This section is devoted to the information that will be useful in the creation of a Kin's Domains.
7 Discipline Mistakes All Moms Make
By Katy Rank Lev
I haven't been to the post office since "the incident." I was that wild-eyed woman with a screaming child, slowly working my way up the line as one customer after another let me go ahead. Turns out my desperate attempts to comfort my kid were the result of a rookie error. The tantrum came from an oversight I made earlier that day: failing to notice the signals (eye-rubbing and crankiness) that he was tired. No wonder he had a meltdown.
Kids do the same things when they're tired, hungry, or getting fed up; it's up to adults to take note and adjust accordingly. My son's moodiness should have told me to let him nap, then run errands when he was ready.Ignoring a kid's signs is one of many discipline mistakes parents make all the time, but fixing them can make a huge difference in the parenting experience. We asked the experts to reveal the most common missteps.
We are too negative
"Don't hit your sister!" "Stop pulling the dog's tail!" The number of things you tell your toddler or preschooler not to do is endless.
THE FIX
Ask for the behavior you want to see. Nobody wants to raise a child who doesn't understand limits, but "parents say 'no' so frequently that kids become deaf to it - and the word loses its power," Dr. Borba explains. Moreover, "we often tell kids not to do something without letting them know what they should be doing," notes Linda Sonna, Ph.D.So save the naysaying for truly dangerous situations (think: fork in the electrical socket or your child eating the spider plant), and focus on telling kids how you would like them to behave. For example, instead of, "No standing in the bathtub!" try, "We sit down in the bathtub because it's slippery." Later, when you notice your kid splashing away in a seated position, offer some praise ("I like how you're sitting!") to reinforce her good behavior.
We are expecting too much from our kids
You're sitting in church when your toddler shouts. As soon as you shush him, he does it again. Mortifying! Why doesn't he listen?
THE FIX
Play teacher. Very young children still haven't developed impulse control or learned the social graces required in public places like stores and restaurants. "Parents assume kids know more than they do," Dr. Sonna says.
When your child breaks a norm, remind yourself that he isn't trying to be a pain - he just doesn't know how to act in the situation, so snapping isn't effective (or fair). Focus on showing your child how you want him to behave, softly saying things like, "I'm being quiet because I'm in church, but if I need something from Dad I lean in close to whisper." Also point out what others are doing ("Look how Charlie is coloring while he waits for his meal to arrive"). Kids are born mimics, so modeling or drawing attention to something we want them to do goes a long way.
"It takes time and repetition for kids to learn to handle themselves," Dr. Sonna says, which means you should expect to give your kid a lot of reminders - and remove him when he doesn't get the message. Over time, he'll learn how to act.
We model behavior we don't want to see.
When you drop something, you yell. A man cuts you off and you call him a rude name. But then you get mad if your kid reacts the same way when things don't go her way.
THE FIX
Apologize and take a do-over. There's a boomerang effect to behavior: If we yell, our kids probably will too. Yes, it's hard to be on perfect behavior around the clock, so apologize when you do slip up. "Emotions are powerful and difficult to control, even for grown-ups," Renner notes, but saying "sorry" demonstrates that we're accountable for our actions nonetheless.
It also creates the chance to talk about why you reacted the way you did and offers appropriate ways to respond when you're feeling frustrated. That's what Deena Blumenfeld, of Pittsburgh, did when her son Owen, 5, protested so much about getting dressed that she snapped, "Just shut up and get dressed!" Realizing this was not how she'd want her son to react in a similar situation, she knelt down, apologized, then talked about how important it is to be on time for school. It worked: Owen got ready for school calmly after that.
We intervene when our kids simply annoy us.
You hear your children chasing each other around the house and immediately shout.
THE FIX
Ignore selectively. Often, parents feel the need to step in every time kids do something, well, kid-like. But always being the bad guy is exhausting, Dr. Borba notes. Keep in mind that children sometimes do things that are irksome because they're exploring new skills. (So your toddler could be dumping juice into his cereal because he's learning about liquids.) Other times, they're seeking attention. When it comes to reacting, Dr. Borba's rule of thumb is: When safety isn't an issue, try watchful waiting. If your 6-year-old is playing his recorder with his nose, try not to shout. See what happens if you just continue with what you're doing as if nothing is happening. Most likely, if you don't respond, he will eventually stop - and you'll feel calmer, having avoided a shouting match.
We're all talk and no action.
"Turn off the TV... I'm serious this time... Really!" Your kids continue bad behavior when warnings are vague for the same reason you run yellow lights - there aren't consequences.
THE FIX
Set limits and follow through. Nagging, second chances, and negotiation all convey that cooperation is optional, says Robert MacKenzie, Ph.D. To teach kids to follow rules, make expectations clear, then take action when they're broken. If you want your kid to, say, get off the couch and do homework, start with respectful directives ("Please turn off the TV now and do your work"). If she follows through, thank her. If not, give a consequence: "I'm turning off the TV now. Until your work is finished, your TV privileges are suspended."
We use time-out ineffectively.
When you send your 3-year-old to his room after he hits his brother, he starts banging his head on the floor in rage.
THE FIX
Consider a time-in. A time-out is meant to be a chance for a child to calm down, not a punishment. Some kids respond well to the suggestion that they go to a quiet room until they're chill. But others view it as a rejection, and it riles them up. Plus, it doesn't teach kids how you want them to behave. As an alternative, Dr. Sonna suggests taking a "time-in," where you sit quietly with your kid. If he's very upset, hold him to get him settled down, Dr. Sonna adds. Once he's relaxed, calmly explain why the behavior wasn't okay. Too angry to comfort him? Put yourself in time-out; once you've relaxed, discuss what you would like your child to do differently. You might start by saying: "What can you do instead of hitting when Milo grabs your train?"
We assume what works for one kid will work for another.
The best way to deal with your son's whining is to get down at eye level and explain how his actions need to change. But your daughter is more aggressive and refuses to listen.
THE FIX
Develop a diverse toolbox. It's easy to blame your kid when a discipline technique fails. But "you may have to go about getting the behavior you want in different ways with each kid. While one might respond to a verbal reminder about what is acceptable, the other might need a consequence when she acts up -- like having her Wii unplugged. Being firm with one child and touchy-feely with another isn't being inconsistent; it's tuning in to different needs and learning styles, Pflock assures. "The punishment should fit the crime - and the kid."
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9 Ways to Prevent a Meltdown - Your Kid's and Yours, Too
By Melody Warnick
A toddler in the midst of a fit may send you into one too. Yet most experts agree that staying calm is key to defusing an emotionally overwrought child. "Losing your temper doesn't just make things worse, it actually creates the very outcome you were hoping to avoid in the first place," says Hal Runkel, an Atlanta-based therapist, father of two, and author of ScreamFree Parenting. In other words, a screaming, raging toddler. However, the occasional parental blowup is normal, and it won't scar your child for life. But with a few coping strategies, you can head off two tantrums at once: yours and your child's.
Soothing Solution: Have a Tickle-Fest
Why it works for your kid: Giggling not only lightens the mood, it provides a physical release for all that tension - one that doesn't involve kicking and hitting. When Robin Alexander-Keenan's 3-year-old daughter Megan was starting to lose it on an 11-hour transatlantic flight, her mom lifted Megan's arms above her head and then counted her ribs. "By the time we made it to five she was hysterical and so was I," says Alexander-Keenan, of Haswell, England. "Now when I get really cross she does the same with me."
Why it works for you: Laughter isn't called the best medicine for nothing; it's long been known for its ability to reduce stress. In fact, one recent study showed that even thinking about laughing releases beta-endorphins, a natural analgesic, into your bloodstream. If playing Tickle Monster with your little one doesn't crack you up, break out the knock-knock jokes, or dive into a book by humorist David Sedaris while your toddler's down for her nap.
Soothing Solution: Breathe Deeply
Why it works for your kid: Even little kids can be taught to recognize how their body feels when they're getting worked up - hot, itchy, stiff, jerky - and can learn to counteract those feelings by taking a few deep breaths. In a calm moment, show your child how to pretend he's blowing out the candle on a birthday cupcake; then, the next time you see him start to get upset, you can use a simple code word like "candle" to remind him to take a breathing break.
