Untreatable Online Blog

Foods To Beat The Winter Blues

2010-02-08T02:23:00.002-05:00

In the winter when the cold weather blows in, you might find it hard to motivate yourself to get out of bed or even leave the house. Shorter winter days also mean less sunlight every day and sunlight helps us feel wide-awake. You might be experiencing a winter slump and a drop-off in energy levels like many other people. And when lacking in energy, many people look towards food for an extra boost. Make sure you're choosing the right foods year-round and follow these tips for beating your winter blues!

Folate

Mood, sleep and appetite are regulated by serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Folic Acid, or folate, helps your body to process and lower homocysteine levels. High levels of homocysteine are associated with damage to blood vessels, in addition to interfering with the flow of blood and nutrients to the brain. Impaired blood flow may leave you feeling sluggish or slow to process or recall information.

Good sources of folic acid are green leafy vegetables (spinach, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts), potatoes, fortified breads and cereals, beans, peas, and mushrooms.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids have hormone-like effects and anti-inflammatory properties in the body. People who experience seasonal depression during fall and winter have been found to have lower levels of omega-3s. They have also been found to experience an improvement in mood with supplementation of this nutrient.

Omega-3s are found in fatty fish like salmon and tuna, some plant oils (flaxseed, canola), and walnuts.

Vitamin D

The body normally makes Vitamin D from sunlight. This nutrient has many different roles in the body, one of which is to help in the production of serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps you to feel calm, relaxed and happy. Many people are lacking in Vitamin D in the winter because of fewer daylight hours and exposure to sunlight. Currently, Vitamin D is being investigated for its ability to decrease depressive symptoms. Eat foods that are a good source of this vitamin.

Low fat milk is fortified with Vitamin D, in addition to many cereals and some orange juices (check the labels.) One important thing to note is that food sources of Vitamin D are limited, and many people are deficient in this nutrient without even realizing it. Depending on your diet, you may need to take a Calcium + Vitamin D supplement.

Protein

Known for their ability to relax and calm your mood, refined carbohydrates can contribute to sleepiness. A diet high in protein and lower in refined carbohydrates may help to improve mood, stimulate energy and chase away feelings of sluggishness. Protein foods made from amino acids help to stimulate the production of tyrosine, which is responsible for the synthesis of neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine. These are chemicals in your brain that promote feeling alert and that enhance energy.

Low fat dairy products like milk, cheese, cottage cheese and yogurt are good sources of protein, in addition to lean meats, poultry, and eggs. Aim to have some protein on your plate at every meal to keep feeling lively and active all year round!

Rosemary

Many herbs and spices are notorious for their beneficial effects on health in addition to adding flavor to dishes. Rosemary has been shown to increase blood flow to your brain and improve mood. Like Omega-3 fatty acids, this herb also has anti-inflammatory properties and may even benefit the immune system. Responsible for fighting infection and warding off winter colds and flu, keeping your immune system strong will keep you on your feet and feeling great.

Use Rosemary to season your meals and bolster your immunity this winter season!

Just because the sky is gray and the temperature is low, doesn't mean your mood has to be! Choosing the correct foods (in the appropriate portions) can give you more energy and help you handle those winter doldrums.

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Improve Your Putting For A Great Score

2010-02-05T14:48:00.004-05:00

It still amazes me when I go to my local golf training facility and see all of the people with the expensive drivers whacking away at balls yet no one is on the putting green. If you have watched a major championship then you should know that the title is not won or lost when using the big clubs but what happens when the putter is pulled out of the bag. The worlds most famous golfer Tiger Woods knows this and he starts his best selling "How I Play Golf" with ways to improve your putting.

There is nothing sexy about putting and unless the putt is in the twenty foot range it tends not to bring out the loud cheers although it should. Take a look at your last golf card and you will quickly see that most of your strokes are not off the tee but on the green. Now imagine that the majority of your three putts become twos and the majority of your two putts go straight in the hole and the impact it would have on your scorecard. The best way to drop your score is not in a drive that goes an extra twenty yards but on your consistency on the green. Two putt every hole on a typical round adds up to thirty six strokes on your scorecard and is a very good reason why you are struggling to break eighty or possible a hundred.

Next time you head out to the driving range think about the smallest club in the bag and make sure that it sees some daylight in between rounds for as they like to say in the big leagues putting is where you earn your paycheck. Improve your putting and the rest of your game will follow plus you will make some money off of your friends during those friendly wagers.

Improve your putting with helpful golf tips at my website Improve My Putting

Golf Season

2010-02-04T16:53:00.004-05:00

I wish it was golf season as that would mean winter would finally be over. My latest projects are golf related with a couple of lenses devoted to putting: Improve your putting, Improve my putting, and a couple of lenses devoted to golf equipment such as top ten golf putters and top ten golf drivers.

Thankfully with Squidoo it does not take very long to create a site and best of all it is free to use. take care

One Week Marketing Review

2010-02-02T14:51:00.003-05:00

The problem with most make money programs out there is that the creator of the product assumes that you know a heck of a lot already so he or she does not provide all of the steps in order to succeed. One Week Marketing was created by a woman down in Georgia who actually takes the time to line out the complete process of creating a business online and how to actually make money by doing so. Every day One Week Marketing lists a series of steps to take in a way that a person with no marketing skills will understand completely and slowly you will see your online business succeed. At the end of the week you will have a online business that can basically run by itself and if you followed her instructions correctly soon you will start to make sales. The creator of One Week Marketing is so convinced by her product if you do not make all of the money that you spent on this valuable resource back within sixty days she will refund your money with no questions asked. If you want to learn how to make money online and prefer a step by step method than this is the product that you have been looking for.

Some kids hurt themselves to feel better - Article

2010-02-01T14:50:00.003-05:00

They come from all walks of life. One teenage girl cuts her thighs after piano lessons to avoid the crushing pressure for perfection. She sees a therapist twice a week, but she never gets better.

Another young woman makes dangerous cuts to her arms and wrists when she is anxious. She is on her fourth foster placement because no one can handle her behavior. Another burns her fingers with a cigarette lighter when she hears her parents fight. She's been hospitalized twice in the past year.

Stories such as these are heard daily by those of us who study and treat self-injury -- that is, any activity resulting in intentional bodily damage to oneself. It is a syndrome found across cultures and socioeconomic classes (although it tends to be a bit more common among the more well-off), and it appears to be on the rise.

Though cutting the skin with sharp objects is the most common method used, especially by girls, other means of self-injury including head banging, overdosing, burning, hanging, drowning and shooting.

Given its potential for death and serious injury, this phenomenon has received increasing media attention, with a number of movies, such as "Secretary" in 2002, portraying the phenomenon.

From my perspective, this is an urgent public health issue, yet funding for research and treatment lags well behind funding for other behavioral disorders, such as autism.

Self-injury is troubling for several reasons.

First of all, almost 400,000 adolescents and young adults were treated medically for self-inflicted injuries in 2006, the most recent year for which these injuries were counted.

