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via Cut costs in bank fees, home/car insurance, dining, and more.
Cut costs in bank fees, home/car insurance, dining, and more
Cut costs , save more
Home/Car Insurance and Financial Fees Save almost $600 a year Some credit cards sock you with fees of $30-plus, the FDIC reports, if you’re even a day late with your payment. Say you have a bad math week and bounce a check—that’s a fortune right there. Stay on top of these painful fees and save yourself from spending money that does nothing for you.
Set up an overdraft account. “Link your checking account to your savings account, so that if you overdraw, the money comes from savings, says Luke Reynolds, head of the FDIC’s community outreach efforts. Just make sure you always have a $300 cushion in your account.
Set up automatic withdrawal. Avoid late fees on your card by having your card issuer automatically withdraw the minimum amount before your due date. Many issuers also let you pay by phone. This helps during those months when you realize the due date is…today.
Don’t pay for credit reports. You know those ads promising free credit reports? Despite the catchy tune, the reports really aren’t free, notes Reynolds—they can cost about $15 per month. For a truly free report, head to AnnualCreditReport.com. You can get one free credit report each year; for most people, that’s plenty, he adds.
Cut ATM fees. Sure, having an ATM on every corner is convenient. But it’s also pricey, if you go outside your own bank’s network. Some ATMs charge $2-to-$3 per transaction. Your own bank may take on another couple bucks. If you use these once a month, that’s $60 out the window by next year. To avoid the fees, head to your bank’s website, and find the branches and ATMs near your usual stomping grounds. Make a point of using these whenever possible. What if you’re away from home and need cash? Use stores as your ATM—pay with your debit card and then ask for extra cash back when you check out, Reynolds suggests. Many times they do this without changing any fees.
Raise your deductible. The average annual bill for homeowner’s insurance was $804 in 2006, according to the Insurance Information Institute. However, by raising your deductible from $500 to $1,000, you could save up to 25 percent on your premium, the Institute says. If your annual tab is about the average, that works out to $200 per year. Same with car insurance: Kick it up from $250 to $500 and you’ll save between $171 and $257 per year, says Sam Belden, vice president with Insurance.com.
Revisit your policy. If you’ve changed jobs, for instance, and drive less to work, you may be able to reduce your car insurance rate. Low mileage rates, which can save you five to 15 percent, typically come into play if you drive less than about 7,500 miles each year, Belden says.
Recession proof your money
Is there a simple (and painless) way to create a budget? Most people are unreasonably afraid of the B-word. But knowing where your money goes can show you where you have room to spend, as well as where you need to cut back. It’s as easy as remembering these two numbers: 60 and 40. Sixty percent of your monthly income should go to fixed expenses such as food, mortgage or rent, utilities, transportation, and health care. Divide the remaining 40 percent as follows:
10% for a retirement fund. Yes, even if you have debt. At the very least, contribute the maximum amount to your 401(k) that your company will match–never pass up dough. 10% for paying off debt or building an emergency fund 10% for short-term savings to be spent on nonrecurring expenses like vacations or unexpected home repairs 10% for fun stuff that will improve your quality of life.
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Protect your assets with an index universal life insurance with full living benefits that grows to 13% tax free, contact Connie Dello Buono, CA Life Lic 0G60621, Retirement Planner
motherhealth@gmail.com
1708 Hallmark Lane, San Jose, CA 95124
Marketing Shortcut for the Self-employed by Patrick Schwerdtfeger
Define your business model
Implementation Checklist
1. identify the problem your product solves
2. describe the pain caused by the problem
3. note the emotional distress you alleviate
4. focus marketing on emotional benefits
5. compare notes and ideas with a colleague
more at….
Marketing Shortcut for the Self-employed
Leverage resources, establish online credibility and crush your competition
by Patrick Schwerdtfeger
30 Bits of Commencement Wisdom for the Class of 2013 by Lucas Reilly
It’s graduation season, and that means platitudes are parading out the mouths of notable speakers everywhere. Every year, speakers spew the same old sayings: Never give up! Embrace failure! Be passionate! Here’s a look at speakers who said things a little differently this year.
1. John Green (Author/Host of mental_floss on YouTube): Butler University
“Try not to worry too much about what you are going to do with your life. You are already doing what you are going to do with your life, and judging by the fact that you are wearing a gown, you’re doing pretty well. That’s not a sentence you hear much in life.”
2. Eric Idle (Comedian): Whitman College
“Your life is precious. You’ve only got one. Don’t waste it on bad relationships, on bad marriages, on bad jobs, on bad people. Waste it wisely on what you want to do. But if you’re still playing beer pong five years from now, you may be on the wrong track.”
3. Sharyn Alfonsi (Journalist): University of Mississippi, Meek School of Journalism
“Your life will have chapters, complete with crazy characters, villains and a plot you can’t even imagine as you sit here today. It’s a lot like a Scooby Doo episode.”
4. James Carville (Political Commentator): Hobart and William Smith Colleges
“You’re leaving here, and I can sit here and tell you all the vapid bull that comes out of the spring air in Upstate New York about being un-tethered, and drifting out on the sea of life, and plan your work and work your plan and all of that SPAT! You’re getting ready to go get knocked down. That’s what’s going to happen. Everybody wants to be a success but no one wants to stop and understand what it takes to succeed.”
