Eye Care

I just created a new page on Eye Care at my main health site. The interesting fact was that the eye exercises provided by the professionally-accredited eye therapist for my son, sound similar to those espoused in the "Vision for life" program available at www.stretchnow.com.au and www.rebuildyourvision.com. They both use the string of beads to exercise your eyes in focussing on different

Meditation for Kids

An excellent article in the SMH on the benefits of meditation and yoga for kids with regards to stress, concentration, sleep, memory and focus.A picture of healthy teenage rugby players banishes the idea that yoga and meditation are for wimps. These teenage boys enjoyed the benefits of mindfulness meditation as a practical tool to overcome anxieties and focus on the present, so that instead of

2005 Australian Womens Health Diary

The Australian Womens Health Diary is now available for sale in newsagents, most Woolworths and Safeways stores, or by phone at 1800 423 444. Cost is $12.95 or $15.95 if you order by phone. The diary is produced by The Australian Women’s Weekly each year to raise funding for the Breast Cancer Institute of Australia, and has raised more than $2 million to support breast cancer research programs

Dieting with the stars

Womens' magazines in Australia always have a mix of celebrities, diets, health, beauty, gossip, recipes, and if you're lucky, something educational and inspiring. As a sample, in the current Women's Day, there are diet tips from three different stars. 1. Halle Berry is said to be on the Fat Flush Plan, to keep her body looking fabulous. This low-carb detox plan concentrates on lean meat, good

Beer and Steak - the Australian healthy diet

Finally, Australians are being advised that a beer and steak are good for you.Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, Associate Professor at the Sydney University Human Nutrition Unit (which produces an authoritive listing of the glycemic index of foods), and the author of The New Glucose Revolution (available from Seekbooks) announced yesterday that having a pre-dinner drink, such as beer, wine or

Pain in the Neck

Around 50% of women will experience pain in the neck at some point in their lives.Excluding specific causes, such as an accident/overuse, neck pain is generally caused by aging and an unhealthy lifestyle. As we grow older, bones and tissues weaken, and a lack of exercise, especially sitting in front of computers and TVs, can cause strain.Traditional treatments for neck pain include painkillers,

Dalai Lama Message for 2005

This message came via email from a friend, and I'm supposed to pass it on within 96 hours.I don't really have a social email list - there's the work list, chess list, soccer list, etc, so instead of email I'll use blogs and RSS feeds to forward it.So if you'd like to read the 2005 message, click on Dalai Lamacheers

Useful Cancer and Arthritis Sites

An article in the SMH Health liftout today on the perils of believing everything you read on the internet, and the danger of self-diagnosing. The official and useful reference sites they listed were:USEFUL CANCER SITESwww.cancerbackup.org.ukwww.cancer.orgwww.cancercouncil.com.auwww.cancer.org.auwww.nci.nih.govwww.oncolink.comwww.nbcc.org.auUSEFUL ARTHRITIS

Atkins Bankruptcy

It was reported in today's Sydney Morning Herald that Atkins Nutritionals filed for bankruptcy protection in a New York court after recording a loss of $US340 million last year. The high-protein, low-carb Atkins diet had faced stiff competition from the low-GI diets, South Beach and the Zone Diet, plus low-carb products in supermarkets. The bad publicity from Dr Atkin's heart attack in 2002 after

Thousands of free recipes

Here is an opportunity to grab literally thousands of free recipes.Titles such as "100 Succulent Chinese Recipes", "1000 Atkins Diet Recipes", "101 Camping & Outdoor Recipes", "111 Egg Recipes", "120 Lip-Smacking Good Jam Recipes", "300 Chicken Recipes", "400 Refreshing Punch Recipes", "600 Recipes For Chilli Lovers", "65 Tried And True Amish Recipes" plus ebooks on motivation, health and fitness

Stress Management Resources

Just a small note to provide additional info about Meditation resources.Robert Beadle wrote in to tell me about The Best of Stress Management, at http://www.mblwellness.com, by Dr. James Gordon, MD, founder and director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.He and other top medical experts in the field have developed a stress management "course in a box" called Best of Stress Management. Based

Meditation Resources

Everyone needs to know how to cope with stress in their lives, to prevent it from causing health problems and taking over their lives.Some people cope by trying to become healthier. Others try to remove the cause of the stress. And yet others turn to meditation.There are many forms of meditation. It can be silent, or mantra-based. Still or active (walking, yoga). Alone or in a group.

