By Dr. Steven Alff

As a Chiropractor I know how important it is for all of us to maintain good balance, especially as we age. Good balance helps us to walk without stumbling, get up from a sitting position without swaying, and to climb stairs without missing a step. In other words, good balance is extremely important to our health and well-being. And, even though many adults aged 65 and older report episodes of dizziness, “wooziness, and other balance-related challenges, getting older, in and of itself, doesn’t have to mean a fall is inevitable or that being younger includes an exemption. In fact, a new research study found that remaining physically fit and sticking to a regular exercise routine lowered the risk of taking a tumble both the old and young, especially if you’re a male.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, falls for both men and women of any age can be serious. The overall statistics on the number of falls sustained each year in the U.S., not only for people 65 years and older but for younger individuals as well, may surprise you. Nearly 19,000 people die each year from falls and almost 8 million seek treatment in emergency rooms. And, as mentioned, although falls are the leading cause of injuries among people age 65 and older, the study revealed that young people fall down just as frequently as seniors!

Let’s face it, even though reaching old age can be a very “risky” business in many ways if we don’t take care of ourselves along the way, as far as falling goes younger people are more likely to intentionally engage in risky activities than seniors, such as standing on ladders and ledges, running, and playing sports — activities that can often lead to a serious tumble.

But, no matter what a person’s age may be, the more physically fit we remain reduces our fall potential, especially if you are a male. The study included individuals between 20 and 87 years of age. Of the 10,615 participants in the study, done be researchers, lead by Kristin Mertz, M.D., at the epidemiology department at the University of Pittsburgh, 20 percent reported falling in the past year. Of those who fell, 15 percent fell while walking. Surprisingly, the study found that women were 2.8 times as likely to fall while walking as men, but that the fitness levels of the participants only seemed to make a difference in men falling while it did not appear to have the same effect for women. The study found men with low fitness levels were 2.2 times more likely to fall while walking than were highly fit men.

“We were surprised to find that fitness and physical activity seemed to have a stronger relationship with walking-related falls in men compared with women,” Mertz said. As a chiropractor, I am surprised with that finding as well.

And, as your Ventura Chiropractor, I would like to add the following commentary: Whether you are young or older, male or female, maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition, routine exercise, and regular chiropractic adjustments can benefit the entire body and help to maintain your fitness level and balance acuity as you age.

Look for research study results in the only July issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Source: Health Behavior News Service

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Besides learning the techniques needed to successfully perform chiropractic therapy, it is important that chiropractors learn good marketing skills. Keeping any business alive is dependent upon getting in new customers and having old customers return. Obviously, the same is true when it comes to our patients. And, not just having our old patients return, but having them refer family, friends, and business associates.

While good patient care is ultimately the way to make sure that our business is successful, it’s also important for us, chiropractors, to development a bit of marketing savvy, or at least to find a marketing company who has it. There are many to choose from out there, but here are a few “essentials” to look for when making your decision. Find 1) someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to “search engine optimization” (SEO), which is to say, someone who knows how to get you ranked on the first page of google, 2) someone who has great tech support, i.e., a good customer service department, and 3) someone who will make money for your website instead of cost you money!

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Well, it looks like medical doctors are having the same issues of being business-challenged. I just read an article about physicians who are going to business school to get their MBA. Apparently, nationwide more doctors are finding it both useful and necessary to add business fundamentals to their core of medical know-how, according to health care organizations and observers.

The effort encompasses more than just learning tools for helping doctors run their offices; it is about reclaiming their voice in a sector that has become dominated by non-medical professionals, such as managed care firms, professional administrators and accountants. “Physicians nowadays need to appreciate and understand business concepts and thinking,” said Dr. James Anderson, a Cornerstone Health Care pediatrician and member of the practice’s board who is working toward a business degree. “The way we train in medicine and the way we approach problems in medicine is different than in the business world.”

The conviction that physicians can no longer be blind to the ways of business is at the center of Dr. Bill Applegate’s efforts to retool the curriculum at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Applegate, dean of the medical school, said he intends to take “a slice” of Wake’s Babcock Graduate School of Management content and implement it for the medical campus’ doctors in training. He figures it may take another two years for it to happen.