5. Dick Costolo (CEO, Twitter): University of Michigan
“When I was your age, we didn’t have the Internet in our pants. We didn’t have the Internet NOT in our pants. That’s how bad it was.”
6. Steven Colbert (Comedian): University of Virginia, Valediction Ceremonies
“Don’t worry if we don’t approve of your choices. In our benign self-absorption, I believe we have given you a gift. A particular form of independence because you do not owe the previous generation anything. Thanks to us, you owe it to the Chinese.”
7. Anne-Marie Slaughter (Policy Analyst): Lafayette College
“In the end, no matter how much you love your work, your work will not love you back.”
8. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Astrophysicist): Rice University
“Your diploma is really not a ticket to show off what you know. You know what it really is? It’s permission to admit to yourself how much you still have yet to learn.”
9. Robert Kraft (Owner, New England Patriots): Suffolk University
“My advice is: Don’t follow the advice of others. I am not suggesting that you ignore advice, but just don’t let your advisers make decisions for you … And years from now, or even later today, when someone asks you ‘What advice were you given on your commencement day?’ and you respond, ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t listening,’ well then I will know you were paying attention.”
10. Arianna Huffington (President, Huffington Post): Smith College
“I beg you: don’t buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it’s not working for men, it’s not working for polar bears, it’s not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.”
11. Steven Chu (Former Secretary of Energy): University of Rochester
“Your biggest failure will happen if you go through life and never fail, because you’ll never know what you could have done.”
12. Annie Lennox (Singer-Songwriter): Berklee College of Music
“It’s important to acknowledge the value and power of unorthodoxy.”
13. Joss Whedon (Writer/Director): Wesleyan University
“If you think that happiness means total peace, you will never be happy. Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace. It will always be in conflict. If you accept that, everything gets a lot better.”
14. Steve Wozniak (Co-founder, Apple): University of California, Berkeley
“H = F3: Happiness equals food, fun, and friends … I said this once at my high school, and the kids started laughing. I had to admit there might be a fourth ‘F.’”
15. Jonathan Safran Foer (Author): Middlebury College
“Each step forward in technological communication has made things more convenient. But each step has also made it easier, just a little bit easier, to avoid the emotional work of being present. To write ‘LOL’ rather than to actually laugh out loud; to send a crying emoji rather than actually crying; to convey information rather than humanity. It’s never been easier to say nothing.”
16. Melinda Gates (Philanthropist): Duke University
“The people who say technology has disconnected you from others are wrong. So are the people who say technology automatically connects you to others. Technology is just a tool. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s just a tool. Deep human connection is very different. It’s not a tool. It’s not a means to an end. It is the end.”
17. Julie Andrews (Actress): University of Colorado, Boulder
“Use your knowledge, and your heart, to stand up for those who can’t stand, speak for those who can’t speak, be a beacon of light for those whose lives have become dark.”
18. Duncan Niederauer (CEO, NYSE Euronext): Colgate University
“My advice to you is be afraid of old ideas, not new ideas.”
19. David McCullough (Historian): Lesley University
“Never underestimate what other people might know. Sometimes people who seem to be the least possible source of interesting information turn out to be the greatest source imaginable.”
20. Toni Morrison (Author/Poet): Vanderbilt University, Senior Day
“Money is the not-so-secret mistress of all our lives, and like all mistresses, you certainly know whether she has or not already seduced you.”
21. Jon Lovett (Television Writer): Pitzer College
“You are smart, talented, educated, conscientious, untainted by the mistakes and conventional wisdom of the past. But you are also very annoying. Because there is a lot that you don’t know that you don’t know. Your parents are nodding. You’ve been annoying them for years. Why do you think they paid for college? So that you might finally, at long last, annoy someone else. And now your professors are nodding.”
22. Claude Steele (Social Psychologist): Tufts University
“In setting your life course, put the ‘wants’ of life ahead of the ‘shoulds’ of life.”
23. Martin Sheen (Actor): La Roche College
“We are not asked to do great things, we’re asked to do all things with greater care. Such an ideal is rare in a culture of so compromised values and so much cynicism, a culture that all too often knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
24. Rita Dove (Poet): Emory University
“Some might ask, why do we need books or art or music, and some may just as well ask, why does that bridge have to be beautiful? … You see, we all have imagination. We use it every day. We relish it. We would languish without our aesthetic desires.”
25. Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama): Tulane University
“I’ve had no modern education, so my knowledge compared to yours amounts to zero, but I have observed that many of the problems we face today are of our own creation. Because we created them, we must also have the ability to reduce or overcome them.”
26. Deepak Chopra (Physician): Hartwick College
“Remember that love without action is meaningless and action without love is irrelevant.”
27. More Jon Lovett at Pitzer
“There are moments when you’ll have a different point of view because you’re a fresh set of eyes; because you don’t care how it’s been done before; because you’re sharp and creative; because there is another way, a better way. But there will also be moments when you have a different point of view because you’re wrong, because you’re 23 and you should shut up and listen to somebody who’s been around the block.”
28. More John Green from Butler University
“You have probably figured out by now that education is not really about grades or getting a job; it’s primarily about becoming a more aware and engaged observer of the universe. If that ends with college, you’re rather wasting your one and only known chance at consciousness.”
29. Anne Fadiman (Author): College of the Holy Cross
“Don’t confine yourself to the fair weather races, the easy races, the races you know you can win. Get out in gale force winds. Know you will capsize, again and again and again and again.”