One recent study revealed that the number of children and adolescents in the U.S. who were hospitalized for depression, which is sometimes accompanied by self-injury among youth, increased by 27 percent between 1997 and 2007.

Second, self-injury is associated with crippling psychiatric distress. Girls who engage in such behaviors score lower than their peers on almost all measures of positive psychological adjustment, such as sociability, and higher than their peers on almost all measures of negative psychological adjustment, such as depression and delinquency.

Third, adolescent self-injury is linked to adult borderline personality disorder -- a chronic and difficult to treat mental health condition characterized by impulsive behaviors, difficulties self-regulating emotions, mood instability and high rates of suicide.

Finally, self-injury is the single best predictor of suicide. Intentional self-injurers are about 75 times more likely to kill themselves than others in the population, an especially alarming statistic.

Scientists are not sure why rates of self-injury appear to be on the rise, or how to stop the trend.

When teens who self-injure are asked why they do it, most say the behaviors help them regulate overwhelming negative emotions, including anger, sadness and rejection. This emotion-regulating function may occur because injuries trigger the release of endogenous opioids, chemicals produced by the body that relieve pain. Over repeated episodes of self-harm, the endogenous opioid system may become more efficient at reducing physical and psychological pain.

Recent studies conducted at high schools and universities reveal that almost 20 percent of individuals self-injure at least once, and about 11 percent self-injure repeatedly.

Given how common the behavior is -- and the alarmingly high risk of eventual suicide -- one might expect self-injury to be a major public health priority. One might also expect considerable investment into basic science aimed at understanding the brain mechanisms involved and treatment-outcome research aimed at developing effective interventions.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Little is known about the brain mechanisms of self-injury, particularly in adolescence, and traditional approaches to treatment usually involve inpatient hospitalization, which is more cost-effective than individual care.

However, when treated in groups, as is often the case in hospitalization, self-injuring girls often become worse, not better, an effect known as contagion. (Note that this can also occur through access to Web sites and Web postings in which self-injurers share strategies.)

Nevertheless, there has been some progress toward understanding and treating adolescent self-injury.

On the basic research side, Christina Derbidge, a graduate student in my lab, is conducting a study in which the brains of adolescent girls who engage in self-injury are imaged as they cope with negative emotions.

On the treatment side, Dr. Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy at the University of Washington is signs of hope. The therapy is a variant of cognitive therapy and an effective treatment for adults with borderline personality disorder. It has been adapted to adolescent patients with encouraging results.

Despite these positive developments, a much greater investment is needed. For fiscal year 2010, the National Institutes of Health --far and away the primary source of funding for health research in the world -- projects spending $41 million on suicide and suicide prevention (NIH does not report specific funding figures for self-injury).

In contrast, NIH expenditures for autism are expected to be $141 million in 2010. Corrected for the higher prevalence rate of suicide, this translates into a six-fold greater investment per person with autism.

Indeed, across the past five years, NIH has spent more than $700 million on autism research, with impressive results in terms of treatment effectiveness and our understanding of the genetic and neural underpinnings of the disorder. Given the urgency of preventing suicide among our youth, a similar investment is needed in self-injury research.

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What Happens in Sex Rehab? Article

2010-01-30T23:33:00.003-05:00

The calls for Tiger Woods to get help did not go unheeded. On Jan. 16, after weeks of sordid allegations regarding the star golfer's extramarital affairs, RadarOnline.com reported that Woods had enrolled in the Gentle Path program at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, in Hattiesburg, Miss., to be treated for sex addiction. Local television stations later confirmed the story.

Few people know what actually happens at sex rehab. While those who treat it say sex addiction is a disease like any other compulsion, the field is in its infancy: there is virtually no research on it, compared with the vast resources on drug or alcohol addiction. "You look at ways that your behavior has made your life unmanageable. That's really the question," says Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, who has been treated for sex addiction himself. "That often differentiates a sex addict from a non-sex addict."

Sex addiction is marked not simply by poor decision-making in the face of temptation, but also by a sense of powerlessness before one's own compulsive behavior. There are many types of sex addicts, including so-called sexual anorexics who avoid physical intimacy with their partner and seek it out in fantasies or with others. Despite the shortage of statistics, researchers agree that the vast majority of sex addicts — over 90% — are men. Rob Weiss, founder and executive director of the Sexual Recovery Institute in Southern California, estimates that up to 5% of Americans deal with some form of sex addiction, though he says there is no real way to know.

Rehab length varies from two-week outpatient seminars to inpatient clinics that keep patients for up to six weeks, like the one where Woods is staying. Treatment — to address both the addiction and its underlying causes — involves a mix of one-on-one sessions, group therapy and family counseling, with addicts and their partners encouraged to participate in supplemental 12-step programs.

The first step in treatment of sexual addiction is a full evaluation of a patient's history and any past trauma. "All the men I've worked with — and I've worked with thousands of them over the years — have some profound experience of abuse and/or neglect in childhood," says Weiss. Without addressing the underlying sexual, physical or emotional trauma that usually leads to addiction, there is little hope of ending it.

The second stage of treatment involves confronting patients' distorted view of reality. Did the addict really believe that paying for a sensual massage was not the same thing as hiring a prostitute? Or that he or she could spend most of the day surfing the Internet for pornography and that no one would find out? These questions are not meant to shame a patient, but to force him or her to understand what really happened. As Weiss puts it, "We may not stop the behavior, but we're going to ruin it for you."

The last stage of treatment is relapse prevention. Therapists and patients discuss triggers for addictive behavior — unstructured time alone, for example — and identify ways to avoid them. Brian McGinness, a senior cost estimator at a Michigan commercial construction manufacturer, spent the first nine years of his marriage addicted to pornography. His treatment was supervised by members of his church who belonged to an anti-pornography ministry group called XXXchurch and a neighborhood friend, who all acted as "accountability partners," monitoring his Internet usage after he decided to get sober. (Sex addiction shares use of the word sobriety with other forms of addiction, though the definition varies on the basis of an individually determined level of acceptable sexual behavior.) With the monitors' help, which he no longer needs on a regular basis, McGinness has not looked at pornography for the past four years.

A patient's partner can also play an integral role in his or her treatment. Woods' wife Elin Nordegren has already visited him at Pine Grove. "Recovery is a three-legged stool for a couple — his recovery, her recovery and healing, and then the marriage recovery," says Dr. Douglas Weiss (no relation to Rob Weiss), executive director of the Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado, who describes himself as being sober from his own sex addiction for more than 20 years. Addicts are encouraged to disclose the full range of their behavior to their partner when confronting their distortions of reality in the second stage of treatment. If an addict happens to contract an STD and never tells his wife, "his behavior could kill her," Weiss notes.

