Hiccup Cures

I've been collecting hiccup cures for years and today I'll like to share a few of the more interesting ones with you.

When I was still teaching high school, if a student got the hiccups, I'd slowly meander my way over to where he was sitting. I'd then move behind his desk, reading a poem or leading a discussion or something, and would then bend down and yell, "Boo!"

Believe me, the hiccups went away in a hurry.

A similar technique that works best with an adult male with the hiccups is to walk up to him and look him straight in the eye and then say, I heard about you and my wife, and I don't like it one bit.

If it's a female friend or acquaintance of co-worker with the hiccups, approach them in the same serious manner and say, I can't believe the boss fired you this morning.

Both of these techniques will stop hiccups faster than you can say, "I'd eat a bicycle seat while peeling a grapefruit before I'd go back to drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes."

Finally, I learned this hiccup cure from the Internet...

Go up to someone with the hiccups and say, "I'll give you ten dollars if you can hiccup again."

That's it for Monday afternoon.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Fun with Club Soda and Baked Beans

Today's offering isn't like the usual entry, but I think you'll have some fun with the info, and you can't be healthy if you don't have a little fun once in a while, right?

First off, here are a couple of fun things you can do with a bottle of club soda...

• You can make fluffy pancakes, waffles, and matzah balls if you substitute club soda for the liquid normally used in the recipes?
  
  
• Wanna make a poor man's lava lamp? Fill a glass with club soda and drop in a couple of raisins. The carbonation will cause the raisins to repeatedly bob to the surface and then sink again.

Never drink soft drinks because they're full of sugar and additives and Lord knows what else.

• If you miss soft drinks, try adding a little club soda to freshly squeezed or extracted fruit juice for a low-cost and healthier beverage.

Finally, a tip from my childhood when we were very poor.

We never could afford bubble bath products, so Ma used to serve a big pot of baked beans for Saturday evening dinner.

That way we children had Saturday night bubble baths every week of the year, just like the Vanderbilts.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Workout Routine Pick Me Up

I don't know about you, but after I finish my workout routine of jogging or lifting weights, I always enjoy a refreshing pick-me-up.

And of course having a nutrient-rich drink is a smart thing to do since you've just stressed your body during your workout routine and broken down millions of cells.

At this point, you need something nutritious to help your ole bod create healthy, new cells.

My favorite post work-out cell replacer is an 8-ounce glass of freshly extracted vegetable juice composed of about two ounces of carrot juice mixed with six ounces of a combination of celery, kale, Romaine lettuce, tomato, apple, and anything else that looks good in the veggie bin.

Swirling the first mouthful of this concoction through the choppers and up and over the tongue is a taste treat that can't be beat.

Adding a little dab of hot sauce or juicing a tiny jalapeno without the other veggies (juice it first so the next user of the juice machine isn't in for a hot surprise) makes a memorable drink that will leave you smacking your lips in happiness.

So sweat up a storm with your daily exercise and then feed the cells with a fresh glass of veggie juice.

What a great way to end a workout routine.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

P.S. Click here to learn about my friend Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program. It contains some of my favorite workout routines.

Survival Mode: A Primer

Today I'd like to share some thoughts by my late friend Declan Twohig, a London-based natural health teacher who passed away in the summer of 2002.

Survival Mode

by Declan Twohig

One of the ways in which we handicap our lives so that they get bogged down – or we run the risk of compensatory factors that lead to unwanted results like weight gain is the belief system that runs a constant scenario that it is "us" against the world – usually a world that is out to get us or do us wrong.

This is called survival mode.

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. -- William James

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. -- Henri Bergson

How often have you wanted to change an aspect of your life, only to find that aspect repeating itself again and again? Repeatable patterns of behaviour and choice-making are forged by success and pleasure... and stress and fear.

Humans are very adept at adaptation. Whatever our life-experience is, if we maintain it long enough, we adapt to it. Even when it's uncomfortable. Ben Franklin once said that a person only needs to do something for two weeks consistently for it to become ingrained as a habit.

• Go to the gym daily for two weeks then miss a few days. Pay attention to how your mood and body reflect the missed sessions.
  
  
• Fight constantly with a lover. Decide that you're going to end the relationship if the conflict doesn't cease. Then, once it does, notice how often one of you creates disharmony again. It's as if conflict has become a for m of intimacy.

Decide to get rid of an overload of stress in your life. Then notice how often you set yourself up for it:

• Have you ever put off paying a bill (or even looking at it?) even though you had the money?
  
  
• Have you ever watched the fuel gauge in your car dip dangerously close to empty? Only to drive past petrol stations hoping to make it to your destination, even though you have money for petrol with you.
  