30. Judith Viorst (Author): Goucher College
“Becoming a grownup means understanding that when really bad things happen, that the answer to ‘why me?’ is ‘why not me?’”
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In building relationships to be of service to others first in your business, be genuine and build deep relationships. Connie Dello Buono, now hiring college grads in the financial arena in 50 US states. 408-854-1883 motherhealth@gmail.com
How can I get pregnant soon and how to have a boy or girl?
This question is very important for some women who wanted to have a baby soon.
The following answers are derived from my readings, so please consult your doctor.
It is important to have a physical check up since there are many reasons a woman cannot get pregnant, auto-immune disease, clogged fallopian tubes or cysts in reproductive organs, or male partner issue.
Zinc must be present in the diet or supplements in men and women should not take so much Vitamin C, for it makes the uterus inhospitable for conception.
On the first day of a woman’s period or menstruation, a woman must record this day and examine on the 8th to the 12th day the mucus that comes out of her os. If it is egg white in consistency or stretches 2 cm, this is the fertile period and that having sex this day or the day before will most likely conceived a boy and having sex three to four days before this ovulation or fertile period (normally 12th or 14th day) will help conceive a girl.
So when I was teaching in high schools, I gave a short lecture about this topic to alarm the women about their bodies and avoid unplanned pregnancies. Vitamin C around 6 grams (6000 mg) for two weeks can help prevent conception or pregnancy. Each woman’s body is different.
Seek a health care pro…
For free health topics about women’s bodies from childbearing years to menopause, contact Connie for her ebook on this topic at motherhealth@gmail.com
Connie Dello Buono, retirement planner for health care pros
408-854-1883
CA Life Lic 0G60621
408-854-1883
1708 Hallmark Lane, San Jose, CA 95124
College savings plans and strategies
1.Saving for your own retirement is more important than saving for college.
Your children will have more sources of money for college than you will have for your golden years, so don’t sacrifice your retirement savings. Comments: This is so true especially if you have helped prepared your children to be financially strong and educationally ready for college. You can start an index strategy of a retirement savings 2x that of your child.
2. The sooner you start saving, the better.
Even modest savings can pack a punch if you give them enough time to grow. Investing just $100 a month for 18 years will yield $48,000, assuming an 8% average annual return.
Comments:
Your money compounds every 8-9yrs depending on annual return. Based on rule of 72, divide 72 by the return your money is getting , 9% and your money doubles every 8 yrs. CD only offers around 1% return. Our index retirement savings strategy is currently at 8%.
3. Choose a long term, low risk, steady return of 8%-13%, guaranteed and secured, tax-free college savings strategy.
With tuition costs rising faster than inflation, a long-term , low risk savings strategy is the best way to build enough savings in the long term. As your child approaches college age, you can shelter your returns tax-free and liquid.
4. You don’t have to save the entire cost of four years of college.
Federal, state, and private grants and loans can bridge the gap between your savings and tuition bills, even if you think you make too much to qualify.
5. Tax breaks are almost as good as grants.
You may be able to take two federal tax credits — the American Opportunity Tax Credit and Lifetime Learning Credit — in the years you pay tuition. But you cannot claim the tuition and fees tax deduction in the same taxable year that you claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit or the Lifetime Learning Credit.
You also cannot claim the tuition and fees tax deduction if anyone else claims the American Opportunity Tax Credit or the Lifetime Learning Credit for you in the same taxable year.
A tax deduction of up to $4,000 can be claimed for the qualified tuition and fees paid.
6. The approval process for college loans is more lenient than for other loans.
Late payments on your credit record aren’t automatic grounds for refusal of a college loan.
7. Lenders can be flexible when it’s time to repay.
There are still ways to cut costs after you graduate and begin repaying your student loans. For instance, there is often a one-quarter percentage point interest rate decrease if you set up automatic debit, in which monthly payments are automatically taken from your account.
8. Taxpayers with student loans get a tax break.
You may deduct the interest you pay up to $2,500 a year if your modified adjusted gross income is less than $75,000 if you’re single or less than $155,000 if you’re married filing jointly. The deduction can be taken for the life of the loan.
Few people question the value of a college education, but the cost is enough to break the bank for a lot of families. With the cost of higher education rising faster than inflation, parents of today’s 4-year-olds may face college bills of more than $200,000 – and that’s for a public college! Private universities are more like $400,000.
Also, don’t forget that the availability of financial aid, loans, and education credits and deductions means you may not have to foot the entire bill yourself.
Your children have a lot of resources besides you to help feed the tuition monster, but no one is going to help you finance your golden years. Formulas used to assess need generally don’t consider retirement savings as an available asset when determining how much parents can contribute to tuition.
Putting too much money in your child’s name, however, might work against you. While it’s true that a child’s income is usually taxed at a lower rate than a parent’s income, keeping funds in a child’s name can reduce your financial aid package. Colleges use a formula for aid that assesses a family’s need based on up to 5.64% of parents’ available assets and on 20% of assets in a child’s name or custodial account.
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Contact Connie Dello Buono in 50 US states, CA Life Lic 0G60621 for a retirement /college savings strategy, guaranteed and with zero market risk. 408-854-1883 motherhealth@gmail.com
1708 Hallmark Lane San Jose CA 95124
Can you just stop smoking in a week or few months?
