|
ARTICLES:
ENDORPHINS:
E-books by
Stacie
|
 |
Health Related Articles
Formula for a Good
Night's Sleep Goose Bumps and Toe Jam Does
Your Child See What You See?
Screen
Savers and Bone-Ups, If you're often stressed during the day or have occasional trouble sleeping at night, you might want to try this method which is tried and true. I recommended this method to a young graduate student whose erratic study habits had resulted in difficulty sleeping even when he had the chance. The first time he tried it, Pat reported back that he'd had his first full night's sleep in over twelve months! I told Pat's story to a friend who hadn't slept more than two hours at a time in years. He figured if it had worked for the grad student, it might work for him. He tried it, and was amazed at the results. Why not try it for yourself, and see if it works for you? Step one: Go to the health food store and buy a good blend of Calcium and Magnesium with vitamin D. The brands I recommend are Bone Ups and Cal Mags. Step two: Go on the internet and look for a free nature screensaver to download. Choose one that makes you feel good inside just by looking at it. For me, it's a New England snow scene. If you don't like snow, or it reminds you of frostbite, you might prefer to download a tropical scene or an animated aquarium. You might want to download several so you'll have a variety to choose from. My husband's favorite is an animated waterfall in the forest, complete with soft music, the sound of running water, and the chirping of colorful birds flying through the air. There's even a school of fish swimming under the water. I don't know how the programmer did it, but this screen saver actually appears to have surround sound. I kid you not. With only two speakers sitting on your desk, you can hear the waterfall in front of you, and the sound of birds above and behind you. Choose your favorite screen saver, and download it to your computer. (If it comes equipped with music that you don't want to hear, just turn off your speakers.) Step three: Next time you feel uptight, go into the room where you keep your computer. Close the shades to dim the light, and sit down in a comfortable chair with your hands unclenched and your feet flat on the floor (or whatever position is most comfortable for you). Take several deep breaths and force all distressing thoughts from your mind. Focus on your screen saver, and continue the deep breathing. If inappropriate or stressful thoughts try to creep in, replace them with thoughts about the beautiful scene on your screen. Ten minutes of this, for me, is the equivalent of twenty in a spa. And both are without the negative side effects of tranquilizers or sleeping pills. Steps four and five: You can use the screen saver to relax and unwind during the daytime. But for use with the Bone Ups as a sleep aid, change into your night clothes first so you won't have to change later and risk undoing the relaxation you've achieved. Next, take three or four Bone Ups or Cal Mags, then sit down in that comfortable chair and turn on the nature scene screen saver. (Supplementing with calcium/magnesium at bedtime will not only help keep your muscles from twitching; it will prevent your body from taking calcium from your bones while we're sleeping.) Important: If you're on prescription medications that might be affected by the use of these supplements, be sure to check with your doctor before trying this. Final step: When
you feel your muscles beginning to relax and your eyelids beginning
to droop, don't fight it. Go to bed, have pleasant dreams, and wake
up refreshed in the morning.
Goose Bumps and Toe Jam I wanted to write a little article about Goose Bumps and Toe Jam because I was in a whimsical mood and thought it was a cute title. But I couldn’t find anything in my health reference books or on the web defining exactly what toe jam is, or detailing what it’s made of. All I could find was a list of sites about a music management company known as Toe Jam, established in 1988 as a partnership between Tony and Jose Melendez. This obviously wasn’t what I had in mind.
Given the dearth of available information on toe jam, as in the gooey stuff sometimes located between the toes (comprised of dirt, sock lint, oil, and perspiration?), I’ll just have to settle for writing about goose flesh. What do you think of when you hear the term “goose bumps?” If you’re a parent who keeps track of what your children read, you may automatically think of a series of books written to provide thrills to pre-adolescent readers. For everyone else, the term brings to mind cold weather, fear, gentle tickling, and/or delicious thrills such as those experienced when watching a scary movie. So now we’ve identified what things trigger our bodies to “break out” in goose bumps (also known as goose pimples or goose flesh). But how do our bodies do this? How can smooth skin be transformed in a fraction of a second to skin covered with tiny bumps resembling the rough skin of a naked goose? It’s actually similar to the fear reaction that’s been known to cause a person’s hair to stand on end. Goose
bumps are one of the body’s many involuntary reactions to fear,
emotional stress, or skin irritation. They are the result of a
stimulus such as fear or cold signaling the Sympathetic
(involuntary) portion of the nervous system to trigger nerves to the
hair erector muscles to contract. When these tiny muscles tighten,
hair follicles are temporarily raised above the skin’s surface.