  
• Have you ever driven without auto insurance or failed to register your car, even though you had the money for these things? Only to drive nervously, watching the rear-view mirror for the police

Adaptation to survival mode is common for many of us who have lived with stress and conflict for a sustained period of time. Overcoming it is not always simple and easy in the short term (most habits have subtle cues as w ell as obvious ones).

But overcoming it is just what needs to happen for our lives to become freeflowing, full, and pleasurable.

How do we overcome survival mode?

By understanding its characteristics and how they show up in our attitude, interpretation of experience and effect on our choices and the options that we believe are available to us is the first step.

It does help to keep even a rudimentary form of journal so that we can consciously maintain awareness of how our actions that sustain it, are working, in what situations and with what people.

It helps to remember and write down a list of experiences (both past and present) that represent times when we have risked change, and the change made things better.

It helps to remember and write down a list of experiences (both past and present) that represent times when we first interpreted someone's actions or words for the possible conflict or stress meaning, but then considered another interpretation that was less negative, and, by reacting from the second interpretation, our experience of the event was better.

Overcoming survival mode frees us to experience life without excessive stress and conflict. If we choose. And what an important choice to make for the sake of our families and ourselves. Especially if we have kids. After all, they learn how to experience life through us. And the emotional energy that we infuse our homes with become the normal emotions for them to carry.

Remember the emotional characteristic of your home when you were a child? Homes filled with joy and sustenance raise stable, happy kids who, once they are adults, believe that, regardless of how difficult things get, they'll be OK.

Homes filled with tension and fear raise anxious kids who, once they are adults, are often waiting for something to go wrong and fret easily over things that haven't even happened yet.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Crockpot Apple Butter Recipe

How about a quick, simple, and tasty recipe this morning for one of the healthiest home-made bread and bisquit toppings around...

Crockpot Apple Butter Recipe

In the afternoon or early evening peel, core and slice enough apples to fill your crockpot. Stuff it as full as you can. You can add 2-3 cups of apple cider if you like, though this is optional.

Cook several hours on high and then turn on low and let cook overnight.

In the morning, remove the lid, add cinnamon and ground cloves, to taste.

Cook on high uncovered until desired thickness is reached.

You can run your apple butter through your blender if you prefer a smoother consistency.

Refrigerate immediately and/or can.

Your family will love this concoction, I promise. It's absolutely fabulous on fresh bread or biscuits hot from the oven. Mmmmm, good.

One more quite note for today's entry... click here to visit my friend Dr. Ben Kim's new website and be sure to sign up for his free newsletter. It's one of my favorite natural health publications.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Tips for Insect Bites

Yes, it's true.

You can take the sting out of insect bites rather than trying to stoically cope with pain, itching, and inflammation.

Happily, there are almost as many insect bite home remedies as there are seeds in a pomegranate.

Here are a few of the more interesting ones I've read about lately.

1. Soak the affected area with vinegar.
2. Put a cotton bowl dipped in ammonia on the bite to draw out the stinger and reduce the pain and itch.
3. Smash up a clove of garlic and place the poultice on the affected area.
4. Spread some honey onto an old cloth. Place some ice cubes on top of the honey. Wrap up the cloth and place on affected area.
5. Kill a rattlesnake and then eat some of the meat every day for the next week. (I don't recommend this one since monkeying with rattlesnakes is dangerous, but I included it anyway for any snake handlers out there reading today's health tip.)

I trust you'll add this little collection of insect bite tips to your home remedies file.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Kick Your Caffeine Habit

I had a caffeine habit like you wouldn't believe in the early 90's, an addiction to coffee and soft drinks that kept me wired like a lit-up Christmas tree on the White House front lawn 365 days a year.

I mean, seriously, when I was still teaching in New Orleans, I'd drink as many as six cups a day of powerful black coffee with chicory and plenty of sugar. And then I'd wonder why I was jittery late in the afternoon.

Talk about dumb. Duh.

Well, I chilled it with coffee and other caffeine-containing drinks and foods when I started my grand natural health journey in 1993 and changed so many of my bad habits, but I often hear from people who want to know why caffeine is a bad thing.

My usual answer has been, "Well, if caffeine's not a bad substance, how come you get such awful headaches when you stop drinking the stuff?"

A true answer but rather lame. Now, thanks to my friend and correspondent, Doug Renz, I recently learned about a book called Caffeine Blues which has serious answers.

According to the author, Stephen Cherniske, a nutritional biochemist with more than 25 years of academic research and clinical experience and author of the bestseller The DHEA Breakthrough, Caffeine Blues is the culmination of more than a decade of research into the effects, side effects and "politics" of this amazing drug.

Cherniske goes on to write:

It is likely that there are millions of people who are adversely affected by the caffeine in coffee, tea, soft drinks, common medications and hidden in a rapidly growing list of foods and beverages. FDA does not presently require the amount of caffeine to be declared on a food or beverage label. In fact, manufacturers can use non-coffee sources of caffeine (such as guarana, kola nut or bissy nut) and completely avoid disclosure that the product contains caffeine!

