How To Reduce RSI Naturally

RSI is not only painful, but can lead to loss of quality of life as ordinary tasks become painful and difficult. There are many commercial preparations out there, which will relieve the pain, however many pain killers have nasty side effects if taken long term. There are measures you can take to reduce the amount RSI you suffer, hopefully reducing the need for medicinal preparations.

Step 1) When using a keyboard and mouse, always use gel pads under your wrists. These are cheaply available in most department and computer stores, and help to prevent RSI by cushioning the vulnerable parts of your wrist instead of mashing them against a hard table.

Step 2) Consider ergonomic keyboards. They are the wacky looking ones which have been split up the middle and turned on angles, a little like butterfly wings. These keyboards place your wrists in such a manner as to give them a natural shape when typing, thus reducing the strain and likelihood of RSI.

Step 3) Take regular breaks. Although it is oft repeated, this is the best tool in your defense against RSI. It is best if you can take half hourly breaks for five minutes, although this is not always feasible in a work environment. Breaks hourly for ten minutes with stretches are fine too.

Step 4) Massage the affected joints gently at night with a soothing oil such as chamomile or lavender, it will relieve the pain as well as keeping blood flowing through the joints well.

Tips

RSI can be indicative of more serious issues such as carpal tunnel, if you find it is serious and ongoing, seek medical advice.

How To Get To Sleep Without Pills

Insomnia is becoming increasingly frequent, and with all the night time noise and light pollution, it’s hardly surprising. Couple this with the fact that many people work in office jobs, or at least jobs which don’t require much activity leading to quite a sedentary life. This makes getting to sleep even more difficult. Thankfully, the pills sold over the counter and by prescription are not the only answer. Here are some tricks to try before giving in to the medicated way.

Step 1) Go to bed at the same time every night. Routine really does work, that’s why our mothers insisted on us going to bed at the same time every night, except on rare special occasions.

Step 2) Don’t sleep during the day. You may feel tired, especially whilst resetting you body clock, but you cannot give into the Granny Nap, it will only make it harder to sleep that night.

Step 3) Exercise is brilliant for helping you to get to sleep, if your muscles are as tired as your brain, your body will find it harder to resist the urge to sleep. It can also help prevent restless, wakeful nights as muscles are more likely to remain prone if well exercised.

Step 4) Have a bath or shower right before bed. It helps to relax your body and adding a few drops of your favorite soothing oil such as lavender or chamomile helps the effect. On top of that, you will be getting into bed clean.

Step 5) Read a fiction book, it can aid in relaxing you and make your eyes weary, despite being prone to insomnia, I know I can fall asleep within a page of reading a fiction book.

Step 6) Sleep in dark and quiet. Having lamps, radios and televisions on only serves to distract your brain and keep it in a state of heightened alert. This makes sleep much harder to attain.

Tips

If insomnia is a persistent problem, seek medical advice as it could be a sign of more serious health issues.

How to Stop Earaches Naturally

Ear ache can be excruciatingly painful, whether you are 24 months or 24 years. A pain in the side of your head is distracting and can even be scary for those who have never experienced it before, and children. Most ear aches are due to an infection, either fungal, bacteria, or viral. No matter the cause, treating the pain can help in speeding recovery and minimizing damage to the ear drum.

What You’ll Need:

A Hot Water Bottle or heat Pack
Garlic Oil

Step 1) The first thing to try is a source of heat. It should never be damp though, as getting an infected ear wet is a sure fire way to make the situation worse. Take a hot water bottle wrapped in a flannel or soft towel or a heat pack and apply it to the sore ear.

Step 2) If the pain is still persistent, you can try to help some if the infected fluid drain from the ear by adding garlic oil. You can buy garlic oil capsules from health stores, all you need do is prick the end of one with a pin and gently squeeze the oil into the air. Then, place a cotton ball into the air and lie down with that side down. The oil will dissolve the infected matter and help it drain out by lubricating it. It also well known for it’s anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.

Tips

Persistent ear ache is not a good sign, and children should be taken to see a doctor. The treatments most known to be efficacious for ear aches are still the ones which treat the underlying infection, rather than the symptoms.

How To Reduce Eye Strain Naturally

Eyes are one of those things we often don’t pay much attention too, until there is something wrong. Eyestrain, being the most common afflictions for eyes. With our tendency to take in a lot of information from screens, be they television or computer screens, we subject our eyes to strain on a daily basis. There are a few simple measures you can take to reduce eye strain and thus be kind to your eyes.

