Karen’s Free Health and Fitness Tips

Do you have anxiety or panic attacks? Do you find that although you have anxiety, medication is not for you? Or maybe you are taking medication but want to supplement with some home exercises for anxiety to get even better results?

There are many things you can do at home to relieve your anxiety symptoms, reduce your anxiety or even prevent it. The number one key to treating or eliminating anxiety is relaxation, and the University of Michigan Health Center has released as guide explaining both why you need to learn to relax and how to do it.

The guide talks about the relaxation response; defined as “your personal ability to make your body release chemicals and brain signals that make your muscles and organs slow down and increases blood flow to the brain.” Drugs can to a certain extent help you achieve this, but did you know you have the ability to do it yourself without the help of drugs?

There are several different ways to achieve the relaxation response, but it’s important to understand what it is before we go into the how. When I talk about relaxation as a home exercise for anxiety, I’m not talking about taking a nap or relaxing on the couch. The relaxation we’re aiming for is a state where your body is relaxed while your mind is still alert.

Anxiety can be a helpful tool or can make someone unable to function properly in society. When preparing for a test, for example, a person may have performance anxiety, forcing them to start studying weeks ahead of time.

As long as this does not interfere with their other activities, it can be useful. If, however, this prevents them from participation in things due to their obsession with perfectionism, that may pose a problem.

Sometimes individuals do not know how to act when faced with anxiety. Such is the case with Lewis whose main coping skill is to clean. Lewis actually perfected this skill so that it became a routine, but he is unable to do anything else.

In fact, Lewis uses cleaning, and his routine, as a way to avoid anxiety. When faced with any type of anxious situations, he automatically finds other areas to focus on.

There is never laundry to do in the house, the toys are always picked up, and items are straightened in the bathrooms and kitchen. If any type of mess is made by someone else, he is right behind them to pick it up.

What is Diabetes Insipidus?

Unlike other types of diabetes such as Diabetes Mellitus Diabetes Insipidus is a disease that is linked to the pituitary gland in the brain. When the word diabetes is mentioned most people will assume that we are speaking of Diabetes Mellitus (Sugar Diabetes). Diabetes Insipidus though is not caused by a lack of insulin or the lack of insulin regulation. Diabetes Insipidus happens when the pituitary gland does not make enough of the hormone ADH. Antidiuretic Hormone is needed to control the amount of water in the body. Diabetes Insipidus can be a serious or even fatal disease if not caught and treated. The treatment may be ongoing for the rest of your life.

What causes Diabetes Insipidus?

Like all forms of diabetes no one knows exactly what causes the actual disease however they do know that people that have had other problems are prime candidates to develop Diabetes Insipidus.

If you have or have had any of the following you may develop Diabetes Insipidus:

* A brain aneurysm which is a weak spot in a blood vessel causing the artery to balloon out much like a weak spot on a tire causes a “bulge”

It is quite well known that at this point in time there is no actual cure for autism, yet an earlier diagnosis of the disorder will help in selecting a treatment that will help the individual better cope with day to day life. Therapy may be in two different forms, depending on the degree of autism exhibited by the patient. In examining the autism statistics, the earlier the therapy is started, the more positive will be the results. in general terms it appears that treatment administered to a child between two to three years old, has the most chance of success. Waiting until the later ages can decrease this result by as much as 36 percent.

Steady Rise Over Two Decades

According to the latest autism statistics, the number of children diagnosed with autism is rising steadily. It appears that since the 80’s the number of people afflicted with this condition has increase by 600%. These children can only hope that their therapy will start before they are three years old and even then the chance of a total recovery is less then 40%. Doctors say that the autistic child’s nervous system is not set up properly and that therapy will prevent further damage and partially repair the problem. Every year that delays the therapy appears to allow the nervous system to solidify and stabilize its condition making it harder and harder to effect proper repairs.

Having acne is hard enough alone to deal with but when it leaves scars it can be devastating to some as it can change their appearance. Many people think that there is nothing they can do where acne marks are concerned but there are actually acne marks home remedies that you can do to help lessen the scars.

Having large pores and being left with acne marks or scars are two of the biggest down falls of having acne problems. Thankfully there are things that you can do to shrink your pores and to lesson the appearance of the acne scars. Below is a list of some of the best home remedies that you can use to help in getting rid of the marks that acne leaves behind.

