Month: June 2008

Fine Tune Your Mind

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We normally are living a life where we just get dull and take a back seat in our lives and are all wrapped up in our day to day life and with lots of situations that we need to handle throughout the day. We go through different things during the day and feel that our mind is really tired and that we just cannot stand any more stress on it. But on the other hand we see people who are really strong in their mind and just involve themselves in the activities that strengthen up their minds and make them feel sharper than ever no matter how much stress that they are going through. Mind is something that has never been explored fully though there still are a lot of researches that are going on but still there is a lot much to know as to how our mind works and what we can do to strengthen it and make it work the best for us and honestly speaking that is what we want deep inside.

In this article we are going to discuss as to how important it is to keep your mind rolling by doing different mathematical questions, puzzles, etc. and these things can just give your mind the vitality that it needs to better solve the different problems and handle different situations that your mind is going through each day. Brain is the control of our body that performs so many important functions of our body from thinking, talking, movements of muscles, memorization and so on and on.

There was a study that was conducted in which it was determined that the individuals who prefer to live a dull life and do not involve in brain exercises are the ones who are most likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. We can easily understand as if we have a bicycle that is in the working order and then we do not use it, we will see that slowly and gradually it is going to get rusty and then a time will come when we would not be able to use that bicycle at all and that would be a part of junk, which is true. So by looking at this theory it is really necessary that we care for ourselves and bring our brain into action by working on the different brain teasers and crossword puzzles.

Now we are going to discuss the different things that will greatly enhance your brain ability and will make you a far better learner than any other individual. It is really important that you first understand its true importance because this will put you in the lead than the rest of the people who are not into making themselves go through the brain rush. The most important thing that you need to do is to bring about a change in your lifestyle. At this point I would like to make a note that intelligence quotient is not a permanent thing, it varies according to your brain capability, if you are not putting yourself through brain exercises just by thinking that you have a low intelligence quotient then you must know that it is something that you can increase very easily just by making yourself go through different brain exercises over a short span of time and you will see that your intelligence quotient is something that is building up really fast, much faster than you can ever imagine.

You can utilize math skills to improve your brain functioning. There are people who can calculate faster than a calculator and their understanding towards a thing is much faster than an average or above average individual. So you can just put yourself into calculating different things and can even explore Internet where you can find different math problems that you can solve and can learn a great deal from them.

Start focusing on the language skills. You can go through the newspapers and will find the different topics really interesting, just go through them and try to have a complete understanding of the theme of that topic. You can also find the crossword puzzles that you can work on and you don’t need to think that you are in a competition or something just take your time and find those things interesting for you so that you can keep working on them and then make it a habit and after that you can compete for time and you will see that you will be able to complete that in the given time and much before that. So just do not judge yourself for that in the beginning.

Another very interesting thing that you can adopt is to memorize one word or a quote depending upon when you have time to go through that and you can always make time for that. You will see that you are putting your mind to exercise the different things and that you can do it. There will be a lot of factors that will discourage you, but you need to know that you just need to keep on going because it will make you more confident on yourself.

You can explore the topic of your interest and can dig into it more and more and find new information that comes along and keep yourself up-to-date with it. This way you are going to see that you are learning more and more on a constant basis and that this is strengthening your knowledge and making you a whole lot confident on the things that you were not comfortable on before.

You can also work on enhancing your visualization powers where you can start to paint and imagine the different ways you want to express yourself. It is not necessary that you paint following the lines but you can paint in an abstract way and express yourself through different colors and this will just open up your mind to see things through different angles and that would enhance your capabilities greatly.

Along with all these words of advices it is also important to make a note that you eat healthy foods and that foods that are rich in choline, omega-3 fatty acids, as well as antioxidants. I hope this article will make you be the one that you have always wanted to be.


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Diet Rich In Enzymes

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It is mostly that we hear that we need to have a balanced diet that we should eat on a normal basis and must wisely eliminate the foods that are not good for our health. That is true but there is another aspect to diet that must be kept in mind and that is one should have enzymes in their diet because enzymes are the most important part of our dietary habits and they are responsible to help us digest our diet. There are a lot of individuals who feel that they are unable to eat meals properly because they feel bloated and feel that they are unable to digest the food properly, but the most important thing to consider here is that they might have lack of secretion of the enzymes responsible for digestion in their body. It is important that these individuals when suffer from problems with indigestion that they should consult their physicians and ask as to whether or not they are suffering from any enzymatic deficiencies in their body.

