Posted by admin on April 8, 2009 under Herbal | 
A healthy hair is strong, being able to support a weight of about 80 g (just under 3 oz) without snapping. A diseased hair, however, will tear when a weight of 30—40 g (about IV2 oz) is suspended from it. The healthy pigtail of a Chinese or Indian woman is able to support about 2Ó2-Ç tons before it s.iaps. Of course, the resistance of a single hair depends also upon its relative thickness. People who live close to nature have thicker and stronger hair than those who do not. Generally speaking, the more refined our food and life-style, the finer will be our hair.
When a hair is pulled out, the root, held fast in the dermis, is able to manufacture another hair shaft. However, eczema and other diseases affecting the scalp can make this part degenerate and die, so that the affected areas become bald. Typhoid fever is usually responsible for the loss of all hair, but the hair bulb does not actually die and the hair has been known to grow back even more luxuriantly after recovery, when the capillary vessels and lymphatics have returned to their normal function.
*612/28/1*
Posted by admin on under Herbal |
We must not poison our body fluids and cells with chemicals. For this reason it will be clear why it is essential to avoid all medicines used in chemotherapy that are capable of disturbing the normal cell metabolism. Watch out especially for medicines based on tar. The compulsive consumption of tablets and narcotics is also responsible for upsetting the biological balance, physically as well as mentally. Smokers may delude themselves into thinking that nicotine is not really harmful and has no influence on cancer, but it is an established fact that the phenols – tar – contained in tobacco are carcinogenic. Why be foolishly deceived and suffer the tragic consequences?
*568/28/1*
Posted by admin on under Herbal |
Since the pituitary holds a key position in the body’s hormone production (it manufactures a considerable number of different hormones), the hormone balance is disrupted and the resulting damage may be even more difficult to rectify than the arthritis itself. As far as hormone preparations are concerned, however spectacular their effects may be, one must always remember that only one side of the coin is seen at a time, and the other side may look quite different.
I once had the opportunity to discuss these points with a doctor who had lectured on this subject and he frankly admitted that he would not use these remedies for himself. Should the need arise, he would look for another, more conservative way of treating the disease. Of course, I do not deny that in some cases the use of the new medications may be justified, but let the doctor and patient alike consider very carefully what side effects they might produce and what the ultimate, rather than the immediate, effect might be. Careful analysis and observations have led me to conclude that all hormone and organ preparations should be viewed with the utmost caution before prescribing or taking them.
*524/28/1*
Posted by admin on April 6, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction |
Some couples are obviously not ready for sex therapy as indicated by their resistance to the exercise. Typical responses are to blame the surroundings (it was too cold, too slippery, the shower was too small), or to retreat to personal idiosyncracy (prefer baths, don’t like being touched, don’t like to wash anybody). One couple, having been told not to use washcloths, used sponges—an obvious case of resistance.
When the reported results are uniformly negative, and further psychodynamic exploration reveals significant intrapsychic pathology or interpersonal hostility, the couple is usually considered not ready for sexual therapy, and additional individual or dyadic therapy is needed. When the resistance to shower or relaxation exercises appears to be more a matter of fear of intimacy than hostility toward the partner, it is possible to proceed with sex therapy, bypassing the relaxation phase and proceeding to the intensive exercises.
In many cases, the results of the probe are not clear. Typically, the partners feel awkward, clumsy, and embarrassed, afraid of each other’s comments and fearful that they will do something wrong. Usually by the end of the second shower, the situation has eased considerably, but there still may be tension if not outright hostility. In these instances, although intimacy is desired, the tension is so great that intimacy seems threatening. Each has staked out a position in which one is “right” and the other is “wrong,” and intimacy can undermine these positions. Such dyads almost always can benefit by starting with the relaxation exercises.
When the therapy is terminated, the sex therapist reports the results to the referring therapist, and these reports, with the permission of the patients, will include discussions of any new material that may have arisen in the course of treatment. The holistic therapist, having incorporated dyadic and family therapy in the process of sex therapy, will reassess with the couple the direction in which they wish to proceed. Even unsuccessful sex therapy can help to clarify the underlying causes of the basic dyadic problem.
In the majority of referrals, treatment proceeds smoothly and there are no unusual complications. In some cases, special problems unrelated to sex therapy itself may arise. Because sex therapy per se encourages pleasure and enjoyment, positive transference to the therapist is sometimes very strong: a dyad still under treatment by a dyadic therapist may wish to leave and continue with the sex therapist; a member of the dyad undergoing individual intrapsychic treatment may wish to discontinue treatment or switch to the sex therapist. In both cases, the dyad or individual is advised to discuss his or her motives with the original therapist.