Why it works for you: Dealing with your child's tantrum throws your nervous system into crisis mode, but slow, deep breathing shuts off those emergency signals. "If instead of yelling you stop and take a breath, you begin to calm your body's arousal system," says Mary SheedyKurcinka, author of Raising Your Spirited Child. "Then you can tell yourself, 'He's not out to get me. He's upset, but I don't have to be too.'"
Soothing Solution: Use Words
Why it works for your kid: For a 1-year-old, an inability to string the right words together exacerbates his frustration, which is why he'll resort to biting his big sister instead. But if you offer him words to describe his feelings, along with a bit of empathy, he'll feel better. "When I say, 'I know you are upset that it's time to leave' or 'I know you wanted that toy and you're very angry that Mommy didn't buy it,' I always see relief wash over my children's faces," says Sachia Logan, a mother of three from Independence, Missouri. "It's like they're saying, 'Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking!'"
Why it works for you: Simply saying out loud, "I'm really angry right now," validates your feelings and clarifies that you need to stop engaging with your kids for the moment. Plus, if you say it only on occasion, it can stop your child in his tracks. "It can be valuable to let our kids know how we feel, and how their behaviors are affecting us," Hal Runkel says.
Soothing Solution: Tap into Your Creative Side
Why it works for your kid: When your child is getting upset, hand her some crayons and paper so she can draw a picture of how she feels. Even making just a few angry black scribbles is a healthy way for her to express her emotions, and it lets her know that you're paying attention to how she feels.
Why it works for you: Getting creative by drawing, writing, or playing an instrument is the perfect way to vent, and it can channel the day's frustrations into a more fruitful outlet. Knowing that she'll spend the evening blogging about her kids' annoying behavior tones down Stephanie Elliott's irritation about it for the moment. "Sometimes I even say it out loud: 'That's a blogger!' And it's almost like I have to get to the computer immediately to get it out of my system," says the mother of three from Woodridge, Illinois. Blog bonus: Readers offer helpful comments and dispense sympathy when you're struggling.
Soothing Solution: Offer a Reward
Why it works for your kid: When children are learning to control their behavior, an extra incentive doesn't hurt. Throw a marble in a jar when they manage to head off a tantrum at the pass, with the promise that 10 marbles earn them a trip to the bowling alley or a movie night at home. It might make them think twice before they blow their top.
Why it works for you: Everyone loves to be rewarded for good behavior, so if you have your own marble jar, it'll give you a tangible way to track and recognize improved patience. "If you know you've got a problem blowing up around your kids, and you've started doing deep breathing or drinking a glass of water to calm down, why not take yourself to the spa as a reward?"
Soothing Solution: Count to 10
Why it works for your kid: Counting warns your child that his behavior is unacceptable without requiring you to launch into a lecture. Plus, it gives him a set amount of time to transition from one activity to another, such as from hogging the toy truck to sharing it or from roughhousing the dog to petting her gently.
Why it works for you: The mantra-like focus you need to slowly count to 10 in the midst of a battle with your kid enables you to ratchet down your anger a few notches. And it buys you time. "When your kid's driving you crazy, if you can just pause before you respond, that's when you can make a great choice about how to react," Runkel says.
Soothing Solution: Lighten Up
Why it works for your kid: Singing a silly sing, talking in a wacky accent, or pretending you're Cinderella's wicked stepmother is the parental equivalent of cracking a joke in a tense meeting at work: It reminds everyone that the situation isn't nearly as dire as it seems. "Doing something like singing shifts the area of your child's brain that's functioning, and that can actually calm her," Mary SheedyKurcinka says. "It breaks the tension."
Why it works for you: Getting a little silly forces you to ditch your angry face. "One way I interrupt meltdowns is by turning on some goofy kid songs, and dancing a silly dance," says VicciRadake, of Fenton, Missouri, the mother of an 11-month-old. She has also tried the technique with her daycare kids. "It gives me a burst of energy and gets the kids to forget what they were even crying about."
Soothing Solution: Go to Your Happy Place
Why it works for your kid: Children tend to focus on one thing at a time, so if you can nudge their one-track mind in a more pleasing direction, they'll forget why they were so upset. When 2-year-old Calvin Charles is on a crying jag, his mother, Jessie, of Brigham City, Utah, says, "Let's think about something that makes you happy. What makes you happy?" As Calvin wails, Jessie offers suggestions, like seeing a kitty, getting a hug from his baby brother, or eating marshmallows, until one of them makes him smile and he starts chatting about it.
Why it works for you: Mentally taking yourself someplace you love is like meditating - it calms and centers you. When household tensions run high, Carri Perry, a mother of five from Gilbert, Arizona, shuts herself in the bathroom, closes her eyes, and thinks of the beach. "It's like a 10-minute vacation without the sunburn, and I emerge refreshed and ready to handle all of their issues." Even if you can't escape behind a closed door, simply take a deep breath and envision your favorite place (that cabin in the mountains, a field of flowers) for 30 seconds to relieve stress.
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Disciplining Your Child, Spanking vs Timeouts
The Health Dangers of Table Salt
Salt is a wonderful thing. Whether from the far reaches of the Himalayan rock mountains, to the depths of the oceans floor, salt is a beautiful and necessary mineral. It's an important element in keeping the proper mineral balance in practically all of the earth's living creatures. In fact, every cell in our body needs salt. Our bodies rely on salt to keep good bone density, proper circulation and stabilized blood sugar levels. But how could something so wonderful and natural become a poison? Here are a few common misconceptions and dangers of salt.
Salt vs. Naturally Occurring Sodium
"Table Salt" is a manufactured form of sodium called sodium chloride. While similar to naturally occurring rock, crystal, or sea salt, table salt merely mimics the taste of these elements. Table salt is created by taking natural salt (or crude oil flake leftovers) and cooking it at 1200° Fahrenheit. Once the unprocessed salt is heated up to this temperature, it starts to lose the majority of the eighty important elemants that naturally occurr. Other naturally occurring forms of sodium, including sea salts and himalayan salts, are harvested and dried in the sun. They are actually alkaline minerals that help keep us hydrated, balance our sodium-potassium ratios, as well as fill the body with powerful electrolytes. They also contain all of the trace elements needed for proper immune, thyroid and adrenal function (that are completely stripped out of table salt). Real forms of salt also boost the creation of digestive enzymes and juices that allow us to
extract and assimilate other vitamins and nutrients from the food we eat.
What Is In Table Salt?
Commonly purchased iodized salts, available at super markets or sitting on the table of your favorite restaurant, have synthetic chemicals added to them. These chemicals include everything from manufactured forms of sodium solo-co-aluminate, iodide, sodium bicarbonate, fluoride, anti-caking agents, toxic amounts of potassium iodide and aluminium derivatives. It may come as a shock, but most table salt is not only unhealthy, but can sometimes be toxic. The natural forms of important iodine is lost when we manufacture salt. Without this natural iodine, the thyroid is severely harmed, leading to growth and metabolism issues. Because of this, the chemical-based salt industry began to add synthetic forms of iodine to their products.
Other salts add things such as processed white sugar and toxic MSG (mono-sodium-glutamate). And what about the color of table salt? Salt found in the natural world is not usually white. Table salt has been colored white with bleach. And where does this salt come from? Much of it is the actual flaky residue from oil digging. That is correct. Crude oil extract is one way we produce table salt.
The Health Dangers of Salt
Table salt causes the blood pressure to rise rapidly because the blood is attempting to move the toxic elements rapidly away from the heart. This is why doctors will often tell people with high blood pressure to stop intake of salt. Moreover, excessive table salt causes us to retain waters and other fluids. Many chronic imbalances such as diabetes, gout and obesity can be worsened or even partially caused by excessive intake of common table salt. And be aware, this salt is not just the stuff in your shaker.
Most packaged and processed foods contain astronomical amounts of the stuff. These preservatives can cause swelling and, over time, major kidney, thyroid and liver problems, as well as the development of goiters, asedema, hypertension, heart disease, strained elimination systems, muscle cramps, water retention, edema, stroke, heart failure, PMS, and even major nervous system disorders such as anxiety and depression.
