TipsFocus.com

The holidays are a busy and stressful time for most people — with work and gift shopping and get-togethers and all kinds of other events and worries, it’s a wonder we stay sane at all.

The secret to survival — and in fact to having a wonderful time during these holidays and any stressful situation — is to stay in the moment, as much as possible. This is something I work on all the time, and it’s easy to forget.

However, it’s also easy to do, if you stay conscious of it. Here’s how: (continue reading…)

Many people get insomnia nowaday. All the people want to get a good sleep. Getting sleep well you get the good health, get the energy to work to enjoy the life.

There are some tips on how to make you sleep well. Pay attention to that and hope it could do for you.

1. Keep a schedule. Set a time to sleep and get up early.

2. Don’t eat too much meals before sleeping. If you feel a little hungry, eat some fruit but not junk food. (continue reading…)

Do you know what is the second-hand smoke? It is a mix of smoke exhaled by smokers and sidestream smoke discharged from the tips of burning cigarettes.

I hate smoke and dislike people smoke around me. I feel disgusted to smell the smoke. For several years, people did so many research to convey smoke dangers people, second-hand smoke even more dangerous.Second-hand smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals.It’s poisonous. 50 chemicals in second-hand somke can cause cancer.Breathing second-hand smoke would have twice as much nicotine and tar than inhaling smoke directly through a cigarette. (continue reading…)

Senate Democrats voted to move into a representative debate on overhauling the nation’s health care system on Saturday. Key centrists made it clear Sunday that the party is still a long way from convey its promise to provide near-universal health insurance coverage and contain medical costs.

In the face of the prospect of Republican filibusters at every aspect, Democratic leaders can only keep on moving the process if they could deliver the same kind of total unity they obtained in Saturday’s vote to begin debate: Every Democratic senator, plus two independents who caucus with them, supported the key procedural motion.

But several of those senators said they if no major changes are made ,they will not be prepared to support the bill on Sunday. (continue reading…)

A new study has revealed that spending a lot of time watching TV, playing video games and surfing the Web makes children more health problems.

The report found strong connections between media exposure and problems of childhood obesity and tobacco use. Nearly as strong was the link to early sexual behavior.

The studies, most conducted in the United States, largely focused on television, but some looked at video games, films, music, and computer and Internet use. Three quarters of them found that increased media viewing was associated with negative health outcomes.

The average modern child spends nearly 45 hours a week with television, movies, magazines, music, the Internet, cellphones and video games, the study reported. By comparison, children spend 17 hours a week with their parents on average and 30 hours a week in school, the study said.

Keeping an eye on children’s media use is tougher today, says Jane Brown, a journalism and mass communication professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who was not involved in the report. In the past, families often watched TV together, and parents could easily change the channel or voice their disapproval. Today’s technology often isolates children, who may tune out their families to concentrate on a cellphone screen only they can see.

The report’s authors hope it will be taken to heart by parents, as well as educators, pediatricians and policymakers. They came up with suggestions for each group, and James P. Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, suggested that parents get involved in what their children see, hear and play — and for how long.

A new study reported that regular exercise or physical activity can help sufferers in the fight against cancer.

It has been discovered that regular exercise can help to bring down the risk of cancer in women by 20 percent in a study done by the National Cancer Institue. The fact that exercise has many positive effects on your body such as body weight, immune system functions and hormone functions makes researchers believe that exercise is extremely helpful in reducing the risk of cancer even though there hasn’t been an association between exercise and cancer that has been proven.

Dr. Susan Boolbol says, “This is one of the first studies that has shown that in women who do not have a history of breast cancer, they can actually reduce their risk by exercising.” (continue reading…)

According to a large-scale European study that large waistline can almost double your premature death risk even if your body mass index is within the “normal” range. For the study, published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, researchers tracked nearly 360,000 men and women in nine European countries for about a decade. Study participants ranged in age from 25 to 70.

Researchers followed about 360,000 Europeans enrolled in one of the largest, longest health studies in the world.

Researchers found that even patients who would be considered at normal weight, according to their BMI, faced increased risk of death if they had a large waist. (continue reading…)

How to Rev Up Your Fat Burning

You don’t have to do all of the following tips — pick ones that will work best for you and give them a try. If they don’t do much after a few weeks, try some of the other tips:

1. Lean Your Diet.
I typically eat pretty healthy. As a vegetarian, I stick with lots of veggies, fruits, lean protein, nuts, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and good fats. For the most part. But I also allow myself some indulgences, including veggie pizza, some sweets, and other treats. And while I think that’s a good lifestyle to have, sometimes you have to get a little strict with yourself for a little while to achieve your goals. So right now I’m on a self-created diet with only one menu plan — I eat the same things every day. I have a set breakfast, set lunch, set dinner, and set snacks. I’ve taken the choice out of eating, and for me that’s been working. That might not work for everyone. The key is to cut out the junk food and other treats (except for maybe 1-2 cheat meals a week). Cut back on grains for a little while and focus more on lean protein, veggies, fruits and good fats. With a diet like this, you’ll get lean faster.