When does the sex therapist consult other therapists? The answer is, when it is in the best interests of the patient. This may occur when the sex therapist is only or primarily a sex therapist and the problem is not amenable to sex therapy, or if the dyad wishes to pursue another modality in which the sex therapist does not feel competent.
It may also occur when the patient and therapist have different priorities. Although dyadic therapists place a high priority on the stability of the dyadic relationship, they will not sacrifice the integrity or growth of the individual to the maintenance of the dyadic relationship, but they usually will try to ensure that this growth occurs within the boundaries of the relationship, if possible, and will devote considerable effort to this end. The dyad is indeed “the patient,” (as the family is “the patient” for family therapists), and the point of view of the dyadic therapist is that both partners are equally involved in the problem.
The sex therapist, on the other hand, often encounters situations in which only one member of the dyad has a dysfunction and the treatment, although pertaining to both partners, is aimed primarily at that one person. As progress is made and the dysfunction improves, the partner sometimes exhibits change in other areas (the individual ripple effect) that appears to threaten the dyad and may in fact destabilize the relationship. The sex therapist must be very sure whether he or she wishes to encourage the individual to change at the expense of the relational stability, to discourage such change, to work with the dyad on the relational problem, or to refer to another therapist. The sex therapist must be aware of his or her attitude toward extrasexual change if the therapy begins to go, as it often does, beyond the resolution of the sexual dysfunction.
*255/187/5*
Posted by admin on under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction |
It is important to note that one of the presumptions of the classical psychosexual theory, namely, that the achievement of genital primacy and full genital potency was synonymous with maturity of personality development, is no longer accepted in contemporary psychoanalytic thinking. The psychoanalytic theory of personality development and the theory of the relationship between sexual functioning and personality organization have become considerably more complex since the original propositions were set forth by Freud. Contemporary psychoanalytic thinking would distinguish very carefully between genital capacity and the capacity for love relationships. In fact, the capacity to achieve mature and adult love relationships is influenced more generally by complex dimensions of personality development and psychic development, and is not simply a function of psychosexual development (Kernberg).
At a minimum one must include the parameters of psychosocial development along with those of psychosexual development in understanding such personality potentialities. The development of the capacities for mature and mutually satisfying love relationships depends on the resolution of basic conflicts on many levels of psychological development. Kernberg has indicated the importance of such factors:
The capacity for sexual intercourse and orgasm does not by any means guarantee the capacity for being maturely in love; nor does the capacity for a total object-relation without the resolution of oedipal conflicts and the related freeing from sexual inhibition guarantee the capacity for being maturely in love and for stable relation. The capacity for falling in love indicates the achievement of important preconditions for the capacity for being in love; in the case of narcissistic personalities, falling in love marks the beginning of the capacity for concern and guilt, and some hope for overcoming deep, unconscious devaluation of the love object. In borderline patients, primitive idealization may be the first step toward a love relation different from the love-hate relation with their primary objects. This occurs if and when the splitting mechanisms responsible for this primitive idealization have been resolved and this love relation or a new one replacing it is able to tolerate and resolve the pregenital conflicts against which primitive idealization was a defense. In the case of neurotic patients and patients with relatively less severe character pathology, the capacity for falling in love should, if and when successful psychoanalytic treatment resolves the unconscious, predominantly oedipal, conflicts, mature into the capacity for a lasting love relation.
*219/187/5*
Posted by admin on under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction |
The behavioral effects of exposure to erotica have been difficult to demonstrate despite the oft-voiced concerns of conporns that such material leads directly to social, moral, and mental decay. There are no studies in the literature surveyed which document adverse behavioral effects of pornography on general or specific population groups. Social behavior is a complex outcome of a complex interaction of almost innumerable variables. To argue that a single factor, such as exposure to pornography, can have a profound effect on such a complex set of behavioral responses is simplistic sophistry.
Most scientific studies have attempted to isolate specific types or instances of behavior and to relate them to exposure to erotica, or they have tried to assess the relative contribution of erotica, in concert with other factors, to predict categories of behavior.
The question of the relationship between erotica and antisocial behavior is an important one. It is, however, difficult to research because of the very high levels of exposure in the general public and the relatively low levels of antisocial behavior. Retrospective analysis is highly vulnerable to ascertainment bias, and prospective studies would require unacceptable levels of surveillance of unwieldly numbers over excessive lengths of time.
Despite the difficulties of defining a relationship between antisocial behavior and erotica, both laboratory and survey studies have provided interesting data.