Table salt is particularly hard on both the circulatory system and nervous system. It also wreaks havoc on the delicate balance of the lymph system in the body. This salt is also highly addictive, as the more the body becomes used to the high levels of fake sodium, the more it craves it.
Salt is currently considered a leading culprit for high blood pressure and other health problems. This is based on the premise that a high sodium intake creates high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attacks, arterial, and kidney problems. Salt is high in sodium. But sodium is essential for proper absorption of other major nutrients and functioning of nerves and muscles, as well as being necessary for balancing water and minerals in the body.
Lately there have been studies that strongly question the research on sodium hazards, as well as the recommended maximum sodium intakes from that research. There has been a survey in New York, conducted over several years on hypertension prone locals, which showed that those with high sodium intakes had proportionately less heart attacks than those who were put on low sodium diets! And now there are even MD's who claim that the right type of salt, unrefined, has more health benefits than health hazards.
A major confusion is that only refined commercial and household salt is known as salt to most of medical science and consumers. It is the most prevalent, by far. Refined salt, stripped of its natural mineral structure, is virtually all sodium. As a matter of fact, it is 97% to 99% sodium! That's why it is called Sodium Chloride. Processed foods are laced with Sodium Chloride refined salt as well as with other types of sodium, such as sodium benzoate, sodium nitrate, and the notorious monosodium glutamate (MSG). So if you are concerned about your sodium levels, then cut out processed foods!
Part of the process for refined salt, or commercial table salt, involves the use of aluminum, ferro cyanide and bleach. These are all toxic materials that your body takes in with refined, commercial salt. And because of that process, almost all the vital minerals that real, unrefined salt can offer are removed! One or two servings of refined salt won't send you to the grave. But continued almost daily use will avail you to the perils of aluminum toxicity. Ferro cyanide is listed by the EPA as a toxic material for human consumption. You are probably aware of the hazards to human health of chlorine, which is used to bleach the salt.
According to Dr. David Brownstein, author of Salt Your Way to Health, unrefined salt is an excellent detoxification aid, as well as a provider of mineral nutrients in a naturally bio-available balance. There are usually around 80 minerals and essential trace elements in unrefined, organic salt. Soil grown food is lacking in many of these because the soil has been depleted of trace elements and minerals.
Some of the major minerals included with unrefined salt are: Magnesium (a very essential metabolic agent), calcium, potassium, and sulfate. Obviously, sodium is present also, but it comprises only 50% of the total mineral content rather than the 99% sodium in refined table salt.
Regular consumer table salt, refined, sometimes has iodine added in order to promote thyroid health. Dr. Brownstien has devoted a good deal of his practice and research on thyroid and glandular health. He says there is less iodized salt now than before, and the amount of iodine in iodized salt is insufficient for optimum thyroid health anyway. Iodine is an important agent for glandular health, and it is also scarcely present in our food anymore. Unless you eat a lot of seafood and roll the dice with mercury!
Dr. Brownstein strongly advocates the use of unrefined, organic salt with iodine supplements, preferably a combination of potassium iodide and iodine. He maintains that these two dietary items contribute largely toward optimum endocrine health, which is vital for a strong immune system. Unrefined salt has a distinctively different look from refined salt. It is usually too course to be used in salt shaker. You may want to invest in a salt grinder. And it is usually not very white. Off white is more common, even pink or gray for unrefined pure salt. The extreme white of common household or commercial salt is a result of bleaching. But buyer beware, some so called sea salts offered on line and especially in health food stores are at least partially processed. Avoid sea salt that is too white and too fine as a rule of thumb.
If you are very concerned about getting the purest available product, and you don't have anyone's advice you can trust, look for "organic certification". Since salt is mined or taken from salt water beds, organic has different implications than produce and animal product organic requirements. But the standards are there and they are strict. The two groups that certify salt as organic are BIO-GRO of New Zealand, and Nature and Progresre of France.
You may come across an analysis of organic salt minerals, or a commentary on such that mentions fluoride as a constituent. But there are two types of fluoride. One, Calcium Fluoride, is an element that occurs as a natural process over time within the earth's soil, rock, and water areas. This is the fluoride that originally was claimed as a deterrent against tooth decay. Wikipedia notes that while all other fluorides are dangerous for human consumption, calcium fluoride is not. And it's Calcium Fluoride that would be in any unrefined salt analysis.
The other fluoride, Sodium Fluoride, is a synthetic, poisonous fluoride. It has been used as rat poison. It's a waste by-product of the aluminum industry, fertilizer industry, and nuclear industry. It's their way of picking up a lot of easy bucks by selling it to municipalities for their water supplies instead of suffering the expense of getting rid of it. That's the stuff that's been going into our water supplies, causing health problems, and assisting in the dumbing down of America. Either the dentists didn't distinguish between those two, or perhaps they didn't even know there were two types of fluoride.
It appears that organically produced, unrefined salt should be a healthy addition to our diets. It offers bio-available, balanced minerals that aren't naturally present in our food chain. It does not contain the poisons of industry that are a part of refined salt. Yes, too much of a good thing can be bad. But again, the sodium of refined salt and other food additives is curbed best by eliminating processed foods, which contain several toxic sodium sources as well as unrefined salt, from the diet. Dr. Brownstein's advice, using organic, unrefined salt with a little bit of iodine supplementation, seems like a natural and economical way to boost one's immune system.
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Get Salt as Nature Intended It - Pure Himalayan Crystal Salt
Today's table and cooking salt is void of the vital trace minerals that make this Himalayan crystal salt so precious. Crystal salt has spent over 250 million years maturing under extreme tectonic pressure, far away from exposure to impurities.
The salt's unique structure also stores vibrational energy. All of the crystal salt's inherent minerals and trace elements are available in colloidal form - meaning they are so small your cells can readily absorb them.
The Crystal Salt from the Himalayas does not burden your body as other salts do. It is very difficult for your body to absorb too much crystal salt since there are powerful and effective feedback loops that regulate this process. Natural crystal salt always promotes a healthy balance and does not contribute to high blood pressure like typical table salt.
Crystal Salt's array of elements forms a compound in which each molecule is inter-connected. The connectedness allows the vibrational component of the 84 trace elements present in the salt to be in harmony with each other and adds to the ability to promote a healthy balance. When it comes to the power of natural salt, nothing compares to Himalayan Crystal Salt. Here's why:
- It is the highest grade of natural salt.
- Under an electron microscope, crystal salt has a perfect crystalline structure.
- It is mined by hand and hand-washed.
- Crystal salt is immune to electromagnetic fields
- Crystal Salt contains no environmental pollutants.
- There is no limited shelf life and no need for silica packets to prevent clumping.
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Key Minerals in Himalayan Crystal Salt Promote a Healthy Balance in Your Body
Himalayan Crystal Salt is salt in its native form, with all its vibrational energy intact and it helps promote a healthy balance in your body. Promoting balanced electrolytes helps to keep your body in homeostasis - the balance of chemicals that is conducive to the body's function.
The renowned Frezenius Institute in Europe analyzed the Himalayan Crystal Salt and proved that it has an amazing array of important trace minerals and elements including potassium, calcium and magnesium that help promote a healthy balance by maintaining fluids and replenishing your supply of electrolytes whenever you sweat heavily. (This salt does not supply iodide, a necessary nutrient.)
Himalayan Salt vs. Sea Salt and Rock Salt: A Crystal Comparison
Many people believe sea salt is a healthy alternative to table salt, but this is no longer the case. The oceans are being used as dumping grounds for harmful toxic poisons like mercury, PCBs and dioxin. Reports of oil spills polluting the sea are becoming more frequent. With some 89% of all the sea salt producers now refining their salt, today's sea salt simply isn't as healthy as it used to be.
If you were to look into a microscope at sea salt you would see it has irregular and isolated crystalline structures disconnected from the natural elements surrounding them. Thus, however many vital minerals it may contain, they cannot be absorbed by your body unless the body expends tremendous energy to vitalize them. Your body's net gain is small compared to the great loss of energy.