Here's a challenge for you...

• Take a Friday off and stay home and kick your caffeine habit.
• Go cold turkey and stop drinking all coffee and soft drinks with caffeine in them.

In three days you'll have that caffeine monkey off your back for good.

If you are a real coffee freak like I was and carrying a serious caffeine addiction, be prepared for some mean withdrawal symptoms like headache, chills, sweating, stomach upset, and so on. That's why I recommend taking Friday off.

If you live with a spouse and kids, it's a good idea to have them visit the grandparents for the weekend so you can go through withdrawal by yourself. If your withdrawal experience is anything like mine was, you'll not only feel like crap for a few days, but you'll also be short-tempered, crabby, and downright mean. I kid you not when I say I was ready to spit nails during that weekend when I kicked my caffeine habit.

Happily, the worst of the symptoms pass in most instances within 48 hours and then, hurrah, you're free for the rest of your life from the caffeine habit.

I know it sounds hard, but, honestly, getting off caffeine is one of the best single things you can do for your health.

You're tough. You can do it if you put your mind to it.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

P.S. Click here for another good article on caffeine and its negative effects on the human body.

Urine Therapy and Foot Fungus

Anyone who reads my health writings knows I have an overly-developed sense of humor, so let me preface today's health tip about using urine therapy for foot fungus problems by saying that I'm not joking with what you're about to read.

With that said, we've been looking at some natural foot fungus remedies lately. Well, the other day, a new suggestion came in from a friend of mine, a licensed pharmacist whose avocation lies with helping his clients by referring them whenever possible to natural solutions rather than to strong drugs.

He doesn't make as much money this way, of course, but he helps more people and makes a lot of friends, and that's what it's all about anyway, near as I can tell.

Okay, here's what my buddy told me in his letter:

Hey, Chet, between you, me, and the printer cable, the fastest and cheapest and most effective way to go after good ole foot fungus... your own urine. I know peeing on your feet in the shower sounds whacked, but I have used it effectively and passed it out dozens of times from behind the Prozac counter. And with a host of positive feedback.

Well, I was glad to get this fascinating suggestion from my friend because I've always been interested in urine. I mean, seriously, with so much of it coming out of us every day, how can we not be?

Although I don't have space to write an epistle on urine therapy, I do want to say that, contrary to the bad press it gets, human urine is sterile and not something filthy that we should cringe about when we mention its name.

I mean seriously, my pharmacist friend and I aren't recommending that you drink the stuff, though people in India have been doing just that for thousands of years for apparently very good reasons. But that's another story.

Anyway, if you have a nasty case of foot fungus and want to try the easiest and least expensive home remedy I'm currently aware of, pour or pee some of your own urine on the problem in the shower, let it set for a minute or two, and then wash it off. Repeat as necessary whenever you shower until the problem heals.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Healthy Bean Dip Recipe

Yeah, the holidays are over for the time being, but, hey, you don't have to attend a holiday party to enjoy a corn chip and a healthy bean dip, do you?

Of course not.

So let's get right to this Monday's simple but tasty and healthy...

Lean Bean Dip Recipe

2 15 oz. cans black beans, drained, rinsed
1 16 oz. can refried beans
1 16 oz. favorite salsa
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1/8 tsp pepper
1 8 oz. can whole-kernel corn or kernels of one ear fresh white corn, cooked
l or 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped tomatoes or 1-16 oz. can chopped tomatoes, drained

Combine the black and refried beans, salsa, onion and pepper in a medium bowl and mix well. Stir in the corn and tomato. Let stand 30 minutes before serving.

Now, that was easy enough, eh?

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com

Healthy Leg Veins

As a male, I, of course, don't really care what my legs look like, though I've been told on a few occasions when I jogged or played tennis that I had handsome wheels.

On the other hand, I do very much appreciate the legs that hold up female bodies, so I thought it would be helpful today to share some tips I found regarding leg care:

• Don't cross your legs when you sit.
• Take warm, not hot, baths, and end by splashing cold water on the legs.
• Avoid high heels. Low-heeled shoes work calf muscles more, which is better for veins. Don't wear tight clothes around your calves or groin that can restrict circulation.
• Take three or four 10- to 15-minute breaks daily to elevate your legs above the level of your heart (for example, by lying down with your legs resting on three or four pillows).
• Avoiding long periods of sitting or standing. Make a point of changing your position, shifting from one leg to the other or walk gently back and forth, frequently to encourage blood flow.
• Weight control - Shedding excess pounds takes unnecessary pressure off your veins.
• Exercise. Get your legs moving. Walking is a great way to encourage blood circulation in your legs.

Try implementing some of the above simple tips in your life and you too should have healthy leg veins.

Chet Day
Editor, The Health Circus
http://chetday.com