Try these exercises. Remember do not perform these or any exer­cises to the point of discomfort. Skip the exercise if you feel any pain. If you’ve had an injury to the feet or ankles consult your doctor before undertaking any exercise program.

Achilles tendon stretch:

Stand facing a wall about two feet from it. Step forward with the right foot and lean toward the wall placing your hands and forearms against the wall. Bend the right (front) knee, keeping the back leg straight. Lean forward until you feel a stretch along the back of the rear leg. Hold for 15 seconds. Now straighten your bent leg and feel a stretch in the back of your ankle (Achilles tendon). Hold for 15 sec­onds. Repeat 5 times with each leg.

Heel raise: Holding on to the back of a chair stand on one foot and Raise up on your toes then slowly lower yourself down. Repeat 5 times on each side.

Ankle extend: Lie on your back and point your feet and toes as far as possible. Then flex the ankles and bring toes back up as far as possible. Repeat 5 times.

Ankle flexes. Attach 1 or 2 pound weights to your ankles and lie on your side. Lift one ankle toward the ceiling, pointing the toe toward the ceiling, then point­ing it toward the floor. Repeat pointing your toes in out up and down and do 3 sets of 10 repetitions every other day.

Ankle curls. Sit on the edge of a table with a 1 or 2 pound weight attached to each foot. Alternately raise and extend each foot and repeat 10 times with each foot.

Alphabet writing; Sit on the edge of a table or in a chair and “write” the letters of the alphabet in the air with your foot. Com­plete the alphabet with each foot.

Towel curl: With a towel flat on floor place your toes on the towel (your heel should be slightly above the floor) and curl your toes pulling the towel toward you by get-together the towel with your toes. If this exercise becomes too easy add weight to the towel.

Pick up stand. Stand with one hand on a table or back of a chair for balance. Drop a cloth on the floor and pick it up with your toes. Then bend the knee and transfer it to your free hand Repeat on each side 10 times.

Golf ball roll: Sit in a chair with a golf ball on floor at your feet. Put a foot on top of the golf ball and roll it for several minutes all round the bottom of the foot. Repeat with the other foot.

Winter time is an excellent time for retrospection, meditation and exploration of deeper issues. To dive deeper into our being we need to slow down. An example is our thinking and “doing” process. We are usually very busy both in our activity level as well as our thinking process. In fact, we are so busy that we usually are not even aware of how sped up our thoughts and actions have become. When we slow down through meditation, relaxation or simply taking some time off, we may be overwhelmed by the recognition of how busy our lives really are. Our natural reaction is to run away by staying busier, and the cycle continues to wind us up even tighter.

If we can take the time to relax and slow down, however, it can provide an opportunity for introspection. There is a gap between each of our thoughts and when we have racing thoughts, this gap is not recognized. However, when we slow down the gap becomes more evident giving rise to “stuff” that is stuck under the surface of our mundane activities. While some of it may be pleasant and ”blissful,” some of it may be unpleasant and bring up feelings of anger, attachment, desire, jealousy, pride, and other emotions. Simply pushing them away or denying them won’t really work on a long-term basis and can be detrimental to our health.

A better way to deal with these feelings and emotions can be achieved through a variety of methods that will benefit our health and wellbeing. We can antidote them, transform them or free them through meditation and contemplation. Let’s take anger as an example…When anger arises, we can antidote it with patience or transform it into compassion for the person that has made us angry. But we can actually release and free these feelings through resting the mind and the thinking process. As we all well know, this is easier said than done. However, the end result of such a process when one engages in it sincerely, diligently and consistently over a prolonged period of time is a true “change of heart.” There is a wonderful book called Change of Heart that summarizes the teachings of H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche – a phenomenal Tibetan mediation master who worked tirelessly during his life to help people gain a deeper insight into their mind and heart, and find greater happiness and peace. His advice transcends any religion, ethnicity and gender, and can be of enormous use to anyone interested in making their life and the lives of the people around them better.

