The History of Dolby Audio
These days, Dolby is a household name. The infamous “DD” symbol can be found on almost every piece of modern audio equipment out there. This includes gaming consoles, HDTVs, home theaters, both home and car stereos, cinemas, and personal computers.
It all started in 1949 when a man named Ray Dolby went to work for Ampex Corporation part-time while still in high school. He worked on an assortment of ventures in correlation with audio instrumentation. He continued to work for Ampex while attending college at Stanford University. During this period, he branched off to unite with a small team of Ampex engineers who were determined to invent the world’s first video tape recorder. Dolby centered in on the electronic aspects of the project. The team succeeded with their introduction of this new technology in 1956. Ampex then sold its first video tape recorder for $50,000.
Dolby graduated from Stanford in 1957 and was awarded the Marshall Fellowship at Cambridge University, England. He studied at Cambridge for 6 years, earning a Ph.D. in physics. In 1965, Ray Dolby started his own company, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. His first product from this new and innovative company was identified as Dolby A-type Enoise reduction. It significantly reduced the amount of background noise or hissing sounds found in professional tape recording without jeopardizing the original content of the material being recorded. This was the beginning of the many advances Dolby would make in the complex world of audio compression and expansion.
Ray Dolby developed an ingenious method of noise reduction by separating soft signals from loud ones, then simply not processing those loud signals. He then split up the spectrum into several bands to avoid clashing or pumping, therefore generating white noise. This method would become integrated in numerous aspects of society’s rapidly growing fascination with electronic entertainment. Early on, consumers weren’t satisfied with the ‘flat’ mono sound ordinary radios and cassette players emitted. Everyone wanted to hear music in stereo.
This new sound also found its way into movie theaters. Dolby sound made its debut in the original recording of Star Wars, and continues to revolutionize the audience’s experience even today. The sound is both more spectacular and more natural at the same time. Because of this technology, even video games are more realistic; the sounds are more powerful as they are not only heard, but also felt. The sound is so tangible it is as if fantasy has in fact become reality. More people are staying home instead of going to movie theaters since Dolby surround sound was introduced into the home theater system.
Recent advancements include Dolby 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, and 9.1 (that’s right, nine full-range channels), Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby SR, Dolby TrueHD, and countless others. It is obvious that Dolby is the reigning “King of Sound” and most likely will be for generations to come.
Mitchell Medford is an author and product consultant for several consumer electronics manufacturers. Visit his website for more information on home theater, LCD TVs, and plasma televisions.
Selling Your Home - 11 Tips for Proper Preparation
Selling a home an be a daunting experience, especially if it’s your first time. But with the right preparation, you can easily increase the likelihood of a sale — and possibly increase your net proceeds as well.
Here then are 11 low-cost tactics that will enhance your home, inside and out.
1. Make the entrance inviting.
A home’s entrance carries significant meaning, both symbolically and structurally. It’s where the homeowner leaves the outside world behind and enters the comfort and sanctuary of home. Treat it accordingly.
2. Remove clutter.
Clutter (too many appliances in the kitchen, too many pictures and knickknacks on the tables, etc.) makes a home seem smaller than it is. It can also put too much of a personal touch on the house. Clear away everything but a few, well-placed design elements.
3. Clean, clean and clean some more.
As a general rule, you can never clean too much before showing your house. This goes hand in hand with the clutter concept above — the cleaner a house, the easier it is for buyers to see themselves in it. It makes the house mentally “transferable” from owner to buyer. And it just plain looks nice!
4. Freshen up the rooms.
Sunlight, fresh paint and a well-placed vase of flowers can do wonders for any room — and for minimal cost.
5. Arrange for space.
Arrange furniture in a way that maximizes space and creates a smooth traffic flow. It might take some trial-and-error, but the spaciousness you create will be worth it.
6. Perform minor repairs as needed.
No how matter how trivial it may seem to you, an item needing repair will send a mental message to buyers. “Gosh, if they didn’t even care to fix that before showing the house, what else have they let go?”
7. Replace outdated fixtures (lights, knobs, etc.).
This falls into the “easy fixes with major impact” department. New lighting and fixtures can make an entire room seem new, even if it’s not.
