School shootings and PTSD: Trauma can last for months or years From MSNBC

By Kelly Kearsley

Students at Chardon High School outside of Cleveland are reeling after a school shooting that left three students dead and two others injured.

“It’s just a nightmare I’m waiting to wake up from,” said Mike Wargo, a senior who heard the gunshots shortly after leaving his friends in the school’s cafeteria.

“I can’t even imagine what the parents feel right now,” Wargo told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie through tears. ‘”I wish I was there. I’d rather take bullet for one of those five.”

Neither Wargo, nor most of the high school’s students were physically hurt in the attack. But they may suffer psychological scars of guilt and grief. Mental health experts say the echoes of such a trauma can last for months -- or if untreated -- for years.

For the full article please go here.

Just calm down, already! Here's how From MSNBC

It's only Tuesday, and yet the manic pace of this two-day-old week is already about to make you collapse. If you're seeking de-stressing strategies, you're in luck -- yoga instructor Wendy Rubin and TODAY's diet and nutrition expert Joy Bauer revealed the best poses to do and food to eat to keep yourself calm.

As Rubin puts it, stress isn't something that happens to you -- it's the absence of calm in your life. These poses are designed to relieve muscle tension, quiet the mind and calm the body. They can each be done at home using pillows and blankets you have lying around the house.

For the full article please go here.

Nursing School 101 for the 30 Something Crowd from Nurse Together

This is a topic I am intimately familiar with. When I began attending nursing school I was 30, worked part-time, and was married with a newborn and a four year-old. I was concerned about fitting in and going back to school after years away. I earned my nursing degree at 32 years old, my bachelor degree at 36 years old, and my Master’s degree at the age of 43. I currently teach college students, many of whom are adult learners! Why am I telling you all this? Because I can offer you some great tips from both the student and professor perspectives:

Use your life experience to your advantage. You may be going back to nursing school at an older age, but you bring with you a wealth of experience in many areas that you can put to good use. You have learned time management skills, the value of the educational dollar, and how to multi-task. Most 18 year-old students lack this experience.

For the full article please go here.

Nurses on the Job: The Wonders of Positive Affirmation from Nurse Together

As I was driving home through the city today I was distracted by all of the commotion outside. Tractor trailers were banging and clanging quickly past me. On the sidewalk, construction workers were shouting to one another, finishing up the day’s work. Loud noise, such as radios and car horns, were invading my quiet space. My thoughts were scattered and I was having a hard time concentrating on one thing at a time. My mind was racing from topic to topic. Then, I was suddenly reminded of a busy day on a nursing unit!

I know we all have experiences like these: getting interrupted while calculating medication dosages, being called to the telephone while in the middle of patient teaching or hearing a bed alarm then rushing away from talking to a family member about how their loved one is doing. This is the nature of our position as a nurse. We need to be in a million different places all at one time. We care for many people at the same time. We have so much to get done each day and so much responsibility on our shoulders that it can be a distracting role with its multiple facets and tasks. It can get a bit chaotic and quite exhausting at times!

For the full article please go here.

Why Earning Your BSN is Not Only Smart, It’s Practically Required from Nurse Together

As new legislative health care reforms are phased in over the next decade, the recommendations outlined in the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report, “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health,” are gaining traction. The IOM pinpoints three key areas in which nurses should improve their practice:

Nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training.

Nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training, through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression.

For the full article please go here.

Depression Risk Lower In Heart Patients Who Take Statins from Medical News Today

Heart disease patients who took statins, the drugs prescribed for lowering cholesterol, were significantly less likely to develop depression than counterparts who did not take the drugs, according to a new study led by Dr Mary Whooley, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The researchers write about their findings in an article published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on 21 February.

The researchers write in their background information that while their benefits for cardiovascular disease are well established, the effects of statins on depressive symptoms have not been examined.

For the full article please go here.

Migraines May Raise Depression Risk in Women from Health.com

WEDNESDAY, February 22, 2012 (Health.com) — Middle-aged women are roughly 40% more likely to become depressed if they experience migraine headaches, new research suggests.

What’s more, their risk of depression appears to stay elevated even if the pain stops. Women whose migraines had not troubled them within the past year were just as likely to become depressed as women who were still enduring the sometimes crippling headaches, the study found.

