Ashley Tisdale Says Pilates and Yoga Helped Heal Her Diastasis Recti

 

After four months of giving birth to her first child, Ashley Tisdale, 35, is celebrating her newly-healed body. Tisdale opened up to her fans on social media about her development of diastasis recti – a condition where the abdominal muscles separate – during her pregnancy, and said she was able to fix it with “the right workouts.”

“Four months postpartum and I can’t believe the journey it’s been,” she wrote. “I never said this but I had diastasis recti from my pregnancy.”

“It hasn’t been easy doing the right workouts I have been able to close the gap! Thankful for my Pilates and yoga practices that have gotten me here,” she said.

When the actress gave birth to her newborn Jupiter, Tisdale expressed her frustration with her postpartum progress and wasn’t feeling the most positive. However, she didn’t give up on gaining back the comfort and confidence she once had before her baby.

“I’ve worked my butt off. Whether it’s hiking, Pilates, riding on my Peloton, and yet, I still don’t feel comfortable,” she wrote on her lifestyle website Frenshe.

However, the High School Musical actress is reminding herself and others that it takes time. She is also encouraging one another to “be kind to yourself and fill yourself up with love.”

“Everyone is going to have a different journey and it’s important to not communicate negative feelings towards our own bodies,” she expressed. “Thoughts like ‘you’re not good enough, you could look better’ have to stop! And they especially need to stop when realizing that your body just created and gave life to another human being.”

 

This Lady Started Trading with a Tiny Hanger in Hopes to Make a Trade with Celine Dion

 

A lady from Toronto, Canada is looking to make a trade with Canadian musician Celine Dion.

Ivanka Siolkowsky, a professional organizer, was inspired by a previous trading project, the One Red Paperclip, where a Montreal man-made 14 trades, starting with a red paperclip and ended with trading someone to a house.

Siolkowsky’s idea is a bit different. She started with a Little Teal Hanger, with aim of trading something with Dion.

She started posting videos of her trading projects on TikTok, on her birthday, Aug. 11, 2020, with the idea of making trades for one year. She now has thousands of views on her project, but so far, she hasn’t heard back from the Canadian musician.

In fact, the idea to start trading with a little hanger came to Siolkowsky when she was hospitalized with COVID-19 in April of 2020. She told blogTO she became paralyzed from the waist down, “with nothing to do for three weeks.” So she watched YouTube videos and stumbled upon Kyle MacDonald’s Ted Talk video, of the One Red Paperclip project.

“I thought this is really cool because I am minimalist and because what I do for work — I am always telling people don’t hold on to things,” she said.

Starting with a teal hanger, she traded it for a handbag, which was then traded for a bottle of wine, then a cello, an iPad Pro, a Nikon camera kit, another iPad, and then an antique bike table – which was traded by a father for his little girl who had lost her mother to cancer, and needed an iPad for homeschooling. The family at the time was facing financial hardship, which made the trade really appreciative.

 

 

Later on, the table got traded for a $5,000 original art piece by Sarah Phelphs. The two bonded over the musician, and so Phelphs made a custom painting for Siolkowsky with the goal to trade something with Dion.

So far the musician hasn’t responded to trading with the custom painting, however, Siolkowsky is “trying not to give up.” She has posted the photo for the trade on her Instagram and is giving a bit more time to the musician, but if she doesn’t hear back, she may open up the trading to anyone else interested.

 

 

Siolkowsky says that with every trade that was made, she wanted to keep the item but the people she met and the experiences were better.

“Just show life is not about the stuff — it is about the people we meet along the way and interactions we have and helping others.”

 

Why You Should Get Swimming This Summer

 

As we continue to enjoy the warm weather and the summer break, it’s great to take this time to jump into the water, especially to cool off. In addition to it being a great summer activity, new reports show that swimming also has some cognitive benefits, boosting your brain’s health.

With previous research done on aerobic exercise, it’s shown that this workout helps the creation of neural connections, increasing the brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein, and improving brain plasticity and cognitive function. However, researchers deep-dived into analyzing the benefits of swimming, and it appears swimming offers a rise of these benefits.

Based on one research project, researchers found that elderly individuals who swam regularly had improved both memory and cognitive function compared to those who didn’t.

Another research analyzed the benefits in children’s experience and found that they successfully learned new vocabulary words after three different exercises – swimming, Crossfit, and coloring. In fact, vocabulary retention was higher after swimming than other activities.

With given results based on the research conducted, it shows swimming, or simply getting into the water and moving around seems to be a great method to improve mental health, memory, and cognitive function.