8. Have the carpets professionally cleaned.
It’s quick, it doesn’t cost much, and it can give much-needed life to carpet. Even if you think your carpet is fine, give it a try. You’ll see the difference afterward!
9. Empty closets and attics to showcase their space.
Remember, prospective buyers are trying to see themselves in each house they look at. It’s a key determinant on whether they make an offer or scratch the house of their list.
Tip: Put half your clothes in a storage unit or in a friend’s house (temporarily). Your closets will seem larger with some emptiness to them.
10. Tidy up the landscaping.
Trim the bushes. Mow and water the lawn. Sweep the driveway and walkway. Plant fresh flowers. Most of these things cost you nothing but time, yet they’ll significantly enhance your overall “curb appeal.”
11. “Neutralize” your paint scheme.
Colors and color preference are subjective things. One person’s favorite color can make another person gasp. To avoid putting off buyers with dominant colors, play it safe with beige, taupe and other neutrals. Remember, the goal is to help people see themselves in the home.
Don’t overdo it!
It’s important not to take on too much at once. You don’t want so many projects that they postpone your ability to show your house. Start small. Develop a checklist of the projects you want to do, and prioritize them by level of importance. That way, if you run out of time or money, you’ll at least have the biggest projects out of the way first.
Learn More
Want more tips and strategies for selling your home? You’ll find 20 pages of them in the author’s “Home Selling Workshop.” See below for website address.
About the Author
Brandon Cornett has worked as a marketing manager for a company serving the real estate industry since 1986. He prepares home-selling products for homeowners and real estate agents alike. The article above is an excerpt from his “Home Selling Workshop,” available for download at: http://www.armingyourfarming.com/products/sellersguide.php
Brokeback Mountain Challenges Culture and Hollywood
The first tremors that Brokeback Mountain was coming out of the celloid closet began in late January 2006, as the film went into major distribution nationwide. After a slow roll-out and strong word of mouth, many people who thought they would never vote for two men kissing as MTV’s hottest kiss did witness the idea of two people in love who just happened to be of the same gender.
Those that came away after seeing BBM the first or the fifth time reported that the movie was raw, haunting and ground breaking. The first weeks after many saw the movie, just mentioning Jack Twist or Ennis del Mar brought tears to eyes of those reflecting on their experience with the movie. I had never seen this type of reaction to a film by such a broad range of Americans. Scores moved by the movie, bought the book, by Annie Proulex. Not very often can a movie tell a story as well or better than a book, but many people felt director Ang Lee did and won an Academy Award for BBM. But other BBM nominees were left out on awards night, and homophobia was the mantra of BBM devotees, including thousands who posted daily on David Cullen’s BBM forum.
Seldom in recent history has a film touched the emotions of a cross section of people world wide. It takes something very different or special to speak to so many. Love though is universal, and love triumphed in a big way over many other issues raised in BBM. Even movie reviewers got side-tracked by saying the main characters were sheep herders not cowboys, filmgoers rarely talked about such surface distractions that the reviewers debated for weeks. And some reviewers in a delayed response weeks after their original review, either corrected or retracted it. That was really new to American culture, the media rethought themselves.
It is to early to know if there will be a permanent shift in culture and societies perspective on same gender relationships. One thing I know for sure and Health Ledger was right on the money when it was reported that he said:”It was definitely like walking on the moon for the first time, but it wasn’t the butt of a mule. I was kissing a human being with a soul.” Heath Ledger on kissing Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. Thank goodness Brokeback Mountain let people rediscover their soul.
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Mark Nash’s fourth real estate book, “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home” (2005), and working as a real estate broker in Chicago are the foundation for his consumer-centric real estate perspective which has been featured on ABC-TV, Associated Press,CBS The Early Show, Bloomberg TV, Bottom Line Magazine.CNN-TV, Chicago Sun Times & Tribune, Fidelity Investor’s Weekly, MarketWatch, HGTVpro.com, MSNBC.com, Smart Money Magazine,The New York Times, Realty Times, Universal Press Syndicate and USA Today. |
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Who Sets the Standard? Email Newsletters Could Fail the “Test”
The buzz word “standards” may cause an eyeball-rolling response, but without standards, we would have to buy specific media to work with our DVD, VCR and music player. Remember the software buying days, when you had to look for compatibility in terms of Mac versus Windows? Imagine having to do that with Web pages. This Web page is for Macs only … this one is for Windows. Thanks to W3.org, a body that sets recommendations for HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and other markup languages, we don’t have that issue.
