Healthy with July 4th fun!

No matter how you enjoy celebrating Independence Day, doing so makes you healthier and happier!

- Gabrielle Litcherman

Enhance creativity
by visiting a park

Love to stroll through one of the country’s 424 national parks or a local arboretum to soak up America’s beauty? You’ll fire up your ingenuity too! A Stanford study found that walking outdoors for as little as 4 minutes at your usual pace spurs twice as many creative ideas compared to sitting still. Study authors theorize that strolling unlocks memories, which helps you pair unrelated ideas from your memory banks to create imaginative new ones. Rainy day? Even a short stroll to the kitchen also gets your creative juices flowing!

OR SIP ICED TEA!

Iced black tea cools you off on a hot day and spurs more creative ideas, according to a study in Food Quality and Preference. Scientists suspect we associate folks who drink tea with being smart and innovative, so we adopt these qualities ourselves when we sip it.

 The happy tradition that tames stress

If your Fourth of July traditions include a trip to a beach, lake or river to enjoy a fun splash, great news: A new Polish study found stress levels are lowest when you’re around a natural body of water. Water’s calming sights and sounds distract you from day-to-day life, which helps you recover and recharge.