A night of restful sleep is vital for good health, so if you’re suffering with insomnia, perhaps one of the many natural sleep aids that are available may help you. Not getting enough sleep can affect many areas of your life, such as rendering you less effective at work and making it difficult to concentrate and remember things. Not getting enough sleep can also create a hazard for those around you, and may eventually lead to serious health issues.

More and more people are turning to natural remedies to relieve common problems instead of manmade drugs that may cause undesirable side effects. In many cases, all natural products are even more effective than a prescribed drug.

One of the most common substances used for the treatment of insomnia is called melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that your body naturally produces at night when it comes time for sleep. Melatonin does induce sleepiness, but reactions to melatonin do vary from one individual to another. It is generally considered safe although it does produce some side effects, such as sleepiness during the daytime, nausea, and headaches.

Another substance that is sold over the counter is called Valerian. Valerian is a herb that can be found in capsules, tablets, and even tea form. Valerian can assist with falling asleep faster and also getting more restful sleep. While small studies have been done regarding the effectiveness of Valerian, they seem to be rather uncontrolled and more work needs to be done. Generally thought to be safe, Valerian may interact with certain medications. As with any new substance you introduce, it’s always wise to check with your doctor first.

One of the most overlooked natural sleep aids is the use of exercise. While regular exercise has long been proven to help with weight reduction and the prevention of certain conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, the effects on sleep patterns is also a great benefit. Studies show that people who exercise 3-4 hours before sleep have an easier time falling asleep, and also obtain a more restful sleep, than people who don’t exercise. Regular exercise can offer enormous benefits in all areas of your life, but don’t overlook a good night’s sleep as one of them.

Many people who suffer from insomnia consider relaxation techniques to be effective in helping them achieve a restful night of sleep. Examples of these techniques include yoga, deep breathing exercises, and muscle relaxation. Developing a peaceful and relaxing routine as you work your way to bedtime may help a great deal. Many of us are extremely busy during the day, and it’s hard to slow down and get out of that type of routine. Reading, listening to calming music, and enjoying a cup of decaffeinated tea are examples of how you might slow the pace at the end of the day.

Natural sleep aids can be a great way to relieve your insomnia without introducing a harsh prescription drug into your daily routine. Some simple modifications in your lifestyle may be all that’s necessary to achieve the restful night of sleep your body desperately needs for optimal health.

A white and perfect set of teeth – that’s every person’s dream. A healthy dental and oral system contributes to overall wellness. Unhealthy teeth and gums hinder you from eating food that benefits your entire body. Unsightly teeth affect your self-esteem and prohibit you from enjoying a normal social life.

You may be surprised to know that there are 5 substantial reasons why the teeth should be cared for and they are by nature physiological, physical, emotional, social, and financial reasons.

1. Physiological.
Obviously, if you have toothache, you can’t eat well and the body’s normal functioning is affected when you have weakened immune system due to inability to eat properly. Aside from that, toothache and other dental problems are stressful and it’s been proven that stress affects the body organs and their functions that could lead to an even more serious health condition. Furthermore, tooth decay can lead to infection and abscess which could contribute to gum disease which in turn is linked to heart attack and stroke.

2. Emotional.
You will look and feel happier if you have healthy teeth. When you can smile freely, you will have positive emotions and more optimistic and affirmative situations follow your emotional highs. At your lowest emotional condition you may not even be able to leave your bed. When you have serious problems with your teeth you will stay unhappy until you finally get that appointment with the dentist.

3. Social.
Your social life involves a lot of talking and eating. How can you communicate when, aside from ugly teeth, you also have bad breath? How can you enjoy the food when you have an aching tooth? You may not want others to know it but deep inside you know that you feel miserable with those unattractive and unhealthful teeth. You even feel shame as a result of your failure to care for your teeth. You will soon realize that you are starting to shy away from others socially, because they have a beautiful set of teeth and you don’t.

4. Physical.
This becomes the first and most obvious result when you fail to take good oral and dental care. Teeth that don’t receive proper attention become physically damaged and discolored. Before other people notice your talents and intelligence, physical features make deep impressions first, especially your facial features. This obviously includes your smile, showing the physical condition of your teeth.

5. Financial.
When you neglect giving your teeth the most needed care and attention, you will ultimately need to take a trip to the dentist to treat serious dental and oral problems. This means paying for a much more expensive treatment than if you had regular checkups.

Simple tasks such as regularly and correctly brushing and flossing your teeth can help you avoid dental woes later on in your life. The reasons why you should take good care of your teeth are obvious because they are as important as any of the other parts of your body.

Learning to maintain control during panic attacks is a very useful skill that anyone can have. Though it is very unlikely for us to know how to stop or end panic attacks for the first few times, knowing how to turn it of temporarily is helpful enough. Here are some of the effective natural techniques and ways to help you stop panic attacks temporarily.

Breathing techniques

• Though panic attacks is an unpredictable and subconscious thing that happens to us, we can still gain back our control over it consciously. If you are encountering one, you can use this technique to get back control. Breath at the count ratio of 1:2, making your exhalation longer. By counting 4 counts for inhalation and 7 counts for exhalation, you are shifting your focus to counting and relaxing yourself through long exhalation.

• Another method that is recommended by many therapists is the paper bag re-breathing technique. Basically, you breathe into a paper bag until your breathing calms down. It has the same effect of having longer exhalation. What happens is that, it reduces intake of oxygen and makes the level of carbon dioxide higher than oxygen in your body. This naturally calms your nervous system down.

Medication

Before buying those drugs over the counter, consult your doctor for safety purpose such as allergic reactions and further information of the drug. You can keep some of these medication with you wherever you go so that when an attack comes around and you are just too panicky to remember breathing techniques, then pop in these medication. Be sure to put your health safety on top of the priority. Don’t become too dependent on medication and practice getting use to start using natural techniques such as count breathing.

Tea

Some teas have a relaxing effect. Tea with soothing scents and taste helps to soothe the nervous system and calms you down. The types of tea that are known to have a soothing effect includes, chamomile, green tea and jasmine tea. It is not possible to start making tea when you have an attack. The idea is to keep yourself relax and calm, in a way to control your stress level so that less occurrence of panic attacks will happen.

Scents

Keep a small bag of soothing scents to help you relax when you sniff into it. Scents like lavender calms the nervous system and is very helpful and safe way to help you gain back control. Use of scents are usually known as aromatherapy, where you can get oils and incense to burn to fill up your room or home. This can help you maintain a relaxing environment and lessen the chances of panic attacks to occur.

These temporary solutions are good to help you in emergencies to calm down. As mentioned, temporary solutions are just Band-Aid solutions but will not clear off panic attacks completely. This does not mean that these are not useful, it is but with moderation of use.

The mindset that you should have is to free yourself completely from panic attacks. This is not impossible and there are self-help methods that are endorsed by medical agencies with proven track of success records.

You can maintain control during panic attacks and also cure completely from it. Don’t despair or compare previous methods that didn’t work for you. There are natural methods that work without the use of medication nor expensive therapy sessions.

What do you fear the most about going to a dentist? Patients usually face several dental phobias, including fear of pain and fear of anesthetic side effects. However, the advanced techniques and tools, such as dental syringe, mouth mirror, radiograph equipment, burs, Osteotome and dental drill, used by the dentists can help patients to alleviate the fear of injections, pain, and mishaps.

A dental syringe is one of the most important dental equipment used by the dentists. It is used by all types of dentists including the ones specializing in general dentistry, cosmetic dentistry and orthodontics. A syringe is a medical instrument, which is used to inject fluids inside the body or extracting fluid from the body, spraying liquids and cleaning wounds. A syringe usually consists of a rubber ball with a fine nozzle. It works with the help of pressure or suction.

