STRAWS Save yourself from the strawful experience!!!

Aging is caused by a number of factors; extrinsic, such as environmental factors and exposure to sunlight, and intrinsic factor like the gene. These are things within our consciousness, and of which we are familiar with. Little do we know that an everyday activity of ours actually takes some chunks of beauty away from our faces.

 To everything with an advantage comes its twin, disadvantage. It seems almost an impossible thing to achieve, to separate people from taking their drinks with the thin hollow tube called straw. We have heard frequently from adverts, and even dentists advice the employment of the applauding skill of straws when it comes to the business of sipping our drinks. They tell us, 'it protects the teeth from colouring and
early degradation. Yes! As true as that is, there is also attached, some side effects to too much dependence and over-usage of these straws on daily basis:

 1. Drinking with straw is much like smoking the cigarette:

People with the regular habit of drinking with a straw will eventually have premature aging skin and wrinkles around the mouth. This is caused by 'pursing' the lips while sipping. According to Beauty Myths, dermatologists, Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd, founder of Specific Beauty, and Dr. Rebecca Baxt, gives straight information to explain about sipping from a straw.

 "Yes, repeated straw drinking causes people to purse their lips and can create wrinkles from the repetitive muscle motion, much like frowning causes wrinkles on the upper face", Dr. Baxt says. However, Dr. Woolery-Lloyd negates the idea of placing all the blame on drinking straws. "In general, drinking through a straw should not cause wrinkles," she says. "Any repetitive movement (like smoking, some people's pattern of talking and laughing ) can increase the risk of wrinkles."

2. Drinking through a straw bathes your teeth in sugary and acidic liquids:

The truth is that tooth erosion can’t be avoided if you choose to drink sodas and iced teas. However, aiming the straw at the back of your mouth may put your teeth directly in harm’s way by giving them a dangerous bath of phosphoric and citric acids found in soda and flavor additives found in teas. Your teeth will suffer from enamel erosion from consuming inorganic beverages anyway, but the straw puts them right on the spot.

 3. The type of straw you use matters:

There are basically two types of straw common in use; the plastic, and the paper types. It is estimated that billions of plastics straws are used every day all over the world. The environmental cost for this habit is difficult to estimate. Keep in mind that most of these billions of straws come with plastic wraps and are not largely recycled, and this is a means of reducing environmental wastes. More so, it is discovered that the plastic types, apart from causing premature aging of the lips, can also cause some chemical deposits dropping into the drink, which is later sipped into the body system of the drinker. These chemicals could include BPA (Bisphenol A) which is harmful to the body in causing breast cancer, and even poor brain development. This also depends on the type of material used in making the straw. Similar premature aging and chemical effect, have also been discovered to occur with direct drinking from the mouths of plastic bottles.

 It is advised that in our best interest, there should be a reduction, and possibly a limit to the level at which we make use of straws in sipping our drinks.

HUFFPOST.
Her Campus.

Take Care of Yourself or Your Students Yoga and Safety

by Shari

Navigating Through Icebergs by Michele Macartney-Filgate

I have been thinking a lot about the topic of safety when I teach these days, so I thought I might share some of my insights with you all, both students and fellow teachers.

So many people wander into a yoga class these days that it can be overwhelming for the teacher to juggle all the special needs that people may present. Let me give you some examples of my typical yoga students. I may have a student with glaucoma/cataracts who can’t do any poses where her head is lower that her heart, a student with a total knee replacement, hip replacement, hip fracture with surgical pinning, or students with osteotomies, acromioplasties, heart attacks, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart surgeries, strokes, vertigo, garden variety joint pain, spinal pain, herniated discs of the neck, back, sacroiliac issues, chronic pain of any body part, vertebral artery occlusion, carotid artery stenosis, etc. I think you are getting the point! And not all of these people are seniors or even over 55. In fact, some of my healthiest looking students have significant chronic illnesses and issues. How can I teach a class that has this variety? (I am not even talking about special needs yoga class here, but general classes.) Yes, it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed.
But I have learned over time to ask some very simple questions in two minutes or less to get a feel of the student:

1. Have you done any yoga before? Now this question is very challenging because sometimes an individual will answer yes, but you have to qualify how long ago this was and what type of yoga.
2. Do you have any conditions that I should be aware of? Now here is another question that may appear simple but isn’t. Sometimes when people live with chronic conditions it is so normal for them they don’t even think about it being a problem. So you may have to probe a little.

