How to Make 200k By Staying Healthy

Staying healthy seems like a punishment to many until it is accompanied by the opportunity to earn you 200k.

Given that both cost savings and staying healthy are desirable but challenging aspects with an impact on your financial wellbeing, several approaches can be employed to ensure that both are achieved seamlessly without discarding the other.

Here are some of the approaches to staying healthy and earn 200k in cost savings and as extra income from various incentivized wellness programs.

Insurance discount
Insurance premiums are periodically deducted in your income to facilitate payment of medical bills in case you fall ill. Some insurance providers encourage healthy living among their clients so as to reduce the cost of claims. Customers who stay healthy benefit from discounts on premium payable or cashback refunds. Some insurance providers give up to 15% as a refund to customers who exhibit healthy living in their activities and medical records.
Paid wellness challenges
Several wellness challenge applications that encourages healthy living by incentivising the entire process using financial rewards exist on the market. Subscribers commit to a programme and set a goal which upon being met will be paid with cash and cash equivalents. However, if the subscriber fails to meet the target, for example losing 500 calories in a week, the application deducts an agreed amount from their committed funds. This approach provides both positive and negative motivation aimed at encouraging healthy living.
Alternative workout
The average gym membership cost is approximated at $58 a month, exclusive of the extra charges such as the registration/initiation fee and other fringe costs. It translates to roughly as high as $1000 a year depending on the location. Earn this $1000 by using alternative workout regimes with equipment that are freely available in your house or engage in outdoor activities and freely access public facilities.
Cycling to work
The average commuting cost and time in America is $10 and 25 minutes respectively. This translates to an annual cost of $2600. Cycling to work not only eliminates this cost but it also provides you with an ample 50 minute mental and physical workout to and from work.
Go veggie
You can save up to $25 a week or $1200 annually by omitting meat and meat products in your meals. Increased intake of vegetables not only helps you to stay healthy but stopping meat consumption also boost the 'health' of your wallet through cost savings.
Befriend technology
Wearable gadgets and smart watches have inbuilt healthy living applications that tracks physical activities such as walking, the heart rate, calories burned or added, etc. This data can be synchronized to other stakeholders such as retail stores and businesses that encourage healthy living, and the user earns points that are converted into cash discount redeemable at the store.
It pays, literally, when you stay active and healthy, and within 1-2 years of staying healthy you can make up to 200k. Staying healthy and being physical active saves you money in the in the long run (pun intended).

Chris Bouchard is a strategic consultant who works with non-profit leaders and social entrepreneurs to apply concepts and techniques to identify complex strategic issues, find practical solutions, and devise strategies to create and win a unique strategic position. He also offers project development, proposal writing, and project evaluation services.

Stories of Hope: Drilling Into My Skull and Injecting Stem Cells Helped My Stroke

Life on one hand seems all bright and beautiful. And when faced with an irreversible ailment with no visible room for recovery, then it seems like uncertainty has had a tight grip on life. Ailments like cancers of all kind, immune system and blood disorders and chronic brain and spine injuries all pose a threat to life. And in the recent times, cord blood stem cell has been the only miracle cure that has been successfully combating the list of dangerous and untreatable ailments and recording victory.

Such is the story of Evelyn Hilton, who was a brave heart to volunteer for stem cell transplant to treat her brain condition. The lady at 58 witnessed a stroke back in 2014. Going by her account, it was a weekend and she doesn't recall graphic details about the stroke. But she confirms it was a painful one and it prohibited all the movement to the left side of her body. Struggling with this condition, Evelyn wasn't ready to give up, as she had a list of things to achieve and she didn't want to quit all that.

Being stuck in the hospital bed makes one vulnerable at the hands of the medical system! Not having any control on her left side, Evelyn one day decided to volunteer for what seemed to her just an experiment. In the course of it a liquid mix of stem cell got injected to her brain cells. During that time, this revolutionary treatment was experimented only on selected patients and the outcome were safe and very effective. The process did however require a hole to be drilled in her skull.

The stakes were high and the results were expected to favourable. But just the idea of drilling a hole into the skull seemed painful and challenging. In her own words, Evelyn expressed her desire to be back to normal, daily life, was so strong, that she was prepared for almost anything. All she assured herself was that the process might just help her heal back than stay in the stroke indefinitely.