For the full article please go here.

Are Women Turned Off By Stressed-Out Men? from Health.com

WEDNESDAY, February 22, 2012 (Health.com) — Scientists have been trying to confirm what Hollywood has known for decades: Women are often attracted to men with chiseled cheekbones and lantern jaws.

These and other masculine facial features are associated with high testosterone levels, and women seem to know this fact intuitively. Studies suggest that women are especially drawn to rugged-looking guys when they’re in the mood to mate (i.e., when they’re ovulating), while at other times, when they’re more interested in companionship, they tend to prefer a softer, more delicate look—think Ryan Gosling versus Burt Lancaster.

For the full article please go here.

Nursing Certification Has Many Rewards from Nurse Together

There are a myriad of advantages to becoming certified in your field of nursing. I am a Certified Occupational Health Nurse Specialist (COHN-S) and find that certification has many rewards! Here are a few reasons to consider:

Benefits your patients. According to the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), nursing certification has been linked to better patient outcomes. Certification is credited with a reduction in medical errors, among other benefits. If I listed no other reasons to become certified, this one should be enough!

Accomplishment. Becoming certified in your field is both a professional and a personal accomplishment. Most certifications require extensive studying and experience to initially attain the certification. Once earned, you carry with you a keen sense of accomplishment as a certified nurse. You are seen by uncertified peers and management as a level above.

For the full article please go here.

Surviving Modern Healthcare: 9 Tips To Keep Your Network Strong from Nurse TogetherWe have heard it said that “no man is an island,” and that is true for all of us. An effective support system is necessary for us to excel in our life goals. These support systems may include friends, family, loved ones and co-workers. I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful speaker who grew up with parents who were FBI agents. He changed his identity and moved several times as he was growing up, and he spoke of one of the most important lessons he learned from his parents: your network keeps you safe. He then went on to do an insightful presentation about the value of networking. Some of the most important networks which we find ourselves a part of are our social networks, family networks and professional networks. Social networks include our friends, those we meet in classroom settings, people we like to spend time with and those we engage in social media. Our family network includes all of our family members and extended family. Lastly, our professional network includes colleagues at work. Even more valuable though, is the professional network you build beyond your work experience. Especially with the volatility in healthcare, the professional network can be vital to your career success. Your professional network can serve you in three important ways: support, promotion and saving your life.

We have heard it said that “no man is an island,” and that is true for all of us. An effective support system is necessary for us to excel in our life goals. These support systems may include friends, family, loved ones and co-workers. I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful speaker who grew up with parents who were FBI agents. He changed his identity and moved several times as he was growing up, and he spoke of one of the most important lessons he learned from his parents: your network keeps you safe. He then went on to do an insightful presentation about the value of networking.

Some of the most important networks which we find ourselves a part of are our social networks, family networks and professional networks. Social networks include our friends, those we meet in classroom settings, people we like to spend time with and those we engage in social media. Our family network includes all of our family members and extended family. Lastly, our professional network includes colleagues at work. Even more valuable though, is the professional network you build beyond your work experience. Especially with the volatility in healthcare, the professional network can be vital to your career success. Your professional network can serve you in three important ways: support, promotion and saving your life.

For the full article please go here.

10 Tips for Nurse Practitioners to Avoid Burnout from Nurse Together

How can taking care of one's self have anything to do with business? As a business owner, you work hard; most likely you work harder than you ever did as an employed person. This is especially true during your first years in business. As such, it's important to take the time to recharge your batteries. Here are some suggestions for you:

For the full article please go here.

A Personal Mission: Define Your Wellness from Huffington Post

A basic outline for prevention has existed for more than 30 years, but wellness has had a hard time making real headway. Old habits are hard to break. Our society has a magic bullet fixation, waiting for the next miracle drug to cure us of every ill. Doctors receive no economic benefit from pushing prevention over drugs and surgery. For all these reasons, compliance with prevention falls far below what is needed for maximum wellness.