Because the crystalline structure of crystal salt is balanced, it is not isolated from the 84 inherent mineral elements, but is connected to them in a harmonious state. This means the energy content in the form of minerals can be easily metabolized by your body. When you use this salt it has a vital energetic effect. Your body gets an ample net gain with little energy loss.
Mined salt, or rock salt, is also a poor substitute for Himalayan Crystal Salt. While natural rock salt comes close to being intact and is more valuable than industrial table salt, from a biophysical as well as bio-chemical perspective, it holds little value.
The elements contained in rock salt lack sufficient compression to be included in the crystal web, but are only attached to the surface and in the gaps of the crystalline structure. It is the considerable pressure that brings the elements to a colloidal state - where your cells can readily absorb them. The valuable elements found in rock salt are useless because your body cannot absorb and metabolize them.
A New and Different Way to Experience the Salty-Sweet Goodness of Himalayan Crystal Salt
Not only is Himalayan Crystal Salt far healthier for your body than commercial salt, its taste is unforgettable. Once you try Himalayan salt, I can promise you that you'll never want to use commercial salt again – I know I don't.
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Amazing Health Benefits of Himalayan Salt
Sleep: Understanding the Basics
By Michael B Russo, MD, Shehnaz Shaikh, MD
Basics of Sleep. Introduction
Sleep is defined as a state of unconsciousness from which a person can be aroused. In this state, the brain is relatively more responsive to internal stimuli than external stimuli. Sleep should be distinguished from coma. Coma is an unconscious state from which a person cannot be aroused. Sleep is essential for the normal, healthy functioning of the human body. It is a complicated physiological phenomenon that scientists do not fully understand.
Historically, sleep was thought to be a passive state. However, sleep is now known to be a dynamic process, and our brains are active during sleep. Sleep affects our physical and mental health, and is essential for the normal functioning of all the systems of our body, including the immune system. The effect of sleep on the immune system affects one's ability to fight disease and endure sickness.
States of brain activity during sleep and wakefulness result from different activating and inhibiting forces that are generated within the brain. Neurotransmitters (chemicals involved in nerve signaling) control whether one is asleep or awake by acting on nerve cells (neurons) in different parts of the brain. Neurons located in the brainstem actively cause sleep by inhibiting other parts of the brain that keep a person awake.
Importance of Sleep
Animal studies have shown that sleep is necessary for survival. The normal life span of rats is 2-3 years. However, rats deprived of sleep live for only about 3 weeks. They also develop abnormally low body temperatures and sores on their tails and paws. The sores probably develop because of impairment of the rats' immune systems.
In humans, it has been demonstrated that the metabolic activity of the brain decreases significantly after 24 hours of sustained wakefulness. Sleep deprivation results in a decrease in body temperature, a decrease in immune system function as measured by white blood cell count (the soldiers of the body), and a decrease in the release of growth hormone. Sleep deprivation can also cause increased heart rate variability.
For our nervous systems to work properly, sleep is needed. Sleep deprivation makes a person drowsy and unable to concentrate the next day. It also leads to impairment of memory and physical performance and reduced ability to carry out mathematical calculations. If sleep deprivation continues, hallucinations and mood swings may develop.
Release of growth hormone in children and young adults takes place during deep sleep. Most cells of the body show increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins during deep sleep. Sleep helps humans maintain optimal emotional and social functioning while we are awake by giving rest during sleep to the parts of the brain that control emotions and social interactions.
Stages of Sleep
As mentioned earlier, sleep is a dynamic process. There are 2 distinct states that alternate in cycles and reflect differing levels of neuronal activity. Each state is characterized by a different type of brain wave (electrical activity that is recorded with the help of electrodes placed on the skull) activity. Sleep consists of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. NREM is further subdivided into the following 4 stages:
Stage I (light sleep)
Stage II
Stage III & IV (deep sleep)
The stages of NREM sleep and REM sleep cycle over and over again during a night's sleep. Stages I, II, III, and IV are followed by REM sleep. A complete sleep cycle, from the beginning of stage I to the end of REM sleep, usually takes about one and a half hours.
For the purpose of analysis, a night's sleep is divided into 3 equal time periods: sleep in the first third of the night, which comprises the highest percentage of NREM; sleep in the middle third of the night; and sleep in the last third of the night, the majority of which is REM. Awakening after a full night's sleep is usually from REM sleep.
NREM Sleep
Stage I is a stage of light sleep and is considered a transition between wakefulness and sleep. During this stage, the muscles begin to relax. It occurs upon falling asleep and during brief arousal periods within sleep, and usually accounts for 5-10% of total sleep time. An individual can be easily awakened during this stage.
Stage II occurs throughout the sleep period and represents 40-50% of the total sleep time. During stage II, brain waves slow down with occasional bursts of rapid waves. Eye movement stops during this stage.
In stage III, extremely slow brain waves called delta waves begin to appear. They are interspersed with smaller, faster waves. In stage IV, delta waves are the primary waves recorded from the brain. These 2 stages are distinguished from each other only by the percentage of delta activity. Together they represent up to 20% of total sleep time. Stages III and IV are called deep sleep, during which all eye and muscle movement ceases. It is difficult to wake up someone during these 2 stages. If someone is awakened during deep sleep, he does not adjust immediately and often feels groggy and disoriented for several minutes after waking up. Some children experience bedwetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during deep sleep.
REM Sleep
REM sleep represents 20-25% of the total sleep time. REM sleep follows NREM sleep and occurs 4-5 times during a normal 8- to 9-hour sleep period. The first REM period of the night may be less than 10 minutes in duration, while the last may exceed 60 minutes. In a normal night's sleep, bouts of REM occur every 90 minutes.
When the person is extremely sleepy, the duration of each bout of REM sleep is very short or it may even be absent. REM sleep is usually associated with dreaming. During REM sleep, the eyeballs move rapidly, the heart rate and breathing become rapid and irregular, and the blood pressure rises. The muscles of the body are virtually paralyzed. The brain is highly active during REM sleep, and the overall brain metabolism may be increased by as much as 20%. The electrical activity recorded in the brain during REM sleep is similar to that which is recorded during wakefulness.
Sleep at Different Stages of Life
Infancy
Infants have an overall greater total sleep time than any other age group. Their sleep time can be divided into multiple periods. In newborns, the total sleep duration in a day can be 14-16 hours. Over the first several months of life, sleep time decreases; by age 5-6 months, sleep consolidates into an overnight period with at least 1 nap during the day.
REM sleep in infants represents a larger percentage of the total sleep at the expense of stages III and IV. Until age 3-4 months, newborns transition from wakefulness into REM sleep. Thereafter, wakefulness begins to transition directly into NREM sleep.
Adulthood
In adults, sleep of 8-8.4 hours is considered fully restorative. In some cultures, total sleep is often divided into an overnight sleep period of 6-7 hours and a nap of 1-2 hours.
Some people may need as little as 5 hours or as much as 10 hours of sleep every day. The period of time a person sleeps depends also on the fact whether he or she has been deprived of sleep in previous days. Sleeping too little creates a "sleep debt." This debt needs to be adjusted by sleeping for longer periods over the next few days. People who sleep less have an impairment of judgment and reaction time.
Old age
People tend to sleep more lightly and for shorter periods as they get older. In elderly persons, the time spent in stages III and IV decreases by 10-15%, and the time in stage II increases by 5% compared to young adults, representing an overall decrease in total sleep duration.
Time taken to fall asleep and the number and duration of overnight arousal periods increase. Thus, to have a fully restorative sleep, the total time in bed must increase. If the elderly person does not increase the total time in bed, complaints of insomnia and chronic sleepiness may occur.
Sleep fragmentation results from the increase in overnight arousals and may be exacerbated by the increasing number of medical conditions related to old age, including sleep apnea (interrupted breathing during sleep), musculoskeletal disorders, and cardiopulmonary disease.
Rhythms That Influence Sleep
Biological variations that occur in the course of 24 hours are called circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are controlled by the body's biological clock. Many bodily functions follow the biologic clock, but sleep and wakefulness comprise the most important circadian rhythm. Circadian sleep rhythm is one of the several body rhythms modulated by the hypothalamus (a part of the brain).