A syringe like device was first used by Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili, an Egyptian surgeon, to remove cataracts in 900 AD. He designed a thin and hollow glass tube with suction. However, earlier syringes were only used for extracting fluids or tissues from humans. They were not used for injecting purpose. In 1650, Blaise Pascal came up with the actual concept of a syringe. Further, in 1853, Dr. Alexander Wood modified the regular syringe to hypodermic syringe used for medical purposes. The first hypodermic syringe included a cylinder containing a movable plunger.

A dental syringe is an ancillary tool, which is used to supply either water or air to the oral cavity for the purpose of cleaning away the debris or pus from the area on which the dentist is working. Moreover, it is also used by the dentist for injecting fluoride, antibacterial or anesthetic solutions. It contains a breech-loading syringe, which is fitted with a sealed cartridge holding the anesthetic solution. A 3-way syringe consists separate internal channels for supplying water, air or mist of water and air, which is formed by combining water with pressurized air. The tip of a 3-way syringe can be easily separated from the main syringe body and replaced when necessary.

Today the market offers a variety of syringes, especially designed for dental purposes. Few different types of syringes available in the market are:

• Aspirating syringes
• Cartridge syringes
• Intraligamentary syringes
• Disposable dental syringes
• Irrigating syringes

These syringes are available in various sizes, so that the dentists can get the right grip over them. Having the right grip over the dental syringe can make the dentist feel more comfortable while working.

Here is the bottom line. Health is full of vested interest and information can be easily selected to support a particular view. We need to be questioning of the pronouncements of governments and experts. They do not always know what is best for your health even if they are well meaning.

The person primarily responsible for your health is you. You are best placed to make decisions about your health based on your own circumstances. There has been a tendency over the last 30 years to see governments as having the primary responsibility for our health. This is seen in calls for the government to “do something” about problems like obesity and smoking to name but two.

Personally I do not have a huge amount of faith in the recommendations of government departments and some of the “experts” that they draw on. Regular readers will be familiar with my view on the response to the advent of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus and how billions of dollars were wasted and needless fear was generated. As it turned out many of the experts recommending mass vaccination of the population had financial ties to manufacturers.

There is now a push to vaccinate boys against the H.P.V. virus. This vaccine has been approved for use in girls. Whilst it has been promoted as a vaccine against cervical cancer, it is in reality a vaccine against four strains of a virus, which is implicated in the development of cervical cancer. The push for extending the use has come from the manufacturer (as is their commercial right) but it is easy to whip up fear when one plays the cancer card in any health story. At this point rational assessment can go out the window.

Against this backdrop two circulars from government health departments crossed my desk in the same week. The first from the W.A. health department was about a plan to get women who missed their third dose of H.P.V. vaccine to have it. The dosage schedule was zero, two and six months.

This is from the circular ” While the optimal schedule is to administer Gardasil * at 0,2 and 6 months, the Australian Chief Medical Officer has stated that delayed administration especially of the third dose is expected to give at least comparable and most likely superior immune responses…”

Run that by me again! If delaying the dose gives a better response then how can the current schedule be optimal? Or if the current schedule is optimal then how cannot sticking to it give a better result? Go figure!

The other interesting piece of advice came from the Federal Health Department. A new campaign has been launched to encourage smokers to quit. Readers of my website will have seen my article on how a major analysis of over 800 studies showed that 70% of people quit with no aids or assistance. It also highlighted that most studies compared stop smoking aids with each other rather than against no aid and that manufacturers funded many of the studies. Questions were raised as to why this information was not promoted more widely to encourage and empower people to stop smoking.

Yet the letter from the Chief Medical Officer tells me “… smokers are about twice as likely to quit with smoking cessation drugs than cold turkey alone” and quoted one study, which had shown this. So here we have the government urging use of drugs when for at least 70% of people none are needed.

Exactly why this is the case is a mystery to me. The key point is that government recommendations may or may not be in your best interests.

Gather input from a variety of sources. Be aware that vested interests may be involved. Be questioning of “experts” and always consider your own circumstances. The person best equipped to make decisions about your health and that of your family is YOU.