Saying thank you is nothing new. But practicing gratitude — regularly focusing on the positive parts of your life — is about more than having good manners. It can be a powerful health habit.

Research shows that practicing gratitude — 15 minutes a day, five days a week — for at least six weeks can enhance mental wellness and possibly promote a lasting change in perspective. Gratitude and its mental health benefits can also positively affect your physical health.

Health benefits of being thankful

You’ll get the biggest health benefits of gratitude when it becomes habitual and part of your thought process. But even allotting some time each day or week to prioritize gratitude can be beneficial.

Reduce depression

A review of 70 studies that include responses from more than 26,000 people found an association between higher levels of gratitude and lower levels of depression. But more research needs to be done to understand the association.

Gratitude seems to reduce depression symptoms — people with a grateful mindset report higher satisfaction with life, strong social relationships and more self-esteem than those who don’t practice gratitude. But it’s also possible that depressed people are less likely to practice gratitude. Most likely, there’s a continuous relationship where gratitude lessens symptoms of depression, allowing people to recognize what they have.

Lessen anxiety

Anxiety often involves worrying and negative thinking — typically about things that happened in the past or may occur in the future.

Gratitude can be a coping tool for anxiety. Regularly practicing gratitude combats negative thinking patterns by keeping thoughts focused on the present. If you find yourself focusing on negative thoughts about the past or future, challenge yourself to find something you are grateful for now. It will break the negative thought process and return you to the present.

Support heart health

Many benefits of gratitude also support heart health. Improving depression symptoms, sleep, diet and exercise reduces the risk of heart disease. Several studies show that a grateful mindset positively affects biomarkers associated with the risk for heart disease.

A 2021 review of research also finds that keeping a gratitude journal can cause a significant drop in diastolic blood pressure — the force your heart exerts between beats. Having grateful thoughts, even if you don’t write them down, also helps your heart by slowing and regulating your breathing to synchronize with your heartbeat.

Relieve stress

Stress triggers a fight-or-flight response in your nervous system — your heart beats faster, muscles contract and adrenaline pumps. But gratitude can help calm the nervous system.

Taking a moment to be thankful causes physiological changes in your body that initiate the parasympathetic nervous system — the part of your nervous system that helps you rest and digest. Gratitude and the response it causes help bring down your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing to help with overall relaxation.

Improve sleep

People with an attitude of gratitude tend to pursue goals that keep them feeling good — a positive attitude promotes positive action. They engage in activities that support healthy sleep, such as eating well and exercising regularly. Practicing gratitude also makes you less likely to be stressed, anxious or depressed — three factors that affect sleep quality and duration.

But what you do during the day isn’t the only factor in sleeping well. Thinking positive thoughts before falling asleep promotes better sleep — and there’s evidence that gratitude causes people to have positive thoughts about their life, social support and social situations.

Source: uclahealth.org

May is national pet month, below is a list of the most popular pets in 2025. The list may surprise you!

Pets can come in all different shapes and sizes. According to Forbes, here are the most popular ones in the United States in 2025...

Saltwater fish - Number of U.S. households (millions): 2.2M
Horse - Number of U.S. households (millions): 2.2M
Reptile - Number of U.S. households (millions): 6M
Bird - Number of U.S. households (millions): 6.1M
Small animal (like Hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, etc.) - Number of U.S. households (millions): 6.7M
Freshwater fish - Number of U.S. households (millions): 11.1M
Cat - Number of U.S. households (millions): 46.5M
Dog - Number of U.S. households (millions): 65.1M

Need pet insurance? Call Lallis & Higgins Insurance.

Source: yahoo.com

You didn’t think we were going to help you set up your house and leave you, did you? Don’t worry, we’re experts in the art of staycations. Here are a few ideas that will help you kick your week off in vacation style:

Have a spa day.

It might not be as glamorous as a real day at the spa, but you can still make your own home feel like a peaceful retreat. Try a face mask with cucumber slices or an Epsom salt bath.

Take a day trip.

Looking for a little adventure? Try a road trip! Hit up that little town you’ve always heard about, try a new restaurant, or visit a new park.

Read a good book.

A staycation is the perfect opportunity to dive into a good read—or several! Set up a hammock in your backyard or lay out a blanket under a tree and let yourself unwind with a good book.

Explore your city.

Use your staycation to take in the sights and sounds of your city like a tourist! Get out there and visit free museums, bookstores and that coffee shop you’ve always meant to check out.

Camp out in the backyard.

Pitch a tent, light the fire, and make some s’mores. When it’s time to call it a night, crawl into the tent and sleep under the stars. (Or you can bring the gang back inside to sleep in your comfortable beds too—we won’t judge.)

