Hearing, the Vital Part of Your Personality

The sense of hearing develops early, may be well before birth. The developing baby is surrounded by sound. In fact, the natural synchrony of the two heartbeats the baby’s is twice that of the mothers is now thought to constitute our earliest appreciation of rhythm. So, experiments, showing that babies can be soothed to sleep by recreating sounds left behind in the womb, have borne this out.

New babies do not learn to recognize or to locate sound for some months. Like all information received by the senses, it must first be translated and made sense of by the brain, before it becomes meaningful. Association is all, whether it is the rattle of a spoon against a cup, earning food or the soothing words of the mother, meaning closeness security and pleasure. If a baby is not brought up in a world of sounds and more specifically words, he or she will fail to associate sound with meaning and may appear deafer and the age of two or three than the child whose hearing is actually impaired.

How do we hear?

Sound originates as a movement or vibration of air, which then sets up smaller vibrations which get fainter and fainter as they move through the atmosphere. The function of the ear is so receive and transmit sound to the brain first by amplifying the pressure of the vibrations as they travel through the ear and second by translating the vibrations into electrical nerve impulses, intelligible to the brain which then decodes them. As with sight we hear not with the ears, but with the brain.

Pitch and Loundness

Frequency of sound or pitch is measured in Hertz. One Hertz is one cycle, or vibration, per second. Middle C on the piano, for example, is 256 Hertz, or cycles per second. We all respond to certain frequencies at very subtle level, particularly at the lower end of the scale, because they set up and generate internal rhythms in the brain. Hence ht powerful effect of meditative mantras, chanting and rock music.

The human ear starts to pick up low frequency notes at about 20 Hertz and goes on hearing successively higher notes to a level of about 20,000 Hertz, after which sounds become too high to be heard. Some animals, however, can still detect them. Silent dog whistles, for example are pitched at about 22,000 Hertz, and bats actually navigate by ultrasonic’s, emitting high pitched squeaks and finding their way by means of the echoes bouncing off obstacles.

The same principle is used for radar, depth sounders in submarines, burglar alarms and for medical canning when X-rays are unsuitable such as during pregnancy. Which sound becomes perceptible to most people? Some people with an extremely acute sense of hearing will be able to perceive sound at minus 10 decibels, but this is rare. Hearing tests work by measuring the quietest perceived sound for different frequencies.

Hearing Tests

One out of every 1,000 children is born with some degree of hearing impairment. If there is reason to suspect that the hearing might be damaged, a rudimentary test can be given at birth. All children should have a hearing test at seven months. Hearing deteriorates appreciable with age. By the age of 80, one in two people will have a moderate to severe degree of hearing loss.

This type of hearing loss is very similar in pattern to noise induced hearing loss. In fact, one study carried out in the Sudan among a people who live in a world unassailed by urban and traffic noise and who show a much sharper sense of hearing in old age. It is suggested that the hearing deterioration we normally attribute to advancing age might in part at least be noise induced.  

If you suspect that your hearing is not as sharp as it was, have a hearing test. The earlier any impairment is detected the greater the chance of compensating successfully for it. Using a hearing aid takes practice and concentration as it does not just amplify speech, but all foreground and background noise as well.

Noise

Because noise is invisible and often intermittent it is very difficult to assess both in terms of what the populations as a whole finds tolerable and of what constitutes a potentially damaging source of sound. Even so it is now well recognized that exposure to excessive noise can cause irreversible loss of hearing particularly of the lower pitched sounds. How loud is too loud? If you have to raise your voice to carry on a conversation with someone three to five feet away the noise level is potentially damaging.

Looking After Your Ears?

The less you interfere with your ears, the healthier they will be. The ear is an efficient self cleansing organ. The wax inside it picks up dirt and potential irritants as they enter the ear and prevents them from travelling further down. The warmth generated at body temperature melts the wax as it accumulates so that both it and the dirt can run out of the ear quite freely.

The most you should do is to wipe the outer ear with the corner of a face cloth. Poking around with a finger or any type of instrument will tend to push the wax further down towards the eardrum where it is less accessible and more likely to harden and affect your hearing.

