Pelvic Yoga: An Integrated Program of Pelvic Floor Exercise to Overcome Incontinence and Support Overall Pelvic Floor Health

Kimberlee Bethany Bonura

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Pelvic Yoga: An Integrated Program of Pelvic Floor Exercise to Overcome Incontinence and Support Overall Pelvic Floor Health

Kimberlee Bethany Bonura, PhD, E-RYT

Overview of Pelvic Yoga

Pelvic Yoga facilitates optimum health of the urinary and reproductive systems by strengthening the pelvic floor. The focus is on preventing urinary incontinence, enhancing sexuality, and maintaining pelvic health. Men and women of all ages will benefit from a preventative program of pelvic exercises. For women who are pre- and post-pregnancy or pre- and post-menopause, the program is essential to overcome natural weakening of the pelvic floor caused by weight gain, stretching of pelvic muscles during pregnancy and delivery, and/or hormonal changes. Because male incontinence does occur, men will also benefit from Pelvic Yoga.

The program integrates pelvic floor exercises into a yoga practice designed to strengthen, tone, and increase flexibility in the muscles of the pelvis, abdomen, lower back, hips, and thighs. Pelvic floor exercises are a vital component of any health program and are particularly important to support reproductive and sexual well-being.

Naked Truths About Getting Book Reviews

Gisela Hausmann

naked truths new cover

 

ALL BOOKS NEED MORE REVIEWS

 

• “My book needs more reviews!”
• “Even after I had my book on Bookbub, less than 1% of people who downloaded the book reviewed it.”
• “I want better/longer/more exciting reviews.”
Comments like these can be found in authors’ discussion groups on many social media platforms. Less frustrated-sounding social media postings ask to “Save an Author”, “Support an Author”, and “Hug an Author” by reading and reviewing independent authors’ books. And, it is true, it is not easy to get book reviews and even more difficult to get good book reviews.

On the other hand, there are at least two books in Amazon’s web store that have amassed more than 30,000 reviews. While books can be uninteresting, boring, so-so, great, brilliant, and phenomenal, surely these two books aren’t 30,000 times more brilliant than a book with only one review.

Surprisingly, people add even more reviews to these 30,000+ existing reviews. One of these two books received four new reviews and the other one five new reviews since yesterday. Reader-reviewers cannot really have too much hope that their review will be found among the 30,000+, yet they keep posting.

Reviews follow the law of attraction. Once reader-reviewers see that a book has received many reviews, they probably read a few of them and then decide to add their own opinion, even though their thoughts may have already been expressed somewhere among these thousands of opinions.

Though I have read neither one of these two books, I know about
them. I have seen both books/covers pop up in my Goodreads newsfeed.

That is one way how news about books spreads. We see book covers pop up in our social media newsfeeds. While we can overlook one, two, or three reviews of the books easily, once we have seen them often enough, most often we decide we need to find out more about these books since apparently ‘everybody else’ is reading them. Depending on how interlinked readers’ social media feeds are, book reviews pop up at Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and other websites. Talk about a domino effect!

Domino effect
Noun
The situation in which one event causes a series of related events, one following another

Word Origin:
Alluding to a row of dominoes, each standing on end, all of which fall when one is pushed

Freedom Money: Simple And Automatic Steps For Young Adults To Get Rich

Brian Robben

Freedom Money Cover for Kindle

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How often do you wish you had more money? Maybe you wish you had a bigger bank account so you had the freedom to travel. Maybe you wish you could afford a new car or a nicer place. Maybe you go to work for a paycheck, but wish you had your dream job. Maybe you want to pay off your student loans or retire early. Maybe you wish you didn’t cringe every time you checked your dwindling bank account the morning after a night out. When you stop and think about it, the list of things we need money for gets overwhelming. And, sometimes, it can all pile up. You can feel like financial peace is impossible. You can feel trapped.

You’re not the only one. A lot of young adults worry about money. It’s normal to worry about trying to make it in a world that revolves around how much money you have, or don’t have, and what you can spend it on.

But wouldn’t it be nice to not worry about money? To not be trapped? Wouldn’t it be freeing to become so rich that you don’t even think about making money—but instead, you think about pursuing happiness?

That’s where this book comes in. It’s full of advice to fight and resolve those money worries. With the easy-to-follow strategies, you can turn all those financial wishes into a reality.

That’s the perfect situation you’re looking for, right? You get to grow your money and live the lifestyle you’ve dreamed of, without spending all of your time focusing on your bank account. Soon, I’ll show you how to do that.

Retirement: Different by Design

Dr. Rick (Steiner)

frontcover

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Chapter 1: Our Real Wonder Years

 

Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
—Frank L. Baum
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
—Seneca

 

Retirement: Prologue or Epilogue?

