Big Tipping: A New Holiday Tradition?

One of my family’s greatest traditions started at a Waffle House. While I wasn’t there on the Christmas morning that my mother and stepfather decided to start what we now refer to affectionately as ‘Operation Big Tip,’ I have reaped the benefits of my parents’ decision.

As a result of having divorced parents, I usually split my time between families on Christmas morning. I woke up at my mother’s house and opened presents while my step siblings at my dad’s house patiently waited for me to arrive to tear into their own parcels. One Christmas morning after my mom and Jim, my stepfather, dropped me off at my dad’s house, they decided to go to Waffle House.

In our small town on Christmas morning, Waffle House was the only place open. The service my parents received wasn’t particularly groundbreaking. But, figuring that their waitress picked up a Christmas morning shift for a reason, they gave her what could be described as an unusually large tip.

A few years later, they struck again when they gave an older gentleman sweeping the floors at Waffle House on Christmas day a 50 dollar tip. The man appeared to be a veteran. My mom described him as having what appeared to be army tattoos. He seemed genuinely surprised to receive a tip for sweeping the floors, not just for serving food.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/operation-big-tip-a-holiday-tradition-that-may-make-you-rethink-tipping.html#ixzz3uo0EVXcQ

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How to Get a Better Night's Sleep

There’s nothing as restorative as a full night’s sleep, so when you’re not getting that, it can be the most aggravating problem to solve. To help figure it out, get a journal and keep a sleep diary.

It might sound like overkill, but journaling can be a surprisingly affective tool for problem solving. If you’re trying different methods for get a better night’s sleep, productivity blog Mintfull suggests keeping a sleep diary to track those methods and find which ones work best. Here’s how to start:

Before you change anything, figure out what your starting point is. Write it down.
Next to it, write down what you are going to change.
Example: average bedroom temperature during the night: 70° F >> changing it to 65° F

Once you’ve made that change, record the outcome. To do this, they suggest answering three questions in your journal:

• How are you feeling? Excited, pumped up, groggy, “I hate Mondays”, etc. Rate your mood on a scale from 1 to 10
• How much energy do you have? Rate it from 1 to 10.
• How was your sleep? Deep, light, interrupted, restless, etc.

You can add more information as you see fit, and you want to record your answers as close to waking up as possible.

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15 Habits that Will Totally Transform Your Productivity

People who manage to get a lot accomplished each day aren't super human, they've just mastered a few simple habits. Some may be easy to guess: Keep your desk organized and aim for around eight hours of sleep a night. But others, like taking a mid-day nap or complaining, might surprise you.

Here are 15 easy ways to make every day more productive:

1. Declutter your desk.

Messy work space:

Creativity may arise from chaos, but a litter-strewn office probably isn’t helping you get stuff done. "Attention is programmed to pick up what’s novel," says Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Two Awesome Hours. Visible files remind you of unfinished tasks. An unread book is temptation for procrastination. Even if you don’t think you’re noticing the disorder, it hurts your ability to focus.

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Why Are Some People More Likely to Get Bitten By Mosquitos?

And by "some people" I mean me. Why is it that an evening stroll leaves me feeling eaten alive while my companions are left blissfully un-bitten?

First of all, it's probably not all in my head (although it could be — most people are bad sources about their own mosquito attractiveness). Studies suggest that about 20 percent of people are "high attractor types" who are especially appealing to the female mosquitoes seeking out blood for the extra protein they need to lay eggs. Of course, not all mosquitoes are the same. There are 150 different species in the United States, each with their own blood-sucking proclivities. But since you probably won't know — or care — if the bugger biting you is Culex pipiens or Aedes aegypti, let's consider some of the more general properties that affect your mosquito appeal.

Clothing Color

It's true, mosquitoes have discerning fashion taste. Or at least, they're more likely to spot you as a target if you stand out from your environment. Dark colors, especially, will attract more of the insect.

Movement

Similarly, the more you move, the easier you are to identify as a living, breathing, vessel full of delicious blood.

Body Heat

Visual clues allow the mosquito to locate you from relatively far away, but as she approaches, it's your body heat that draws her in. This puts pregnant women, who average about 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than others, at a particular risk — a fact which has been substantiated by a number of studies.

Carbon Dioxide

This is another reason pregnant women are at a disadvantage. Mosquitoes can detect carbon dioxide using a special organ called a maxillary palp from as far as 164 feet away. Since everyone emits CO2 simply by exhaling, it comes down to relative amounts. Unfortunately for mothers-to-be, pregnancy causes women to emit 21 percent more CO2. This is also why kids are often safe from bites, when bigger, more CO2-emitting adults are around.

