It takes a look at some of the statistics about preventable diseases over the last few decades in the US, and a history of official nutrition guides over time. It ends with some actionable pieces of advice for folks who find themselves in a less healthy state than they’d like or who simply want to maintain as healthy of a diet as they can. I thought it was very informative. I hope you find it helpful in understanding nutrition Overall.

Source: frugaldad.com

You can learn how to stop procrastination and achieve success in all you do if you learn the appropriate time management and organizational skills.
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday
Here are few keys to beating procrastination:

Prioritize

Working efficiently requires much less energy than tackling several tasks at once and never completing any of them.
You can more effectively manage your time if you make a list each day of every task you need to complete in order of importance.
Finish each task before starting on the next.
Organizational and time management skills will reduce your level of stress and increase your productivity.
Problems and demands can seem overwhelming at times and leave you feeling overburdened and out of control. The proper time management tools, including a to do list, will help you keep your priorities in order and give you a plan to follow each day. Concentrate on the important elements of your tasks and stop working frantically with no accomplishments.
Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage

Break down large chunks into smaller components

If your tasks seem large, break them into individual components until they seem more manageable. With a precise plan you can eliminate most of the problems you face during the day and gain a sense of pride and accomplishment when you see a noticeable difference in your productivity level.

Organize your life

Procrastination tends to leave you with a feeling of frustration and a sense of never finishing anything no matter how hard you work.
To find success both at work and at home, you must organize your daily tasks and your life. Time management skills are among the most important you’ll ever learn. Learning to prioritize and do the right things at the right time will help you reach your goals on a daily basis.
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried
Exercise & eat right! Yes, that’s right. If you take the time to exercise, you will actually have more energy and will procrastinate less. Also, avoid those simple sugars that “give you a boost”. It may give you an immediate rush, but you will “dump” just shortly there after. Eat complex carbohydrates which provide a slower, steadier release of energy throughout the day.

Be effective

Being effective means doing the right things in a timely manner. Your effectiveness depends on learning how to stop procrastination.
You can delegate tasks to others to free up your time to do the urgent tasks to meet your objectives in order to be more productive. Being inefficient and frustrated equates to poor performance.
Procrastination is suicide on the installment plan

Use your time wisely

You can lower your stress level and achieve your goals by using your time wisely and learning to stop procrastination. Determine your priorities, set achievable goals, and plan wisely to enable you to make the best use of your time.

Experiment

Develop a system that works for you. There is no cookie-cutter approach to overcoming procrastination. A system that may be very successful for one person, could fail miserably for another. Try different “programs” on and be patient. You will find a system that fits you perfectly.

Just do it!

Just do it! I realize this phrase is completely over-used, but let’s face it, it applies. Sometimes we just need to buckle down and complete that unbelievably miserable task that we have been dreading for so long. I guarantee you that you will have more energy when you are done.

And finally

Learn your strengths and your weaknesses.
Learning to stop procrastination will allow you to lessen the time spent on performing tasks that you dislike and gives more time to do things you like.

Read More

The Little Guide to Un-Procrastination
Procrastination quotes

Live each day so that you will neither be afraid of tomorrow nor ashamed of yesterday. Author Unknown

Hope

To face the coming year’s problems use HOPE, faith, and your trust in God and His wisdom to guide you to the future that’s right for you. You can create your own future by focusing your thoughts on what you wish to accomplish. Know that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life – both good and bad.

Aspiration

Make it your ASPIRATION to achieve something worthwhile. Learn a new skill, or seek greater knowledge in areas you don’t now have. Seek and master new ways to do something that’s already been done -and- do it better! Use the power of purpose by giving whatever it is you desire the highest amount of your attention. This determines how successful you will become.

Prosper

Make a concentrated effort to improve, grow, and PROSPER. Increase your financial security. Dare to be happy. Exercise and stay in good health. Keep a positive attitude. Do whatever it takes to improve your personal and business image. And know that your relationship with giving is the spiritual source of your true prosperity.

