How Music Therapy can help Autism

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of alternative therapies that can help in a wide range of different ways. In this article we are going to look at music therapy and autism. We will firstly give brief information on what autism is and also what music therapy is. We will then consider the ways in which music therapy can help those who suffer from autism.

What is Autism?

Autism is a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. There is no cure for the condition and the severity can vary between sufferers. However sufferers may find communication and understanding difficult. In addition to that many are thought to have exceptional talents in some forms of their life but find more basic things impossible to carry out. Autism is normally diagnosed when a child is about 30 months old but it is important to get a proper diagnosis to ensure you know exactly what you are dealing with.

What is Music Therapy?

Music therapy is basically the use of music to bring about change. Often it is used to change the mood or perspective of a person. This is something that you may notice on a day to day basis as a particular song could make you feel sad or happy. The process of music therapy is to use this ability to bring about change in people’s lives. It may be to help bring back memories in those suffering from dementia or to help relax a person suffering from stress. The uses and benefits of music therapy are vast and cannot be ignored.

Music Therapy and Autism

Music therapy can be useful for people who suffer from autism as the theory is based on the fact that everyone has a response to music regardless of their handicap. In fact music has been used to help sufferers of autism since the 1950s and the benefits are widely accepted.

One of the biggest benefits of music therapy is it can aid with both verbal and non-verbal communication for people with autism. This is particularly useful as one of the problems people suffering from autism have is their ability to communicate with others. It is thought that music can help as it reduces stress and strain and with it helps to build relationships. This can easily be put into practice by a parent singing to their child.

It is also thought that the use of music can help a child suffering from autism to develop self-expression in a creative way. This can have a large number of benefits as it can help to grow their confidence and also help with their emotional satisfaction. The benefits are very great and wide ranging and something that should be considered.

Conclusion

If your child has been diagnosed as suffering with autism then please discuss the use of music therapy with your doctor. They may be able to recommend a centre that your child can visit and experience music therapy. You may also find that it is offered at the hospital where your child is being treated. If you are not sure about music therapy then please do some more research but it really can help and is worth considering as something to really benefit your child.
by: Mercedes Aspland
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Toxic Chemicals In Food: Your Number 1 Weight Loss Enemy

Although most people logically acknowledge that chemicals in food are bad for them they do not really understand the full implications especially its direct connections to the metabolism and storage of excess body fat.

Firstly, the more chemicals that a person consumes from their food, the harder the liver must work to metabolize and flush out all of the toxins from the body. What does this have to do with fat loss? The liver is the body's number one fat burning organ and its health and function is closely related to how lean your physique will be. The more time it spends processing chemicals (including alcohol), the less it has to properly regulate your metabolism, burn fat and keep you looking lean and toned.

Here's some statistics to clearly put you in the picture:

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently lists about 2800 international food additives and about 3000 chemicals added deliberately to the food supply. Including chemicals used in food production from ground to stomach, the number rises to between 10,000 and 15,000. William Kellas and Andrea Dworkin -Surviving in a toxic world There are currently over 100,000 chemicals approved for use in Europe alone with over 8000 more added each year. The Danish Environmental Authority entered all that was known about 40,000 chemicals into a database and concluded: " 20,624 to be dangerous, of this number 9,538 acutely dangerous when consumed. " A further 9,668 incur allergic reactions. " 1678 are mutagenic. " 642 incur cancer.

Another massive problem with processed foods is that almost all of them contain refined white sugar. This can be in several forms such as sugar, sucrose, corn syrup etc but the bottom line is that all are highly detrimental to your health and achieving the body you deserve. This section is quite detailed but it's important that you know the TRUTH about how white sugar just totally destroys your ability to get lean and muscular and with this knowledge 'eating clean' becomes a powerfully sane choice. The following information comes from 'Sugar Blues' by William Duffy. Why is sugar toxic to the body? In 1957 Dr William Coda Martin tried to answer the question: When is a food a food and when is it a poison? His working definition of "poison" was: "Medically: Any substance applied to the body, ingested or developed within the body, which causes or may cause disease. Dr Martin classified refined sugar as a POISON because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals.