 

Walking 3 to 4 Hours Weekly Reduces the Risk of Dying in Half for Stroke Survivors

 

A new study shows walking after suffering a stroke can significantly boost health. The study, conducted by the American Academy of Neurology, found that walking or doing light exercises for just three to four hours a week can cut reduce the risk of stroke survivors by 54 percent. For those under the age of 75, the risk drops to 80 percent.

Some of the light exercises can include bike riding, gardening, or other exercises of your preference.

“Our results are exciting, because just three to four hours a week of walking was associated with big reductions in mortality, and that may be attainable for many community members with prior stroke. In addition, we found people achieved even greater benefit with walking six to seven hours per week. These results might have implications for guidelines for stroke survivors in the future,” said study author Raed A. Joundi, MD, from the University of Calgary in a media release.

The research examined over 97,000 people who never had a stroke and 895 stroke survivors around the age of 72. The evaluations were based on each person’s level of physical activity, their physical exercising habits, and how active each person was on a weekly basis. It also followed the groups for about four and a half years, taking into account certain factors that can influence a person’s mortality risk.

25 percent of stroke survivors died from any cause; six percent of healthy participants also died. However, only 15 percent of survivors who walked three to four hours a week died during the study, while 33 percent of survivors who didn’t reach the minimum amount of physical activity died from all causes.

The benefits in younger stroke survivors were much higher. Those under 75, and exercised, decreased their risk of death by 80 percent while those 75 and up who also exercised cut their risk of death by 32 percent.

“We should particularly emphasize this to stroke survivors who are younger in age, as they may gain greatest health benefits from walking just thirty minutes a day,” says Joundi.

You can read more on this report in Neurology.

 

On Her Days Off, This Nurse Braid’s Patients’ Hair

 

An ER nurse from Las Vegas is helping care for patients at a hospital during her days off.

Brooke Johns has worked as a nurse for two and a half years. During her days off, she volunteers at the Southern Hill Hospital and pampers her patients.

“There’s something therapeutic about the human touch, as well,” John told ABC affiliate KNTV. “Human talking, human touching, it’s that connection that we’re all hard-wired for.” Any patients who wish to have their hair brushed or braided, John does it for them.

The nurse started offering her services five months ago when her friend ran into a problem while at the hospital and was “too weak to brush it herself.” So, she brushed and braided her friend’s hair, and just spoke with her.

That was the start of her wonderful act of kindness, which has impacted many other patients, including Sierra Stein, who was a former patient of John’s. You can’t have visitors or someone to come in with you and hold your hand and to have someone just be able to braid your hair makes you feel like you’re at home ago,” Stein told the news outlet after noting that with COVID, there’s a lot of isolation.

Now with other nurses following John’s footsteps, she’s been working on some creative ideas when visiting younger patients, once restrictions are lifted. One of her plans is to dress up as Elsa from Frozen.

For John, she says this is her life’s calling, stating “I think nurses, in general, get into this to help other people.”
She hopes her kindness will provide a spark for those seeking a human connection while hospitalized.

 

 

High School Students Design Baby Stroller Attachment for Wheelchair

 

A group of high school students has invented a stroller attachment for wheelchairs allowing people with disabilities to safely stroll their babies while on a walk.

Led by the students’ teacher, Matt Zigler, the students from Bullis School in Maryland developed the invention which goes by the name of WheeStroll, for their class which is called Making for Social Good.

Its aim is to make it safe and simple to make, so it would be accessible to many people in need.

This idea was originally brought up by new parents Chelsie King, and Jeremy King – who has impaired mobility, who were in the search for devices to assist Jeremy in safely carry their child. So Chelsie recruited the help of her colleague, innovation and lab coordinator Zigler.

According to Designboom, this stroller attachment consists of a child car seat and is enclosed in a frame and attached to the wheelchair.

In fact, Zigler even made an instructional video, so anyone in need can build their own wheelchair attachment.

You can see the full parts list and step-by-step instructions here.

Watch the video below to see how you can DIY your own wheelchair stroller attachment.

 

NASA is Helping Firefighters by Sending Photos of Hottest Spots of Moving Wildfires

 

An instrument on the International Space Station could help firefighters fight the wildfires from the sky over time.

The NASA satellites are well-positioned to provide intel, directing firefighters to hotspots, and showing the wildfire progression. So far, the data from the thermal maps produced by ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiator Experiment on Space Station) has helped frontline responders contain about 53% of the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, which was the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. about two weeks ago.

The ECOSTRESS measures surface temperatures from the vantage point of space, with the ability to observe fires at a high spatial resolution – which helps to track the hotspots.