What You’ll Need

Carrots and other foods rich in Vitamin or a Vitamin A supplement
Proper Lighting
Reading glasses

Step 1) A diet high in Vitamin A will ensure good eye sight for many years. It is the vitamin which makes carrots so very good for your eyes. When your mom told you to eat your carrots for your eyes, she was giving you the best advice for your eyes, even if you didn’t know it then.

Step 2) Make sure that you have proper lighting. Use table lamps instead of overhead lighting wherever possible and always repair any flickering fluorescent lights where you can’t replace them with something better. Try and aim for a room where the lighting is moderate – neither too light nor too dark. Setting your monitor or television brightness to the same brightness as the room surrounding it will also make it easier on your eyes and reduce strain.

Step 3) Use the high visibility settings on your computer to change it to black backgrounds with white text, not only does this reduce eye strain, but it saves energy as well. Blackle http://www.blackle.com/ an alternative to google which employs this technique has a running total of watt hours saved.

Step 4) Though it is tedious and daggy, do eye exercises. Eyes need exercise like every other part of our body, so making sure you give them a healthy work out is important. Try closing your eyes tightly for around five seconds and then open them, repeat this five or six times.

Step 5) Have a rest. Never spend more than an our working at a screen without a break. You can always try pressing a warm damp washer to your face. It gives instant relief and revitalizes eyes, ready for another stint of work.

Tips

Sleep is essential for giving the eyes a chance to rest, so don’t be stingy with your sleep.

Natural Remedies for Headaches

As a longtime migraine sufferer, I know how debilitating a bad headache can be for someone. The range of treatments available in your local drugstore or from your doctor can be overwhelming. Some of those remedies have their own unpleasant side effects. They can also interact with other prescription drugs with dangerous consequences. Happily, with the greater acceptance of holistic medicine, there are effective and natural ways to cure headaches.

Headaches can be triggered by many things. We know that stress, food intolerances, and alcohol can all lead to severe headaches. If you do experience frequent headaches, it becomes important to monitor your food and activities to see if there is a common link to their occurrence. The best way to cure a headache is not to get one in the first place. Ensuring that you drink enough water each day is an easy way to prevent headaches, as dehydration is a common culprit.

Frequent headaches, including migraines, can also be a sign that your diet if lacking in key nutrients. By taking a daily magnesium supplement, you can naturally minimize your risk of headaches. Magnesium helps regulate blood pressure which can reduce your risk of getting a migraine. Another natural cure that can help prevent headaches is to eat a diet rich in B vitamins. Most adults do not consume enough calcium, so ensuring that you get enough calcium each day can also prevent headaches.

If you do end up with a headache, it is important to take the time to rest until you feel better. A quiet and dark room, with a warm towel against your head, is a great way to ease the pain. Bright light can cause the blood vessels to dilate even more which will increase the discomfort. By applying warmth and gentle massage to the area, you can naturally relieve the pressure by helping the blood vessels relax.

Key to Getting Rid of Work Stress

We all lead very busy lives these days, and increased stress is something we all have to learn to live with. Everyone has experienced those moments of unexpected panic. However, if your work is causing you undue stress on a daily basis, there can be serious health risks. Here are some tips on how to rid your self of stress at work.

There are some jobs that are simply high stress. Police and firefighters are two examples where intense daily stress just comes with the job. If you work in a high stress environment, it is vitally important to leave your job at the office at the end of the day. Once you walk out the office door, take a few deep breaths and let the stress go. Holding those feelings inside and taking them home with you can only impact your family relationships, making your personal life more stressful too. Being unable to relax at home makes going back to work even more stressful. It’s a vicious circle. Take some time for yourself before going home. Go to the gym, go for a walk, or browse in your favorite bookstore. Taking this time allows you to disconnect from your work stress and feel more refreshed when you get home.

If you find yourself having a particularly stressful day at work, it is just as important to find a quick way to distance yourself for a few minutes from the situation. Take a walk around the office, or a get few minutes of fresh air. Talk to a co-worker. Remember that no matter what the problem is, there will be a solution. A clearer head will be able to find resolve that problem sooner.

Unfortunately, there are stressful situations at work that aren’t going to get any better, no matter how calm you train yourself to be. If you have a tyrannical boss, or the intensity of the stress continues to increase no matter what you do, then the solution to getting rid of your work stress may be to simply leave that job. It’s a hard decision, especially in uncertain economic times, but stress is can be deadly. Take the time to take care of yourself, and you will be better off in the long run.

Sleeping Your Way to Good Health

Importance of Sleep

How long did you sleep last night? A solid 8 hours? More? Most likely it was less. More and more people are reporting an average of just 5 hours of sleep each night. It’s just not enough. And not getting enough sleep is more than just yawning while you wait for your first triple shot espresso of the day. How important is sleep? We know that if we don’t get enough, we can be pretty cranky the next day. But there’s more to sleep than just ensuring we wake up in a pretty good mood.

Chronic lack of sleep can contribute to a myriad of health issues. For one thing, not sleeping can make you fat. Reduced sleep can slow down the production of the hormone that controls hunger. Hungry and tired people tend to choose foods that are quick and easy to eat – bad carbohydrates, salty foods, and processed foods. Lack of sleep can harm the immune system, lead to depression, and increase the risk of heart disease. Lack of sleep can even have deadly consequences. Falling asleep behind the wheel can be lethal to you and others. Is it really worth it to watch that late movie tonight or get to the office extra early tomorrow?

Our busy lives have contributed to this alarming trend of sleeping less. But sleep is too important to shortchange ourselves. We may send our children to bed early each night to ensure that they get enough rest. We need to send ourselves to bed too. For most adults, between 7-8 hours a night is sufficient. If you feel good in the morning, and have enough energy to get through the day, then you’ve had enough sleep. Children and teenagers can need up to 10 hours a night, sometimes more. Sleep can restore important brain functions and your kids will do better in school.

So go on, get on your jammies and go to bed. Sweet dreams and wake up to a better quality of life.

Encouraging Kids to Eat Their Veggies

There are many children in the world who do eat their vegetables and actually enjoy them. Really! But the reality is that there are many more children who would rather be grounded from t.v. for the rest of their lives than let a piece of broccoli pass their lips. Getting children to eat their vegetables – it can be challenge, but one that you can win with a few simple ideas.

One way to deal with the problem is to make the vegetables invisible. By adding pureed vegetables to your child’s favorite dish, you can up the nutrition content and no one will be the wiser. Steamed and pureed cauliflower mashes nicely into potatoes. Make a home-made pasta sauce by whizzing together steamed carrots, beans, celery and canned tomatoes before adding seasonings and ground beef. Zucchini is a long-known secret friend to chocolate cake recipes. There are several cookbooks on the market to show you all the tricks.

But being sneaky about getting those vegetables into your children’s daily diet isn’t necessarily doing the kids any favors in the long run. Introduce your children to vegetables at an early age, and choose the ones you really like because guess what – you’re going to eat them too. Lead by example. If you aren’t willing to eat those brussel sprouts, then why should your kids? Let them choose a new vegetable to try each week. Get them even more involved by growing some vegetables in your yard or containers. And try to never make eating their vegetables into some sort of punishment if they don’t finish every carrot on the plate.

Give your children space to try new things and respect that they won’t like every vegetable out there. Maybe your child will only eat one kind of vegetable for the next five years. That’s okay too. Every small bite counts toward creating a healthy child.

Sleep Makes You Feel Younger

Sleep is a great way to feel younger. When you get sleep, you will find that you have more energy. With more energy,you will feel younger and like you did when you were a youth. Sleep is a great way to feel younger.

Sleep gives you the energy that you need during the day to do the things that you need to do. If you can get a good night’s sleep, the next day you are going to naturally have a lot more energy. With this energy, you will feel younger and feel like doing things that you used to do all the time. This in turn makes it a lot easier to really enjoy your days.

When you’re tempted to stay up too late at night, remember that you need sleep. With the sleep that you get by not watching the late night shows, you will feel younger the next day when you get up in the morning and really enjoy life as a whole.

The Joys of Spinach

Spinach is a dark leafy green vegetable that is incredibly good for you. It is really good to get spinach into your diet.

You might not initially like the idea of spinach. After all, just the name of spinach sounds yucky. However, spinach doesn’t really taste that bad. You can eat it cooked or raw and still get the good stuff from spinach.

Spinach has tons of potassium in it. Potassium is really good for your body. Lots of people get potassium from eating high calorie bananas. But with spinach you can get more potassium and not get all those calories that you find in bananas.

So why eat a banana and get fat when you can eat spinach and stay skinny? It’s the logical choice to make when deciding how to get potassium in your diet. You should go for the spinach each time that you eat a salad or just need something filling to eat. That way you get all the good stuff from spinach without all the fattening calories that are in other foods.

Next Page »