This is why the KEY principle above all else in your eating plan will be to eat only natural, unprocessed (and organic whenever possible) foods. Reducing the chemical build-up and intake will get your liver burning fat and speed up your metabolism so you are a better fat burning machine 24/7.

Obviously with the amounts of chemicals most people typically consume from the foods they generally eat, the liver cannot process them all so they become stored in the body until they can be processed. If the chemical barrage would stop these 'chemical stockpiles' would get around to being processed but unfortunately since there are more chemicals taken in every day, the stockpiles get larger and larger. Also many of these chemicals cause an acidity in the body that needs to be neutralized lest it literally burn and damage cells and tissue including your hard earned muscle that you spend hours in the gym developing.
by: Ben Kong
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Workplace Eustress Mangagement

Is it possible to manage work place stress? Yes. And practice is necessary. And what could a counselor teach about workplace stress anyway?

Based on my experience with my anger management and domestic violence folks, everyone can give lip service to the idea that stress is experienced internally, but within seconds of saying that I need to change my thoughts to change my feelings, etc, almost all of my clients begin to tell me all over again about the external world, as if once that is in order, then there will be no more stress. Incidentally, that is a very important aspect of power and control belief systems, that controlling the external world.

In order to interrupt the thinking pattern which involves controlling the uncontrollable, I will ask my clients where they see me.

Most of them are quite surprised, and will answer that they see me across the room, somewhere outside of themselves.

I tell them matter of factly that they are wrong. And they are, they see me only in the visual cortex of their brain, inside their head.

While it looks like I am outside you, the experience of vision happens only in the brain, inside you, and the processing of photons is actually separate from the interpretation placed on the experience by your brain, but that interpretation is yours and yours alone, and if that interpretation changes the inside of your body in a way that brings adrenalin and cortisol, it is your words-in-your-brain interpretation that does that, not the external world.

I then ask my clients where they hear me, and repeat the same sequence of questions.

The same for the senses of smell, and its relationship to the limbic brain, taste, and pressure and the sensory motor cortex.

We end up with a everyone acknowledging that their entire sensory experience and reality is created in their brain, and the human next to them may have an entirely different reality.

That usually stops the story telling and external focus for awhile, and I have actually laid down the groundwork for future reminders that about trying to control the external which is impossible.

So now folks have an object lesson about where stress exists, which is inside, and what causes the stress chemistry, which is their thoughts about the sensory experience.

Now we can begin to teach some tools about changing thoughts or breathing or both to change feelings, and then the next thing that we usually run into is the short lived length of stress management tools.

Those comments run along the lines of, 'Well, I did that deep breathing stuff, and it worked while I was doing it but it went away as soon as the phone rang....' as if to say that stress management should produce a high because adrenalin and cortisol can produce a high.

There are number of approaches that I use at this moment to teach about stress management as a heart beat by heart beat process or a thought by thought process.

I like to indicate to my clients, using some data from the book FLOW by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi,Ph.D. that the sensory nervous system processes data in packages of seven bits and that the shortest time between packages is 1/18th second, which is about twice as fast as you can blink your eyes, so this workplace stress management is going to need to become as habitual as the stress producing thinking, then choices can be made. (Stress vs. unstress, if you will).

And then I use a metaphor of driving. If I can learn to pay attention to the inside of my body like I pay attention to changing road conditions and variables literally turn of the wheel by turn of the wheel, and make many small changes to the position and speed of the vehicle, I will get to my destination safely.

By extension, workplace stress management becomes a process of attending to my thinking and breathing and making small frequent adjustments to keep the stress chemistry in a place of eustress rather than distress.

If fact there is some excellent evidence from EEG research done by Barry Sterman, Ph.D., with Top Gun pilots that effective relaxation can be done by switching brain wave patterns from beta to alpha, work to rest, and back in cycles per second, so folks get it that stress management does not mean that they are going to achieve nirvana and never have adrenalin or cortisol again.

Now my clients need a tool that will help them get my metaphor physically and here is where I introduce a heart rate variability biofeedback program, which is a computerized program that gives clients an almost real time (very close) picture of how their thinking and breathing impact their body.

