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Question:  What other body-loving practices do you do on a regular basis?

The crew who designed the Thera Roll tell us that there are only a few muscles that we can really stretch: the neck, low back, hamstrings, calves, rectus femoris muscle (10-15% of the quadriceps group mass), abdominals, iliopsoas, and pectoralis major muscles.

The fun and funky massage and stretch tool offers moderate to aggressive release of sore and fatigued muscles. Designed for competitive athletes, the tool works for yogis too. Just ask Kreg Weiss, My Yoga Online co-founder; he had a chance to try out the Thera Roll and is a full-on fan. The roll comes in three densities: soft (blue), firm (purple) and hard (grey).

Made in the USA, the Thera Roll is comprised of the highest quality, cross-link durable foam. Plus it’s easy to clean and sterilize.

Win your own Thera Roll!

Massage therapist Camelia Eisentrautt is giving a Thera Roll to one lucky My Yoga Online member.

How to Enter: Just add your answer to the following question to the comments section below: What other body-loving practices do you do on a regular basis?

With apologies to our international friends, this prize giveaway is only available within North America. Contest runs until the end of Tuesday, January 24, 2012 11:59 PST.

Enter on Facebook, too! Join your My Yoga Online community on Facebook and enter to win there, too.

Share the love. Tell your friends about this great giveaway. Just click ‘SHARE’ at the top of this post.

The fine print: Click here to read the official contest rules. By submitting a comment on this blog or commenting on or ‘liking’ the Facebook post, you agree to the official contest rules.

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Folks, a new illness is rampaging the country. It causes extreme anxiety and fear. What is the name of this illness? Media-iodophobia. Media-iodophobia occurs when the news media erroneously reports the results of a medical article which causes anxiety and fear in the lay public.

Dr. David Brownstein – Holistic Family Medicine

Deciding on a technique for drug detoxification depends on whether a person intends simply to clear their system long enough to pass a blood or urine test or they are looking for a way of getting off addictive substances and completely modifying their lifestyle. The more ambitious goal requires rehabilitation (‘rehab’ for short). A method of rapid opiate detox was developed at the end of the last century by physicians in Israel. Since then, it has been adapted using safer medications that have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

Rapid Detox

Withdrawal from a medication in the absence of supportive intervention can last for several days. The symptoms can be very unpleasant and painful, to the point that this puts people off going ‘clean’. Rapid detox, which involves placing the patient under anesthesia so they don’t feel the severe pain and other symptoms, is reputed to affect complete clearance in as little as two hours. This is expensive and the safety of this approach remains to be proven. It is also a very extreme way of passing a laboratory test.

Reasons For Testing

There are many reasons why an individual may be asked to submit to a routine lab test. It may be related to a job or be necessary to get a job. Other reasons for testing include competitive sports, as part of a physical examination required for taking out life insurance and people who are on probation or parole. A young person may be asked to test for drugs at school. Obviously, the only foolproof way of being 100 per cent sure to pass a test is to abstain completely.

Clearance Time

The necessary period of abstinence depends on the average clearance time of the molecule in question. Some substances, such as amphetamines, short-acting barbiturates, cocaine and opiates, for example, can clear the system in less than a week. Others like benzodiazepines (valium) or LSD can take up to ten days. Some substances, like cannabinoids (marijuana), phenobarbital and steroids may take anywhere from two or three weeks to a matter of months. These times are based on urine analysis.

Detox Drinks

There is a substantial market for personal drug tests so that casual drug users may monitor their levels. For those facing an impending drug test, it is possible to buy special ‘detox drinks’ over the Internet that act long enough to get through a test successfully. These may also be bought over the telephone or at special retailers.

Total Rehabilitation

Simply passing a urine test may be good enough for casual users who just want to keep their jobs and blow the odd joint over the weekend. For people with a serious addiction problem who want to put it behind them and get clean for good, a longer, more structured program of detoxification and rehabilitation may be in order. These focus on social, psychological and behavioral issues associated with addiction, as well as clearing the substance physically out of the system.

Residential Treatment

Residential crack cocaine rehab programs are promising because they remove the individual from the environmental and social influences that encourage the drug using lifestyle. They also allow residents to gain confidence in forming relationships with non-drug users. When the patient is released back into the community, a successful program will provide follow up to prevent backsliding.

Can stress make you fat? The evidence points to the answer being “yes.” And a new study is seeking an explanation. And for all those people sticking to diets, making detailed exercise plans, it might also pay to consider if you are under stress.

Diet and lack of exercise are not sufficient to explain the worldwide rise in obesity. Stress is one of many other factors that could contribute, according to the researchers. First off, the World Health Organization notes that eating food high in fat, salt and sugar, combined with a lack of exercise, are the key causes of obesity.