Rather than feeling gloomy, my focus has been on getting the individual to take charge of their own wellness. This can be a considerable challenge, since we are each unique in our bodies but also unique in our pattern of bad habits and poor lifestyle choices. More than 40 percent of American adults make a resolution to live a better life each year, and fewer than half keep their promise to themselves for longer than six months. Conditioning is hard to break, but the key is that the power to break a habit belongs to the same person who made it -- the turnaround amounts to giving up unconscious behavior and adopting conscious new patterns.

For the full article please go here.

5 Tips to Stay Upbeat in a Stressful Work Environment from Nurse Together

Meds to pass, IVs to hang, patient care to deliver, vitals to take, charting to do, meetings to attend- all in a nurse’s stressful day!

Many hospitals around the country are hiring fewer nurses so current staff work longer and harder, doing more with less, once again.

How can a nurse stay upbeat in a stressful work environment? These five tips are easy, effective, and even fun!

For the full article please go here.

10 New Weight Loss Myths and Facts from Yahoo News

Even though we all know that the best way to stay healthy and physically fit is to eat well-rounded, nutritionally sound meals and exercise for at least 20 minutes a day, it's human nature to seek out better, "cutting-edge," get-thin-quick fads and glom onto them like they're gospel. Don't eat after 8 p.m.? You got it. Wash down an acai berry with fish oil? Sign me up.

But what if those new fangled discoveries and quick fixes were steeped in misinformation and could actually be making you gain weight or harm your health? Oh, no thank you very much.

For the full article please go here.

If You Want to Lose Weight, Calm Down -- 10 Stress-Management Strategies from Huffington Post

A number of studies show that stress not only leads to weight gain, but it also inhibits weight loss in people who are seemingly doing everything right. For example, a recent study published in the journal Hormones found that chronic stress leads to overeating, co-elevation of cortisol and insulin, and suppression of certain anabolic hormones that lead to abdominal fat and increased inflammation. Insulin spikes are also known to inhibit fat burning. Another study found that stress can make it difficult to lose weight because of the complex metabolic effects it triggers.

So if you want to lose weight or avoid weight gain, one step is to get a handle on your stress. Sounds good, but what do you do when you're facing a really difficult problem and it's stressing you out? Here are some simple ways to manage the stress, calm down, and turn your fat-burning machine back on.

For the full article please go here.

Strengthening The Intestinal Barrier May Prevent Cancer In The Rest Of The Body from Medical News Today

A leaky gut may be the root of some cancers forming in the rest of the body, a new study published online Feb. 21 in PLoS ONE by Thomas Jefferson University researchers suggests.

It appears that the hormone receptor guanylyl cyclase C (GC-C) - a previously identified tumor suppressor that exists in the intestinal tract - plays a key role in strengthening the body's intestinal barrier, which helps separate the gut world from the rest of the body, and possibly keeps cancer at bay. Without the receptor, that barrier weakens.

A team led by Scott Waldman, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Jefferson and director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center, discovered in a pre-clinical study that silencing GC-C in mice compromised the integrity of the intestinal barrier. It allowed inflammation to occur and cancer-causing agents to seep out into the body, damaging DNA and forming cancer outside the intestine, including in the liver, lung and lymph nodes.

For the full article please go here.

10 Ways Your Job Can Hurt Your Heart from Health.com

Your job, your heart

By Amanda Gardner

Although most people don't think of heart disease as an occupational hazard, certain characteristics of your job may be upping your risk for heart attacks and other problems.

Some work-related factors—such as sitting long hours at a desk, stress, irregular work hours, and exposure to certain chemicals or pollution—could also harm your heart.

Here are some jobs and job characteristics that could be upping your risk—and what to do about it.

For the full article please go here.

How to Be Amazing When You Suck at Everything from Huffington Post

There was once a time in my life where I sucked at everything (yeah, I know... hard to believe!). I was in my early 20s and unsure of the world and all the broken promises life handed me. I was a freshman in college for three years straight and every job I got fired me. I was also a single mom (since my teenage years), and I was failing my daughter miserably.

For every dream that I was passionate about, there was always someone who shot it down as a hobby or tried their best to convince me of how unrealistic it was, and I started to believe what "they" were telling me. That I was going to fail. And because I was already failing, I figured that this had to be true!

That's when I heard it. A voice that whispered in my heart and screamed into my ears:

TIPHANI, YOU ARE AH-MAZZZZING!

