Self-Medicated

I love my coffee. I remember as a child my mother would give us a cup of coffee every night before bedtime. It was very weak and made with lots of milk and a spoonful of sugar. I loved it and looked forward to it. As I grew up I used less milk and made the coffee stronger. Now since I’ve been with Gregg, he has gotten me to skip the milk and drink it back with 1 teaspoon of sugar. I really enjoy having that first cup of java in the morning. Waking up to the smell of fresh coffee brewing is the best.

Over the years we have heard that caffeine is bad for us and yes I agree that in some ways it is.( I can tell you right now that I will never give up my morning coffee). Here are some facts…
There have been many studies done over the last 100 years. It’s generally believed that moderate consumption (no more than 4 or 5 average-strength cups of coffee a day) won’t harm most people, and may even have some benefits, but people vary in their sensitivity to caffeine. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed behaviour-modifying chemical. It’s also one of the most thoroughly studied food ingredients. It’s present in coffee, tea and chocolate as a natural ingredient – and it’s added to cola and energy drinks because of its stimulant effect. You’ll also find caffeine in over-the-counter medications, including some painkillers and cold and flu remedies. And in painkillers it’s used to enhance the action of the active ingredient.

Over 60 plants contain caffeine in their leaves, seeds and fruits – including the coffee and tea plant species. It’s actually a poison created by plants to protect themselves from being eaten. Most animals can’t stand the bitter taste.

Caffeine in the body

Caffeine is absorbed by the stomach, metabolized by the liver and eliminated from the body within two to 10 hours. Generally speaking, smokers metabolize caffeine more quickly than non-smokers, and pregnant women take longer to metabolize it. Oral contraceptives also slow the rate of caffeine metabolism.

It acts on the central nervous system as a mild stimulant, it relieves drowsiness and fatigue and speeds up reaction times. It’s also often been claimed to improve mood and mental performance though recent studies suggest that these apparent benefits may be the result of relieving the symptoms of overnight caffeine withdrawal!

Caffeine also acts as a mild diuretic, working on the kidneys to decrease the re-absorption of water and salt. While it can make you urinate more frequently, there’s debate about whether or not caffeine has a dehydrating effect.

Are there any health benefits?

• It’s been argued that because caffeine is an antioxidant, it may help prevent the development of some types of cancer. Antioxidants are found in many products derived from plants, and it’s widely believed that they help protect against diseases such as heart disease, cancer and cataracts.
• It’s been found that coffee contains flavanoids, which have antioxidant properties. And recent research suggests that the roasting process generates other antioxidant substances.

• Its role as a stimulant has also been shown to have benefits in specific situations. The amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee has been shown to improve alertness and concentration, and studies have argued it helps some night-shift workers to maintain concentration, potentially reducing the chances of an industrial accident. It may also play a role in reducing driver fatigue and preventing road accidents. And there’s good evidence that caffeine enhances sports performance for elite athletes - but not for the average athlete.

There are some more facts if you would like to continue reading about caffeine effects and studies. Just click on the link. (clicky). I know I will keep on having my caffeine be it in coffee or sodas or in my tasty dark chocolate. My mom wasn’t concerned about giving it to us as kids so therefore it must be good! Since mom is always right, and who wants to argue with mom?

As most of you know we are heading to Mexico at the end of October to celebrate our 5th anniversary plus my 40th birthday. So we are starting to look at a lot of Mexican sites to see what all we want to do on this visit. I found one today and thought the pictures were worth sharing. Check it out.(clicky) I am getting very excited about the trip. Gregg and I both need to get away. We are checking prices on flights daily and waiting for them to get really cheap. On our first trip there we each paid 133.00(cdn) for the tickets and the taxes on top it came out to 1034.00 for the both of us. It was a great deal! Hopefully we can get that or better.

I have been wanting a mp3 player for the last couple years now but I just didn’t want to spend the money. Last year we bought one for Colby and he was thrilled. I almost bought one then. We paid 60 bucks for a sandisk m200 1 gig. Now they are about 40 bucks. Glad Gregg stopped me. We have been shopping around for a good sale and last week we thought that we would go to Costco and buy the sandisk e200 2 gig. On saturday we looked at all the local flyers and noticed that Future shop had them on sale for 139.99. Gregg looked online to see if there was anything better at other stores and found that Staples was selling them too but for 79.99. We couldnt believe the price difference. We printed the website page and got ready and headed to Staples. They didnt have any in the store. So we went to Future Shop and they had them. We showed them the sale at Staples and they looked it up to see if it was just an online sale only. Lucky for us it didnt say a thing if it was or wasn’t. They price matched and also gave us another 10% off. Fantastic! We bought 2. Now we both have a player.

We got home and charged them up Gregg started looking for different programs we could add to the players. He found a bunch of different stuff. This player will do it all! We can watch movies, listen to the radio, store pics, record messages, read Ebooks and even play games.(Gregg has already converted some movies to watch). The best part is that it has an extra slot for micro memory cards. We can add extra gigs. Its perfect. Now when we go to Mexico in a couple months we will be able to entertain ourselves on the plane and while laying on the beach tanning and drinking margaritas.

About a month ago Gregg was at Darren Barefoot’s blog. Darren was looking for some bloggers that would try the shirt and do a review. Gregg signed me up. I had put this off since my allergist was changing my diet and the food changes greatly reduced my snoring, and so it took a while until I had a chance to try it out. I really did want this to work, but… I can tell you that just from wearing it, I wasn’t going to like sleeping in it. The back of the shirt has 3 pockets and in each one there is a hard foam tubing like the ones that are used in pools for floating on. Each one is about 4 inches long. It pulls the shirt down so it is always tight and high on the neck. I hate things high on my neck. The shirt itself is of normal T-shirt quality .

Here is a photo of the back. Its a simple design. Just 3 pockets stitched on to the back.

 I tried to have a nap yesterday afternoon with it on and it drove me crazy. I couldn’t fall asleep. There was no wiggle room for turning even a little bit on to my back. So I took out the tubes from each side and left only the middle one in. That felt a lot better. Still, I don’t think I could sleep with this all night long. I found myself getting frustrated with every turn I made. This shirt might work if the tube inserts were a bit smaller or maybe only 2 instead of 3 for smaller sized people. I can see how it will keep a person from rolling on to their backs. It is so uncomfortable. I felt like I had a huge brick across my back. So I would say that it can work. It just doesn’t work for me. I have chronic back pain so this isn’t something I would recommend for back pain sufferers. I would be willing to try this shirt again if they would redesign it with only 2 pockets. It would be a good option for people to be able to choose how many pockets they need according to their body size. I feel bad that I couldn’t give it a better review, but this review is from a person that has severe back troubles. It might be a great product for others that don’t have back pain. As for it helping with my snoring…Can’t really say it worked since it never let me fall asleep.

  (I think this might help my brother Bert)

Here is the website where you can order the shirts… Anti-snore