Precious

Treat your life, family, friends, and others you meet as a PRECIOUS gift to be enjoyed, and of great value. Regard them with a love that is special and – it will all come back to you. Send forth good and it multiples. Honor every one you come in contact with today, tomorrow, and make it an ongoing behavior. This too, is paid back to you by the Universe.

Yearn

To YEARN is to express compassion. In this coming new year, experience it and show compassion for those less fortunate then you are. Offer ways to help others whenever and wherever you can. Give only good. The more you give of yourself, the more comes back to you. It may help make this a better world.

Network

Learn to NETWORK and link to other like-minded individuals; whether it’s in an educational, business, or social setting the benefits can add to your growth and success. Celebrate and share your abilities so that you can attract more of the same.

Eager

Be EAGER to learn new things. Opportunities are all around you. Having an intense passion or desire to find new opportunities is the sign of an enthusiastic person. This desire comes from God. In order for you to find new opportunities, always move toward your goal with a spiritual awareness.

Wisdom

WISDOM – the ability to make well thought out decisions comes from maturity and understanding. In any given situation, it is wise not to judge until all facts are understood. Be open to understanding another’s point of view. Do you look at the world with a positive or a negative vision?

Yesterday

YESTERDAY is a day that has just passed. Now you are free to live in the present. Use each new day wisely and full of gratitude for every hour, every minute, and every second. Set goals for each day and take specific actions that will help you accomplish them.

Life is a series of new beginnings and in every ordinary moment there are a thousand miracles to behold. Flavia Weedin

Eloquent

ELOQUENT. Are you confident, persuasive and effective in the way you communicate? When speaking with others how would you rate yourself? Are you always voicing negative opinions? Or, are you positive in expressing your thoughts?

Advertise

ADVERTISE. For those in business, always make the positive features and benefits of your product or service known. Appeal to the emotions of your prospective client. Give quality service and products so that your self-esteem is strengthened and your reputation is valued.

Reward

In the coming new year, here’s hoping that you will REWARD yourself for any successful personal and business achievements. Improve your skills where and when needed. Change any negative habits, and always follow His guidance in all things you attempt to do.
May this New Year bring you many blessings of good health, dreams to come true, prayers to be answered, and gratitude for all.

The Scholarships are fully funded and cover course fees, living allowance and return airfare. The scholarships are for post graduate study of up to a maximum of twelve months. Most scholars undertake Masters programmes, but awards to pursue short courses or research for between three to twelve months are also offered.

The Chevening scheme also offers a Fellows course, consisting of 12 week courses, also in the UK, to study subjects of strategic importance to the UK and the participating country. These courses include human rights, democracy, governance, security sector reform and migration. These Fellowships are also fully funded by the UK Government.

Chevening Scholarship Programme for Somalia  2012-13

The Chevening Scholarship programme for 2012-13 is now open for applications from Somalia via the e-chevening website.

Chevening Scholarships are 1 year post-graduate courses starting in September 2012.  Their objective is to promote the UK’s longer term political, economic and commercial interests and to support diplomacy by building understanding and goodwill.

Purpose

The purpose of the selection process is to attract those with the potential to become future leaders with capacity to benefit the UK, such as:

• Top-level decision makers such as heads of state/government; senior ministers; religious leaders; opposition leaders; top-level civil society leaders; top-level civil servants; top level members of the judiciary and military and business leaders.

• High level decision-makers such as ministers; influential MPs; regional and political leaders; high-level civil servants; high-level civil society leaders; senior members of the judiciary and military; senior business people; university vice-chancellors;

• Influencers and opinion formers such as senior editors and journalists; senior academics, influential members of civil society.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for courses in line with the UK’s objectives for Somalia, which include, but are not exclusive to:

• Conflict management
• Human right Governance
• Economics
•  Security

Criteria for selection

Applicants should:

•   have the potential to rise to positions of leadership and influence
•   have an adequate standard of English
•   have a degree equivalent to a UK 2nd class Honours
•   not have already benefitted from a UK scholarship

Timeline

The e-Chevening website site for 2012/13 applications is now open.