Alcohol Intake

On the flip side, pregnant women are (presumably) avoiding another mosquito attractor: alcohol.For More and Original Article 
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Do you know who needs immunizations in your family?

According to http://healthfinder.gov/nho/  August is National Immunization Awareness Month.

Immunization helps people of all ages prevent dangerous and oftentimes deadly diseases. Kids aren't the only ones who need shots. Adults need to stay protected against serious illnesses like the flu, measles, and pneumonia.

Now is a great time to promote vaccines and help family, friends, and coworkers to keep up to date on their shots.

How can National Immunization Awareness Month make a difference?

Use August to spread awareness about vaccination information, the need for people of all ages to be vaccinated, and  to share ways to increase immunization rates within our own communities.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Speak with friends and family and educate about how vaccines aren’t just for kids. People of all ages can get shots to protect them from serious diseases.
• Remind people in your community, young and old, to get the flu vaccine every year.

For Original article and more information:  http://healthfinder.gov/nho/

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How to Eat Healthy This Summer

No one wants to spend hours planning menus, making countless trips to the grocery store and slaving in the kitchen, only to endure dull and tasteless food. If you want to eat healthy, home-cooked meals without all the fuss, try a seasonal pantry makeover. To do it, stock up on locally-grown foods, and simply create meals based on what's in season in your region. Eating locally is delicious, nutritious, interesting and, believe it or not, easy. Local food tastes better because it really is fresh (not shipped-from-across-the-country-yet-still-bearing-a-label-that-says-fresh).

It's healthier for you because you get the higher nutrient levels from just-picked produce. It's healthier for the environment because local food uses less fossil fuel for transport. Seasonal food is also interesting, as each season brings a new crop of foods that you haven't had for an entire year. Before you've had a chance to tire of its bounty, the season changes to bring new, flavorful foods. And shopping for seasonal foods is easy—a fun trip to your local farmer's market will yield the majority of the ingredients you need.

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The Skinny on Subscription Snack Boxes - The Latest Craze

They call it the fourth meal.

For many, snacking is the number one cause for derailed diets, unintentional calorie overloading and an increase in sugar or salt intake. But the snack is often the saving grace of the work day – the only problem is most of us are left with limited choices at the office vending machine.
Enter the subscription snack box – the latest online food craze that has businesses big and small betting on people looking for healthier snack options.

Silicon Valley-based company NatureBox has been leading the charge on the healthy snack front since its launch in 2012.

The idea for the company was born, in part, out of CEO and co-founder Gautam Gupta’s struggle with obesity. After teaching himself about nutrition and exercise in high school, Gupta lost 70 pounds, but struggled with finding snack options he felt good about eating when on the go.

“Twenty-five per cent of our daily calories come from snacking and we’ve found people will often say they don’t feel satisfied after they snack,” said NatureBox spokesperson Nicki Briggs. “So we thought it was a really big opportunity to make a difference.”

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How to Safeguard Your Emotional Wellbeing

Emotional wellness is just one of the seven dimensions of wellness. Emotional wellbeing is the ability to know your feelings, accept limitations in yourself, gain emotional stability, and be comfortable with your emotions. It implies that you are able to express appropriate emotions, cope with stress, adjust to change, and enjoy life despite difficulty.


Achieving emotional wellness can be a difficult thing to balance. However, here are some tips to help you work towards being emotionally healthy.

Be self aware. It is very important to be aware of yourself. This includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses, understanding your emotions, and knowing your abilities. When you learn all these things about yourself, you are able to accept yourself and put limits on what you do. Then you are able to appreciate those limits, and you no longer have to compete with others strengths. You can also be better prepared for the roller coaster that the many changes of life bring.

Physical health. Taking care of your physical health is very important. Plenty of rest and a good diet can help to increase emotional stability. A good night's sleep requires 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Not getting enough sleep is the cause of many major health issues like heart disease and depression. 

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Appetite Stimulants for the Elderly

Older adults sometimes experience a loss of appetite that may adversely affect their health. Even foods they once loved no longer seem appealing. Caregivers of seniors with this problem will certainly want to explore ways to stimulate their loved ones’ appetites and get them eating again.

Causes of Loss of Appetite

There are several causes for loss of appetite in the elderly. One may be a poorer sense of taste due to a diminishing number of taste buds as we age. Our sense of smell also diminishes, and with it, potentially, our enjoyment of food.
Disinterest in food also can be caused by physical or cognitive maladies. Those with multiple medical conditions may be particularly vulnerable to poor appetite. If they are taking medications, they may experience loss of appetite as a side effect.