When you go to a grocery store, you always look for foods that have no fat grams in it and are high in proteins and are balanced in the carbohydrate content, as well as the necessary minerals, but have you ever seen if your food has the right amount of enzymes in it. I think some of you might but mostly people do not look for the enzyme content in their foods. It is because a lot of people are not aware of the fact that enzymes do play a very important role in digestion. There are a lot of people who are suffering from a lot of problems because of the enzyme deficiencies that include stomach ache, indigestion, constipation, allergies, diarrhea etc.

I know you must be thinking as to what enzymes are. Enzymes are protein molecules that are highly complexed and they take their energy from oxygen and then work on digesting the food. Enzymes catalyze the reaction at which the food is being digested and they just make the reaction go faster to many folds. If there is any problem with the production of the enzymes or absence of enzymes then the process of food breakdown gets slow and then causes a lot of problems in terms of constipation, diarrhea etc. One important thing that needs to be mentioned here is that if you are eating processed foods then these foods are going to take a lot of enzymatic activity to be broken down into the simpler form that makes them available for digestion by the cells. The basic reason that a lot of enzymes are required to breakdown the processed food is that these foods do not have a natural presence of enzymes in them, whereas on the other side the natural foods have enzymes present in them. So, the best choice is that the individuals must stress more on the natural foods that have the natural enzymes present in them and just do not deplete the enzymatic reserve in your body.

If the enzymes are depleted then the metabolic enzymes come into play and these then work toward digesting the food. There are a lot of other roles of the metabolic enzymes but when they start to work on digesting the food they are being taken away from a lot of the other major functions of these enzymes and these then cause a lot of disruption in the normal bodily functioning. The major effects that it would have includes weakening of the immune system, drop in the energy levels, and slowly and gradually the individual just starts to stress out and gets a lot fatigued. This is all happening because the metabolizing enzymes are working on another track than their normal.

Now you can easily understand as to what is happening with you only because there is decrease in the production of the enzymes or the habits in which you are eating a lot of processed food. There is a lot of discussion going on among people who are saying that would it be good if they would eat raw foods or undercooked foods. It is not good to eat raw foods or undercooked foods because these foods can cause a lot of health problems and it is therefore important that these foods should be cleaned thoroughly and cooked well. It is also important that the foods should not be overcooked because then it would just cause the foods to lose all the beneficial ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, as well as enzymes. The person who is cooking the food must take good care that everyone must have the enzymes as supplements if they are eating processed foods.

Another good suggestion by different nutritionists who guide people with their diet issues is that the people must add the vitamins, minerals and enzymatic supplementation to their diet and that whatever the issues that they have been going through will resolve and they will see a whole lot of benefit in their health. I hope this article would provide you with useful information and would definitely prove beneficial for your health.


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Relieve Your Pain Through Magnet Therapy

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With a lot of advancements in the world of science, there is a new breakthrough in providing pain relief with the help of magnet therapy, which is a really new avenue in terms of providing pain relief. There have been researches conducted on a group of patients who have been suffering from post-polio syndrome. In that study a small magnet was strapped to the sensitive spots that were pretty sore and that the use of the magnet just reduced the level of pain in these individuals. In that study, which was a double blind study most of the patients were the ones who received the treatment with the magnet were the ones who had decrease in pain and on the other side the individuals who were given the placebos or the magnets that were inactive were the ones who either reported little or no improvement at all.

The researchers just analyzed the aspects of the magnet therapy in the adults who were diagnosed with the post polio syndrome and were suffering from the arthritic pain in the joints or had pain in the muscle. There were about 39 women and about 11 men who participated in the study. All these individuals were in their 50s and they had developed the post polio syndrome at the age of 40. First of all these patients were asked to identify the trigger points where they were feeling the most pain and they were asked to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 where the level 10 was the worst. After that the patients were then randomly given an active and inactive magnet and that magnet was then strapped to their trigger point for a total of about 45 minutes. When the magnets were removed then the patients were asked to rate the intensity of their pain again and there were a total of about 29 participants in that study who received an active magnet. The pain that these individuals rated was of about 9 plus before the treatment and then when they wore the magnet the pain level reduced to about 4.4. On the other hand the group who received the placebo rated their pain to about 9 plus before they received the treatment and after the treatment the pain level went to about 8.4.

