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Everyone gets a little stiff neck once in a while, and yoga can wipe away the pain with a few concentrated exercises. First, though, you must be certain the pain isn't related to something more serious than a simple stiff neck. Instead of yoga, see a doctor if any one of the following is true:

- You neck pain has persisted for more than three days, or it keeps coming back.

- Your neck pain is accompanied by dizziness or nausea.

- The pain seems to radiate down into your arms or legs.

- The pain began with a fall or accident.

If your stiff neck does not meet any of the above conditions, these simple yoga exercises can help increase your neck's flexibility and strengthen the neck muscles. By exercising you speed blood and needed nutrients to the area, easing the neck pain gradually. Try these:

Neck Stretches

sitting cross-legged, tall and straight, and inhale eyes forward. Exhale, moving chin to chest. Repeat this breath five times, the fifth time holding chin to chest breathing three times through the nose. Inhale, raising the head to center again. This time drop your right ear to your right shoulder during the exhale. Repeat this breath five times, the fifth time holding ear to shoulder for three breaths. Repeat this sequence with the left ear to left shoulder.

Half-Circle rolls

drop your chin to your chest. Slowly roll it up to your right shoulder, down to center, up to the left shoulder and down to center. Repeat this three to five times. Never roll the head in a full circle, as this can cause damage.

Shoulder Hunches

Hunch your shoulders up as high as you can, then relax them completely. Repeat five to six times. Next roll your shoulders in forward circles five to six times, then backward circles five to six times. Notice how relaxed your shoulders feel. Try this quick relaxation exercise any time you feel tension building.

Chest Expander

Stand with your feet together and your fingers interlaced behind your back. Inhale while raising your hands behind your back, squeezing your shoulder blades together and tucking your tailbone under to keep from over-arching your back. Hold this position for three to four breaths, then lower your arms slowly during the next exhale.

Arm Lifts

Hold your arms straight out in front of you, parallel to the ground with palms facing each other but not touching. Inhale while bringing them up next to your head. Exhale while you bring them down again. Repeat this four to eight times.

Press It

Place either palm on the back of your head. Simultaneously press the head and hand against each other for a count of ten. Move the palm to the forehead and repeat the pressing for another count of ten. Now place the right palm against the right side of your head and press head and hand together for a count of ten. Repeat with the left palm and left side of the head.

These yoga exercises are designed to relieve physical stress and related pain. The best pain relief is pain prevention, so be sure to watch your posture and set your workspace to avoid slouching.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Yoga

// posted by 99645 @ 11:06 PM 0 comments

Most psp owners have no idea how to play psp online, so Im going to show you how! Your psp can pick up free wireless internet and Im going to show you exactly how to do it!

Resources-First of all you will need a few things to get your psp online. Obviously the first thing is some wireless internet signals nearby. You can pick these signals up anywhere in the modern world-from Starbucks to the car park of your local hotel. The psp wireless works on 802.11b format, which is the norm all over the world, so you should have no issue. This means that just about any form of wireless internet is fine. Also you will need a copy of Wipeout pure.

Ready? Okay here, goes, how to play psp online in 5 easy steps!

How to play psp online Step 1
switch the psp on and go into the System Menu. From there go into network Settings and Infrastructure mode-once there select a connection to edit. If there is an existing connection set up, choose this as the one to Edit. Leave the name of the profile as is, and also skip the WLAN settings if already set up.

How to play psp online Step 2
Go into Address Settings and click on Custom. Whatever you do, dont change IP Address Setting from Automatic-this can cause major problems.

How to play psp online Step 3
now go into DNS Setting and click on Manual. now we need to enter the address of the web gateway we will use. The most popular one is the one at Endgadget, so use the numbers 208.42.28.174 for the Primary DNS IP, and leave the secondary one as zeros (0.0.0.0.). If you have trouble getting this gateway to work, Google search will find some more.

How to play psp online Step 4
Go into the Proxy Server options and select Do Not Use. All you need to do from there is confirm it all, and save it by pressing the X button it asks. How to play psp Online Step 5
Launch Wipeout Pure as you normally would, and go into the downloads menu. When asked to select a connection, choose the one you have just fooled around with, and you should see the Endgadget screen. This is now a fully working web browser, and you should be free to play psp online to your hearts content!

Thats how to play psp online! If you have required resources, an internet connection for your psp can be very useful!

www.psptipsntricks.com/pspreviews.html
Click here to find out how to get the best from your PSP, including access to your FREE MP4 Convertor software, which will let you play all these free movies!!.
Billy Torecki is the webmaster at http://www.psptipsntricks.com

// posted by 99645 @ 8:33 PM 0 comments

The first message that she was dying came by bicycle. Sean Patrick rode up the steep trail on Smuggler Mountain, Aspen, Colorado, on a cool, pre-fall day in 1995. She had spent many summer afternoons biking through the Aspen groves, enjoying the late sun shining patchwork on the trail. Normally energized from the strenuous workout and her daily 15- to 22-mile rides, Patrick was shocked when she became so out of breath that she had to get off the bike to avoid throwing up.