Some sites, however, do look better in Internet Explorer than in Mozilla or Firefox. That’s because such sites use an Internet Explorer-specific markup language that is not standard. Let me explain. Let’s say the dreaded blink element is proprietary to Internet Explorer only (it’s not, but this is just an example). If an HTML page has it, and you try to view it in a browser other than Internet Explorer, nothing blinks on the page (not that we would want it to). This is a very simple example of what happens when a browser maker creates proprietary elements that works only with its browser.
Playing well with others
Creating proprietary markup code is much like DVD makers producing hardware that works only with a specific brand of DVDs. On one hand, it may encourage people to buy their DVD products. On the other hand, customers refuse to buy something that has such limits. Which would you rather have? A customer buying your product because it works with everything, not just item A, or a customer not buying your product at all because it works only with item A, which is also your product?
That’s the kind of thing we’re seeing with those popular single-cup brewers. I have a Home Café, which I received so I could review the product. The instructions explicitly say to use only Folgers or Millstone pods with the machine because using other brands will damage it. Yet, if you look at pods from Coolbeans.com or Starbucks, companies that don’t produce a machine, they are compatible with Home Café and other brewers such as the Senseo and Melitta.
I don’t like Folgers, period. So would Black and Decker rather me not buy its product because I dislike its partners’ pod brands, or buy it because I can use it with other standard pods? That’s why standards play an important role. They benefit all companies.
Does this mean a company can’t get creative? Not at all. Home Café, Melitta and Senseo look different. Two only brew one cup at a time while one can do two cups. The set up and usage are also different. The look and feel are distinctive. I’ve heard comments from people who prefer one brewer over another. If all single pod brewers work with any pod brand, then we have a choice based on which best meets our needs, just like with the standard coffee machines. Some love their Bunn. Some love their Braun. Some love their Krups.
Cars are the same way. The distinctive features, look and style separate one car from the others. But most of them run on unleaded gasoline. Imagine if we still produced cars using leaded fuel.
Standards for newsletters
So what about newsletters? Before sending this newsletter to you, we test it. Not in terms of beating it up and throwing it around like in the gorilla and suitcase commercials. Or running it into the wall with crash test dummies to test its safety.
Instead, we check for spammability as well as readability. How clean (or not) is the newsletter? Will it pass through the filters? Such a check looks at the fonts used, words and the markup code you don’t see unless you do a “view source.”
Once while doing a test on a newsletter, we received a warning that it had “shouting markup.” Wow. Not only do we have people who shout by capitalizing their text in email messages or instant messages, but we also have markup that yells. And apparently, it’s a bad thing in terms of filters.
When I write about Web design, I encourage using XHTML markup standards with CSS for layout. XHTML requires all markup uses lower case, as in
But we’re talking about a newsletter’s ability to make it pass the filter, not about clean markup code. A newsletter checker shouldn’t care about the markup language. It should focus on the content. Yet, we get a warning that shouting markup, the use of upper case in the tags, is a bad thing and sends the email to the junk bin.
Words that do not pass go
Who decides the standards for declaring content as junk or legit? The bad guys keep changing their content to make it pass through the filters while the good guys fail. This article could send the newsletter to the junk folder because I use the word “spam.” Guess what? The real spammers wouldn’t use that word because they aren’t going to admit their content is spam.
Another “bad” word is “free.” It’s understandable. But it’s also legit. For instance, in the blog, we give a “complimentary” report to those who buy the report. Many businesses do this. Buy this and get this for free. Yet, I use the word “complimentary” or the phrase “no cost” to avoid using “fr33″ (that’s another one) and ending up in your garbage bin.