Then, most importantly, I tell my new students this: “You are responsible for yourself in this class. Please don’t think I have ESP and know when something is overtaxing for you or causing you pain. And please come out of any pose and let me know of the difficulty you are experiencing.” Yes, it is paramount that every student take the responsibility for his or her own actions and does not pass that responsibility onto the teacher.

After this, you have set the stage for having engaged students in your class, but you aren’t done with providing a safe environment for your students. Throughout every class, you need to observe every student to make sure that people aren’t becoming overly fatigued and distressed. Is someone looking paler than usual? Is a student sweating more than normal? Is a student more red-faced than usual? Looking for subtle changes in your familiar students is important. Also, give people (or yourself!) permission to stop and rest (see Resting Between Poses for information about resting). We are all so driven, whether it is internal competition in our own selves on how much we want to or need to do or external competition where we are looking around at our classmates and competing. Yes, yes, this isn’t supposed to be yoga, but it does happen to the best of us and when we compete even against ourselves, injuries can occur.

These are very general suggestions that both teachers and students can immediately apply to their personal practices as well as to yoga classes. In future posts we can all discuss particular strategies for keeping yoga students who live with various medical concerns safe while they practicing asana.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Getting Yourself Ready For Weight Loss Programs

By Susan Hughes

All person in this world wanted to have a perfectly shaped body. Of course, who would not want that kind of features. Almost everyone, either male or female, wanted to have that very small waistline and have a body full of abs.

However, it is not everyone who are blessed with such characteristics. There were also some who already have that but was unable maintain it because they love to eat some. That is why there are some people who will do everything just to bring back and achieve such features and being a part of weight loss programs Boston will surely be a great help.

You should know that aiming to reduce your weight is not only for beauty purposes. The more important thing about such endeavor is because of health reasons. It would really be great if you enroll yourself in programs like these, and when you do, you must remember these few important things.

Knowledge is the key. Before you enter into this kind of endeavor, it is very important that you are equipped with knowledge about it. Be sure that you know the inclusive of program. If you may need to make a research then do so. You may actually read some health and lifestyle magazines and make a search on the internet.

Find a good program. When you have fully decided about this endeavor, this is the time where you must find a good program which you think will really help you. There are numerous institutions in Boston, MA which you can choose from. Just make sure that you visited these institutions and make a lot of inquiry so you will really be informed.

Communicate with your close peeps. For sure you are not just living alone. What we mean with that is that for sure you have a family and friends around. It is very important that you communicate with them and make known to them that you will be doing this very big step in your life. If you do this, your self confidence will surely boost up since they will definitely give you a lot of support.

Ready yourself. Undertaking this type of program is a but hard, especially if you are just new to this. You have to be prepared both physically and mentally. Do a little bit of exercises at home for everyday and this should not stop even though you are enrolled in the program already. Also. You have to be ready mentally as their would be some food which you would not be allowed to eat.

Follow your instructor. When entering into this kind of undertaking, you will likely to have an instructor which will guide you. He will give you a lot of advices and would monitor you for everyday. You must always follow those things which he would ask you to do, such as not eating this type of food, doing exercises at home and many others. And most importantly, thou shall not cheat.

Think positive. Having a positive thinking would also attract positive energy. You may be hesitant at first but once you get the groove of it, such will just be very easy for you. Do not think about not being able to achieve it. Just go on with the session and the routine, and one day, you will just realize that there has been a big change in your body.

About the Author:

If you'd like to know more about the simplest and most effective weight loss programs Boston locals invite you to the main page here. Log on to the website and read all the detailed info at http://weightdestiny.com.