If you suspect that an excessive accumulation of wax is affecting your hearing then to see your doctor who will arrange to syringe your ears. This is done by directing a jet of water at the eardrum not at the wax so that the wax is pushed out from the inside. If you have any history of trouble with your eardrum, you should not have your ears syringed your doctor will use an alternative method.

Earache is usually referred pain and often accompanies dental problems. These should be your first ground for suspicion when or if it strikes. If taking a painkiller every few hours does not help the problem, do not resort to homespun remedies, go to see your doctor or dentist.

Having your ears pierced is a perfectly safe procedure as long as it is carried out under sterile conditions. Stud sleepers are initially preferable to ring sleepers, as the dirt on your fingers may cling to the ring ad infect the ears as you turn the ring round. Choose gold in preference to other metals, as this is the least likely to lead to infection. If your ears are to flare up consult your doctor.  Keep your ears protected from the cold and use a good sunscreen while sunbathing. So, the cartilage at the top and back of the ear is particularly susceptible.Source: CP

Breast Cancer The Risk Factors

Quote: Health Care

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood….. Marie Curie

Well, knowing how your body works will stand you in good stead. Being aware of what can occur, being awake to the danger signs and having a baseline knowledge of what is and is not normal for you, means you are substantially reducing the risks, not of illness or infection occurring but of allowing it to develop to a stage when it may, indeed be ominous. This is your first line of defense and your most important one. It means taking the responsibility for your own good health, looking upon it and having the common sense to consult your doctor, should you find or feel your might have found anything potentially abnormal.

Breast

These days, how women feel about their breasts largely determines how they feel about themselves as women. Because of this, breast cancer and with it the thought of losing a breast, generates more fear among women than almost any other single disease. This fear keeps the average woman at home for 5 to 6 months before she consults her doctor about a lump she has found in her breast.

Not every lump, however, has to be a cancer. In fact very few are. Even so, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women and afflicts one in every 12 women at some time in their lives. For this reason, it is very essential to be a especially vigilant and vigilance begins at home.

Although there is a tendency to talk of breast cancer as a single disease, there are many different types. Some are very slow growing and may not spread much more rapidly. The doubling time for breast tumors it takes one abnormal cell to become two and two to become four can be as little as two months or as much as nine years. Whatever the type of cancer the chances of successful treatment increase dramatically with early detection.

Therefore, early detection depends first and foremost on regular, monthly self examinations. The more practiced you get at examining and feeling your breasts and the better acquainted you are with the natural differences  and irregularities between them, the greater your chance of spotting a significant change at the earliest possible opportunity. Early detection depends, on medical screening the breasts, clinical examination and mammography. With advances in technology it is possible that a third ultrasound may provide a major breakthrough.

While it is undesirable that any screening method should carry a risk however slight of aggravating the condition it is supposed to be protecting against, mammography is undoubtedly the earliest way of reliably detecting a breast lump before it has become large enough to be felt, by either doctor or patient. A breast lump usually only becomes palpable at about 2cm in size. The mammogram can detect a lump at ½ cm sometimes less, and will pick up between a quarter and a third of all breast cancers before they become large enough to be felt.

As long as minimal dose radiation issued, the risks carried by the screening process are virtually negligible when set against the considerable advantages of early detection. The comparative risk to benefit ratio of mammography are illuminating. Clinical records and various established factors enabled scientists to compute that if one million women were to be screened annually for 10 years, radiation induced breast cancers would be induced in seven in the meantime, more than 300,000 early cancer would have been detected.  

Breast Cancer The Risk Factors

Although isolating specific risk factors is difficult with any disease, the following are now regarded as being the major ones for breast cancer and the ones at the top of the list are considered to carry the highest risk. They do not suggest that you are likely to get breast cancer, accounting as they do for at least half the female population. But they do suggest that you should be especially vigilant.

·         If you have already had cancer in one breast or have any other type of hormone dependent cancer, such as cancer of the cervix, uterus or ovaries.

·         If you have a close relative who has had breast cancer particularly if the cancer occurred at an early age 35 or younger and was bilateral in both breasts.

·         If you have never been pregnant or particularly if you had your first full term pregnancy over the age of 35. While childbearing in your teens and early to mid 20’s seems to have a definite protective effect, breastfeeding does not appear to have a significant one.

