Your body talks to you. Didn’t you know that? Not like the kid in Look Who’s Talking or the dog in Look Who’s Talking, Too (starring a slimmer, younger John Travolta), but it gives you signs that you need to learn to respect.

Letting the Warrior Mentality Rest
Sometimes you can get carried away with the hardcore workouts, the pounding, the sweating, the minor aches…and sometimes you need to just stop.

Personally, it’s hard for me to take a few days off from training. Especially when I am in such a groove with my workouts and weight loss. There have been many times when a day off has led to months off and many pounds gained.

I come from the school of train hard or go home. Ever since high school I’ve been told to workout hard and fight through the pain. The warrior mentality has it’s purposes but sometimes we need to lay off so that we can further our physical development. I once took a week off and came back stronger than ever.

Listening to Your Body
Recently my body has been begging me for a break. Guess what? I didn’t give it a break and now am suffering the consequences of that decision to continue to train through the pain.

A few weeks ago I was feeling soreness in my left shin/leg and figured I could fight through it. That continued for a couple of weeks until I developed a sharp pain in my shin. I was then forced to take a few days off from performing any leg workouts, running, or sprinting.

Then just last week I started doing assisted chin ups with bands. As I finished my last set I then decided to do some burpees (burpees are my new obsession). On my last set I felt my left chest tweak with a sharp, quick pain. Like a dumbass I figured I’d pump out the last 5 reps and deal with the pulled pec afterward.

So here I am with a pulled pec and sore leg. Why? Because I was using the warrior mentality to fight through the pain. This week I decided to lay off of 98% of my upper body workouts and to focus on light leg workouts. I performed some light weight squats for the first time in months this week and will be walking and biking for the majority of my workouts until next week.

If you feel tightness for more than a day consider not working that bodypart out for a few days. If stretching and rest don’t do the trick then see a doctor or physical conditioning specialist, just in case it’s something serious.

It’s Okay to Rest and Focus on Other Aspects of Your Health
One positive drawback from taking some time off is that I get to focus on my eating. Mastering my food intake sometimes feels like a full time job, but focusing on it solely while just chillaxing isn’t that bad.

The key is to not slack. If you are taking some time off from working out, say a week or two, make sure that you are committed to staying focused with your eating. Don’t take a week of rest and eat 5,000 calories a day on top of it. You will feel like crap!

Stay Motivated
This is a crucial time for me. I am losing weight consistently again and my workouts have been really good.

Motivation can wane during times like these, but you need to keep in mind that you will be coming back stronger and ready for some more ass kicking! Keep busy by walking, which is a seriously underrated exercise.

What do you think about resting and listening to your body?

This is an article from FatManUnleashed.com's Healthy Weight Loss and Fitness Blog.

Listening to Your Body, Resting the Warrior Mentality

by Fat Man Unleashed

Okay, let me say right up front that a) I know that headline is provocative, and b) neither I nor anyone can answer the question with any certainty given what we know and don’t know so far about Michael Jackson’s death. But the question needs to be asked.

It needs to be asked because suspicions that prescription painkillers may have been involved in Jackson’s death are strong enough that the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has been brought into the investigation. And we know that he had a documented history of battling pain and at least some acknowledged problems with prescription painkillers.

We don’t know yet what pain drugs Jackson was on or what they were prescribed for. But if he was addicted to prescription painkillers, that addiction almost certainly started with legitimate and needed treatment for real pain. And that’s where medical marijuana might have helped.

We know — repeat, we know — that marijuana can be effective against certain types of pain. As The Lancet Neurology put it a few years ago, “cannabinoids inhibit pain in virtually every experimental pain paradigm.” We know that human clinical trials such as this one have found marijuana to be effective, particularly for neuropathic pain.

And there is considerable evidence that marijuana and cannabinoids can act synergistically with opioid painkillers, providing better pain relief at lower doses than either class of drugs by itself. For example animal studies such as this one have reported that such combination therapy avoids the development of tolerance and allows effective relief with lowered opioid doses — avoiding the pattern of escalating doses that can lead to addiction and overdose risk.

And there is evidence that this same effect occurs in people. For example, in a series of cases reported in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management (which, alas, you can only access by paying for it — sorry!), patients on morphine and other narcotics were able to cut their doses roughly in half when smoked marijuana was added to their regimen.

At MPP, we hear similar stories from patients all the time: Again and again, patients tell us that use of medical marijuana allows them to cut back or eliminate the heavy doses of narcotic painkillers they’d been taking, while obtaining equal or better relief. There is enough science corroborating these accounts that they deserve to be taken seriously.