Light directly affects the circadian sleep rhythm. Light is called a zeitgeber, a German word meaning time-giver, because it sets the biological clock. A practical purpose has been proposed for the circadian rhythm, using the analogy of the brain being somewhat like a battery charging during sleep and discharging during wakefulness.
Body temperature cycles are also under control of the hypothalamus. An increase in body temperature is seen during the course of the day and a decrease is observed during the night. The temperature peaks and troughs are thought to mirror the sleep rhythm. People who are alert late in the evening (ie, evening types) have body temperature peaks late in the evening, while those who find themselves most alert early in the morning (ie, morning types) have body temperature peaks early in the evening.
Melatonin (a chemical produced by the pineal gland in the brain) has been implicated as a modulator of light entrainment. It is secreted maximally during the night. Prolactin, testosterone, and growth hormone also demonstrate circadian rhythms, with maximal secretion during the night.
Circadian rhythms can be affected to a certain degree by almost any kind of external stimulus, for example, the beeping of the alarm clock or the timing of meals. When we cross time zones, our circadian rhythms get disrupted leading to jet lag. It usually takes several days for our body rhythms to adjust to the new time.
Symptoms similar to those seen in people with jet lag are common in people who work during nights or work in shifts. Because these people's wake time conflicts with powerful sleep-regulating cues like sunlight, they often become uncontrollably drowsy during work or may have difficulty falling asleep during their off time. Their biological clock wants to do one thing, while they are doing something entirely different. People working in shifts have an increased risk of heart, gastrointestinal, emotional, and mental problems. All these problems may be related to the disruption of the circadian sleep rhythm.
Substances That Alter Sleep
Sleep and wakefulness are influenced by different neurotransmitters in the brain. Some substances can change the balance of these neurotransmitters and affect our sleep and wakefulness. Caffeinated drinks (for example, coffee) and medicines (for example, diet pills) stimulate some parts of the brain and can cause difficulty in falling asleep. Many drugs prescribed for the treatment of depression suppress REM sleep.
People who smoke heavily often sleep very lightly and have reduced duration of REM sleep. Heavy smokers tend to wake up after 3 or 4 hours of sleep due to nicotine withdrawal. Some people who have insomnia may use alcohol. Even though alcohol may help people to fall into light sleep, it deprives them of REM sleep and the deeper and more restorative stages of sleep. Instead, it keeps them in the lighter stages of sleep from which they can be awakened easily.
During REM sleep, we lose some of our ability to regulate our body temperature. Therefore, abnormally hot or cold temperatures can disrupt our REM sleep. If our REM sleep is disturbed, the normal sleep cycle progression is affected during the next sleeping time, and there is a possibility of slipping directly into REM sleep and going through long periods of REM sleep until the duration of REM sleep that is lost is caught up.
Sleep Deprivation
Because the function of sleep has not been fully determined, the exact number of hours that a person should sleep is unknown. Some persons claim to work optimally with only 3-5 hours of sleep per night, while some admit needing at least 8 hours of sleep per night (or more) to perform effectively. Therefore, sleep deprivation is best defined by group means and in terms of the tasks impaired.
In tasks requiring judgment, increasingly risky behaviors emerge as the total sleep duration is limited to 5 hours per night. The high cost of an action is seemingly ignored as the sleep-deprived person focuses on limited benefits. These findings can be explained by the fact that metabolism in the prefrontal and parietal associational areas of the brain decrease in individuals deprived of sleep for 24 hours. These areas of the brain are important for judgment, impulse control, attention, and visual association.
Sleep deprivation is a relative concept. Small amounts of sleep loss (for example, 1 hour per night over many nights) produce subtle cognitive impairment, which may go unrecognized. More severe restriction of sleep for a week leads to profound cognitive deficits, which may also go unrecognized by the individual. If you feel drowsy during the day, fall asleep for very short periods of time (5 minutes or so), or regularly fall asleep immediately after lying down, you are probably sleep-deprived.
Many studies have made it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous. With decreased sleep, higher-order cognitive tasks are impaired early and disproportionately. On tasks used for testing coordination, sleep-deprived people perform as poorly as or worse than people who are intoxicated. Total sleep duration of 7 hours per night over 1 week has resulted in decreased speed in tasks of both simple reaction time and more demanding computer-generated mathematical problem solving. Total sleep duration of 5 hours per night over 1 week shows both a decrease in speed and the beginning of accuracy failure.
Total sleep duration of 7 hours per night over 1 week leads to impairment of cognitive work requiring simultaneous focus on several tasks. In driving simulations, for example, accidents increase progressively as total sleep duration is decreased to 7, 5, and 3 hours per night over 1 week. Driver fatigue is responsible for an estimated 100,000 motor vehicle crashes and 1500 deaths each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Since drowsiness occurs just before falling asleep, driving while drowsy often leads to disaster.
According to the National Sleep Foundation "If you have trouble keeping your eyes focused, if you can't stop yawning, or if you can't remember driving the last few miles, you are probably too drowsy to drive safely." It is important to know that caffeine and other stimulants cannot overcome the effects of severe sleep deprivation. Therefore, if you find yourself driving in a sleep-deprived state, it is imperative that you find a safe place to stop and catch up on your sleep before continuing safely on your way.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/
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Unleash the Power of the Nap
by Brett and Kate McKay
I've detailed elsewhere how hard I worked in law school. But there was another secret to my success that I haven't mentioned yet: the nap.
In law school, I rented a carrel where I kept my books and studied in-between classes. I started learning about the benefits of napping and wanted to incorporate the nap into my routine. But alas, the law school didn't really have any good couches to sprawl out on. So I improvised. I brought a pillow and blanket from home and put them under my carrel desk. When I was ready for a nap, I simply put my iPod headphones on, put on some nice relaxing music, and slipped under my carrel for a quick nap.
It was awesome. It was nice and dark underneath my desk and because it was in the library, it was quiet. I'm sure some people thought I was a crazy bum or something, but I didn't care. Those short little naps allowed me to power through hours of classes, reading, and outlining.
Sadly, napping is often frowned upon in our workaholic American culture. When we think of napping men we think of Dagwood passed out on the couch after consuming a giant, delicious sandwich. Naps are for the lazy and unambitious. Or for retirees with plenty of time on their hands. The man who falls asleep at his desk at work is laughed at. And when we doze off, we feel guilty.
But in reality, the nap stigma is incredibly misplaced. Naps can be one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement; they can increase not only our health and well-being but our intelligence and productivity as well. This is something great men have known all along. History is full of famous nappers. Famous thinkers and leaders like Edison, JFK, Churchill, and Napoleon were all ardent nappers.
Your Cat Knows Something You Don't
Humans are among the few animals that take their sleep in one shot. The rest of the animal kingdom consists of polyphasic sleepers; they alternate sleep and wake cycles throughout a 24 hour period. Cavemen likely slept in multiple phases too, so someone was always up to keep an eye out for saber tooth tigers. While experimenting with a return to polyphasic sleep has become trendy in recent times, the ideal pattern for human sleep is biphasic–a long stretch at night along with a shorter respite during the day.
The ancient Romans were biphasic sleepers; at sexta(the sixth hour or their noon) everyone would turn in for some midday shut eye. This is where we get the term siesta, a tradition once popular in countries like Spain but which has largely succumbed to the encroaching go-go-go Western business style.
While the pace of modern life may keep us from being the biphasic sleepers we were meant to be, the urge for a daytime snooze is still hardwired into our biology. Studies have shown that when people are put into an environment that lacks any indication of time, they will fall into the long sleep at night/shorter nap during the day pattern. Thus most of us are daily fighting tooth and nail against our body's natural circadian rhythm, and this is wreaking havoc on our well-being, turning us into a horde of zombies that crave espresso instead of brains.
Many of us find it nearly impossible to get enough z's at night, and sleep deprivation causes a host of bodily and mental ills, keeping us from performing at our best and enjoying life to the fullest.
While a good night's sleep is essential, a daily nap can buoy us up when we're not getting quite enough winks. And for those who already sleep well at night, a nap can take the performance of your body and mind to the next level.