While explaining the magnets, the researchers said that these magnets are about less than a half inch thick and these magnets were slightly stronger than the refrigerator magnets and they were available in four set up arrangement so as to adjust in the different areas of the body, it is a rectangle which is the size of a credit card, and there was a six inch strip that was almost about two inches wide, a disc that is the size of a silver dollar and the disc, which is the size of a CD. There were about 76% of the patients who had been treated with the active magnet and they reported a decrease in pain and on the other hand only about 19% of the individuals who were treated with the placebo were the ones who felt improvement and there were no individuals who reported side effects from the treatment. The researchers said that they were not sure as to exactly why the patients did have a significant and quick pain relief. They said that the magnetic energy might be affecting the pain receptors both in the joints and in the muscles and that it lowers the sensation of pain in brain.

The researchers said that they need to do more researches in that aspect so that they are able to know as to what are the different aspects involved in the treatment of pain from the post polio syndrome and understanding that whether the magnet therapy should be recommended as an alternative to the treatment that are being prescribed as a standard mode such as physical therapy, braces, anti-inflammatory drugs, as well as muscle relaxants.
One of the physicians have made his opinion that the magnetic therapy has been under observation and there is a lot of data being collected that shows a lot of people who have used this mode of therapy have gained benefits from it. The thing that needs to be seen here is that there are two kinds of magnets that are being used, one is the pulsed electromagnet that has shown its effectiveness to treat the slow healing fractures as well as in other conditions where it has shown proven benefit, whereas on the other hand is the static magnet that is being marketed with the slogans that it increases circulation, reduces the inflammation and also gives a speedy recovery from injuries to the individuals. The physician added that there are no supportive evidences to prove the benefits of the static magnets.

There was another research conducted in which there were patients who were suffering from heel pain. In this study the patients wore molded insole that contained a magnetic foil in about 19 patients, where as other 15 patients wore the same insole but there was no magnetic foil in that. In this study there were about 60% of the people who reported improvement belonged to both the groups and it suggested that the magnetic foil just showed no benefit.

There was another study that was conducted on about 20 patients who were suffering from chronic back pain. In this study the patients were exposed to both the real and sham bipolar permanent magnets and this therapy lasted for about 6 hours a day for about 3 days a week and there was a one week gap between the treatments. There was no difference in either pain or mobility that was found between the treatments.

The physician also added that the manufacturers of these magnets claimed that these magnets increase circulation and he said that this claim is false because the magnet just did not raise the circulation of that area because if the magnet increased the circulation in that area then that area would have gone red. There was also a study that was conducted to see whether this claim was right or not that the magnet increased the circulation but it was found that the magnet did not increase the blood flow at all.

From the above mentioned information it is really important that when you are being told about the therapy that you ask your physician about the pros and cons of this therapy and that what is the percentage of improvement in pain among the different individuals suffering from pain so that you are able to make your decision that whether you are going to opt for this therapy or not. I hope you have found this article helpful and informative. I hope you overcome your pain that you are going through. Best of luck.


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Fibromyalgia And Exercise

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Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain illness that is characterized by the widespread musculoskeletal aches and pains, includes the pain and stiffness, tenderness of the soft tissues, fatigue, as well as sleep disturbance. The most common spots where the aches and pains occur are the neck, back, shoulders, hands and the pelvic girdle, but in this illness any part of the body can be involved. The pain ranges to different level of intensities and that these differ from time to time. Another very striking evidence is that there are about 3-6 percent of the United States population who are suffering from this chronic illness. The most common gender affected by this illness are the females, but this illness also affects men as well as children.
Fibromyalgia has a tremendous impact on the lives of the individuals who are suffering from the fibromyalgia syndrome. Let us take an example that a woman who was happily married with two kids now is suffering from this illness and she has a lot of responsibilities that she has to do in an entire day, but now due to the aches and pains in her body she is unable to do that and is suffering greatly from them and thus is unable to do any of her responsibilities the way she used to and it is really affecting the lives of the entire family because now her husband has a lot to do around the house as well as go to his job and earn money to make the ends meet. If the woman has a job, she might go on a leave or has to quit that job, so this puts the family under tremendous amount of financial pressure, as well as a lot of chores that are to be done on a day to day basis. Therefore this illness just changes the entire lifestyle of the family and just puts them at increased stress.