For the full article please go here.

Small strides you should take for your heart fro CNN

Let's face it – life is busy. You've got calls to make, e-mails to send and meetings to get to. But what about appointments with yourself that you've been meaning to make?

"As I say to many of my patients, if you don't find time for exercise, you will have to find time for disease," Dr. Nanette Wenger tells CNN. She's a spokesperson for the American Heart Association (AHA) and a cardiologist at the Emory University School of Medicine.

February is American Heart Month, when the AHA and other organizations hope to spread awareness about the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle. The statistics haven't changed: Cardiovascular disease is still the leading killer of men and women in the United States and worldwide.

"The key to reducing this threat is prevention, and among the major preventive interventions– smoking cessation, control of cholesterol, control of blood pressure, control of weight and physical activity– physical activity can often be the cornerstone," Wenger said.

For the full article please go here.

Drug Combo Kills Pancreatic Cancer Cells from Medical News Today

Combining gemcitabine with MRK003, an experimental drug, triggers a chain of events leading to pancreatic cancer cell death, researchers from Cambridge reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The researchers explained that when the two drugs are combined, the effect of each one is multiplied, thus intensifying the destruction of pancreatic cancer cells.

Professor David Tuveson, from the Cambridge Research Institute, UK, and team demonstrated in animal studies that MRK003, an experimental medication, when combined with chemotherapy medication gemcitabine, set off a domino effect which ultimately destroyed the malignant cells.

For the full article please go here.

How Negative Thoughts Affect Everything in Our Life from Huffington Post

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It seems that throughout life, even as we grew up, we heard from our friends and family comments like "If you think bad thoughts, then you'll jinx it" or "If you think the worst, then you'll make it happen." It seems that in clinical research, these sayings actually have a name... and that name is "nocebo effect."

In medicine, when we talk about the "nocebo effect," what we are referring to is the concept that adverse health or clinical events can be produced or influenced by negative expectations. These effects are a direct result of the psychosocial context or therapeutic environment and its impact on a person's mind and body.

It can be produced by various factors, including verbal cues and past experiences. So, if someone has had prior unsuccessful or negative therapeutic experiences or was provided information in a negative light, it may mediate an undesirable outcome to the therapy.

For the full article please go here.

So You Think You Want to Lose Weight? Trust Me: You Don't! from Huffington Post

Whenever a client expresses to me that they want to lose weight, I always say to them, "No, you don't -- what you really want is to thin out the layer of fat that is sitting on top of your muscle, and add more muscle to your body."

Yes, all that. Let me explain.

For the full article please go here.

The Expanding Role of the Nurse Educator from Nurse Together

A Clinical Nurse Educator is a registered professional nurse with an advanced education, including advanced clinical and educational training coupled with many years of expertise in a healthcare specialty. Nurse educators serve in a variety of roles that often range from nursing college dean to a clinical trainer for a medical device or pharmaceutical company.

A combination of clinical expertise and a passion for teaching are two of the core skills that strengthen the nursing workforce while providing peer mentorship. These specialized skill sets help to set apart the nurse educator from the rest of the clinical team.

For the full article please go here.

The Physiology of Willpower: Where Does Discipline Come From? From Huffington Post

Willpower is the key to much that's good in life. Willpower is what makes us save for the future rather than splurge now. It helps us to keep our heads down, studying and working when we really don't feel like it, to earn that degree or promotion. Willpower allows us to say no to that tempting cigarette, extra dessert, or second glass of whiskey -- and to hop on the treadmill. And, of course, failures of self-control can sabotage all those goals.

So it's no wonder that psychological scientists have been studying willpower for decades, trying to figure out who is disciplined under what circumstances -- and why. What exactly is going on in the mind's cognitive machinery -- and the brain's neurons -- when we successfully summon our will -- or when we say, oh the hell with it?

For the full article please go here.

Surviving Modern Healthcare: The Power of Positive Thinking from Nurse Together

It has been said that what calls us to action in our lives is our desire, but the only way to achieve our goals is to hold a true belief in ourselves that we can do it. Eleanor Roosevelt said “If you believe you can do it you are right, and if you believe you cannot do it you are also right.” The choice to achieve then becomes ours, however, it will only be accomplished through the power of positive thinking and the belief we can do it.