The Benefits of Napping
Increases alertness. When your eyelids are almost too heavy to keep open, you're not doing your best work. Make time for a nap and then go back at it. A NASA study found that a 40 minute nap increases alertness by 100%. Other studies have found that a 20 minute nap is more effective than either 200 mg of caffeine or a bout of exercise. Yet another study showed that pilots who were allowed to take a 25 minute nap (while the co-pilot manned the controls!) nodded off fives times less than their nap-deprived peers. They also made less errors during take-offs and landings.
Studies have shown that if you break up your day with a nap, you will be as alert and energetic for the second part of your day as you were for the first. So if you've got an event planned for after work, take a nap before going out on the town.
Improves learning and working memory. Naps improve your working memory. This type of memory is involved in working on complex tasks where you have to pay attention to one thing while holding a bunch of other things in your memory. Napping also improves your memory retention; during sleep, recent memories are transferred to the neocortex, where long-term memories are solidified and stored.
Prevents burnout and reverses information overload. While we often refuse to take a nap because we feel like we have too much to do, studies have shown that putting in extra hours without rest dramatically reduces your productivity. It would be better to take a 30 minute nap and return to your work refreshed. This was demonstrated in a study in which subjects performed a visual task over the course of four days. With each successive session, the subjects' performance on the task deteriorated. But when the subjects were allowed to take a 30 minute nap after the second session, the decline in performance was halted. And after a one hour nap, their performance actually improved in the third and fourth sessions.
Heightens your senses and creativity. According to foremost nap scientist (napologist?) Sara C. Mednick, napping can improve your sensory perception as effectively as a night of sleep. This means that steak tastes better, the sunset looks purtier, and Annie's Song sounds even better after a good nap. Napping also improves your creativity by both loosening up the web of ideas in your head and fusing disparate insights together.
Improves health. Sleep deprivation leads to an excess of the hormone cortisol in the body. Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, helps us deal with fight or flight responses. But excess cortisol increases glucose intolerance and abdominal fat, weakens the muscular and immune systems, stymies memory and learning, and decreases levels of growth hormone and testosterone in our bodies. These deleterious effects can lead to diabetes and heart disease.
When you sleep, you release growth hormone, the antidote to cortisol which boosts your immune system, primes your sexual function, reduces stress and anxiety, and aids in muscle repair and weight loss. Napping gives your brain a chance to rest and your body a chance to heal.
The proof's in the pudding. A study done with Greeks found that those that took a 30 minute nap at least three times a week had 37% less risk of dying from a heart-related condition. Among working men their risk of death was reduced 64%! So not only should you dance like Zorba the Greek, you should nap like him, too.
Improves mood. The neurotransmitter serotonin regulates our mood, sleep, and appetites. It produces feeling of contentment and well-being. But when our bodies are stressed, higher levels of serotonin are used and the production of more is blocked. As a result, we can become anxious, irritable, depressed, overwhelmed, and easily distracted. According to Mednick, "napping bathes your brain in serotonin, reversing those effects and creating a more positive outlook."
Tailoring Your Nap to Your Needs
According to Dr. Mednick, the perfect nap for everyone is 90 minutes long and taken between 1 and 3 in the afternoon. At this time, and at this length, your nap will consist of the optimal balance of all the different sleep stages. The ratio of the sleep stages in this nap exactly mirror that of nocturnal sleep. But of course, not everyone has an hour and a half to saw off during the day. And sometimes you want to tailor your nap to your particular needs on a particular day.
You need a boost of creativity. Don't know how many happy little clouds to add to your painting, and Bob Ross won't be on until 3? Does writing your essay for English class feel, as Ronald Reagan put it, like crapping a pineapple? Then you need a dose of REM sleep, which increases your creativity. You'll need a longer nap to get to the REM stage and since potential REM peaks early in the day and declines from there, aim for something like a 90 minute nap before 2 pm.
You need stamina. Running a race that evening? Going from one job to the next? You need Stage 2 sleep which you can get in a 20 minute power nap. Don't go down for any longer than 20 minutes though. We've all experienced naps that leave us groggy when we wake up. This is called sleep inertia and happens when you awaken during Slow Wave Sleep. So you need to wake up before you slip into Stage 3.
Studies have found that a 20 minute nap, 8 hours after you wake up will boost your stamina more than sleeping an extra 20 minutes in the morning. So instead of hitting the snooze button, save those minutes for an afternoon siesta.
You need to relax. If you're feeling stressed, shoot for a longer nap after 2 pm and ideally in the early evening, so your body can get a cortisol break and repair itself. Naps will not affect your nighttime sleep as long as you wake from your nap three hours before bedtime.
You need to pull an all-nighter. Instead of downing can after can of Red Bull, try what researchers call the "prophylactic nap." Taking a preventive nap in anticipation of sleep deprivation is more effective in maintaining cognitive performance and alertness than taking no nap at all, taking a nap when your sleep debt has already made you tired, and even taking multiple doses of caffeine. So when you know an all-nighter is in the cards for you, try to take a nap during the day; the longer the better, but even 25 minutes will keep your performance levels higher than they would be. Keep in mind that the effects of a prophylactic nap only last 8-10 hours; nothing can keep your brain from starting to unravel if you skip two nights of sleep.
You need to ace a test. After you study and before test time, take a 90 minute nap. Stage 2 will increase your alertness, stages 3 and 4 will clear your mind of unnecessary clutter, solidify the things you just studied, and lower your stress, and REM sleep will move the information into permanent storage and sort through the complex information you just learned.
You need immediate alertness. Try a "caffeine nap." Researchers at the University of Britain at Loughborough tested several ways to improve the alertness of drivers and found the "caffeine nap" to be the most effective method. You down a cup of coffee or other caffeinated beverage and then immediately hunker down for a 15-20 minute nap. Again, don't go any longer than that or you'll awaken with sleep inertia. The caffeine clears your body of adenosine, a chemical which makes you sleepy. It takes awhile for the caffeine to circulate through your system, so it doesn't effect the quality of the nap. Instead, it kicks in in tandem with the refreshment you would feel upon awakening from a normal power nap. I've personally found the caffeine nap to be effective, especially when you're crunched for time; it's easier to get up and keeps you from the temptation of turning a 20 minute nap into an hour and a half session.
Squeezing in Nap Time
It would be awesome if offices took a cue from kindergarten and broke out cookies, milk, and nap mats once a day.
Alas in the real world it can be hard to catch some z's at work. Getting caught asleep at your desk is not a good way to earn respect at your job. But most people get an hour for lunch, and you can easily eat for half that time and then go take a snooze in your car for the other half. Tell your boss all about the benefits of napping and see if you can get a couch in some rarely-used room.
If you're a student, do like I did and toss embarrassment to the wind and just curl up somewhere. If you can't nap during the day, take a short pre-or post-dinner nap.
Remember, all you need to do it carve out 20 minutes somewhere in your day. One study showed that even a 6 minute nap improves memory function. So you can even sneak one in while the guy at the desk next to you runs to the snack machine.
At the very least, learn to embrace the nap and the napping of others. Napping is not a character defect! Many great men have taken advantage of the benefits of napping. It is a wonderful, wonderful way to improve your life.
http://artofmanliness.com/
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The Importance of Sleep - what's in it for you?
Gardening in the Air – A Look at Aeroponics
There are many different gardening techniques, but aeroponics is certainly one of the most unique ways to grow vegetables, food crops, flowers and other plants. As with hydroponic systems, aeroponics uses no soil, but aeroponics also dispenses with the use of growth mediums as well.
Aeroponics uses an air or mist environment to grow plants, providing a fascinating alternative to not only traditional gardening techniques but hydroponics as well. In an aeroponics environment the plants grow with the roots suspended in a misted solution of nutrients.
Many commonly grown plants have been found to grow well in an aeroponic system, and there is a great deal of experimentation underway to determine the optimal setup for this unique form of gardening. Since aeroponics uses no soil to grow plants this method has shown great promise for growing crops where past soil depletion is a problem. Many people feel that using a combination of hydroponics and aeroponics will be a good way to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and produce a greener world.