I get tired of seeing legitimate newsletters that I’ve requested using “free” or “spaham” to duck the filters. I want such newsletters to feel they can use normal words without getting creative. Yet I know spammers have gotten smart and now use periods and spaces in a word to sneak pass the filters, forcing the good guys to do the same.
What’s the solution?
If I had the solution to this problem, I’d be a millionaire. Phishers (bad guys who send you email leading you to believe it’s from a Web site with which you have an account) are getting smarter in tricking recipients into believing their email comes from a respected company, like eBay or PayPal, to get your personal information.
My email address has been blacklisted at Spamcop, a popular email filter, several times. Spammers find ways to use email addresses of people like you and me. Furthermore, they change their email and Web URLs as frequently as we change our clothes. My email server host provider offers the option of using a spam service like Spamcop, but I don’t use it. Too often, the newsletters I want have ended up in Never, Never Land.
Plus, on occasion, we forget we subscribed to so-n-so’s newsletter when we entered a contest or requested a free white paper. Some recipients report such newsletters to Spamcop, and a good guy gets jailed over a reader’s mistake.
Helpful applications, useless response systems
By using software on my computer, I put email management under my control. I’ve trained the program to recognize senders on my list. This product has done a good job and rarely sends a legitimate email to the junk folder. I always scan the junk folder before I empty it this takes less than a minute.
Some people use the “response system.” You’ve seen these. You send an email to a friend and immediately get an email saying to click on this link and enter the code to prove you’re a real person. There’s a flaw with the system. Newsletters are managed electronically and will not catch these responses.
When I managed a list of over 100,000 readers, I watched for those response requests. However, it was easy to miss a request in the middle of all the “bad address” or “email box is full” messages. Some idiotic response systems require you to confirm you’re a human EVERY time you send a message to the individual. I gave up on several readers who had this in place.
I think the solution is to manage our emails at the host provider and local computer level. At least you have some control here. A good host provider gives you an option of using filtering services. If you do, it should store email messages in a junk folder you can access and review before they’re gone forever. If you don’t want to review them, simply empty the junk folder.
RSS enters the picture
Some online marketing experts are proclaiming the newsletter dead and all content should come through RSS feed readers (see RSS article for explanation on what it is). I’ve been using an RSS feed to make my content available for such readers before it hits the mainstream. I like this alternative, but I still like email newsletters coming to me.
Are you thinking I am promoting newsletters because I am in the newsletter biz? I wouldn’t do that. I believe in offering as many options as possible. My blogs and newsletters are available in RSS. Some people won’t read newsletters unless there is an RSS feed for them. Others don’t want to use RSS as they prefer content to “come to them” rather than having to open an RSS reader like FeedDemon or go to an online RSS reader like Bloglines.
I use both. The email newsletters I want to read regularly come to my email box. For those that aren’t as important, or that I want to access when I need information, I rely on their feeds and open my reader when I want to read them.
What about RSS readers that send content to your email box? NewsGator is one such application, and it’s excellent. I have so many feeds that when I run NewsGator, I get a ton of content in my email box in a folder set aside for feeds. The only way to get rid of the content is to delete the entries myself. That is the only pain.
RSS is not a replacement for email newsletters. It complements them. It provides readers with another option. Essentially, you’re getting the same coffee from the content, just using a different machine to get it. Some readers prefer one brand while others choose a different brand.
Applications that check your newsletter’s content for spam are useful. However, they should focus only on the content and make recommendations for changes to decrease a newsletter’s chances of being filtered. Reviewing markup should not fall to such applications. There are other validators that do that job.
So what ARE the rules? There are no set rules with email newsletters. However, we have published “our” rules in this newsletter and in the book. Every newsletter we produce follows this book. The rules are subjective, but they’re available to everyone who wishes to read them.
Everyone has a strong opinion on spam, but few experts explain what it is or how it is measured. We’re just as confused. Our experience has taught us that a publisher with a solid opt-in list is at risk from an overzealous “spam fighting” industry. The lack of instructions and support from companies who offer tools, especially the free ones as many use them, cause more problems for the good guys who don’t spam their lists.