2. Intervals.
If you do cardio exercise such as running, cycling, rowing, or what have you … rev it up with higher-intensity intervals. This means going at a little under full speed for a short interval, and then going slow for another short interval. There are tons of great interval workouts, but one of my favorites recently are Tabata Intervals — basically 20 seconds of intense exercise, then 10 seconds of rest … and repeat those intervals 8 times. That’s a total of four minutes — a great workout in a short amount of time. I suggest easing into interval training if you haven’t done much of it before — just pick up the pace for a minute, then go slower for another minute. Don’t overdo it at first. Also realize that if you do intense intevals, you will probably have to cut back on the duration of the exercise.

3. Metcon Workouts.
These are usually workouts that combine strength training with cardio at high intensities. Generally they’re about 20 minutes (give or take 10 minutes), and they use a combination of exercises with no rest in between. Crossfit is the ultimate expression of this philosophy — typical workouts include doing four rounds of 400-meter sprints and 50 squats (as fast as you can) … or 100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats (as fast as you can). See Crossfit’s “girl named Workouts of the Day” for more examples.

4. Hills.
If you normally run, add some challenge to your runs with hills. Hills are like strength training for runners. They add intensity and are a great way to rev up the fat burning. I suggest easing into hill running if you’re not used to it. Start by running a slightly hilly course — gentle, rolling hills. Then run a course with hills that are a bit tougher. Then, when you’re good and strong (after a few weeks), do some hill repeats up a challenging hill — run hard up the hill, then go easy down the hill, for 5-7 repeats. You’ll curse my name when you’re done.

5. Heavy Weights.
If you normally do strength training, but only do bodyweight exercises (which are great) or do high reps with lighter or medium weights, try increasing the intensity. Do this gradually, of course, as you don’t want to overdo it at first. Shoot for 3 sets of 5 reps with a heavier weight, for each exercise you do. This will help you to build more muscle and increase your metabolism.

6. Compound Lifts.
Combine the above tip of lifting heavier weights with this tip — only do compound lifts. That means no isolation lifts, where you’re only working one muscle group at a time. Be sure that each lift uses two or more joints. Bicep curls are an example of an isolation lift — only the elbow joint is involved. Examples of compound lifts include the bench press (shoulder and elbow joints involved), the pullup (again, shoulder and elbow), squat (knees and hips and back). With compound lifts, you are working more muscles at once, and as a result you’re going to build more muscle overall. Compound lifts are also more functional — they mimick real-world motions. No one lifts anything like they do in a bicep curl, but we squat every day (think of picking something up off the floor, or sitting down and then getting up).

7. Extra Activities.
If you’re doing all of the above tips, you’re on a great track to get lean. But if you’ve stepped up the intensity and are eating super lean for a month or so and want to take it to the next level, then add some extra activities to your schedule several times a week. These could include anything where you get active for at least 30 minutes: playing sports, going on a hike, doing some yardwork, doing some intense house cleaning (no, the Roomba doesn’t count), going swimming, etc. Just get active, in addition to your regular workouts. This extra activity will help you burn those extra calories and help break through your plateau.

Smoking and hunger may not seem naturally connected. But a new medical study has identified that children who live in households with at least one adult smoker are more likely to be underfed, according to Dr. Cynthia Cutler-Triggs of the New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital.

According to the study families with at least one smoker spend 2% to 20% of their income on tobacco, potentially draining financial resources needed to provide their kids with enough food.

Overall, 26% of adults living with smokers were not getting enough food on a daily basis, compared with 12% of adults who didn’t live with smokers (P<0.001).

17 percent of children in low income smoking households suffered food insecurity, compared to an overall food insecurity rate of 11 percent among children. Severe food insecurity occurred among 3.2 percent of children in smoking households. (continue reading…)

scientists have decoded the complete genes in a single person’s cancer, allowing them to uncover eight new genes that could lead to better ways to treat the disease.

The Washington University professors ascertained ten gene mutations which appeared key to the development of the women’s acute myeloid leukaemia.