It was radical, she says. I couldnt get up. At first she thought she had over trained or suffered from exhaustion from too much traveling. Confirming her ideas, Patricks doctor suggested that she slow down and get a hobby. If you cant slow down, he said to her, I can always give you a prescription for Valium.

After weeks of still not being able to ride or rock climbher favorite sportPatrick returned to her doctor, who did blood work, but found nothing obviously wrong. He told her not to worry. It wasnt until 1997 that she finally found out that she had a rare form of ovarian cancer called Micropapillary Serous Carcinoma. After the late discovery, Patrick endured seven surgeries and, at one point in 2001 after being flown to a hospital via flight for life, doctors told her she wouldnt live past six weeks.

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Patrick did live, and she says, in large part it was due to her experiences in the mountains. She was strong from regularly biking and lifting weights, and she was mentally balanced after decades of rock climbing. The wilderness and leadership skills she gleaned in places like the Rocky Mountains prepared her for the greatest challenge of her lifesurviving that six-week ordeal in the hospital.

While on her deathbed in the ICU, a doctor inserted a blood gas line in her body, and it hurt like hell, she says. I snapped and got angry, and at that moment I came back into my body. She likens the feeling to being really scared after a rock climbing fall or when she has been stuck on the side of a mountain on a ledge in a thunderstorm. I would get scared and then angry, and that would act as a catalyst to get moving. I knew if I did not keep moving in the face of my disease that I would not make it.

Since her extraordinary recovery six years ago, Patrick continues to move rapidly forward. Not only does she still climb and play in the mountainsshe topped out on the Grand Teton after 22 hours of climbing through blizzard conditions in 2004but she also decided to make it her mission to raise awareness and money for the cancer that almost killed her. My lifes goal is to prevent as many women as possible from going through what I experienced, she says.

In the last few years Patrick has helped create an ovarian cancer website for the Johns Hopkins Medical institute, and she regularly travels around the country on speaking engagements. Patricks crowning achievement is the non-profit HERA Foundation (Health, Empowerment, research, Advocacy), which she created in 2002. She organizes Climb For Life events around the country and in Mexico, which bring women and men together to rock climb, do yoga, watch climbing slide shows and films, and, most importantly, learn about and raise money for ovarian cancer.

Friend and Climb for Life volunteer, Deanne Pranke says that Patricks climbing events have been incredibly inspirational for thousands of people. Sean has brought ovarian cancer out in the open and empowered many women such as myself to take charge of our health and educate our loved ones and friends about this kind of cancer.

Adds Patrick, The need for perseverance forces women to reach deep inside themselves when they feel like they cant go further. The lessons you learn from climbing and taking care of yourself in the wilderness translate into successful life strategies on a day to day basis. In fact, Patrick has never seen a sport as empowering as climbing is for women. Often when Ive seen women get to the top of a route in the gym, the transformation on their face is phenomenal, she explains.

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Sean Patricks wide smile greets the climbers as they stream into the third-floor room of REI Denver, spring 2004. Running her hand through a shock of white blonde hair, she says shes nervous when speaking publicly, but her voice is steady and vibrant as she talks about ovarian cancer and the HERA Climb for Life REI Road tour (now in its third year), sponsored by REI, Black Diamond, and HERA. She speaks to the audience with the fluency of someone who possesses a vast knowledge of the disease and the politics surrounding it.

After her diagnosis, Patrick became a research maven, reading everything she could find on the subject and hounding doctors all over the country. With her energetic and insistent attitude, shes penetrated the wall of scientific jargon to understand her disease. What she learned inspired her to reach out to others.

Since its inception, she says, the foundation has provided doctors with research grants; provided seed grants to a number of small communities, which have allowed them to offer immediate assistance to aid patients with travel, hotel rooms, and childcare while they are undergoing treatment; and established awareness programs throughout the United States.

Patrick has also convinced thousands of women and men to work with her. Among those women are famous alpinist Kitty Calhoun and salt Lake City, Utah, resident Hillary Silberman. Both women worked with Patrick to create a video highlighting the HERA Foundation and ovarian cancer.

According to Silberman, making the video and volunteering for HERA changed her life. Silbermans mother died in 2003 from ovarian cancer, and she says that she felt helpless in the face of her mothers illness. My involvement with HERA gave me the tools to work with to deal with my mothers death as well as people to connect with who understand where Im coming from.

By being involved and being proactive, Silberman explains, she has done something positive for others by presenting them with information. I have also done something positive for myself by beginning to think about what I needed to do to protect myself and get early detection.

With cancer affecting most of the female members of her family, Silberman is at a high risk for contracting the disease, although she doesnt currently have it. Her nurse practitioner tried to convince her not to worry, but Patrick and the Climb for Life events convinced Silberman to follow through on her own to seek the medical services she needs for early detection. The feeling of strength, perseverance and tenaciousness that climbing engenders made me not give up when professionals were telling me not to worry.