Recounting her story, she says, that she reached the hospital within a span of 4 hours and received proper medication that helped to eradicate the blood clot that had taken place and averting further damage. And after she received the stem cell therapy, on the 6th month of her treatment where patients are noted to recovery, she wonders if she would get any better without that. Filled with grace and gratitude Evelyn says that in the time frame of two and half years of her stroke, she has only seen health improvements post the stem cell therapy. Though the changes have been slow, but they are consistent and that's what helped keep a positive attitude to life.

Over the past few months, Evelyn confirms that she has recovered in a huge way on the left side of her body. This made her do away with the walking stick. She has left it and it's been a while. She didn't want the world to look upon her as a disabled, old body but rather as one who is continuously improving in body and mind, with every passing day.

For Evelyn stem cell transfusion has a miracle cure. She isn't completely normal but has recovered almost 40%. She considers herself lucky to have healed to this extent. There are several such stories of hope where cord blood stem cell therapy has brought back life in people where the end was almost inevitable. This only proves stem cell therapy is the future of regenerative medicine and counting on cord blood banking has its positives.

How You Can Become Taller Naturally

Your height has a lot to do with so many factors like your genes, diet, age, activity levels and so on. As a result of this, there are some things you can do to boost your height if you really desire it and if you are still at the growing stage.

Eat a balanced diet

You should consume a balanced diet and avoid too much fatty foods that will make you look plumpy because you will look shorter. It is also important for you to make sure that your diet consists of lean protein like fish, soy, white poultry meat, etc., in order to enhance muscle growth and virile bones. You also need enough zinc from foods like pumpkin, oysters, peanuts, just to mention a few. Vitamin D also promotes bone and muscle growth, and you can get this from milk and cereals.

Get enough sleep every night

Your body grows when you sleep, hence, it is important to sleep very well at night. If you are a teenager or younger than 20, you should get between 9 and 11 hours of sleep every night. Getting good, sound sleep will boost the production of human growth hormone (HGH) which is naturally produced through the pituitary gland, particularly when you are deeply asleep.

Exercise regularly

Regular exercising can assist you to grow taller during your teen years and in puberty. You should get a workout for at least 30 minutes everyday and you can join a gym in order to get access to exercising as well as muscle-building machines. You can also become a member of a sports team and take advantage of the competitiveness to exercise. If you can't get yourself to do all these, you can walk around and you will be amazed at how easy it is for you to exercise. Walk to school, grocery, library, etc. and before you realize it, you are already working out.

Do not stunt your growth

Even though there is a limit to what you can do to increase your height, there are many steps you can take to avoid shortening your height by environmental influences. Drugs and alcohol are believed to be partly responsible for stunted growth, especially if you take them while you are young. Caffeine consumption is also linked to not getting enough sleep which may hinder your normal growth.

Expect to be in your 20s before you stop growing

It is very important for you to know that you will get to your twenties before you will stop growing. If you are still at the puberty stage or under 18, you are definitely still growing and you should work hard not to stunt your growth.

Cord Blood Banking for Potential Future Transplantation

Despite all the planning and caution, life seems to be unpredictable at one phase or the other! And it's mostly, when individuals are faced with a health crisis, where the ailment at hand is chronic and irreversible. Humans try to secure the health of their children and loved ones in many ways. One such way that has gained popularity owing to its growing success rate, is cord blood stem cell transplant. Today, it is considered to be a miracle cure for diseases that previously doctors considered as dead-end.

The use of UCB (Umbilical Cord Blood) as a rich source for cord blood stem cells have expanded in the past decade. Today, it is already a successful practice for treating children who are suffering from haematological malignancies. Furthermore, there's also the use of double UCB and minimized-intensity transplantation platforms that have also played its part in this expansion. In the recent times, the registry-based evaluation and the end-to-end multi-center and single institution clinical trials are researching on ways to make the UCB transplantation more acceptable. The objective is to address the complex ailments such as sickle cell disease and Kostmann's syndrome and treat it successfully through the transplant without any side effects.

Once a baby is born, the cord blood gets collected from the placenta and the umbilical cord. The collection process is very simple and poses no risk either to the baby or the mother. These cord blood cells comprise of Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which are the rare cells usually spotted in bone marrow as well.