Most of my clients are pretty amazed at the changes the computer shows them about their heart rate variability coherence, which is impacted by thoughts, while the client is sitting quietly, looking at a computer screen, and that change happens heart beat by heart beat.

I have yet to have a session in over ten years of use that did not provide information to my client about the validity of changing focus from external to internal for workplace stress management.

There is lots of very interesting science that the heart rate variability biofeedback folks have made available to buttress their product, and I will weave that into my teaching, but what really gets the attention of folks actively engaged in work/career is the impact that relaxation has on the growth of new neurons, and the opening of higher perceptual centers when relaxed for better decision making.

We did not know that we grow new neurons daily, which makes the brain bigger, which is better, in my my mind, until 10-15 years ago, and the research is saying that we can minimize that newly discovered capacity of the human brain by exposing those new neurons to excess adrenalin and cortisol.

The key to workplace stress management then is attention and choice heart beat by heart beat. After all, if your heart stops, do you have to worry about stress management?
by: Michael Logan
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Natural Cure for Flatulence (Wind)

Why does it always happen in a crowded elevator? That's what I'd like to know. Or even worse, you are out with a potential new boyfriend or girlfriend, and you really want to impress, when all of a sudden, WOOMPPFF! Embarrassing or what???

But don't despair! The problem is probably a simple result of eating the wrong foods or too much beer. Lets check out some darn fine ways of dealing with bad smells that don't cost much, and are totally natural.

Tip 1 - try eating 'activated charcoal'. Charcoal tablets absorb the gases that cause wind, and you can eat 'em inconspicuously several times a day if the problem is really bad.

Tip 2 - Chew food thoroughly. At www.freeremedies.com we always chew our food 100 times, whether it needs it or noMore chewing means less air when you swallow, and less air means less ammo for the old 'asscannon'.

Tip 3 - avoid know 'hell raiser' foods like cabbage, beans, sweetcorn, brussel sprouts, spinach, squid and monkfish. Although high-fibre foods are useful in your diet, they can lead to bloating, and unpleasant sound effects, especially when fermeted internally with any kind of alcohol.

Tip 4 - Fizzy drinks are a no-no. Give up the colas, 7-ups, beers, and other carbonated drinks. Champagne in moderation is actually ok, for reasons scientists don't fully understand yet.

Tip 5 - Caffeine causes colonic combustion! The caffeine in tea, coffee, pepsi etc can irritate the colon, and this obviously doesn't help.

Tip 5 - and this is the biggie, never try to 'hold it in'. Boffing is a natural function, and cracking one out is just the body's way of expelling un-needed gas. If you try to bottle it up, it will only come back later, double the strength. Don't give 'em time to brew, just sneak them out whenever you can!
by: Stu Collins
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Cell Phone Protection Against Virus and Radiation

Cell Phone Protection against radiations: ....

There are now predictable to be 208 million cell phone users in the U.S. alone, 1.9 billion all over the world. Scientists panic we might be on the verge of a health calamities of epidemic proportions. Dr. George Carlo, previous chief scientist of the cellular phone industry's $28 million safety research project, estimates 500,000 new cases of brain and eye cancer every year by 2010 attributable to cellular phone use (there are at present 30-50,000 cases every year).

Studies have linked cellular phone radiation to health problems like headaches, high blood pressure, brain tumors, cancer, Alzheimer's, and many more. There is a latency period for most diseases and it may take many years and more studies prior to the needed weight of evidence are founded. But the effects are cumulative and safety measures ought to be taken now before it is too late.

Here are few steps you can take to diminish/lessen the effects of cellular phone radiation contact:

1. Limit use to necessary calls and keep calls short. Even a two-minute call has been found to change the innate electrical activity of the brain for up to an hour afterwards.

2. Children ought to be permitted to use the cellular phone in cases of urgent situation only. Because of their developing skulls, the radiation can penetrate much more deeply.