1. One great treatment for large pores is a paste that is made from sandalwood powder and black gram dal. It is best to leave it on over night and then rinse it off with cool water in the morning. You can adjust the time if you find that your skin is dry when you get up. You can also try adding some milk to the paste to make it easier on the skin.

Endo what? Endometriosis is a medical condition marked by the outgrowth of urethral tissues called endometrium over the fallopian tubes, the ovaries or anywhere else in the pelvis that likely triggers extreme pelvic pain and discomforts during monthly periods. Under normal circumstances, the endometrium is shed off and completely exits the vagina in the routine process of menstruation.

Treatments for this disorder have so far been limited to surgery or the seemingly trial and error method in the prescription of estrogen inhibitor drugs and hormonal medications. Consequently, the risks of infertility as well as ovarian and endometrial cancer abound and these have prompted many women to seek an alternative medicine for endometriosis and its painful symptoms.

While medical practitioners point out to excessive estrogen levels in the female body as a precursor to endometriosis, traditional Chinese medicine postulates a systemic outlook to suggest poor liver conditions as the main culprit for the disorder. Incidentally, this hypothesis has been confirmed by related scientific research that implicates environmental pollutants called dioxins-found in abundant measures with the diet, as unavoidable hazards to sustainable liver health. In this context, herbal remedies and homeopathic substances that contain medicinal compounds effective in the treatment of liver conditions or useful in the sustenance of female reproductive health collectively serves as an alternative medicine for endometriosis.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., as it is more popularly known, is an international education program for drug abuse awareness and targets students from kindergarten through 12th grade. It aims at discouraging youngsters from using illegal drugs, or getting involved in gangs and other criminal activities.

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 to wage a war against the growing evils of drug abuse. It has expanded all over the world since that time. Students who decide to join the program sign a pledge to never use drugs or join gangs. The local law enforcement agency delivers a series of lectures over a period of seventeen weeks to make students aware of the dangers of drug abuse. According to the D.A.R.E. website, 36 million children around the world, (26 million children are in the US,) are part of the program. 80% of the nation’s school districts implement this program. It also actively runs in 55 countries around the world.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education is a combined effort by D.A.R.E. certified law enforcement officers, educators, students, parents and communities. The basic aim of D.A.R.E is to help students identify the various threats and harms of drug abuse. They also provide support to students so that they can resist any peer pressure, which may entice them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants or other drugs.

Modern medicine has made many advances over the years in treating allergy symptoms. Sometimes the cure may be worse than the illness. Many decongestants will lead to a dry mouth and a rise in blood pressure. Antihistamines tend to make you drowsy and groggy.

Are there any natural herbs that will help treat the symptoms of allergies without all of the unpleasant side effects? The good news is that you can find many natural herbs for allergies that will offer relief from your symptoms the holistic way. Natural herbs that will actually help to prevent the symptoms rather than treating them once they start. This can be an effective way of managing many of the seasonal allergies that a number of people suffer from.

I have heard about antihistamines, but what are they?

Antihistamines prevent the body from producing histamines. Histamines are a chemical by product when antibodies attack a foreign substance in the body. For allergy suffers, the body has mistakenly identified a benign substance to be a threat to the body. The immune system has created an antibody to attack and destroy this threat. Histamines create the allergy symptoms like runny nose, watery eyes and coughing, so when your body cannot produce as many, your symptoms are reduced as well.

The body has a very sophisticated and complex detoxification system that is working on your behalf all the time so do you need to bother with programs and plans that tell you how to detox the human body?

Researchers are noting that in spite of advances in medical treatment people are getting diseases at younger ages for which there appears to be no answers at the moment. People are surviving longer but they are in the main not healthier. Diabetes, heart disease and cancer are all on the increase. Many scientists are questioning why this is happening. There is little research into what is the underlying cause of these and other degenerative disease.

There is no doubt that we are all constantly bombarded with toxins that our detoxification systems were not designed for. Although our bodies seem to have an amazing capacity for developing pathways or routes to get rid of some of these chemicals researchers have discovered that we are all now contaminated with chemicals that can persist for years interfering with how our bodies work. The more pronounced the build up the greater the capacity to disrupt the intricate and delicate mechanisms that keep the body functions running smoothly.