4 Tips To Pay Off Your Debt Faster

Debt can have a significant impact on a person’s lifestyle and stress levels. It can become a cloud that prevents them from achieving their dreams and reaching their long-term objectives. But for those currently struggling with debt problems, there are multiple fast debt relief options available. In this latest post, our team highlights four tips to pay off your debt faster.

1. Pay More on High Interest Debt
Tackling the debt with the highest interest rates is the best way to make significant progress in relieving debt. This means that those debts to multiple institutions should review the debt with the highest accumulating interest rate and place their available capital into this debt first and foremost. Because the highest interest rate accumulates the fastest, focusing on this accruing debt first will help prevent further financial issues.


2. Evaluate Your Vehicle Choices
One of the leading reasons Canadians take on debt is to pay for vehicles and vehicle repair. These two expensive items in the average family’s annual expenditures can lead to significant debt levels. Families with multiple cars should consider their public transit options. Is there a bus route for traveling to the office? Is the extra vehicle costing more in insurance that its true value on a weekly basis? By reviewing their vehicle choices carefully, families can cut their expenditures significantly.


3. Become a Part of the 5-to-9 Generation
The 5-to-9 trend has seen a growing number of people take additional part time work between the hours of 5pm and 9pm. Whether they use the time to work at a local retail location or to pursue a paid position within their field, it’s a great way to alleviate debt problems. By simply earning a few hundred dollars a month outside of regular working hours, those in financial strife can use the money to cut down on their long-term debt.


4. Track Spending
Tracking spending is vital when attempting to enhance the family’s financial position. It’s important that each meal out is catalogued, grocery lists are analyzed and amended, utilities and cable bills reviewed carefully. Many people are astounded at the amount of money they’ve been spending when they look at their expenditures more closely. By simply tracking spending and using money only for the essentials, debt can be quickly eliminated.

Eliminating debt is not a short-term, one step process. It’s a process that requires a long-term commitment and a clear-headed approach. By following the tips in this article, families can quickly begin to reduce the debt levels and start on the road to assured financial freedom. To learn more, speak with our experts!

source: northwoodmortgage.com

Post-traumatic stress doubles diabetes risk in women

MIAMI - Women who suffer from post-traumatic stress are almost twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as women not affected by the disorder known as PTSD, a US study said Wednesday.

The research in the journal JAMA Psychiatry was led by public health scientists at Columbia University and Harvard University, and provides the "strongest evidence to date of a causal relationship between PTSD and type 2 diabetes," the journal said in a statement.

The data was based on surveys given to nearly 50,000 US women from 1989 to 2011.

Researchers found that about half the increased risk for diabetes was attributable to the use of antidepressants (34 percent) and overeating, as measured by elevated body mass index (14 percent).

But the other half of the heightened risk could not be explained, and researchers ruled out potential links to smoking, diet, alcohol intake or exercise.

The study also found that the more symptoms of PTSD a woman had, the higher her risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

About one in nine women experience PTSD at some point, which is twice the rate among men, according to background information in the article.

"Not only is PTSD devastating to mental health, but it affects physical health too, raising risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity," said senior author Karestan Koenen, professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School at Columbia University.

Researchers urged healthcare professionals to be on the lookout for signs of diabetes in women who have endured traumatic events.

"As fewer than half of Americans with PTSD receive treatment, our study adds urgency to the effort to improve access to mental health care to address factors that contribute to diabetes and other chronic diseases," said first author Andrea Roberts, research associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard School of Public Health. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Stress in pregnancy linked to children's asthma risk

NEW YORK - Stress during pregnancy brought on by events like divorce, job loss or death of a loved one appears to be linked to an increased risk of asthma and eczema among children.

These findings, Dr. Petra Arck told Reuters Health in an email, could "allow clinicians to evaluate future asthma risk in unborn children using a simple life event assessment questionnaire."

Arck, of University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, and her colleagues note that although there are strong genetic components to asthma and related conditions, these alone do not help explain the unprecedented increase in such diseases in recent years.

Over the same period as that increase, they add, stress levels have been on the rise. But there hasn't been much evidence to connect stress in pregnancy to asthma and eczema.

To investigate further, the researchers examined data from 1,587 children and their mothers who took part in an Australian pregnancy study. The original purpose of the study was to determine the effects of intensive fetal monitoring on pregnancy outcomes.

Mothers-to-be were asked about recent stressful life events halfway through their pregnancy and again toward the end of pregnancy. Their children were evaluated for asthma, eczema and other allergy-related conditions at age six and 14.

Complete data were available for 994 children and their mothers.

The researchers calculated that the likelihood of having asthma or eczema as a teenager was substantially higher among children of mothers who experienced stressful life events during the second half of their pregnancies.

Specifically, kids were about twice as likely to have asthma as 14-year-olds if their mothers had been through a single stressful life event, once other factors known to influence asthma were taken into account. Risks were similar when mothers had experienced multiple life stressors.

When the researchers looked closer, they found that pattern only held among children whose mothers did not have asthma themselves.