The closing date for applications will be 23 January 2012

Applications are accepted online only

Applicants should:

•   apply for places at UK universities when applying for a scholarship.
•   should not wait to be offered a scholarship before applying to universities as this may delay or impede our ability to offer scholarships.

Good luck to everyone and we wish you the best for the coming year.

The main problem with using the internet for academic research is that the huge majority of the material posted on the internet is complete garbage. There are all sorts of ludicrous sites run by cranks and lunatics, as well as those set up by well-meaning but ill-informed enthusiasts on various subjects and hobbies. You will also be able to find well written but badly researched and misleading articles generously posted on the web for you to consult. Almost everywhere you look, it seems, you are confronted with wall-to-wall rubbish.

Where to start?

You should not despair, however, of finding useful and reliable information on the internet. There are increasing numbers of really excellent educational and academic sites available, from historical time-lines and encyclopaedias to online versions of literary texts.
Once you have found the right sites, you will discover that the Internet is a wonderfully quick and easy source of information. It is a particularly good place to look for general overviews and introductions to topics, as well as for basic facts, dates, and so on.
For more sophisticated discussions and interpretations,however, it is still best to rely on academic books and articles, which are guaranteed to have been properly ‘peer reviewed’ prior to publication (that is to say, they will have been read and appraised by other academic experts in the field).

As ever, the key is to be selective. An essay or academic presentation that makes good use of authoritative websites as sources of information, can be outstandingly good. While an essay or academic presentation that makes use of the first vaguely relevant site that came up on a quick search, regardless of its credentials, can be at best piddling and at worst middling.

Ask for guidance first?

Much the quickest way to find the most relevant and reliable academic websites for your subject is to ask the lecturers and librarians in your department or university. They will be able to tell you the best places to start and to introduce you to the electronic and online resources that your department and university subscribe to. You will be able to save huge amounts of time by having access to online biographical,bibliographical and other resources.

Academic uses of the internet

There are a number of ways the internet can be used for academic research and i will briefly describe the importance of each of them.

Obtaining particular dates of key academic individuals, events and publications

It’s very important for students to understand chronological occurrence of events they are writing or learning about, it will not only help them get the big picture but also provide them a platform in which they can review and easily explain in an essay.

Getting basic background information about a topic

Time is money is a common saying in our modern life. But this saying gives the wrong impression as it merely relates time to a business and materiastic lif. Time is much more than that, Time constitutes the moments and seconds of our life that we lose and can not get back. It’s for these reason that most people in today’s world are rushing after or busy with things that don’t matter in the long run. Students and learners are prime example. Why spend countless hours reading a textbook on Alternative Medicine when a few minutes of your time consulting popular sites like Wikipedia will yield enough academic competence to get you going and result you doing far more important things better.

Discovering biographical information about an individual

All educational systems and subjects are people-driven and every once in a while, it’s often crucial that you know more about prominent academic individuals like Albert Einstein than the subjects he helped shape e.g general relativity, so that you better understand and visualize such fields of his study.

Bibliography: identifying the main academic books and articles on your topic.

A lecturer may provide you with reading lists for any assessed project they have set you. However, the items on this list might not be available, so one of the ways you might use your initiative and go beyond the reading list is to use the internet to search for other texts to read. One way is to look for online reading lists provided by other lecturers at your own university or elsewhere. And secondly, you could use an online library catalogue such as Google Scholar to look for books on your subject and use it as a rough and ready guide to what are the most widely used standard
secondary texts on a given subject.

Getting access to academic journals

The availability and acceptability of academic journals and texts are increasing exponentially thanks to the internet. There are online journals and archives such as JSTOR which is the premier source used by millions for learning, teaching and research. These list is equally good.

