1. Rinsing your nose with salt
water can help keep you healthy and ward off allergy
symptoms.
2. You're more likely to have
a heart attack on a Monday, or up to three days
after you've been diagnosed with the flu or a
respiratory tract infection.
3. Obese people spend approximately
$485 more on clothing, $828 on extra plane seats,
and $36 more on gas each year than their thinner
counterparts. An overweight driver burns about
18 additional gallons of gas a year.
4. Eating fruits and vegetables
may help your body make its own aspirin. Benzoic
acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables,
causes people to produce their own salicylic acid,
the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory
and pain-relieving properties.
5. A 20-minute nap can improve
your overall alertness, boost your mood, and increase
productivity. In addition, your heart may reap
benefits from napping -- a six-year study found
that that men who took naps at least three times
a week had a 37 percent lower risk of heart-related
death.
6. Your kitchen sink is dirtier
than your bathroom. There are typically more than
500,000 bacteria per square inch in its drain,
and the faucet, basin, and sponge are crawling
with germs as well.
7. Baking soda can whiten teeth,
garlic can help treat athlete's foot, and honey
can soothe a hangover.
8. Regular exercise can lower
a woman's cancer risk -- but only if she's getting
enough sleep. The National Cancer Institute followed
nearly 6,000 women for almost 10 years. Women
in the top half of physical activity levels showed
an approximate 20 percent reduction in cancer
risk, but sleeping less than seven hours per night
resulted in a decreased benefit.
9. Watching yourself run in
a mirror can make a treadmill workout go by faster
and feel easier.
10. Third-hand smoke -- the
particles that cling to smokers' hair and clothing
and linger in a room long after they've left --
is a cancer risk to young children and pets.
11. Walking against the wind,
in the water, or while wearing a backpack burns
about 50 more calories per hour than walking with
no resistance. People who wear pedometers also
tend to burn more calories and lose more weight.
12. Trained sexologists can
infer a woman's orgasm history by observing the
way she walks. In other news, men find women who
wear red sexier than those who wear "cool" colors
such as blue and green.
13. Some men experience pain,
headaches, or sneezing as a result of ejaculation.
The increased activity in the nervous system during
orgasm may be the culprit.
14. Germ-killing wipes can spread
bacteria from one spot to another if you reuse
them.
15. Oatmeal, citrus fruits,
and honey can boost your sex drive and improve
fertility. Oats produce a chemical that releases
testosterone into the blood supply, vitamin C
improves sperm count and motility, and vitamin
B from honey helps your body use estrogen, a key
factor in blood flow and arousal.