It is said that the Haematopoietic stem cells has the capacity to produce all kinds of cells in blood i.e. white cells, red cells and platelets. They are accountable for retaining blood production all through the life. And they have also been utilized for several years in the bone marrow transplants for treating blood related ailments. In addition to that there also have been numerous reports that suggest that cord blood might also comprise of specific kind of stem cells that can create a distinctive cell that doesn't belong to blood, for instance nerve cells. Such ideas and theories are debatable and are being researched upon for correct validation.

In the recent times, over 6000 patients globally have been treated with stem cell transplants. The U.S Food and Drug Administration still consider this process experimental and urge that there's scope for expertise in future. However, the doctors usually procure cord blood from children whose parents have decided to store the cord blood. At the time of transplant if the patient and donor have genetic similarity then the patient's body will accept the transfusion.

According to Mary Laughlin, Cord Blood Transplantation Expert, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio there's a constant battle or action to reaction that goes on between the recipient and donor cells, and every patient and doctor wants the donor cells to win invariably. Usually, the stem cell transplants are considered more forgiving that other processes, such as the bone marrow transplants even if the donor isn't an exact match.

As there is growth in the volunteer stem cell donor bands, the patients who are in need of it are closer to getting the best match and thus the chances of recovery is more. According to the Center for Cord Blood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is biggest public cord blood donor bank in United States, the chances of procuring a perfect or near perfect match today has increased exponentially in the last 4 years.

So, from Beta Thalassamia Major, Inherited Red Cell Abnormalities, Pure Red Cell Aplasia, Multiple Myeloma to Plasma Cell Leukaemia cord blood stem cell transplant has successfully treated it all. And its future is a promising one where medical experts are researching on treating other chronic ailments with UCB.

Setting The Record Straight on Meat Health

Red meat is often wrongly portrayed as being unhealthy. Even chicken has been getting attacked by some in the media as being unhealthy or not environmentally friendly. Vegan, fish and other non-meat diets have been proposed as healthier alternatives. The result of this onslaught of negative meat messages has influenced many persons including moms and dads to drastically cut back on their meat and poultry purchases. Perceptions may be seen as reality, yet truth trumps non truths. Parents and other consumers want what is best for their health and that of their families. They are also aware that a lot of false information is out there and as such are open to scientific facts that can correct their misconceptions. Below are the facts:

A) LETS IRON OUT THE TRUTH ON MEAT!
1) "You would need to eat a massive amount of spinach to equal (the iron content) in a steak," says Christopher Golden, an ecologist and epidemiologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (As quoted by nature.com in the article 'Brain food- clever eating'.)
2) Let's get precise. For a woman to receive her recommended daily intake of 18 mg of iron would need just 300 grams of cooked bovine liver, 625 grams of cooked beef or an astounding 2.4 kg of spinach!
3) In addition, the Iron found in vegetables is harder to absorb than the iron found in meat as it is attached to fibre which inhibits its absorption.

B) MEAT FOR A HEALTHIER BRAIN!
1) Being deficient in the micronutrients found in meat have been linked with low IQ, autism, depression and dementia says Dr. Charlotte Neumann, a pediatrician at the University of California, as quoted in the above article.
2) Zinc found in meat is crucial for learning and memory.
3) Vitamin B12 found in meat preserves the sheaths that protect nerves.

C) MEAT- BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY!
Due to its antioxidant powers, zinc is involved in creating antibodies to fight free radicals that increase our risk for chronic diseases.

D) MEAT- POWER YOUR MUSCLE GROWTH!
1) The protein in meat helps build and repair body tissues.
2) Muscles are made of protein. That is why athletes who are building muscle strength increase their meat protein consumption.
3) The protein and zinc found in meat are important for muscle growth and repair.

E) MEAT- THE COMPLETE PROTEIN!
Meat contains all of the nine essential amino acids that your body cannot make by itself. Say 'hello' to histidine, leucine, isoleucine, lycine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, and valine. Meat supplies all nine. That is why it is called a complete protein.

F) MEAT- FOR A HEALTHY HEART!
1) Meat contains lots of the B vitamins needed for the production of hormones, red blood cells and for the proper functioning of your nervous system.
2) Say 'hello' to niacin, folic acid, thiamine, biotin, panthothenic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6. They are all found in meat.

So let's counter those negative meat health myths, by setting the record straight.