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If you have dry skin you will sympathise with my problem because my skin is very dry, especially at the bottom of my legs. Interestingly enough my face is quite oily so I guess the glands that moisturise my skin were all used up when my face was being created and there were not enough to go around the rest of my skin! Every day after my shower I have to moisturise my whole body. The best creams I have found are the Body Shop’s Vitamin E moisturiser or Palmers Coco Butter as they soak in nicely and don’t leave a greasy feeling. This problem gets better in the summer so I cannot wait for the warm weather to arrive. For the little dry patches that sometimes appear I use intensive vitamin E face cream a few times a day. It takes them away in a few days!

The modern workplace usually consists of rows of people sitting at desks, using a computer and talking on the phone. Unless you are really lucky and have a job that involves moving around, you will probably be sat in the same position for hours on end. This is really bad for your back and even with workplace assessments and health and safety measures being taken, it is not surprising that most people who have a desk job suffer from some sort of strain or pain. I am no exception to this but the methods I take to relieve the strain include Pilates which helps your core muscles get stronger and aids in flexibility and also massage. I aim to get a deep tissue massage once a month in order to relieve the pressure and relax me. It is very much recommended and helps my back cope with the constant slumping that a desk job promotes.

As an occasional sufferer of eczema I know how irritating it can be so here are a few alternative remedies or preventatives which can help stop a flare up. My eczema is caused mostly by my allergy to animals so try and eliminate allergens, these can also include products that touch your skin ie. your washing powder, creams or perfumes. Keep an eye on your diet – it may be that different foods trigger your eczema, these could be milk or wheat.

Another alternative medicine remedy for eczema is to avoid sunbathing as this can aggravate your skin and the heat can also cause your condition to worsen. Most importantly eczema is primarily caused by stress so avoid getting stressed out!!

There’s definitely an argument that mind over matter works. If you set your mind on getting better when you feel ill it seems remarkable that you start feeling better soon after. You may notice this more when there’s an event you really want to go to that you need to be well for! Your body is its own healer and there are a range of things you can do when you have a small headache, sore throat or a small ailment that will make it go away. The age old ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ will help because you are putting vitamins into your body and providing your body with fibre. Getting an early night will also help you to feel better as your body goes into recover mode when you sleep. For a headache, get someone to give you a shoulder rub, or instead just massage your temples and around your eyes. These little things really do make a difference.

It’s January and most people have made New Year’s Resolutions to get fit and lose that extra Christmas weight. I have just asked around the office and almost 90% of my colleagues have just joined or are currently a long-standing member of a Gym. I feel put to shame. Tonight when I get home I shall dig out my Shilpa Shetty Yoga DVD (yes, I have one that was purchased from the Pound shop – poor Shilpa!) and do an hour of Yoga, followed by a hundred sit-ups. I shall also eat fish and vegetables for my tea. That definitely sounds like a plan, and I bet I don’t ache tomorrow, as much as my friend who has been complaining about his tough gym session two days ago!

We’ve all seen Derren Brown on the television using powers of hypnosis on random people as way to manipulate their senses to get them to do or think something which is not actually true or real.

The mind is a powerful tool that works constantly for us, taking in sounds, smells, differing tastes and touches that are all interpreted by the brain and then tells us what is it and what to do.

Hypnosis is the modification of patients thought patterns which then lead to behavioural changes. By inducing a trace state on a subject, the hypnotist can alter the perceptions of the patient whilst in this state to address stress related issues, certain pains a patient may be suffering or to stop ongoing bad habits like smoking or excessive drinking.

Not everyone is susceptible to hypnosis, and not all of those that undergo the process benefit from being hypnotised. Do some research first and find a professional to see how you could benefit from this type of treatment.

It has been discovered that more than one in four adult smokers now use pouch tobacco and roll-up cigarettes, with a considerably increase in the amount of female users.

An analyst approach of smoking habits in England suggests a cultural shift in the use of tobacco, now more favoured than conventional cigarettes. In 1990, just one in fifty female smokers used hand-rolled tobacco, compared with the one in five in 2007. The apparent increase is due to users believing the roll-up trend to be more fashionable than the conventional cigarette. Smoking related diseases have risen by 1.2mn to 1.4mn since 1997.

The new 12.7bn project to upgrade the NHS computers has believed to have had an effect on the computers and caused glitches on the system. This has resulted in a six-month wait for patients. The Department of Health has said that patients shouldn’t wait more than eighteen-weeks, unless they choose to.

The group which brought about this new technology, Barts and the London NHS Trust have a backlog of twenty-thousand patient records on its 18-week waiting list. Many of the twenty-thousand are suspected to be duplicates, but a good fourteen-thousand are believed to be genuine patient records.

Current charges for NHS patients and their visitors are to be axed, the government has announced. The NHS in England earns nearly 112 million from the car parking fees every year, which ministers have claimed helps pay for running costs  and the use of public transport.

Andy Burnham, the health secretary has claimed that if his party win the election, these charges will be cancelled for three years; however, he also claimed: “When people are coming in to hospital, the last thing they want to worry about is keeping the car parking ticket up-to-date,” Mr Burnham told the Labour Party Conference in Brighton today. “But, for families of the sickest patients, the costs can really rack up”.

Over the past week, 13,800 have died in Scotland, due to contracting swine flu. The most recent death due to the flu was yesterday when a sixty-two year old woman succumbed to the illness.

The old lady was believed to have underlying health problems. Staggeringly, these stats now indicate that there are almost as many people in Scotland with the flu when compared with England and Wales whom have a population almost ten times better. So far, swine flu ha claimed eighty-five deaths in the United Kingdom. Last week it has been discovered that seven-thousand people were found to have the illness.