Science is only now beginning to unlock the secrets of the power of the mind and the effects on the body that ultimately affect behavior. Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the effects of the mind on the immune system, both positive and negative. Nurses have always realized this power through our holistic approach to healthcare and our emotional and spiritual support of our patient. You, perhaps, have seen patients that survived terminal or tremendously grim situations that survived by holding on to their positive thoughts and the belief that they can overcome.

For the full article please go here.

Traditional Education vs. Distance Learning from Nurse Together

I have often heard nursing students and colleagues proclaim, “If a nursing school isn’t accredited, it is no good.” “Regional accreditation is more important for getting a job.” “A traditional degree is better than an online one.”

What makes nursing education good? Is a traditional education program better than an online one? Do you receive better nursing education from an accredited program versus one that is not? Let us consider everything with a grain of salt and look at the facts as well as the reality.

The merits of receiving an education from an accredited institution speaks to the point that the particular school ranks average or better than average within a conglomerate of similar institutional programs. According to the US Department of Education, which does not accredit nursing schools but provides rationale for its purpose, an educational program that is accredited has shown that they provide quality higher education according to standards set by a private regional or national accrediting agency. Accreditation is a peer review process that evaluates educational programs based upon agency-set criteria. (US Department of Education, 2011)

For the full article please go here.

1 in 10 U.S. Kids Lives With Parent Who Has Abused Alcohol: Report from Health.com

THURSDAY, Feb. 16 (HealthDay News) — About 7.5 million American children under the age of 18 live with a parent who’s struggled with alcohol abuse over the past year, a new government report finds.

That’s equal to 10.5 percent of children across the country, say researchers at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which issued the report.

“The enormity of this public health problem goes well beyond these tragic numbers as studies have shown that the children of parents with untreated alcohol disorders are at far greater risk for developing alcohol and other problems later in their lives,” SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde said in an agency news release.

For the full article please go here.

How to stop your kids from stressing from CNN

There is a good chance that my children (and yours) are stressed out on a daily basis.

Not necessarily from catastrophic burdens such as death, abuse or abandonment (though far too many children are dealing with those as well), but from the slow boil of everyday anxieties – a swell of unrelenting childhood stress that, in the long term, may bury our kids good and well in a tsunami of serious health problems.

More, faster, better

High on the list of stressors is the pressure many parents place on their kids: the mentality that the earlier a child does something – walks, talks, reads chapter books, excels in advanced robotics for kindergartners – the better.

For the full article please go here.

Heart attack? Nope, just a spin class from MSNBC

For anyone who has felt like their heart might explode after a spin class, the truth might not be that far off -- biochemically speaking, that is. New research out of Sweden has shown an hour of spinning triggers the same biochemical reactions as a heart attack.

Research from the University of Gothenburg has shown that spin workouts and other forms of strenuous exercise can secrete the same enzymes into the bloodstream as a heart attack, increasing the possibility of a misdiagnosis. The results will be published in the Scandinavian Cardiovascular Journal.

For the full article please go here.

Recovering From Heart Attack A Challenge For The Depressed from Medical News Today

Mental state can play a crucial role in physical health - medical professionals have long known about the connection between anxiety and the immune system, for example. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that mental health can also interfere with the heart.

Heart attack patients who also suffer from depression are more likely to be readmitted for cardiac events and chest pains in the future, and have 14 percent more days of hospitalization than their happier counterparts, says researcher Vicki Myers of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine. Along with Dr. Yariv Gerber and other members of the Israel Study Group of First Acute Myocardial Infarction, Myers examined the association between depressive symptoms in heart attack patients and hospital admissions more than a decade after the initial attack.

For the full article please go here.

The Stress is Killing Me! 11 Tips to Cope at Work from Nurse Together

In these challenging times, nurses have to do more with less and often feel frazzled and frantic, instead of calm and efficient. Excessive stress can interfere with your productivity and deplete you physically, mentally and spiritually.

It’s good to remember that some stress is normal and healthy. Eustress is the “good” stress that every living biological life form has. It allows us to be productive when everything around us is changing. But the U.S. Surgeon General claimed 80% of non-traumatic deaths are stress related.

