthly payments) about $2,000 per month to the NSLC. For most people, this is their monthly net income.  I knew that if I did this for just a few months, I would be able to free up that extra cash to replenish the savings that I cleared out to pay down my loan in the first place.

Stuck with my old car

I have a love-hate relationship with my 2006 Honda Civic, Benji. I love that he’s paid in full. I love that when I turn him on, he starts and gets me from point A to point B safely.

But Benji takes really long to heat up. He doesn’t have seat heaters. And there’s no place for me to charge my phone while I drive.

These things pale in comparison to what it might cost me to have these luxuries.

If you have a car that does it’s primary job of getting you from place to place, stick with it. And until you absolutely must get a new car, stick with what you’ve got. Monthly payments and the administrative fees of getting a car on the road can add up quickly, taking away from money you could be putting towards paying off your loan.

Low-interest balance transfer

When one of my credit card companies that I hadn’t used in a while called me up and offered me a special promotion, I instantly turned it down. But after crunching some numbers, I saw a golden opportunity.

MBNA Mastercard offered me a 0.99 per cent balance transfer rate of up to $7,500, while the NSLC was charging me a 5.2 per cent floating interest rate on just under the same amount.

I called them back a few days later to let them know I was interested and redirected the money that I would’ve been paying five times more for. Then, I paid off the credit card just as aggressively as I had been paying off the NSLC.

Cancelled a bucket list vacation

I got impulsive just after graduation and decided my partner and I were going to Trinidad for carnival. I found a great deal on flights and a day after booking, did some number crunching. Needless to say, we were not going to Trinidad for carnival.

This was a deeply personal sacrifice for me. It had been number one on my bucket list since the age of 14. But Trinidad would always be there. Was that what I wanted for my debt?

The point is, traveling is nice, but everything comes at a cost, beyond the cost of the vacation itself.

In sum, it took a lot out of me. But six months of long days, fatigue and changing my lifestyle entirely to relieve such a large amount of student debt so soon after graduating was entirely worth it. And if it’s not for you, that’s okay!

Part of making a debt repayment plan is knowing yourself, really understanding your finances, your discipline, what you’re capable of and what you’re not. So have a conversation with yourself, be open and honest. Then, you decide your action plan and pursue it.

5 rookie mistakes you're making at work

Entering the workforce can be a scary thing.

Nothing helped me realize this more than landing a job in my field before graduating. Except running into a former classmate of mine in my new place of work just a few months after I started there myself.

Despite only having a few months head start, I saw so much of myself in her and it showed me just how far I’d come in my own personal and professional growth. And while I was not yet an expert, I was able to empathize with the terror of beginning and offer her a few tips and tricks on what to avoid doing as a new professional.

So whether you’re a student, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed graduate, or no stranger to the 9-5 lifestyle, there are a few rookie mistakes we’ve all made at some point that should be avoided at all costs. Here they are.

Negative self-talk

I learned how negatively I talked about myself the hard way. During my training, I would often joke about my lack of luck, how likely I would be to fail at something, or laugh at how long it took me to understand things. While it was really just my way of handling the stress of adjusting and learning so many new things at once, it was a terrible self-perception, and more importantly, a series of terrible, and even untrue self-proclamations.

The way that you talk about yourself is directly correlated to how people perceive you. Use more positive words. If you don’t understand something that’s already been explained, ask for one more explanation, make notes, and then try it on your own. There’s no point getting down on yourself—or trying to make a joke of something as serious as your livelihood. It’s not cute or funny, just unnecessary and potentially damaging.

Being overly emotional

When a colleague of mine became (what I felt was) overly-critical of my work, I found myself deeply bothered by it. As weeks went on, I realized that I felt more anxious and on edge when he was around. But as I continued to apply his criticisms to my work, I realized that I was becoming better at what I did.

If someone is critical of you, allow yourself a moment to detach your emotions from the situation. This doesn’t mean you should let people walk all over you, but it does mean that you should take whatever advice and criticism you can get and apply it to your work without being emotionally affected by the situation.

Not building connections

One of the most important things you can do to maintain your network and your reputation is to build solid relationships. Get to know the people you work with. Ask them about their day, their weekend and their families if it’s not too invasive.

And don’t be fake about it either. Some of the most meaningful friendships can grow from people who work in the same environment as you because they understand the daily stresses you endure better than anyone. Don’t be afraid to make friends.

Not appearing confident

This goes hand in hand with number one, but the effect comes, and can be far-reaching before we even open our mouths.  

Dress appropriately. Even if you work behind the scenes, dressing like you don’t care about your job can give the impression that you don’t. Look certain of yourself, look like you belong and most importantly, look comfortable in your space.

When you speak, speak objectively. Replace your question marks at the end of your sentences with periods. Phrase your questions before you ask them, sometimes you’ll find the answer without even asking it (and you save yourself from looking a little silly).

Not doing the work

It might seem obvious, but you wouldn’t believe the shortcuts people take in the name of doing less work. But the thing about work is, we go there to do just that. We spend years of our lives and thousands of dollars to get good jobs, and when we do, we can’t be lazy.

So do the work. Go above and beyond the call of duty. Sooner or later your work ethic will begin to speak for itself and you will always have solid references to count on.