This level of mind/heart medicine is an integral part of true wholesome health, and the winter time is a good time to incorporate this facet into your lifestyle. The process of slowing down and peeling taking place during the winter has a much different quality than the peeling process that we engage in during our spring and fall cleanse. The end results may be similar, but physiologically, different organ systems are involved.

Caring for ourselves is a year round, lifetime process. Synchronizing our self-care programs with the seasonal wisdom and advice offered by Traditional Chinese Medicine can help to harmonize our beings and provide us with natural vitality and wellness throughout the changing year, and our ever-changing phases in life.

Apart from just building up strength, training with pull up bar also helps to define and build a stronger upper body. Well, majority of the girls like guys with stronger upper body? Isn’t it right? Also, with a stronger body, it can make improvement to your favourite sport. Example, A tennis player requires strong forearm power.

Training tips for doing pull ups

Most of us cannot even do a pull up with a pull up bar and the reason is simple. That is the lack of training. There is no short cut to it. The only way is to get into the act. Like Nike says, just do it. Below is an example of a workout plan to train your pull ups with a pull up bar.

1) Week 1: Start with 12 reps of one pull up. Rest time of 1 minute between each rep.

2) Week 2: You should be able to do 2 pull ups. Start with 6 reps of two pull up. Rest time of 1 minute between each rep.

3) Week 3. You should be able to do 3 pull ups. Start with 4 reps of three pull up. Rest time of 1 minute between each rep.

Keep continuing this routine. You can even decrease the rest time between each rep or add weights to your body if you can manage. Also, in doing pull ups, the most important factor is the form. It is best to do  pull up with a pull up bar in a standard, correct form.

Pull up exercise with a pull up bar

How to do a pull up correctly with a pull up bar

Fad diets can help you attain quick weight loss. What are fad diets? These diets help you lose weight quickly, usually in a short span of time. Fad diets are popular among celebrities who need to lose weight for a movie role. Here are some fad diets that you can use for quick weight loss.

• If you want to lose more 10 pounds per week, then you should try the Cabbage Soup Diet. This diet involves eating nothing but cabbage soup for 7 days. During those 7 days you are only allowed to eat a small portion of food and nothing more. This diet is hard to follow because having to consume cabbage soup day in and day out for seven days can get boring.
• Another quick weight loss diet is the Grapefruit Diet. This diet involves consuming half a grapefruit every day before each meal. Grapefruit contains fat burning enzymes that help your body burn more fat. In addition to that, this diet limits the dieter to consume no more than 800 calories per day in order to achieve quick weight loss.
• The metabolism diet is more or less the same with grapefruit diet. It helps the body burn more fat. However, in metabolism diet you do not stick to one kind of food only. Instead, you are required to eat different kinds of foods known to help speed up the body’s metabolic rate. This low calorie diet along with 4 glasses of water everyday can surely give you the quick weight loss results that you have always wanted.
• The three-day diet is another diet for quick weight loss. Like metabolism diet and grapefruit diet, this type of diet plan helps your body burn more fat that it normally does. This diet requires you to eat a certain combination of foods known to help speed up the body’s metabolism for three straight days. If followed correctly you can lose around 4-6 pounds of weight everyday.

Quick weight loss diet plans give you immediate results. However, you have to understand that these are only short-term results. This is the reason why quick weight loss diets are undertaken when you need to lose weight immediately.

To do that they will need weight loss diet plans.

The combination of poor eating habits along with lack of exercise often results to weight gain. To help these people lose weight they will have to correct their poor eating habits. To help them correct their eating habits they may need weight loss diet plans.

Here are some types of your not so ordinary weight loss diet plans.

