Thursday, March 29, 2007

Quit Smoking Tips:

* Firstly, you need a firm determination to quit smoking. When you have determined firmly to quit smoking, and then decide a date. Now, from this particular date, you will firmly determine to quit smoking.
* As the date of quitting is nearing, try to reduce the cigarette intake and the conditions when you smoke. Take a glass jar, fill it with water and drop all the butts of cigarette into it.
* For a smoker, smoking is one of the essentials. Now you have decided to quit smoking and to attain the quitting, try some other work at the time of smoking.
* In your free time, try to concentrate on the advantages after you quit smoking cigarette.

Monday, March 19, 2007

7 Days Stop Smoking Program

The first thing to do is set a date when you are going to stop smoking. Let’s start one week from today. That will give you plenty of time to practice with the weapons in your arsenal. Eight days from today, it will be the beginning of the end of your smoking habit.

Days 1 and 2

Examine your smoking behavior for the first two days. Every time you light up, ask yourself:

  1. Why am I smoking this cigarette?
  2. Would this be an easy one or a difficult one to do without?
  3. If I did not smoke this cigarette, what would I do instead?

Day 3

Let’s get out and test your weapons today.

At least once today, use your weapons to shoot down the urge to smoke.

During the five minutes that it will take for the urge to pass, try out some of your arsenal. Try one, or all, or find a combination that works for you.

Day 4

Today is the big testing day. If you haven’t already tried it, skip those one or two cigarettes that you feel may be the toughest to give up in your daily routine. Pick the ones that you rated “difficult” during your monitoring period.

Remember, this is a practice period, and you must not get upset if you are unable to give up a difficult cigarette. You must practice and experiment with your different weapons to realize how you can be more effective.

If you found skipping that cigarette very hard or even failed in the end, review any factor that got in the way of your success. The most common causes of difficulty or failure that a potential quitter faces are:

Chemical properties of addiction

When you do not have that cigarette, you feel lousy. If you are a heavy smoker, a nicotine patch may help to relieve your bad feelings.


Social pressures

You may find yourself in a situation like, card game, party, coffee break during which you would normally smoke. It may help to let others know of your desire to stop smoking, and also your reasons to stop smoking.

Enlisting the aid of a non smoker to confide in may also help. Make sure that he or she is aware of your goals so that they do not say or do anything to instill a negative impact on your desire to stop smoking.

If you feel that you may not resist the social pressures of smoking, consider the option of giving up these social encounters for two or three weeks until the urge passes and you can be comfortable again.

Tension and negative emotion

A crisis occurs during your work or personal day, and one of the main reasons for you to smoke has been tension reduction. Try to deal with your negative emotions and use the tension reducing methods that we talked about earlier.

Get away from the area that the tension is associated with. Take a walk, or go to another room. You may also find that nicotine gum will give you enough tension relief to get through.

Days 5, 6, and 7

You are now heading down the home stretch. In the next three days, your goal is to come out of this week smoking half the cigarettes that you would normally smoke. If you started as a one pack a day smoker, cut back to ten cigarettes per day, or less.

The fewer the better

During days 5 and 6, set your goals toward achieving positive results on day 7. Maintain your smoking record during these three days, and continue to decrease your dependency on nicotine.

What do you do if you still have doubts? This is probably due to your chemical dependency on nicotine. It is a highly powerful drug, and many factors have been working together to make you dependent.

Discuss with your doctor about the feasibility of a patch or nicotine gum. Nicotine is the hook that has gotten you to smoke which carries the harmful effects to your body. With the help from the patch or the gum, you will have all he tools you need to successfully quit.

The nicotine patch or gum will give you a steady influx of nicotine into your system, which will be reduced slowly over a period of several weeks. Do not smoke while on the nicotine patch. You could experience a dangerous overdose of nicotine.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

What You Can Eat



Food Groups Enjoy Adequate
Amounts Of
Limit
Grains Breads, brown and regular rice, ready-to-eat flaky whole grain cereals, pasta, oats, tortillas, pita bread Baked goods made with heart-unhealthy fat (See Fats & Oils below)
Vegetables All fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables Vegetables topped with cream sauces, whole milk cheese, and butter
Fruits All fresh, frozen, and canned fruits Fruits topped with cream
Dairy Foods Nonfat and low fat milk and yogurt, reduced and low fat cheeses, and light ice cream Whole milk, 2 percent milk, whole milk cheeses, and full fat ice cream
Meats & Meat Alternatives Lean cuts of meats, such as tenderloin, sirloin, round, and lean or extra lean ground beef, turkey, or chicken, low fat luncheon meats and hot dogs, dried peas and beans, skinless poultry, fish, beans, tofu, peanut butter, nuts, egg whites, and egg substitutes (Keep meat, poultry, and fish to about six ounces daily) Fatty cuts of meat such as untrimmed meats, hot dogs, sausages, and bacon, excessive egg yolks*, organ meats (liver), poultry with skin, and fatty luncheon meats, such as bologna and salami
Fats and Oils Soft margarine, olive, soybean, canola, corn, peanut, sunflower, and sesame oils Whole milk, yogurt, and cheeses, full fat ice cream, cream

*Since an egg yolk contains over 200 milligrams of dietary cholesterol, these need to be balanced within your diet in order to harness your daily cholesterol intake. Egg whites are free of dietary cholesterol.