The shouting markup. We obtained a lower score by changing the upper case HTML mark up to lower case. However, trying to find this rule and an explanation is fruitless. All the guidelines indicate are the message and the evaluation. The evaluation is meaningless as the one we received stated, “BODY: HTML has very strong ’shouting’ markup.” Nothing more.
Someone pointed me to the source code of the spam checker, which hints that shouting markup refers to refers to B, I, U, STRONG, EM, BIG, CENTER and H1-H6 tags. How is the typical newsletter publisher going to know this? Most of them are not HTML experts and would not be able to read spam checker’s source code.
Where are the standards? Where is there a manual that accompanies this popular spam checker and the implemented rules? It’s not a standard found in any RFC (request for comments), but an organization’s arbitrary ruling. We need guidelines and basic standards.
Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl’s notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn’t wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.
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Don’t Be Like Forgetful Freddy, The Absent Minded Gift Buyer
I have two short stories to tell you.
Last Christmas, Forgetful Freddy forgot to buy
Christmas gifts for one of his sons, his aunt and
his grandmother. Sitting around the Christmas
Tree with his entire family on December 25th was
a somber experience for Freddy.
In 2004 Forgetful Freddy’s memory was also not
working too well. He did not remember his
daughter’s birthday and his own anniversary.
He still feels embarrassed at family functions.
We all want to take care of those that are near
and dear to us. But as humans we sometimes
miss the mall. The joy of gift giving allows us
to show our gratitude for those in our lives we care
about and love. I know what it feels like to not receive
a gift when I was expecting something from a special
person in my life. I am pretty sure it feels the same way
for others. Yech.
So why leave it to chance? Remind yourself.
Freddy like I needed help. We both did not want to
forget a loved one around the holidays or on a special occasion.
We found what we were both looking for.
I know that a Gift Reminder Service may not be the most
crucial thing to take care of.
But as my Grandfather told me a long time ago.
Vich dell technich vich dell techni
I still do not know what he wsa saying.
Happy Holidays
Aron Wallad wants to help you.
Check out this free gift reminder service.
Go here right now to see for yourself.
http://www.dreamworldgiftware.com
If
If only I can embrace you
and keep you from the harms of this world…
if only my arms would be enough
to protect you from the blinding influences…
If only I can make things right
and shield you from the wrongs……
and the pain and that the years…
But I can’t… I’m just as human as you are
that’s why I’m here standing strong today
because I faced up to the battle
and came wounded but unscathed…
But I’ll be around, each time you hit the ground
in each why’s and how-could-it-be’s
I’ll shade of tree.
If only I have the power
to exempt you from every despair
and every anguish and every truth…
but then you’ll miss out on the virtues
and the depth and the courage
which are all but by-products of each fall the rise from…
Yes I’ll be around each time you graze the ground
to say… I love you… still and always.
September 2001
About the Author: wILLIAM RAMOS asks of your opinion on all the articles he publishes here.Feel free to text your comments or suggestions or possible reprint of his work @ +63917 496 27 68 OR EMAIL @ pogieramos@yahoo.com or at pogiedman@yahoo.com
Source: www.isnare.com
Gender Differences: How Women Can be More Successful in a Male World
Are the differences between men and women the result of socialisation, or are we born different? If we are entirely socialised different then women can learn how to be like men and compete with them, but if as I believe the underlying difference is something we are born with, a different strategy needs to be used to succeed in a male dominated culture.
I was born transgender and have studied gender differences all my life from a totally different perspective to most people. Crossing the gender divide and living as women I started to see things that I simply could not see as a man, and of course I was already aware of differences that women never see because men have a side to them that they seldom, if ever, show to women. The book that most helped me to start understanding what was going on was Talking from 9 to 5 by Deborah Tannen.
Let me clarify one thing first. I am talking about masculinity and femininity, not male and female. Our behaviour differences exist along a continuum - we are all different but research suggests that certain behaviours tend to be exhibited more by men and others by women. However some men have very feminine behaviours, some women have very masculine behaviours - that’s the joy of diversity and difference.
There is one big gender difference that impacts almost everything we do.