My father started smoking at 19 yrs of age. And for many years thereon until he was in his 40s. He had tuberculosis at the age of 40 and stopped smoking at age 42 , by just going cold turkey, stopping completely in less than few weeks. We give him candy to chew and his three daughters would remind him to stop smoking.
At age 63 when he arrived in the USA, a last stage terminal lung cancer was discovered via CAT and MRI scan. We opted for no chemo and radiation and he went home to the Philippines. He had two oxygen tanks beside him and received massages when the cancer turned into bone cancer, the most painful cancer of all. He described it as being in hell on earth.
He consumed many fresh squeeze juices of green papaya that prolonged his life to 7 more months from the diagnosis of 3months to live by his doctors in the USA.
When my son was offered a cigarette at age of 17 during the last year in high school, he said to his classmates that he don’t smoke and when asked what does he do, he said I only play computer games.
Many researches point to low birth weight babies or newborns from mothers who were smoking and those smoking illegal drugs are prone to blue babies, the baby die at birth.
Smoking is believed to help reduce weight and many other assumptions. But smoking drives away many important nutrients in the body especially Vitamin C, A, B, D and E. Even electronic cigars have side effects.
It takes more than 5 months to clean up or detox your body from smoking but it can be done. We should never make stress an excuse for smoking.
Spare yourself from the pain of other cancers and side effects of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases as a result of smoking.
Most of all, save those around you, babies and women and young people.
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My dad’s lung cancer can also be traced to his working at places like copper and nickel mining, asbestos factory and as car mechanic. My auntie who puts the lighted black ashes of the cigar inside her mouth, died of lung cancer at 70.
Food curator wanted
Please share your find for what you think is the healthiest dish in your community.
Email motherhealth@gmail.com with pics and name of restaurant or cook and contact info.
Think Vegan Food, Vegetarian Food, Gluten Free food, Paleo options etc.
The absolute best food available in restaurants that would help people lose weight.
And the recipe will be added in the new ebook on Health, Finance and Life.
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Why chewing your food helps you lose weight?
The enzymes in your saliva help in breaking down the food.
In the same way that eating pineapple or papaya help in breaking the fats in the meat that we eat.
Yerba buena for head aches, fever and other ailments
Botany Hierba buena is a prostrate, smooth , much-branched, usually purplish, strongly aromatic herb, with stems growing up to 40 centimeters long, with ultimate ascending terminal branches. Leaves are elliptic to oblong-ovate, 1.5 to 4 centimeters long, short-stalked with toothed margins, and rounded or blunt tipped. Flowers are hairy and purplish to bluish, borne in axillary headlike whorls. Calyx teeth are triangular or lanceolate and hairy; the corolla is also hairy.
Distribution – Native of Europe. – Introduced by the Spaniards. – Widely cultivation to some extent in all parts of the Philippines. – Thrives well at high elevations; rarely flowers in lowlands.
Constituents – Plant yields a volatile oil (0.22%) containing pulegone, menthol, menthene, menthenone and limonene. – Study showed the shoot leaf gave the highest yield of oil, 0.62%; while the stems had negligible yield. Menthol was the major component of all the oils. Other oils identified were: B-caryophyllene oxide, a-phellandrene, terpinolene, limonene, menthone and pulegone. – Phytochemical screening of powdered plant samples (root, stem, and leaves) yielded alkaloids, polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, cardiac glycosides, and diterpenes.
Properties – Carminative, stimulant, stomachic, aromatic, antiseptic, antispasmodic, sudorific, emmenagogue. – Oil is rubefacient and stimulant. – Tops and leaves are carminative.
Parts utilized Leaves and stems.
Uses Nutritional– Cultivated as a spice for cooking. – Leaves used for tea. – Used in salads to provide flavor. – Used as a flavoring in confections and dentrifices. Folkloric– One of the oldest household remedies known. – In the Philippines, tops and leaves are considered carminative; when bruised used as antidote to stings of poisonous insects. – Mint is used in neuralgic affections, renal and vesical calculus. – Used for stomach weakness and diarrhea. – Decoction and infusion of leaves and stems used for fever, stomach aches, dysmenorrhea, and diuresis. – Pounded leaves for insect bites, fevers, toothaches, headaches. – Crushed fresh plants or leaves are sniffed for dizziness. – Powdered dried plant as dentrifice. – Crushed leaves are applied on the forehead and temples for headaches. – For toothaches: (1) Wet a small piece of cotton with juice expressed from crushed leaves; apply this impregnated cotton bud to the tooth. (2) Boil 6 tbsp. of leaves in two glasses of water for 15 minutes; strain and cool. Divide the decoction into 2 parts and take every 3 to 4 hours. – For flatulence: Boil 4 tbsp of chopped leaves in 1 cup water for five minutes; strain. Drink the decoction while lukewarm. Facilitates expulsion of flatus. – Alcohol or ether extract used as local anesthetic for affections of the nose, pharynx, and larynx. – Used for obstinate vomiting of pregnancy. – An alcoholic solution of menthol has been used as inhalation for asthma. Menthol is also used as local anesthesia for headache and facial neuralgia. – Decoction or vapor from menthol used with lemon grass as febrifuge. Also used in hiccups. – Plant used as emmenagogue; also used in jaundice. – Dried plant used as dentrifice. – Leaves and stems used as carminative, antispasmodic, and sudorific. – Infusion of leaves used for indigestion, rheumatic pans, arthritis and inflamed joints. – For coughs, boil 6 tbsp of chopped leaves in 2 glasses of water for 15 mins; cool and strain. Divide the decoction into three parts; take 1 part 3 times a day. – Diluted essential oil used as wash for skin irritations, burns, pruritus, scabies, ringworm and as mosquito repellent. – For arthritis, warm fresh leaves over low flame; then pound. Apply pounded leaves while warm on the painful joints or muscles. – As mouthwash, soak 2 tbsp chopped leaves in 1 glass of hot water for 30 minutes; strain. Use the infusion as mouthwash. Others – Peppermint oil is often used in pharmaceutical preparations to subdue unpleasant medicinal smells. – Menthol derived from the essential oil is used in pharmaceutical, perfumery and food industries. Studies • Radioprotective: Study of mint extract on mice showed benefit with pretreatment of mice with reduction in the severity of symptoms of radiation sickness and mortality. • Anti-candida: A study of essential oils and ethanolic extracts of leaves/roots of 35 medicinal plants in Brazil screened for anti-Candida activity. Mentha arvensis was one of 13 essential oils that showed anti-candidal activity. • Anti-fertility / Male Contraceptive: (1) A study of the ether extract of MA on male mice showed reduction of number of offspring, with decrease in testes weight, sperm count and motility, among others. Results suggest that the ether extract of MA possess reversible antifertility properties. (2) Study of aqueous extract solution in male mice caused inhibition of fertility while maintaining normal sexual behavior. All induced effects returned to normalcy within 30 days of withdrawal of 60-day treatment. 
• Post-coital Antifertility Effect: A study on the uterotonic fraction of MA caused significant interruption in pregnancy in rats, pronounced in the post-implantation period. • Antibiotic Resistance-Modifying: (1) A report on the ethanol extract of MA showed a potentiating effect of the extract on gentamicin and presents a potential against bacterial resistance to antibiotics. (2) Study showed extracts of M arvensis could be used as a source of plant-derived natural products with resistance-modifying activity, such as in the case of aminoglycosides – a new weapon against bacterial resistance to antibiotics, as with chlorpromazine. • Anti-Gastric Ulcer: Study of various extracts of Mentha arvensis showed a protective effect against acid secretion and gastric ulcers in ibuprofen plus pyloric ligation-induced and 90% ethanol-induced ulcer models. • Herbal Liniment / Analgesic: M arvensis provides potent analgesic action and is used externally in rheumatism, neuralgia and headaches. In an herbal liniment where it was combined with four other medicinal plants, the liniment was found effective in ligament or muscle injury pain (sprains, strains, spasms, tennis elbow, etc), less so in osteoarthritis of the joint and periarthritis of the shoulder. No adverse reactions were reported. Efficacy was noted better in synergism with oral or parenteral analgesics. • Volatile Constituents / Menthol: Study showed the shoot leaf gave the highest yield of oil, 0.62%; while the stems had negligible yield. Menthol was the major component of all the oils. Other oils identified were: B-caryophyllene oxide, a-phellandrene, terpinolene, limonene, menthone and pulegone. • Linarin / Anti-Acetylcholinesterase: Flowers extract of M arvensis yielded linarin (acacetin-7-0-b-D-rutinoside), with selective dose-dependent inhibitory effect on acetylcholinesterase. • Anti-Allergic / Anti-Inflammatory: Study on anti-allergic activity using a histamine inhibitory assay showed the ethanol extracts of leaf and root markedly inhibited the release of histamine from mast cells. On anti-inflammatory testing using a histamine-induced paw edema model, all extracts showed anti-inflammatory effect suggesting the presence of compounds capable of inhibiting histamine release from the mast cells and/or block histamine receptors. • Effect on Haloperidol-Induced Catalepsy: Study in mice suggested Mentha arvensis significantly reduced oxidative stress and cataleptic score induced by haloperidol. Results suggest it can be used to prevent the drug-induced pyramidal side effects.
Availability Wild-crafted. Commercially: Analgesic tablets, tea.
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When my mother was young and was having a high fever, my grandma Claudia would wet my mom’s body and head with extracts from the leaves of Yerba Buena. My grandma also cleaned my foot skin disease with leaves of guava and burned egg yolk. She would massage my armpit and thighs when I have high fever and taught me many things about making coconut oil and other healing herbs.
Intermittent stress is ok but not prolonged stress, killing brain cells
New research from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to experiencing moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how important it is to keep stress under control. The study, led by post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby, found that the onset of stress entices the brain into growing new cells responsible for improved memory. However, this effect is only seen when stress is intermittent. As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells.
“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says. For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment. Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of prolonged stress.
Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.
While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.
They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.
They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They Stay Positive
Positive thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can’t think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that you must have something positive that you’re ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
They Disconnect
Given the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.
Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.
They Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control.
They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things, your inner voice says, “It’s time to stop and write them down.” Literally stop what you’re doing and write down what you’re thinking. Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.
They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it initially appeared.
They Breathe
The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.
This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.
They Use Their Support System, receives more love
It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.