Kutchinsky has made several careful survey studies of the effects of easy availability of pornography on the incidence of sex crimes in Denmark. Very substantial decreases in four specific categories of sex crimes—exhibitionism, peeping (voyeurism), physical indecency towards women, and physical indecency towards girls—were noted in Copenhagen after 1964. Some detractors of Kutchinsky’s data have stated erroneously that the number of crimes decreased because dissemination of pornography was no longer counted as a sex crime; others noted that sex crimes had been declining before 1964. The first objection is patently false, since only four specific categories of crimes were considered both before and after the change in availability of pornography. The second objection has more merit, but the decline before 1964 was irregular and gradual, and the decline afterwards was steady and substantial—the data clearly show two different slopes.
The decreases in exhibitionism and voyeurism found in Kutchinsky’s data could, in part, be attributed to changes in police attitudes or in the victims’ motivation to report such crimes. The change in public attitudes toward exhibitionism, as assessed in a representative sample survey of Copenhagen residents, was sufficient to account for any change in the reported incidence. Therefore, one cannot conclude that the reduction in this category was solely because of the availability of pornography. Changes in police attitudes could have accounted for the decreased incidence of reporting voyeurism.
The decline in reported incidence of physical indecency towards women also could be due to changes in attitudes toward “nonserious” incidents. No change in reported incidence of rape was found. One should keep in mind, however, that there are fewer rapes in Copenhagen in one year than there are in one weekend in New York City.
The category of crimes against children showed a fifty-six-percent decrease (from thirty-six to sixteen) in 1965, the first year in which hard-core pornographic picture magazines appeared in Denmark. This change could not be attributed to changes in public or police attitudes, to changes in methods of reporting nor to local changes since the figures for the country as a whole dropped from 220 crimes in 1965 to 87 by 1969.
Kutchinsky concluded that “the high availability of hard-core pornography in Denmark was most probably the very direct cause of a considerable decrease in . . . child molestation”. Perhaps more importantly, the number of recidivists for all sex crimes has decreased as much as the number of first offenders.
*181/187/5*
Posted by admin on under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction |
Anthropological awareness has not always been well served by precedents set by our intellectual ancestors. From Lewis Henry Morgan we received the option of studying family form instead of sexuality. Modern anthropologists can elect this option, even though they no longer subscribe to the unilinear evolutionary argument that the first is a transformed form of the second.
From Malinowski came a perspective which introduces into anthropology the notion that sexuality is equivalent to instinctual biological drive. Even though Malinowski ostensibly argued against a Freudian position which would give primacy to psychological over cultural systems, he accepted the Freudian view of sexuality. Consequently, Malinowski focused on cultural institutions which mediate between biological structure and sexual behavior; he did not consider sexuality as part of the symbolic structure of culture.
Similarly, Lowie’s theorizing allowed the popular anthropological alternative to which economic and political considerations take precedence over erotic considerations in understanding cultural systems. Lowie’s work emphasized these social elements of cultural form, without realizing that erotic considerations are inherently social and can, indeed must, contribute to investigations of cultural systems.
All together, Morgan’s transformation of sexuality, Malinowski’s institutionalization of sexuality, and Lowie’s analytic substitution for sexuality, have contributed to a trend in anthropology away from the study of ideas about sexuality as they operate in larger cultural systems.
Despite this trend, there is a growing body of ethnography which takes a cultural approach to sexuality. The ethnological goal becomes one of comparing entire cultural systems, rather than behavioral facts regarding sexuality. This requires more than documenting the richness of sexual life in certain societies (although such documentation was a necessary contribution to anthropology in its infancy); it requires analysis of cultural systems which alternatively do and do not delineate sexuality as an organizing construct of independent status. One hopes that anthropological accounts will be consulted in the future, by anthropologists and non-anthropologists alike, not only for their wealth in accurate and detailed accounts of sexual behavior, but also because they advance our knowledge of people, including ourselves, as cultural thinkers and actors.
*144/187/5*
Posted by admin on under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction |
There is no reason to believe that the physiological effects of aging are any different for homosexuals than for heterosexuals. No replicatable study has demonstrated that homosexuals have a hormonal status different from that of heterosexuals, nor do these groups differ from each other in any other physiological way. All of the physiological factors which influence and result from human aging (functional and capacity changes) naturally characterize all individuals regardless of their object of sexual preference. If there are differential effects in aging, they are the psychological adjustment and responses to the symbolic meaning of growing older as it relates to the homosexual and heterosexual cultures.
In Kinsey’s samples, the accumulative incidence of sexual, same-sex contact among women was 28%, slightly more than half-as great as among men (50%). Thirty-seven percent of the single males compared with 13% of the single females reported homosexual contacts to orgasm.