There was no link between stressful events in pregnancy and a child's chance of having asthma or eczema at age six, according to findings published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The authors note that they did not have information on how mothers-to-be coped with stressful life events or the types of social support they had available.

And they point out that factors other than stress in pregnancy might have been responsible for the increased risk of disease in certain children.

One researcher not involved in the study said it was well designed and addressed an important topic, but urged caution when interpreting the findings.

Alet H. Wijga, from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, echoed the warning that stress, itself, may not have been what caused kids' asthma and eczema.

"Life events like money problems, job loss and residential move associated with separation or divorce during pregnancy may well have lasting impact on the socio-economic position of the mother and her child and may, for example, be associated with unfavorable indoor and outdoor exposures throughout the child's life course up to adolescence," Wijga told Reuters Health in an email.

"I do think the study provides evidence for an association between prenatal adverse life events and the risk for allergic disease in childhood," Wijga said. The challenge in the future will be to sort out the possible effects of stress during pregnancy from a child's environment growing up, the researcher added. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Emotional Support for Mesothelioma

While everyone handles stressful situations differently, many people benefit from turning to others for emotional support.  If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer, reaching out to others for encouragement and assistance can be a crucial tool.          

Studies have shown that having a strong social network is highly beneficial in many ways.  Spending time talking with friends and family can boost your mood, and help to decrease stress levels.  It can also help to make you feel like you belong.  All of these things are vital when you are coping with an illness.

Support groups help bring together people who are dealing with similar situations.  Many people find that connecting with those who know firsthand what they are going through can be very helpful.  Discussing your experiences and feelings with other mesothelioma or lung cancer patients is a good reminder that you are not alone; there are many other people out there familiar with what you are up against.  

Support groups come in different forms; they sometimes meet and talk over the phone, in person, or online.  Social media sites like Facebook can be a helpful place to find and join support groups for discussion, and allow members to connect with others near and far from the comfort of home.  Organizations such as The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation offer various support groups to suit individual needs.

Keep in mind that many local community resources are available as well, such as churches and libraries.  Your doctor may also be able to provide information on area resources, or could help connect you with a therapist.  Many people find that talking with a trained therapist or counselor is beneficial.  Not only can such professionals offer suggestions and techniques for coping, but they also offer a confidential setting for you to vent and discuss anything that is on your mind.

Deciding what kind of support group or method to pursue, if any, is a very personal decision.  The most important part is to make sure that you feel comfortable, and that the group or method of support is a good fit for you.  If one avenue doesn’t seem right, don’t be discouraged—there are many other options available.

source: cooneyconway.com

Mid-life stress could be linked to Alzheimer's: study

NEW YORK - Middle-aged women with lots of stress are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease down the road, a new study suggests.

Why that might be the case is still a mystery, lead author Lena Johansson from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at Gothenburg University in Mölndal, Sweden, said.

It's also difficult to say how important stress may be in predicting dementia compared to many other influences like poverty, diet, smoking and blood pressure, she told Reuters Health. But the link remained after the researchers took those factors into account.

"I have no reason to think that this relation is not the same among men," Johansson added.

The new data come from a large study of Swedish women started in 1968, when participants were at least 38 years old. Researchers surveyed 800 of those women about their mental health and wellbeing at least once every decade until 2005.

For their study, Johansson and her colleagues looked at women's reporting of 18 stressful life events like divorce, widowhood or a relative's illness and how distressed they felt by those events.

They also consulted hospital records and results of neuropsychiatric exams to track which participants were diagnosed with dementia during the study.

By 2005, 153 women had developed dementia, including 104 with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers report in BMJ Open.

They found that for each additional stressor women reported in 1968, their risk of later developing Alzheimer's disease increased by about 20 percent.

Women who reported long-term distress also had a heightened risk of Alzheimer's, regardless of how many stressful life events they had experienced.

The study does not prove cause and effect, and some other factor common to the women might account for their risk of later dementia.

Still, Robert S. Wilson, who studies Alzheimer's disease at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said, "This is the best evidence by far to date linking psychosocial stressors with dementia. It's really astounding."

He said it was especially impressive that the study was able to link life events, not just how stressed women felt, to later dementia.

Everyone reacts to stressful events differently, but these events seemed to have a similar effect across the board, said Wilson, who was not involved in the study.

"These are low-level chronic stressors that affect virtually every family network," he told Reuters Health.

Still, people who have lost a spouse, been divorced or experienced other stressful events shouldn't necessarily be worried, he said.

"I think these are modest effects overall," Wilson said.

"Stress and stressors are just one of several risk factors," Johansson said. "Not everyone who had stress or stressors developed (dementia)."

By age 85, nearly half of people may have Alzheimer's disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These problems are very common, and they are of definite public health importance," Wilson said. "I think we should be thinking about stress reduction as a more routine kind of healthcare option."

What many people think of as common life events may continue to cause distress for years, he said, and stress reduction techniques like "talking it out" or seeking professional help might be beneficial. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com