Chances are, when you’re burrowed under the covers with a box of tissues by your bedside, you turn even greener with envy thinking of those people who seem to never get sick. Want to be one of them?

While colds won’t kill you, they can weaken your immune system to the point that other, more serious, germs can take hold in your body. Just think how many times your cold turned into bronchitis or a sinus infection. And given that the average adult suffers two to three colds a year, that’s a lot of opportunities for serious illness — and just as many to prevent one!

1. Wash your hands and wash them often. The Naval Health Research Center conducted a study of 40,000 recruits who were ordered to wash their hands five times a day. The recruits cut their incidence of respiratory illnesses by 45 percent.

2. Use this hand-drying strategy in public restrooms. Studies find a shockingly large percentage of people fail to wash their hands after using a public restroom. And every single one of them touches the door handle on the way out. So after washing your hands, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet. Use another paper towel to dry your hands, then open the door with that paper towel as a barrier between you and the handle. It sounds nuts, but it’s an actual recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control to protect you from infectious diseases like cold and flu.

3. Carry hand sanitizer with you. Colds are typically passed not from coughing or kissing (although those are two modes of transmission) but from hand-to-hand or hand-to-object contact, since most cold viruses can live for hours on objects. You then put your hand in or near your mouth or nose, and voilà! You’re sick. Carry hand sanitizer gel or sanitizing towelettes with you and you can clean your hands anytime, even if the closest water supply is 100 miles away. It works. One study of absenteeism due to infection in elementary schools found schools using the gel sanitizer had absentee rates from infection nearly 20 percent lower than those using other hand-cleaning methods.

4. Use your knuckle to rub your eyes. It’s less likely to be contaminated with viruses than your fingertip. This is particularly important given that the eye provides a perfect entry point for germs, and the average person rubs his eyes or nose or scratches his face 20-50 times a day, notes Jordan Rubin, Ph.D., author of the book The Maker’s Diet.

5. Stop blaming yourself when things go wrong at work. Believe it or not, blaming yourself makes you more likely to catch a cold! At least, that’s what researchers found when they studied more than 200 workers over three months. Even those who had control over their work were more likely to begin sneezing if they lacked confidence or tended to blame themselves when things went wrong. Researchers expect such attitudes make people more stressed on the job, and stress, as you know, can challenge your immune system.

6. Put a box of tissues wherever people sit.Come October, buy a 6- or 12-pack of tissue boxes and strategically place them around the house, your workplace, your car. Don’t let aesthetics thwart you. You need tissues widely available so that anyone who has to cough or sneeze or blow his nose will do so in the way least likely to spread germs.

7. Take a garlic supplement every day. When 146 volunteers received either one garlic supplement a day or a placebo for 12 weeks between November and February, those taking the garlic were not only less likely to get a cold, but if they did catch one, their symptoms were less intense and they recovered faster.

8. Eat a container of yogurt every day. A study from the University of California-Davis found that people who ate one cup of yogurt — whether live culture or pasteurized — had 25 percent fewer colds than non-yogurt eaters. Start your yogurt eating in the summer to build up your immunity before cold and flu season starts.

9. Once a day, sit in a quiet, dim room, close your eyes, and focus on one word. You’re meditating, a proven way to reduce stress. And stress, studies find, increases your susceptibility to colds. In fact, stressed people have up to twice the number of colds as non-stressed people.

10. Scrub under your fingernails every night. They’re a great hiding place for germs.

11. Change or wash your hand towels every three or four days during cold and flu season. When you wash them, use hot water in order to kill the germs.

12. At the very first hint of a cold, launch the following preventive blitz. Here’s how:

* Suck on a zinc lozenge until it melts away. Then suck another every two waking hours. Or use a zinc-based nasal spray such as Zicam.

* Take one 250-milligram capsule of the herb astragalus twice a day until you are better.

* Cook up a pot of chicken soup.

* Roast garlic in the oven (drizzle whole clove with olive oil, wrap in tinfoil, roast for an hour at 400°F), then spread the soft garlic on toast and eat.

Studies find that all either reduce the length of time you suffer with a cold or help prevent a full-blown cold from occurring.

13. Wipe your nose — don’t blow. Your cold won’t hang around as long, according to a University of Virginia study. Turns out that the force of blowing not only sends the gunk out of your nose into a tissue, but propels some back into your sinuses. And, in case you’re curious, they discovered this using dye and X rays. If you need to blow, blow gently, and blow one nostril at a time.

14. Sneeze and cough into your arm or a tissue. Whoever taught us to cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze got it wrong. That just puts the germs right on our hands, where you can spread them to objects — and other people. Instead, hold the crook of your elbow over your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough if a tissue isn’t handy. It’s pretty rare that you shake someone’s elbow or scratch your eye with an elbow, after all.

