Load up on the liquids: Keeping hydrated at work is super important because office air-conditioning can strip the body of moisture which puts it under unnecessary stress. Try leaving a litre water bottle on your desk and finishing it every day. Drinking tea is also the perfect way to stay hydrated and calm down. Studies have proven that herbal and normal tea rejuvenates and relaxes the body. Just avoid too many coffees or sugary drinks — they only spike your energy so high that it comes spectacularly crashing down.

Take a time-out: Your brain is not built to work at full speed for eight hours straight so give it a few reprieves throughout the day. Closing your eyes for 30 seconds and taking a few deep breaths or looking out the window will help your eye sight and your stress levels. If you feel uptight jump on the spot a few times to release the tension. Also be aware of your own stress warning signs. Knowing what sets you off means you can prevent a full blown breakdown before it happens by removing yourself from the situation.

Get and stay organized: It’s a fact. A messy desk does not show that you’re busy and productive, it just resembles your cluttered mind. Taking five minutes at the end of every day to clean your work space and write a to-do list for the next day will make your morning arrival that much more pleasant. Being able to find things first go will also save your sanity.

Know your chill out trigger points: Emotional Mindeze Therapy founder Richard Link believes that by applying pressure to certain parts of your body you can correct imbalances in your energy system. To ease a headache Link suggests sticking your tongue out and biting it as hard as you can without hurting yourself for 10 seconds. To relieve stress Link says that rubbing the back of your head near producing bones will help. You can also ask someone to rub in between your shoulder blades for the same effect. And to calm down when you’re angry, tap your collar bones or hold your temples with your thumb on one side and two fingers on the other for 30 seconds to bring blood flow back to the forehead.

Scatter some inspiration around: Having clear goals will always help you get through the tough times. Remind yourself of why you’re doing what you’re doing and where you’re going by keeping inspirational pictures and quotes handy. Why not put one as your computer screensaver? Also nothing lifts your spirits like some positive affirmation so don’t forget to reward yourself when you do a good job and foster your own self confidence.

Listen to calming music: Soothing music with some deep breathing can help re-focus your brain for productivity. Headphones and music also help drown out distractions to help you be more productive, as well as deter co-workers from bugging you for general chit-chat.

Eat a healthy snack: I know when I feel like I am losing all concentration for the task at hand, a small healthy snack wakes me up and puts me right back on track. Keep things like pretzels, granola bars, dried fruit and nuts, and other healthy snacks at your desk. When you are feeling drowsy, eat a snack, and in return you’ll be helping out your metabolism as well.

Do some work-friendly exercises: Active Living has video instructions on desk exercises you can do at work in order to calm and center yourself. Stretching your limbs encourages the blood and oxygen to flow through your body and help keep you awake. If you can, a brisk walk during your lunch hour will also get the blood flowing again to help you through the 3pm brick wall.

Courtesy of Lyndonantcliff.com:

1. Do what you love.
Everyone loves to do something, when you indulge yourself in your love you improve the way you feel about yourself. You improve your self esteem.

2. Help others out.
Nothing makes you feel a warm glow than when you unselfishly help others. of course you can argue that this in itself is selfish, but if you take that line of thought you must think that existence is selfish. Forget that. Just do a good deed, help someone out, doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have to cost any money.

3. Acknowledge your strengths
There is no one who has no strengths. Everyone is good at something, know what your good at and give yourself a pat on the back. Do things that bring this quality out into the open. Excercise it, make it stronger.

4. Don’t put up with crap.
There is no reason you should tolerate other people being mean to you. Even if they say they are doing it with love. Make sure people know they should be nice to you and if they refuse, walk away from them.

5. Drop your negative friends.
Hang out with people who are positive and support you. It may be fun to bitch and moan but if you hang out with these types of people you will eventually become one of them. You may have noticed that people who bitch and moan are never happy.

6. Do your research
A lof of self help books are a waste of time in the sense that the only person who can change you is you. Reading even this blog post will not change you unless you get emotionally involved with the information. Which is really hard as it’s really dry and boring. Go read biographies of people you respect, people who do positvive things and attain huge success. Learn from the master not the self help guru who is always in debt.

