Stop Snoring Tips

For some snoring may be funny but for others it is no laughing matter as it affects not only their own lives but also their partner. Such people are desperate and have tried many snoring cures.
 
Almost half of adults suffer from occasional snoring while an estimated 25% of them  snore frequently. By age 60 about 60% of men and 40% of women fall into the latter category.  

The cause of snoring is the airway becoming narrower as the muscles relax when you are asleep. This means that the body is finding breathing more difficult and the result is vibration in the tissues of the soft palate and the uvula which in turn create snoring sounds.

Snoring is not usually a problem for the snorer unless it develops into sleep apnea when the airways become completely blocked and the suffer wakes up gasping for breath. However that will not be the case for the partner whose sleep is affected.

How to stop snoring is something most snorers would like to find an answer for. There are many products on the market some of which can be effective for many people but no solution, even surgery, can be guaranteed to work. The more effective aids can have side effects. A good example is the mouthpiece (this is worn in the mouth and holds the jaw in a position which maintains an open airway). Many people find this effective but it can result in a dry mouth and painful teeth.

It is therefore best to look at the common causes that you can tackle yourself before seeking help. The problem is that this is not easy to do as these are over-eating, smoking and drinking.

Things you need to do:

• Avoid sleeping on your back - Snoring is more likely in this position for anyone as it is easier for the jaw (or the tongue) to drop and obstruct breathing.
• Stop/Cut down smoking, particularly in the evening - You are approximately twice as likely to snore if you are a smoker. Smoke will irritate the lining of the throat causing it to swell. In fact the probability of snoring increases along with the number of cigarettes smoked each day.
• Lose weight - Overweight individuals have more fatty tissues in the throat which means a narrower air passageway which is more likely to become obstructed. Fat accumulating around the neck is more common in men.
• Reduce Alcohol (and try and avoid any other drugs that cause drowsiness) - these make the muscles in the throat relax and allow the airway to narrow plus the tongue may also relax and fall back making breathing even more difficult. In the worst case alcohol may induce obstructive sleep apnea in people who are otherwise just snorers.

The above actions will be beneficial to your general health so stopping snoring might just be the motivation you need.

Types Of Hearing Aids

When buying a hearing aid these days you are likely considering a digital model as these produce better audio quality and can be adjusted to your specific needs.
You will find numerous models available to select from and, if your hearing loss is mild (probably age related), you will have to find a good balance between cosmetic and comfort factors and price. As you can't know in advance what you will find comfortable or acceptable it is vital that there is a trial period during which you can return the hearing aid.
There are two basic types of hearing aids, those that fit externally behind the ear and those that fit internally in the ear. On the whole the cost of hearing aids is more the smaller they are.
Over The Ear Models
These fit behind the ear and a small almost invisible tube connects to an earmold that fits in the ear canal. This is usually the least costly type of hearing aid and its other benefits include:

• As the earmold is separate from the device itself it can be changed at will to find the most comfortable fit.
• It is larger so is easier to handle, will have easier to use controls and probably more features.
• Will use larger batteries so battery life will be better.

On the other hand:

• Most visible type of hearing aid.
• Inconvenient when undertaking physical activity.
• Can be affected by sweat and moisture in general.
• Inconvenient having two pieces to put on and use.

It is also possible to buy "open fit" over the ear models. These are usually smaller and use a comfortable ear piece rather than an earmold. Their size means that they are less noticeable which is a major factor for many wearers. However they are only suitable for mild/moderate hearing loss.
In Ear Hearing Aids
With these the hearing aid is one unit the goes in the ear. Difference types are worn:

• In the ear - These are made to fit the bowl-shaped area of the outer ear and will be visible in a face to face situation.
• In the canal -This type fit in the upper part of the ear canal and whilst they are less visible they can still be seen by other people.
• Completely in the canal. These very small aids fit deep into the ear and are virtually undetectable.

In general the smaller a hearing aid is the fewer features it will have, the harder it will be to handle and the shorter its battery life will be.
Advantages are:

• Provide the best appearance, the smallest in ear devices will not be seen.
• Enable normal use of telephones.
• All in one unit is easy to use.