Among single males, 25% of the total sexual outlet from the ages of twenty-one to twenty-five was in homosexual activity. The comparable figures for the late thirties and late forties were 42% and 54%, respectively. The active accumulative incidence among single males went from 25% in the teens to a maximum of 41% in the late thirties. Among males who were single until age thirty-five, 50% had had some homosexual experience.
Among women, the accumulative incidence rose gradually from age ten to age thirty. By age thirty, 17% of the Kinsey sample had had some homosexual experience and by age forty, 19% had had some sexual contact with another woman. By age forty, the accumulative incidence for single (never married) females was 24%, substantially greater than for married (3%) or previously married (9%) women.
As for extent of homosexuality, 2 to 6% of the females and 5 to 22% of the males were exclusively or primarily homosexual (5- or 6-point ratings on the Kinsey scale). In every age group, only one-half to one-third as many women as men were primarily or exclusively homosexual.
The Kinsey data on male incidence figures from ages eight to forty-five suggest a curvilinear relationship between age and incidence of homosexual behavior. These cross-sectional data for ages thirteen, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-five show the number of men engaging in homosexual activity at these ages to be 13%, 37%, 27%, and 23%, respectively. In the active sample, 22% of the single males in their late teens had had homosexual contact resulting in orgasm. The comparable figures for males in their late thirties was 40%.
Single-female incidence figures for contact to orgasm were 2 to 3% in the teens showing a gradual increase with age to a maximum of 10% at age forty.
Both single males and single females showed drops in incidence of contact to orgasm by the late forties, suggesting possible age-related declines in sexual activity. Females showed a 60% drop (to 4%) from the late thirties, but males showed a drop of only 10% (to 36% incidence) for the comparable age period.
In Kinsey’s active sample of single women, most (51%) had had one partner only. Twenty percent had had two partners, and only 4% had had more than ten partners. The single male experience was quite different, with 22% of the active sample males having had more than ten partners.
Frequencies of homosexual contact to orgasm were not higher than the frequencies of intercourse reported for heterosexual samples. Median frequency of contact to orgasm showed no decrement with age and was about .9 times per month for single women from ages twenty-one through forty. For the active sample of women, the mean frequency went from about once per week in the twenties to about twice per week in the thirties. No active sample data were available for women over forty.
Among single males, the mean frequencies to orgasm showed a slight age-related increment from 1 to 1.5 times per week in the twenties to about 2 times per week in the early thirties. The mean frequencies of homosexual contact rose from about one per week in the teens to almost two per week from the ages of thirty-one to thirty-five. They remained at more than once per week through age fifty.
The frequency of contact to orgasm for respondents did not decline in Kinsey’s data, and the percentages of respondents engaging in homosexual activity actually increased with age into the forties. Because Kinsey presented very little data on old-age subjects, there is no way to assess changes in activity after mid-life. The maximum frequencies within age groups among males suggest, however, a slowdown which is probably age-related. Kinsey reported maximum frequencies in the late twenties as high as fifteen times per week. By age fifty, the most active person was averaging only five times per week. The age-related increase in proportions of homosexually active respondents may be an artifact of the culture at the time of the Kinsey study. Societal pressures may have introduced a latency for resolving the homosexual orientation which would have resulted in submitting to homosexual inclination later in life.
*108/187/5*
Posted by admin on April 1, 2009 under Healthy bones Osteoporosis Rheumatic |
With any task, in and out of the house, it is the length of time spent in any one position, as well as the effort imposed on the back, that counts. It is a good idea to change tasks (and therefore positions) fairly often. Any activity where repetitive bending is required may cause trouble, particularly if it becomes fatiguing. Instead of doing one job until the bitter end, it may be possible to alternate it with another. For example, instead of spending a whole afternoon standing up ironing, leave half of it until later on, and do something else meanwhile.
If you have had back trouble, learn to delegate some or all of the heavier jobs that were formerly your lot. Encourage family and colleagues to share the load.
Bed making is a job that often makes a painful back worse, and in some cases even induces back trouble, because it requires a good deal of bending and stretching. Ideally, the bed should be high enough for the mattress to be at hip height, narrow enough for you to reach across easily, and placed so that you can walk all round.
On the old-fashioned high bedstead, it requires less effort to make the bed than on a low divan bed. A low bed can be raised by putting blocks or bricks under the legs.
When making the bed, get close to it and bend at the hips and knees, keeping your back upright. If you have any difficulty in bending at hips and knees, kneel down when tucking in the bedclothes.
A fitted bottom sheet and a duvet do away with the need to bend to tuck in bedclothes. When changing a fitted sheet, do not stretch over the bed, but kneel close to each corner of the bed in turn.