The Lazy Mum Health Plan

Now that I've read and reviewed almost a dozen diets, a core set of diet principles have become obvious. So I've put them into my own plan - the Lazy Mum Health Plan, covered at www.womens-health-and-fitness.com.Basically, nutritionally-balanced diets agree that:1. We need daily exercise - at least a 20 min walk.2. We need to drink more clear fluids.3. We need more vegetables - especially

CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet

The CSIRO is Australia's national science agency. So given that health and wellness are becoming national concerns (we're catching up to the US in obesity levels!), the CSIRO has been working on healthy eating habits.Being a science agency, they have followed protocol and performed case studies, with control groups, and based the eating plan on scientific principles.They've come up with a low

Contact Lens and scratched corneas

I haven't been online much this week. Because I finally got my eyes lasered. Not with Lasik, the standard one where a flap of the cornea is lifted. I had ASL - Advanced Surface Laser, which was very quick, and used the laser on the surface of the eye. I had it done on Friday, spent most of Fri, Sat and Sun in bed, and was finally allowed to drive on Wednesday. Today, Thursday, it is still only

Pain Management

I'm always a few months behind with news from Time Magazine. Basically when the parents-in-law have finished with their copy, they stack them up for a few months, then send them over to my house as light reading. So I've only just got around to reading the Feb 28 article on The Right and Wrong Way to Treat Pain.The main message is that drug therapy is not the only solution. Chronic pain

Floatation Tanks

A cute article on Floatation Tanks in the April 24 Sunday Telegraph reassured me of a few things:- you can float if you're claustrophobic,- you can't sink,- it gets better each time, and- even fidgetty people eventually relax.Having never done one, I'm now considering it.So you float in warm, salty water. The water being at body temperature means there's little sense of where the water stops and

Whole Body Vibration

The SMH Health & Science section presented an article on Whole Body Vibration (WBV) Therapy, a new trend in health and sports treatments.Claims are that it can improve bone density, balance, incontinence and improve recovery times from injury.The theory is that the treatment triggers the body's natural response to vibration by stimulating muscles to contract, increasing blood and nutrients to

Face Exercises

Did some good research on facial exercises today, covering Facercise, FlexEffect, Face Lift by Exercise and other basic exercises. Interestingly I had been doing one of the eye exercises unknowingly, in the hope of improving my eyesight.The resulting pages have been added to Womens Health and Fitness

Breast Cancer and The Pill

Professor John Hopper of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Genetic Engineering says that research shows the lifetime risk of breast cancer for women thought to have inherited the high risk BRCA1 gene was reduced from 40-80% to 10-20% if they used oral contraceptives.A similar reduction in risk of ovarian cancer is already known.Similar results were found in Australia, Canda and the US, in

Live longer - exercise and quit smoking

The Australian Longitudinal Study on Womens Health has been studying over 40,000 women for 10 years. A surprisingly higher percentage of the oldest group has died than would have been statistically expected.The biggest killers were heart disease and cancer - with digestive cancers, lung cancer and breast cancer the most prevalent, in that order.The study did show strong benefits from stopping

MagneticTherapy

Apparently more people are using magnets to heal chronic illnesses, relieve pain, increase metabolism, reduce stress and nerves.Queen Cleopatra is said to have worn a magnetic lodestone on her forehead for beauty and anti-ageing. The red dot that some Indian women wear was originally made with a magnetic powder, reducing stress and tension, and aiding beauty. Placing a tiny magnet on your body or

An Introduction

Well hello.This new blog is a companion site to my new main Womens Health and Fitness site, which at present, will remain unnamed, until it has enough decent content to be revealed to the world.(And also because it will be an exercise in Search Engine Optimisation, seeing how long it takes to get a decent profile in Womens Health and Fitness from scratch, and whether there are benefits in having