For Self-study

I have already listed the resources in previous blog entry at here.

Conclusion

Do we start reading at one end of the library and try to read through to the other end. Of course not. So you already know one effective approach. Be selective!. Also Don’t forget to ask for help and recommendations from friends and teachers, and finally if you have got any tips, feedback or suggestions, Please leave us a comment or Contact us about any other academic issues.

The reason we are doing this is we want our customers and students to have the best experience serving our website both in terms of speed and usability.
We would also like to start a few projects in the coming future, and we feel we will need to have a few things in place, powerful hosting and servers being one of them.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may bring to you guys and we appreciate your patience and support.

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However, nothing makes students gloomier than the prospect of exams. Even the word examination itself makes students shudder.
There are no doubts that for the majority of students, examinations are something like death, which has the unpleasant inevitability to be faced sooner rather than later.
Exam inevitability often creates a great deal of tension, and can become a cause of procrastination, work block, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially when students feel overloaded by the amount of work they are required to accomplish.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success so that Winning is not a sometime thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing Vince Lombardi
There are countless hours of preparing and sitting for examinations that is accompanied by cramming, sleepless nights, and it very often turns out to be very distressing and debilitating ordeal. Indeed, different people deal with exams in different ways. Some people may seem to be able to handle the pressure; others get agitated, anxious, bad-tempered, and can even become seriously ill and depressed.

However, despite all this, one thing holds really true: examination period is challenge-able.
Remember that you should be responsible for your own learning. Hence, your examination success is in your hands, and in many respects it depends on your ability to focus on active learning, to schedule your time sensibly, and to organize your working place properly.

So don’t take exams lightly, putting off revision to the very last day, and entrusting your examination grades on lucky chance is not right. Therefore, exams is not an appropriate time to check how lucky you are.
Whilst you don’t want to be caught off guard and confused on the spur of the moment, as leaving revision too late is an excellent recipe for stress and anxiety.

Be sure to stick to these simple and effective examination techniques, which will help you pass your examinations with flying colours. Remember that with careful planning and preparation, exams can become nothing more than a question and answer session.

Elaborate your revision program as early as possible

Organize your time wisely. Be sure to allocate time for revision, relaxing and enjoying yourself sensibly. Be realistic about time that you can spend revising. Bear in mind that you need a balance between your revision time and the rest of your life. You need rest, and variety. So try to break your workload down into manageable chunks, combining working periods with rest.
And what is more important is to begin studying early, with an hour or two per day, increasing this time as exams approach.

Plan how you will use your time during your revision period

Your plan should include what, when and how you are going to prepare for your examination. Try to produce a day-by-day revision timetable.
Fail to plan, You plan to fail Unknown
List all the topics you’re going to cover during your revision process, make up your mind what order to learn them in, and how much time you can manage on each topic. Be realistic about your time, and always remember about your deadlines.
A good revision strategy is to set priorities. Evaluate the importance of each block of information that you’re going to revise, think it over what topics are compulsory for you to revise, and what subjects you already know.

Involve in active learning

Reading is a passive way of learning, while writing is an active studying technique, which is considered to be highly productive.
Plunge into the text you’re reading, and ask yourself: “What is the most important to remember from this section?” Make notes while you read and underline the key concepts in the text.
Mix easy and difficult topics, interesting and dull while you revise.
Try to work in a comfortable environment, to remove any distractions, and to find out where you work best. Don’t forget to interrupt your study time with planned study breaks.

Make your revision process effective

Don’t learn parrot fashion. Researches have shown that a person recalls meaningful information better and easier. That’s why you should:
1) Associate newly learnt concepts with what you already know. As you are reading try to link what you are studying with what you already know, with something that is meaningful to you.
2) Elaborate upon new information with your own examples.
3) Revise material in small chunks; don’t try to cover all the information in one sitting.
4) Information is memorized better when it is represented in an organized framework. Group information into categories; write an outline or a summary.
5) Use as many visual aids as possible; make a practical use of drawings, tables, graphs extensively in your revision process.
6) People are more likely to remember things that go in some certain sequence, so that one thing triggers another element.