A mattress should be turned by someone else. If you really have to do it yourself, have handles fitted to the sides (at the ends, too, if it is to be turned fore and aft). Grasp the handles and lift the side of the mattress so that you stand erect; back away a step and then step up on to the base and raise the mattress high enough to turn it over by letting it fall over to the other side. But better to leave it to other members of the household to do the turning.
Cleaning the bath puts considerable strain on the back. This job can be done much more easily by kneeling beside the bath and leaning across to rest one hand on the far edge of the bath to take your body weight, or by sitting on a chair alongside. Along-handled sponge or mop is useful. A bath is cleaned more easily when still warm immediately after use, so keep cleaning materials at hand – and insist that the others in the household clean the bath themselves.
You can avoid cleaning the bath altogether. Various preparations are available (especially for bathing children) which replace soap, and leave no ring round the bath. Or, if you prefer to wash with soap, putting a squirt of washing-up liquid in the bath water will ensure that there will be no ring.
Using a vacuum cleaner is often stressful to the back, so do it in short sessions. Make sure that the handle is long enough for you. Some cylinder cleaners have extension pieces; fitting one of these may help. Use your legs and your body weight to do the work. Always pull forwards and backwards in short lengths. Avoid twisting movements. Above all, do not just stand and make your arms do the work: that way is bound to stress your back.
Similarly, when using a mop, carpet sweeper or broom, move the whole body forwards and backwards with the sweeping action, not just bending from the waist to get the increased reach.
Dusting gives you opportunities for different kinds of muscle action. It is a good idea to slot short spells of it into spells of vacuuming, polishing, washing floors or any other task which requires vigorous movement in one direction only, for which you generally use your stronger arm. Try using the other arm or use both arms and stretch upwards to counteract the bending and pushing movements of vacuuming.
In the kitchen, have at hand all the things you use regularly – for instance, saucepans on the wall, plates and dishes at waist height. Only the things you use least often, or which are fairly light, should be stowed away below thigh height in low cupboards or out of easy reach above chest height. Ideally, heavy equipment such as a food mixer or cast iron casserole should be kept where it need not be lifted to be got out.
Whenever you have to do anything near floor level, get right down to it. Bend your knees to lift dishes in and out of the oven or dishwasher. When lifting a heavy casserole, hold it close to your body, with your elbows bent. To save your back, do it in stages: put a stool at the side of the oven, squat down, put the casserole on the stool, stand up and lift the casserole on to the top of the stove or working surface. Remember avoid twisting – rotate the whole body when moving objects from one table to the next.
Having a tall stool in the kitchen is a good idea so that you can alternate between sitting and standing. A stool should have a foot-rail and needs to be of a height to suit the height of the work surface.
*93\111\2*
Posted by admin on under Healthy bones Osteoporosis Rheumatic |
Some naturopaths also practise manipulation and this may include osteopathic or chiropractic techniques. Anaturopath treats ailments on the basis of the belief that healing depends on the correct action of the curative forces within the human organism. Illness is seen as a result of toxins accumulating in the system and symptoms of disease as the attempts of the body to throw off these harmful waste products. Naturopaths advocate correct diet and regulated activities as the means of maintaining good health.
Acupuncture-Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese therapy used in the treatment of many diseases, as well as for the relief of pain. The principle of acupuncture is the belief that in the human tissues there exist numerous points connected with particular organs, and these points are linked by a network of channels, called meridians, through which streams of life energy flow. The functioning of an organ is said to be affected by tapping these channels at appropriate points. In acupuncture, fine needles are inserted; other ways of tapping the points include touch (acupressure), electric currents, ultrasound and laser.
Western medicine rests on totally different assumptions, and so finds it hard to account for the fact that acupuncture is frequently effective. The probable explanation is that acupuncture leads the brain to produce substances called endorphins, which are a natural pain-killers.
The initial diagnosis is very thorough. A considerable amount of time will be spent asking patients details about their general condition. Questions may relate to physical, emotional and energetic signs and symptoms. In addition, examination of the tongue is a fundamental part of acupuncture diagnosis, as is the taking of the ‘pulses’ – at both wrists and in three positions, by the index, middle and ring fingers. The tongue and pulses give the practitioner information about the condition of the body, and indicate where the life energy needs to be changed.
If you’re seeing an acupuncturist the cost of a session will probably be between $40-$60. Acupuncture is not covered by Medicare, but is covered under some private health funds. There are also some general practitioners who are trained in and use acupuncture.
There is no mandatory registration of acupuncturists in Australia. When choosing an acupuncturist ensure they have formal qualifications and that they are a member of the Acupuncture Association of Australia.
*71\111\2*
Related Posts: