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BEST HOME REMEDIES FOR HEARTBURN

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Women who do a simple stretching routine, such as yoga, every day, fall asleep more easily than nonstretchers do.

If you ate the whole enchilada, or screaming-hot curry dish, or bowl of gazpacho, and don't have any antacids on hand, here's how to extinguish the heartburn flames without blowing gas money driving to the nearest drugstore: Chew some gum, but not mint. Chewing gum (make it sugar-free) for an hour stimulates swallowing, which reduces acid reflux. Just choose any flavour but mint, which is actually a heartburn trigger. It can relax the valve that's supposed to keep stomach acid from creeping upward into your esophagus. Drink milk. For persistent heartburn, sip a little skim milk every one to two hours. Casein, the protein in milk, binds capsaicin - the hot stuff in many dishes - and the milk helps wash acid back down into the stomach. Take a walk. It's a great way to burn off some of the calories you just consumed, and it cuts the amount of time that stomach acid touches the esophagus. Incentive to keep going: The benefits last as long as the walking does. So if you can, walk and chew gum! Of course, even better than stamping out roaring heartburn is preventing it in the first place. Refraining from downing a bucket of wings during the ninth inning is a good start. Normally, your esophagus enters your stomach at a sharp angle that keeps food from coming back up. But large meals (and extra weight) stretch this angle, allowing acid to flow up. There are sneakier causes, too. Certain meds can weaken the valve at the bottom of the esophagus - including ibuprofen, aspirin, antihistamines and birth-control pills. If you suspect a connection, talk to your doc.

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T GO TO THE GYM TODAY

Headed to the gym today for the usual? Try walking around the building instead. Or if you go anyway, hop on the elliptical machine instead of the stair climber. Repetitive routines - pounding the same strip of sidewalk every day, lifting weights in the same order every time - may cause overuse injuries. Constantly doing the same thing may not do your mind any favours either, according to new research. But change it up, and you might remember exactly what went on at that lunch meeting three days ago - not only now, but 20 years from now: People 65 or older who do four or more different kinds of physical activities each week seem less likely to develop Alzheimer's than people who do one or no activities. So for your body, your mind and your sanity's sake, try some new moves. Walk in a different direction. Bike around the hill you usually coast down. Try yoga or chi-gong (sort of slow-mo martial arts); both focus your mind as well as your body, so you think more clearly. And include something aerobics (brisk enough to get your heart pumping): In another study, aerobic exercisers increased their brain volume, while those who did just stretching missed out on that benefit (though they got other goodies).

CAN'T FIND THINGS? YOUR MEMORY MAY BE TOO GOOD

Can't figure out where you put the remote? Your problem may not be a bad memory; it may be one that's too good. Some people are able to store gigabytes of information. If you're one of them, the sheer volume - especially of useless info - is like mental litter: It can clutter up your brain. The key to a good memory is being selective: retaining the relevant, and discarding the unimportant. When it comes to short-term visual memory (where you left your drink, what that street sign said, etc.) the brain generally can retain only three or four things at once. Because of this, efficiently "erasing" unnecessary bits of data can make the difference between whether you're good at recalling things or not. Just as it's easier to search your computer's hard drive when there's less stuff on it, your brain works better if there's less to look through. Whether you actually can retrain your brain to store only things that are important to you has yet to be figured out. Meanwhile, these strategies may help: When you really need to remember something - where you're tucking your plane ticket, what time you promised to call your boss - ignore distractions (the person with the pierced lip or pet parrot) and focus on the thing you need to lock onto. Also, associate things with something emotional: Put all notes from your family close to your heart. Slip all baggage claims into your back pocket, near where you'd get back pain if you had to carry the bag yourself. Now, where is the "send" button on this computer?

PROTECT YOURSELF FROM POLLUTION

Your car, your kitchen remodel, your grill, even the candles you light all spew tiny pollutants into the air (what scientists call "particulate matter"). And while you can limit the amount you're personally spewing, these tiny airborne particles (they're a few microns thick, and one micron equals 1/39 millionth of an inch) are being released on a grander scale by everyone else's car, not to mention diesel trucks and coal-fueled electricity plants, the leading spewers in America. Or jet planes, construction equipment, road resurfacing, wood burning and more. Frequently breathing in iffy particulates can create irregular heartbeats. If you're already coping with heart and lung problems or diabetes, you may be even more susceptible to pollution's health-busting effects. But hey, there are ways to protect yourself. While you can't stop the particles (though you can do your part - Prius, anyone?), you can defend yourself against their harsh effects with fish fats - specifically, with DHA, the king of omega-3 fatty acids. These healthy fats do all kinds of good things in your body that reduce your risk of heart trouble (as well as stroke, depression, memory loss, and impotence -quite a list). We recommend taking two grams of distilled fish oil supplements a day, or 600 mg of DHA supplements. We do. Just one alert: If you already have a heart arrhythmia, chronic angina or congestive heart failure, check with your doctor about taking fish-oil supplements; they may not be for you. Alternatively, you can eat 12 walnuts a day, or non-fried fish three times a week (chunk light tuna, salmon, mahi-mahi, sole and tilapia are good choices). They're delicious ways to get your fill of these good fats.

NATURE'S ANSWER TO SLEEP DRUGS

Whatever's been keeping you awake at night - the neighbours, the price of gas, the thought that maybe pro wrestling is rigged - you can get a good night's sleep. And you don't have to solve the world's problems. All you need to do is stretch. When a group of women did a simple stretching routine every day, they fell asleep more easily than nonstretchers did. Why isn't clear, but who cares if you're out like a light? A basic yoga routine's probably perfect, but just stretching out the day's knots slowly and soothingly should do the trick. If stretching is too subtle for you, or if you're going to do something physical, you want to torch some calories while you're at it, consider moderately intense exercise. But in the morning. Women who did a.m. workouts for a total of at least three hours and 45 minutes a week (about half an hour a day) also joined the better-sleep club. But shorter morning workouts didn't help much. And women who worked out that much at night didn't see sleep benefits, though that's no surprise: Exercising within two hours of bedtime can leave you wide-eyed. Another candidate for natural Ambien: tai chi. People who did an hour of tai chi three times a week for six months fell asleep about 18 minutes faster and slept almost an hour longer than a control group. There's a bonus to all this zzz time: Better sleep not only makes you feel good, it also can reduce overeating, arterial aging and your risk of a heart attack. So get moving and go to bed.