7. Learn to accept compliments.
It’s hard to accept a compliment and not to dismiss it as being ridiculous. Someone has an opinion and it should be respected, even if you do not argree with it. If people think good about you then maybe you should too.

8. Include positivity in your life.
I’m not talking an airy fairy chant in the mirror whilst naked. I mean take a positive slant on everything automatically. The meat pie you just bit in to may contain maggots, but maggots contain a lot of protien. OK that’s a bit extreme but you get the point.

9. Compare yourself against yourself.
If you look at how you were yesterday and how you are today and there is an improvement then that is great. If there is no improvement then you know you need to improve your efforts. Don’t start comparing your self to other people. Saying you are poor compared to D. Trump is just going to make you miserable.

10. There is no need for you to put yourself down.
y seeing yourself in a negative light you are only reinforcing your low self esteem. If you want to improve your self esteem. Ask yourself, how can I improve my self esteem. The answer will always be, find one positive thing about yourself and that will do it.

I had an appointment today to see a skin specialist regarding a problem I’ve been having on the same knee that I tore the ligament in (which, btw, is doing VERY well). I showed up on time for my appointment, because they had mailed me the paperwork 2 months ago when I made the appointment, so I could submit it early. Which I was happy to do, because I remember when I worked at the Vet and we had new patients show up on time for their appointments, but didn’t realize they needed 15 minutes to prepare new patient paperwork.

But they lost the paperwork. So I had to fill it out again anyway.

When the doctor came in, he took a very brief glance at my knee, and by brief I mean I pulled my leg up, he took all of 1 second to look at it and immediately said he knew what it was and how to treat. I had enough time to ask a question or two, such as what causes it, to which he replied that no one knows. And he made sure to mention that it dates back as far as the bible, and our first hints to the problem were in the “bible.” By this time I noticed he kept staring at a necklace I was wearing and seemed very cold towards me. It wasn’t anything overly questionable, it was a yak bone necklace shaped like a claw with some Tibetan writing carved into one side and a skeletal fish on the other.

After he wrote a few things on my chart, he handed my folder to me with a prescription and got up and left. I made a joking comment about that being the fastest visit I’ve ever been on, and he mumbled something as he walked away from me and into his next appointment. I felt fairly put off, but didn’t really care, I just wanted to know what it was so I could figure out how to treat it. He prescribed Olux E Foam, but I don’t intend to fill it just yet. I want to see what I can do on my own now that I know what it is.

Luckily my case is very mild, is only on my knee, and just looks like a callous.

From the intarweb:

Psoriasis is a non-contagious skin condition that shows itself through patches of red areas or silvery scales that appear on the legs, knees, arms, elbows, scalp, ears, and back. Toes and fingernails can also be affected by losing their shine and developing ridges and pits. This condition is linked to rapid growth of the outer layer of skin, and is often hereditary. The growths of skin cells never mature and go through an entire growth cycle, leaving patchy, scaly, immature areas of the skin. The affected area tends to spread. The condition is characterized by a series of flare-ups and remissions, and usually strikes between the ages of 15 and 25. It can be triggered by anything that can inflame the skin; stress, illness, sunburn or any kind of laceration of the skin (like cuts, injury, or surgery) as well as poison ivy or bacterial infection. Although the underlying cause is not known, it is known that an unhealthy immune system plays a role in psoriasis, as well as a possible faulty utilization of fat. Toxins in the colon can also aid in psoriasis development. There are many natural ways that can aid in preventing and controlling psoriasis.

Here are a few:

Natural Treatments
EMU Oil
Castor Oil
Sunlight and Sea Water (Dead Sea is preferable) most recommended
Avocado Oil
Cashew nut oil
Buttermilk
Vitamin E
Goldenseal Extract (alcohol free)
Ginger Bath
Hot Epsom Salt Bath (goes with the sea water affect I imagine)
Mudpacks to absorb toxins
Cabbage Leaves compresses
Lecithin
Aloe Vera gel and garlic oil
Cashew nut oil
Wheat germ oil and castor oil
2 drops of calendula oil and one drop of oregano oil to one small cup of olive oil.
Marigold lotion - Boil 4 marigold heads in 4 cups of water for two minutes. Allow it to cool and then apply it on the affected area. Add lemon juice or cider vinegar to the rinsing water for a thorough wash.