The primary strategy in masculine social behaviour and therefore used by most men is about positioning in a hierarchy or dominance. We see this from early childhood behaviour. People exhibiting masculine behaviour constantly try to position themselves as one up against everyone. When this is done with other men then there is no problem because it’s all part of the masculine positioning game.
Social conditions determine how the positioning is done. Sometimes it’s through physical dominance, sometimes it is wealth and power, telling a joke (most male jokes are put downs), buying a bigger house or car or new toy, getting a prettier wife or mistress. It’s not a problem for men. They adapt to it quickly and learn to play the positioning game; they use physical presence, voice, intelligence, money or any other advantage to position themselves one up, or put the other person one down. This is the foundation of men’s competitive nature.
The primary strategy in feminine social behaviour and therefore the approach used by most women it to try to equalise things all the time. Women constantly try to bring everyone to the same level totally counter to the male behaviour. Women tend to put themselves down and then allow others to bring them back up to the equal position. That’s why women are forever apologising.
Women prefer not to promote themselves and boast about their achievements because it positions them above people and that is uncomfortable. Women bond though a network of social connections rather than though a hierarchy of performance; they develop skills in listening and collaborating rather than command and control.
The problem for women is that to secure equal rights in the eyes of men, they need to appear more assertive and to promote themselves more but if they do they will upset the delicate balance of feminine network relationships. Increasingly those feminine skills of networking and communication are becoming essential in a workplace where, at the lower levels of the corporate hierarchies, women are the majority. But those feminine behaviours are a disadvantage in management where men still dominate.
We are beginning to see different organisation structures emerging as a result of the feminine influence. Women leaders don’t want to be at the top of a hierarchical organisation, they want to be at the centre of a networked organisation. It’s a totally different structure and approach; however until this GenderShift is more universal, women need strategies now to survive and prosper in a male dominated business culture while retaining their natural feminine strengths?
Most importantly women must position themselves as being good at what they do and they have to make sure that everyone knows that they are good at what they do. So here are five top tips to positioning yourself.
- Wherever possible get certificates and accolades to your expertise and display and publicise them.
- Write promotional materials and biographies in the third person as if someone else is writing it about you and strongly highlight your successes and achievements. Get a professional to write them for you because they will say things you wouldn’t dare say.
- Instead of blowing your own trumpet, get testimonials from clients and contacts blowing your trumpet for you.
- Learn to be an “Outstanding Public Speaker” - average is just no good. This is the most powerful way to establish presence.
- Stop apologising when you don’t need to. Say sorry when it is necessary not when it’s just a way of putting yourself down or a conversation ritual.
Copyright 2005 Richelle (Rikki) Arundel, UK
About the Author:
Founder and First President of the Professional Speakers Association, Rikki Arundel is an International Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Writer and an expert in sales and marketing communications with an impressive track record. She is also proudly and openly transgender which has given her a unique understanding of the differences in the way men and women communicate in business.
Get your free copy of How to Get Customers Queuing up to Buy at http://www.SpeakingandMarketingTips.com
Chronic Depression is the Leading Cause of Disability in the World
According to the landmark “Global Burden of Disease” study, mental disorders are the second leading source of disease burden in established market economies and major depression alone ranked as the leading causes of disability. Major depression takes an enormous toll on functional status, productivity, and quality of life, and is associated with elevated risk of heart disease and suicide.
In addition, the rate of treatment for depression is increasing dramatically in the United States. The annual economic burden of depression in the U.S. (including direct care, mortality, and morbidity costs) has been estimated to total nearly $44 billion. This combination of increasing burden and cost has stimulated numerous investigations into population-based strategies to prevent the occurrence of major depression and to encourage more effective treatment of depression, thereby limiting its course and preventing its recurrence.
This growing body of literature around population-based strategies to improve the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of depression, and the increasing burden of this debilitating chronic condition, the Task Force on Community Preventive Services has endorsed this topic for review. A review of one aspect of treatment”collaborative” or “shared care”, designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of depression in the primary care setting, particularly within integrated systems of carehas been completed, a recommendation has been issued by the Task Force, and a full report on this work will be issued by year-end. The Task Force recommends collaborative care for treatment of adults 18 years of age or older, with major depression, on the basis of strong evidence of effectiveness in improving short-term treatment outcomes.
The earlier you can get adequate treatment for your depression, the better chances you have of a positive outcome. About 15% of the population do not respond to traditional antidepressants. The FDA has just approved the first ever long-term treatment option for chronic or recurrent depression: vagus nerve stimulation. This is a ninety minute outpatient procedure, which is unrelted to ECT or shock treatments. The therapy completely changed my life. You can learn more about this remarkable treatment at http://wwww.VagusNerveStimulator.com
Charles Donovan was a patient in the FDA investigational trial of vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. He was implanted with the vagus nerve stimulator in April of 2001. He chronicles his journey from the grips of depression thanks to vagus nerve stimulation therapy in his book:
Out of the Black Hole: The Patient’s Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression
The book was exhibited at the 2005 American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting, in Atlanta, GA. This was the largest gathering of psychiatrists in the world( 25,000 attendees). The book is available at Amazon.com and 24/7 at 1-888-VAGUS-88
What you eat affects how you breathe
Is there a connection between Asthma and Diet? Yes. What you consume very much so affects the functioning of your respiratory organs-it affects everything. Consequently, if one is seeking to control asthma symptoms and attacks, this is the one factor one has to strongly consider.
According to medical research, Asthma is an allergic inflammation of the lungs. Moreover, an asthma attack can be triggered by chemicals, air pollutants, pollens, molds, dust, animal dander, foods, exercise, and even temperature changes.
However, friends, speaking from my experiences with asthma from the age of 7 till I was about 20, the one factor I think is the most influential negatively on one’s respiratory and overall health, will be what one consumes.
This is a fact that has been in effect in several programs aimed at correcting respiratory health such as the “Breath Retaining Program for Asthmatics” developed by the Russian, Dr. Buteyko. Within weeks of adhering to his advice, many a chronic asthmatic has been able to give up the use of ventolin inhalers.
Now, I never had to use his program; however, in my quest to get rid of acne, I stumbled on the dietetic change that miraculously cured my asthma, halitosis and overall lethargy. Being amazed at how this change in eating habits worked for not one, but all of my health challenges, was what made me research and discover that such a program as his even exists.
“Well, what is the dietetic suggestion?” one might ask. Quite simply, it is to give up all processed foods and animal products such as meat, milk, eggs and the like from your diet-plain and simple.
Two quotes come to mind in advocating this: “You are what you consume” and “Let your foods be you medicine and your medicine your foods”
Now, I ask you a question: “What is the main physical emission that occurs during an asthma attack with all the wheezing and coughs?” It is mucus.
All the foods listed above are highly mucus forming and upon digestion (if they ever do get digested that is), they leave one with an excessive lining of mucus and slime. Keep in mind that the lungs are the most important excretory organs, when you add its functioning to this fact, it becomes apparent that the consumption of these substances are really only wreaking havoc on the body.
In addition, from my own experience, DO NOT CONSUME LIQUIDS WITH YOUR MEALS AT ANY TIME. This inhibits digestion by diluting the necessary juices in your stomach designated for that purpose. As a result, it hinders the much needed expansion of the diaphragm and consequently a constriction of the lungs- the bellows of life giving air- which results in the wheezing sounds any asthma patient is familiar with.
So what should one eat as an asthma patient?
Well, the foods that are the exact opposite, mucus binding or non-mucus forming foods.
These are quite simply fruits and vegetables. Make sure they are organic if possible or at least not in the list of the “dirty dozen” i.e. the ones most contaminated with pesticides such as Apples, Mexican Melons, Grapes etc…
Trust me on this; I’m speaking from experience, you will do very well to avoid the fruits in that list when it comes to asthma. Nonetheless you’d still be much better off steering clear of those food substances labeled as mucus-forming earlier on.
Other minor factors will still come into play in regards to a natural asthma treatment, however, diet is arguably THE factor to monitor the most.
Remember what you eat affects how you breathe…and how you breathe affects how you live.
Here’s to breathing freer.
Foras Aje is an independent health researcher and founder of Bodyhealthsoul.com. For more information on Asthma Treatment, stop by his website today.