 

We come from everywhere and anywhere—we share common visions, purposes, and aspirations; we are on the road to the same place, a place called “Retirement.” This book is dedicated to the Boomer Generation, all 76 million of us, and to the 10,000 Boomers who will be retiring every day of every year for the next 18 years and are all asking themselves the same question: “Am I really ready to retire?” It is also for the many millions of us who have already retired but are “flirting with failing retirements,” who may be asking a different question: “Is that all there is?”
You see, this book is about us, the Boomers, you and me, men and women who were raised by the “Greatest Generation,” the children of those who not only saved the world but made planet earth a better (while not perfect) place for us to grow up. And grow up we did, whether we wanted to or not. We took the world we were given, and then, for good or bad, shaped it in our image just as our children are doing today.

 

Then we started retiring to enjoy the fruits of our labors and the retirement trickle soon became a flood. We passed the baton of youth to the next generation with confidence that our legacy would be recognized, remembered, and reborn in the hearts and minds of our progeny for generations yet to come. We were the:

 

Bakers, Takers, Commanders-in-Chief;
Dreamers, Schemers, Apparatchiks;
Doers, Darers, Leaders of Fief;
Fathers, Mothers, Providers of Relief;
Builders, Breakers, Persons of Belief;
Inventers, Dissenters, Givers of Grief

The Amazing Secret in your Heart

Vince DaCosta

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The Astonishing story of the movement that is changing our World from violence, hatred and war, to a new and incredible world where there is Respect, Compassion and Love. A new Heart-Centered World !

This is a story about a heart attack ! It is a story about my thoughts, feelings and response to a life shattering experience. . . . . .Except that I was not shattered. My initial response to my heart attack was surprisingly, acceptance. The news was disturbing, but I was not disturbed. Both inwardly and outwardly I remained calm and at peace with myself. I am sharing my story because a heart attack or a disaster even more dire does not have to be a catastrophe. It could be the beginning of something very beautiful, and an experience that you look back on with gratitude. It could be an event that focuses your mind and clarifies your purpose in a way that you have never experienced before. It could be a new beginning and a better day in your life. Many of us go through the daily routine of life casually.

The sun rises and sets and we never marvel that it does. Our friends and relatives come and go and we never wonder where they go. Our hearts keep on beating day after day, month after month and year after year and we never stand in awe at the miracle taking place inside of our unique bodies. Life is not a mystery for us; life is just a daily experience that goes on and on, most of the time being quite dull, boring and repetitive. We are running on autopilot. Our actions are hypnotic repetitions of a pointless routine. But what if we were to wake up and start smelling the roses ? What if suddenly we understand what Albert Einstein said, that “everything is a miracle.” What if we suddenly realized that our heart is like an auto-pilot, programmed to guide us to a place of rest and peace and our
Ultimate Home.

Connect Using Humor and Story

Ramakrishna Reddy

Connect Using Humor Cover for Kindle

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What makes a great Story? A great Story is when an ordinary character overcomes seemingly impossible circumstances to achieve a goal. That’s it. If you can understand this sentence and digest each and every word and reflect it in your story creation process, you are already halfway into creating exciting content.

 
Now, what is Humor? In simple terms, Humor brings amusement and laughter to a speech so that the audience is entertained.

 
Then what is Persuasion? In the context of a speech, Persuasion is the speaker’s skill at influencing how the audience thinks, feels or acts as a result of hearing the speech.

 
Persuasion from Aristotle

 
Aristotle in his masterpiece Rhetoric wrote that Persuasion is the result of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. To be concise, Ethos is credibility, Pathos is the emotional connect and Logos is the logic in your speech. The best way to use these three elements when speaking is through the use of a personal story. Why a personal story, and not just any story? When you speak, you need credibility (Ethos) and that’s what comes through in a personal story. If it is the story of your own life, you have the right to speak about it with authority. Logic (Logos) can be taken care by carefully crafting your speech content with the proper flow of ideas in a good order. The emotional connect (Pathos) is the main reason for using a story. Story is a powerhouse for Pathos because stories have the unique ability to transmit emotion. Emotion creates a great connection with the audience. And on top of it, if you add Humor, you will hit a home run.

 
I can tell that Humor and Story are the greatest tools for any speaker. Story has the power to transmit emotion and humor helps to deliver positive emotions. Hence, used together, humorous stories make for one of the best mediums to connect with an audience. A great story has a life of its own. With a great story, your words walk into the hearts of your listeners. When you add humor, your words will fly into the hearts of your listeners.