15. Don’t pressure your doctor for antibiotics. Colds and flu (along with most common infections) are caused by viruses, so antibiotics — designed to kill bacteria — won’t do a thing. They can hurt, however, by killing off the friendly bacteria that are part of our immune defences. If you’ve used antibiotics a lot lately, consider a course of probiotics — replacement troops for friendly bacteria.

In a recent study conducted in the UK it was found that single person households account for 29 percent of all UK homes. According to a survey conducted by the site www.alertacall.com it has been reported that men aged 60 and over who are living alone are much less likely to be visited by relatives. More than a third of women aged 60 and over who live alone worry constantly that they may die without anyone knowing. In London, the greatest fear of people aged over 60 and living alone is that they could be burgled or attacked and no-one will know.

The Surrey police have given a few guidelines that can be followed by people living alone:

• If you see signs of a break-in at your home, don’t go in. Go to a neighbour’s house or call the police.
• If you are not accepting anybody to visit you that is you have not given anyone an appointment, do not open the door directly use a spy hole or a window to look and see who the person visiting you is. Only after you have confirmed the person’s identity open the door.
• Secure the door bar or chain, before opening the front door. Ensure the back door is locked as well.
• You should be extremely careful about letting people into your home if you do not know them particularly well. If you do and start to feel uneasy or threatened, do not hesitate to leave yourself and go to a neighbour or friends house.
• Ask for the caller’s ID and check it carefully. Genuine callers will not mind being kept waiting. Ring the company or organization they claim to represent using the number in the phone book, the number on the card may be false.
• Remember ‘If in doubt keep them out’. Ask the person to call back when you have a friend with you. If you are suspicious and the caller will not leave, dial 999 immediately.

Apart from all these precautions you can also use technology to remain safe. A new safety device has been recently released in the markets, called Buddi. Buddi is primarily a find me service that can also be used as a safety device. This unique miniaturized GPS (Global positioning system) tracking and GPS personal locator is equipped with two buttons on either side of the unit. When the buddi wearer finds himself or herself in trouble or in an emergency situation, the wearer can alert the buddi customer response by simply pressing the two buttons. When the buddi wearer presses the two buttons on either side of the buddi unit, the GPS personal locator will establish its location and send the coordinates to the buddi customer response as an alert. Immediately a buddi customer response advisor will be notified and will access the database to find the emergency contacts to be contacted and will make the telephone calls to those named contacts in order to resolve the emergency situation. If necessary they will contact the relevant local authorities. In this way buddi can be an asset to people living alone.

If you are living alone in fear of being attacked or if you have your parents, relatives, friends or loved ones living alone make sure you get a buddi. And with it get a strong feeling of security.

Anybody can pose a threat to a small child either physically or sexually. These threats can come in the form of a playground bully, an adult stranger, or even a familiar grown-up. Many children are now being taught how to stay safe through special lessons at school. It is vary important that small children are not left alone in unsupervised areas in shops and shopping centres. Make sure that an adult stays with them all the time and above all don’t ask strangers to keep an eye on them, irrespective of the reason. With all children, teach them their address and phone number, so that they can be brought back home easily if they get lost. You can also write their name and address on a piece of paper that can be kept on their person.

Most young children carry no form of identification and parents are worried about the implications of giving them a mobile phone at a young age. Incase of an emergency children easily forget their mobile numbers and nowadays children have to memorize mobile numbers as well. Buddi has been designed to give peace of mind to parents of young and vulnerable children. Buddi is the latest innovation in children’s safety. The buddi service not only allows parents to know where their child is, but also allows the child to let their parents know if they run into trouble or get lost.

At any time of the day or night you will be able to locate your child wearing a buddi using any of the following ways:

You can visit the buddi site and click on the ‘find’ button. This will prompt the buddi to establish its where- about using GPS and send the details to the buddi database. These details will be displayed to you in the form of a map showing where your buddi is and an exact address including postcode. On occasions, the buddi cannot receive a position from GPS, either because it is indoors or it is in the line of a satellite. In this instance, buddi will give you an estimated location using the mobile phone networks.

You can text your buddi wearers name from your mobile phone. Simply text ‘buddi’ (your unique name or number) and send it to the customer service. This will prompt the buddi to establish its location using GPS and send the details to the buddi database. These details will be displayed to you in the form of an address and a link to an online map to help you locate your child.

You can telephone the buddi’s customer response team. You will be asked to identify yourself and the buddi customer response advisors will provide you with the exact location of your buddi, thus helping you to instantly locate someone wearing a buddi. Buddi’s customer response advisors are specially trained in assisting people in the potentially stressful situation of not being able to find their buddi wearer.

