If the sound of your own snoring frequently startles you awake at night- you are not alone. According to some estimates, about 40% of the world’s population snores, about 25% – regularly. For the majority of snorers, this condition doesn’t only affect the quality of their own sleep, but also of their spouses and families.

In its broadest definition, snoring is a condition in which blockage of the air passageways in the nose, mouth or throat results in audible air vibrations – the roaring or grunting sound that we know as snoring. There are many factors that cause snoring.

Most frequently, snoring is caused by obesity and is very common among overweight people. This happens because of the extra long soft palate or when excess fatty tissue that is characteristic of bulky necks adds pressure and weight on the air passageways, constricting and blocking them. For the same reasons, snoring is often found in children who have inflamed adenoids or very large tonsils.

Poor muscle tone of the throat and the tongue can also cause or aggravate snoring. During sleep, muscles are generally relaxed. When the muscle tone is especially weak, they can ‘collapse’ or collide with one another, causing the very same air vibrations in the passageways. Poor muscle tone can also cause one’s tongue to fall back into one’s throat, resulting in blockages and leading to snoring.

Poor muscle tone is further intensified by consuming alcohol or any other substance that has relaxing properties shortly before sleep.

In order to stop snoring, or at least to reduce the severity of the snoring condition, first find out what causes snoring in your particular case and then seek the appropriate cure. Here are a few popular and effective remedies that are proven to help stop snoring.

1) Nasal strips. They should be used by those, whose snoring is caused by congestion of the nasal passages. Nasal strips will not be effective in cases when the primary problem stems from a blockage in one’s mouth or throat.

2) While almost every snorer has heard of anti snoring sprays, not everyone who’s tried them experienced relief. Snoring sprays work by softening the hardened tissue or congestion that causes blockages in one’s throat.

3) Stop snoring pillows have taken internet by storm. They are very effective for those, whose snoring is caused or aggravated by sleeping on one’s back, as supine (lying on one’s back) position during sleep narrows air passageways. Anti snoring pillows work by keeping the snorer in a side position during sleep.

4) Stop Snoring chin straps are excellent for reducing or eliminating snoring caused by a structural problem of the mouth and jaw. The tight fitting mask keeps the jaw in place, thus reducing or even eliminating snoring.

While these 4 methods are among the most popular and well-known stop snoring remedies, not every one of them is guaranteed to work for everyone. For best results, learn about what causes snoring in your particular case, and seek an appropriate solution.

About the Author: Olya I. is a Toronto based freelance writer and sleep enthusiast. For more tips, articles and help to cure snoring, visit us at Sleep Through the Night.net To receive your complimentary 10 part email minicourse, sign up for 10 Secrets to Stop Snoring To find out about best snoring remedies, go to stop snoring exercises

Subliminal therapy is a technique that utilizes hypnotic phenomena for thera peutic purpose without requiring a formal trance induction. The protocol is effective as a sole intervention or as an adjunct to other forms of treatment. In this volume, the reader is introduced to the concepts and applications of subliminal therapy and taught its protocol as well. This includes establishing identifiable communication with the unconscious domain, uncovering influences that are causing current problems, and resolving those influences.
The logically applied protocol of subliminal therapy engages unconscious process to uncover the causes of presenting problems, whether manifesting physically emotionally intellectually or behaviorally and then to resolve that influence through re-framing and re-conditioning. The causes of psychogenic problems are usually not consciously recognized; only the resultant symptom the disability is apparent. Subliminal Therapy provides a practical, efficient, and logical way to identify the cause, as well as a practical, efficient, and logical way to resolve its influence.
Although subliminal therapy may be a new concept for professionals, it has been evolving over the past 30 years into a most efficient protocol. The technique has proved especially effective in the treatment of anxiety and the effects of early abuse such as sexual dysfunction, unresolved anger and psychogenic medical problems.

From the ‘Fathers’ of the Internet, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, to National Medal of Technology winners, Ray Kurzweil and Bob Metcalfe, listen to stories from the lives of modern day geniuses. Find out how mentors and educators inspired these geniuses to believe in their own powers of the mind and achieve their dreams in technology creativity.