Stress is literally killing us.

For the full article please go here.

Self-awareness, self-control critical to addicts' recovery, experts say From CNN

(CNN) -- For a recovering addict, reveling at a party or having pills in your room can be seen as a sign you are in control, having successfully defeated your demons -- or just as likely, experts say, a sign of weakness that could lead to a dangerous, if not deadly, outcome.

On any given day, an estimated 23.5 million Americans need help to overcome chronic substance abuse, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.

By her own admission, Whitney Houston once was one of them -- until her still unexplained death last Saturday in her Beverly Hills, California, hotel room.

She had admitted in the past having done marijuana and cocaine, spoke about her mother staging an intervention for her and made several trips to rehab. Yet more recently, many of her friends contended that Houston's spirits, and her health, seemed good.

For the full article please go here.

How to prevent the Valentine’s Day blues from CNN

Confession: I hate Valentine’s Day.

But I bet I’m not alone.

For the first 26 years of my life I dreaded Valentine’s Day. Every February 14 served as a reminder that no one wanted to date me.

I couldn’t stand going to restaurants and seeing all the lovey-dovey couples lost in romantic bliss. Valentine’s Day may be great if you’re in a relationship, but it can be depressing if you aren’t.

Many singles use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to engage in unhealthy behavior, such as drinking and self-medicating, to help them forget the date. Growing up, I was no exception.

For the full article please go here.

Nurse Practitioner Business Owners: Two Tax Dates You Must Know from Nurse Together

April 15th, the deadline to file your personal income tax, will be here before you know it. As a small business owner however, you will have filed tax reports and paid all sorts of taxes already.

Most small businesses operate on a calendar year. And even though tax events happen throughout the year, they are reported at the end of the business year and quarter, when they get submitted to different taxing authorities.

Paying attention to those timelines is critical. Countless business owners have lost their business by ignoring the IRS and other taxing authorities.

For the full article please go here.

A Day in the Life of a Hospice Nurse from Nurse Together

I almost missed the little brown wrapped package sitting in my mailbox among the bills and flyers. Puzzled, I unwrapped it to reveal a well worn copy of “Cherry Ames: Visiting Nurse”, an unexpected, belated birthday gift from an old friend. Copyright 1947 by Grosset and Dunlap, Publishers, NY, it is one of a series of nursing novels written in the 40's and 50's by Helen Wells featuring Cherry Ames, a plucky, resourceful young RN.

“This is so great”, I thought, “Let’s see what kitchy, naive things Cherry gets herself into in 1947. In New York City, no less.”

For the full article please go here.

Depression Linked To Adolescent Bullying from Medical News Today

A recent study by authors Gary Ladd, a professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics, Karen Rudolph, University of Illinois, and Karen Kochel, an assistant professor in ASU's School of Social and Family Dynamics and published in Child Development, explains that teens suffering from depression are at a greater risk of being bullied due to difficulties in establishing friendships amongst their peers.

Kochel states:

"Often the assumption is that problematic peer relationships drive depression. We found that depression symptoms predicted negative peer relationships. We examined the issue from both directions but found no evidence to suggest that peer relationships forecasted depression among this school-based sample of adolescents."

For the full article please go here.

5 Healthy Reasons To Love Love from Huffington Post

alentine's Day may get a bad rap as a greeting card holiday, but at the heart of it (no pun intended), it's an opportunity for us to be reminded of the loving relationships in our lives, which have a real and lasting impact on our health and well-being.

Factors like having a supportive community as you grow up, a secure job that you can rely on, or family that you see regularly make a big difference in determining both the quality and the quantity of your years, said Dr. Dean Ornish, M.D., author and HuffPost's medical editor. In other words, love makes you happier, but also healthier and long-living. However, maintaining these sorts of close relationships often goes unrecognized as a health behavior, he said.

"I believe that the need for love and connection and community is a fundamental thing ... as basic of a need as food, air and water," Ornish told HuffPost.

For the full article please go here.

10 Heart Attack Risk Factors from Health.com

Preventing heart attacks

Some risk factors for heart disease can be controlled, and some can't.

According to the American Heart Association, here are the leading factors that put you at risk for coronary artery disease or a heart attack.