Until it becomes a staple of medical school studies, gaining business acumen is largely a voluntary effort for doctors. And by no means are most doctors adding to their already super-crowded schedules with business homework.

I believe that it is time for chiropractors, and other health care providers, to take back the business of their professions from those who are not doctors and are truly “in it” for the money. We can still maintain the “heart of a doctor,” but we also must develop the mind of a business professional.

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Does it seem to you that no matter where we turn these days, there are news stories and advertisements, alike, touting the stupendous studies on innumerable exotic supplements, not to mention the cutting-edge health proclamations of coffee and red wine that, in one way or another, promise to reduce or eliminate all causes of mortality? It would almost seem, in fact, that a quest for immortality has replaced our search for longevity!

First of all, let me begin by saying that I’m not against taking supplements. Actually, I take them myself on a regular basis. Secondly, the idea that drinking red wine could possibly be healthy for my heart is a very attractive thought. And, I’d genuinely like to accept that drinking coffee truly could be an “easy fix” for preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

However, before taking ill-considered action, and haphazardly adding more coffee to your morning habit, another glass of red wine to your evening meal, or an extra expenditure of your hard-earned cash on exotic herbs that promise to make you live forever, let’s rationally consider a couple of things.

For instance, let us think about the fact that we, humans, are dynamic, biological beings, free to enthusiastically interact with life. We have not been detained in a cage, and none of us has been “propagated” to artificially develop the age-related debilitation and disease that lab animals are bred to do, conditions that are then “reversed” by resveratrol, caffeine, or some exotic herb.

Basically, our being dynamic and biological is another way of saying that we, humans, are not ” mechanistic automatons.” In other words, we aren’t all precisely alike. Due to the fact that our central integrative states are not exactly the same, internal provocation factors and external irritation influences affect us in different ways. For example, though smoking cigarettes is commonly harmful to most people, there are a few individuals who can smoke cigarettes and still achieve longevity without any related ill effects.

Scientific studies isolate certain variables in order to achieve particular outcomes. That’s scientific inquiry! But, because the results occur through such isolation, and due to the fact that they are generally done on animals, when it comes to translating such results to humans, it can be said that what may work for some of the people all of the time, won’t work for all of the people all of the time, and sometimes won’t work at all (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln!).

You make choices each day, some that are intentional and others that may be indifferent, that will affect your physical health, now and in the future. You decide what (and how much) you’ll eat and drink, and the amount of physical activity and rest you’ll get. Even though you can “sense” what is healthy for you, by the way your body responds, sometimes, perhaps too often, you may override the feedback. Clearly, when you don’t consciously make healthy choices, you jeopardize your health and longevity.

Then you, like many others, may enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon of the latest report that announces that researchers have uncovered THE VERY THING that has the potency to reverse all of the excessive and unhealthy things you have been doing to your body on a routine basis! Talk about wishful thinking!

The elegantly balanced system of your body (homeostasis) is highly responsive and intricate. This delicate system becomes “off balance” when you live an unhealthy lifestyle. Eventually, the imbalances nurtured through poor health choices, result in diseases.

If supplements help you to feel more energetic and healthy, then as a chiropractor who takes them as well, I say great, take them! If it feels like the thing to do, drink that additional cup of coffee as well. And, have a little more red wine if it honestly feels beneficial. But, keep in mind that the only legitimate way for anyone to avert or reverse age-related health problems is by choosing a consistently healthy lifestyle. You won’t get healthier by chance. There is no “lucky charm” when it comes to health and longevity.

Dr. Jamie Phillips, a Ventura Chiropractor, has been in private chiropractic practice for over two decades. She is also a consultant for Bloczone Marketing, a chiropractic internet marketing company specializing in chiropractic websites that attract new patients. She can be reached at (805) 985-9502

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This is my second article series of Internet Marketing Miracles. Today, we will discuss about Google Adwords Marketing and how it is affecting the whole marketing industry, in general, and the product owners and marketers, in particular.