·         If you are over 35, then breast cancer is extremely rare in women below this age group, when a lump in the breast is most likely to be a benign tumor or cyst.

·         If your periods started early at 12 or younger and finished late at 50 or over.

·         If you have had benign breast disease. Some breast lumps, though benign occasionally show signs of abnormal, pre cancerous growth.

·         If you have undergone prolonged hormone replacement therapy, after hysterectomy or over the menopause, you may be at a slightly increased risk. The progesterone component of bothe the combined hormone replacement therapy and the combined contraceptive pill seems to confer a protective effect against benign breast diseases.

Healthy people who carry no special risk, such as a family history of heart disease, do not necessarily need an annual checkup. A more realistic schedule would be would be every two years from the age of 35 to the age of 50 once every year after that. Every month just after your period has finished; on the first day of each calendar month if you have been through the menopause. Mammography once at the age of 35, a single view can be done annually thereafter. If you fall into one of the higher risk categories your doctor may suggest that you have mammograms taken earlier and or more frequently. If a female relative has had breast cancer, you should start mammography screening at the age earlier than that at which the relative cancer was detected.

Moreover, cervical smear soon after the time of first intercourse and against one year later, thereafter at three yearly intervals up to age 35 and at five yearly intervals up to age 60. If all results have been negative testing can be discontinued. You should have annual smear test if you have had the herpes virus.

How to Take Good Sleep

Don’t go to bed as advised by Mark Twain, insomniac and humorist, because so many people die there. But the truth is that if you did not you would soon find yourself yearning for cool sheets and a soft pillow. As you know, that sleep is essential to all living things, which have their own cycles of waking and sleeping, activity and rest stop and go.

It is the balance between them that generates energy and interest. During sleep, the body gathers its resources, regenerates its energies rebalances its metabolism and orders its psyche. Just how much it refreshes the brain and the body becomes apparent as soon as you are deprived of it. Lack of sleep quickly diminishes the quality of life when awake.

Fortunately this does not happen very often. Sleep is so natural and vital that the body tends to take just as much, or as little, as it needs 14 hours or more as a baby, 6 hours or less as an octogenarian. But it is not just age that determines your sleep requirements. The amount of sleep needed varies considerably from person to person and with the state of the mind and emotions. The eight hours rule stands corrected experiments in sleep laboratories have consistently shown that some people need as few as five hours sleep before walking refreshed and alert while others may need as many as 11. Body and brain seem to restore themselves at different rates in different individuals.

If you are worried and stressed out that you’re not getting enough sleep considers first that you may in fact be getting all the sleep that you need and that you are only suffering from unreal expectations. Use your diary to record how much sleep you got, over a two week period and how you felt the following day. If you are habitually wake up feeling un-refreshed and carry on feeling excessively tired throughout the day. Then you may not be getting your full quota.

You should bear in mind that if you are going through a particularly demanding phase in your life and are getting very little sleep, you do not have to make it all up. Studies on students kept up for three nights in a row at the University of Florida, USA showed that they only needed three to four hours extra sleep to make up for the 24 they actually lost.

Keep in mind that sleep cannot be forced. It is easy and effortless and seeks you out. It does not come with trying still less with anxiety. As worrying about not getting off to sleep is almost certain to keep you awake, relax using and of the methods detailed on the previous pages and let sleep surprise you. It almost certainly will. Even so, there will be times in most people live when sleep is elusive. You may take hours to go off to sleep and then find that your time asleep is disturbed by periods of wakefulness or you may wake up at dawn, overcome with tiredness and yet find it impossible to drop off again.

You may get up in the morning and somehow struggle irritably through the day, only to go to bed at night to find that exactly the same thing occurs. Sleeplessness has become a pattern. While it is a pattern that usually resolves itself spontaneously, prolonged periods of insomnia can lead to considerable strain and should be discussed with a doctor in order to rule out any medical cause.