In these stories, you will discover that these geniuses are not so different than you. With hard work, the right type of education and a bit of happenstance, you too can achieve the massive levels of creativity and impact on the world these geniuses attained.

Change the world! Make a difference! Listen to the stories within this book and discover your own genius within just waiting to escape and shine for the world.

Gina Rudan presents a guide for each of us to tap into our hidden capacity for genius and put it to work for extraordinary success.

Are we stuck with the IQ we’re born with? Not at all! Mental exercises build smarter brains just as physical exercise builds stronger muscles–and this is the definitive guide to becoming more of a genius. These 101 workouts will help you improve your memory, sharpen your reasoning skills, win at strategic games like chess and bridge, and make better moves in every area of life. Introductions to powerful mind-training tools, including mnemonics, self-hypnosis, neurolinguistic programming, and Mind Mapping, round out this mind-enhancing workout.

Cultivating Your Creative Life: How to Find Balance, Beauty, and Success as an Artist is a multi-faceted book where creativity and wonder intermingle to show how to live a creative and balanced life while moving toward your goals. You’ll delve right into the creative process and find practical and inspiring suggestions on making a living as a working artist. This book holds reverence and respect for the natural world in high esteem, using a central visual metaphor of the growth and blossoming of a tree. Alena Hennessey’s illustration style combines nature, whimsey, delicacy, and a modern sensibility; vibrant pen and ink illustrations accompany relevant quotes of inspiration, tips, and creative journal exercises. Cultivating Your Creative Life is not only an interactive creativity guide; it is a work of art, in itself—a beautiful, collectible volume—to save and to savor, or to give as a gift to the special creative person in your life.

Why does adolescence feel so complicated and intense? It all begins with the brain. NIH-funded scientists have been using advanced imaging tools to take a good look at how the adolescent brain functions. They’ve found something they didn’t expect. Although the 18th birthday means legal adulthood, important regions of the brain are still under construction until about age 25. These still-developing brain areas govern judgment, decision-making and impulse control.

The adolescent brain can be somewhat like a rider on a racehorse with no reins. “The problem is that the incentive/reward system matures earlier than the cognitive control system,” explains Dr. Lisa Freund, a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist at NIH.

In other words, the brain’s “that’s so cool, I want it now” part develops well before the “stop and think twice” part. That’s why adolescents are especially susceptible to the immediate rewards of addiction, sexual experience, risky driving and more. They have trouble controlling impulses and considering the possible long-term consequences of their actions. What worries parents so much is that kids don’t seem to realize how vulnerable they are to the risks they face.

Take sex. Among U.S. high school students surveyed in 2009, almost half reported that they had engaged in sexual intercourse at least once, and over 400,000 15- to 19-year-old girls gave birth. Of the 19 million new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) recorded each year, nearly half are among young people who are 15 to 24 years old. This age group is also the fastest-growing group of people living with HIV in the U.S.

It’s important for parents to take the lead in talking about sex. “Sex is a normal part of life,” says Dr. Lynne Haverkos, an NIH pediatrician specializing in health risk behaviors, “but how do you prevent the STDs, pregnancy and negative emotional consequences that can happen in these relationships? Middle childhood is the time to start talking and listening…then, as they grow, adolescents can develop negotiation skills and learn how to recognize and handle risky situations involving sex. Start communicating early, keep going, don’t ever give up.”

“Communication is absolutely key,” agrees Dr. Bill G. Kapogiannis, an NIH infectious disease expert and scientific director of the Adolescent Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions. The network conducts research and provides information on community-based services for HIV-positive youth. “The earlier you initiate discussion—including risk behavior, sex, mood disorders, drugs and academic performance—the better.”

Talking about sex may feel uncomfortable to some, but parents don’t have to go it alone. You can find helpful resources online and in community and school programs (See our links online). The most effective programs for HIV/STD prevention are taught by trained instructors, are age-appropriate, focus on skill-building and involve parents and health organizations.