These tiny elevations are what is commonly known as goose bumps.
Does
Your Child See What You See? Joey Knight was puzzled. What did his parents mean by color? Green shirt, red shirt, brown shirt, gray shirt. Huh? They all looked pretty much the same to him. He figured his parents were just smarter than he was. Approximately eight percent of the world’s population has some degree of color vision deficiency (CVD), or colorblindness. This means one in 12 males and one in 200 females. Pre-school books, puzzles, games and other toys are colored intensely enough that most children -- even those with CVD -- can tell the colors apart, although they may not look the same to the child with CVD as they do to most people. However, two percent of the male population (and a rare female) can- not see red or green at all, and they confuse other colors as well. These children may not catch on easily to pre-school games that are based on color. They may also resist playing with puzzles that rely as much on color as on shape. They may not be as enthralled with crayons as are most children. They’d just as soon draw with a fat pencil. They may not “get” optical illusions that are easy for other children to see. These children who are severely affected by CVD see all the reds, oranges, yellows and greens as one color and all the blues, violets and purples as another.
Children who are mildly or moderately affected with CVD may have
difficulty matching light shades of colors, especially red (or pink)
and green. They often confuse these colors with other colors, such
as From everyday conversation children learn that “grass is green,” “the sky is blue,” etc. To help children with CVD learn color names (but not always recognize the color itself), parents can label objects in their homes, like a picture of a “Bear” for a brown couch or a “Fire Engine” for red drapes, or a “Sun“ for a yellow wall. Parents can also teach their youngsters the first letter of color names printed on crayons so the children can identify them more easily. They can also encourage pre-school teachers to reinforce this teaching-learning process in the classroom. It’s important -- for children with and without CVD -- not to point out “mistakes” or to chide children for not naming colors “correctly.” Some children -- and adults -- simply don’t see as many colors as other people do. Also, it’s better for parents to say, “I like that green shirt” rather than ask, “What color is your shirt?” A mother with a preschooler who had a moderate CVD said her husband had become extremely frus- trated with their son because he had tried to teach the boy color names. No wonder the boy couldn’t learn color names. Some colors, especially lighter shades, looked identical to him. Another mother with a son with CVD said she thought her son had a language problem. “I thought he wasn’t understanding the words,” she said, when he couldn’t tell color names. CVD is known as a sex-linked recessive disorder. It is carried on the X chromosome. A male has an X and a Y chromosome, and a female has two X chromosomes. When a male inherits an affected X, he will have CVD because, unlike a female, he doesn’t have an unaffected X to dominate the affected X. Because a male always passes his Y chromosome to his sons, he does not pass CVD to his sons; he does, however, pass his X to his daughters who are then “carriers.” A carrier typically doesn’t show symptoms of CVD, but has a 50 percent chance of passing her affected X on to each of her children. The females who inherit the X will, like their mothers, be carriers; the males who inherit the affected X will, like their maternal grandfathers, have CVD. If you have a concern about your child’s color vision, consult an eye care specialist. Specialists generally have color vision tests for pre-school children. Your local school nurse can usually test children as young as four easily and quickly using special books that utilize an affected person’s confusion of red and green with gray. Best of all, a child need not realize that he “failed” the test. He can simply be told how well he did. Parents can speak with the examiner beforehand to be sure this happens. “Your eyes are fine. You just don’t see as many colors as most people,“ is one explanation. The child can be told he’s like his (maternal) Grandpa or perhaps a (maternal) uncle. Usually, the type of the CVD as well as its degree -- whether it’s mild, moderate or severe -- runs in families. The child observes that the older family member has coped well with his CVD. There’s no need in the pre-school years to delve into occupations that require accurate color vision. The child with a severe CVD might realize that in some instances he can actually “see” things that others have difficulty seeing. For instance, some animals are camouflaged -- chameleons, for instance. Their color changes according to their surroundings. A child with typical color vision might not see a chameleon as readily as a child with severely reduced color vision. A child with severe CVD is not confused by color and pays more attention to form, shape and movement. A delightful book that explores feelings associated with colors is Mary Le Duc’s Hailstones and Halibut Bones. This book can be enjoyed by parents and children regardless of their color vision. Arlene Evans is a former school nurse who wrote the first book on color vision deficiency for children: Seeing Color: It's My Rainbow, Too. She also wroteColor is in the Eye of the Beholder for older readers. Both books are for students with and without the disorder – everyone need to understand the challenges involved. Her Web site is: http://www.cvdbooks.com/
Note: This article is intended for informational purposes, and is not meant to be construed as medical advice.
