Zingiber Officinale or Ginger as it is more commonly known, is a thick underground stem that can grow up to three feet tall and sprouts both shoots and roots. The ginger plant can be harvested year round and produces between two to five sections of ginger. When a ginger root has been broken off it is washed and left in the sun to dry and once dried it can be used for medicinal purposes or for many culinary delights.

Gingers Medicinal Uses

Ginger is one of the oldest and most commonly used medicinal foods.

What is meditation?

In its simplest form, Meditation can be described as the practice of seeking a state of no mindedness. To strive for a mental state where we strip away the unnecessary activities of the mind that burden us each day, leaving only clarity, tranquility and a stillness of the mind which helps us to discover our inner self and ultimately our true nature.

Dating back over 5,000 years, meditation has become a fundamental practice of many religions including Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and other religions, yet at the same time it transcends religion all together. Meditation is not a religious practice, it is a personal journey of enlightenment and self discovery.

Everyone you speak to seems to be on a diet.  Every year, millions of us make an attempt at losing the extra tyre around our waists and become fitter and healthier in the process.

The sad fact though, is that many of us simply give up and fail to achieve our goals. Giving up our everyday luxuries such as chocolate, fried foods and alcohol is challenging to say the least. Unfortunately, even the threat of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, stroke and cancer are not enough to deter many of us from continuing with our poor dietary habits.

We all know that too much salt, sugar, carbohydrates and saturated fats are not good for our health and overall wellbeing. Medical practitioners and scientists have been drumming this into us for many years, yet still we fail to heed this advice.

In our quest to answer as many of your insurance policy related questions as possible, we have decided to implement a separate blog category which will address some of our most frequently asked questions from visitors to our site. 

One thing that people often ask is 

Do I Need A Medical/Checkup When Applying For A Sanitas Health Insurance Policy?

The short answer to this is NO. Unless you are over 64 years of age you will not need to undertake any medical checkup when applying for your new health insurance policy with us.

Asthma is a respiratory condition which quite often starts in childhood and can remain with you for the rest of your life. Asthma is found in both children and adults and develops when the bronchial tubes or airways become inflamed. In the U.K alone, over 5 million people are treated each year. This accounts for 1 in 12 adults and 1 in 11 children. Asthma also occurs more often in women than in men.

The airways of the body (bronchi) are connected to the lungs and when these become inflamed, breathing becomes difficult and there is a shortness of breath due to the lungs not receiving sufficient oxygen flow. During Asthma attacks, an over production of Mucus (Phlegm) can also occur which also has an effect on the air flow in and out of the lungs.

Moving anywhere is always a mammoth job, but if you are moving to Spain, or anywhere abroad for that matter, the mammoth task becomes a gargantuan one. It’s not the physical side of course – that remains pretty much the same wherever you go, it’s more the organisational side of things. The problem is of course that once you have “upped sticks”, if you do find later on that you’ve forgotten to take care of something, it can be much more difficult to try and do it remotely, from a foreign country. So, in order to help you not to forget anything before moving to Spain, here’s a checklist that you can use to cover your bases.

What are the Health Benefits of Vitamin D?

Research has shown that many of us are deficient in the correct levels of Vitamin D. It has also been proved that low levels of Vitamin D can cause many minor ailments including colds and influenza as well as many more serious diseases such as peripheral artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer and kidney disease.

It has long been thought that Winter time is the cause of colds and flu due to people grouping together and spreading the cold and flu germs. This is partly true, but a major factor is definitely a lack of Vitamin D which helps to activate and boost the immune system and fight any unwanted viruses.

High Blood Pressure or Hypertension is a killer and is responsible for thousands if not millions of deaths each year. High blood pressure which is left unchecked, can lead to serious problems; including, heart attack, kidney failure or stroke.

This is why it is so important that you do all you can to get it under control. Below you will find some simple ways of reducing high blood pressure naturally and of which can easily be used within your normal diet and lifestyle.

1. Eat Plenty of Garlic

Garlic is one of the most well-known natural supplements. It is not only used in cooking but has also been confirmed to benefit the heart and lower cholesterol. Once you start to lower cholesterol, this in turn has the natural effect of also lowering blood pressure.

If you're planning on flying, and you will be taking your children with you, you could be walking into a nightmare situation, not only for you, but for your children, and your fellow passengers too. I personally have had the misfortune to be sat next to a young child who managed to scream her head off for most of the two and half hour flight while her mother muttered apologies and platitudes, but was obviously ill-prepared to deal with the situation. So in an effort to try and stop you from falling into the same unfortunate situation as this ill-prepared mum, here are some tips that might help to make the experience a little more palatable for all concerned.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that we should know better. After all, we’re told so many times these days to beware of the sun, to douse our bodies in plenty of sun cream and sun blocker, and basically to stay out of the sun. However, when it comes down to it, most of us are still sun worshippers, especially those of us who have taken the bull by the horns and relocated to sunnier climes, such as Spain.

Getting sunburnt, especially in this day and age with all the knowledge of the damage that overexposure to the sun can bring, is a pretty silly thing to do; however it is quite easily treatable and no more than a mild discomfort for a day or two. But getting sunstroke is quite a different kettle of fish, and can leave you feeling very ill - it can even be fatal. So the purpose of this post is to help you to correctly diagnose sunstroke, and to advise you of the best treatment to deal with it.