Now some attention is being focused on one’s mental state.

RECOMMENDED: Concrete Evidence Linking Stress and the Heart

Researchers reviewed a number of studies, which show that weight gain and cortisol (the stress hormone) levels were noticeably higher in people who became fatter because of stress. Essentially, high cortisol levels make you put on weight more easily. They believe that stress and obesity reinforce each other through positive feedback.

RECOMMENDED: New Alternative Way to Combat Stress

It may be a vicious cycle. Getting fatter can potentially trigger the stress response, which in turn encourages additional weight gain. When your weight goes up, the body comes under stress. This reinforces the weight gain, making you even fatter. One issue with dieting is that it can stimulate cortisol production, which in turn may trigger the stress response.

It is still an idea, but if this bears out, it means you must break this stress pattern if you want to halt the weight increase.

In terms of tackling stress, there are several natural options at your disposal. The best herbal option is Panax ginseng, which has some evidence behind it. The other leaders of the pack are multivitamins/minerals, “Eleutherococcus senticosus,” and rhodiola. All of these are believed to be “adaptogens,” which help the body respond to stress in a healthy manner, thereby limiting it.

Daily Free Health Articles and Natural Health Advice.

Green tea is known for its ability to protect against tumor growth (you can learn more about green tea’s cancer-fighting abilities here: How Green Tea Is Battling Three Forms of Cancer) and fight high cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease. In the latest health news, green tea has been found to have yet another feather in its health preventative cap: researchers say that the tea is an excellent remedy for the good health of your teeth and mouth.

Israeli researchers investigated green tea’s polyphenol antioxidants and their ability to benefit oral health. Don’t like the dentist? Hate when you get a cavity and the dentist gets the drill out? Well, green tea could have the ability to protect against bacterial-induced dental cavities, according to the research team.

The polyphenols in green tea also possess antiviral properties, which could help protect against the influenza virus that often enters through the mouth or nasal cavities. Additionally, green tea polyphenols can be used as a natural remedy to treat bad breath, or halitosis as the medical community calls it. The sulfur compounds in green tea are thought to be responsible for its breath-freshening effect.

Smokers could also benefit from drinking green tea, the researchers say. Cigarette smoke, which is at its most concentrated when first breathed into the mouth, contains many harmful compounds such as nicotine that can lead to infections and more serious conditions like oral cancer. Green tea polyphenols could help to offset the negative health effects of cigarette smoke.

Green tea has an ability to defend healthy cells from transforming into malignant cells. The research team suggests that green tea could help induce death in oral cancer cells. They conclude by saying that green tea could be used as part of the prevention and treatment of oral health complaints.

Here’s an extra health tip: if you want to boost the antioxidant power of your cup of green tea, add some lemon.

Daily Free Health Articles and Natural Health Advice.

For most people traveling, they will be required to have a valid passport to prove their identity and citizenship when they enter the country they are visiting and when they are returning to their home country. If they lack this type of documentation, they may not reach their destination and could have trouble when returning home. Certain situations can arise when a person needs to travel to a foreign country quickly and they do not have the required documentation to travel. For these individuals, emergency US passports may be needed before they can travel.

Unexpected Travel

In some countries, these passports can be issued within a twenty-four hour period. They are issued for a specific purpose that can be verified. Situations where a family member has been hurt or become seriously ill while traveling is a reason. There are times when business matters can trigger the process of expediting traveling documents. Whatever the reason, the normal waiting time that most people have to go through has to be shortened to attend to a critical situation.

Expedited Process

In most cases, there is an extra cost involved in expediting the paperwork as well as the normal costs involved with the regular processing of documents. In most situations, the person applying for an emergency passport must appear at an office that offers this service. Failure to appear will stop the process of getting the traveling documents issued.

Official Documents

One must make sure they have an official birth certificate from the township or city where they were born. This must contain specific information as to the names of parents and have a properly raised seal of the issuing government on the certificate. A person must also have a picture of themselves that can be affixed to the passport.

Costs

One must also be ready for the extra costs involved in the overall process. They must be able to travel to an office that may be in a different city. Often, the offices may be a significant distance away from where one resides. There is also the normal processing fees that must be paid as well as the fees that will be added on to hasten the process. There may be different fees if you need to renew a USA Passport.

Agents

Appearing before a government official before the documents are issued is normally mandatory. They will want to verify exactly who you are and that an emergency situation is actually occurring. They will also want to be assured that a person is not trying to get around proper procedure for other reasons.

Plan Ahead

Obtaining a passport ahead of time is advisable in many situations to avoid this situation from arising. If one knows that a close family member is traveling overseas, one may wish apply for proper paperwork for traveling ahead of time in case an emergency arises. Also, anyone planning on doing business overseas should plan ahead to avoid any problems with their traveling plans.

