It doesn’t look good when, as professional salespeople, we turn up at client (or potential client) meetings, coughing and sneezing.

As well as looking bad from the clients perspective, a cough can be super irritating to colleagues, family and friends. Blaming the chilli weather is one excuse, but most people know it’s either down to smoking or a breakdown in health. Fortunately, there is a way to avoid coughs, colds and runny noses forever…

A poor sleep isn’t just annoying because it’s boring lying in bed looking up at the ceiling all night, it can also make us far more susceptible to poor health, such as catching colds.

A group of boffins from various hospitals and universities, all PhDs, recently carried out a study of people’s sleeping habits and their chances of developing a common cold. They basically injected rhino-virus up 153 volunteers hooters and then monitored their sleeping habits to see who caugh a cold…

Juicing is basically the extraction of the juice from raw fruits and veggies. The fibre, also known as pulp, is what’s left over and usually takes a few hours (if you’re Gillian McKeith) or a day for most of us, to pass though the body and come out the other end. By extracting the juices and drinking them in a raw form, we get the benefit of all the goodness immediately. Juices tend to be veggie-based and smoothies tend to be fruit-based, but both can contain both fruits and veggies – did you know that cucumbers and tomatoes are actually fruits?

A lot of us have heard about the lemon detox diet, which effectively means fasting for 3-5 days and consuming nothing but a mixture of syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon juice – but how does it actually work?

The promoted benefits on the website www.lemondetox.com include: weight loss, increased energy & vitality, shinier hair & stronger nails, clearer skin & eyes, better digestion and a greater sense of well-being. Good stuff, but is it dangerous and is there an alternative?

No matter how many times it happens, we always promise ourselves – never again!

Until the next opportunity for some drinks comes along, and we go out with the utmost resolute and unshakeable intention of ‘only having a few’. Several hours later however, we’re at it again…ordering shots of sambuka from the bar before moving onto the dance floor for some John Travolta moves. Sunday morning arrives and we gradually come to with a throbbing head and furry tongue. Damn, another hangover. Never again! Fortunately, there is a hangover cure like no other…

We all have hundreds of habits, many of which we’ve built up over the years without realising it. It’s therefore advantageous to try and throw in a few GOOD ones from time to time to compensate for all the bad ones – especially when it comes to health. The above free guide: Healthy Salesman’s Healthy Habits, is a short collection of 27 habits (3 for each Principles for Great Health) that can be printed off and stuck to the fridge – or anywhere else it can be looked at for a minute or two everyday until the habit has been formed.

Mergers and Acquisitions, and the subsequent tools rolled-out for optimising processes and tracking performance, can result in a huge increase in information flow across the workforce – on top of today’s already information-rich working environments. This affects everyone in the company, especially salespeople, because TIME is MONEY and unless dealt with effectively, it can be the source of much stress and overwhelm.

One of the main causes of falling asleep at the wheel, unless genuinely down to complete exhaustion, is blood sugar. All carbs including porridge, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, muffins etc, get turned into sugar for energy; as sugar levels rise, the pancreas produces insulin to transport it to our cells to be used as fuel.

Walking is a forgotten art – the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other, whilst swinging our arms from side to side, and not even looking down at the ground but straight ahead and around us, requires co-ordination and balance. It clocks up a surprising amount of calories over time, and improves our digestion and transit time.

The Mediterranean diet is well known for being quite a healthy one: lots of fresh fruits, veggies and olive oil (and a little red wine:) One of the most popular dishes, which originates from Valencia on the East Coast of Spain, is Paella – it’s packed with goodness and really tasty. Here’s a quick version: