Causes of Back Pain and how to Prevent it

Back pain is so common in America that 75% of the population will experience it in their lifetimes. Since back pain affects middle age people it has a huge affect on the economy. Studies have shown that low pack pain is a leading cause of work absentees.

Back pain being the substantial problem that it is, it is important to know the causes of back pain as well as how to prevent it.

Causes of Back Pain

Muscle Strain
The leading cause of back pain is due to a simple muscle strain. At some point an individual may have an event that causes their muscle to spasm. These strains will relax in a matter of weeks.

Ruptured Disc
A ruptured disc, or herniated disc, is another cause of back pain. Treatment may vary depending on many factors. Consult your physician for proper treatment.

Discogenic Back Pain
This type of back pain may be a leading cause of low back pain. This type of pain is the result of damage to the intervertabral disc.

Arthritis
Arthritis is a disease that affects joints in the fingers, wrists, and knees. Lumbar spine arthritis can affect the joints within the spine itself. Arthritis would cause you to have pain when you were moving.

There are many other factors that determine a person’s probability of having back pain. Age, weight, and past injuries are all factors that can cause lower back pain. Let’s take a look into ways to prevent future back pain.

Ways to Prevent Back Pain

Live a Healthy Lifestyle
One of the best things you can do to prevent lower back pain is to maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight puts enormous pressure on your lower back. Maintaining a healthy core, or abdominal muscles, will help you support your back by providing proper posture.

Exercise
You hear exercise as being the answer to preventing just about every medical condition on record. So much so, we tend to ignore it. Living an active lifestyle will increase muscle tone, decrease fat, and reduce levels of stress. Each of the factors plays a role in back pain. Muscle tone keeps your body strong and able function at optimal levels. Fat has a tendency to gather around the waist and hips. This puts undo strain on your lower back. Overall stress decreases the ability for the body to heal itself when it is injured.

Lift Properly
When you lift, lift with your knees. Try to keep your back straight and force the weight through your legs and knees. Generally, your legs are the most muscular part of your body. These muscles are much more capable of handling stress and weight than your back muscles.

Know how to create your own Gift Basket

Gift baskets are an easy way to win the heart of your dear and loved ones. It’s not necessary that each time you need to purchase a gift basket because it’s simple and easy to create a custom gift basket of your own. You can make theme basked gift baskets just by keeping in mind that who is going to be the recipient and on what occasion it is being gifted. Point’s considerable for the recipient are what do they like, what are their hobbies, what they need and what do they like to eat. Things you require are a container to put all the things together. It is not necessary that the container is expensive but you should choose it as per the theme. It should also be reusable and something practical. Containers you can use as gift basket could be basket of any size, pots, bowls, fishing creel, tin, platter, plastic container, colander, bucket, canvas bag, day pack or storage box. You can pick up from themes such as kids gift baskets, photographer gift baskets, gardener gift baskets, guitar player gift baskets, grandparents gift baskets, holiday gift baskets, romantic gift baskets and much more. It could be presented on occasions such as birthday, anniversary, festivals, holidays, promotions or anything else. 1. To create a kid gift basket you can use games, puzzle CD’s, coloring books, crayons, markers, stickers, cartoon pictures and gather it all together in a rubber or plastic storage box. 2. For making a gift basket for your special someone you can collect things such as cosmetic creams, lotions, relaxation CD’s and any other thing you know she will cherish to have. If it is someone male, you can gather some sports items to create a golf gift basket or you can also use dark chocolates, popcorn’s, tasty wheat wafers and snacks that he would love to have. 3. Making a bath gift basket is also simple where you need to use a nice basket with collectibles such as a gel eye pack, soothing after bath lotions, Epsom salts, scented candles, scrubber or loofah sponge, aromatherapy oils, back cleaning brush, relaxing musical CD. 4. To gift a college student you can take a basket or usable container with things such as pencils, mouse pads, phone cards, gifts certificate for CD, nail clippers and book light. Other things that you can use are yummy snacks and hand towel. 5. If you wish to gift someone who loves yummy snacks, you can decorate a colander or bowl with package of gourmet pasta, pasta olives, tongs or pasta grabber, spices such as garlic powder, basil, recipe cookbook. 6. To gift your grandparents, you need to use a basket or reusable container with a scrapbook, children’s artwork, framed family pictures, family videos, long distance calling cards, handmade ornaments, polar fleece lap blanket and some tea, coffee or candy. 7. If it is your colleague or friend who is a wine lover, you can use a wine cooling bucket with some wine glasses, cork screw, cheese and crackers and wine or champagne bottles. After you have all your collectibles with you, you can put some filler around them such as piece of fabric, straw, Easter basket grass, shredded paper, newspaper, colored paper, colored towels or napkins, tissue papers or cedar shavings. You can easily add potpourri, special tea bags, roasted or unshelled nuts, small toys, sample hand creams for any kind of occasions. There are innumerable types of gift baskets that you can make according to the preferences of the recipient. To know more, visit our recommended website customgiftbasket.info

Catering For Your Party

Dealing with catering service providers is part of planning a successful party. A caterer normally provides food and beverages and they have an important role in your party. If you have experience with caterers, you are in luck. But if you have never hired a caterer before, don’t worry.

If the party venue offers this service, it is also possible that you don’t need to worry about hiring a third party caterer. Even if catering is not provided by the party location, they may be able to recommend some to you. If your party site manager, recommends a caterer you should still do your homework. Just like any other vendor, a caterer should be able to provide you with several references. You should always contact the references.

You should ask about reliability, trustworthiness, quality, and related issues. Never assume that a caterer recommended by someone if surely the best possible solution for your event. One caterer may work great for one event, but be insufficient for others. A caterer may be experienced in smaller parties, but not experienced with parties with two hundred invited guests.

There are two different styles of catering:
Seated Dinner - Seated dinner setting will normally require more staff than a buffet. Serving the food requires more severs. With a seated dinner, you will need more tables and chairs because most of the guests will eat at the same time. A seated dinner offers less flexibility for your guests, because they usually have a couple of options to choose from. To simplify the process, menu options should be included with the party invitations so your guests can choose which selection they prefer. The pre-selection process enables you to work with your caterer on the final count.

Buffet – You may be able to get away with less chairs and tables with a buffet dinner. Buffet gives your party guests more flexibility, and they don’t all have to eat at the same time. A buffet dinner also gives your party guests more options to customize their food selection. The buffet requires fewer servers and less staff. Guests can pick and choose what they like. In addition to the obvious advantage of a more flexible dinner, your guest can go back for seconds. Because buffet dinners require minimal service staff, you may even be able to save money with this option.

Is Technology Isolating Us From Friends and Family

Psychologists have done studies on the effects of internet chats on people. The number of cases going to doctors are increasing day by day. People who are shy and reticent in the real world, log on chats to vent out their frustration. They assume pseudo identities and assume a new life, sitting hours at a stretch. These cases have been causes of many marital problems and divorces. Rejection by cyber friends has also been a big reason of depression cases. It only serves to increase loneliness which has been proved. Even internet surfing, to some has become an addiction. Hours and hours are spent online with no care of the real world. Similarly with online games. People suddenly become recluse. They ignore their home and family. Hanging out is no longer for them. This phenomenon is real in many places. Loneliness creates frustration with the outside world. A gregarious attitude is lost. Everything is a product of new and latest innovations of technology companies. And they are only researching and testing for more of these gadgets. Gone is the time of 70's and 80's when saturday nights were nights with friends, hanging out. Nowadays you also hear about online meetings with friends using instant messengers. SMS has reduced the need of speaking on the phone. People are no longer as outgoing and socialable as they were before. Even movies and concerts can be downloaded home on demand preventing the need to go out. In fact, you can even work from home and not even go to office. Everything you need to shop, can be ordered online or on the telephone. Talking of education, even graduate degrees can be obtained sitting at home. There is no need to attend lectures and classes in universities. There's no need to stay in a college dormitory with new friends. Our old favourite TV started the couch potato idea. Studies showed people all over US were becoming obese and lethargic. Children instead of playing football outdoors were watching inane programs for long hours. All this only promotes loneliness. Some years back, there was this man who named himself dotcomguy. He stayed inside a room for an entire month with just a computer and a net connection. Everything he needed or wanted to do could be done or bought with the help of the net. Publicity and encouragement were given to him as if he were doing a great job. Maybe he demonstrated the power of the computer- nothing more. Man is a social animal-a cliche and a truth. He always needed company of others for happiness. Marriage is a symbol of the same- the need for a companion. Current technological progress is only undermining the same. Its creating hermits everywhere. There may be a day, when no one needs to come out of home. Now, even marriages are webcast, so that relatives can bless the couple online without needing to come over. What more can they think of?

Catalogue Shopping For The Perfect Cookware For Your Kitchen

Are you in the market for cookware? Are you also a person who maintains a very full schedule -- do you find yourself trying to juggle the demands of work and family? Have you essentially concluded that you simply do not have time to take up an extra activities, even something which might seem simple on the surface like looking for and finding the perfect cookware for your home kitchen.

If that is the case, all is not lost. There are options available to you that will permit you to purchase the type of cookware items that will best meet your needs -- and you will not need to unnecessarily overload your own schedule in the process. One option that you will want to consider in your hunt for cookware when you are living life on a tight schedule is catalogue shopping for cookware for your kitchen.

When it comes to catalogue shopping for cookware, you do have a number of options available to you. For example, if you are interested in high end cookware products for your kitchen and for your home, there are now some wonderful merchants that market their wares through catalogues.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you are a person who wants to save money, if you are living on a more restrictive budget, there are now some excellent companies that sell a wide array of different cookware and kitchenware products via catalogues.

In addition to companies that market their wares exclusively through catalogues, many major retailers in the brick and mortar world now also market their own inventory of products through catalogues.

When shopping through catalogues, most companies now charge only a minimal fee for shipping and handling. Indeed, in some instances, if you purchase over a minimum amount of products, products that cost over a minimum amount of money, the catalogue vendor will charge you nothing additional for shipping and handling. In addition, most catalogue companies also provide you with a toll free number through which you can phone a catalogue merchant and order those cookware products that you desire at no additional charge to you.

Finally, catalogue shopping allows for you to purchase products with a guarantee. In other words, if you receive the product and are not satisfied with what you obtain when you receive the product, you can return the cookware purchased -- the merchant paying the return shipping.

Care For Your Leather: Great tips to keep your leather clean and moist!

Leather is a very durable material and needs to be cared for. To care and protect your leather handbags, backpacks, wallets, fanny packs, etc., you should use good quality water and stain repellant to help prevent stains and dirt build up. For best results:

• Apply protecting products just after purchasing and three to four times a year thereafter as needed.
• Keep your leather moist with a high quality leather lotion.
• Do not use any cleaning products on any leather that is not made specifically for leather.
• If your handbag or other leather product is suede, use a cleaner that is made for suede.

Some cleaners that are made for leather may not be for use on suede. A good rule to go by is to always follow the manufacture’s directions and always test any protection and cleaning product on an inconspicuous area first.

When wearing or carrying leather, do not spray perfumes, hair spray, body sprays, or any other harmful products near your leather product, it will damage it and stain it from the harsh ingredients. Your leather product may be cleaned by simply wiping with a clean, damp cloth. Do not use soap or any chemical products. If there are stains that are too tough to get out, consult a professional leather cleaner.

How you store your leather is very important. Leather must be stored in a breathable container such as a cotton bag or wrapped in a cotton fabric. Do not store your leather in plastic. This may cause your leather to dry out. Store in a well-ventilated, cool, dry place and keep away for excessive heat or dampness such as attics and basements. This may cause your leather to crack from the heat or to mold from the dampness. By using some of the methods mentioned above may keep your leather looking great for many years to come.

How To Take Care Of A Grandfather Clock

Title: How To Take Care Of A Grandfather Clock Word Count: 525 Summary: A grandfather clock is undoubtedly an amazing piece to have in your home. It hearkens back to a time when life was simpler, yet more elegant. If you invest in a grandfather clock, chances are it will quickly become a showpiece within your entryway, living room, or dining room. Yet, it is highly important that you take good care of your grandfather clock. To some people, there is nothing more annoying than a clock that fails to provide the correct time. Also, while it can c... Keywords: grandfather clocks, clocks, time, cleaning clocks Article Body: A grandfather clock is undoubtedly an amazing piece to have in your home. It hearkens back to a time when life was simpler, yet more elegant. If you invest in a grandfather clock, chances are it will quickly become a showpiece within your entryway, living room, or dining room. Yet, it is highly important that you take good care of your grandfather clock. To some people, there is nothing more annoying than a clock that fails to provide the correct time. Also, while it can certainly be gratifying to purchase an antique clock, you don’t want your clock to “show its age” after just a few months in your home. The best way to ensure that you will be able to take care of a grandfather clock properly is to exercise caution when selecting a clock to buy. Whether you are interested in a new or used model, you probably have hundreds of choices to consider. You should examine each individual cabinet as you would any other piece of furniture. Be sure to carefully consider the finish and the overall quality. For instance, if you’re looking for a stunning piece that is particularly easy to care for, you might consider a 100 percent cherry, oak, or mahogany cabinet. In such a case, you’ll need to buy an older clock to get what you want. You’ll be much better off purchasing a grandfather clock from a clock dealer rather than from a general furniture store. This is because a dealer can offer better service after the sale. This means that, working with a dealer, you should have an easier time caring for your clock. Also, be sure that you examine the actual clock you’re purchasing, rather than just buying a clock delivered from a warehouse. Otherwise, you could end up with a clock that is damaged and will therefore be difficult to take care of. If you notice dents or scratches on the surfaces of the weights or pendulum, be sure to alert a customer service representative, so that those problems can be dealt with before you get the clock home. If you want a truly durable grandfather clock, you’ll probably have to purchase one that is about 40 to 50 percent more expensive than the cheapest model. If you purchase an older clock, you may have more difficulty taking care of it over the long run. This is because many older clocks have not been fully serviced before the sale because of the cost involved. Essentially, the dealer will probably do only that amount of maintenance necessary to get the clock running. As a result, you could find yourself facing significant maintenance costs later on. Also, be aware of the fact that a spring-driven clock does not usually last as long as a weight-driven clock. In order to care for your clock properly, it’s important that you have your grandfather clock cleaned at least once every five years. The cleaner your clock, the better it is likely to function. Since a grandfather clock represents a treasured piece of history, you need to care for it as you would any prized possession.