Against this:

• Difficult to use and operate for persons with dexterity or eyesight problems (small size and battery).
• Require more maintenance and have poorer reliability than external types.
• Vulnerable to wax and moisture.
• Can be a problem fitting in anyone with small ears.

The prices of hearing aids are usually high if purchased via an audiologist but big savings can be made through online shopping.

Hearing Aids Cost

The prices of Hearing aids can come as a shock to people needing such a device. This article looks at why this is the case and what you can do about it:

 

The latest digital hearing aids can cost several thousand dollars and, although they are sophisticated devices compared with the basic hearing aids available in the past, their prices seem high compared to other electronic products. Click Here to read more.

Are You Sure You Really Want To Stop Smoking?

Have you tried to quit smoking? Maybe you made a new years resolution to do this with good intentions but drifted back to your old habits by the end of January.
This is not untypical, giving-up smoking is very difficult and requires considerable determination and willpower to do it on your own. It is estimated that only 5-10% of smokers who try to quit without any help will achieve their aim.
Nicotine addiction is strong and you will get unpleasant withdrawal symptoms but the main problem is the psychological addiction. This refers to the way that you come to associate particular actions, being in certain situations and certain feelings with smoking. When these occur taking out a cigarette seems the natural thing to do and you feel a strong craving to do so.
Below are some points to consider:

• Be sure that you really want to quit. Do not do it to please someone else because you will not have the motivation and, despite whatever help is available, you are unlikely to succeed.
• Make notes of all the points in favor of quitting so that you can return them if you find yourself wavering. In particular work out how much money you will save and what you can do with it.
• Prior to quitting it is important to track your smoking and the daily triggers that cause you to smoke. Understanding the details of your smoking habits and triggering emotions or activities will be vital in your fight to stop smoking.
• Select a date when you plan to quit and make sure that family, friends and colleagues know about it. This way you put pressure on yourself to go through with it and people should support you and avoid putting temptation in your way.
• Have a clearout at home and work and get rid of everything related to smoking in any way.
• Consider your smoking habits and plan healthy alternatives to smoking in the situations you used to smoke. If this is difficult you should consider avoiding these situations whenever possible. Be careful not to replace smoking with eating unhealthy foods.
• Get some support. This might be a local support group, an online program or just family and friends. This will make it much more likely that you will keep going.

There are also a wide range of commercial products available which can help. Most of these aim to ease the physical withdrawal symptoms in the early days. These include prescription drugs, homeopathic remedies and nicotine replacement programs of various types. There are also various therapies that can teach you how to train your mind to stop associating certain situations with smoking. Perhaps the most successful of these is hypnosis. You still have to want to stop and it is not for everybody but many people have said that this made the difference in them becoming a long term non-smoker.
The bottom line is that the key answer to the question "how to quit smoking" is to really want to do it and be prepared to do whatever is necessary to succeed.

Hearing Aids Prices

Modern hearing aids are much better than their predecessors but their prices come as a shock to many. This article looks at buying online to save money:
Modern digital hearing aids can make it much easier to live with hearing loss (although they cannot restore your hearing in the same way that glasses can restore eyesight) but they can be expensive.
Hearing aids prices vary from less than $100 for a disposal hearing aid to several thousand dollars for a top of the range digital hearing aid. Click Here to read more.

Free Web Hosting Sites

Free hosting is a popular search term on Google. It is certainly available but it it a good idea for people new to hosting. This article has some advice:

 

When first setting up their website or blog many people look at  free hosting sites. Should you go for this or is it better to pay for your hosting?

Well it really depends on what you are doing. If your site is personal and the performance of the host is not critical and your demands are not high, then  free web hosting sites may be fine, however you need to know what you are doing because support will be limited. If your site is business related you should always go for a paid service. Free web hosting sites exist for different reasons. They may be advertising supported, they may offer a limited version of a paid package (assuming that you will upgrade), they may be linked to some other service which you pay for and in some cases they really are just offering a free service.