This new tool has been experimented with the ECOSTRESS data, with research being conducted by the RADR-Fire team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It’s now being implemented for first responders like the U.S. Forest Service.

The ECOSTRESS Data has tracked movements of the Bootleg Fire and identified its proximity to critical infrastructures, with areas being represented in red to indicate the fire front and extreme heat.

Aside from capturing the fire in southern Oregon, this tool has also captured data over Northern California’s Dixie Fire, which spread to more than 220,000 acres in a few days.

At the end of July, more than 7,000 personnel responded to the two wildfires. In addition, the use of this data can help with the versatility and the real-world impact satellite data provided.

 

10-Year-Old Boy Inspires the World to Donate Half a Million Books for Kids

 

“Kindness is a virtue we can all possess. If we are willing to…” A ten-year-old boy is on a mission to share the joy of reading with hundreds of thousands of other kids.

Orion Jean, a young boy from Texas, won a student kindness contest in 2020, but he didn’t stop there with his kindness. Orion is hoping to get half a million books donated for other kids in Texas by the end of the month.

“I want to be able to share my love of literacy with as many people as possible,” Orion told CBS News.

When Orion won his kindness contest, with a $500 prize, he used his prize money to donate toys to a Dallas Children’s hospital. He’s also helped collect 100,000 meals for Texas families through food drives and partnering with a relief group.

Now, he wants to focus on bringing books home to children who may not have them.

“Why not start today. Because right now, it’s what we need more than ever,” he said.

So far, he’s already collected 120,000 books, but Orion is confident he will reach his goal.

Watch the GMA video below.

 

 

Boy Raises $700,000 for Hospice by Camping Out in a Tent Given by a Dying Man

 

An 11-year-old has spent over 500 nights in a tent, and it’s for all the right reasons. In 2020, just before the pandemic hit, Max Woosey’s parents were helping to take care of their neighbor who had terminal cancer.

Rick Abbott’s final wish was to live his last days in his own home, and the Woosey family came to appreciate helping their neighbor fulfill his last wish.

Before Abbott died, he gave Max a tent as a gift.

“My friend Rick gave me his tent before he died and made me promise to go have an adventure,” Max said.

When he heard that the fundraising events for the hospice got canceled and services shut down because of COVID-19, he decided to use the tent his friend gave, in hopes to raise £100 for charity.

He then began posting updates on his fundraising page, posting pictures of him with his stuffed animals, while waiting for the pandemic to be over.

When summer nights turned into chilly weather, the young bot refused to leave the tent, and that’s when donations poured in.

He wrote on the fundraising page, hoping to get £20,000 by the end of the year while continuing to camp out for a year.

“Thank you so much for all the donations. I can’t believe how much I have raised. I have decided to camp out for a year to see if I can get to £20,000.”

As winter came along, the 11-year-old’s tent had blown over one night, but he repatched it so he could continue on with spending his nights camping out. In fact, his dad kept him company during Storm Bella.

At one point his original tent ended up with a leak, so he went to purchase a new one. However, it didn’t stop his mission to raise £20,000.

During the Christmas season the young boy and his family decorated his tent with lights and Santa ornaments.

His mission to sleep in a tent grabbed the attraction of many, and in fact, he was invited to camp next to the lion’s enclosure at the London Zoo and in the Downing Street Garden.

Max has since celebrated his 500th consecutive night in his tent and has raised more than $770,000 from strangers around the world for his dedication to help for hospice.

Internet Meme Artist Raises $6 Million in One Day to Fly Afghans Out of the Country

 

A New York artist has launched a GoFundMe page to rescue Afghans by flying them out of the country as quickly as possible.

Since the launch of the campaign, Quentin Quarantino raised $550,000 in just two hours. By the end of the day, the total skyrocketed to more than $6 million.

This comes after twenty years of U.S. military intervention and their recent withdrawal, as the Taliban extremist group took control and targeted certain individuals and families.

 

 

This campaign is in hopes to help the human rights lawyers, translators, journalists, artists, activists, and those who are considered at “imminent risk” of being killed.

According to Quarantino, every $550,000 donated will buy two airplanes to Kabul, with “Every $1,500 raised representing a seat in one of the planes, and a life saved.”

Quarantino took to Instagram to share with his 767,000 followers the success the campaign has had so far.

 

 

“Raising five million dollars in less than 24 hours for this rescue mission has given us, and so many around the world, hope for humanity. Most importantly, it’s a direct line to attempt safe passage for Afghans in danger.”

For those interested in donating or learning more information, you can head over to the GoFundMe page.