• If you do not want to go through the hassle of planning your own diet plan then the fixed-menu weight loss diet plan is ideal for you. This diet plan involves a certain list of the foods that you can eat.
• A pre-packaged-meal diet is a weight loss diet plan that does not require you to cook. This type of weight loss diet plan involves buying pre-packaged meals. This diet plan can help learn about appropriate portion sizes. However, this diet plan can be costly.
• There are weight loss diet plans that involve replacing one meal with a liquid formula. The term for this diet plan is the formula diet. Formula diets are actually balanced diets in liquid form. This diet contains a mix of protein, carbohydrate, and a small amount of fat.
• Another weight loss diet is the flexible diet. Flexible diets allow you to create meals suitable to your needs without making you fat. This diet can be modified to keep the menu interesting making it easier for you to stick with the diet plan.

There are still other weight loss diet plans designed to help you lose weight. Some of these diet plans may be still while others may be too lenient. However, when it comes to choosing weight loss diet plans, it will always depend on your preference.

In the treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

During the initial phases of its development, Pfizer (the manufacturer) intended that Viagra be used in the treatment of angina and pulmonary arterial hypertension. These conditions occur due to a blockage in the chest arteries that increases blood pressure and results in a heart attack or stroke. Sildenafil, the active ingredient present in Viagra, is a PDE5 inhibitor that dilates and unblocks the arteries and reduces blood pressure. Later tests revealed that sildenafil also helped to resolve the symptoms of erectile dysfunction in men.

Used by Sportspersons

It may come as a real surprise, but there have been revelations of professionals using Viagra to boost their performance on the field. Sildenafil dilates the blood vessels, improves blood circulation and gives quick oxygen to the muscles, this is believed to give an unfair advantage to athletes sports persons using this drug. Ongoing commissioned research by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will prove whether this is indeed true or just a rumor. If sildenafil does improve athletic performance, it will join the list of banned substances. In the meantime, professional sports administrators are not planning to ban Viagra or other PDE5 inhibitors.

In the Treatment of Altitude Sickness

As you go higher above sea level, you will find it increasingly difficult to breathe. This is because the air grows thinner as you go upwards and your lungs have to work harder to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere. Research has shown that sildenafil doses can effectively treat high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) – a life threatening condition that requires immediate treatment – by rapidly improving your lungs’ capacity to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere.

You can buy Viagra in the UK only with a doctor’s prescription.

What are hair relaxers?
Although there is no official definition, this term is typically used to describe hair care products which are designed to relax the hair. They work by using powerful chemicals that re-align the hair follicles so they lie straight. The most common active ingredient they used is known as lye; an alkaline sodium hydroxide substance. With a pH that typically ranges from 12 to 14, this acid can easily burn the scalp and destroy the hair follicles. Over the past several years, there have been some natural hair relaxers that have come onto the market that incorporate gentler ingredients. However lye hair relaxers still remains the most popular due to their low cost.

What are the dangers of using hair relaxers?
As we’ve already pointed out, they have the potential to cause chemical burns when they come in contact with the scalp. For some people, they also destroy the hair follicles, which can result in temporary hair loss. However there are many people who have reportedly experienced permanent areas of baldness over time from using hair relaxers. In addition to these aesthetic problems, some products may be dangerous if they are absorbed by the skin and make their way through your body (at least in theory). This is why it is definitely best to avoid using a hair relaxer during pregnancy.

Should hair relaxers be completely avoided?
It is a personal decision; one must weigh the pros and cons to determine whether or not it is right for them. That being said, many people are turning to the newer formulations of natural hair relaxers which are reportedly known to have fewer adverse side effects. Alternately, many women are cropping their hair short and turning to wigs and quick weaves instead. A quick weave is like a wig, but it is worn over one’s natural hair. It certainly is a safer way to have straight hair, but the drawback is that it may not look real if a low quality quick weave is used.

The hair is composed of the same type of cells as the skin which is known as the epidermis. Hair grows from a hair follicle that is rooted in the epidermis. The sebaceous glands of the hair scalp releases an oily substance called sebum to lubricates and protect the hair and the skin. The hair cannot be nourished externally but its nourishment must be derived from the bloodstream.