However when you use free web service hosting you cannot expect to get the sort of service you would expect from a paid supplier:.. Click Here To Read More

About Contact Lenses

Perhaps you are thinking of joining the increasing ranks of contact lens wearers. A lot of people with vision problems prefer contacts because they are more comfortable than glasses and they do not affect their appearance. Glasses slip down your nose, weigh on your ears and nose, and have glare problems with light. You also have to have special lenses or an extra pair to keep the sun from blinding you when wearing glasses. Contacts lenses avoid all this and simply correct your vision problems and allow you to see perfectly normally. Most individuals won't even realize you are wearing a contact lens because they are virtually impossible to see in your eye.
A lot has changed since contacts were first introduced. A hard contact lens was the first lens to be made. This type of contact lens was made of a glass material making it very rigid and very uncomfortable for your eye. As a result most people chose glasses as the were cheaper and easier to wear. After all it was very easy to scratch your eye with a hard contact lens when trying to get it out because of the rigidity of the material. These type of lenses were then superseded by polymer based lenses which resulted in greater comfort. However these did not solve another problem - the lenses blocked oxygen flow to the eye and this caused problems with long term use.
The latest products are silicon hydrogel lenses. These are known as soft contact lenses. The material is like plastic and conforms to the eye easier than their earlier counterparts. They are also thinner and allow oxygen through. This thinner material tends to tear easily, but gives more comfort to your eye. It is an almost weightless material so your eye will barely feel its presence.
The arrival of silicon hydrogel lenses has also brought a range of colored lens which can be used to change your eye color. You may have seen some one with violet, jade, yellow or red eyes. These color contacts can be very effective but there is a downside. They are a bit heavier than normal lenses and they tend to let less oxygen through to the eye. Contact lenses are also available to correct to correct more serous vision problems such as astigmatisms. For people who need to correct both far and nearsightedness bi-focal contact lenses are also available.
The first step in getting contact lenses is to have an eye exam and get your prescription covering the lens type you require (of course you have to take the advice of your eye doctor on this). You can then buy a small quantity of the prescribed lenses to ensure that you can live happily with them. At that point you can think about buying contact lenses on the internet. Buying contacts on line is actually much easier than buying spectacles online as in the latter case there are many more choices to make. With contacts you simply have to enter your prescription and you will get exactly the same lenses at a much lower price.

Glasses vs. Contact Lenses

A broad estimate of the number of contract lens wearers worldwide is in excess of one hundred million. Clearly a lot of people like them and as improvements are constantly being made their practicality increases.  But there are disadvantages so it might not be a good idea to rush into disposing of your glasses.
The key benefit of contact lenses is that you can correct your eyesight problems without having to wear glasses. It will not be obvious to anyone else that you are wearing them so there is no effect on your appearance (however, you do have the option of changing the appearance of your eyes and there are many decorative contacts available for this purpose). You also avoid other irritating problems relating to wearing glasses:

• The simple fact that you have to wear something on your face may be something that you find irritating and uncomfortable.
• The way that glasses mist up in certain conditions or get wet in rain or snow making it difficult to see anything.
• Poor peripheral vision with glasses.
• Any activity, such as some sports, where glasses can come off or sustain damage are difficult for glasses wearers.

On the other hand glasses have the advantage that they are external to the eye so cannot do any damage to the eye and only require a quick clean occasionally.  In addition having purchased your glasses they should be useable for several years.
Contact lens are worn internally in the eye and inevitably are quite delicate leading to a number of disadvantages:

• As they are worn in the eye the chances of getting an eye infection are quite high.
• It is important to follow a regular schedule of removing and maintaining lenses to control the infection risk. You can avoid this by using disposable lenses but the cost will be greater.
• Contact lenses need replacing regularly so you are committed to ongoing purchases that will make them more expensive than glasses.
• It is important to have regular eye checkups when wearing contacts and this is another cost to bear in mind.

In conclusion contacts are superior to glasses in several ways but you must accept that they will cost more and you must look after your eyes and your lenses properly. If you cannot do the latter you will be better off sticking with glasses.