Although Woods may be in a six-week program, his therapy is likely to be ongoing. Indeed, at Heart to Heart, clients are encouraged to come back for annual polygraphs to test their sobriety. According to Maureen Canning, a clinical consultant at Meadows Addiction Treatment Center in Arizona, simply working through the addiction could take two to five years of therapy, enhanced by 12-step programs for both partners; working through related trauma could take a lifetime. "Sex addiction is not about remaining abstinent for the rest of your life," says Denizet-Lewis. "It is about learning to have sex in a way that makes you happy again."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1956517,00.html#ixzz0eA4BJKwx

How to Lose Abdominal Fat to Achieve a Flat Stomach

2010-01-29T20:09:00.002-05:00

The goal of a large percentage of dieters is to lose abdominal fat to get that much desired flat stomach and the good news is that it is completely achievable. To get rid of that extra fat we need to focus on two different areas, diet and exercise. During this particular article we will explore both components and help you on the way to lose abdominal fat and achieve the flat stomach.

When it comes to dieting and losing fat the basic concept that you need to keep in mind is that in order to lose weight it is essential that you are burning off more calories than you consume. If you are taking in way too many calories then the end result is extra weight and for most of us it is collected in the abdominal region. Now the good thing is that in the last decade it has become mandatory for all food items to list the nutritional values on the back of the product and we will use this to our advantage. To get you started I want you to track every single thing that you put into your body over the next few days to give a clear picture of what your diet contains and how many calories that you are consuming. Once this is done you should see a number of items that can be easily replaced such as pop for water and cookies for carrot sticks. By creating this list it should give you an indicator of where your extra calories are coming from and which need to be changed. By making such simple changes your calorie count will drop and as long as you stick to it the weight will begin to drop off along with the abdominal fat storage.

Now that we have our bodies in the right state it is time to focus on attacking the abdominal fat to achieve the flat stomach look. Most people have this silly notion that they need to spend countless hours on a treadmill in order to get the most out of their exercise program which is completely false. When it comes to exercise the higher intensity that it is the more it will pay off. A well used program calls for people to go half speed for a minute that followed by a minute where they are going full out than back to the half speed and then finally back to the full intensity. If you are repeating this five times in a row your body is going to respond much more quickly than getting an hour workout on the treadmill. The majority of fitness trainers stress to do an exercise that focuses on the whole body such as running, cycling or even boxing. The best part is that you can do this from home and soon you will see the results of the abdominal fat disappearing and a flat stomach emerging.

To lose abdominal fat to achieve a flat stomach does not have to be difficult but what it does require is commitment to stick to your diet and get in three solid workouts per week. If you are able to stick to this plan for the next ten weeks your abdominal fat will soon be history and you will have achieved the flat stomach look.

New Sites Again

2010-01-29T02:48:00.004-05:00

I ran into a number of problems with the new sites I created in the last few days. Now the addresses will redirect automatically to the new sites. I am not pleased that this happened and have taken the legal steps to deal with the person responsible. Anyway here are the new sites:

All About FarmVille: http://www.allaboutfarmville.com/

Contains a number of articles dealing with FarmVille strategy and FarmVille strategy guides that I have written for a number of sites.

Flight Simulators Software: http://www.flightsimulatorssoftware.com/

A new hobby of mine is flight simulators and flight simulation software. I can not afford the real thing so this is as close as I am going to get for awhile.

Fast Hemorrhoid Treatments : http://www.fasthemorrhoidtreatments.com/

Not exactly the most glamorous of subjects but this site deals with hemorrhoids and how they occur and what available hemorrhoid treatments are out there.

Get Rid Of Belly Fat: http://www.get-rid-of-belly-fat-now.com/

Anyone who takes antidepressants and other mental health meds has to deal with weight gain. This site gives a number of tips on how to lose that extra weight

Treatments For Tinnitus : http://www.treatments-for-tinnitus.com/

I originally started researching treatments for Tinnitus for a friend of mine and it evolved into this site.

Anyway there are my new sites and hopefully there will be no problems this time around. take care

Some obsessions, compulsions not part of OCD - Article

2010-01-29T00:19:00.002-05:00

Driving over a pothole may not be a big deal for most people, but for Jeff Bell, it was a source of endless frustration.
Jeff Bell found treatment for OCD very difficult, but says it helped him turn his life around.

Afraid that he had injured a person, he would drive back to each pothole again and again to check, and he lost a lot of time in the process.

"I knew that my behaviors made no sense. I knew that my thoughts that were triggering these behaviors made no sense, and yet I felt so helpless to do anything about it," he said.

Bell, a news anchor with KCBS Radio in San Francisco, California, now knows that his condition has a name: obsessive-compulsive disorder. He frequently speaks out about it and has written a memoir called "Rewind, Replay, Repeat."

Psychologists are debating where OCD belongs in relation to other psychiatric disorders, and whether certain symptoms are actually part of other conditions. The condition affects as many as 4 million Americans, according to the International OCD Foundation, for which Bell is a spokesman.

In a class of its own?

Currently, OCD sits with anxiety disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association to help diagnose mental illness. The next edition will be released in 2012, according to the APA.

Many experts, such as Jonathan Abramowitz, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, believe OCD should stay with anxiety disorders. That's because people with the disorder tend to engage in repetitive behaviors to reduce anxiety.

There is mixed evidence based on brain scans that OCD has a separate biological mechanism, leading some psychiatrists to favor classifying it separately, Abramowitz said.

"We haven't exactly pinned down what might be the problem," he said.

Categorizing related symptoms

Checking for evidence of harm done, as in Bell's case, is one of many manifestations of OCD. Some people are overly afraid of germs, while others are overwhelmed by thoughts of violence or sex, or fear that they have "sinned," and still others spend countless hours arranging objects, said Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the International OCD Foundation.

There are also people with OCD who repeat behaviors a fixed number of times because "it will undo the thought or image that came to mind that you didn't want," he said.

Behaviors such as compulsive gambling are in a different category, Abramowitz said. A key difference is that those people enjoy gambling, while a person with OCD does not get pleasure from the behaviors he or she repeats.

There is also controversy over whether trichotillomania -- compulsive hair pulling -- falls under OCD, because it is characterized by a repetitive behavior, but not necessarily obsessive thoughts, Szymanski said. Tics and Tourette syndrome also are OCD-related.

Most people with OCD realize that their compulsions are irrational, but about 4 percent do not, Abramowitz said. Hoarders, who compulsively acquire objects without throwing anything away, tend to have less "insight into the senselessness of their symptoms" than others with OCD, he said.

This is one of the reasons that hoarding may be distinct from OCD altogether, he said. Hoarders also do not respond as well to traditional treatments. Randy Frost, psychologist at Smith College, said only 5 percent of hoarders have an OCD basis for it; the rest may have other OCD-related problems or none at all.

Treating OCD and hoarding

Doctors may prescribe drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for OCD symptoms. But for some people this is only part of the solution, Szymanski said. The other first-line treatment is called exposure and response prevention, which forces people with the condition to confront their fears. This helps some people to stop engaging in behaviors, such as checking potholes, which would normally be their means of escaping those fears.

Bell found this treatment so difficult that he initially lied to his therapist about doing the homework she assigned. But once he became serious about the therapy, he felt as if he was turning his life around. He also learned to externalize the force behind intrusive thoughts -- he calls it the "doubt bully."

"The key is to find those things in life that motivate us to sit with the discomfort of our anxiety through this treatment process to get better," he said.