John Bogle’s book- The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, a review by Trent
Chapter 1: A Parable
You can read this first chapter in its entirety on John Bogle’s personal site, but suffice it to say that much of the chapter focuses on a retelling of Warren Buffett’s classic tale of the Gotrocks and the Helpers. In a nutshell, the point of the tale is that individuals that you have to pay to help you make wise investment choices are actually taking money away from you instead of helping you make more money. The moral is, in Buffett’s words, that for investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases. An effective individual investor should thus look for steady investments with few middlemen – and middlemen that charge minimally for their services.
Chapter 2: Rational Exuberance
From the Gotrocks parable of the first chapter, Bogle attempts to apply the lesson of the story to stocks. He compares, over the long term, the return on investment for businesses versus the return on investment for stocks and finds that their correlation is very tight. What does that mean? Over the long haul, an investment in the stock of a business will match the success of the business itself. There may be short term twists in investor emotions, but when you buy a stock for a long haul, you’re buying into the underlying business. Thus, short term stock market investing is a completely different game than long term investing, and Bogle admits to not having an understanding of investor emotion which is required to play the short term game. I guess if you’re interested in short term individual stock picking, turn to someone like Jim Cramer.
Chapter 3: Cast Your Lot With Business
Here, Bogle pulls out Ockham’s razor, which basically states that all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. From there, he talks about the general investing strategy of investing in a very wide array of stocks (he uses the S&P 500 as an example) matches the overall success of the stock market over a long term. Then he compares the S&P 500 to large cap funds from other companies and finds that in 26 of the last 35 years, the S&P 500 outpaces the average large cap fund from other companies. Why is this?
Chapter 4: How Most Investors Turn a Winner’s Game into a Loser’s Game
Bogle effectively answers this question in the following chapter by stating that the stock market is a zero-sum game. For every stock that beats the market, there is a stock that doesn’t beat the market. Adding them together matches the market. Common sense, right? For the truly average investor, half of the stocks he or she picks will beat the market, and half will not beat the market, averaging out to the value of the market. However, this is before fees. If you add in fees, the average investor will not beat the market; their return on investment will be less than the market, and substantially less if the fees are high. If the market returns 8% and you’re paying 2.5% in fees, your return is only actually 5.5% – you might as well have your money in a savings account. Thus, this average investor should focus on minimizing fees before anything else.
Chapter 5: The Grand Illusion
This chapter goes in a new direction, demonstrating that emotion is often the cause of additional weakness in investor returns. Investors tend to buy into the stock market as it races upward, but by doing that, they forego a large portion of the gains. Here’s an example. Let’s say that the stock market is at 10,000 at the beginning of 2010. At the beginning of 2011, the stock market is up to 11,000, a gain of 10%. People decide to buy in after seeing the stock market go up, so it continues to go up and attract new investors. At 2013, the market peaks at 13,000, then begins to go back down, bottoming out at the 11,500 mark at the start of 2014. The people in at the beginning, sitting there quietly and calmly, earned an annual average of about 4%, while the people who bought in only when it was going up a year later only earned 2% annually. In other words, calm and steady investing wins the race through market fluctuations.
Chapter 6: Taxes Are Costs, Too
Yet another challenge to the equity investor is that of taxes, which are addressed in Chapter 6. In a nutshell, actively managed mutual funds are terrible from a tax perspective because they regularly must pay distributions – by law, a fund must distribute at least 90% of its realized capital gains and dividend income each year. This means an actively managed fund, which has sold a bunch of stocks throughout the year and made a real gain on them, must pay out 90% of that gain to the holders of the fund. Most people just roll that back into the fund, making their investment value the same, but they must pay capital gains taxes on the amount of the distribution. In other words, the less active management a fund does, the better for the shareholders because there’s a much smaller chance for a distribution at the end of the year. An index fund has only a tiny amount of active management (just to match the index), so they rarely pay out a distribution and thus rarely incur taxes. So, compared to an actively managed mutual fund, an index fund is far better for tax purposes.
Chapter 7: When the Good Times No Longer Roll
Here, the book looks at periods of lower returns, mostly because, as noted at the beginning of the chapter, it is widely believed that we are heading into such an era. In such a period, the real returns of a managed mutual fund will reach 0% far quicker than an index fund will, meaning that you’re much more likely to have periods over the long haul where you lose money in a managed fund than you will with an index fund. It’s easy to find periods where index funds lost money and a particular managed fund had a gain, but those are huge anomalies because of the factors riding against it.
Chapter 8: Selecting Long-Term Winners
This chapter mostly lays out the performance of managed mutual funds over a 35 year period. Over those thirty five years, less than one percent of the funds actually beat the market by more than 2% per year and survived the investor growth that went along with it, and likely over the next thirty five years, none of those funds will be able to repeat the feat due to turnover in fund manager and changing market dynamics. In other words, managed funds over the long haul almost always fail to beat the overall stock market.
Chapter 9: Yesterday’s Winners, Tomorrow’s Losers
What about the short term? Obviously, some funds are better poised to take advantage of boom times in certain areas than others. For example, some funds did a fantastic job of capitalizing on the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, dominating the market in 1998 and 1999. What happened to those funds? Almost universally, they saw incredibly huge collapses in 2000-2002, far exceeding the downturn in the overall market. Even averaging them out results in a return much worse than the market itself. If you are interested in doing a short-term dance, you could make money this way, but investing in specific sectors isn’t a healthy long-term situation.
Chapter 10: Seeking Advice to Select Funds?
So, should you spend money on an investment advisor? This chapter gives a resounding “no.” In fact, most advisors do far, far worse than the market once their fees are calculated in. Instead, just take your cash and invest directly into index funds yourself, and then don’t worry about it. As for me, this is already what I’m doing, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Chapter 11: Focus on the Lowest-Cost Funds
Starting here, the book talks about how you can select a fund of your own, which is a pretty sizable task given the enormous number of funds available out there. How do you start eliminating funds? The first thing you should do is eliminate all funds with high fees. Ignore performance for now because it comes and goes (the lesson of chapters eight through ten), but costs go on forever. To demonstrate how important this is, Bogle takes a huge selection of funds of all types and groups them into four groups based on their fees, and over the long haul the lowest fee group does the best. Why? The performance of all four groups roughly averages out, so the fees make up the difference.
Chapter 12: Profit from the Majesty of Simplicity
Now that you’ve focused in on funds with low fees, the next step that Bogle recommends is to invest in a fund that covers the whole market, like something that indexes with the S&P 500 or the Wilshire 2000. Why? These funds have their feet in every sector, so when a particular sector goes up, you get a boost, but you don’t die when a particular sector goes down, either. The conclusion that comes about here is that your first mutual fund investment, especially one you’re in for the long haul, should be in an index fund that represents the broad market.
Chapter 13: Bond FUnds and Money Market Funds
The premise of this chapter is simple: money market funds and bond funds follow the same trends that stock funds follow. In other words, if you’re going to buy a mutual fund that invests in equities other than stocks, you should also buy a broad-based index fund with low fees. The chapter gives several examples of how this is true.
Chapter 14: Index Funds That Promise to Beat the Market
What about an index fund that’s advertised to beat the market? These funds use some statistical method to select some portion of the market and simply sit on the results of that statistical method. What this really comes down to, though, is the trust you put in this statistical method, and the trust shouldn’t be strong. Why? These methods are based on historical data, and over and over again it is demonstrated that past performance does not indicate future results. Similarly, by using a “filtering” method, this isn’t really an index fund at all, but an actively managed fund using a very simplistic strategy. Bogle advises using the basic investment ideas from chapters 11 and 12 – often, you’ll discover the fees are high or that they don’t broadly cover the market.
Chapter 15: The Exchange Traded Fund
Here, the book talks about exchange traded funds, or mutual funds that are traded on the stock market like normal stocks. Bogle believes that over a long period, these ETFs do match the mutual fund that they’re intended to represent, but that the same rules apply: look for ones that represent the broad market and that you can own for a very low cost. Then hold them. Active trading of these is no different than active trading of ordinary stocks – the fees and taxes will eat you alive.
Chapter 16: What Would Benjamin Graham Have Thought about Indexing?
In this chapter the book begins to wind down. Bogle uses various quotes from Benjamin Graham (the father of value investing) and Warren Buffett to support the idea of investing in index funds – interesting, but not as meaty as the previous chapters.
Chapter 17: “The Relentless Rules of Humble Arithmetic”
This chapter is basically a continuation of the previous one. Bogle cites tons of investors who completely agree with the investment philosophy expressed in the book. Again, little meat, but it does summarize the main points of the book quite well.
Chapter 18: What Should I Do Now?
The book ends with a bang, however, as Bogle lays out what an individual investor should do with the information contained within the book. Obviously, he’s a fan of investing in broad-based index funds with tiny fees, but he also suggests having a small amount of your portfolio (5% or so) in funny money that you can play with. That money should go into things like individual stocks, actively managed funds, ETFs, and commodities like gold. This way, most of your portfolio can float with the market, but you do have the ability to speculate a bit.
Buy or Don’t Buy?
This book does a fantastic job of laying out the reasoning behind a seemingly very simple investing strategy, one that demonstrably works. If you’re interested in learning the basics of a real-world investment philosophy spelled out smoothly enough for the average person to really understand it, buy this book. I must admit that I am also partial to the book because Bogle is describing the investment philosophy that I subscribe to, but I am recommending this book because of the clarity and focus of the writing.
Be warned, however, that this is not a get-rich-quick investment philosophy. This book does not tell you how to beat the stock market, but it does tell you how to match the market over and over again with minimal effort. Because of that, this philosophy is as low-risk as can be for investing in stocks, and thus I would really recommend this book to someone who is just getting their toes wet in investing. More experienced investors may not get nearly as much out of this book because they either already subscribe to this philosophy (or another one) or are seeking a complex investment strategy.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the twenty-sixth of fifty-two books in The Simple Dollar’s series 52 Personal Finance Books in 52 Weeks.
How do you avoid the estimated 50% total taxes from your 401k before you reach 59.5 yrs old?
A qualified plan can be moved to another qualified plan (tax deferred).
After moving to a qualified plan such as an Index Annuity (with up to 13% return),
You can use the yearly return to fund your Index Strategy UL, with tax-free accumulation.
For those who do not have a 401k or self-funded retirement plan, there are many ways to a retirement plan.
Starting at 30,40,50,or 60 yrs of age is still doable, with your conviction to save long term, conservatively.
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There was a couple who started buying real estate to be rented out before they live in the third house they bought.