Weight Loss in Elderly

Loss of appetite can lead to substantial weight loss, which is a major health concern.
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How to Carve out Time for Yourself

Do you ever find yourself longing for some time for yourself? Many of us are so busy with work, school, and home life that often there is no time left over to do something that you enjoy. What follows are some ways to carve out that essential time you need to slow down, enjoy life, and rejuvenate yourself.

Scheduling Time with Yourself

1. Evenings with Yourself. Try to save certain weeknights just for you. If others ask you to do things those nights, just tell them you have plans. Use the time for gardening, reading, exercise, thinking, or the ultimate luxury of doing nothing!

2. Monthly Treat. Schedule a treat for yourself once a month. It could be on your lunch break, a weekend, or it could be leaving work early. Maybe you get a spa treatment, go see a movie, a haircut, play golf, or whatever treat you’re always thinking about but rarely get to. Schedule it in and it will happen!

For More Tips and Original Article.

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Healthy Lunches Forever: Do Lunch Right

Maximize Your Meal

Lunch is the Jan Brady of meals: stuck in the middle, usually boring and sometimes ignored altogether. But it's time to stop giving breakfast and dinner all the attention, especially if you want to lose weight. Recent research shows that lunch—including where, when, and what you eat—is a big part of the pound-shedding equation. "Getting the right type of fuel at lunch can help you stay focused for a productive second half of the day," says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, a FITNESS advisory board member and the author of The Flexitarian Diet. "However, too much food or the wrong type can have the opposite effect and lead to an energy crash through the afternoon and evening." We asked the experts for their best advice to help you get the most out of your midday meal. Read on for their top tips.

Change things up. Turkey on whole wheat again? Brown-bagging the same old stuff could backfire on the scale.

For more and original article.

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How to Get Your Weight in the Healthy Zone with National Healthy Weight Week

Diets don't work—healthy lifelong habits are what will get you weight loss, weight maintenance, and good health. Celebrate National Healthy Weight Week (January 19 to 25) by dropping the diet and picking up a few healthy habits instead.

The concept behind Healthy Weight Week is that dieting is harmful to your self-esteem. You diet because you view yourself as overweight. Then the punishment, deprivation, restricting calories, and avoiding happy hour starts. But if you are always hungry or feel deprived and view yourself as "fat,” then packing on the pounds is easy.

So what exactly is a “healthy” weight? Uncontrollable elements that affect weight are height, bone density, body type (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph), and body composition (the innate ratio of body muscle to fat). Muscle & Strength explains the different body types (shown below) and variations in exercise routine for body type.

For more and original article at Shape.com

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10 Healthy Fall Foods.

As the temperature begins to cool, kids go back to school and college football seems just around the corner. You know what's coming: fall.

Summer gets a lot of attention for roadside farmers' stands selling everything from tomatoes to cucumbers to watermelons. True, a lot of healthy and tasty foods are harvested in the summer.
But what about the fall? This season doesn't disappoint, either.

There are so many fresh fruits and vegetables that come with the fall that it can be hard to narrow down which ones are best for you. But in this article, we'll look at 10 of the healthiest fall fares.
You'll want to consider a number of factors when evaluating whether a food is healthy, and opinions on different items are as varied as the foods themselves.

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Simple Steps to Start Saving Money

Save your loose change. Putting aside fifty cents a day over the course of a year will allow you to save nearly 40% of a $500 emergency fund.

Keep track of your spending. At least once a month, use credit card, checking, and other records to review what you've purchased. Then, ask yourself if it makes sense to reallocate some of this spending to an emergency savings account.

Never purchase expensive items on impulse. Think over each expensive purchase for at least 24 hours. Acting on this principle will mean you have far fewer regrets about impulse purchases, and far more money for emergency savings.

Use debit and credit cards prudently. To minimize interest charges, try to limit credit card purchases to those you can pay off in full at the end of the month. If you use a debit card, don't rely on an overdraft feature to spend money you don't have. With either approach, you'll have more money available for emergency savings.

- See more at: http://americasaves.org/for-savers/make-a-plan-how-to-save-money/54-ways-to-save-money#sthash.gArg5FF2.dpuf

Save your loose change. Putting aside fifty cents a day over the course of a year will allow you to save nearly 40% of a $500 emergency fund.

Keep track of your spending. At least once a month, use credit card, checking, and other records to review what you've purchased. Then, ask yourself if it makes sense to reallocate some of this spending to an emergency savings account.

Never purchase expensive items on impulse. Think over each expensive purchase for at least 24 hours. Acting on this principle will mean you have far fewer regrets about impulse purchases, and far more money for emergency savings.

