Sunday, August 23, 2015

Weight loss and working night shift

I wish I had had all of this access to information during my life on the night shift. It is amazing what you can find. I worked 16 years on the 12 hour night shift. One benefit of the night shift is a reduction in stress due to increase in money, decrease in staff and the people on night shift in the hospital are wonderful to work around. My seizures increased as I aged and my hormones changed. I have been able to get the doctors to decrease my hormone levels and I have increased my thyroid levels. Feeling much better. It is amazing what little changes can do for you.

Veronique

How to Lose Weight Working the Night Shift

Last Updated: Jan 08, 2014 | By Judy Bruen

Working the night shift can take a toll on your physical health and well-being, causing disruptions in sleep, diet and exercise. Creating a strategy for proper nutrition, self-care and exercise will help you drop pounds and achieve a healthy weight. Consult with your physician before starting an exercise program.

Losing weight means creating a calorie deficit. Reduce your caloric intake by 250 to 500 calories for a healthy weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds a week. It can be hard to turn down sugary snacks and fatty foods when you are tired, so planning and prepping healthy food is essential if you work the night shift. Eating snacks and meals that consist of complex carbohydrates, protein, healthy fat, fruits and vegetables helps you maintain your sugar levels and energy throughout the night. Skip the candy and soda, and opt for nutritious snacks. Peanuts, fruits, hummus and vegetables, whole-grain crackers, low-fat yogurt and fruit smoothies are all examples of easy and nutritious food.

Talk to management about the food options in the vending machine or cafeteria, and suggest ways to make them more nutritious. For example, many hospitals offer healthy soups and salads throughout the night, reports National Public Radio. The Cleveland Clinic stopped offering sugary drinks, muffins and cakes in 2010 to encourage healthy eating, says NPR. Voicing your needs and advocating change helps create an environment friendly to weight loss.

Night work disrupts your circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock for waking sleeping. While you can’t control your internal system, small steps can help you get the sleep your body needs to function and lose weight. A lack of sleep slows down your metabolism, makes it harder to turn down foods that pack on the pounds and zaps energy to exercise. Switching off your phone and avoiding sensory stimulation after work helps your body transition into sleep mode. Reading a book, calling a friend or watching a movie may help you unwind, but they can prevent you from getting much-needed sleep. Resting in a dark, cool and quiet room allows your body go through uninterrupted sleep cycles.

Creating an exercise plan specific to working the night shift will help you lose weight. Too much stimulus before bed may interfere with your sleep, and exercise may keep you up. Going to the gym on your way to your shift is a way to schedule exercise into your daily routine. If you don't want to go to the gym, slot time at home to run, do a workout DVD or lift weights. Doing 150 to 300 minutes of cardio and two or three resistance-training sessions each week will help you drop pounds. While shift workers, such as nurses and fireman, may not have a lot of predictability in their day, small efforts do contribute to weight loss. Jump rope, take a quick walk or do jumping jacks during a break.

How This Watch Could Help

Save the Life of a Person Prone

to Seizures

Margaret Lenker Jul 13, 2015

Despite how movies often portray them, seizures can be subtle, go unnoticed by onlookers or strike when a person is alone. But a new watch may help detect the unexpected and save a few lives in the process.

“The Embrace,” designed by computing company Empatica, monitors seizures, stress, activity and sleep. It can also send an alert to loved ones via their smartphones if its wearer has a seizure.

“Our device is… designed to save lives for a lot of people with epilepsy,” Rosalind Picard, Chief Scientist at Empatica, explains in the video below.

Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder, according to The Epilepsy Foundation. The condition affects everyone from newborns to the elderly, so the Embrace works to help people of all ages.

The device measures both movement and physiological signals. It can be programmed to vibrate when its wearer’s stress levels are rising. A person can also access all of his or her health data through a supplementary app called Empatica Mate.

For every watch purchased, Empatica donates an additional one to a child who can’t afford it in a program called “Buy 1 Give 1.” Donated watches will be distributed through The Epilepsy Foundation.

You can now order an Embrace watch through its website for $199, but the estimated delivery date isn’t until December 2015.

Caregiving-

Generational Cooking

About the Book
Generational Cooking is not a cookbook or a story about cooking but a highly personal account from the point of view of a caregiver and how she has lived her life. It is a play on words, so to speak. Though the caregiver does make meals and serve them to the ones she cares for, all along, the caregiver is evolving through her life and theirs. The caregiver recollects childhood memories as an adult and relives them through the eyes of the loved ones with whom she made those same memories. It is the hope of the author that those who read may realize they are not alone. There are many of us out there with the same struggles and insecurities. Rest assured, there are many people and organizations to help you along the way. I believe that, even though going home again may present many obstacles and challenges, you can indeed go home again. Melrose will always be my home. It will be the home of those who have lived and died here. It is the home in my most cherished memories. It is home forever.

It is a lot of fun to read a book where you recognize the town!
This is a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.
I am a caregiver working at home so I really appreciate Linda's book. I am looking forward to finishing the book. Thanks Vickie for leading me the book!

I was surprised by the book. I was expecting stories of people. This author took care of the grandparents, the mother-in-law and her parents! amazing!

She gives you a lot to think about and appreciate!

I am lucky. I am able to take care of Dad and keep him out of the nursing home. I have a home based business which keeps me in touch with people so it is easier to keep from being bored and depressed.

here is the address of my business. Enjoy

cheerfulbiz.com

I wanted to share this article. This is a topic that we need but we do not learn in school and everyone assumes we know how do .