In the aeroponics type of gardening the only nutrient carrier present is water. The root zone of the plants are suspended in an atomized solution of nutrients, while the rest of the plant remains above. With this type of gardening the root system is misted or sprayed with a solution of nutrients and pure water.
The complete omission of growing media in aeroponic gardening presents a number of challenges, but perhaps the most significant is a lack of support for the delicate root systems of the plants. Closed cell foam is often used around the plants to hold them in place and provide protection, while a trellis system is sometimes used to provide support for larger plants.
Some of the biggest benefits of aeroponics are in the field of ecology and environmentalism. Growing plants aeroponically has a number of important benefits, and this method of gardening is considered to be both a safe and ecologically advantageous method of growing healthy, nutritious and natural food crops and other plants. Among the chief advantages of this method is the fact that it uses considerably less energy and water than traditional agriculture. In fact aeroponics systems can be even more water and energy efficient than comparable hydroponics operations.
The history of aeroponics as we know it today began way back in the early 1980s with the introduction of the first commercially available apparatus for growing plants without soil or other growth mediums. This early device used a water driven system, controlled by a microchip, to deliver a nutrient spray to the plants within the aeroponic chamber.
Aeroponics has produced many revolutions in the intervening years, but one of the most significant has been improvement in the field of propagating plants from cuttings. Many plants that had previously been difficult if not impossible to propagate in this way responded quite well to aeroponic techniques. A wide variety of plants, including many widely grown food crops, responded very well to these new techniques, providing farmers with a new and innovative way to grow the food we eat.
In fact aeroponics has largely replaced hydroponics as the preferred method of sterile propagation. These techniques have given growers an easy and cost effective way to clone their best plants, helping to improve strains and breed in desirable traits like drought resistance, resistance to common plant diseases, resistance to common pests and overall hardiness.
Aeroponics also has allowed growers to transplant the plants they clone directly into normal soil. Since the plants were grown aeroponically they did not suffer from the wilting, leaf loss and reduced vitality commonly associated with transplant shock. In addition, those transplanted aeroponic plants tend to be healthier and less susceptible to common plant diseases.
The world of aeroponics has continued to grow and evolve, and later systems made significant improvements while retaining the integrity and efficiency of the original. Newer generation aeroponic systems utilized a closed loop system to recycle the nutrient mixture more precisely, providing better efficiency and better use of precious resources. In fact many of those closed loop systems are still in operation today.
The best aeroponic systems will have the plant suspended completely in the air, allowing it to make full use of all available oxygen in the environment. This increased oxygen availability promotes root growth and enhances the overall hardiness and vitality of the plant. The intermittent sprays of nutrient enriched water further serve to promote the growth of the plants while making efficient use of water and avoiding the need for soil of any kind.
As the technology behind aeroponics continues to grow and evolve more and more amateur and commercial farmers are looking at ways to use the efficiency and power saving nature of this technique. Aeroponics remains the subject of intensive research as well, with scientists from around the world hoping that these innovations will lead to a cleaner, greener and more efficient future.
http://www.gardeningchannel.com/
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Very Easy Homemade Aeroponics System
My biggest problem with homemade aeroponics systems has always been the clogging spray emitters. Somebody really had their thinking caps on when they came up with this design here. All you need is a 5 gallon bucket, an aquarium water pump, and some old garden hose or tubing.
The pump is submersed in a few inches of nutrient solution. The tubing (or hose) has several 1/16 inch holes drilled into it. The tubing is positioned to coil around the container from bottom to top, and is plugged at the end. You can see from the photo how the roots will be getting good coverage with the nutrient solution. A 300 GPH aquarium pump works well for this.
The lid of the bucket will usually be cut to accommodate a 3 or 4 inch netted pot, either filled with expanded clay pellets or containing a rockwool block. Plants may need to be hand watered until the roots begin to hang. The biggest disadvantage to this aeroponics system is the small nutrient reservoir. The smaller the reservoir, the more quickly the solution will become unhealthy for the plants.
Multi-Pod Aeroponic Design
With a little modification, the design above can fashioned into a larger homemade aeroponics system. This design uses a much larger reservoir, which will help you avoid plant nutrition problems. Each container may have its own aquarium pump in the reservoir, or a more powerful pump may be used to supply all four containers with nutrient solution.
A 1/3 horse power pump moving about 2200 GPH at a pressure of 10 psi would be a good choice for this setup. As you can see from the picture, small leaks in the plumbing would not be a concern with this design.
http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/
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DIY How to Make an Aeroponics 5 Gallon Bucket Hydroponics System
'Cool' roofs – a hot idea?
by Christopher Solomon
This hidden-in-plain-sight upgrade can mean saving on your electricity bills and enjoying a much more comfortable home during hot summers.
Linda Hanson is accustomed to long, hot summers, and she wanted to find a new way to reduce her cooling costs.
Hanson owns a home in Canyon Lake, Calif. "The average temperatures out here are well in the 100s all summer long, so our (electricity) bills were $800 a month. It was pretty outrageous. We could not cool the house down. We'd run the air conditioner all the time."
A big problem was the original concrete tile roof, which sat on the rafters and radiated that heat right into the house.
Then Hanson and her husband swapped out that roof for a so-called "cool roof" of green tiles on their 3,000-square-foot house. (They made other improvements, too, such as upgrading the home's windows and adding attic insulation.)
"We also put a swimming pool in, and even with that swimming pool, with the filter running, our bills in the summer are probably 200 bucks a month less," she says.
The best part, she says, is "my house is comfortable all the time."
Hanson's savings may be dramatic, but they illustrate the point: Installing a cool roof is a hidden-in-plain-sight way to cool your home, shrink your electricity bill and help the planet. It's such a simple, smart idea that Energy Secretary Steven Chu endorsed the idea in a meeting with Nobel laureates last year.
An old idea made new
Inhabitants of places such as Bermuda and the Greek isle of Santorini have long known that painting their roofs white to reflect sunlight can keep their homes cool. Studies bear that out: While black surfaces such as traditional built-up asphalt shingle roofs can reach 185 degrees, a roof that's white can be up to 70 degrees cooler because it bounces so much sunlight back into space.
"The science of it is very basic," says HashemAkbari, a leader in the study of cool roofs and a professor at Concordia University in Montreal.
White roofs make sense particularly on commercial buildings because those buildings have their cooling systems on most of the year as computers and other machinery inside them create heat, says Chris Scruton, a project manager in the California Energy Commission's research program in building energy efficiency. With a white roof, "As much as 75 or even higher percent (of sunlight) can be reflected," Scruton says.
Choose your hue
That's great, you say, but what if you don't want a white roof on your Colonial?
You're in luck. There's a roof for you, too.
Manufacturers can make colored cool roofs that stay much cooler than traditional colored roofs. They add pigments or glazing to roofing materials that reflect infrared light back into space. That unseen infrared light makes up 52% of light that falls to Earth; we can't see it, but we feel it in the form of heat.
These cool roofs can take the form of tiles, shingles or metal. "People are starting to catch on" to the benefits, Suzuki says, but "it's not so much residential yet." In 2007, about one-quarter of the commercial roofing market consisted of Energy Star-rated (that is, highly efficient) roofing products, compared with about 10% of the residential market.
The pros of a new roof
Experts say cool roofs have several benefits. First, a cooler roof knocks down your need for AC during the times of highest demand, when juice is most expensive. That saves you money.
How much? That's trickier to answer. Studies have shown wide variation in electricity savings. A 2004 report that looked at more than 25 articles about the cooling energy used by buildings with cool roofs found the energy savings ranged from 2% to more than 40%; the average savings was about 20%.
A more realistic number to expect is a 6% annual reduction in your electrical bill, says William Miller, a research scientist for the Building Envelopes Program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. "That's a fair number for a building that already has code levels of insulation," Miller says. (You can increase the effectiveness of a cool roof by making other improvements, such as adding attic insulation and radiant barriers and relocating ductwork from the attic, he says.)
There are other benefits to a cool roof, too. Less of the sunlight that hits a cool roof is transformed to heat, and so less heat is transmitted to the air. That reduces smog and makes you and everyone else healthier. Akbari has calculated that every 100 square feet of roofing that's converted from dark to white is equivalent to offsetting the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide. For a 2,000-square-foot roof, that's like 20 tons of atmospheric carbon offset. "It's a win-win-win," he says.