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motherhealth@gmail.com
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What inspires you to wake up early morn to a job or a business
These are the reasons that inspires most of us to succeed no matter what
Retiring your wife, your mother or yourself from the corporate world
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To be significant
————
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Connie Dello Buono
CA Life Lic 0G60621
motherhealth@gmail.com
Your thoughts create your reality by Pam Grout
E-Squared could best be described as a lab manual with simple experiments to prove once and for all that reality is malleable, that consciousness trumps matter, and that you shape your life with your mind. Rather than take it on faith, you are invited to conduct nine 48-hour experiments to prove there really is a positive, loving, totally hip force in the universe. Yes, you read that right. It says prove.
The experiments, each of which can be conducted with absolutely no money and very little time expenditure, demonstrate that spiritual principles are as dependable as gravity, as consistent as Newton’s laws of motion. For years, you’ve been hoping and praying that spiritual principles are true. Now, you can know.
Challenge your Field of Infinite Potentiality and see if you can manifest an unexpected gift! Try Pam’s first experiment from E-Squared >>
E-Squared proves the following:
1. There is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities.
2. You impact the field and draw from it according to your beliefs and expectations.
3. You, too, are a field of energy.
4. Whatever you focus on expands.
5. Your connection to the field provides accurate and unlimited guidance.
6. Your thoughts and consciousness impact matter.
7. Your thoughts and consciousness provide the scaffolding for your physical body.
8. You are connected to everything and everyone else in the universe.
9. The universe is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating.
#1 New York Times Bestseller!
E-Squared has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for weeks now and hundreds of fans and friends on Amazon, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are raving about it.
View what people are saying >> Don’t face reality. Create reality!
Message from Pam [from the Introduction] Any illusionist worth his magic wand understands that the most important ingredient in his sleight-of-hand repertoire is diversion. A magician diverts his audience’s attention away from what he’s really doing and directs it toward something else that seems crucial but, of course, isn’t. That’s what we’ve done—diverted all our attention to the physical world. These sensory “bluffs” have caused us to miss the fact that what is invisible, what we can’t see with our eyes, is actually more fundamental to life than what we do see. Quantum physics tells us that the invisible energy realm—collectively referred to as the field, or the “FP,” as I call it—is the primary governing force of the material realm. It’s the blueprint that forms reality.
Indeed, we now know that the universe is made of nothing but waves and particles of energy that conform to our expectations, judgments, and beliefs. Subtle energies, thoughts, emotions, and consciousness play the starring roles in our life experiences, but because they’re invisible, we haven’t attempted to understand them or use them in our favor. To change the world is a simple matter of changing these expectations and beliefs. It’s truly that easy. To bring something into the physical world requires focusing not on what we see, but on what we want to see. We Observe Things into Form “It takes zero faith.
What it takes is imagination….If it’s clear in your thought, it is even this moment barreling down on you like a Mack truck.” — Richard Bach, author of Illusions and other Metaphysical novels If you ask me, learning how to transform energy is so important it should be taught along with reading, writing, and arithmetic. And it all starts with intent, the force that lies behind everything. It’s the energy, the fuel, the electric charge that sets up a resonant field and sends out probability waves into the FP. Esther Hicks, who facilitates the Abraham-Hicks material, calls it “launching a rocket of desire.” Giving it attention adds mass. The minute you make an intention, you create it. It’s instantaneous. It exists as an actual thing. You don’t see it yet because you’re still operating from linear time. You’re still sold on the old-school adage “creating things takes time.” So you keep working and waiting. But here’s what physicists tell us.
Things, in the quantum world, do not happen in steps. They happen immediately. So the thing you intend, the minute you intend it, exists, but like Schrödinger’s cat, a famous thought experiment devised in 1935 by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, you’re only aware of the reality you choose to observe. The physical manifestation remains enfolded outside your current consciousness. Cutting-edge physicists tells us life is multidimensional. But most of us are stuck in our one-dimensional physical reality, restricted to what we experience with our five senses. What we experience with these alleged foolproof tools of observation are nothing but what we decide to look for. It’s not even a chicken-or-egg question. What we see, experience, and feel with our five senses always comes after the decision to see, experience, and feel it. I liken consciousness to a giant skyscraper.
I may be living on the second floor, but the “thing” I created with my thought is up on the 17th floor. Until I can get to the 17th floor, it appears it’s still missing, that I’m still waiting. Another great analogy is a television set. If you have cable, more than 100 channels are yours for the clicking. TiVo aside, you can only watch one channel at a time.
When you’re watching, say, Modern Family, you’re chuckling at the antics of Cam, Mitchell, Phil, and Gloria and you’re completely unaware of the other 99 (or more) channels. That’s why it’s really important to stay on the channel you want. Don’t give any airtime to the reality from which you’re trying to escape. Tune in only to your intent. Picking Another Channel “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” — Marcus Garvey, Jamaican political leader and mentor to Bob Marley The purpose of this book is to release you from the imprisonment of your illusions, to help you set aside the manufactured press release you believe to be reality.
The good news is you don’t have to change a single one of your behaviors. All you have to do is change your mind. It’s pretty difficult to control your mind when you think you have to do it forever. But by setting up a defined time frame, as you will in the experiments in this book, your mind can be coaxed into giving it a whirl. –
See more at: http://promos.hayhouse.com/esquared/excerpt.php#sthash.4zLZjsvu.dpuf
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Can you start creating your realities?
Do you believe that we are not passive beings that we have energies?