Benefits of Elliptical Training

The basic motion of an elliptical trainer is a smooth, flowing...well...elliptical motion. The low impact nature of these machines greatly reduces stress on the joints of the lower body (ankles, knees, and hips).

Since it is a weight-bearing exercise, elliptical training promotes cell growth in the bones of the lower body and spine thus helping ward off the debilitating effects of osteoporosis. This is a distinct advantage that elliptical trainers have over other exercise devices that are not weight-bearing such as rowing machines and stationary bikes.

The other great advantage that elliptical trainers have over other exercise machines is that most models work the muscles of both the upper and lower body. This results in a cardiovascular efficiency that produces an equivalent training effect as other forms of exercise, but over a shorter period of time.

Joggers for example, will sometimes swing small dumbbells while jogging in order to achieve this training efficiency. This was popular during the height of the jogging craze during the 1980s, but is now rarely observed in the wild. Perhaps joggers decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Maybe they also finally realized how goofy they looked in the process. Remember, no one ever looks goofy while gracefully striding away on an elliptical trainer!

Cross training with Elliptical Trainers

Cross training has come to mean several different things over the years. The original definition of cross training was the use of exercise movements that benefited an athlete's performance in a given sport. Lately, the definition has expanded to mean doing a variety of cardio exercises, which also may include working out with weights.

If you're looking to maintain your conditioning for a sport, then elliptical trainers can get your heart rate up quickly and keep you in good cardiovascular condition. For non-athletes that just want to stay fit and lose a few pounds, then alternating training days between lifting weights and 20 minute sessions on an elliptical trainer will get you to your goal.

Whatever definition of cross training you go with, you can be sure that cross training with an elliptical trainer will fit your definition!

Rich Rojas
Elliptical Trainer reviews and fitness ideas
http://www.ellipticalhome.com/elliptical-trainer-buyers-guide.html

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Home Security Surveillance Camera - Its Uses And Efficacy

The home security surveillance camera is a useful device that safe keeps your home from the intruders. By all means these tools, when put to use, could help a lot in maintaining the security of the premises of your domicile.

1. The Uses of the Home security Surveillance camera

As a means of self-defense, you as the homeowner have the responsibility to install a home security surveillance camera strategically so that your property would be guarded at a maximum extent. Generally, you need to employ these home security surveillance cameras in different spots such as all entrances and exits so that any suspicious movement would get tracked.

The obvious purpose of the home security surveillance cameras is to keep a close watch at objects or people. The function of these devices extends to the surveillance of criminals who attempt to get into your property. Also, these tools are useful in guarding your belongings. You could keep an eye on your parked car too and other forms of vandalism done to your things.

The nanny cams or hidden cams are widely used in keeping watch on the behavior of those employees you have at home. You also could detect any theft done by the house cleaners. You could watch how they treat your family and your home while you are not around. You could always check on how your babies are cared for as you go to work.

Some home surveillance security cameras are likewise available as internet-ready and any wifi connection would allow you to closely do the monitoring scheme even if you are not at home.

2. The Efficacy of the Home security Surveillance Cameras

With the increasing advancement in technology, there are already the micro sized home security surveillance cameras available. These very minute tools are widely used because they are not only easy to install but affordable too. The customized home security surveillance camera may be used while linked with the wireless technology.

These devices could be housed inside the wall clocks, smoke detectors, and even in the stereo speakers. There are plenty of kinds of surveillance cameras which may be used at home. There are the hidden cams, dome cams, smart cams as included with motion detectors, and the smoke detecting cams.

You need to also ensure that your home security surveillance cameras are safeguarded against harmful elements. Make use of materials that would protect them against the unpredictable weather. When you purchase one, they are ready to use and are effectively designed to fit your demands.

For tips on choosing home security systems, visit http://www.homesecuritykit101.com

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The Blissful Body of the Yogi(ni): Yidam Practice & Yoga Asana

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, a Tibetan yogi often compared to the great Milarepa, when addressing the issue of Yidam practice within the Vajrayana vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism, has said: It is the blissful body of the yogi or yogini that is the true Deity. So what might this mean? And how, if at all, is it (or could it be) related to the practice of yoga asana? Lets explore

Yidam practice unfolds in two stages: (1) The Generation or Creation Stage, in which the specific deity that one is working with is created, i.e. given a form within the imagination of the practitioner; and (2) The Completion Stage, in which that created form of the deity is dissolved: resolved into emptiness, and (its residue, its true intelligence) light/radiance. The practice also, over time, evolves from one in which the deity is merely a conceptual projection, to one in which the natural deity appears, non-conceptually, before the practitioner, as a visible aspect of his/her own radiance.

Yidam practice as a whole is based, in large part, upon a productive use of the imagination. It takes that capacity (and strong tendency) most of us have to make mental pictures, and uses this as a tool to align us with, open us to, a reality that is deeper, more profound, and truer than the one were habitually tuned into. The imagined forms of the deities have the quality of being able, potentially, to act as portals, or gateways into these deeper realities to put us in touch, directly, with aspects of awakened mind.

Now its important to notice the distinction between ~ on the one hand ~ this Yidam-practice way of using our imagination (as a very specific form of mental training, which ultimately can liberate us), and ~ on the other hand ~ a use of the imagination which amounts to no more than (habitual, and often largely unconscious) fantasizing. To engage in fantasy is ~ from the perspective of Buddha Dharma ~ a non-productive use of the imagination: one that takes us further into the territory of conceptualization, mental elaboration, and as such further and further away from a reality which has the potential to liberate us.

So how does any of this relate to the practice of yoga asana? We could, first of all, consider each specific asana as a deity-form: something we construct/project (a la the Creation Stage) and then dissolve (a la the Completion Stage). And certainly asana practice is based largely upon a distinction between productive and non-productive alignments/uses of the body. The productive alignments (a la the productive uses of mental imagination) are those which have the potential to open us into a reality deeper than the mere physical, e.g. to the level of the central Channel/Shushumna Nadi, and the subsequent conscious flow of that awakened energy outward, into the whole network of nadis within the subtle body of the yogi or yogini. The non-productive alignments (a la fantasies), on the other hand, simply keep the energy of our subtle bodies circulating unconsciously (divorced from the truth of the Shushumna Nadi) in old samskaric patterns, i.e. keep us circling on the wheel of bith-and-death which in Buddhism is called Samsara.

And in the same way that in deity practice there is an evolution from the deity as a mere conceptual projection (though a potentially productive one!) to the non-conceptual appearance of the natural deity; just so in our asana practice we often begin with a rather outside-in approach, in which the asana is actually a form of conceptual projection, i.e. its an idea we have (from our teacher, or books, or whatever) that we put forth in the form of an arrangement of (the appearance of) bones, muscles, etc. but its not yet real or natural. As our asana practice matures, more and more were able to work from the inside-out, in which the asanas emerge spontaneously, non-conceptually, as aspects of our natural intelligence/radiance. Our movements in and out of the asanas are infused with the spirit of what in Taoism is called Wu Wei: an effortless effort which quite naturally produces the correct alignments (as opposed to imposing those alignments based upon some external moral code of asana practice).

So how then do we progress from a conceptual to a natural way of expressing our asana practice? From the poses as mere conceptual projections to expressions of an awakened bodymind? A practitioner of the Generation Stage of Yidam practice might move in this direction by finding the Completion Stage within the Creation Stage, by finding the dissolution of the form as an inherent aspect of the form itself (much as ~ in Taoist theory/practice ~ Yang is an inherent aspect of Yin: they inter-are). In this same way, our asana practice might re-member the dissolution of form within every form/asana taken. And might ~ to extend the principle ~ put into conscious and ever-evolving relationship all opposing movements So little by little our ideas about the right way to do the pose are replaced by an ever-more-subtle tremoring which spontaneously aligns us in a way that allows our conceptually projected body to dissolve into the blissful body of the deity: an aspect of our own radiance, pouring forth, shedding itself continuously, for the benefit of all living beings.

