Tips For Conquering Insomnia

Having trouble falling asleep? Our stressful lives and constant screen-time can wreak havoc on our bodies' natural rhythms. Fortunately, there are simple ways to counteract these stresses in order to get a full night's sleep. Here are some tips:

Exercise
One of the most effective ways of combatting sleeplessness is to tire yourself out. Increasing the amount of exercise you get each day can work wonders in helping you feel sleepy when it's time for bed.

Turn Off the Screen
The light from screens like televisions, computers, iPads, and smartphones can disrupt our bodies' natural cycles. Turn these gadgets off a few hours before bed in order to give your body time to prepare for dreamland.

Reduce or Eliminate Caffeine
Regardless of when in the day you consume caffeine, it can have an effect on your ability to sleep at night. Try to drink more decaf coffee or switch to decaffeinated sodas. Herbal teas are a great substitute that won't have you tossing and turning in bed all night.

Take a Warm Bath
The soothing heat of a warm bath will relax and calm your whole body down. Sitting in a bath before bedtime will get you ready for the comfort of your bed and help lull you to sleep.

Be Consistent
Your body will have an easier time going to sleep if you make yourself go to bed at the same time every evening. This consistency will give your body a chance to develop a regular pattern. With wild fluctuations in when you go to bed, it doesn't have a chance of knowing when it should and shouldn't be tired.

Unleash Your Inner Fashionista: Four Essential Fashion Websites

Interested in style? These four websites will help you keep up with the world of fashion:

Pinterest – Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board that allows you to “pin,” group, and share any image found on the web. The site covers a lot more than fashion, but there is a large and vital community on the site that centers around just that. Best of all, you can browse other people’s pinboards for inspiration.

Polyvore – Polyvore features a large user-created database of hot looks from around the web. Users can combine these items into outfits and then share them however they choose. If you see something you like, want, or need, you can click on it to purchase.

The Sartorialist – This active blog features up to the minute photos of designer collections, street fashion, and vintage fashion photos. The Sartorialist, while it also features women’s fashion, has a strong emphasis on designs for men.

Frugal Fashionista – This site’s intrepid staff searches out the thriftiest ways to recreate celebrity looks, breaking them down piece by piece and then finding low-cost versions at popular retailers.

Philadelphia 76ers: Poised For Greatness

With three playoff berths in the last four seasons, the Philadelphia 76ers have had solid showings recently, and they're ready to carry that success further into the postseason. Last year's arrival of Doug Collins as head coach gave the team a much needed boost. His leadership helped add another fourteen wins to the previous season. Collins has a team of new and veteran talents to nurture. Jrue Holiday enters his third season as one of the most exciting players on the roster. Louis Williams, Thad Young, and Andre Igoudala also promise to keep up the team's high-octane attack. Philadelphia also still has one of the top power forwards in Elton Brand. This is a team ready to capitalize on the consistent promise shown in previous years. They want more than just a first round playoff exit. This season might be their breakout year.

Find Sixers schedules, tickets, merchandise, and more at http://www.nba.com/sixers.

Happy Friday!

We hope everyone enjoys their weekend and stays warm!

Best Non-Fiction Books of 2011

2011 saw people hungry for information. These four non-fiction books offered some of the year's best (and most entertaining) sources:

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
A competitor in the U.S. Memory Championship, Foer delves into scientific research and the cultural history of memory to help readers stop forgetting and build better memories. As we learn through conversations with varied personalities, we are the sum of our memories.

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
Information is now overly accessible in our culture, but Gleick traces how this reality evolved with the growth of information technologies and the contributions of figures such as Alan Turing and Claude Shannon.

What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
Drawing on his personal experience of being a 23 year-old lieutenant, Marlantes weaves an affecting portrait of the consequences of war for young soldiers. Including thoughts from Homer, Jung, and others, Marlantes illuminates a difficult to imagine reality for many readers.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Isaacson’s candid portrait of the late creative entrepreneur is based off two years of over 40 interviews with Jobs himself along with quotes and opinions from family members, friends, co-workers, and competitors.

5 Kid-Friendly Holiday Movies

In the swirl of holiday activity, one of the best ways to spend some quality time with kids is to enjoy a holiday film together. Here are some of the top holiday movies for youngsters:

A Muppet’s Family Christmas
This is a fun movie that will fill your house with song. In fact, the kids (and you!) probably won’t be able to resist singing along. The film features characters from Sesame Street, the Muppets, and Fraggle Rock, a colorful and energetic ensemble that brings the season's spirit right into your living room.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Many film aficionados consider this Disney cartoon version of “A Christmas Carol” one of the best adaptations of the classic Dickens tale. You and your children will love watching Scrooge McDuck’s adventures as he discovers the true meaning of the season.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
This holiday classic, narrated by Burl Ives, uses puppetry and stop-motion animation to present an original twist on the famous tale of Rudolph. You’ll enjoy making holiday memories with your children as you share in the whimsy, charm, and intelligence of this film.

Home Alone
This action-filled comedy is particularly fun to share with older kids, pre-teens, and teens. The main character, a spunky eight-year-old boy, accidentally gets left home when his family leaves for vacation and finds himself fending off house robbers. Hilarious holiday capers ensue.