3. Usage of ear an air tube headset (not normal wired headset). The regular wired headset has been established to deepen radiation into the ear canal. The wire transmits not only the radiation from the cell phone but also serves as an antenna drawing EMFs (electromagnetic fields) from the environs

4. Don't put the cellular phone in your pocket or belt at the time of its usage. The body tissue in the lower body area has fine conductivity and sucks up radiation more rapidly than the head. One study shows that men who wear cellular phones near their groin could have their sperm count plunged by as much as 30 percent.

5. In case you’re using the phone without a headset, wait for the call to connect prior to placing the phone next to the ear.

6. Do not use the cellular phone in enclosed metal spaces like vehicles or elevators, where devices might use more power to set up connection. The metal enclosure also acts as a Faraday cage that traps the radiation and reflects it back onto the inhabitants.

7. Do not make a call when the signal strength is one bar or less, which means the mobile phone, ought to work harder to set up a connection.

8. Buy a phone with a low SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). Most cellular phones have a SAR level listed in its instruction guide. The SAR level is a way of measuring the amount of radiofrequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body. The lesser the number the better. (Be aware, nevertheless, that studies with RF hundreds of times lower than present SAR limits still show biological consequences.

9. Use a scientifically validated EMF protection device. There are advanced technologies available nowadays that strengthen your bioenergy field and immune system against the effects of EMF. The EMF radiation causes a problem only when the cumulative effects due to frequent exposure weaken the body's ability to mend itself. Even when you don't use the cellular phone, 'second-hand' radiation and EMFs from other devices may also cause biological stress, so these kinds of devices are becoming more vital.

10. Take nutritional supplements, mainly anti-oxidants SOD, catalase, glutathione, and Coq10. Microwave radiation has been shown to lessen levels of these anti-oxidants in the body. These are stuffs the body makes to protect itself, and their levels are sensitive indicators in strain, aging, infections and different other disease states. Other supplements you might require are:

- Melatonin: a powerful anti-oxidant noted to avert DNA breaks in brain cells. Also effective in averting kidney damage from cellular phones;

- Zinc: safeguards the eye from oxidative damage and helps protects the levels of anti-oxidants in the blood;

- Gingko Biloba: an herb considered an influential anti-oxidant which averts oxidative damage in the brain, eye and kidney. Also helps support the manufacture of SOD, catalase and glutathione;

- Bilberry extract: conserves vision and lessens oxidative damage to the eyes.

This list is not exhaustive but represents dissimilar layers of interference you may do right away to guard yourself and your folks. Cellular phone radiation (and wireless radiation generally) poses a tremendous public health risk that can take years to become completely recognized. Certain experts go on to say that if estimates are right, then we are on the verge of a health calamities that could cripple our present health infrastructure. Let's not wait and find out if this proves factual.

Cell Phone Protection from virus:

Forty-nine million people can now tap into the Internet by cellular phone and that number is estimated to double in the subsequently year, but these so-called smart phones may not be very smart when it comes to viruses. As customer specialist Ric Romero found out, these cellular phones can be infected just like computers. Yes, a virus could target your cellular phone, but there are a lot more ways to protect your phone from getting infected.

Mark Copeland, a cellular phone user, lately got a new cell phone and it is loaded. His cell phone has Internet, email and it can even bond/connect wirelessly to his laptop. One more thing it can do is catch a virus.

But he ought to, particularly if he downloads documents, pictures or music.

Symantec spokesperson Sarah Hicks says, "We're starting to see an augmented amount of these kinds of malware hit cellular phones and wireless PDA's."

Cell viruses are frequently disguised as free games. They are very interesting to youth and young adults, but they can harm your phone.

Hicks stated that the damage can be anything from just changing some of the settings to in fact stopping the operation of the device and stealing information. Even draining your minutes, making long distance calls at your cost.

A lot of smart phones have built-in safety that computers don't. But smart phones are susceptible, even more so when they use Bluetooth.

Bluetooth lets people to use a wireless earpiece or to beam phone numbers amid a phone and PC.

Joe Farren with CTIA-The Wireless Association says, "Sometimes viruses can travel through the Bluetooth. So what we advise is people turn off their Bluetooth when their device is not having contact with another device."

But most of the people don't. When Mark Copland's computer searched for his phone's wireless connection, it also found another cellular phone not far away. That can be an open door for a virus.