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As with most female-specific diseases, says Patrick, ovarian cancer has typically been ignored by the medical industry. Despite the fact that it kills women of all ages and more women than all the other gynecological cancers combined, many doctors are ignorant of its symptoms and think the disease affects only the elderly. This, explains Patrick, partially results from the medical fields traditional focus on men and male-specific diseases.

For example, the Agency for Healthcare research and Quality found that although coronary heart disease (CHD) causes more than 250,000 deaths in women each year, much of the research in the last 20 years on CHD has either excluded women entirely or included only limited numbers of women.

Additionally, doctors treat women different than men in hospitals. According to a fall 2001 study published in the journal of Law, medicine and Ethics, womens pain reports are taken less seriously than mens, and women receive less aggressive treatment than men for their pain. Also, women were more likely to have their pain reports discounted as emotional and therefore, not real.

I have had several experiences with this kind of dismissive treatment by both male and female doctors, says Patrick. It is a flaw in how medicine is taughtwomen complain, men dont, so they take mens complaints more seriously. To get the best treatment, you have to find a doctormale or female (one is not better than another in being more empathetic)that sees you as a person and not a statistical group.

Although Patrick seeks to change the way doctors view ovarian cancer and other women-specific diseases, she believes its more imperative to encourage women to take control of their own health. Ovarian cancer is not a silent killer, she says, the disease has symptoms, and its important that women are made aware of what they are. Women who go to the doctor with gastrointestinal symptoms must make sure that ovarian cancer is ruled out.

Through climbing, Patrick believes that women can be taught to stand up for themselves. Not only do these events teach women self-reliance, but they are also places where we can turn our passion for climbing into a passion for making a difference.

I think success in climbing no matter what level you climb at5.4 to 5.14translates to successful life strategies, Patrick says. I want women who are empowered by the mountains to take this back into everyday life, and as it relates to the medical community, I want them to trust their intuition despite their doctors contention that they may not have a problem. In climbing and in life, trust yourself.

For more information on ovarian cancer and the HERA Foundation, please visit the HERA Foundation Website at www.theherafoundation.org. Climb For Life events are held regularly around the country. The next 2007 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration has started.

Lizzy Scully Writer lizzy@girlsed.org

To find out more about registering or volunteering for the June 15-17, 2007 event, please visit: http://www.climb4lifeco.kintera.org/.

// posted by 99645 @ 10:04 AM 0 comments

The game of golf can be difficult when you consider all of the individual elements. Most golfers are overwhelmed with information regarding which tips will benefit their game and which ones wont.

The most important aspects of the golf swing and the game, in general, all revolve around the building of a strong and solid foundation for the body, the mind and the basics of an athletic swing. Each of the following concepts plays a critical role in your understanding of what creates a great round of golf as well as contributes to a lifetime enjoyment of the game.

Stamina

Golfers tend to ignore the cardiovascular component of golf. However, walkers cover an approximate walking distance of 4-5 miles each round. Even cart riders put in their fair share of walking depending on local cart rules, weather conditions and following errant shots. Poor cardiovascular conditioning can certainly have a negative impact on your game.

Stability

The most important rule in a golf conditioning program is to work and develop strength from the core region of the body outward. A strong trunk allows forces to be transferred effectively from the legs to the upper body. It also enables the body to withstand those forces without breakdown. Stabilization comes in many forms for the golfer including postural stabilization, trunk stabilization and joint stabilization.

Strength

Strength comes in many forms with regard to the golf swing. Strong back muscles allow the golfer to endure the explosive movements in the swing. Strength in the trunk region or core area of the body produces stability and helps to generate power. Combined muscle strength produces balance and coordination. Strong ligaments and tendons also prevent the joints from going beyond their range of motion.

Supple

Flexibility is the single most important physical characteristic likely to influence your golf swing. A tight body creates restricted motion in the swing and produces injuries as a form of compensation. Keep your body supple so it doesnt become a limiting factor in your performance.

Spirit

Attitude is everything! Many experts believe it is careful and premeditated preparation that allows a golfer to experience a mental edge in recreational or tournament play. What you say, what you think and how you act all contribute to your state of mind, and therefore contribute to the outcome of your game. Keep a positive and hopeful spirit when you play.

sequence

The golf swing can be separated into five biomechanical phases that work in sequence.

Set-up

Backswing

Transition

Downswing

Follow-through

A true understanding of proper body motion at each sequence will ensure consistency in your swing. Consistency is created through proper sequencing and solid mechanics.

Skill

Good swing mechanics is an absolute necessity in any sport and certainly, golf. The idea behind the golf swing is to create a simple and flowing athletic swing free of wasted motion and unnecessary compensations. To accomplish this, one must have the basis of some degree of skill. Work with a golf pro or read a book on swing mechanics.

Use these secret 7 to make your next round, your best ever. Build a strong foundation for golf and for life when you follow these simple steps to improvement.

Susan Hill is a CHEK Golf Biomechanic and president of FitnessforGolf.com, a private, members only, online golf fitness website dedicated to the improvement of golfers worldwide. If you are looking to develop any one or several of the secret 7 just mentioned, then visit http://www.fitnessforgolf.com.

// posted by 99645 @ 8:47 AM 0 comments