Advertising in Google Adwords has been the most lucrative form of online advertising never seen since the birth of the Internet. It is instantaneous and you could receive sales minutes after you finalized your campaign. Adwords guru, Perry Marshall, calls it as “the fastest crash course on true, real-life, street-level direct marketing”.

It is the only online advertising mode where you can generate traffic to your website within 10 minutes of campaign, to millions of targeted traffic from a minimum advertising budget of just $5.

Pioneered by Overture (formerly Goto.com, now known as Yahoo! Search Marketing), it was not known to many until Google use this campaign as an advertising medium. Creating campaign is a process and is not for everyone. You need to use some keyword search tool and campaign analysis and techniques in your campaign before you can be successful in this venture.

Google Adwords Defined:

Adwords advertising is a text link ads you can see as “sponsored ads” located at the top or just a text block at the right – of your Google search results whenever you search for some products or services. Also known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, bidders can then bid on a cost per million (CPM) basis for block advertisements. Your advertisement will then be shown to the content network site know as Adsense, the other side of Google advertising model.

When you create a campaign (text ads), you will bid for a series of words or phrases (called as keywords) as your anchor text that will link to your website domain or to your affiliate domain page. Done correctly, you could have a very profitable return of investment (ROI) and when done wrongly, could be very disastrous to your advertising budget. Due to the complexity of this system, most companies are hiring Consultants to do the campaigns for them.

What is Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is a form of advertising medium used by Webmasters to monetize on the contents of their webpages. Blocks displayed could be text, images and recently video advertisements. Adsense are displayed via javascript generated iframes and the text displayed are always relevant to the contents of your webpages. The monetization of your page depends on how well you place the location of your adsense blocks. Although placement plays a vital role in your click-through, color and text font place an important aspect in your campaign. Try to experiment with the background color, font and text colors to achieve the desired click-through campaign and, hence, maximizing your adsense income.

If your niche site is www.aboutdogs.com , Adsense will display an ads relating to your contents, like “dog foods”, “dog grooming ebooks” and, if you specify a targeted country, could even show a “veterinary clinic” near your area. Contextual ads change whenever the content of the page change as well. What makes this advertising relevant is majority of your customers are targeted, that is, looking for real information as per their keywords search.

Using Adwords and Adsense in your internet marketing campaign, when done right, could be very profitable. In my more than a year in online marketing, i have witnessed dozens of ordinary people making a “modest $200 to $60,000″ per month income from digital ebook sales – using Adwords campaign. Selling digital information is very effective using Google Adwords campaign. Why selling digital products are the best home business today? For simple reason, it doesn’t require you to store and send the package. No inventory and no packaging as there are no physical products to attend to. Everything is done in automation. If you’re an Internet Marketer, you maybe aware of this selling strategy.

Adwords campaign is defined by different sets of permutations as follows:

1) Broad Match : Google’s default option. When someone search for online dating, your keyword will appear when someone search “online” or “dating”. It is less targeted than the exact and phrase match. With this type of campaign, you may receive very less click-through and it could drain you advertising budget if you don’t do proper keyword search.

2) Phrase Match : Quotation marks are integrated to emphasize a phrase. When you campaign for “online dating”, your ads will be seen be someone search “online dating” like “adult online dating” but not for “date online” search. It is more targeted than broad match but less effective than exact match.

3) Exact Match : Brackets are used to emphasize the search. When you campaign for [online dating], it will show up on the search without any other terms in the query. It will not show up when someone search for “online dating resources” or “online dating guides”. You will receive the most clicks even though you will receive fewer impressions for this search.

4) Negative Keywords : When your keyword is “online dating” and you add negative keyword -guide, your ad will not appear when someone search for “online dating guide”. You can apply this option at both Ad Group and campaign level.

The concept of Adwords is very simple, yet, very complex and tricky. What you believe is your best campaign could be your worst keyword campaign. So, take time to muster the art of proper keyword marketing, do proper research, take advise, read reports, buy ebooks about Adword guides, implement it, learn from your mistakes and you will see success in the long run.

Jerry Navarro
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/internet-marketing-miracles-part-2-97428.html

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