Habits are things we do frequently, so they potentially can affect our health. Do you have any of these four habits that could be making you sick?

What happens when you don’t sleep enough, skip breakfast, don’t exercise, or hold grudges? Find out how these behaviors are harming your health.

What happens when I only sleep five hours?

The inside story: No one knows for sure why sleep is necessary, but there’s no doubt that getting too little throws a wrench into your body’s works. For example, studies show that a sleep debt lowers levels of the hormone leptin, which helps keep your appetite under control. Implication: Sleep too little, and there’s a good chance you’ll be soon overeating. Sleep deprivation also boosts levels of stress hormones, which prompt your body to send more glucose into your bloodstream. Too little sleep also makes your body less sensitive to insulin.

But that’s just the beginning. Research shows that sleeping too little shuts down production of certain chemicals in the immune system that defend your body against germs. Shortchange yourself on shut-eye and you may want to have a box of tissues and cough medicine handy: A 2009 study found that people who sleep less than seven hours a night are up to three times more likely to develop a cold. Read more

Natural Remedies

There’s been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about a certain New York Times article, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, adapted from a book: “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards,” by William J. Broad—due out next month.

Though Broad admits that much of the benefits of yoga are true: “Yoga can lower your blood pressure, make chemicals that act as antidepressants, even improve your sex life,” he states that “A growing body of medical evidence supports…that, for many people, a number of commonly taught yoga poses are inherently risky.” Broad cites reports of yoga injuries appearing “decades ago” in some of the “world’s most respected journals.”

Though Broad does emphasize that most injuries are due to ego—either on the part of the student or the teacher—he goes on to provide examples of injuries as though they prove that yoga itself is dangerous, rather than the way certain people practice it.

And his examples? They were ones that most experienced yoga teachers would have some instant preventative solutions for.

EXAMPLE “In one case, a male college student, after more than a year of doing yoga, decided to intensify his practice. He would sit upright on his heels in a kneeling position known as vajrasana for hours a day, chanting for world peace. Soon he was experiencing difficulty walking, running and climbing stairs.”

SOLUTION Don’t sit for hours a day in Vajrasana if it’s causing pain.

EXAMPLE “In 1972 a prominent Oxford neurophysiologist, W. Ritchie Russell, published an article in The British Medical Journal… Russell found that brain injuries arose not only from direct trauma to the head but also from quick movements or excessive extensions of the neck, such as occur in whiplash — or certain yoga poses.”

SOLUTION Note the words “quick” and “excessive”. If it feels too “quick”—practitioners can slow it down. If it feels “excessive” we can back off.

EXAMPLE “The patient had been in excellent health, practicing yoga every morning for a year and a half. His routine included spinal twists in which he rotated his head far to the left and far to the right. Then he would do a shoulder stand with his neck “maximally flexed against the bare floor,” just as Iyengar had instructed, remaining in the inversion for about five minutes. A series of bruises ran down the man’s lower neck, which, the team wrote in The Archives of Neurology, “resulted from repeated contact with the hard floor surface on which he did yoga exercises.”

SOLUTION Notice the bruises. These are a sign to pay attention to. Even the medical team assessing Nagler’s patient agrees, citing in their report: “Healthy individuals could seriously damage their vertebral arteries, they warned, ‘by neck movements that exceed physiological tolerance.’” So don’t exceed physiological tolerance.

EXAMPLE “Around this time, stories of yoga-induced injuries began to appear in the media. The Times reported that health professionals found that the penetrating heat of Bikram yoga, for example, could raise the risk of overstretching, muscle damage and torn cartilage.”

SOLUTION Avoid extreme heat, and don’t overstretch.

Broad concludes with a quote from long-time yoga teacher Glenn Black. “‘Asana is not a panacea or a cure-all. In fact, if you do it with ego or obsession, you’ll end up causing problems.’”

Agreed. Looking for tips on how to safely do yoga at home or in a studio? Take some pointers from our latest blog post: 10 Tips for How to do Yoga at Home.

BY LINDSEY LEWIS A certified Hatha, Kundalini and Yin yoga teacher, Lindsey is also a behind-the-scenes team member at www.myyogaonline.com. Find her yoga at home videos here, and her website here. Lindsey’s personal mantra? Live free

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In the final part of my series on soy (see Part 1 right here and Part 2 here) and the natural hormones (isoflavones) it contains, I’ll address the evidence on diabetes and blood pressure.