TOP
Shedding Unsightly
Pounds: A Workable Alternative to Fad Diets Who among us over 40 doesn’t wish she (or he) could lose at least five to ten pounds in time for the holidays? This is not to say that extra pounds are only for the middle aged. But anyone in that age category knows that weight loss gets harder with each passing year. If you are a menopausal or peri-menopausal woman, the problem is compounded. Some of us have tried Atkins, and if we’ve stuck with it we’ve probably had some success. Some have tried calorie counting and aerobics. Others have tried the cabbage soup diet, the vegetable soup diet, the submarine sandwich, South Beach, or peanut butter diet… The list could go on and on. I, personally, have had success with the Atkins plan, but I know there are many who are opposed to eating the meat and fats that are inherent in this diet. The truth is that any of these diet plans has a chance of working over the short term if we stick with it and don't cheat. Keeping the weight off once it’s been lost is the challenge. This said, is there another route for those of us who want to lose weight, but don’t want to try any of the methods listed above? Suppose we don’t want to lose just five or ten pounds? Suppose we want to lose twenty, thirty, fifty pounds or more -- without a lot of exercise? The answer is Yes, there appears to be a way. Thousands of people have tried it and are thrilled with their success. This method of weight loss involves a name brand product: Herbalife. You may have heard of it on the radio. I, personally, was not able to lose on Herbalife, but this was because the protein shakes that are at the heart of the program contain soy. I happen to be allergic to soy, but I have a friend who tried the plan and had marvelous results. The friend I’m speaking of is a contractor who used to be huge. Despite the fact that he worked hard for a living and burned literally thousands of calories each day, the size of his stomach could have given Santa Claus a run for his money. Carrying around all that extra weight had taken its toll on Vern’s knees, not to mention his energy level. His significant other loved him and still thought he was sexy, but Vern was dissatisfied with his own appearance. Then a relative who had once been as large as Vern tried Herbalife and managed to lose fifty pounds. Vern was so impressed with his “brother-in-law’s” success that he decided to try Herbalife himself. Along with the protein shakes (available in assorted flavors) and an apple or glass of apple juice during the day, Vern ate steak and a tossed salad every evening of the week, occasionally including a baked potato for variety. To supplement the diet plan and speed up the results, he worked out with weights each evening before dinner. Within three months on Herbalife, Vern had lost thirty pounds. By the end of six months, he’d lost another twenty. He couldn’t sing Herbalife’s praises enough. The last time I saw him he had lost the large stomach. His arm muscles were bulging, and his significant other was thrilled. But best of all, Vern is pleased now with his body, and determined to keep the weight off. Vern is no longer on the plan, but he watches his weight and what he eats. The minute he notices that he’s starting to gain, he goes back on the Herblife plan for a week. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but Vern is looking good. I am not an Herbalife distributor, and I’m not trying to push their products. But to coin an old cliché, seeing really is believing. It goes without saying that before making a radical change in your, diet, it’s wise to consult your health care professional. |