Researchers at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, and Smith College and Boston University in Massachusetts, are collaborating on a new treatment for hoarders. They've just finished collecting data from 46 participants, Frost said.

The treatment targets acquisition, discarding, and disorganization, Frost said. That's because people who compulsively hoard tend to buy or pick up too many things, keep things rather than throw anything out, and create clutter.

To help with "acquisition," therapists try to help people understand their attachment to their possessions. For example, the therapist will ask the patient how upset he or she will be if a piece of paper is thrown away, and then test that prediction by throwing it away.

Researchers have found that participants who hoard do not get as upset as they anticipated when they dispose of the paper, Frost said.

OCD is sometimes as hard on loved ones as on the patients themselves, Bell said. Family members may even become enablers, unintentionally fueling the cycle, he said.
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"Often times, it involves family members meeting with a trained therapist who can help give them guidelines as to what is helpful and what's counterproductive," he said.

For more information, visit the International OCD Foundation or Jeff Bell's outreach site Beyond the Doubt.

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Main Hemorrhoid Causes

2010-01-26T16:58:00.003-05:00

Hemorrhoids are a serious problem for a good percentage of the population bringing pain, irritation and bleeding. Thankfully there has been a large amount of research done on why the varicose veins in the rectal area become enlarged and problematic. Through out this particular article I will cover the main areas that lead to the development of hemorrhoids and what you can do to prevent future outbreaks.

The convenience of processed foods have made this item a staple in our diet. Unfortunately although this food type is convenient the ingredients it contains are not easily digested by the body. If we eat too much processed foods are stools become hard and are much more difficult to pass during a bowel movement which ends up creating an environment perfect for hemorrhoid development. By removing processed foods from our diet and replacing them with fresh and organic items not only do we cut done the risk of hemorrhoids we are also eating a lot more healthier.

With more and more time spend in front of a computer screen this leads to an environment that encourages hemorrhoid development. The lack of blood flow in our bottom area is to blame in this category and with a simple switch this can be avoided. At least once per hour stand up and do a series of stretches that will get the blood flowing normally and this is not only great in terms of reducing hemorrhoid development the rest of your body will appreciate as well.

Certain hemorrhoid relief products will actually do more harm than good. By using one of the many hemorrhoid treatments found in pharmacies you are able to get a bit of pain relief but it is doing nothing for the actual problem which is the growing hemorrhoid. Most people tend to use this product for a few weeks before seeking more advance help from their physicians for what has become a major issue. As with most health situations the sooner that you seek treatment the faster the recovery will be. Pain is the way our bodies tell us that something is not quite right and should not be ignored.

Hemorrhoids are a major pain in the butt and by taking the right approach you can reduce the possibility of future outbreaks. Avoid processed foods, try not to sit down for lengthy periods of time and by taking the right steps if pain begins than hopefully you are on the path to being hemorrhoid free.

FarmVille Strategy Guide is a Must-Have For Serious Players

2010-01-26T15:54:00.003-05:00

A FarmVille strategy guide is what separates your average player from the great player on Facebook. The information and assistance that is provided by the guide can move you from your little shack to a million dollar villa in such a short time that all of your friends will be knocking on your door for help. Through out this article I will go through the three main reasons why I use a FarmVille strategy guide and how it has made such a difference in my game.

When I first started to play FarmVille on Facebook I did what every other player does which is try a few things and failing miserably so I began to search the internet for information in hoping of advancing my farm. What I found were a few strategies, a number of empty promises and a lot of wasted time. The FarmVille strategy techniques that are available online tend to be the same ones over and over again which help your farm but do not blow the doors off the barn. There were a few sites who in exchange for my FarmVille login name and password would funnel an unreal amount of coins to my account but thankfully one of my friends tried this method and had his id stolen and his account shut down, bad for him and good for me. The amount of time I wasted searching for the secret strategies and filling out forms for such a little reward made the idea of a FarmVille strategy guide very appealing.

As I mentioned before, there are a number of FarmVille trainers and other software that promises you the million dollar villa but instead are left confused at what the heck just happened as these software programs are completely illegal. On one end the people behind FarmVille will shut down your account in a heartbeat and on the other side your personal information is gathered by someone who is looking for ways to exploit you. Neither option sounded very appealing to me. With a FarmVille strategy guide all of the techniques are a 100% legal and your personal information will never be at danger.

The creators of FarmVille are at the beginnings of a nasty layout due to the advertisements on the game that promises free coins if you fill out a form. According to the people suing the method was illegal and a number of innocent people were stuck with one heck of a bill when all they were trying to gather was a few free coins. Using the methods taught in a FarmVille strategy guide I have not filled out a form on Facebook or anywhere else for that matter as my farm generates more money than I will ever need.

What a FarmVille strategy guide allows me to do is actually play the game and not waste time searching for the next cheat, dodging illegal software and not having to fill out endless forms for a few measly coins. If you want to play FarmVille to its full potential than a strategy guide is a must have.

Study Points at a Clear-Cut Way to Diagnose PTSD - Article

2010-01-25T10:29:00.003-05:00

For all the attention focused on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in recent years, doctors have never had a clear-cut way to be certain a patient has it. But Minnesota scientists now believe they have found a long-sought PTSD fingerprint that confirms the disorder by measuring electromagnetic fields in the brain. The finding, detailed in the latest issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering, could help the 300,000 cases of PTSD anticipated among the 2 million U.S. troops who have gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"This shows that PTSD is a brain disease," says Dr. Apostolos Georgopoulos, who led the research along with Brian Engdahl, and a team from the Brain Sciences Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center and University of Minnesota. "There have been questions that this is a made-up disorder and isn't a true brain disease, but it is." Just as importantly, he says, the magnetic-imaging biomarker shows changes over time in a brain's electrical activity, allowing mental-health workers to chart the effectiveness of various therapies. "It will be a tremendous tool in monitoring treatment," he says, "because these abnormal communication patterns will be normalized as the treatment works." (See pictures of an Army town coping with PTSD.)

Up to now, more conventional diagnostic tools, including computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and X-rays have not been able to detect evidence of PTSD because their snapshots of brain activity occur too slowly. The new diagnostic procedure uses magnetoencephalography (MEG), a way of monitoring the flow of electrical signals along the brain's neural pathways from cell to cell. By using a helmet with 248 noninvasive sensors arrayed around the head, scientists can map patterns of electrical activity inside the skull and detect abnormalities. The Minnesota researchers used MEG to assess 74 U.S. veterans believed to be suffering from PTSD, along with 250 subjects not thought to be suffering from the condition. Distinctive brain patterns indicating PTSD were found in 72 — or 97.3% — of the 74 people diagnosed with PTSD through the traditional interview process; false positives turned up in 31 of the 250 subjects (12.4%) without PTSD. (All the subjects were given "a simple fixation task ... to engage the brain in a stable condition.")

Still, outside experts aren't rushing to declare the challenge of diagnosing PTSD solved. Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist now affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute who has studied PTSD, says she's skeptical that there's "a fixed neural signature" for the condition. But she adds that the study "is a first step toward a more thorough analysis that may or may not prove useful in diagnosing, treating and predicting outcomes." (Read how one military town deals with posttraumatic stress.)