The researchers used malignant blood cells from a woman who later died from the disease, a cancer of blood-forming cells in the bone marrow, according to a paper in today’s Nature. Doctors mapped all the genes in her tumor cells, the compared them — side by side — with the genes in a normal cell from her skin.

That allowed them to see exactly how the DNA of cancer differs from healthy DNA, says author Timothy Ley, a professor of medicine and genetics at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. (continue reading…)

President-elect Barack Obama has promised broad changes to U.S. health care, pledging to bring health insurance to millions of Americans and to spend $50 billion to take American health records electronic, and he will struggle to find the money to do it.

Polls show more than 80 percent of Americans want health care reform. But even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, Obama, who won a solid victory in Tuesday’s U.S. election and takes power in January, has hard work ahead of him, health experts agree.

If jobs are the next thing to go in the current economic crisis, as many economists are predicting, the number of American’s without health insurance will quickly increase beyond projections.

The statistics bear this out:

45 million Americans have no health insurance.
25 million more have health plans but are considered underinsured because their policies offer only minimal coverage, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
42% of U.S. adults under age 65 are uninsured or underinsured, up from 33% in 2003.
Total spending on health care represented around 16% of the gross domestic product in 2007, and the Congressional Budget Office says spending will rise to a quarter of gross domestic product by 2025.

Obama wants to create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals and small businesses buy private insurance.

He promised to require health care for all children, and expand Medicaid, the government-run health program for the poor, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP.

Obama has said he would pay for his plan by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts on people making more than $250,000 a year and keeping the estate tax at 2009 levels, but he has not been more specific. He has not provided a timetable for seeking his proposed reforms and has not said if he would present a comprehensive health care reform package or try for incremental change.

Millions of people struggle with falling and staying asleep. The following simple tips that help you for a better sleep.

Go to bed and get up at about the same time every day, even on the weekends. Sticking to a schedule helps reinforce your body’s sleep-wake cycle and can help you fall asleep better at night.

Make your bedroom cool, dark, quiet and comfortable. Create a room that’s ideal for sleeping. Adjust the lighting, temperature, humidity and noise level to your preferences. Use blackout curtains, eye covers, earplugs, extra blankets, a fan, a humidifier or other devices to create an environment that suits your needs.

Choose a comfortable mattress and pillow. Features of a good bed are subjective and differ for each person. But make sure you have a bed that’s comfortable. If you share your bed, make sure there’s enough room for two. Children and pets are often disruptive, so you may need to set limits on how often they sleep in bed with you. (continue reading…)

Unfortunately I’ve never had to do so many things at once, so I can’t give much advice on that. However, I have quit smoking and have changed other bad habits, and I think the same principles for changing one bad habit will apply here.

There are a few tips to changing bad habits … I highly recommend that you create a plan based on these keys, before you start to implement your habit change, so that you are well prepared and well positioned for success:

1. For each habit, identify your triggers. What situations trigger your smoking habit (waking in the morning, having coffee, drinking alcohol, stressful meetings, going out with friends, driving, etc.)? Identify all of them, for each habit. (continue reading…)

According to a new study, women who gained more than 40 pounds — the maximum recommended weight gain — and whether their babies weighed more than about 9 pounds at birth, which is considered a heavy baby.

Pregnancy Weight Gain & Big Babies: Study Details
Hillier and her colleagues followed 41,540 women who gave birth to singleton babies in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii from 1995 through 2003. They used patient medical records and birth certificates to note the mother’s weight gain and the baby’s birth weight.

Also, the researchers say that these women gaining too much weight have more chances of developing gestational diabetes, a form of diabetes often met during pregnancy, which also increases the chances of having heavier babies. (continue reading…)

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women, according to the American Cancer Society. The group estimates about 465,000 women died of breast cancer globally in 2007, and 1.3 million new cases were diagnosed.

According to a new study, vigorous exercise can cut the chances of developing breast cancer by almost 30 percent. That’s a good news for the women who stay in shape.

National Cancer Institute scientists, led by Michael Leitzmann, studied 32,269 postmenopausal women for 11 years. They determined vigorous activities included such tasks as scrubbing floors, chopping wood, digging, fast jogging, competitive tennis, bicycling and even fast dancing.The study showed that strenuous activity (and that includes everything from scrubbing floors to running) reduced the risk of breast cancer by 30 percent.

“We know that being overweight puts women at increased risk of breast cancer,” said Michael Leitzmann, who led the study. “What our study shows is that even among women without this increased risk, if they exercise they can get some benefit.”

So women should take more vigorous exercise for a healthy life from today.