Health, Lifestyle, Wellbeing Tips & Advice

Category: Health

3 Tips For Helping Children Learn To Care For Their Teeth

There are many elements of our lives as adults that are often heavily influenced by what we learned or experienced as children, and when it comes to oral health, your dentist will tell you that teaching children how to look after their teeth and gums at an early age, should see them continue this into their adulthood.

Obviously, if you are responsible for a child, you will no doubt have many priorities for them in terms of what they learn, and dental care might not be one at the top of that priority list, but it should be. Just as you teach them many ways to stay safe and healthy, educating a child about their oral health, can only benefit them, throughout their childhood, and beyond.

One thing which must be borne in mind, whilst there are many parts of a child’s upbringing that can seem complicated or requires a lot of investment with respect to time and patience, helping them to learn how to care for their teeth and gums correctly is not one of them. There are also steps you can take to make it part of their routine. With that in mind, here a three simple tips to help you teach your child the benefits of proper oral hygiene, and how they can achieve it.

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The Purpose And Benefits of Psychological Assessments

Psychological assessments are extremely important within the realm of psychology and they utilise several methods of assessing an individual’s cognitive thinking, behaviour, personality, and other mental faculties to determine or diagnose any conditions for which they need psychological treatment.

If so, using the information and data that the psychological assessment has produced, an appropriate treatment will be determined by a psychologist with a view to returning the client to a level of mental health which equates to a positive outcome for the individual.

In principle, a psychological assessment is no different to any other kind of medical assessment where the evidence is used to prescribe a course of treatment. For example, if a patient told their doctor they were having trouble breathing, tests would be carried out with regards to their respiratory system and the results would be used by the doctor to identify appropriate treatment.

That is the general basis upon which psychological assessments are performed, although within that wide scope there are multiple other purposes that they can be used for.

As well as being a guide for the psychologists to determine the best course of action, such as referring you to an ADHD Specialist, psychological assessments can also be invaluable in highlighting the individual aspects of a client’s behaviour in order to isolate those circumstances where the problems manifest themselves more than others.

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How to Prevent Cataracts

Cataract surgery can fix compromised vision induced by cataracts that make reading, driving a car (especially at night) increasingly challenging. Luckily, cataract surgery is usually a safe and successful operation.

For those who don’t know, cataracts arise due to the lens of the eye becoming clouded. Responsible for allowing light to travel into the retina, the lens is a transparent substance composed mainly of water and protein fibres. As the fibres clump together, the lens becomes less affective, leading to blurred sight and, if left unchecked, total blindness.

Often cataracts grow slowly and don’t always affect the eyesight immediately. Over time, though, cataracts will gradually impact your vision. Some of the numbers relating to cataracts are shocking. Cataracts are responsible for 51% of the world’s blindness that occurs, and it is estimated that no fewer than 65 million people globally are affected by cataracts to some degree.

There are many ways which you can help reduce the chances of you contracting cataracts, some of which you can begin immediately.

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The Lowdown on Migraines and Botox 

Everyone knows that Botox is a cosmetic injectable that you can use for smoothing out wrinkles. But did you know it’s also being reported as a potential treatment option for migraines?

Surprisingly, one in ten school-aged children and teens suffer from migraines. But at the moment, there is only one type of migraine medicine that is suitable for young people to use. What are kids supposed to do when their migraines become unbearable?

Botox as an Alternative Options

According to the chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at the University of California, Shalini Shah, M.D., migraines affect children’s lives and their ability to function. When they trialled Botox as a treatment method for children and teens with migraines, they noticed improvements in function.

One student was hospitalised every month for migraine pain before using Botox and was heading towards being held back in school. However, after Botox treatment, she only had one or two migraines every year and started to excel in her schooling.

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Our Top 3 Health Tips for 2019

Mojo’s Health & Wholefoods love this time of year! Why? Because now is the time to make those small sustainable changes that will make such a difference to your overall health in 2019. Here are the best three changes to begin your year:

1. Drink water!

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to keep your body hydrated. Consumption of water is associated with a number of health benefits, including flushing out toxins, increased energy, improved cognitive function as well as helping the body to break down food thereby boosting your metabolism. Take your reusable bottle wherever you go and take regular sips to achieve your 2 litres a day.

2. Eat real food!

Easier said than done we know! But drop the Uber Eats at least from Monday to Friday and stick to home cooked meals with lots of vegetables and wholegrains. Try doing a meal planner on Sunday evening and stick to it. And if you must eat out, choose the smarter options on the menu such as steak and vegetables, or pastas with tomato based sauces.

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The Wholefoods Diet

Wholefoods are plant foods which have not been processed or refined (or as little as possible) prior to eating – think fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. The term wholefoods tends to refer to a more plant-based diet with animal products, oils and salt being excluded.

Wholefoods are grown from seed without chemicals, sprays or insecticides and are as close to their natural form as possible, providing us with a natural alternative to the many ‘convenience’ food products now being offered in supermarkets.

Recent research shows that getting optimal nutrition from our food (and thereby optimal health) we should be eating wholefoods as our ancestors did about 100 years ago as these retain fibre, phytochemicals and nutrients that are often lost with highly processed and packaged foods.

Examples of phytochemicals include anthocyanins which give blueberries their deep colour or red coloured lycopene found in tomatoes. Wholefoods are as nature intended them to be – no added fats, sugars or salt and with all the fibre our body needs. Fibre aids our digestion and helps us to feel full faster. Eating wholefoods also help to fight heart disease and diabetes.

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Do You Need to do FODMAPs?

What is the low FODMAPs diet and should you be on it? Firstly it’s important to know what FODMAPs is and what it means – Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. So you can see why it’s commonly referred to as FODMAPs!

The FODMAP concept was first hypothesised in the Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics Journal in 2005 with the low FODMAP diet being developed at Monash University in Melbourne.

Put simply the Low FODMAP diet targets natural carbohydrates (sugars) in foods that don’t break down easily, causing fermentation in the gastrointestinal system. Fermentation is the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms. This fermentation in the gut creates unpleasant symptoms such as smelly gas, bloating, and abdominal pain. So where are the FODMAPs hiding in our food?

Oligosaccharides are found in certain plants such as artichokes, burdock, chicory, leeks, onions, and asparagus.

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