Bring the water park to you.

Who needs a water park when you can make your own? For $15, you can find a kiddie pool or splash pad for the kids. And don’t forget the water balloons. Creating your own DIY backyard water park can save you about $50 per person!

Have a movie night.

You don’t have to leave your house to catch a good flick. Rent a movie—or even better, stream one for free. This is the perfect time to tackle a marathon of trilogies or introduce your kids to iconic classics for the first time (Star Wars, anyone?). But don’t forget the snacks! Grab some popcorn and candy from the dollar store and you’ll be set. Skipping the traditional ticket and concessions at the theater like this can easily save you $15–20 a person.

Stay somewhere new.

Let’s be clear: It’s okay to stay at your house during your staycation (and it saves major money not having to pay for a hotel or bed-and-breakfast). But if you do want to switch it up, check in to a local hotel or Airbnb for a night or two. It’s amazing how getting away to a new spot in your hometown can feel so refreshing.

Take up a DIY project.

Do you have a DIY project that you haven’t been able to get to? Use this free time on your hands to tackle it! Check your local museum or art studio to see if they’re offering pottery, painting or woodworking classes.

Plan a game night.

Dust off the board games and invite your family and friends over for some fun. Need to add a new game to the rotation? Check out Act Your Wage!—the first player to become debt-free wins the game. And if that sounds a little too much like real life (like if you’re laser focused on becoming debt-free right now), just play Monopoly instead!

Watch a theater production.

We know what you’re thinking—how can I see a show if I don’t leave my house? The magic of the internet, that’s how. BroadwayHD streams a ton of Broadway shows (everything from Oklahoma! to Romeo and Juliet). And with a seven-day free trial, that’s plenty of time to watch a few things while on staycation.

Go bowling.

Heading to a bowling alley during the middle of the week or at off-peak times can be surprisingly cheap. A lot of bowling alleys even let kids bowl for free. Check out the deals your local alley has and strike up a little friendly competition.

Go out for a special meal or have it delivered.

Some people find cooking relaxing, but it’s important to give yourself a break and take some time for a special meal that you don’t have to cook. Swing by that restaurant downtown that you’ve always wanted to try, or have food delivered from your favorite burger joint.

Go canoeing.

If you live within close driving distance of a river or another body of water, get out there on a canoe or a paddleboard—maybe even a surfboard if you’re near the beach (lucky!).

Have a date night.

Even if you’re in the middle of a family staycation with two toddlers, you can still carve out time for you and your spouse to sneak in an inexpensive date. The real tricky part is going to be finding a sitter to watch the kids, but it’s doable! Ask family or friends if they wouldn’t mind babysitting for an evening so you and your spouse can have a nice dinner. You can even sweeten the deal by offering to watch their kids sometime too.

Source: ramseysolutions.com

Phase 3: Respond to cloud security issues

As your cloud services are being accessed and used, there will be incidents requiring either automated or guided response on a regular basis, just like any other IT environment. Follow these best practices to begin your cloud security incident response practice:

Step 1: Require additional verification for high-risk access scenarios.

If a user is accessing sensitive data in a cloud service from a new device, for example, automatically require two-factor authentication to prove their identity.

Step 2: Adjust cloud access policies as new services come up.

You can’t predict every cloud service that will be accessed, but you can automatically update web access policies, such as those enforced by a secure web gateway, with information about the risk profile of a cloud service to block access or present a warning message. Accomplish this through integration of a cloud risk database with your secure web gateway or firewall.

Step 3: Remove malware from a cloud service.

It is possible for malware to compromise a shared folder that syncs automatically with a cloud storage service, replicating the malware in the cloud without user action. Scan your files in cloud storage with anti-malware to avoid ransomware or data theft attacks.

As cloud services evolve, so do the challenges and threats you face by using them. Always stay on top of cloud provider feature updates that involve security, so you can adjust your policies accordingly. Security providers will adjust their threat intelligence and machine learning models to keep up as well. In the phases and best practices above, several key technologies can be used to accomplish each step, often working in conjunction with the native security features from cloud providers.

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB): Protects data in the cloud through data loss prevention, access control, and user behavior analytics. CASB is additionally used to monitor IaaS configurations and discover shadow IT.

Cloud Workload Protection: Discovers workloads and containers, applies malware protection, and simplifies security management across IaaS environments.

Virtual Network Security: Scans network traffic moving in between the virtual instances held in IaaS environments, along with their entry and exit points.