Incase of emergency, the customer response centre telephone number and the buddi’s unique identification number (ubin) is printed on the device. The buddi wearer can show the buddi to any person in authority who is then able to contact the buddi customer response centre and initiate the alert procedure. The buddi database will hold the contact details and personal information of the wearer. Alternately the buddi wearer can also hold down the two buttons on either side of the buddi unit. The light will go from green to red. This will prompt the buddi GPS personal locator to establish its location and send the co-ordinates to the buddi customer response centre as an alert. Immediately a buddi customer response advisor will be notified, who will access the database to find the emergency contacts to be contacted and will make a telephone call to those named contacts in order to resolve the emergency solution. If necessary they will contact the relevant local authorities.

There are very few chances that you or a member of your family will fall victim to a violent crime. Though violent crimes are still very rare in the United Kingdom people are still frightened that they or someone close to them will be a victim of a violent attack. It is always better to take precautions as a wise saying goes: prevention is better than cure.

One can minimize the risk of attacks by taking small sensible precautions and most people already do this as a part of their daily lives. Often without even realizing it. The Surrey police have given a few precautions that I have enumerated here. You may already be aware of some of the suggestions but some may be new.

• Carry your bag close to you, with the clasp facing inwards. Keep your keys in your pocket, this way if someone grabs your bag you can let go. Remember property can be replaced personal safety comes first.
• If you think someone is following you, go to the nearest place where there are other people, maybe a pub or a hotel. Anywhere where there are lots of lights on and call the police. Avoid using an enclosed phone box.
• Don’t take short-cuts through dark alleys, parks or across waste ground. Walk facing the traffic so a car cannot pull up behind you.
• Vary your routine if you go out jogging or cycling a lot. Stick to well lit roads, and if in the park keep to open spaces and the paths.
• If you have to walk home in the dark you can get a personal alarm system or personal locator, like buddi.

Buddi is a unique miniaturized GPS (global positioning system) tracking and personal locator. This small, simple and easy to use device is set out to revolutionize personal safety. Buddi has the ability to locate someone 24/7, 365 days of the year. One can be confident that in an emergency situation, the buddi wearer can alert emergency by simply squeezing the buttons for personal safety. This then sends an alert to the buddi customer response team who will locate the person using buddi, contact the emergency contacts and if necessary refer it to the relevant local authority. Buddi is a very simple personal safety device, requiring only one press of a button in an emergency situation. Buddi benefits from the recent miniaturization of the GPS (global positioning systems) technology, which is far more accurate than GSM (global system for mobile communications). This makes buddi not only smaller and lighter than anything else that is currently available, but also accurate to locate someone within a couple of meters. With buddi you can get a location even when there is no GPS signal. This allows buddi to give its wearer total and complete peace of mind.

So purchase your very own buddi GPS tracking and personal locator and feel safe and secure at all times.

As the people we love grow older they are generally afflicted with either physical or mental illnesses and sometimes require our special attention at all times.

Some of the health problems that the elderly face are:

Dementia- This is a progressive and usually irreversible deterioration of a person’s reasoning abilities, intellectual capacity, memory and thinking. Dementia is often associated with changes in personality and impaired social function. The risk of developing dementia increases with age. There are many types of dementia known to occur in elderly patients, with Alzheimer’s being the most prevalent type. Memory loss, language difficulties, difficulty in carrying out motor functions, failure to identify objects, and disturbances in planning and organizing all characterize early stages of dementia.

Strokes and falls – It has been estimated that around 100,000 people in England and Wales have a first stroke each year- one every five minutes.

Falls are very common in older people, with about one third of women and a smaller portion of men over the age of 65 falling each year. The incidence of falls increases dramatically with age, with those aged 85 or over five times more likely to fall as someone aged 65. The consequences of falling include: fractures in 1% or less falls, those with thin bones associated with osteoporosis sustain fractures more often. From prolonged lying on the floor in cold weather occasional hypothermia and less serious physical injuries such as bruising.

To help your loved one live as normal a life as possible Sara Murray has developed Buddi which is a unique miniaturized GPS (global positioning system) tracking and GPS personal locator. This device will give the elderly persons caregiver or family peace of mind as they can locate their loved one at any given time. So if the elderly person leaves the house to take a walk and is not able to find his/ her way back home there need not be much cause for concern as one can locate their loved one using Buddi. Buddi is the smallest GPS 365 day 24/7 location tracking device in the market. With Buddi you will be able to locate a person at any given time of the day or night.

The Buddi is useful in situations such as strokes and falls. Buddi is an excellent personal safety device. Incase the Buddi wearer finds themselves in an emergency situation the wearer can hold down the two buttons on either side of the Buddi unit. The light will turn from green to red. This will prompt the Buddi GPS locator to establish its location and send the co-ordinates to the Buddi customer response center as an alert. Immediately a Buddi customer response advisor will be notified, who will access the database to find the emergency contacts and will make the telephone calls to the named contacts in order to resolve the emergency situation. If necessary they will contact the relevant local authorities.