You also need to talk to your teen about other behaviors such as drinking alcohol. Alcohol depresses cognitive control and increases the risk for substance abuse and sexual activity. Alcohol and drug use might also lead to situations where teens can be sexually abused.

Teens may not want limits, but they still need them. Throughout late adolescence and early adulthood, they still need guidance. Setting limits is important because it takes years for kids to master the art of making decisions. Adolescents are similar to preschoolers in that activation in various parts of the brain isn’t yet mature and interconnected. “This makes adolescents more emotionally reactive, especially around peers,” Freund says.

As the brain’s complex architecture develops, teens do begin to learn from experience and adjust their behavior accordingly. They gain the ability to grasp the wider world in more complex and nuanced ways. This helps them develop their sense of right and wrong, as well as objectivity, empathy and judgment. They may become more motivated by self-esteem and personal achievement.

Parents can help by encouraging their teen’s strengths. Talking, listening and channeling an adolescent’s ongoing interests can have a powerful positive effect.

When talking with adolescents, “the tone has to be nonjudgmental,” says Kapogiannis. “Talk it through, and reassure them that whatever happens, you still love them. As long as you have communication, you’re gonna get there.”

Freund suggests that parents use technologies—such as texting or mobile phone calls—to stay in contact with their teens. Even if you can’t be there physically, they should know that you’re available and that you care about them. “You’re not hovering, but they need to know you’re around,” Freund says.

If you have concerns about your teen, and he or she seems unwilling to talk about it, consider making a call to your child’s doctor—ideally, an adolescent medicine specialist. Make an appointment so your teen can talk privately with the care provider.

Adolescence is a stage that does have risks, and some kids may be more vulnerable than others. Yet there’s a lot that parents can do to keep their kids safe, make them feel loved, and help them move through the changes. Adolescence is not a disease, but a journey towards independence. It’s possible for both parents and their kids to enjoy this time—and even treasure it.

Source:NIH News in Health

Raised by working-class immigrant parents and later exposed to Hollywood’s most elite experts in every field, Access Hollywood’s, Today’s, and Nightly News’s reporter Maria Menounos reveals her EveryGirl secrets on everything: her systems to organize life, manage time, and ascend the ladder of success; her lazy woman’s workout; her weight-loss tips (how she lost forty pounds and kept it off); and her guide to styling yourself like the stars—a self-proclaimed EveryGirl, Maria often does her own hair and makeup for celebrity events.

In The EveryGirl’s Guide to Life, Maria shares personal experiences and photos from her life and professional journey as well as the various mantras, mottos, and philosophies she’s adopted from the world’s most impressive women. She gives advice on health, career, relationships, renovations, recreation, and more. From your carpet to the red carpet, Maria teaches the EveryGirl on a budget how to do it all, while living a healthier and happier life.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, and in this fresh collection of stories, husbands and wives share their personal, funny, and quirky stories from the trenches. Whether newly married or married for years and years, readers will find laughter and inspiration in these 101 stories of love, romance, fun, and making it work.

Foer’s unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives.

On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they’ve forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

Moonwalking with Einstein draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top “mental athletes,” he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by Medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.

Immersing himself obsessively in a quirky subculture of competitive memorizers, Foer learns to apply techniques that call on imagination as much as determination-showing that memorization can be anything but rote. From the PAO system, which converts numbers into lurid images, to the memory palace, in which memories are stored in the rooms of imaginary structures, Foer’s experience shows that the World Memory Championships are less a test of memory than of perseverance and creativity.

Foer takes his inquiry well beyond the arena of mental athletes-across the country and deep into his own mind. In San Diego, he meets an affable old man with one of the most severe case of amnesia on record, where he learns that memory is at once more elusive and more reliable than we might think. In Salt Lake City, he swaps secrets with a savant who claims to have memorized more than nine thousand books. At a high school in the South Bronx, he finds a history teacher using twenty- five-hundred-year-old memory techniques to give his students an edge in the state Regents exam.

At a time when electronic devices have all but rendered our individual memories obsolete, Foer’s bid to resurrect the forgotten art of remembering becomes an urgent quest. Moonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds.