Hello, Readers. Nas has graciously accepted my invitation to write a post on Ramadhan and here she is some great – offering goodies! – Sarah Johansen.

Guest Post
by Nas M.

Ramadan is a special month for Muslims the world over as it is the month full of blessings and rewards. Muslims make the most of this month by avoiding backbiting, swearing, shouting …etc; instead they will do good deeds by helping one another, sharing food, reading the Holy Book, praying and generally being a good human being. Oh and of course fasting! That is the essence of Ramadan.

Well the month is almost half over – how quickly time flies!

Instead of writing a post on this special month, I have decided to give away a collection of some of the traditional Arabic Ramadan recipes.

The spirit of Ramadan is changing slowly. We can see many youngsters breaking their fast with burgers, pizzas, fizzy drinks and all other kinds of fast food and unhealthy drinks. What happened to the simple dates and water? As we know, fasting is not about not eating but it is important to eat the right kind of food when breaking the fast. Break it with some dates, yogurt and a cool glass of water.

I present this collection of tradtional Arabic Ramadan recipes in the hope of bringing back the true spirit of Ramadan. I plan to follow up this collection with a bigger one so stay tuned for that!

Hope you enjoy it.

           Download it here - zip

           Download it here - pdf

 Would love to get some feedback – maybe submitting  your own dish or variation of what is in the book. Though these are Arabic dishes, I would include any new dish in my upcoming book  International Cuisine. You can email me directly at admin@ezine4success.com.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Nas

Stress seems to be the real culprit when it comes to health issues. We all deal with it in different ways but the way it effects our bodies is almost the same.

Without we even knowing about it, stress can slowly eat our health away and suddenly one day, we find ourselves suffering from any kind of ailments. Yes prevention is better than cure.

I was planning to write a detailed article on stress but thought that I will write a qucik one now while I wrte the detailed one.

I know, exercise is not the favorite word in the your dictionary but it sure comes with a lot of benfits. Daily work outs can reduce the effects of stress on your body. When you visit your doctor for a minor issue and he tells you that it is stress related, more often than not, we take it as something that the doctor will always say. But there is some truth in his diagnosis.

The reality is that too much stress will play a role in many diseases. Movement is the important word here. Moving, exercising, working out all help boost the immune system and decrease stress levels. Try bending, stretching, reaching and walking. It is not necessary to invest in expensive devices as it is easy to implement simple movements into your daily life and get the same benefits. Walking is the best form of movement that can reduce stress. You can walk away the stress level! Or even punch on the punch bag.  As I have mentioned in the previous post, Walk for Health , walking is the best exercise you can do for your health. It is not difficult, its fun,it can varied (like the location, clothes, friends you take with you for a walk) and most of all you can do it any time. Be sure to wear the right kind of shoes.

Some of the things you can do, are:

- make it a point to walk a little further each day

- biking is another good way to beat the stress. Peddling harder works wonders to push away the days tensions.

- bend to pick up something (do not use a stick to do it!)

- stretch your neck and arms while sitting down at the office or home work desk

- while at home, you can jog in one place, or even jump, skip rope.

- play a phyiscal game (wi-fit, tennis, basket ball) that uses very little of your brain. I don’t mean play as a competietion but just bouncing a ball around helps. Using brain at a stressful time or even making decisions at this time is not a good idea. So try to do something that you enjoy that uses less brain power.

- do some extra house work for the sake of exercise. Double benefits: extra exercise, some house work accomplished .. and throw in a third benefit – stress reliever! Talking about doing extra work at home, it is known that changing the way your room looks or any room in the house, makes a big difference. Re-arrange the furniture around and make it look different. This really helps, trust me!

- Take a herbal bath. Nothing more soothing than this! Before you do this make sure that no one is going to disturb you, then fill up the bath with scented herbs, light some candles and soak yourself in! This is really wonderful. I find that doing this at the end of the day is so much more beneficial. You also get a good night’s sleep to wake up fresh and bright.

- And how about some really refreshing drink. Herbal tea is know for its medicinal properties. So its a good thing to have that on a stressful day. Try to make this really cool  Lime and Mint with Ginger drink.

Cheers! hoping for stress-less days for all!

Sarah