How to Use Epsom Salt for Health and Beauty

This drugstore staple is often overlooked in our search for the best health and beauty aids. But there are some good reasons to add this affordable compound to your shopping cart.

Epsom Salt—or magnesium sulfate—is a pure mineral compound and essential electrolyte that many of us need more of in our diet. It can help ensure proper muscle, nerve, and enzyme function, lower blood pressure, as well as relieve muscle pain and skin ailments. It can be added to water for soaking or drinking, or used for a body scrub or as a compress. Here's how you can incorporate Epsom Salt into your health and beauty routines as well as use it to help relieve certain ailments.

Epsom Salt can reduce inflammation and speed up healing. Simply add two cups to a hot bath and soak for at least 10 to15 minutes. For chronic pain from activity or from conditions such as fibromyalgia, repeat the process at least three times a week.

Soaking in an Epsom Salt solution bath can help the body absorb more magnesium. This compound can encourage the production of adenosine triphosphate, or the energy generated by cells.

Prepare a bath with a solution of two cups of Epsom Salt per gallon of water. Soak in the bath for 20 minutes in order to allow the solution to soothe itchy skin.

Create the same Epsom Salt solution (two cups salt per gallon of water) and use it to create a compress. Hold it against skin for 10 minutes before easing the splinter out with tweezers.

Mix Epsom Salt with a gentle oil or petroleum jelly to a paste consistency. Scrub all over skin—focusing on dry or rough patches—to help exfoliate dry skin cells and add some moisture to skin.

Combine equal parts conditioner and Epsom Salt and rub into hair. Leave in for 20 minutes and then rinse well. Style hair as usual.

Soaking in an Epsom Salt bath has been shown to raise the body's level of serotonin, a chemical that helps you feel relaxed. It can also help to draw toxins from the skin. Try a bath right before bedtime to help you get ready for a great night's sleep.

Source:

Epsomsaltconcil.org: "The Science of Epsom Salt." Epsom Salt Council. 2009.
http://www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/

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Are You Ready to Aero Jump?

Jump ropes made their way from the playground to the boxing ring long ago, but now they're turning up in gyms and fitness centers all over the world. Aero Jump is a jump rope-based workout developed by ex-boxer Michael Olajide, Jr.  It's fun and fast-paced, but it's anything but child's play. Olajide says Aero Jump workouts reflect the evolution of fitness, "You walk before you run. You jump before you fly." Are you ready to jump into some intense exercise?

When Olajide finished his career as a world-class boxer, he took his fancy footwork and jump rope-conditioning skills and designed a fitness routine to tone the lower and upper body, increase agility, and improve cardiovascular function. Using nylon jump ropes and fast-paced music, he put together a variety of 30 to 60 minute workouts that whip clients into the best shape of their lives. Olajide says Aero Jump burns 1200 calories in just 45 minutes.

Aero Jump classes lead clients through high-impact training moves like crossovers, double turns, one-leg and slow motion jumps, squats, and lunges—all choreographed to music set at 140 beats per minute. Olajide acknowledges that it takes time to learn jump roping skills, but says anyone can benefit from his workout with or without a rope. Using a jump rope is optional. While his clients learn how to master the rope, Olajide recommends they simulate turning an imaginary rope by twisting their wrists one rotation per beat while jumping to the rhythm.   

Since jumping rope provides one of the most demanding high-impact, total body, and cardiovascular workouts, it's essential that people warm up thoroughly and build up their skills and stamina gradually. Aerojump® classes are offered at the Aerospace fitness center in New York, but similarly-styled jump rope classes are popping up in fitness centers all over the world.

Aerojump® workouts are also available on DVD so people can learn and practice at home. The only equipment needed is a rope and enough room to jump.   

Wood, rubber, carpet and blacktop surfaces are great to jump on, but cement floors are too hard and uneven and marble and polished surfaces are too slippery. Wear cross trainer athletic shoes with plenty of ankle support and padding in the soles. Wear long sleeves and long pant legs when you first start learning to Aero Jump to protect your skin from rope burns. Keep practicing, keep jumping, and it won't take long before you're a jump rope champion.

Source:

Aerospace High Performance Center  http://aerospacenyc.com/aerojump.html

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Hay Fever Vaccinations

What if you could end your hay fever (allergic rhinitis) symptoms for good? A new hay fever vaccine could make this possible by preventing or reducing common seasonal allergy symptoms in just a few easy steps.

Unlike medications that have to be taken regularly for short-term allergy symptom relief, and allergy shots that can take several years to be fully effective against allergy triggers, the new hay fever vaccine requires only four doses to be given to patients over the course of three months in order to gain maximum effectiveness in preventing allergic reactions to seasonal triggers. Better yet, the vaccine not only works quickly to achieve a similar effect as long-term immunization therapy but it does so without any serious risks or side effects.

Currently under development by a company in Oxford, UK, the new hay fever vaccine relies on a "T-cell approach" that incorporates synthesized sections of molecules from the allergy trigger instead of using whole allergens in order to create a desensitization effect. This approach eliminates the need to increasingly build up to large doses over time to prevent an immune system reaction. So you can accomplish your goal in just a few months.

A study of 50 participants that was performed in Quebec to test the effectiveness of the new vaccine had very positive results. After undergoing the four vaccine doses, patients experienced a 30 percent reduction in eye allergy symptoms compared with their counterparts who were given a placebo. Many participants found that their allergic skin reactions also improved by more than 50 percent.

Researchers are now testing the hay fever vaccine on a much larger group to see if the results stay true. If so, scientists hope that this treatment option will be available to the public in the near future.

If you're frustrated with taking medications to deal with your ongoing allergy symptoms and find that getting regular allergy shots are inconvenient, you'll want to talk to your doctor and find out when this hay fever vaccination will be available to the U.S. Similar vaccines are also being created to deal with other allergy triggers, so you'll probably want to stay on top of the progress of these, too.

The good news is that once this form of treatment is offered for the general public, if your doctor feels you're a good candidate, you may finally have a good shot at getting your hay fever allergies under control.

Sources:

"Allergy Portfolio." Circassia. Circassia, n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.

Creticos, PS et al. "Immunotherapy with a Ragweed-Toll-Like Receptor 9 Agonist Vaccine for Allergic Rhinitis." N England Journal of Medicine (355) (2006): 1445-55. Web, 11 Oct. 2011.

"Hay fever vaccine on the horizon." Vaccine News Daily. Vaccinenewsdaily.com, 9 June 2010. Web. 9 Oct. 2011.

Rattue, Grace. "Allergy Symptoms Improved By Hay Fever Vaccine." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 30 Sep. 2011. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.

Smith, Michael. "Hay Fever Vaccine Nothing to Sneeze At." MedPage Today. MedPage Today, 4 Oct. 2006. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.

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