Where to buy them from
In the case of both glasses and contact lenses you should start by getting a proper eye examination and prescription. Having done that you can save a significant amount by buying online.
Contacts can be purchased from several good online retailers and you will get exactly the same lenses but it is advisable to make sure you are happy with the lenses prescribed by buying some locally in the first instance.
Purchasing spectacles online is a bit more complex and you may be better buying your first pair locally. These can subsequently be used to help define your purchase online.

How To Stop Smoking - The Aids Available

There are lots of aids and therapies available to help you stop smoking. Some sort of support is essential as few people succeed on their own:

 

Many smokers would like to quit and you might be looking for information on how to give up smoking having made unsuccessful attempts in the past. This is not unusual as quitting smoking requires determination and you need to really make a very firm decision to do so. It may help to write down why you to want to quit, to remind you when the going gets tough.

The problem is that smoking is both a physical and psychological addiction and beating the physical addition is the easy part (relatively).  People smoke because: Click Here To Read More.

Extended Wear Contact Lenses

An increasing amount of people who suffer from eyesight problems who wear contact lenses are turning to using extended wear contact lenses. There are many benefits to be realized through the use of extended wear contact lenses. Without doubt the most significant benefit is their convenience and ease of use. In fact a user of extended wear contact lenses could simply  insert the lenses and then go about their daily life and forget about them for a month.
In practice that would not be an advisable course of action and a wearer should be a bit more careful about his or her eye health. In actual fact wearing contact lenses for a long period without any "maintenance" is bad practice from an eye health point of view.
Experts in this field often suggest removing lenses from the eyes daily and cleaning them even if they are the extended wear type. Even with extended wear lenses, dirt and debris accumulate on the lenses in a very short period of time. Despite the fact that extended wear lenses are designed to remain in place for longer periods of time, this does not mean that dirt and debris accumulation will not occur at least on some level.
In fact a significant proportion of wearers of these lenses actually report greater eye comfort when they do remove their lenses for cleaning on a daily basis. (Some people even find that through a daily routine that includes a clean of their lenses they are able to extend the period of time for which they lenses last).
Some professionals go further with their guidance on the use of extended wear contacts. These docs contend that even extended wear lenses should not be worn when a person intends to sleep for more than several hours. This means that these experts want even extended wear contacts to removed every night which, it has to be admitted, rather defeats the point of buying such lenses in the first place.
At the end of the day, when you have decide on the type of contact lenses to buy, it is important to consult with a qualified eye doctor to determine what type of lens will best suit your particular needs. Regardless of the type of contact lens you choose to buy, you will need to make sure that you have regular eye examinations and that you maintain your lenses properly through cleaning on a regular basis.
Regardless of the type of contact lenses that you decide on don't forget that you can purchase cheap contact lenses and spectacles online and make major savings. With contacts though you should make sure that you are happy with those prescribed before buying a larger quantity online.

Buy Hearing Aids Online

It is estimated that at least 30 million men and women in the US would benefit from a hearing aid but, for many, the cost of a good hearing aid makes it a major purchase. Modern digital hearing aids can make it much easier to live with hearing loss (although they cannot restore your hearing in the same way that glasses can restore eyesight) but they are certainly not cheap.

The cost of hearing aids varies from well under a hundred dollars for a simple analogue model to several thousand dollars for a top of the range digital hearing aid. The two types of hearing aid available are:

• Analogue hearing aids - which are the traditional type. These pick up sounds with a microphone, amplify them and feed them to the user via an eyepiece. Usually the only adjustment is the volume.

• Digital hearing aids - which are now becoming the norm, are more like mini computers. Their big advantage is that they can process the sound before feeding it to the wearer. As a result they can be programmed to take into account the wearer's particular pattern of hearing loss. In addition extra functionality can be built in such as multiple microphones to give some directionality to the sounds.

If you realize that your hearing has deteriorated you should first consult an audiologist who will assess the problem and advise if a hearing aid is appropriate. If so, the audiologist will test your hearing and produce an audiogram then sell you a suitable hearing aid (or possibly two). This will then be programmed it to match the audiogram and then fitted to ensure it is comfortable.

The problem is that hearing aids prices are inevitably high when bought this way (as a large majority of hearing aids are). The big brands sell their products through audiologists and put considerable efforts into getting audiologists to stock their products. In turn audiologists do not want the same products offered cheaper elsewhere, so manufacturers do not allow this. As a result prices are maintained at a high level.