"Subscribers ought to still take the same safety measures with their wireless phone as they do with their PC," says Farren.

If you access e-mail on your cell, be cautious. "Don't open attachments from populace you don't know. Only download content from trusted basis," says Hicks.

A lot of anti-virus companies are now providing software to protect wireless devices.

By the way, if you are a Blackberry user, you will be satisfied to know they are hard to infect. While they can read e-mail, they can't download programs and that is how most viruses get into cells.
by: sheldonkalnitsky
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Pre-empt the Radiation or Die

Professor Lawrie Challis reminded President George W. Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption with his invention. Now, it is time for mobile industry to put their act together unless they are ready to become the next customer battleground.

At West Point, in a speech, President George W. Bush shared the doctrine of pre-emption with his cadets that he articulated as a countermeasure to September 11 attacks. Pre-emption, defined as the anticipatory use of force in the face of an imminent attack, has long been accepted as legitimate and appropriate under international law. In the New National Security Strategy, however, the Bush’s first administration was broadening the meaning to encompass preventive war as well, in which force may be used even without the evidence. This particular idea had still been severely debated and really staled but Professor Lawrie Challis’s invention has brought the President’s angle back into perspective.

A simple magnetic bead can reduce the radiation from hands-free mobile phones to virtually zero. His set of kits stops the radio waves traveling up the wire and into the head. His take was mobile industry should start using it as a standard and promote it as a marketing material.

Mobile Manufacturers Forum rejected Professor Challis's call for them to be used on hands-free kits. They said, “Beads can have an impact. But the bigger issue is that mobile phones are tested to be comply with standards and have been passed safe.”

Reducing emissions to the head to zero is possible but manufacturers neglect to put them on hands-free kits. Ignorance is bless. Tests are king. The reality is, even one customer with skepticism of practices is enough for an avalanche in the industry.

Look at the tobacco industry… Undoubtedly, the most regretful people not to come up with such an idea like Bush’s were they. The most reviled industry has reached the peak level of saturation but could not cope with ceaseless accusations since the beginning of the 90s and lost enormous ground. The strategy of being contentious in good, old days - just like telecom is doing today - triggered looming litigation threats, which in turn, caused big tobacco companies’ stock market value to plummet dramatically.

Today, ranging from pharma to food, plenty of industries would be feeling the same pressure that tobacco guys had a decade ago. The lesson is obvious. If a considerably large company is somewhat related to health, it is to their benefit to take extra care of sanitary issues.

Professor Challis accepts that there is no evidence saying mobile phones are harmful to health. Though, he also points out that people have not been using them long enough for us to be sure. He, as the chairman of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Program, has a concrete point.

Adding to that, customers need to see companies doing everything they could to better serve to their health. Customers are customers but they are more hostile than competitors when it comes to the reasons of their doctor visits.

The simple, softheaded strategy is pre-empting the attack through applying Challis’s technology. This is a golden opportunity given to the mobile manufacturers. Take it, don’t leave it!

On one of those “Today Show” with Matt Lauer, Donald Trump said: “I learned a lot from my brother who was an alcoholic… And I watched his life just be destroyed, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I never had a drug in my life ... alcohol is a drug. I mean, alcohol and tobacco are both terrible drugs. And, you know, I’d like to see the lawyers start going after the alcohol companies, cause I think alcohol is a much greater detriment than cigarettes.”

Legendary icon can be called sentimental. Though, he is pointing fingers in front of the public and lawyers would be excited to follow his order. However, the reality is that, the effect would not be as bad as tobacco industry as they achieved to pre-empt the attack by expanding their product line into non-alcoholic beverages and transformed their holistic market message to ‘Drink Responsibly’. This has put industry into low-key.

Every possible way to improve end users’ healthy relationship with the product needs to be heeded. On some extreme cases, it may be unattainable. Then, companies should focus on health on their R&D purposes and align their product line accordingly, which can be named as pre-emption. Challis’s finding, in that respect, is given. Even though there is no sign of an imminent attack, it is the future where problems and past where answers lie. If mobile industry insists on not accepting it, customers will be there to hunt them down.
by: Burak Fenercioglu
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