One of the initial trainings in dream yoga ~ once the practitioner is able to be lucid (i.e. awake) within the dream ~ is to transform the body: to change the shape of ones body into the body of a bird; into an airplane (and fly to Paris!); or ~ relevant to our current exploration ~ into the shape of a deity, which ~ in the context of dreaming ~ is quite easy to experience and understand as being an empty form, i.e. a form made only of color, light & energy (much like a rainbow). In this same way, our vinyasa ~ our movement in and out of asanas, upon the thread of our awakened breath ~ might become, with practice, a kind of Rainbow Painting (Ive borrowed the phrase from a book with this same title written by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche): merely a play in color, light and energy, a toggling back and forth between the display of empty forms (the specific asanas), and the bliss which is the residue of their dissolution.

And this, perhaps, represents ~ simultaneously ~ the waking up of the dream of our asana practice, and the waking up of the dream of our Yidam practice; represents the waking up from the dream/fantasy of religious practice into the blissful radiance of the Present Moment Amen and Sobeit.

Elizabeth Reninger has been exploring yoga ~ in its Hindu, Buddhist & Taoist forms ~ for more than twenty years, and is a student of Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. She is also a published poet, and currently resides in Boulder, Colorado. For more essays on yoga-related topics, please visit her website at: http://www.writingup.com/blog/elizabeth_reninger

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What Are The Side Effects Of Quitting Smoking?

Another name for side effects of stopping smoking is withdrawal symptoms. And then there are side effects from the stop smoking aids depending on the individual and their addictions, which are used while trying to lessen the withdrawal symptoms. Fortunately, there are very few stop smoking side effects.

In fact, smokers who give up smoking become healthier while living longer as compared to those who fail to do so. They only have to battle a brief period when they give up smoking -- the period when the withdrawal symptoms are most prominent, a time when they feel anxious, irritable, confused and depressed. They may also suffer from a slower heartbeat, increased appetite, and weight gain. However, all these can be controlled through proper counseling and exercises.

The reason for the withdrawal is the body demanding for its supply of nicotine. When going cold turkey, this period can range from 72 hours to two weeks of intenseness and pain, with the amount depending on the smoker and their addiction. The nicotine replacement therapy is especially useful in reducing the side effects as it feeds this hunger for nicotine.

The patient can use nicotine gum, nicotine inhaler, or nicotine patches to release small quantities of nicotine in the bloodstream to lesson the urge to smoke. Because the body is given this drug, it lowers depression and improves well being. They can also use alternative therapies like tai Chi, Qi Gong, or yoga to relieve stress and make life without cigarettes more bearable. Another possibility is the use of laser therapy that releases endorphins in the blood stream, making an individual feels better.

The 60% smokers who are most prone to side effects are those who suffer from depression, who usually are requiring extensive counseling and support from family members and friends. Many of them are put on Zyban, an FDA-approved drug that helps to reduce the urge to smoke and is also beneficial for treating depression among those who quit.

Known by the name Bupropion, it desensitizes the brain's nicotine receptors, with seizures as its main side effects in less than one in 1,000. Other side effects, such as insomnia, dry mouth, and headaches are usually more common. Another side effect of quitting smoking is weight gain, usually putting on 5 to 8 pounds of weight, which should not be considered a dangerous side effect.

You should remember that smoking is much more injurious to health than gaining weight, which is controllable through exercise, dieting or yoga. But you can't undo the damage caused by smoking to your health. Your first priority therefore must be to give up smoking as you will feel better, healthier and more energetic in the long run.

Check out http://www.my-stop-smoking-zone.com/ for more articles on nicorette gum and smoking.

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