Source: skyhighsecurity

Phase 2: Protect your cloud

Once you understand your cloud security risk posture, you can strategically apply protection to your cloud services according to their level of risk. There are several cloud security technologies that can help you accomplish the following best practices:

Step 1: Apply data protection policies.

Step 2: Encrypt sensitive data with your own keys.

Encryption available within a cloud service will protect your data from outside parties, but the cloud service provider will still have access to your encryption keys. Instead, encrypt your data using your own keys, so you fully control access. Users can still work with the data without interruption.

Step 3: Set limitations on how data is shared.

From the moment data enters the cloud, enforce your access control policies across one or multiple services. Start with actions like setting users or groups to viewer or editor and controlling what information can be shared externally through shared links.

Step 4: Stop data from moving to unmanaged devices you don’t know about.

Cloud services provide access from anywhere with an internet connection, but access from unmanaged devices like a personal phone creates a blind spot for your security posture. Block downloads to unmanaged devices by requiring device security verification before downloading.

Step 5: Apply advanced malware protection to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) such as AWS or Azure.

In IaaS environments, you’re responsible for the security of your operating systems, applications, and network traffic. Antimalware technology can be applied to the OS and virtual network to protect your infrastructure. Deploy application whitelisting and memory exploit prevention for single-purpose workloads and machine-learning based protection for general purpose workloads and file stores.

Next week we'll talk about phase 3.

Source: skyhighsecurity

Cloud services are used for multiple purposes in corporate environments, from storing data in services like Box, to accessing productivity tools through Microsoft 365, and deploying IT infrastructure in Amazon Web Services (AWS). In all these uses, cloud services allow organizations to move faster, accelerating their business with more agile technology, often at a lower cost. However, the use of any cloud service comes with the challenges and risk of data security in the cloud. Security for the data created in the cloud, sent to the cloud, and downloaded from the cloud is always the responsibility of the cloud customer. Protecting cloud data requires visibility and control. In the steps below, we’ve outlined a core set of best practices for cloud security that can guide enterprises toward a secure cloud and address cloud security issues.

Phase 1: Understand cloud usage and risk

The first phase of cloud computing security is focused on understanding your current state and assessing risk. Using cloud security solutions that allow for cloud monitoring, you can accomplish the following steps:

Step 1: Identify sensitive or regulated data. Your largest area of risk is loss or theft of data that will result in regulatory penalties, or loss of intellectual property. Data classification engines can categorize your data so you can fully assess this risk.

Step 2: Understand how sensitive data is being accessed and shared. Sensitive data can be held securely in the cloud, but you have to monitor who accesses it and where it goes. Assess the permissions on files and folders in your cloud environment, along with access context like user roles, user location, and device type.

Step 3: Discover shadow IT (unknown cloud use).

Most people do not ask their IT team before signing up for a cloud storage account or converting a PDF online. Use your web proxy, firewall, or SIEM logs to discover what cloud services are being used that you don’t know about, then run an assessment of their risk profile.

Step 4: Audit configurations for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) such as AWS or Azure.

Your IaaS environments contain dozens of critical settings, many of which can create an exploitable weakness if misconfigured. Start by auditing your configurations for identity and access management, network configuration, and encryption.

Step 5: Uncover malicious user behavior.

Both careless employees and third-party attackers can exhibit behavior that indicates malicious use of cloud data. User behavior analytics (UBA) can monitor for anomalies and mitigate both internal and external data loss

Next week, we'lll go to Phase 2!

Source: skyhighsecurity

Falls from windows are more common than people might think. According to a report by SafeKids Worldwide, an average of eight children age 5 and younger die and more than 3,300 are injured each year from falling out of windows.

The Window Safety Task Force offers these tips to help protect children from accidental window falls:

• When young children are around, keep windows closed and locked
• When opening a window for ventilation, use those located out of a child’s reach
• Supervise children to keep child’s play away from windows, balconies or patio doors
• Don't place furniture near windows that young children can climb on to gain access
• Don’t allow children to jump on beds or other furniture to help reduce potential falls
• Don’t rely on insect screens; they are designed to keep bugs out, not to keep children in
• Install ASTM F2090-compliant devices that limit how far a window will open, or window guards with quick-release mechanisms in case of fire or other emergency
• Teach your child how to safely use a window to escape during an emergency, such as a fire

Take 5 Minutes to Install Window Guards

Distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the stereo, entertainment or navigation system — anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving.

Texting is the most alarming distraction. Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that's like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed.

You cannot drive safely unless the task of driving has your full attention. Any non-driving activity you engage in is a potential distraction and increases your risk of crashing.

Consequences

Using a cell phone while driving creates enormous potential for deaths and injuries on U.S. roads. In 2022, 3,308 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers.