- By Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, LDN. Blake is a nutrition professor at Boston University and a nationally known writer, lecturer and nutrition expert.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Which are the best acne treatments? It depends! by Sarah Rhodes

For women it may be necessary to change some of the cosmetics you use daily ensuring that any foundations, blushes, eye shadow or moisturizers are oil free. It is best to look for products labeled noncomedogenic as these do not promote the formation of closed pores that cause the formation of spots and pimples. Even using these particular products some women may find their condition worsening. Additionally, it may be difficult to apply foundations during the first few weeks of treatment as the skin may become red or scaly, particularly with the use of topical tretinoin or benzoyl peroxide.

Herbs such as chamomile, lavender, juniper, bergamot, dandelion root, and burdock root can be used to reduce toxicity and improve the overall condition of the skin. Echinacea and poke root are often used for their anti-inflammatory properties and red clover may be beneficial for its estrogenic action. Witch hazel has excellent astringent properties and may be very effective on acne.

You might think that treating acne requires you to see and consult for prescription. Well, you can actually treat it by yourself! You can find solutions right in your home or garden! Applying toothpaste in your acne and letting it stay overnight is just one and actually the most common home treatment for acne most people do. You can also try a variety of paste or mask that are great options made from different plant species. You can choose from applying salt and vinegar solution, lime, ripe tomatoes, methi(fenugreek) leaves, lemon, dried basil leaves, mint juice, cucumber, corn flour and egg white, sandalwood, roasted and powdered pomgranate, ground radish, oatmeal, almond powder, honey, ground orange peel, nutmeg and milk, turmeric and tender neem, ground sesame seeds, papaya, and drumstick pods and leaves. Truly natural home treatments for acne!

There seems to be a growing number of different treatments but usually over the counter products come in the form of topical cleansers, soaps, washes, lotions, creams, gels or even pads and patches that are applied onto the skin. When using these kinds of preparations it is important, that you cover all of the area where you have acne because then you will also be treating the hidden blemishes that you can't yet see as well as the acne breakouts that you can. Expect some trials and errors as you experiment with the different treatments available, it may take you a while before you find the right type or combination of products that work for you. Whatever you do, don't use more than one treatment at a time, particularly with medicated products, discontinue one before you try out another.

Acne isn't really helped by the sun, either. Although a suntan can temporarily make acne look less severe, it won't help it go away permanently. So don't soak up those rays - either under the sun or from a tanning bed - in an effort to help your skin.

While laser skin resurfacing, Dermabrasion, and chemical peels are the most popular methods for acne scar removal, injection methods are also used. The injections may contain collagen, or fat taken from other parts of the body. While these injections work well, they do have to be repeated often, and they can be quite expensive. The injections do not actually remove or heal the scars - it simply hides them by filling them up.
About the Author

Sarah Rhodes suffered from severe acne for many years before finally discovering a cure that works. Read about Sarah and the secret that permanently cured her acne at: acnehomesolution.com

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

How To Recognize Asthma Symptoms? by Gaetane Ross

If you think you might have asthma, here are some signs and symptoms that can help you distinguish between a simple cold or flu virus and the advent of asthma and/or an impending asthma attack.

Of course, the main problem with diagnosing asthma is that a typical asthma symptom is easily confused with a symptom caused by a common cold or flu virus. If you suspect that you or your child may have asthma, or if you or your child are displaying any of the following symptoms, it is imperative that you immediately see your doctor. Even if you think something is just a cold, for safety's sake, you should see your doctor and rule out asthma. Should you ignore any symptoms, doing so can have serious repercussions, especially in regard to your child's health. As with most things,a typical asthma symptoms can vary from one person to another. However, there are specific things to look out for. These include wheezing, in which you whistle when you breathe in or out. If this happens to you or your child at night or when you have just gotten over suffering a cold, it could mean that you are developing asthma. Of course, it could also mean that you are developing or suffering from a lung infection, which is dangerous in its own right. Either way, see a doctor immediately.

Of course, not all asthma sufferers have wheezing, but there are other symptoms as well. For example, does your child have a cough that just won't go away? This is an asthma symptom as well, and should be checked out immediately. Another asthma symptom that's common is to have the feeling of breathlessness, or finding it extremely difficult to breathe. Less severely, it can simply be a feeling of tightness in the chest. Keep in mind that very young children may not be able to clearly verbalize what they're feeling, so it behooves you as the parent to surmise what may be happening and get prompt medical care. For example, even if your very young child says he has a stomach ache, he may in fact be talking about pain in his chest, if he cannot be very clear on exactly what he's feeling. Having such symptoms checked out by a doctor covers all the bases and makes sure that your child is safe.

Of course, young children need to be held, and they may also say that they need to be carried or otherwise treated like an infant, especially if they've had some traumatic event in their life, such as a new baby in the house. However, this is different than the type of neediness or clinging that happens when a child is feeling ill, and you as the parent will be able to clue in on what the difference is. It should also be noted that feeling tired is a common asthmatic symptom, so if your normally energetic child is feeling lethargic, this is another clue. All in all, just to be safe, taking your child to the doctor when he or she is exhibiting any kind of illness that is clearly not simply minor should be checked out.

About the Author

Did you find those tips on "How To Recognize asthma Symptoms" useful? If so,You can learn a lot more about how we can help you here. http://Live-O-Natural.com http://www.live-o-natural.com/LiveONaturalNewTreatmentBreakthroughForAsthma.html