Moreover, if you are suffering from sleeplessness, then do not automatically reach out for the sleeping tablets. These should be a last not a first, resort and should be prescribed only for a short period of time in order to help you ride through a particularly difficult period. Despite their evident drawbacks, however sleeping pills are still widely prescribed. In fact it has been estimated that every tenth night’s sleep in the UK is hypnotically induced. While the newer generation of sleeping tablets may be safer than the previous ones the barbiturates and the highly addictive mandrax, they still work in large general areas of the brain, often depressing the central nervous system in amounts above that simply required to produce sleep. They may linger in the system long enough to give feelings or handover on awakening together with impaired concentration and alertness the following day. In addition, these sleeping tablets which are almost identical in chemical composition to tranquillizers, can lead to dependency. With long term use, it becomes increasingly difficult to get to sleep without them so treat them with respect.

Tips for Sound Sleep

1.       Go to sleep when you are tired, not when it is time for bed. If you feel wide awake, stay up. Capitalize on having a little extra time. The best idea is to read a book or take short walk. Fresh air and gentle exercise are two of the best sleep inducers, particularly if taken an hour or so before going to bed.

2.       The most effective ways of counter acting difficulties in getting off to sleep at night is to get up an hour early morning. It takes a certain amount of discipline, but persevere and you will soon find that you start feeling sleepy at bedtime if not before.

3.       Another tip is to avoid over loading the stomach just before going to bed. Meals are best eaten early in the evening and proteins, despite their unearned reputation for causing bad dreams make much better bedtime foods than carbohydrates. Cheese milk and yogurt are ala good, late night foods. Milk is especially suitable because it contains high levels of an amino acid that seems to play a significant part in mobilizing the sleep inducing chemicals in the brain.

4.       Make sure that your system is not running on overdrive by the time you go to the bed, our intake of all stimulants including alcohol, sugar, salt, coffee, tea and cola drinks. The caffeine present in the last three speeds up the metabolism and its buzz may last for up to seven hours. If you go to bed at mid night, coffee or tea drunk at six o’clock in the evening could well be keeping you awake. While caffeine tends to interfere with sleep in the early part of the night, large amounts of alcohol, though sleep inducing will cause you to wake early. Because the alcohol is still in the process of being metabolized, it can react upon the digestive and nervous system, causing restlessness and gastritis not to mention handover.

5.       Take a warm bath before going to bed, use an aromatic essence to soothe and relax you. Some of the pure, essential oils, such as chamomile, Melissa and orange blossom, are deliciously relaxing. As you soak, try going through a simplified progressive relaxation procedure, r simply lie there and enjoy it. Letting your mind drift, do not drift off altogether though.

6.       Make yourself a sleep pillow, to place a pot pourri of herbs dried hops, lime blossom, rosemary, lavender, jasmine and chamomile in a flat linen envelope and tuck it inside your ordinary pillow. Hops and lime blossom, in particular have very strong sleep inducing properties.

7.       Check that is you comfortable in bed. This may sound obvious, but it is crucial. There are no hard and fast rules about what meals one bed and bedroom preferable to another it is your own comfort that counts. If you find you tend to sleep better in other beds, your mattress may be too soft or too hard, or your bedroom too cold or too hot.

8.       Is your sleep disturbed by background noise, some people find sound, whether the indistinct rumble of traffic or the louder ticking of an alarm clock, conducive to sleep. Others find it infuriating. In addition there is the possibility that your sleep is being disturbed by noises of which you are unaware. If you do find it difficult to get off to sleep, keep waking up during the night or feel excessively tired the following day, embark on an anti sound strategy. Move to another bed room away from street noise, have double glazing fitted to bedroom windows or buy a pair of earplugs.

If sleep still eludes you try building up the amount of carbon dioxide in your body. It is easy to fall asleep in a crowded room when the windows are tightly shut, because the amount of oxygen available is gradually being displaced by carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide acts as a natural tranquillizer in excess as a poison too, of course, numbs the brain, slows the body responses and produces a range of symptoms identical to stage one sleep. This breathing technique will temporarily raise your carob dioxide levels, without dangerously depriving you of oxygen. Take three deep breaths and at the end of third, hold on to the outward breath for a count of six, so that the lungs are completely emptied of air. Repeat this twice, and then do it once again but this having exhaled as deeply as possible breathe minimally not gulping for air but breathing from the top of your chest in short, shallow breaths. This will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in your system and can be repeated every ten minutes or so if you are still awake.