Organize your working place sensibly

Many students are fully versed in importance of time management in the process of preparation for their exams; however, quite a few is acquainted with the importance of organising their working places wisely.
Be sure to divide your room into two areas: your working space that can be near your desk or table with papers, books, photocopies on it, all in all, everything you need for studying, and a place for relaxation, where you can look aside from studying, taking a nap, watching TV, or listening to music.
Get used to indulge in work only in your working area, and to switch off in your relaxation zone.
Physical separation of your working place from your relaxation area will make it easier for you to do it mentally.
Bear in mind that doing well in exams not only depends on your knowledge, but also on how good you are at revising and handling the actual exam.

Conclusion

One may argue that an exam can be a lottery, where a large proportion of success depends on your lucky chance. It’s worth noting that luck can let us down in the most unsuitable moment. So, I don’t propose you to count on it. The most reliable way to pass an exam is a thorough and profound preparation.
Remember that exams aren’t the be all end all, and the means will always justify the ends.

The USMLE is a multi-step professional examination that medical students and physicians are required to pass before they start practicing medicine in the US or Canada. The exam according to NBME (National Board of Medical Examiners) assesses a physician’s ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to determine fundamental patient-centered skills that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care. Working in the US had become the holy grail for doctors in the last few years due to the payment package enjoyed by US doctors and the facilities offered by US hospitals that makes patients care much better and a more fulfilling and a rewarding experience.

I wish him all the best and that was one heck of a preparation for the USMLE.

Are you a wide reader?

In a gathering, you can tell who the wide readers are. Wide readers think and speak well. They win the admiration, respect, and good opinion of their peers.

Reading expands the mind . In fact, many people consider it as one of the satisfying pleasures of humans, for it involves physical as well as mental activities.

Reading is primarily a mental activity. After all, you read with your mind and use your imagination to paint the setting of the detective thriller you are reading.

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” Mark Twain

You use your mind to imagine the pain that the main character experiences as the story unfolds. You bring into play the different arguments and ideas brought up by the author in that self-help book you are holding.

To read effectively, reading helps you develop a wide vocabulary through extensive reading. A skillful reader has a wide recognition of vocabulary. He may not know exactly what every word means, but he will have a good general idea of the meaning of the sentence.

Reading makes you alert and curious about new words. Other readers develop the dictionary habit. Every time they come across a strange word, they try to figure out what it can possibly mean by the context. If they cannot do this, they refer to the dictionary.

Likewise, reading develops intellectual curiosity by exposing you to a variety of materials. You learn to read by reading books of increasing difficulty and variety. As in other forms of activity, you learn by actual y doing.

Reading trains you to have an active and open mind. Merely grasping the writer’s idea is not enough. You must make a positive response to what you read. Be an active, not a passive, reader. Develop the habit of drawing your own conclusions, the habit of active thinking, of agreeing or disagreeing with the author. Keep your mind open; understand and weigh the ideas that you read. A practical part of active reading is the drawing of conclusions.

Four Rules For Effective Reading

Allow me to share four basic rules for effective reading and better comprehension:

1) Try to read more and more. Remember the saying that practice makes perfect. Practicing in the correct way makes perfect.

2) Develop the habit of reading for main ideas. Look for the subject and predicate. Do not waste time on details or little words.

3) Learn to read with focus and concentration. Think of what you are reading. Do not let your attention wander somewhere else. Good readers read with understanding.

4) Learn to budget your time. Experiment with your reading time. Try purposely to read faster. Give yourself a time limit on specific material that you read.

Reading is a stimulating mental activity. It expands your reality and capability.

“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” Jim Rohn

You have so much to gain in discovering the joys of reading. Go ahead; grab a book right now!