While usually associated with combat, PTSD has been linked to many psychologically traumatic events. It generates severe anxiety along with flashbacks, nightmares and anger, and is generally treated with therapy and medication. As the U.S. military has become better at treating the physical wounds of its troops, the mental ailments are looming larger. For years, the Pentagon has been seeking better ways to diagnose PTSD, which has remained a largely subjective process involving mental-health workers conducting structured interviews with patients suffering PTSD-like symptoms.

The PTSD research builds on earlier work that showed MEG could be used to detect Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis in infected brains. "These communication patterns are very different from disease to disease," Georgopoulos says. "So the different diseases create disturbances in the communication that can be used as a fingerprint, a signature, for the disease." He likens the MEG test for PTSD to the blood-glucose monitoring tests regularly done by diabetics to keep their disease under control. Such testing, he adds, could be done by PTSD patients to monitor their progress. "The test is totally safe — there are no magnets, no isotopes — you can do it as frequently as you want," Georgopoulos says, adding that it also doesn't require dredging up the traumatic events that generate PTSD. "The whole thing takes literally a minute." It will be a lot longer, however, and require several follow-up studies, if the use of MEG to track PTSD is to become widespread.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1956315,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0dde3r30y

Finding Affordable Home-Business Advertising

2010-01-24T12:28:00.003-05:00

When starting a home business, it is essential that you figure out a marketing strategy that will allow you to advertise your home business without costing you a fortune. Typical advertising resources, such as television and radio, unfortunately are very expensive and cannot be utilized to their full extent with a small budget. During this article I am going to introduce you to the Promo Plate and how it can help your business succeed.

The Promo Plate is an attractive nameplate consisting of gold or chrome lettering which fixes to the back of your vehicle. Instead of the same old bumper sticker that has been done to many times this new form of advertising jumps out due to its unique design and is implanted in the mind of your potential customer. As more and more companies use bumper stickers and other forms of advertising on vehicles it pays to have a form of marketing that will stand out from the crowd.

Bumper stickers have been used for years when it comes to advertising a product or a company simply because of the number of people who see the ad each and every day. If you live in a large metropolis area such as Toronto or New York thousands of people will see your company ad everyday. The bonus of the Promo Plate is that the potential customer will remember what they are seeing as it is unique to all other forms of advertising currently being utilized.

A main factor that needs to be considered is how much your marketing budget is and how do you get the most out of your budget. Television and radio ads are a wonderful resource but the cost of using such methods has grown to a point where the small business owner can no longer run a successful campaign. Advertising in a variety of print forms such as magazines and newspapers has become less and less attractive over the years as more people turn to the internet for information. As a small business owner you need to make sure that every cent that you spend will lead to success.

The Promo Plate has been used by everyone from real estate agents to small business owners with great success for it is affordable and will quickly get your company information out into your community quickly.

TWLOHA - To Write Love On Her Arms Video

2010-01-23T09:05:00.003-05:00

This video is part of a contest where the winning charity will win a $1 million prize. To vote for TWLOHA please visit their site at http://www.twloha.com/

Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues

2010-01-23T01:57:00.003-05:00

James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.

On the fan forum site "Avatar Forums," a topic thread entitled "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible," has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope. The topic became so popular last month that forum administrator Philippe Baghdassarian had to create a second thread so people could continue to post their confused feelings about the movie.

"I wasn't depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy ," Baghdassarian said. "But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed."

A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted.

A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "

Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.

Cameron's movie, which has pulled in more than $1.4 billion in worldwide box office sales and could be on track to be the highest grossing film of all time, is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been pillaged by the human race. A greedy corporation is trying to mine the rare mineral unobtainium from the planet Pandora, which is inhabited by a peace-loving race of 10-foot tall, blue-skinned natives called the Na'vi.

In their race to mine for Pandora's resources, the humans clash with the Na'vi, leading to casualties on both sides. The world of Pandora is reminiscent of a prehistoric fantasyland, filled with dinosaur-like creatures mixed with the kinds of fauna you may find in the deep reaches of the ocean. Compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia.

Ivar Hill posts to the "Avatar" forum page under the name Eltu. He wrote about his post-"Avatar" depression after he first saw the film earlier this month.

"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."

Reached via e-mail in Sweden where he is studying game design, Hill, 17, explained that his feelings of despair made him desperately want to escape reality.

"One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality," Hill said.

Cameron's special effects masterpiece is very lifelike, and the 3-D performance capture and CGI effects essentially allow the viewer to enter the alien world of Pandora for the movie's 2½-hour running time, which only lends to the separation anxiety some individuals experience when they depart the movie theater.

"Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far," said Dr. Stephan Quentzel, psychiatrist and Medical Director for the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems onscreen. It makes real life seem more imperfect."

Fans of the movie may find actor Stephen Lang, who plays the villainous Col. Miles Quaritch in the film, an enemy of the Na'vi people and their sacred ground, an unlikely sympathizer. But Lang says he can understand the connection people are feeling with the movie.

"Pandora is a pristine world and there is the synergy between all of the creatures of the planet and I think that strikes a deep chord within people that has a wishfulness and a wistfulness to it," Lang said. "James Cameron had the technical resources to go along with this incredibly fertile imagination of his and his dream is built out of the same things that other peoples' dreams are made of."

The bright side is that for Hill and others like him -- who became dissatisfied with their own lives and with our imperfect world after enjoying the fictional creation of James Cameron -- becoming a part of a community of like-minded people on an online forum has helped them emerge from the darkness.

"After discussing on the forums for a while now, my depression is beginning to fade away. Having taken a part in many discussions concerning all this has really, really helped me," Hill said. "Before, I had lost the reason to keep on living -- but now it feels like these feelings are gradually being replaced with others."

Quentzel said creating relationships with others is one of the keys to human happiness, and that even if those connections are occurring online they are better than nothing.

"Obviously there is community building in these forums," Quentzel said. "It may be technologically different from other community building, but it serves the same purpose."

Within the fan community, suggestions for battling feelings of depression after seeing the movie include things like playing "Avatar" video games or downloading the movie soundtrack, in addition to encouraging members to relate to other people outside the virtual realm and to seek out positive and constructive activities.

original article link

Lose Weight For Your Wedding

2010-01-21T20:34:00.004-05:00

With a quick look over at the calender it dawns on you that your wedding date is just around the corner and in order to fit into that dress you need to lose weight. The good news is that there are ways to drop a few pounds over the next couple of weeks that will not become a major pain in the butt. During this article we will explore the lose weight quick strategy so you will be ready for your big day.

Right off the bat the first thing that you need to do is take a hard look at your diet and make a list of items that have to go. Substituting water with soda does not sound like much on paper but in reality the average pop can is worth a couple of hundred calories each time you drink one. Since we are limited to the amount of time available for the most part all restaurants are off the list as we need to know exactly how many calories that are being consumed for every item that goes into your mouth. I know that this sounds terrible and it is not something that I would recommend for a long term diet but in order to drop those extra pounds some sacrifices are going to have to be made.

