Archive for February 2009
Smokers more likely to quit for their pet's health than their own
Smokers are more likely to kick the habit to safeguard their pets’ health than their own, US researchers say.
Source:Smokers more likely to quit for their pet's health than their own
What Way To Quit Smoking Will Work For You?
There are probably as many ways to quit smoking, as there are smokers in the world. Many smokers have good intentions to quit smoking, but just cannot seem to succeed. Those non-smokers, who look at smokers as failures, when they are unable to quit, do not understand the situation. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug found in cigarettes, which the smoker needs and craves constantly. Quitting an addiction is not even in the same class as, say, quitting biting your nails or popping your gum. It is difficult to quit smoking, and there are several main ways that most people seem to try.
The first way to quit smoking is to quit cold turkey. It is not known what a turkey has to do with it. To quit smoking cold turkey means to abruptly quit smoking cigarettes. Once the smoker quits smoking cold turkey, the goal is to never smoke another cigarette again. No drugs or medical aids are used when a person quits smoking cigarettes cold turkey. Fierce willpower, and maybe someone the smoker can call when the urge gets too strong, is required to do this.
Some smokers use nicotine gums and patches to help them quit smoking. These nicotine patches replace the nicotine the smoker normally gets from the cigarette. The idea is to wean the smoker off of cigarettes by gradually using patches containing less nicotine. This technique to quit smoking sounds like a perfectly reasonable approach. However, critics claim that nicotine patches merely prolong the painful nicotine withdrawal period. Each smoker and his doctor will have to decide for him or herself whether the nicotine patch is right for him.
There are other alternative methods people use to quit smoking cigarettes. Hypnotism is a popular method with varied effectiveness. The hypnotist places the smoker into a highly suggestive state, and convinces the smoker that he or she no longer needs cigarettes. The effectiveness of hypnotism in quitting smoking is questionable, however. The results are almost impossible to reproduce in a laboratory setting, and the effectiveness varies with the skill of each hypnotist.
It is far more difficult to quit smoking than non-smokers think. For reasons only they understand (and sometimes even they don’t), smokers have become addicted to the potent and dangerous drug nicotine. Some experts suggest that nicotine is as addictive, or more addictive, than many illegal drugs. The effort to quit smoking is a healthy one, whichever method is chosen. Once the body is free of cigarettes for a while, it begins repairing the damage of years or even decades of smoking. That’s why people who want to quit smoking should keep trying as many times as it takes to succeed.
Cell find 'lifts leukaemia fight'
Research which sheds light on how blood cancer cells work may improve the power of leukaemia treatments.
Source:Cell find 'lifts leukaemia fight'
Can Hypnosis Help to Eliminate Pain?
Pain is a subject that touches everyone. After all, it is a human condition from which we all suffer at one time or another. There are headaches, dental procedures, sports injuries, broken bones, soft-tissue injuries, and psychosomatic pain.
Research shows that 75% to 80% of all adults will experience lower back pain at some time in their lives. Approximately 40 million Americans suffer from arthritis pain and as many as 45 million suffer from chronic, recurring headaches. There are thousands of people every year who suffer the agony of surgical interventions and thousands more who endure the pain of debilitating or terminal illnesses.
All of this pain falls into two basic categories: (1) acute pain, which is of short duration and (2) chronic pain, which continues for weeks, months or years.
Most people respond to pain – whether acute or chronic – by taking drugs of some kind. But drugs are often a temporary solution.
What few people realize is that the ancient art of hypnosis offers a safe, effective alternative for reducing sensitivity to pain.
Hypnosis has been shown effective in the management of various types of pain. Besides providing an effective solution for maladies such as headaches and acute injuries, hypnosis offers a unique solution for those suffering from chronic conditions like back pain and arthritis as well as intermediate and advanced stages of cancer. Studies show that patients with chronic diseases require fewer painkillers to achieve pain relief when they practice hypnosis. These same patients exhibit fewer signs of anxiety and experience greater comfort during medical procedures.
Hypnosis also has been shown to be effective in reducing nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients.
The most effective approach for acute pain appears to be the use of hypnotic suggestions focusing on anxiety reduction and minimizing the importance of the pain. For chronic pain, it is more effective to confront the pain directly under hypnosis, dealing with both the pain’s physical and psychological effects.
Another area where hypnosis offers significant positive results is in dealing with pre- and post-operative patients. Using hypnosis in preparation for surgery has been shown to reduce the experience of pain during surgery, resulting in the need for less anesthetics. Hypnosis as a pain management tool with surgical patients also has been shown to reduce nausea and greatly increase the recovery rate in most patients, thereby truncating the length of time spent in the hospital. (That creates another rarely mentioned positive result: reduced medical costs!)
But efficacy and lower medical expenses are not the only positives related to the use of hypnosis for pain management. This modality has no dangerous side effects. Unlike medications, hypnosis does not become less effective with use and does not require stronger and stronger doses to cope with pain. While patients may have to ingest costly medications several times a day for years, they have the potential for reducing or eliminating their pain in just a few hypnotic sessions for significantly less cost.
Does hypnosis always work? In the area of pain control, everyone can be helped to SOME degree. There are essentially five categories into which subjects fall:
1. Those who find total and permanent relief.
2. Those that have a decrease in the severity of pain.
3. Those who experience pain relief initially, but who need occasional reinforcement.
4. Those that experience intermittent relief.
5. Those that still have pain, but feel 10-30% less pain than before.
What accounts for these differences in relief? The answer appears to be the patient’s susceptibility to hypnosis – the level of relaxation reached during the hypnotic sessions. The deeper the relaxation, the more effective the pain reduction.
Certainly, no treatment for pain – whether chemical, physical or psychological – is effective all the time. However, hypnosis has shown over and over again that it can help people reduce or eliminate both acute and chronic pain. Best of all, it works its magic without any side effects.
As a safe, effective alternative for reducing sensitivity to pain, hypnosis is second to none.
Hormone may predict 'baby blues'
Measuring levels of a hormone during pregnancy may predict a woman’s risk of postnatal depression, say researchers.
Source:Hormone may predict 'baby blues'
60,000 Zimbabwe cholera cases
More than 60,000 Zimbabweans have been infected by cholera, a figure the WHO had called a “worst case scenario”.
Source:60,000 Zimbabwe cholera cases
Cancer protection secret revealed
Scientists claim to have discovered a missing link in the way cells protect themselves against cancer.
Source:Cancer protection secret revealed