 
Perspectives of Humor

 
Dr. Charles Jarvis, a dentist, a humorist and Hall of Fame speaker defined Humor as “the mental faculty of discovering, expressing or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous”. Dr. Jarvis shares two definitions of humor with us. The first is “a painful thing told playfully”. The second is “tragedy separated by time and space”. Note that both definitions treat humor as a serious thought viewed in a light manner.

 

Ever heard someone say, “I laughed so hard I nearly cried”? This shows how close Humor is to pathos: an emotion of sympathetic pity.

 
The other theory, which is really cool, is the Benign Violation theory coined by Dr. Peter McGraw and Joel Warner. I heard this theory from a TED talk ‘What makes things funny’ by Dr. Peter McGraw. Although he is not a standup comedian, he has done a lot of research on humor. According to the duo, Humor gets created when there is a benign (harmless or safe) violation from what is acceptable. They illustrate this theory by using the old gag of someone slipping on a banana peel. Such an accident usually elicits a laugh. However, if the person was hurt badly in the fall, it won’t elicit a laugh because it has become harmful and the playful element has been lost.

 
Sophie Scott in her TED talk ’Why we laugh’ said, “When you are alone, you do not laugh often. It means the humor creation is beyond just the quality of the joke. You laugh because you say that you understand the speaker and you agree with the speaker”.

 

Humor creates a strong bond and is a vital element for connection. When an audience laughs, it means more than just being entertained, their laughter says they understand you, they like you.

 
Persuasive Story with Humor

 
Now that we understand perspectives of humor, let’s understand perspectives about story. There are many types of stories and as I mentioned earlier, it would be cool idea to focus on using a personal story for persuasion. On the contrary, you can persuade even without humor if you tell a moving story of someone dying in your arms, or how you climbed Mt. Everest, or fought with a tiger, etc., but if you, like me, don’t have such an emotional story, humor is your mantra.

 
In order to inject humor into your speech in an organic way, you need to learn the skills needed to craft a persuasive story. Did you notice that I used the word skill? That is because knowing how to craft a persuasive story is a skill. That’s the reason I am about to carefully lead you through a tested persuasive and humorous speech. Along the way, we will uncover its secrets and strategies and you will learn the nuts and bolts of how it was created so that you can create your own humorous and persuasive stories. You will also learn the secrets to editing and delivering your speech in ways which will keep your audience engaged and entertained.

 

Some people are so talented that humor just pours out of them. And then there are those like me! Many people think creating humor is hard, but actually it is not. Learning to be humorous is a skill you can master if you are willing to work at it. To begin, here is something that you can use. There are many variations to the following humor equation and they can all work because people laugh at different things for different reasons. The following, however, is a good one to follow for crafting laugh lines within a speech.

 
Premise + Pause + Punch Line + Pause = Laughter
Let us understand the elements with a laugh line.

 
“People exaggerate that parents in India pressure their children to only become a doctor or an engineer. That’s not true. They don’t just pressure. They blackmail.”

 
I have re-written the above laugh line to indicate the different elements of humor.

 
“People exaggerate that parents in India pressure their children to only become a doctor or an engineer. That’s not true. They don’t just pressure. They blackmail .”

 
Premise: The premise is the information needed for an audience to understand or appreciate the punch line. In our example, words highlighted in italics form the premise.

 

The Premise must:
• Be believable, even if not completely true. In our example, the premise is believable because the audience also could agree it is a cultural thing that Indian parents are pretty hard on their child’s ambition
• Lead the audience in one direction (in order to surprise them later). Note that I said, “That’s not true. They don’t just pressure”. This leads the audience to think that I am going to say something positive about Indian parents
• Not be funny
• Be easily understood
• Create anticipation in the minds of the audience
• Be relevant for the audience
• Be about a situation with which the audience can identify and empathize
Pause 1: Is needed to build tension. Pause 1 must:
• Heighten the curiosity
• Not be so long that the audience lose interest
• Be long enough to create tension. This is what is known as timing

 
Punch Line: It is a word or phrase that follows the pause that triggers laughter. Punch Line should create surprise by saying something contrary to the audience’s expectation. Here, the punch line is, “They blackmail”. The laughter is the result of the release of the tension built up during the pause.

 
Pause 2: This pause gives the audience time to laugh. Again, it’s the timing that is important in comedy and many speakers make the mistake of not pausing after they trigger the laugh. If you do not pause, you will be cutting the laughter short—don’t do this—enjoy it and let the audience enjoy it, too.

 
Also, during this pause for laughter, you can get the most out of it by using gestures or even a deadpan expression to maximize the effect. Try different gestures to see which one works best.

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