Adding Exercise to Your Arthritis Treatment

Adding Exercise to Your Arthritis Treatment

Arthritis is an ailment which affects millions of people. While some people may experience mild discomfort, others are in horrible and debilitating pain every single day. No matter how mild or severe your pain is, you can probably benefit from some exercise. Not only will it improve your overall health, it may also help combat some of your symptoms, leaving you pain free and help you with your symptoms.

We all know the importance of exercise, but arthritis patients will probably benefit more from strength straining exercises targeting their affected joints. The best way to get this kind of workout is through a physical therapist. They can provide you with exercises designed specifically to improve endurance, and muscle strength. If you perform these exercises as prescribed, you will probably find yourself feeling better, or at least not deteriorating as quickly. You may be able to do more, or your condition may simply worsen more slowly. You can’t reverse the damage arthritis as caused, but you may be able to improve your quality of life.

Another type of exercise your physical therapist will probably recommend is flexibility training. Many arthritis patients lose flexibility and range-of-motion in affected joints because pain is causing them to use the joint less. Flexibility exercises can help keep the joints limber, enabling a better range or motion and increasing how much you can do with that joint.

A good cardio workout is just as important for people with arthritis as it is for everyone else. However, unlike everyone else, people with arthritis don’t skip aerobic exercise because they’re busy, or tired, it’s because they’re in pain. If performing everyday activities is painful, then you probably don’t want to consider doing anything more than that; however, there are exercises you can do to work your heart without severe pain or a worsening of your condition. You should work with your doctor to find exercises that don’t stress, or even involve, the affected joints. For instance, patients with severe knee arthritis can get aerobic exercise with table top bike-like devices which you pedal with your hands. While this doesn’t help your affected joints directly, it improves your overall health, endurance, stamina, and circulation, which can improve your ability to handle your arthritis. Exercise can also temporarily relieve pain through chemicals in the blood.

While exercise isn’t going to cure your arthritis, it may help to improve your condition. To work properly, exercise should be combined with proper diet, getting enough rest, medication, and other treatments your doctor may recommend. A combination of these therapies goes a long way for reliving arthritis pain.

Living on one income

Living on one income Part 1 - Setting a Clear Budget





There are lots of reasons why families have to live on one income, a new baby, single parent, husband loses his job or simply because one of you wants to spend more time with your children. Whatever your situation is, living on one income can mean it’s time to cut back, or it can mean that now is the opportunity to slice your spending in half by making a few clever budget changes.

To start at the very basics it is absolutely essential to look at your cash flow, what money is coming in and what money is going out. The first part should be easy, simply list every penny of income you receive on a regular basis every month. This might be before you give up a second income to see if you can afford it, or this may be your single income that you are living on now.

Then comes the slightly harder part of listing everything that you are committed to spending on every month, this includes your mortgage, car payments, loans, utility bills like electricity, cable and water. Make a full list of everything that you absolutely must pay for every month.

You should add a realistic amount for food and other essentials such as diapers for your little ones or any other costs that you have to pay on a regular basis. These are your essential monthly costs.

Then simply take away your monthly costs from your monthly income. The difference between these two amounts is you disposable cash or how much you have to spend on everything else. Of course this amount might actually be negative and this is actually more often the situation for many families where you suddenly realize you can’t afford your living.

But don’t worry because there are lots of things you can do to reduce the costs. The first place to start is on the list of items that you made for you essential monthly costs.

We all usually have a long list of essential monthly costs so if you can reduce each one by ten dollars here and twenty dollars there and it will eventually all add up to make a significant difference.

Saving Money Tips For Your Family

Family Money Saving Tips





Every family should have a budget, no matter what their financial status is. A budget tells you exactly how much your have coming in, and how much goes out on a monthly basis for the absolute necessities like housing, food, utilities, insurance, transportation and health care. But what about the future?

That's another place where a budget comes in handy. When you've allotted a portion of the household's weekly income to the necessities, what's left over is your discretionary spending amount. These are the funds available to you for short-term expenses, or long-term investments, like your children's education, and your own retirement funds.

When the children are growing and requiring more in the way of expenditures, there might not be a lot left over. But even 5% of your income can be a healthy start on an education fund. Extras like bonuses or perhaps half the amount of a raise, will make those future savings grow. Since they aren't in the budget to start with, they won't be missed, and you'll still have a portion of the unexpected income to add to your regular budget.

Consider financial counseling at your banking institution, or from a professional. They are often the best sources for learning how to get the most out of the dollars you have to save, and the most out of the future benefits they are going to earn for you.