A Christmas Story
Generations of young people have grown up enjoying this funny, moving, memorable tale of a boy’s December adventures during the 1940’s. You’ll love revisiting this classic film just as much as your kids will adore discovering it for the first time.

‘I Have Health Insurance. How Does the New Health Care Law Change My Life?’

It’s easy to get drowned in information (not to mention paperwork!) when it comes to figuring out your health insurance. The advent of the Affordable Care Act has added even more questions to mix. Here's an outline of how the new law can help you:

1. Your Right to Appeal

Under the new health care law, you now have the right to ask your health care plan to reconsider denials of payment for services. If your plan still denies payment, you can arrange for your case to be brought before an independent review organization. Read more here: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/appealing-decisions/index.html

2. New Approaches To Prevention

The Affordable Care Act has made insured people eligible to receive more no-cost preventive services than ever before. Depending on your age, these services might include vaccinations, screenings, counseling, and flu shots. Click here to learn more: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/preventive-care/index.html

3. Grandfathered Plans

You have the right to maintain your health plan according to any coverage you established before the law came into being. But it’s ‘grandfathered’ health plans aren’t necessarily eligible for all of the consumer protections created under the new law. Reading more can help you decide what’s best for you: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/grandfathered-plans/index.html

4. Doctor Choice & Emergency Access

Note these three new developments: people can choose any doctor from their network as a primary care provider, women are free to access OB-GYN services without health plan barriers, and out-of-network emergency room services are available to all insured people.  Click here for more: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/doctor-choice/index.html

5. Children with Pre-Existing Conditions

Many parents will take heart at this new development: under the Affordable Health Care Act, health plans can no longer restrict or deny coverage to a person under the age of 19 due to a pre-exiting medical condition. More details here: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/childrens-pre-existing-conditions/index.html

Love On The Page: Five Classic Romances

Romance novels get a bad rap, but before the days of Harlequin books, some of the greatest writers of all time turned their pens to the subject of love and loss. Here are five of the best romance books of all time, from the tragic to the triumphant.

-        Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen – Austen is one of the most influential female writers of all time, and her tale of the Bennett sisters as they find the loves of their lives is an essential read.

-        Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert – Flaubert’s tale of the dark side of romance is an affecting read to this day. The titular madame is a doctor’s wife who turns to affairs as a way to escape the dreariness of her everyday life.

-        The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikubu – What is commonly recognized as the “first romantic novel” actually hails from Japan. Written from a male perspective, it’s the story of the son of an emperor who is demoted to common citizen and has to win women the hard way.

-        Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – A classic tale of doomed love, this novel tells the story of the tragic romance between an adopted boy and his older sister Catherine.

-        The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. This rollicking tale laid the groundwork for much of the contemporary romance genre, with liberal doses of swashbuckling in between the mushy stuff.

A Spicy Pot: Chili Making Tips

Chili is one of the most popular one-pot meals in America, but there are many different ways to make it. Here are some of the most popular regional variants, as well as some essential tips to keep in mind before you start cooking.

Chili, obviously, is named after the spicy peppers that give the dish its trademark heat. The best way to get the most out of your chiles is to mix them. Using just one kind of pepper will make the dish taste one-dimensional. Combining jalapeno, serrano, and other peppers in moderation will vastly improve the dish.

Meat is the core of a chili dish, and many regional styles such as Texas chili don’t use beans at all in the preparation of the meal. Before you add your meat to the pot, brown it in a pan first. That will help release essential flavors and keep the meat from getting too mushy. I prefer using roughly-cut strips of steak, but ground beef works fine. Turkey is good for a more heart-healthy dish.

Use fresh vegetables and good quality meats. Chili was originally invented as a way to disguise the flavors of substandard ingredients, but in the modern world there’s no reason to eat bad food. The better the ingredients, the better your pot of chili will be!

Taste the pot frequently as you’re cooking to adjust the consistency and spice blend. Keep in mind that heat will develop slowly as you cook it, so don’t add more peppers unless you’re sure that it’s not hot enough.

Making Pictures: Great Photography Websites

In the age of digital photography, there are advantages and disadvantages to the steady stream of images being shared with the world. Help your photos stand out from the crowd and find quality work by others with these photography websites.

Flickr: The old reliable of online photography sites, Flickr offers great organization, simple editing tools, and a streamlined design. Look for photo pools organized by theme, subject matter, and geographical location.

Polanoid: Polanoid’s content is made up entirely of scanned instant photographs. Due to the difficulty of obtaining instant film and cameras, contributors tend to be more serious about their art than the typical digital photographer.

Strobist: This popular blog is all about lighting in photography, specifically the use of off-camera flash. The tutorials are a must for anyone starting out behind the camera, and the blog is a great resource for keeping up on new techniques and photographers.

Instagr.am: Instagr.am automatically crops your photos into a Polaroid-like square for a vintage look; then you can apply interesting filters and easily share them on social media. Instagram is also available as an app for iPhone and Android.

Picasa: With a robust set of editing tools, Picasa is one of the best places to store your photos on the web. You can keep your albums private or share them with the world, and storage space is unlimited for images and videos under a certain size.

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