If you know you're at higher risk of a heart attack due to circumstances beyond your control, pay closer attention to lifestyle factors you can change to cut your risk of heart attack.

For the full article please go here.

Why Love Is Good for Your Health from Health.com

Is marriage good for your health? In general, research suggests yes. Married people live longer, have better access to health care, enjoy a more satisfying sex life, experience less stress, live a healthier lifestyle, and have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and depression compared to their single counterparts.

The list of health perks conferred by marriage is so long, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has made it a centerpiece of its two-year-old, $5 million national media campaign to promote wedded bliss.

For the full article please go here.

Time to Adapt from H and HN

PHOENIX— If there's one thing I've learned in my 20-plus years as a journalist it's this: listen to the experts. Or did my Mom tell me that? Either way, it's a valuable lesson.

For instance, the old newspaper reporter in me was all set to write a blog focused on the Advanced Payment ACO Program, which is aimed at testing the ACO concept in rural settings and among physician-owned organizations, but when I asked rural administrators and trustees what the highlight was of day one at the 25th Rural Health Care Leadership Conference, a number of them immediately mentioned the opening keynote address by Bridget Duffy, M.D., CEO of ExperiaHealth. Before joining the San Francisco-based company, Duffy was chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic. Her message today: hospitals need to focus on creating an exceptional patient experience. Central to that, she says, is for all staff at the hospital to show compassion or empathy for patients. It's something that is lacking throughout health care, she says. It's also something my colleague Bill Santamour has been writing about recently in H&HN Daily.

For the full article please go here.

Study Tips for Nursing Students from Nurse Together

Being a nurse and teaching college in an allied health program, I am intimately aware of the large volume of information and new terms nursing students are faced with. It is necessary to learn this material to be both successful in your college career and to give the best patient care upon graduation. At times the amount of information fed to you each semester may seem insurmountable. But it's not – you'll make it! There are many different learning styles, but I am certain some of the following tips will apply to you and make your student life a bit easier!

For the full article please go here.

8 Factors That Could Be Keeping You Awake at Night from Health.com

Pain

In one study, 15% of Americans reported suffering from chronic pain, and two-thirds also reported having sleep problems. Back pain, headaches, and temporomandibular joint syndrome (problems with the jaw muscles) are the main causes of pain-related sleep loss.

For the full article please go here.

How To Give Up Smoking from Medical News Today

"It's easy to quit smoking; I've done it hundreds of times." -- Mark Twain

There are many different ways to quit smoking. Some experts advocate using pharmacological products to help wean you off nicotine, others say all you need is a good counselor and support group, or an organized program. To add to the confusion, you may find there is a study that says this way works better than that one, and then when you look again, you find there is another study that says, no, that one works better than this one.

But one thing most experts agree on is that a combination works best. For example, nicotine replacement therapy on its own, or counseling on its own is not as effective as a combination of the two.

In this article you can read about some of the more common elements of successful quit smoking programs. And at the end is a list of Top Tips to Quit Smoking.

For the full article please go here.

Anesthesia Exposure Linked To ADHD In Children from Medical News Today

A study by researchers at Mayo Clinic, Rochester Minn., and published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, reveals that children who have been under anesthesia many times when they are young have a greater risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). According to David Warner, M.D, a Mayo Clinic pediatric anesthesiologist, and researchers of this study, kids who have been exposed to anesthesia more than twice before the age of 3 are twice as likely to have ADHD than children who have not been exposed.

Warner and team began the study after other research suggested that anesthesia alters the brain of young animals. He said:

"Those studies piqued our interest. We were skeptical that the findings in animals would correlate with kids, but it appears that it does."

For the full article please go here.

Measures Must Be Taken To Prevent Depression In Adolescents from Medical New Todays

As one of the most common, unrecognized and untreated health problems among young people, tackling depression is a serious priority for countries worldwide. The psychiatric disorder causes serious social and educational problems for patients, as well as leading to increased risk of suicide and substance abuse. A review of a published article in The Lancet urges that more measures are needed to prevent depression in non-specialist settings, such as schools and communities.