We can’t yet say that medical marijuana could have saved Michael Jackson, and we may never know that for sure. But there is simply no reasonable doubt that marijuana can help some chronic pain patients reduce both their suffering and their consumption of addictive and potentially deadly narcotics. If the U.S. government acknowledged that reality instead of denying it, lives could be saved — maybe lots of them.

by MPP Blog

An advisory committee to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted on Tuesday to recommend new restrictions on the popular pain relief drug acetaminophen (known in many other countries as paracetamol), which is found in many US top selling over the counter medications such as Tylenol, aspirin-free Anacin, Excedrin, and also in prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet.

by Pain / Anesthetics News From Medical News Today

Helen Thomas and CBS’s Chip Reid were among the critics who slammed President Obama for prepackaging a town hall meeting yesterday, reports CBS News.

The hour-long discussion on health insurance reform took place in Northern Virginia and featured seven questions picked from the live audience, Twitter and YouTube.

Along with a tearful 53-year-old woman who didn’t know how to get coverage for her cancer, the others called on all had close ties to the Obama administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials claimed this was a coincidence.

Even though one question did come from Republican Rep. Michael C. Burgess, who challenged Obama to support caps on medical malpractice awards, the question were by far and large softballs. On the other hand, a town hall meeting isn’t a press conference, and isn’t bound by the same transparency standards.

Regardless, at a daily briefing with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Thomas and Reid ripped into Gibbs, accusing him of prepackaging the event and trying to control the media.

Town hall meetings have long been a trademark of Obama’s communication strategy and it is clear that they are counting on public pressure to help push health care reform legislation through. At yesterday’s meeting, the President said, 8220;In order to make it happen, I’m going to need ordinary Americans to stand up and say now’s the time.”

Smart campaigning or unethical deception? Judge for yourself.

by GoHealth Insurance Blogs

The recession has unfortunately extended into summer.   Most economists are say signs point to the recession lightening up by the end of the year – but I can’t wait that long for a haircut, can you?

Since the recession hit, the concept of a “staycation” has become incredibly popular.  Many luxury resorts and vacation spots around the world offer salon-and-spa services, and that salon-and-spa pampering  is often an integral part of the trip for some vacationers. But with so many people staying home and trying to save money, they may feel that salon-and-spa days are out of their reach.  As a cosmetology student, this can is the perfect opportunity for you to swoop in and save the day.  Your cosmetology school can offer all the services of a day spa at lower prices than the big-name hotels and spas.

Clients are looking for a lower-cost spa experience, and you are looking to get hands-on practice in cosmetology techniques, so you are a perfect match for each other!  This situation provides a huge opportunity for beauty students and cosmetology schools.  In the past, people have been wary of the service they’ll receive from students at a cosmetology school, so having clients on a budget come in for pampering services in is a great way to prove how modern, professional and enjoyable cosmetology student services can be.  You’ll gain a great deal of experience in your area of cosmetology before you graduate and possibly even build up a client-base that comes with you when you start your career.

So, as a beauty student at cosmetology school, make sure you spread the word on the low cost and high quality of the services your cosmetology school can provide.  The recession is usually a bad thing, but it can be a great opportunity for you.

Is your cosmetology school doing anything to take advantage of these new opportunities? Do you see more clients on a budget coming through your doors?

addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.beautyschoolsdirectory.com%2Fblog%2Farticles%2Frecession-cosmetology-school-services%2F'; addthis_title = 'Recession+Fabulous%3A+Cosmetology+School+Services+on+the+Cheap'; addthis_pub = 'bsdblog';

by Beauty Schools Directory Blog

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by Term Life Insurance

A scary unknown for many children, the prospect of surgery can cause intense preoperative anxiety. While some amount of stress is normal, what many parents do not know is that extreme anxiety before surgery can contribute to the occurrence of emergence delirium, a distressing incidence of acute behavioral changes experienced when "waking up" from anesthesia.

by Pain / Anesthetics News From Medical News Today

"Siblings are Special," a pilot prevention program targeting fifth graders and their younger siblings, recently received $1.45 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse as part of the National Institutes of Health's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. The award is for two years. The program aims to enhance the quality of sibling and family relationships and thereby decrease risky behavior and use of drugs among youth as they move into middle school.

by Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News From Medical News Today

Novocaine? Not necessarily. The widespread belief that dentists rely on Novocaine to make those office visits almost painless needs some updating, according to an article scheduled for the June 29 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine. In fact, patients are more likely to get any of several other anesthetics than the century-old standby Novocaine, which once reigned as the archetypal dental anesthetic.

by Pain / Anesthetics News From Medical News Today

Women who get less than the recommended eight hours sleep a night are at higher risk of heart disease and heart-related problems than men with the same sleeping patterns. Research by the University of Warwick and University College London has found that levels of inflammatory markers vary significantly with sleep duration in women, but not men.

by Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia News From Medical News Today