Archive for February, 2010

Get A Strong Heart With Balance Ball!

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

The exercise benefit you may want from exercise may differ greatly from the exercise benefit someone else wants but some things remain the same.

Strong Heart
A strong heart does not have to work so hard so you are less likely to have a heart attack. Regular exercise also increases your HDL (good) cholesterol and helps lower your total cholesterol. Exercise also helps lower your blood pressure. Your lungs will also benefit from exercise as they become better conditioned so that activities such as climbing stairs will not make you out of breath.

Any exercise tip you use needs to be simple yet smart enough so you can use the exercise tips to quickly and easily adapt your exercise habits to continue to push ahead and reach your health, fitness, and physical appearance goals and still have the time for a great family life.

Exercise tip for an exercise benefit:
Get a baby jogger. You don’t have to run or jog, walking at a fast pace will do just as good, but you should get a baby jogger they’re much easier and smoother than a regular stroller for this;

Increased Self-Esteem:
Gaining control of your body size and weight through fitness is an amazing way to increase self-esteem. You look better and are more confident which empowers you in everything you do. You will find that the self-discipline required and learned through regular exercise spills over into other areas of your life and you will be better able to make other necessary and desireable changes
(more…)

A Fruitful Skin Renewal

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Imagine browsing through skin care aisles and finding that one, perfect product that boasts of all-natural ingredients. Serendipity, right? Then you go and read the label expecting to find a virtual salad but instead finding yourself reading benzoic acid, butyl stearate, and some totally unpronounceable names. You’re no botanist but you’re sure that those stuff don’t grow on trees. This is because most commercial items meant for skin care nowadays contain preservatives and other chemicals to maintain their consistency and shelf life. Problem is, most of these chemicals can actually irritate more sensitive skin.

What solution is there for this kind of crisis? Simple. Mix your own, homemade skin care line. There’s nothing to it as most ingredients are found in your fridge or fruit basket. All-natural skin recipes are easily found in the Internet or even in magazines. Usually, these skin care mixes are composed of a combination of one or two fruits. Combinations like these can include either the fruit pulp, fruit juice, or both. Milk, water or honey are usually added to smoothen the mixture. Add-ons such as oatmeal, wheat germ, brown sugar, and dried herbs are also included for more specialized concoctions such as a pimple treatment, flaking, and oily skin.

Skin care using natural ingredients offers great variety. There are facial cleansers, scrubs, moisturizing creams, and face masks. Don’t worry because indications for use are usually found with the recipes. The recipes indicate whether the mixture is for normal, dry, oily, sensitive, and acne-prone skin. Some are even more specialized as blackhead removers or whitening solutions.
(more…)

Acne: A Basic Understanding

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Statistics indicate that as high as 80% of the entire American population has ever had acne. Acne afflicts all genders, sexes and ages making it a universal skin disorder. As a form of skin disease, the good news is that acne is not transmittable.

Although acne is not contagious from person-to-person, it can spread to the whole face and can severely affect all the skin tissues that have pilosebaceous units. It is not true that acne just affects those going through puberty. Even infants or individuals who may be well over their forties, can develop this skin disorder. Acne infantilis is the term used for acne that grows on newborn babies, on the other hand acne rosacea is related to middle-aged people.

Acne has different classifications, according to the severity of the infection.

Comedo is the form where all severe acne cases originate. This is characterized by red swelling or small lesions on your skin. Whiteheads and blackheads are two forms of comedo. Conversely, blackhead is an open comedo. The coloration is due to the accumulation of dark skin pigments called melanin, plus hardened sebum and other skin debris and particles. This is the basic structure of whiteheads, however, the only difference is the coloration and these are deeply situated into the skin layers.

If you have sandpaper-like skin around the tissue of your mouth and on the surface of your forehead, chin and cheeks, you probably have papules. Pus-filled lesions are also termed as pustules.
(more…)

Abnormal Mammogram – What Now?

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

It’s 10am on a Tuesday morning. You are getting ready for a meeting with your team when a phone call comes in for you…from your health care provider. It seems your routine annual mammogram has found a small spot that needs further evaluation. Now what?

No doubt about it, an abnormal mammogram is a scary thing. The first thing you should remember is that 80 percent of these lumps turn out to be benign, meaning they are not cancerous. However, it’s prudent for your health care provider to arrange for you to have a biopsy done to insure that your spot does indeed fall into that 80%.

What’s a biopsy? A biopsy is a procedure that allows for tissue to be removed and tested for cancer. In many cases, the produced for taking tissue results in little to no pain and there is minimal to no scarring involved.

There are for main types of breast biopsies that are done.

Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy (FNAB) – This is the least invasive form of biopsy. The FNAB uses a tiny needle that is inserted directly into the lump. The content of the lump is then pulled back into the needle and syringe and the whole thing is withdrawn. In many cases, done properly, these procedures are painless, leave no scarring, and can be done in your providers office. Best of all, results can be ready in a few days.

Core Needle Biopsy (CNB) – The needle involved is a bit larger, with a bit of discomfort. The needle is again guided into the lump and the sample is obtained just like the FNAB. Again, the results are available in just a few days – often in 48 hours.
(more…)