Ayurvedic Supplements / applications
Neem Guard
Liverol Strong
Neem ka Tail (Oil)
Chalmungra Oil (Tubrak)

So, given that my doctor wasn’t exactly helpful in his examination of my Knee a few months ago, I’ve been doing my own research. I wanted to know what the anatomy of the knee was so I could figure out what in particular was hurting. Which at the moment appears to be the top of the medial collateral ligament and part of the anterior cruciate ligament. According to another website, the symptoms are the same for a torn ligament or cartilage, due to the fact that it hurts the worst in the morning after being in bed all night, or after a long period of sitting at work. And I don’t really want to take anti-inflammatories as much as possible, I may save them for any noticable swelling.

I have noticed that while doing some regular exercise lately, or getting up regularly to take a brief walk or stretch around the office, that it is not nearly as sore. I don’t know if this is particularly good for it, or what it really needs in order to heal, but it feels better.

I just want to be able to go up stairs again without excruciating pain.

I had an appointment after work to have myself poked, prodded, molested, and other such nonsense (sounds fun, right?). Actually it was for my recent request with USAA to get some life insurance. I’m requesting around 150,000 so that I’m sure my father is taken care of should something happen to me.

I don’t usually have “performance anxiety” when you have to pee in the cup, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t take me close to half an hour. I didn’t realize she’d be doing that, so I went when I got home. But she was cool about it, she watched my dads birds and talked to my cat while she waited.

Then she had to poke me twice for the blood, since she couldn’t get any out of one arm. I’ve never had luck with giving blood anyway. Fortunately I have a high pain tolerance so these don’t bother me pain-wise. I just get slighly weirded out watching the needle go in, once it’s there I get amused watching her move it around.

I also had blood pressure (perfectly normal, apparently) pulse, and all that jazz.

They also check for HIV during these tests, which is cool. I’ve never had one of those before, and always wanted to have it done just for peace of mind. I know I’m fine, because my only sexual partner was my ex-husband, and we were both virgins (though he did cheat one me that one time..). But you never can be too sure.

Hopefully I’ll get approved. I don’t have any diseases or problems that I am aware of besides my torn ligament (which is feeling better). At least internally

I’m a little woozy now.

As posted by The Happiness Project:
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I just did a generic water test on our well water here. I don’t take the results as the “end all” results, as I know home tests kits are not as accurate, but it still gives me a basic idea.

Bacteria: negative. I’m apparently supposed to wait 48 hours for the results from this one, which is a discoloration of the water in the test tube of bacteria, but I recieved results right away. I don’t expect these results to change, only darken over the next 48 hours. Ideally the results should be negative, cause of the whole death/e.coli thing.

Lead: negative. Which causes developmental harm, neurological and kidney damage. Ideally the results should be less than 15 ppb (parts per billion). I never suspected lead in our water anyway.

Pesticides: negative. From agricultural uses, linked to cancer. Ideally you want below 3 ppb of atrazine and bellow 4 ppb of simazine. No one in our neighborhood really uses pestacides for anything. My dad likes his bugs, and we’re in the woods anyway so it would defeat the purpose of having an exterminination service.

Total Nitrate/Nitrite: best I could tell, between 2.0 and 5.0 ppm. These are usually from fertiliziers and animal waste and linked to developmental problems. I don’t live near any big dairy or pig farms, and our animals don’t produce enough waste to make any difference. But I’ll never live near a big dairy farm for this reason.

Chlorine: 0 ppm. Increases cancer risk, bad taste and smell. Ideally you want below 4 ppm. I wonder what causes most of the chlorine contamination for people?

Hardness: 50 ppm. Causes lime scale and higher detergent use. Ideally you want 50 ppm or less, so we’re pushing this one. I think most of the folks around here have hard water, and I don’t really have the time or money to invest in water softeners. So I suppose I will have to deal. I do use a filtered showerhead, which helps, but doesn’t completely eliminate it.

pH: 6.3 Can cause heavy metal leaching, plumbing damage. Ideally you want 6.5 to 8.5 ppm, so we’re under the radar here. Though our pipes are the old copper pipes and extremelly old, so there’s been some erosion over the years.

Ririan Project posted 9 ways to live a more positive life.

#2 is probably one of my hardest.
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