"A worldwide installation of white roofs on low-sloped and colored roofs on sloped roofs in hot and temperate cities of the world will offset the emissions of all the cars in the world for the next 10 to 12 years," Akbari says.
Furthermore, a study released earlier this year — the first computer modeling of the effects of painting all the roofs white in urban areas worldwide — found that doing so would reduce the "urban heat island" effect in cities by an average of about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The greater New York area would cool on summer afternoons by nearly 2 degrees, the model showed. Talk about neighbors helping neighbors.
So what's it gonna cost me?
Anything that works so well is going be expensive, right? Not so fast.
Cool roof products can cost little to no more than old-school products, Akbari says. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the cost premium for cool-roof products ranges from zero to 20 cents per square foot. Custom-Bilt Metals, for one, says that the reflective pigments add only about five cents per square foot to the finished product, which pays for itself within three years because of the building energy savings.
There is, however, a so-called "heating penalty" for having a white or cool roof, because in winter the roof doesn't keep the house as warm. "The wintertime penalties of a white roof can become as much as 30% of the summertime savings," Akbari says.
Still, he says, the odds pencil out in your favor. "Here is the bottom line: In any building that requires AC in the summer and heating in the winter, by having a cool-colored roof or a white roof, you'll save money," he says. "If you do not need any air conditioning at all — such as some residences in northern Alaska — and comfort is not an issue for you, you do not need a white roof."
http://realestate.msn.com/
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Energy 101: Cool Roofs
Green Roofs vs. Cool Roofs
by Chris Wark, Energy Editor
Cool roofs are pretty cool, but whether or not they save as much energy as a green roof requires, as usual, a closer look at a) a cool roof, and b) a given green roof design.
First we need to review what makes a cool roof cool. As illustrated below, when sunlight hits the surface of a roof, some of it is reflected back into space (or into a neighboring building) and the rest is absorbed into the roof.
For example, a common roof surface may reflect 30% of the sunlight and the laws of thermodynamics say that the remaining 70% must be going through the surface and into the rest of the roof structure. Referred to as the roof's "reflectivity," it is the simplest form of an "energy balance." This includes all wavelengths of sunlight: visible light, ultraviolet radiation, and infrared (long-wave) radiation.
Another important thing happens at the surface of a roof (and when I say "surface," I mean the first layer of molecules, literally). The roof surface radiates heat (long-wave radiation) back into space at almost all times, regardless of where the sun is or what it is doing because outer space is always colder than anywhere on Earth. This is called "thermal emittance" and the extent to which it happens depends on certain characteristics of the surface material and the temperature of the surface - the higher the surface temperature, the more heat gets emitted.
Thermal emittance to the sky can be reduced by high humidity, cloudiness, or even stopped altogether by thick fog. There is such a thing as the "sky temperature" which is determined by the characteristics of the atmosphere and it can be as low as -50 degrees F with extremely clear dry air or as high as the local air temperature when it is foggy.
Courtesy the Cool Roof Rating Council
Again, thermal emittance happens at night as well as during the day regardless of how cold the roof surface temperature might be. In fact, this phenomenon applies to the surface of anything exposed to the sky, thus the frost on your pumpkin on a clear October night when the temperature drops down to around 40 degrees.
This also means thermal emittance occurs during the winter when you do not necessarily want it to, so the use of a cool roof can result in an annual energy penalty in most cooler climates, depending on how the building is being used. But then, if winter brings a thick blanket of snow, reflectivity and emissivity no longer mean anything, regardless of the roof type. Every situation is different.
A roof is considered by the US Green Building Council as "cool" if it reflects at least 70% of sunlight and has a thermal emissivity value of at least 0.9 on a scale of 0 (no emittance) to 1 (maximum emittance physically possible). Some roof surfaces, like asphalt, have very low reflectivity but very high emissivity, so even though they get super hot during mid-day, they could be even hotter, then they cool down at night much more than if they had low emissivity.
Some light colored roofs reflect sunlight reasonably well, but have very low emissivity, keeping them warm at night. For maximum cooling, the trick is to come up with a material that has both high reflectivity and high emissivity, like the white materials shown in the following chart of various cool roof materials.
From the New York City DDC Cool and Green Roofing Manual
One important note on cool roofs: they tend not to stay as cool as advertised. Soon after installation, their surfaces get directly abused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, rain, dirt and wind such that they typically lose 10% to 20% of their reflectivity within the first year or two. It is simply not realistic to claim a reflectivity greater than 70% for a roof that is more than two years old unless it has been cleaned on a regular basis, and it is rare to find a building owner who loves their cool roof that much.
Now for the comparison with green roofs (as if!).
Let's face it, defining a green roof is like describing the flavor of ice cream. Tell me what kind of green roof, where it is, how it is used, what is growing on it and I can tell you something about its energy benefits and how it compares to some sort of cool roof. To keep this discussion simple, let's work with a minimalistic extensive roof in, say, Chicago - not much thermal mass but supporting foliage that provides 100% net coverage during the summer and goes quite dormant during the winter.
With green roofs, the outermost layer is the most crucial, such that the foliage can be thought of as its "surface" when discussing energy. Obviously, it is not a simple, smooth surface that can be described as easily as a sheet of plastic (i.e. cool roof).
If our concern is the overall amount of sunlight actually reflected away from building, we can't look at the reflectivity of individual leaves because each leaf is most likely not anywhere near horizontal. In fact, it is probably reflecting light into a neighboring leaf. The term used for the overall or aggregate solar reflectivity of a complex surface is "albedo."
A wide range of reflectivities for individual leaves can be found in vegetation, depending on the species and how much the plant is being stressed - some drought resistant plants get shinier when stressed. Other plants change leaf angle when stressed which affects the overall albedo.
For the most part, an increase in individual reflectivity translates into an increase in albedo which can range from about 0.15 (15% of light reflected away) to about 0.5 (half the light reflected away). A study by South China University of Technology measured the albedo of Sedum lineare, a popular green roof plant in China, to be about 0.3. Columbia University's green roof research has measured an average daytime albedo of mixed sedums at around 0.22. Research at Penn State reports sedum albedo of 0.15. It should be noted that none of these measurements were acquired in a controlled environment, while other studies of crop plants have been studied more rigorously and show higher albedo values.
Foliage also tends to have high emissivity - typically 0.80 to 0.85 for succulents, including some sedums, up to 0.99 for less drought tolerant plants. Generally, smoother, shinier leaves will have lower emissivity, but higher reflectivity. Again, these values can change depending on how much a plant gets stressed.
To control sun-radiated heat, a green roof also uses
convection and evaporation.
Copyright 2011 Christopher Wark
That's great for helping with the cooling, but what about winter? What happens when temperatures drop below freezing and those pulpy little sedum leaves shrivel up and go dormant? Same thing that happens with most other non-evergreen plants.
For one thing, they become considerably less reflective. For another thing, their overall surface area becomes much smaller (or drops completely), so they emit less heat. Not only that, the lower branches and even some of the media get exposed to the sun. This means a green roof will absorb more radiant heat during the winter than in the summer, unlike a cool roof which always reflects the same fraction of sunlight (often resulting in a big winter energy penalty in cold climates).
Then, when winter gives way to spring, exposing the media to sunlight accelerates the warming of the plants. One of nature's more clever strategies, I say.
One last issue that should be mentioned when comparing products is "embodied energy" - the energy required to manufacture, deliver and install a product. This is an extremely important energy topic that has been neglected so far in this series because it is not directly related to the heat transfer of a building. It is, however, relevant to an overall energy comparison of roofing systems.
Why? Because a cool roof will only last a few years longer than a more conventional membrane before needing to be replaced, whereas a green roof extends the life of a membrane more-or-less indefinitely. Each time a cool roof is replaced every 20 years or so, considerable energy must be spent to get the job done. Saving that energy is another advantage of green roofs.
Throw in the myriad of indirectly energy-related hydrological and environmental benefits of vegetating a rooftop, and it becomes more clear why green roofs are the coolest.
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