8 Goal Setting Tips For The Busy Persons Life

By Rose Alexander

Published June 22, 2007

No matter how busy a person may be, goal setting tips come in handy when you need to set objectives and start planning a short-term strategy or long-term future. Everyone has goals, but defining them clearly and organizing a list of steps for reaching them can be challenging, especially if you work long hours or manage a hectic office or household. If you are unsure about planning personal or career goals, the following goal setting tips may come in handy.

1. Get the big picture.Everyday life is daunting, but it is important to make time to sit down and reflect on your future. Where do you want to be in five years from now? To begin answering this question, it may be helpful to list several pertinent categories such as the following: Relationships, Children, Career, Personal and Miscellaneous. In each category, jot down one to three goals that you would like to accomplish. This should result in perhaps three to fifteen semi-specific goals. Looking over your list, eliminate those that are unlikely to be met, such as early retirement, or paying off the house early. You can always add them later after meeting more important goals. Clarify or change any goal that seems vague or unnecessary.

2. Prioritize your goals.Now go through your list and rank each goal with a number in priority order, beginning with “one” as most important. Goal setting tips like these can help you determine the best focus of your time and resources. Reviewing your list once more, pull out numbers one through five and put them on a separate list. These will be your priority goals setting tips to start working on.

Check the five again to make sure they retain their priority status, considering factors like time, money, and effort. For example, if your priority goal is to remodel the family room, but you don’t expect to save enough money for two years, then move that goal, even if it is your personal favorite, to a lower position on the list since you will have to wait for funding. Re-sort your items to see what appears at the top of your list now.

3. Set options for each goal. Begin with the first priority and list several possibilities to choose from. For example, let’s say you plan to begin a new hobby to ease the stress in your life. Once you narrow down your hobby choices, you are left with starting an exercise program, enrolling in an art class, and starting a personal journal. Beside each one, list the expected cost, if any, along with the amount of time that will be required each week. Comparing these figures, decide which one you want to start with, understanding that you can switch to another one if the first doesn’t work out. Or you can add additional hobbies later.

4. List a series of steps for reaching your goal.Each step should be short and measurable, describing something that you are relatively certain you can accomplish in working toward your goal. You may choose to start with keeping a personal journal, which has been shown to enhance immune function and relieve stress by allowing you to vent. You would take these steps:

-buy a journal to write in

-buy pens to keep with the journal

-commit to writing in the journal at least three times weekly

-commit to writing at least ten minutes for each entry

-commit to keeping the entries honest but confidential

As you look over your list, you see that it appears to be practical and do-able. You decide to give it a try. The plan is to give it three months and then review your goal and its objectives to see how things are going.

5. Take action.

Once you select your priority goal and determine that the steps to reaching it are workable, get started. In the case of journaling, buy a journal and pens and check your schedule to find the best time each day or during the week to write your entries without interruption. You may even need to schedule an “appointment” with your journal to give yourself time to meet this priority goal. Then just do it!

6. Check your progress.

One of the most important goal setting tips is to evaluate your progress throughout the goal-reaching phase. Most people are able to set and begin goals, but many fall short midway and do not bother to check themselves or nip problems in the bud. Instead, procrastination continues to put a distance between the person and her goal, so that she finally gives up and abandons it. Set up an informal timeline to see how you’re doing towards meeting the goal.

While it’s natural to fall behind at some point, you may want to decide whether to continue on and hopefully catch up, or set this goal aside and begin another. A lack of progress might suggest this is a time for personal rest and reevaluation before pushing yourself to do something that your heart just isn’t in.

7. Reset goals as needed.If after writing several journal entries or taking several art classes, you decide that the hobby is not for you, or if your stress level is not being helped by that particular hobby, you may decide to shift focus. For example, instead of writing personal notes in a journal, maybe you should try writing short stories or poetry instead. In the art example, if the chalk or drawing art class is boring, it might be a good idea to try watercolors or switch to photography. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the hobby in any form just isn’t working for you, so it could be time to cut your losses and neutralize for a while as you consider taking up the second prioritized goal.

8. Assess your success.At the end of your given time commitment, review your progress to decide if you have met your goal. Is keeping a journal a habit by now? Do you find yourself feeling more relaxed after writing an entry? Is this something you want to continue or give up? Answering questions like these will help you decide how successful your goal has been. You can then figure out whether to modify, abandon, or continue working toward the goal or start on the next one.

Goal setting tips come in a variety of designs. You might want to try another process for lining up your goals for the next few years or even just the next few months. Then it becomes a matter of arranging easy steps that lead to achievement and evaluating the effect of those steps toward reaching your goal. Some people find that tracking their goals on paper—either handwritten or on the computer—helps them visualize how well they are doing, as opposed to reminding themselves periodically to review the process mentally.

Setting and meeting goals can be wonderfully fulfilling, but it also can be fruitless if managed carelessly or without planning. Take time to seek out goal setting tips that will help you accomplish important personal missions that lead to a happier, more meaningful life.

Are You Street Smart?According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly half of all violent crimes occur within one mile of the victim's home. The danger of being the victim of a violent crime is very real. But with proper awareness, you can reduce your risk of falling prey to an attack. Find out if you're taking the right steps to protect yourself with our street-smarts quiz.

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Working at home

One of the biggest issues of trying to find a job while having active seizures on a regular basis is transportation.

It limits which jobs you can apply for due to your transportation issues.

Working at home is great way for people with epilepsy to have flexibility with transportation , doctor visits, health issues and the decreasing STRESSSS!!!!!

You can find a job at home or you can find a business where you are the boss.

Below is an ad for business with residual income and a low start up cost.

Come and be part of my positive, low stress work team!

More information is available on my website. Enjoy

www.cheerfulbiz.com

Cheerfulbiz