Now everyone knows that in order to lose weight the basic principle is to consume less calories than you consume and the best way to do this is through exercise. If you want you can go pay for a gym membership for the month or you can concentrate on a exercise program at home based around the concept of high intensity. The high intensity exercise program only takes half an hour to complete including a warm up and a cool down period. The high intensity program works like this:

Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog

Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

Running is the key exercise in the example but if you are like me and have knees that should be on an eighty year old than running can be placed with any form of exercise that you are able to go full at it like cycling, rowing or even Nintendo Wii. Due to the type of impact this program will have on your body the results come very quickly. Aim for four times a week and you should be set.

I learned about the high intensity exercise program from the people behind The Truth About Abs and they include a number of exercises that are laser specific when it comes to fat loss centered around a given body part. This best selling weight loss program also has tons of diet advice and ideas that will make your weight loss fast and efficient and get you ready for your wedding.

Get Rid Of Belly Fat Fast

2010-01-21T19:29:00.004-05:00

It seems that everyone is on a quest to get rid of belly fat and to turn their keg into a six pack but unfortunately most people are forgetting the essentials when it comes to creating the right plan. There are all sorts of magazine articles on how you can lose massive weight by only eating carrots each day but unfortunately none will help to get rid of the belly fat that you have been carrying around. During this article we will go through a number of different options that will help you lose that extra weight.

There is a good reason why every single food item has a list of what it contains on the back and the main one is so the consumer can make healthy diet decisions. On the back of a popular soda the calories are around 300 calories so having a couple per day is going to quickly add up. Water for example has zero calories so if you replace your soda for natures drink than chances are you will begin to lose that belly fat. Processed foods are a terrible thing and although they are very convenient they contain a number of ingredients that are difficult to digest and to burn off so if you want those old pair of jeans to fit it is time to start thinking fresh. Simple food choices can make all of the difference when it comes to getting rid of belly fat fast.

I hate to be the one to tell you but sitting at a computer all day is far from being the ideal healthy environment so along with helping to get rid of belly fat exercise also goes along way to promoting a healthy lifestyle. Now the good news is that you do not have to drop a couple of hundred bucks for a gym membership for there are a number of get rid of belly fat exercises that you can do from home which are just as effective. The key when it comes to exercise and burning off extra weight is not time spent but how intense the exercise is. A popular approach is to do a particular exercise for a minute full out than follow it up with half the speed for another minute than repeat. By pushing your body to the limit you are encouraging change and your body will have to hit the fat stores in order to keep up and your belly fat will diminish. If you have stairs than you have a perfect home exercise platform that can get you the body that you want.

Now lets say that you have made the perfect food choices and have incorporated a fitness plan that is kicking your butt and bringing on results we now come to the part that most dieters fail at, commitment. It is great that you have decided to make a ton of positive changes but if you can not commit to the plan for at least a few months than you are wasting your time and that excess belly fat is going no where fast. Switch up your exercises and your diet plans but whatever you do keep at it.

Getting rid of belly fat is not as complicated as the dieting companies want you to believe and with a simple but effective program there is nothing standing in your way of weight loss but your commitment level.

Truth About Abs is a great program that gets to the nuts and bolts of losing weight and getting rid of belly fat

Is It Bipolar Disorder or Depression? Learn the Signs

2010-01-21T02:30:00.004-05:00

Bipolar disorder and major depression are two very different mental health conditions that, to the chagrin of sufferers, often manifest with similar symptoms.

Both major depression and bipolar disorder can be debilitating conditions, and giving patients a proper diagnosis will ensure they get the proper treatment and medication they need, said Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and Fox News contributor.

“The chief mistake that a psychiatrist could make, would be not asking people if in addition to depression they also have something that is the opposite of depression,” he said. “Have they at times felt too energized, like they’re moving in too much of an upward direction?”

Symptoms of major depression

The symptoms of major depression include low mood, poor appetite or overeating, insomnia or sleeping too much, low self-esteem, difficulty concentrating and, occasionally, thoughts of suicide.

“Any of those symptoms, when they’re present, constitute an episode of major depression,” Ablow said “And, with some people, episodes of major depression tend to come and go throughout various times of their lives.”

Symptoms of bipolar disorder

People with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, will experience the same symptoms as people suffering from major depression, but they will also likely experience extreme highs known as manic or hypermanic episodes.

These highs include feelings of grandiosity, a decreased need for sleep, the tendency to talk too much and experiencing ideas that run too quickly through your mind.

“During these episodes, people might also experience too much involvement in activities that are pleasurable but overdone, like spending sprees, risky sexual behavior and investing too much money in businesses that don’t merit it,” Ablow said.

But not all bipolar sufferers experience extreme highs. Some have less intense mood swings called hypomanic episodes, while others may experience mixed episodes in which feelings of depression and mania exist simultaneously, Ablow said.

Treating depression and bipolar disorder

Patients who want to help their therapists identify whether they are suffering from major depression or bipolar disorder may want to do their homework, Ablow said.

“You’ll want to ask yourself if you’ve ever noticed that in addition to depression, you’ve also experienced the opposite, like you’re on a rollercoaster,” he said. “Ask family members if at times they’ve known you to be too energetic or to act grandiose.”

Treatment of major depression and bipolar disorder also should include some type of psychotherapy, Ablow said.

“I think it’s tremendously important that they receive psychotherapy even if they are taking medications that are effective, because these symptoms are indeed fueled by past or present emotional turmoil,” he said. “And competent psychotherapy can have the same benefits on the brain that antidepressants do.”

Choosing the right medication

The most common medications used to treat depression are classes of drugs called SSRIs and SNRIs. These drugs work on certain chemicals in the brain associated with depression, including serotonin and norepinephrine.

These drugs include Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Lexapro, all of which are SSRIs or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Other treatments for major depression include Cymbalta and Effexor, which are SNRIs or serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. These drugs work to increase the levels of serotonin and/or norepinephrine in the brain by preventing the brain from storing the excessive amounts of these chemicals for future use.

Ablow said new research shows that vitamins and supplements such as folic acid, DHEA and SAM-e are also effective depression fighters, as is electro-convulsive therapy and magnetic stimulation to the brain.

Many of the treatments for bipolar disorder include antiseizure and mood stabilizing medications such as Depakote and Tegretol, as will as major tranquilizers such as Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify.

“Major tranquilizers tend to create a ceiling so that you don’t get too high,” he said. “Mood stabilizers are more commonly used to make sure the bipolar sufferer doesn’t cycle through the highs and lows of the disease.”

Lithium is another mood stabilizer used to treat bipolar disorder, but is considered to carry more unpleasant side effects, such as weight gain, dehydration, kidney damage, as well as a high risk for overdosing, compared to some of the newer classes of drugs used to treat the condition.

Still, some of the newer bipolar drugs carry a weight gain side effect as well, especially for children. A study released last week found that children on widely used psychiatric drugs, including those for bipolar disorder, can quickly gain an alarming amount of weight; many pack on nearly 20 pounds and become obese within just 11 weeks.

People who believe they may be suffering from either depression or bipolar disorder should consult a doctor to determine the best course of treatment.

Original Article Link

Tinnitus Relief Solutions

2010-01-18T21:45:00.006-05:00

Tinnitus relief is possible through a number of different methods and depending on the cause and severity of Tinnitus the relief methods are somewhat successfully. Tinnitus is described as the sensation hearing a ringing or air rushing through your ears with no external noise source. The three Tinnitus relief methods that I will cover in this article are antibiotics, Tinnitus Maskers and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy.

When it comes to Tinnitus relief one of the most popular treatments is antibiotics when a ear infection is believed to be at work. It is essential that you start your Tinnitus relief path at the doctors office to start the proper treatment right away. If a ear infection is diagnosed the doctor will prescribe a ten day course of antibiotics that will take care of the ear infection and give you Tinnitus relief but if the infection is left alone it can lead to hearing loss, severe Tinnitus and a number of other health problems.

Tinnitus Maskers are a small device that resemble a hearing aid and for some people offers Tinnitus relief. The Tinnitus masker provides a more pleasant noise than the typical noises associated with Tinnitus. The success of a masker will differ from person to person and different severity levels. A quick test to see if a maker would work for you head over to the kitchen sink and turn the faucet all of the way on. If you hear just the rushing water than a Tinnitus masker may work for you but if you can still hear the ringing in your ears chances are a masker will not work in your case.

Tinnitus Retraining Therapy is a relatively new approach to offer Tinnitus relief and it has a large number of skeptics attached to it. The approach of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy is to hit the disorder from all angles with the use of maskers, cognitive therapists and audiologists. Due to this approach being pretty new and the large price tag attached to it this therapy approach is limited to the number of people who may benefit from it.

Tinnitus is a hard impacting hearing disorder that can lead to permanent hearing loss and it does affect a person though out their daily lives Along with the before mentioned treatments for Tinnitus relief methods there has been ground breaking research when its comes to a holistic approach in treatments for Tinnitus. It it important to explore all available options in order to determine which is the best choice for you to get Tinnitus relief.

To learn more about Tinnitus relief check out Treatments For Tinnitus located at http://www.treatments-for-tinnitus.com/

Small Business Marketing Strategy

2010-01-18T11:28:00.003-05:00

Finding ways to promote your small business through marketing strategy can be a difficult and frustrating experience. With a small business there is not the huge resources of a large company to blast your ads on traditional methods such as television and radio but with the Promo Plate there now is a way for you to compete with the big boys. Throughout this article I will show you why a Promo Plate is the ultimate solution when it comes to small business marketing.

As I mentioned earlier most small businesses do not have the thousands of dollars to run a high level television and radio campaign but with the Promo Plate you can get a ton of local attention for a fraction of the cost. The Promo Plate is a very attractive nameplate that fixes to the back of your vehicle and just due to the design it will stand out from the thousands of bumper stickers that pollute our city each and every day. The Promo Plate will never expire, never tear and will always make that first great impression which will have customers running to your business.

The Promo Plate solves the problem of being ad blind which has been occurring more and more as people are use to seeing the same old tired bumper sticker. The Promo Plate with its classy chrome lettering jumps from the pack and more importantly will stick in the minds of potential customers. IF you live in a large area your very own Promo Plate can be viewed by thousands of people each and every day looking as fresh as the day that you purchased it.

When it comes to small business marketing it is essential that you get your name out to the public in a way that stands out from the competition in order for it to be effective. Radio and television ads use to be the way to success but with so much competition the ad rate has increased to a level that is just not cost effective for a small business. At $39.99 the Promo Plate can get your company name, info and URL out to a large number of people each and every day which will drive customers to your business. Call your local tv or radio station and ask what kind of advertising package you can get for $39.99 and chances are the person at the other end will laugh like crazy.

Promo Plates have been used by real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, small business owners and a wide variety of other people to make sure that their small business marketing strategy is a success. If you want your business to succeed than your marketing strategy needs to be effective without emptying out the bank account and too many the answer has been the Promo Plate.

To learn more about small business marketing please check out the Promo Plates website

Best time to get pregnant

2010-01-17T21:05:00.004-05:00

One of the most frequently asked questions about pregnancy is the best time to get pregnant. It is neither the Christmas time nor the Valentine’s Day. One needs to be good in mathematics if one is serious about getting pregnant as it totally depends on the ovulating days. Now the question arises that how should one calculate this crucial time? For people who are good in mathematics need not worry but others should get hold of an Ovulation Calculator.

It is important to have some knowledge about one’s own body and its functioning in order to find out the probable dates of ovulation. The ‘post ovulation time’ or the ‘Luteal Phase’ is the period between ovulation and the first day of the menstrual cycle. This period consists of fourteen days and is the same for most women. After fourteen days of the ovulation the period starts. Now what one needs to know is the date due for the next period. By counting back twelve to sixteen days from this date, one is likely to get the days of ovulation. Generally, women who have a cycle of twenty eight days, ovulate on the fourteenth day. Since this is so important to know in order to get pregnant, the ovulation date can also be checked through the BBT technique or the Basal Body Temperature. This is a method that involves the recording of vaginal temperature every morning by a BBT thermometer (with a fine calibration). The thermometer displays a higher temperature on the day of ovulation that the other days.

To explain this fact in a simpler way, the egg starts developing from the end of the menstrual cycle and between the 8th to 12th days it is at its maximum. So the chance to get pregnant is the most if one has intercourse on the 8th, the 10th and the 12th day. This is the most effective time to get pregnant. One shocking fact related to getting pregnant is that the egg lives only for a period of 12 to 16 hours in a cycle! Many gynecologists are of the opinion that the life span of the egg ranges from 12 to 24 hours. But the fertility experts say that it is likely to wither away within 15 to 16 hours. So it is important to hit it at the correct time!

Now its time to shift the focus from the Woman to the Man! If a couple has intercourse on regular basis, it is likely that the strength of the sperms may lack the desired force and the sperm count may also be less than it is required for the fertility level. In addition, the rate of sperm motility may also be hampered. Again, if the sexual union is not so frequent, there are chances that the sperms may become stale and old, making it lack its desired vitality. According to the opinion of the fertility experts, coitus should take place twice weekly for the best result.

It is surprising that tough the female ovum dies within such a short period, the male sperm survives and moves about from 2 to 5 days within the vaginal canal. Keeping this fact in mind, it may be fruitful to have intercourse a couple of days earlier than the date of ovulation, so that the sperm gets plenty of opportunities to hit the egg.

It is important here to point out that following all the above mentioned guidelines may not be enough for getting pregnant. For further assistance, one may turn to holistic remedies that helps find out the actual cause of a problem if there is any and then suggests a remedy that is accurate. These remedies are of a wide range that includes Chinese medications to acupuncture, from exercise to helpful herbs, from lifestyle changes to a healthy and balances diet. Unlike the age-old, conventional therapies which mostly fail, the holistic remedies almost always give the desired results.

This article is based on the book, "Pregnancy Miracle" by Lisa Olson. Lisa is an author, researcher, nutritionist and health consultant who dedicated her life to creating the ultimate pregnancy solution guaranteed to permanently reverse the root of infertility, help you get pregnant quickly and naturally and dramatically improve the overall quality of your life, without the use prescription medication and without any surgical procedures. Learn more by visiting her website:
http://http://www.howtogetpregnantsoon.com/

Movies And More Movies

2010-01-17T11:03:00.006-05:00

I have been working on a number of Squidoo lens related to movies in the last few days. For those of you beginning your online experience of creating your own sites Squidoo is a great place to get your feet wet due to its simplicity of use. Anyway so far I have created three Squidoo movie lens:

Mental Healthy Movies
Best Picture Winners Academy Awards for the last ten years
Stephen King Movies
John Grisham Movies

Bonus
Valentine's Gifts 2010

If you are creating a Squidoo lens and running into a problem let me know and I will try to help. take care

The Importance Of Flight Simulation Training

2010-01-15T14:47:00.010-05:00

Flight simulation has longed been used in the aviation industry and it will continue to be a valuable asset for pilots and future pilots. From getting hand on experience, to preparing for real life emergencies and to being a cost effective choice flight simulators go along way. During this particular article I will go through the benefits of flight simulation software.

The more time a person spends using flight simulation software or a flight simulator the better pilot they are going to be and this has been proven time and time again. By being able to recognize how a plane will respond in different weather condition to the feel of a variety of planes and being able to land and take off from a variety of airports goes a long way in a pilots success. The right type of flight simulation software will provide the closest experience to actually flying an actual aircraft.

When it comes to preparing for real life emergencies nothing beats a flight simulator as there is no worries about actually dying. The flight simulation software allows the pilot or the pilot in training to experience a wide variety of situations and become more comfortable so if the real emergency does happen they will know what to do and be able to handle it. A pilot would rather lose an engine sitting at his or her computer than 10,000 feet up in the air but at least they will know how to respond if it ever happens.

Comparing the cost of purchasing a flight simulator program or purchasing flight time is like comparing a scooter to a Ferrari. The main hurdle a number of people run into when learning to fly is it is very expensive to do so. From a military standpoint it makes more sense spending a few thousand on a top notch simulator than allowing a starting pilot to fly a multimillion dollar aircraft.

Flight simulation is literally the next best thing to actually flying a plane. With the right program a pilot of all levels can get more hands on experience, prepare for emergencies and being a cost effective training tool it is hard to go wrong with a flight simulator program.

If you are looking to purchase a flight simulator program than I would highly suggest that you take a good look at Flight Pro Sim which routinely ranks near the top of the list of flight simulation software.

A Beginners Guide To Bum Marketing

2010-01-14T15:15:00.003-05:00

The concept of bum marketing is that it is a system of marketing so easy a bum grabbed off the street can do it. With bum marketing the goal is to create a whirlwind of articles, back links and anything else that you can use to your advantage without spending a dime. In this particular article I will go through a number of ways that this can be achieved.

Long Keywords - Keywords are essential to bum marketing and internet marketing in general and when they are used properly it will make a world of difference in terms of traffic from search engines. The big issue concerning keywords is that the so called obvious ones have been used so much that the competition surrounding them is just too much to be able to compete using bum marketing methods. So what you want to aim for is the use of long tail keywords. An example would be Bum Marketing which there is a ton of traffic and competition but if we use The Benefits Of Bum Marketing the competition level drops dramatically and there is a better chance of ranking high in search engines.

Squidoo - There are a number of free resources where you are able to create web pages or blogs very quickly but my favorite is Squidoo. With a Squidoo lens I am able to have a site that the search engines find quickly, freedom to use my long tail keywords, be able to promote a number of products and have a top level domain that can be linked to from the majority of article directories. There are certain topics that Squidoo will not let you cover so check that out before you begin.

Articles - Articles are the gas that is going to run your bum marketing engine and this particular motor needs a ton of fuel. The hard part is not actually writing the articles but coming up with enough topics to write about the same product without repeating yourself over and over again. Like I said earlier the number of articles that you should write needs to be pretty large especially if you are in a competitive niche. The Four Day Money Making Blueprint crew talk about creating dozens of articles for each topic and if it is a safe bet that they know what they are talking about.

Bum marketing is a very strong way for you to begin the process of making money online without having to dig into your wallet. To learn more about this particular marketing strategy I suggest that you check out The Four Day Money Making Blueprint which breaks each step down so that you fully understand what bum marketing is all about and the best way to incorporate the strategy. In terms of price it is under thirty dollars for the whole package including access to a forum which is extremely helpful.

To learn more about The Four Day Money Making Blueprint check out my Squidoo lens at http://www.squidoo.com/fourdaymoneymakingblueprintbummarketing or check out The Four Day Money Making Blueprint

The Benefits Of A Kettlebell Workout

2010-01-14T13:24:00.002-05:00

Kettlebell workouts have quickly found their way back into the gym and everyone from mixed martial artists to celebrities to the guy next door claiming it is the best form of exercise since the push up and do you know what? The excitement is well deserved. A Kettlebell workout is a fast and effective workout that will kick your butt from here to Sunday. In this particular article I will go through the benefits of a Kettlebell workout.

The Kettlebell workout in its basic design makes the most simple exercise a powerhouse by utilizing all of the small muscles and connectors in one exercise to get the best results more quickly. With a basic Kettlebell swing your body is forced to use the muscles in your arms, back, legs, shoulders as well as a ton of smaller muscles to perform the exercise correctly in one simple exercise. With the design of the Kettlebell your body needs to use all of its facilities in order to make sure that you are performing the exercise correctly and maintaining your balance. The Kettlebell workout affects both your core muscles and many others ensuring that you get the most effective workout and reach your goals much more quickly.

Kettlebell workouts are designed to save you time. When you use a typical gym a lot of time is spent going from machine to machine and unfortunately waiting for access which can take quite some time. With a Kettlebell workout routine you are combining both cardio and strength training to a large number of major muscles and connectors so there is no need to spend an hour in the gym. Here is a recent comment made by celebrity fitness trainer Missy Beaver about her client Katherine Heigel workout schedule "With Katherine's busy schedule, Kettlebell workouts are perfect because in 20-minute sessions you get a cardio, strength and flexibility workout that would take hours at the gym."

No bulky equipment. The problem I have always had with the gym is that I could not concentrate completely on my workout as I was distracted by what was taking place around me but due to the sheer size of most home gym equipment I just did not have the space to in my small apartment. When I first tried out the Kettlebells I was stunned by how well it worked and pleased when I realized how easy it is to store.

The Kettlebell workout has been around for a long time due to how fast and effectively it can get your body into its peak condition fast and effectively. If your routine has become stagnant give the Kettlebells a try.

To learn more about Kettlebells and what it can do for you check out my Squidoo lens at http://www.squidoo.com/kettlebellworkoutsforfatloss. If you are looking for a incredible Kettlebell workout check out the Kettlebellworkouts.com