Speed Reading

Speed may allow you to arrive at your intended destination; but along the way, were you able to take note of the things that you may have missed while speeding along the fast lane? As in driving, zooming in fast does not give enough opportunity to see and enjoy the view. The same can be said about reading.

Much of what you learn can be acquired through reading. The simple activity of getting in a comfortable position and start reading a book of your choice opens a new world for you. Reading enables you to tap into the minds of great people.

The more you read, the more you know. In the hope of reading more books, some attempt fast track reading or speed reading. It is believed that the faster you read, the more you cover.

Speed Reading may involve reading by phrases and concepts compared with the word-for-word method. It enables you to cover more pages with the same rate. However, one limitation of this method of reading is that you tend to remember only a small portion of the main idea. There is danger that you might miss the important details in the book.

There is a solution for this. Few people are aware of this seldom-talked about technique in fast learning. This is based on the principle that the mind thinks in pictures.

Learning is accelerated when you “see” the whole idea of the write-up or book.

Seeing “live pictures” of ideas and thoughts of the writer makes reading experiential and unforgettable. When you see nothing while reading, you learn nothing. Fast reading becomes useless.

This technique is called visualization . Visualization is vital to quick learning.

Visualization in reading is like constructing a jigsaw puzzle where pieces are put together to form the whole picture. The whole thing not only “appears,” but actually “comes alive” before you. Al of these happen in the realm of the mind.

Just going through the motions of fast reading can give you a hazy picture of the subject matter. But like a mist, this picture often quickly evaporates into thin air.

Fast reading without visual pictures often informs but very seldom impresses.

Impressions last while information changes with time. Past information is easily forgotten in favor of new ones. Impressions change you, and these are stored permanently in the mind.

For learning to become effective, it requires brief pauses to be able to visualize and reflect. Effective learning is not about how fast you can finish reading a book. It is more on how you effectively comprehend the ideas brought forth by the writer.

Visual pictures provide lasting impressions. Go after ideas and how it wil enrich people’s existence. Go for lasting impressions and insights that wil mold you into better individuals.

More Reading

• NASA study on photo reading
• “What they can’t read will hurt them”-A study on the correlation between reading ability and Academic achievement.
• Learn to Speed Read, a book by Kris Madden
• An articles that dares you to stop wishing you read more books and convince you to reading more

If you have any links or tips to share, Let us know in the comments section.
 

There will be 13,700 Chinese pilgrims who are making their way to Saudi Arabia from October to December this year, and will be taken care of by 55 doctors and nurses, said Yang Zhibo, vice-president of China’s Islamic Association.

Twenty-one Chinese Muslims died during the pilgrimage last year, Yang said, prompting authorities to reinforce medical assistance.

A 70-year old Muslim surnamed Han from Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province told China Daily that he kept exercising for a whole year before the journey, which he found to be “very necessary.”
“It was energy consuming to complete the pilgrimage, since we have to walk seven times and to kiss the Black Stone on each circuit. It was so crowded and people around kept stomping on my feet,” Han said.

“But I have to go, since it is one of the five pillars for Muslims. I got up at six in the morning and walked around the compound where I lived in preparation for the walk to Mecca,” he said.

The number of Muslims in China going to Mecca each year has increased from about 200 in the early 1980s, according to the Islamic Department of the State Administration of Religious Affairs.
About 2 million people from around the world make the pilgrimage to Mecca every year.

All Muslims, except those unable to because of age, poverty or illness, are expected to make the journey at least once.

“When I was in Mecca, I strictly followed the procedure of the ritual, and when the pilgrimage ended, I felt a sense of fulfillment,” Han said.

China is home to about 22 million Muslims, 70 percent of whom live in the western provinces, according to the census in 2000.

Muslims can either apply online or through local Islamic associations, Yang said.
It costs about 17,000 yuan ($2,600) for each trip, including transportation and accommodation.
Saudi Arabia does not accept individual applications, and unofficial pilgrimages are not allowed in China.