Now we are going to look at the symptoms of the fibromyalgia, which includes pain as its first symptom. The pain of fibromyalgia is quite significant and it is present throughout the body and is chronic. This pain just does not stay at one point but can involve any part of the body. If we describe the pain of the fibromyalgia, it will be that this pain is deep and is in the muscles, it is throbbing in nature and stabbing and shooting in character. There is also involvement of the neurological symptoms that include numbness, tingling, burning and this greatly intensifies the pain of the individual. The factors that greatly increase the pain include the change in weather that includes cold and humid weather, disturbance in sleep, either excessive or decreased physical activity or no physical activity at all, as well as anxiety and stress.

Another very striking symptom of fibromyalgia is the fatigue. The fatigue of the fibromyalgia is very different from the fatigue that occurs due to strenuous activity throughout the day. The fatigue that is experienced in the fibromyalgia patients is different in terms that it drains the entire energy in an individual and one feels that they have no energy at all in them to do any of the chores or any activity and this is very much depressing for the individual that they have no energy at all to function.

Along with the above two symptoms that are described above, there is another symptom that just damages the life of these individuals and that is the sleep problem due to the pain that these individuals suffer. The pain can occur at any point in time and that this pain can get greatly intensified and can involve any part of the body and thus the individual going through such pain cannot sleep during the night and cannot maintain sleep because of the pain that they are experiencing so they are up after sleeping for a few hours and this just leaves them unrested throughout the day.

Along with these symptoms, other symptoms include irritable bowel syndrome, irritable bladder, migraines, headaches, restless legs syndrome, memory deficit, lack of concentration, dry eyes, dry mouth, anxiety, chronic depression, ringing in the ears, neurological symptoms and impairment in coordination.

It is not easy to diagnose a patient who is suffering from fibromyalgia and it is from the history that the doctors gather the diagnosis from. The sites of the tender points and the history of the pain, extent of pain, character of pain, the extent of fatigue are of a major value where the doctors understand that these symptoms are indicative of fibromyalgia. It is important to note here that it takes a longer time to determine as to whether or not the individual is suffering from fibromyalgia. If there is presence of other diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis then the diagnosis of this disease is going to get a lot difficult. There is a diagnostic criteria that needs to be met to label an individual with the fibromyalgia, which includes the widespread pain in all the four quadrants of the body for the least duration of about three months. The tenderness in about 11 out of 18 points in the areas specified for the fibromyalgic points.

Another question that just raises in the mind is that what is the cause of the fibromyalgia. As of now there is no exact mechanism to explain the cause of fibromyalgia but the researchers agree that fibromyalgia is a disorder of the central processing with the dysregulation of the neuroendocrine/neurotransmitter. The patient suffers increased pain due to the abnormal sensory processing in the central nervous system. It has also been found that genetics is also responsible for the cause of fibromyalgia. The researches are still conducted to determine as to what are the definite causes of fibromyalgia and how this can be prevented.

One must get the treatment of fibromyalgia from the physician who has a command in that problem so that the right lines are being determined so as to treat these individuals who are suffering from its aftermath. Most commonly pain is the biggest symptom of fibromyalgia and for this reason over the counter pain medications are being prescribed, which includes acetaminophen, ibuprofen. There are certain instances where the individuals do not get any benefit from the over the counter pain medications are being prescribed non-narcotic medications such as tramadol or the low dose antidepressants, which include tricyclic antidepressants, serotonin reuptake inhibitor. If there is excessive pain then the physicians give lidocaine injections in the tender points so that pain can be kept at bay.

Another very important aspect that is gaining a lot of strength these days is exercise because fibromyalgia leaves people totally incapacitated and that causes them to lay down for most of the time and because of this they lose a lot of muscle content and for that matter they need to focus on the different exercises that can help them to build their muscle framework back and that will strengthen them to perform their activities of daily living. The individuals suffering from fibromyalgia might not like to exercise but if they make it their focus to gain their strength and their life back, they can put in all their energies and can regain the strength back and can star to live a normal life.

Therefore it is very important that the individuals who are suffering from fibromyalgia contact their physician or exercise instructor who can tell them about the specific exercises that can help them gain a lot of the muscle mass back in the least possible time. I hope this article would be helpful to you and that you have gained basic information about fibromyalgia. I hope that you get well pretty soon. Best of luck.


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