Surfing The Channel

Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

If you suffer from sleep apnea you may not even realize what it feels like to have a real solid night’s sleep. The common symptoms of sleep apnea , fatigue, difficulty with memory and concentration, headaches and even personality changes, are due to the fact that you are essentially sleep deprived. Even if you spend eight hours a night asleep, you are actually waking up between five and fifty times an hour when you stop breathing.

It is possible for all those symptoms to disappear. You just need a prescription for a CPAP system. To get that, you’ll most likely need to undergo a sleep study at a specialized clinic. Once a doctor can confirm the diagnosis, they will likely write a prescription for you to get a CPAP machine. The doctor will demonstrate proper use of the equipment while you’re still in the office so that you will know what you are doing.

You may notice a difference the very first night you use CPAP. If not, you’ll definitely feel the changes within a week. Uninterrupted sleep allows you to reach the deep, restorative sleep that apnea prevents. You should awaken, maybe for the first time in your life, feeling truly rested. In time, you memory and concentration will improve as will your attitude and personality. Your headaches will disappear as will other physical symptoms. And your relationship is likely to improve since your spouse will no longer be disturbed by your tossing and turning, snoring , and gasping for breath.

Common wisdom suggests that most accidents happen close to home, particularly car accidents. In an internal study by a major insurance company polling 11,000 of policy holders who experienced accidents in the year 2001, the findings showed that 52 percent were involved in accidents within five miles of their own home, and 69 percent were involved in accidents within ten miles from their home. Only 17 percent of those polled had accidents that were over twenty miles from their home. Why should this be?

One reason might be that when you’re closer to home, you’re in more familiar, comfortable surroundings. Literally, your guard is down. You might not fasten a seat belt or pay more attention to the road. You might have seen the road and its surroundings so often that your brain fills in the details, placing you on automatic pilot, especially if you’re tired.

If this is true, then it might stand to reason the farther you are away from home, the more cautious you might become, the more alert you might be, but this isn’t always the case. If so, there might not be a need for visitors insurance when traveling abroad to either the United States or Canada.

The fact is that while accidents are more likely to happen at home, they may occur anywhere, particularly if the event is a health-related one. When you’re traveling to see the Grand Canyon or to see the wonders of Carlsbad Caverns , having the right protection seems as sensible as fastening a seat belt, whether you’re five miles from home or six thousand.

Visualization is something that’s had a great deal of attention in the past few decades. It seems to come up in popular culture in a cyclical fashion, where new spiritual seekers will find new ways to use the power of the mind. Creating what one wants be focusing on an internal image is something that’s had remarkable power over all cultures and over all time.

In some schools of spiritual philosophy, focusing on one’s wants is antithetical to growth in general, and can only lead to blocks in the path. In the great Buddhist tradition, all suffering comes from desire , so the first thing to get rid of is desire. Of course, it can take a number of lifetimes to do that, and those who succeed aren’t typically heard from again.

Beginning with a more modest ideal, then, one can begin by changing desire for objects or people for inner peace. Working toward a visual impression of oneself as calm, relaxed, and happy, can certainly do wonders in putting one on the road toward its attainment. Techniques in meditation, yoga, and biofeedback can all help one learn how to moderate the speed of thought, in order to bring focus to the intentions. The side effects are also enormously positive, leading to a healthier body as well as a clearer mind.