Adapted from http://www.buddi.co.uk

Adapted from http://www.guide2care.com

One can just imagine the plight of a parent whose child is affected by a disability, either mental or physical. There are many disabilities and birth defects that can affect the children of today. We can take for example autism. With autism come a number of development disability problems like routines or repetitive behavior, which include repeating words and actions over again, obsessively following routines or schedules for their actions or having specific way of arranging their belongings. Autistic children also have a problem of social interaction with other people both physical like touching and holding hands and verbal like having a conversation. They have a difficulty in communicating both verbally and non verbally.

Another psychological disorder that can unfortunately affect the children of today are: attention deficit disorder or ADD which is related to the mood of a child and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD. Children suffering from ADHD find it difficult to do their homework or any assigned task and even in holding a conversation. They have a tendency to take part in risky activities and are 2 to 4 times more prone to accidental injuries as children or adults without ADD. Keeping a child with ADD safe can be a rather difficult task.

Cerebral Palsy is another condition that can affect a child. This is a condition that causes weakness and lack of muscle control. Cerebral palsy is of three types Athetoid cerebral palsy affects the ability to control muscles, leading to involuntary and uncontrolled movements in the affected muscles. Spastic cerebral palsy is characterized by tense, contracted muscles. Ataxic cerebral palsy affects the sense of balance and depth perception. Children who suffer from ataxic cerebral palsy can be described as being very shaky and unsteady. With early and ongoing treatment, the disabilities associated with cerebral palsy can be reduced. Children with cerebral palsy are usually able to be independent, with or without assistance. With support and treatment many children with cerebral palsy can live healthy, happy lives. Even then most parents will still worry about the well being of their children.

For such children there has been created a GPS or global positioning system, which is a small device that can easily locate a person. This small yet efficient GPS tracking device is, all set to revolutionize personal safety. This device has the ability to locate a person 24/7, 365 days of the year. You only have to place the device onto your child’s being and then you can track your child’s where about at any given time. This device has been designed to give parents with disabled children ample peace of mind. To aid parents caring for disabled children the GPS device has come up with an innovative new design, that can help your child in case of an emergency. The child wearing the device can press down two buttons on either side of the device; the light will turn from green to red. This will prompt the GPS personal locator to establish the location and send the coordinates to the customer response center as an alert. Immediately the customer response advisor will be notified, who will access the database to find the emergency contacts to be contacted and will make the telephone calls to those named contacts in order to resolve the emergency situation. If necessary they will contact the relevant local authorities. Another feature of the device is the GPS tracking system as one can locate the whereabouts of their child at any given time and in case of emergency one can also contact the customer response center to take charge of the situation. This GPS tracking device can be a real relief for parents caring for their disabled children

Adapted from www.buddi.co.uk

Adapted from http://www.childrensdisabilities.info/

In today’s world, with many people working long hours late into the night, the personal locator has become a must have.

Designed to be worn voluntarily on a key fob or on a lanyard, buddi is the size of a match box and uses GPS satellite technology, allowing it to be located to within a few feet anywhere in Britain, 24 hours a day. Each buddi user is given their own log in details, meaning they can be located by someone else on a map via a secure website. It also has a silent panic button facility, which can alert a manned response centre.

buddi is the brainchild of Sara Murray and was conceived after her 8-year old daughter Rowena ran off in busy supermarket. Sara wished there was a way of quickly knowing her where she was. Rowena was found safely, but in those few desperate minutes, she decided to make it her mission to develop a product which meant anyone in her situation could do something about it.

If you have elderly or infirmed people who fret every minute of the day wondering if they will get help when they need it, buddi is the answer for you. It can also be useful if you are the parents of young children, and you do not wish to give your child a mobile phone for fear that he or she may misuse it. The buddi service not only allows the parents to know where their child is, but also allows the child to let their parents know if they get lost or run into trouble.

It is also appealing to individuals whose workplace is a long distance away from home or who have to work late at night, such as estate agents or social workers. With buddi, they can feel secure belonging to service that can alert 24/7 emergency support and also tell them where they are located.  

And for all of you pet lovers out there who keep worrying about your dog getting lost or stolen, buddi has designed petbuddi, a service that helps you to keep track of your dog. The petbuddi uses GSM (or the global system for mobile communications) technology, which works just like your mobile phone. The positive points of petbuddi are it is very small, compact, easy-to-use, lightweight, waterproof and cannot be felt by your dog. Just add petbuddi to your dog’s collar and live a worry free life.