As a person grows older, the thinning of scalp hair occurs. Typically, baldness begins with thinning at the front temples and gradually to the bare scalp on top. Baldness may show early signs at the age of 20 or 30 years old and it will progress into his later years.

Women may experience loss of hair after the age of 50. Male baldness patterns usually occurred in women after menopause. Baldness in women depends greatly on the hereditary genes and the local effect of male hormones on the hair roots. The male hormones are produced by the adrenal glands and its symptoms are only apparent after it has stop functioning. Women rarely have complete baldness. Hairloss in women is usually unnoticeable compare to men and can be covered up by changing the hair style.

People who are advancing in age will have a tendency to develop grey hair. Greying of hair is caused by the diminished cell activity in the hair root. Some people dye their hair to prevent people from noticing their grey hairs. Dyeing of the hair will not causes hair loss unless the person is allergic to the chemicals in the dye. If the person is allergic to the chemicals in the dye, it will suffer from a rash and temporary loss of hair. Whatever that is done outside of the hair shaft, including dyeing, and straightening of the hair will not affect the hair root. The hair root is more vulnerable to changes in hormone levels, high fevers and side effects of drugs.

Sometimes, combing the hair will cause some hair to fall out. There are some of the 50 to 100 strands of hair that we losses each day. These hairs can be recognized with a white top at the end of the hair and they will be replaced by new growth of hair. Shampoos and conditioners can help to improve the quality of your hair if use appropriately. If you suffer from psoriasis or dandruff with reaction, medicated shampoo will promote regrowth of hair. Taking vitamins will not help to prevent genetically determined hair loss.

Women that have male hormones tend to hair dark facial hair. This usually happens during or after menopause. Women from the Mediterranean region frequently have lots of facial hair just like man. These hairs can be removed without harm unless the hair derived from a mole. If the hair grows out of a mole, you can use a scissor to trim the hair. Women that have unwanted hair on their body can have them bleached, plucked or trimmed with scissors. If you shave the hair, it will not encourage the hair to grow back faster but it does produce sharp, stubbly ends. Depilatory creams can be used but it should be used with mindfulness because it can cause skin irritation. Electrolysis can remove unwanted facial hair permanently without leaving scars but it must be done by a trained technician.

Older people tend to develop hair problem such as graying of hair and hair loss. The age at which hair problems occurs varies from person to person but it generally happens on everyone who is 60 years old and older. Men tend to suffer from hair problems at a younger age than women.

Exercising on a trampoline is somewhat different from other known traditional ways of keeping fit; thus making trampoline exercise a fun filled activity. A lot of adults would be required to learn how to use the trampoline, making the exercise a bit challenging. When you jump on a trampoline, it fortifies the heart just as jumping on a rope or running would do. Consequently, the cardio rate which increases substantially encourages the body to utilize energy, hence lose weight.

Jumping on a trampoline for 5-8 minutes, it can be equaled to running a mile; the only difference is that you will not use a lot of effort and time on the trampoline. When you exercise on a trampoline, basically all your body parts; thighs, hips, legs, abdomen and stomach get active. The body muscles in your lower part of the body will end up toned after the workout.

Jumping up and down on a trampoline is also known to perk up coordination, justifying the reason why many gymnasts and athletes use trampoline. Be advised that there is more to using a trampoline than springing up and down – it requires certain skills to be able to attain the optimum height and also be able to land correctly. It may be tough at the beginning mastering what is required, but once you master the trampoline basics, it becomes so addictive. The more you master the skills required, the better as you will manage to go higher and utilize more energy.

Working out on a trampoline is also known to improve one’s breathing as the capacity of the lungs will be increased, one will have reduced tension and stress, increased energy levels and reduced cholesterol levels. If you have joint issues that hold you from running or even jogging, a trampoline becomes your best alternative of exercising. People who have knee injuries and joint issues can start off with a rebound, or small trampoline. This is because the small trampolines are designed for low jumping, thus exerting less pressure.

Working out on a trampoline can be a family activity where you will not only enjoy participating and watching, but will also keep physically fit.