Health tips - Counting calories, Coping with tension

COUNTING CALORIES

Ever wonder how many calories you really burn during your morning jog? The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) has an online calculator that can give you the answer.

For someone who weighs 150 pounds and jogs for 30 minutes at about 7 miles per hour, it works out to be about 460 calories. How about playing tennis for an hour? That's 400 calories. Just plug in your weight, activity and the time you spend doing that activity, and the calculator spits out an estimate for calories burned.

UMMS has 23 other calculators that can tell you your risk of developing heart disease, how many grams of carbohydrates you should eat daily, what the likelihood is that your teenager may try marijuana, and more. But user beware: These tests should only be used as guidelines for addressing certain health issues. Still, if you have 15 minutes of down time, they are pretty entertaining. Check them out at www.healthcalculators.org.

COPING WITH TENSION

Between worrying about making ends meet during a recession, staying healthy during flu season, and dealing with everything else you have going on in your life, the stress adds up. But there are some easy -- and free -- things you can do to cope with all the tension. Here is what James S. Gordon, the author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey out of Depression, suggests:

Meditate. Several times a day, practice slow, deep breathing with eyes closed and belly relaxed.

Exercise regularly. It increases mood-enhancing neurotransmitters in the brain and decreases the levels of stress hormones.

Reach out to friends or family for comfort and support. Sometimes just talking with others can help you put things in perspective.

BACKPACK SUGGESTIONS

To make sure your kids' backs aren't strained or stressed by carrying their school books, consider these suggestions from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Find a bag with wide, padded shoulder straps and a padded back. Or consider buying a rolling backpack. Just remember that rolling bags may have to be lugged up stairs and can be hard to roll on soft surfaces (such as grass).

Pack heavier items closest to the center of the back, and use all the bag's compartments. It should never weigh more than 10 or 20 percent of your child's body weight.

Remind your kids to always use both straps. Using just one strains the back.

SOURCE: miamiherald