In defence of this position audiologists can highlight their costs, the training they have received and the standard of personal service provided. However, the bottom line is that hearing aids prices have more to do with lack of competition than anything else.

However, some manufacturers do produce hearing aids under other names which are sold online. Clearly this means that you do not get a personal service but for most people there will be no problems. If this interests you, have a look at Century Hearing Aids who offer a 60 day money back trial. Their hearings aids are made by a US manufacturer and are approved by the FDA. Their prices are much less but quality is the same.

It has to be admitted that purchasing online has its drawbacks and about twenty percent of people will not be happy (usually due to the lack of a personal fitting service) so it is important to be able to get a refund if necessary. But, bearing in mind the savings that can be made by buying online, it is certainly worth trying this method.

If you suffer from Tinnitus a hearing aid may help but you may also be interested in our Tinnitus Miracle Review. This is a comprehensive guide to the ear and hearing in general with much information on Tinnitus and how to treat it.

Hearing Aids Prices

If need a hearing aid look at this post before buying:

 

Century Hearing aids provide an online alternative for people shocked by the prices charged by audiologists. Modern digital hearing aids by the big brands like Phonak, Miracle Ear, Oticon etc. are quality products that are much better at improving hearing quality that the old analogue hearing aids. The problem with them is their high cost. Click Here to read more.

Quitting Smoking - Useful Aids

If you are a smoker who is looking at quitting smoking aids then you have a number of options. If you want to quit smoking you will find it extremely difficult without help:

Buying An Electronic Cigarette
There are now many electronic cigarettes available (although avoid the cheap ones) and these may be a good option depending on what you want to achieve. These are sold as an alternative to smoking normal cigarettes which is cheaper, cleaner and harmless to others. Whether they produce nicotine (and the amount) is up to the user but it can be zero. The electronic cigarette satisfies your psychological need to smoke so you are not actually quitting smoking but doing it in a harmless way.

Medications to Ease Withdrawal Symptoms
There are also many products that help relieve the withdrawal symptoms that you experience when quitting smoking, some of which are natural products. Smoke Deter is an example of the latter being a homeopathic product which is sprayed beneath the tongue when required to provide relief from withdrawal symptoms.

Hypnosis For Smoking
Of all the methods of stopping smoking the one with the highest success rate is hypnosis. This is nothing like the stage acts where a hypnotist makes people do silly things. The treatments for stopping smoking will help but you must first have made up you mind that you really want to stop smoking and are prepared to do something about it.

The basis of quit smoking hypnosis is that the majority of the addiction to cigarettes is psychological. Of course there is a very strong physical addition to nicotine and in the first week or so the withdrawal symptoms may make it seem impossible to give up. But after that period it is the mental and emotional aspects of smoking that are the problem.

The reason is that smokers come to sub consciously associate particular activities and situations with smoking. This often includes drinking alcohol and many other social activities but can be simple things like settling down to watch TV. Hypnosis helps eliminate the unconscious associations that cause you to crave cigarettes, thereby removing the conditioned urge to smoke. Hypnosis can also help you stay motivated by reinforcing the beliefs that gave you the desire to quit smoking in the first place. Hypnosis will help you train your unconscious mind to focus on the advantages of stopping smoking whilst combating the cravings to smoke and motivating you to stay committed to quitting.

Of course this cannot be achieved overnight and will require commitment from you.

Best Way Forward
As mentioned above the key to quitting smoking is to really want to do it. If you are just doing it in a half hearted way to please someone else you will not succeed. However, if you are determined, quitting smoking does not have to be an agonizing process. You can use a combination of quit smoking aids such as a prescription medicine to control the physical withdrawal symptoms and hypnosis to control the mental issues. This should mean that you lose the cravings to smoke and remain a non-smoker long term.

PS
One of the side effects of smoking is the staining of your teeth that occurs. It is now possible to get rid of this and whiten your teeth at home. Doing this will improve your appearance and give you another reason to stop smoking. For more information please visit clareadordental.net.