Preliminary evidence shows that soy can be beneficial for patients with diabetes. One study on 77 type 2 patients looked at a soy-based meal plan and compared it to an individual diet plan. The results:

– Significant loss of weight in the soy group

– Fasting blood sugar levels were lower in the soy group (126 milligrams/deciliter [mg/dL]) compared to the others (152 mg/dl)

– The soy group had greater circulation of oxygen in the blood

– The soy group had a lower need for diabetes medications

In another study, researchers randomly tested 32 type 2 diabetes patients on phytoestrogen supplements versus placebo. The supplements provided 30 grams (g) of soy protein and 132 mg of isoflavones a day. The phytoestrogens lowered insulin resistance and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels. Then, in a study of 30 postmenopausal women, patients received either 100 mg of isoflavones or 0.625 mg of conjugated estrogen a day. In this head-to-head trial, the isoflavones had comparable reductions in fasting blood sugars and insulin levels.

As well, many smaller trials show that soy proteins could help kidney function in both type 1 and 2 diabetes. Though promising, they were small.

Early evidence shows that soy may keep blood pressure levels safe. In a good-quality study in Scotland, researchers put 61 men with hypertension and/or high cholesterol levels on a diet with at least 20 g of soy and 80 mg of isoflavones or a placebo diet. It lasted five weeks. They found that blood pressure, total cholesterol. and LDL cholesterol all significantly fell — but only in the soy diet group.

In another study, 213 healthy adults (50 to 75 years old) took either soy protein isolate (40 g of soy protein, 118 mg of isoflavones) or placebo for three months. Compared to placebo, the soy group had significant reductions in blood pressure. Elsewhere, researchers did a crossover trial of isoflavone supplements from red clover (50 mg/day) versus placebo for a month in 16 type 2 diabetic patients. Blood pressure fell significantly for those on isoflavone treatment. There, are, however, at least three good studies that failed to find this link.

In both cases, larger studies are needed to evaluate the diabetes and the blood pressure connections with soy. While this is true, also in both cases, it still can’t hurt to try getting more soy in the diet. If you’re on hormone replacement therapy, check with your doctor before upping your soy intake.

Daily Free Health Articles and Natural Health Advice.

Electronic Music applies electronic musical instruments and emerging song composition technologies. It is an emerging genre that combines two or more genres in writing and recording songs and albums. This is why it is said to include a broad range of electronically produced records. Electronically produced songs have rose to the top of the music industry and have recently dominated concerts and most social events throughout the world.

Instrumentation

Better instruments for recording songs made it possible for potential musicians and group bands to produce electronic songs and albums without having to use facilities of established studios. Emerging computer technologies enabled individuals to access sampled beats and songs which provided basics in developing popular compositions. Such compositions that allowed experimentation and led to development of new genres were termed as electronica.

Everyone Does It

Nowadays, a wide range of musical styles and acts are fond of openly using electronic production. There is a growing practice of song composers creating alternative versions of their compositions which are called remixes.hip hop and R&B rhythms have been twisted in different styles to come up with better versions that are catchy to fans. Electronic related sounds have been used by a range of composers and performers in their songs leading to hip hop fusion.

Remixing

Reggae artists have created remixes using electronic related sounds that have resulted to reggaetons and riddims. There has been growing world recognition of fusion sounds. This has made fusion sounds to become an essential part in most reggae and hip hop composition. Most artists have incorporated such sounds in their tracks.

Any Type Of Use

Unlike electronic dance compositions which are essentially created for dancing purposes, electronica compositions have been designed for a wide variety of uses. They can be played in the background when certain activities are taking place or for foreground listening. Electronic related genres have become very common to headphone users, earphone users and in chill out zones mainly visited by teenagers.

Evolving Sounds

In a wide variety of sounds and tracks recorded by famous artists throughout the world, electronically influenced sounds have played a significant role.hip hop performers have gained world recognition because of recording tracks and albums that essentially use electronic sounds. Electronically generated sounds are applied in hip hop and R&B rhythms to create fusions that fans enjoy listening to all the time. A new genre called Dubstep is proof of evolving sounds.

Electronic Dance Music (EDM)

Genres common in record stores such as jazz, techno, rap, hip hop among others mainly rely on production styles and techniques that originated from use of electronic musical instruments and associated technologies. Compositions of recognized electric artists have been used by famous mainstream musicians as background sounds in their songs. Such songs have taken hip hop musicians to great heights enabling them to make huge cash from highly attended concerts.

Apart from its application in dancing, Electronica has been applied in a broad range of uses. A significant number of television advertisements have electronically related sounds in their background. Alerting and other kinds of sounds in automobiles were initially generated electronically. Sound effects in video games are developed from highly recognized electronica soundtracks. With such and many more applications, people developed interest in electronically recorded compositions. I like Dubstep a lot. people use Ableton Live to create electronic music.