Anita Thapar from Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, lead author says:

"In view of the disability associated with depression in adolescents, much more needs to be done to recognise and treat those with depression early and to develop innovative and cost-effective methods to improve access and deliver prevention programmes to a far wider group of adolescents particularly in non-specialist settings and in low-income and middle-income countries where the burden is greatest"

For the full article please go here.

The Worst Thing to Eat for Your Heart from Yahoo News

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans: on average, one person dies every 39 seconds, according to recently published data from the American Heart Association.

I've talked in the past about cutting back on saturated fat (found mostly in animal-based products like red meat and full-fat dairy), added sugars and sodium for better heart health. Keep working at those!

Don't Miss: 3 Ways to Eat Less Sugar
6 Easy Ways to Reduce the Sodium in Your Diet

But one thing that I haven't talked about much happens to be one of the easiest to limit (or avoid) in your diet-and it's quite harmful to your heart health. What is it? Trans fat.

For the full article please go here.

Heart Health: 13 Foods With Cardiovascular Benefits from Huffington Post

President Barack Obama has officially proclaimed February to be American Heart Month, just as every president has done before him, dating back to a 1963 resolution passed by Congress to draw attention to the leading cause of death among U.S. adults.

Heart disease accounts for 2,200 deaths in the U.S. every day, or one in every three, according to the CDC. Luckily, simple diet and lifestyle changes can greatly reduce your risk. Maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking and keeping stress levels under control are all great places to start. Another powerful way to take control of your ticker is to watch what you eat.

By now you probably know that olive oil, lean meats and omega-3-rich fish -- all components of the Mediterranean Diet -- are popular heart-healthy fare, but we've rounded up some other options to add to your diet this February.

For the full article please go here.

Go Red for Heart Health This Friday from Huffington Post

A few years ago my girlfriends and I decided to take control of our health, and we started out by jogging in the park together -- checking our odometers, keeping pace with each other, and competing about who had the best heart rate. We also shared a lot of laughs -- always the best medicine -- while we cared for ourselves, our health and each other.

Believe it or not, heart disease affects more than one in three women -- and kills more than 500,000 women -- each year in this country, making it the leading cause of death among women. (Are you surprised by that? I sure was -- I thought cancer was the leading cause.) So this Friday, I'm getting active in the fight against women's heart disease and taking part in the National Wear Red Day, a campaign created by the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" movement that is designed to raise awareness about women's heart health.

For the full article please go here.

5 Attributes Every Student Nurse Should Have from Nurse Together

Initially it may seem easy to list the necessary attributes for a student nurse. We want them to be honest, ethical, hard-working, etc. These are certainly essential characteristics for someone who is preparing to take care of others. There are some other important qualities, however, which can make the difference between success and the lack thereof, of a student nurse. We need all the good nurses that we can get as we age as a population in greater numbers than ever before. We hope that those who choose nursing as a career do so for the right reasons, and not just for job security, money, etc. Let’s face it - nursing is hard. Nursing school is also hard. There are five additional attributes that can help individuals survive nursing school to become licensed in our profession.

For the full article please go here.

10 Ways You May Put Yourself at Risk for Flu (Without Realizing It!) from Health.com

By Sarah Klein

Whether you decide to get a flu shot this year or not, it's important to take steps to prevent yourself from getting the seasonal flu, as well as H1N1, commonly referred to as swine flu.

If you already sneeze into your sleeve, wash your hands diligently, and avoid crowds where these viruses can easily spread, you're on the right track. But you still may be putting yourself at risk in these unexpected ways—probably without even realizing it.

For the full article please go here.

Unbinding the Heart: Put Yourself on Your To-Do List from Huffington Post

I used to be one of those people whose happiness was dependent a lot on how good I made others feel. I think this pattern started a long time ago as a child, when I saw my parents fighting and having problems with each other, so I took it upon myself to be responsible for their happiness. An absolutely hopeless task, especially since I was only 11.

This pattern carried over to my adult life and spilled over to my relationships. I had an overall general feeling of care taking. It often left me empty and depleted. It took me years to realize the value of replenishing myself and putting myself on the top of my to do list, of taking care of myself so I can take care of others. And at some point I really got that the key to happiness is to going deep inside myself and realizing that I was enough, and that is what I call the process of "unbinding."

For the full article please go here.