Get Involved

We can all play a part in the fight to save lives by ending distracted driving.

Teens

Teens can be the best messengers with their peers, so we encourage them to speak up when they see a friend driving while distracted, to have their friends sign a pledge to never drive distracted, to become involved in their local Students Against Destructive Decisions chapter, and to share messages on social media that remind their friends, family, and neighbors not to make the deadly choice to drive distracted.

Parents

Parents first have to lead by example — by never driving distracted — as well as have a talk with their young driver about distraction and all of the responsibilities that come with driving. Have everyone in the family sign the pledge to commit to distraction-free driving. Remind your teen driver that in states with graduated driver licensing (GDL), a violation of distracted-driving laws could mean a delayed or suspended license.

Educators and Employers

Educators and employers can play a part, too. Spread the word at your school or workplace about the dangers of distracted driving. Ask your students to commit to distraction-free driving or set a company policy on distracted driving.

Source: nhtsa.gov

As moving season heats up across the United States, renters should take key steps to help protect their home and family. Smoke alarms help provide an early warning in the event of a fire emergency. However, a significant percentage of renters claim not to have a smoke alarm in their home or test their alarms regularly*.

Residential rental property owners and their tenants share the responsibility to ensure adequate protection against the threats of smoke and fire. Smoke alarms are widely required across housing types in the United States, and many jurisdictions further require carbon monoxide alarms. Working together, property owners and tenants may establish regular maintenance like battery replacement and equipment testing schedules to help reduce risk.

Signing a new lease or renewing a current one is an opportune time for property owners and tenants to take inventory of their alarms and make sure they are working properly, and to ensure tenants know what to do in case of an emergency.

Below are some fire safety tips for renters and property owners to help guide discussions between property owners and tenants, ultimately ensuring that both parties are ready for the unexpected:

1. Every level, every bedroom

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommends that smoke alarms be installed on every level of the home, including the basement, and inside each bedroom. It's also important to keep CO, known as the "silent killer," in mind. CO is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas that can be potentially poisonous. The only way to detect a CO leak is with working CO alarms, which should be installed on every level and near all sleeping areas.

2. Test and maintain

Once alarms are installed, an important fire safety tip for renters and property owners is to maintain them by testing them regularly and replacing the batteries at least every six months. For a battery that lasts the life of the alarm and for convenient protection, install 10-year sealed battery alarms, like the First Alert 10-Year Sealed Battery Smoke and CO Alarm. 10-Year sealed battery alarms eliminate the need to replace the batteries and late-night battery chirps for a decade.

3. Alarms don't last forever

Be sure to replace outdated units. If you cannot remember the last time you installed an alarm, chances are, it's time to replace it. Alarms are on duty 24/7 and need to be replaced every 10 years.

4. P.A.S.S. the fire extinguisher

Beyond alarms, having fire extinguishers – and knowing how to use them – is an important fire safety tip for renters to help maintain a safe residence. When you need to act quickly, a simple way to remember how to use a fire extinguisher is with the acronym P.A.S.S. Simply pull the pin, aim the nozzle at the base of the fire, squeeze the trigger and sweep from side to side. Place fire extinguishers in common areas such as the kitchen, the garage and on every level of the home. Once your home is properly equipped, check to make sure that they're in working condition and are not damaged, dented or rusted.

Properly installed and regularly maintained fire safety equipment is key to maintaining a safe household.

Source: firstalert.com

What are the Origins of St. Patrick’s Day, the patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th century, he was kidnapped at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland as a slave. He escaped but returned about 432 ce to convert the Irish to Christianity. By the time of his death on March 17, 461, he had established monasteries, churches, and schools. Many legends grew up around him—for example, that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. Ireland came to celebrate his day with religious services and feasts.

St. Patrick's Day

It was emigrants, particularly to the United States, who transformed St. Patrick’s Day into a largely secular holiday of revelry and celebration of things Irish. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants, who often wielded political power, staged the most extensive celebrations, which included elaborate parades. Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by New York City in 1762. Since 1962 Chicago has colored its river green to mark the holiday. (Although blue was the color traditionally associated with St. Patrick, green is now commonly connected with the day.) Irish and non-Irish alike commonly participate in the “wearing of the green”—sporting an item of green clothing or a shamrock, the Irish national plant, in the lapel. Corned beef and cabbage are associated with the holiday, and even beer is sometimes dyed green to celebrate the day. Although some of these practices eventually were adopted by the Irish themselves, they did so largely for the benefit of tourists.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Lallis & Higgins Insurance!

Source: britannica.com/