Use debit and credit cards prudently. To minimize interest charges, try to limit credit card purchases to those you can pay off in full at the end of the month. If you use a debit card, don't rely on an overdraft feature to spend money you don't have. With either approach, you'll have more money available for emergency savings.

For More Ideas and Original Article.

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Medical Transcriptionists: Flexible Schedules in the Healthcare Environment

Medical transcriptionists held about 84,100 jobs in 2012. The industries that employed the most medical transcriptionists in 2012 were as follows:

Hospitals; state, local, and private	34%
Offices of physicians	24
Administrative and support services	21

Most medical transcriptionists work for hospitals or in physicians' offices. Some work for companies that provide transcription services to healthcare establishments, and others are self-employed.
Many transcriptionists work from home offices, receiving dictation and submitting drafts electronically.

Work Schedules

Most medical transcriptionists work full time, although about one-third worked part time in 2012. Medical transcriptionists who work from home may work outside typical business hours or have some flexibility in determining their schedules.

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Pharmacy Technicians: One of the Best Healthcare Jobs

Pharmacy technicians ensure medications are filled correctly in a specified window of time. “One of the most challenging aspects [of the job] comes down to maintaining knowledge on all the changes that occur within the field. Helping a pharmacist dispense prescription medication might seem like an easy task, but it requires immense precision and detail.

Pharmacy practice changes on a weekly basis with new generics and new drugs,” says Mike Johnston, chairman and CEO of the National Pharmacy Technician Association. Another challenge is interacting with patients who are “not always feeling their best,” he says. “The majority of your customers that you’re going to be dealing with are sick – whether it be a cold or sinus infection or a much more serious, chronic condition. So it takes a lot of compassion and empathy.”

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25 Ways to Have Cheap Summer Fun

Looking to enjoy your summer without breaking the bank? Check out the following ideas for frugal summer fun.

1. Get in the Water

We can’t talk about summer without mentioning pools, right? Whether you have a pool in your backyard or in your community, this is not only a way to have fun, but swimming laps is also great exercise. No pool? No problem! Break out the hose and get a packet of water balloons for a few dollars or less.

2. Have a Picnic

Even if your job requires that you work year-round, you can still have picnic lunches with coworkers during the workweek or with friends on the weekends. Assign each person a drink or food item to bring, and have a great meal without an exorbitant cost.

3. Run a Car Wash to Raise Money for Charity

If you want to beat the heat, why not do it in a way that will also help out others?

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7 Habits of INEFFECTIVE CNAs

If you recognize yourself, make a choice to change your habits.

1) She calls out often; or is late; or leaves early. A CNA cannot be effective when they are not at work.
2) She is inflexible. She won’t alter her assignment to make things fair to all; she refuses to take on extra residents without a battle; she refuses to change her routine for the residents’ benefit.
3) Teamwork: She either belongs to a clique or is a loner. The clique is negative and spends much time backstabbing other aides. The loner never smiles or offers to assist others. She isn’t helpful with new aides.
4) She is on the phone. A lot. Either her own or the facility phone. She makes calls when the nurses are busy and away from the nurses station.
5) She spend a lot of “down” time behind the nurses station. Sitting. Doing her nails or braiding her hair. Not answering call bells; ignoring requests for help. Yet she has no problem gabbing with staff from other departments.

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Help Your Loved Ones Know the Symptoms of a Stroke

A mini stroke is also known as a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA). It has the same symptoms as a major stroke, except that it lasts only a few minutes, is usually milder, and sometimes has no apparent residual effects.

About 10 percent of strokes are preceded by TIAs. Someone who's had one or more TIAs is 10 times more likely to have a stroke than someone of the same age and sex who has not. As a result, TIAs are extremely important stroke warning signs. Don't ignore the symptoms of a stroke! Call 911 NOW. Get medical help immediately.

Stroke Symptoms

If you notice one or more of these symptoms of a stroke, don't wait. Call 911 immediately for an ambulance; get the person to a hospital right away!

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The Best Way for Nurses to Thrive

The practice of nursing is ever-changing. There are always new guidelines and regulations that nurses are asked to adhere to, often with little information to accompany it. Nurses sometimes feel like they are just surviving because they are being asked to take on new challenges and aren’t completely sure of themselves. This is because many organizations will give out new job requirements without following up with the nursing staff and providing ongoing feedback.

These actions can be detrimental to the moral of the nursing staff, reduce the level of patient care provided, and increase turnover in staff. In order for nurses to be receive the feedback they need to be successful, it’s important for healthcare organizations to consider the followings:

Feedback is Necessary to Retain Great Nurses

Any nurse who doesn’t love nursing will not last long in the profession.

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