Snoring: The Cause and the Solution

If you find yourself snoring or your partner complains that you snore a lot... one of the traditional remedy is to sleep on your side.  However, this does not always work. So, what really is the cause of snoring?

Medical researchers found out that snoring is often a symptom of a health problem called Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a disorder where breathing is consistently but briefly interrupted during sleep.   The airway passage is partially blocked due to the relaxation of the upper throat, tongue and jaw muscles. With the airway partially blocked, the muscles in the airway vibrates resulting to snoring. As we grow older, the muscle tissues get weaker in the throat and mouth losing their tension. People suffering from diabetes are more susceptible into acquiring the sleep apnea based on a study made by the Whittier Institute for Diabetes.

No medication has yet been designed to prevent the upper throat, tongue, and jaw from relaxing while sleeping. However, one of the ways to eliminate or decrease snoring is to keep the mouth from opening or the jaw from dropping.  This will stop the upper throat and the tongue from blocking the airway passage.  It may look morbid since the only solution for you to stop snoring is to tie your lower jaw to your head similar to the way the lower jaws of dead people are tied.

One company, called the "My Snoring Solution" (mysnoring-solution.com) has designed and created a wearable jaw supporter that can be used during sleep... with the aim of reducing, if not to eliminate, snoring. It works by keeping the lower jaw shut thereby keeping the airway passage open allowing air to freely pass through it eliminating vibrations that create the snoring sound.  However, the jaw supporter is not available in the stores and can only be procured online from the manufacturer's website store.

Visit their website for more information about the "Jaw Supporter"...

(Photo courtesy of " My Snoring Solution")

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Humor me...! Where in Heaven's Name is the Forum You are Talking About?

"I will answer all the allegations brought against me in the proper forum..."

The most common response made by those implicated in graft and corruption. If they find the Senate investigations and the Sandiganbayan or Ombudsman as not the appropriate "forums" to explain their side... What and where is the "forum" that they are talking about?

Most politicians I know always talk vaguely and without clarity and in some cases, throw the ball to their "paid" audience. We've heard it a thousand times and a thousand times questions remained unanswered as well because of a "forum" that seems to have become a mythical venue like the fabled lost city of Atlantis!

They might be referring to the Roman public place where they can defend themselves against public opinion. A place where no one can directly ask questions, a place where the mob rules, a place where the "paid" audience can muffle the sound of those who are really seeking for the truth! As far as I am concerned, such a public forum only exist in the minds of those who are unable to defend themselves appropriately because they are guilty!

They have no words for explanation and will prefer the rhetoric "I will answer all the allegations brought against me in the proper forum..." which simply means "I invoke my right against self-incrimination"! Apparently, the forum they seek is not a place where they will answer the allegations brought against them. It is a place where no one can search or go to. It is an Eden nowhere to be found... The Olympus where the truths are safely kept... It is but the Underworld where no one will dare to tread on.

The next time I hear such a rhetoric coming from the mouths of those implicated, I now understand its real meaning... And wait no longer for any answers from the one who spoke it!

(Photo courtesy of blog.neocamino.com)

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The Day the World Wide Web Stopped

Since the advent of the world wide web or most commonly known as the “internet”, more than two-thirds of the world’s population have been hooked. A day will not pass without a “netizen” logging in and surfing the internet. The “netizen” is a modern-day jargon just recently invented to call a person who is using the internet.

The internet is used for communicating, learning, archiving, disseminating information, news and weather updates, blogging (like what I am doing right now) and almost for anything under the sun. A word has been added to the English dictionary to denote an action that means “looking for information using Google” — the word Google, which is the name of a popular internet and search engine company, has now become an English word. What else will be added to the English dictionary that will emanate from the use of the internet?

Emails have become the most common form of communication, including messenger services. With the invention of smart phones, the internet has become portable and mobile. You no longer need to be in your office to access your emails. They are directly pushed to our smart phones nowadays.

Even voice calls can be made via internet using “VOIP” (voice over IP) like what Skype and Yahoo Messaging services are providing their users… And it is not limited to voice only, video calls can also be made.

Movies, music, photos, and books can be procured online in digital format. “Online” is a term used for being “virtually present” on the internet… As if just by “logging in” is already equivalent to entering a room where your friends and acquaintances are. Then by “chatting” online, it makes you feel that you are actually with your friend having a conversation. And all of these are done by sending electrical signals through wires and cables hooking you up to the internet.

What will happen if, for one day, the internet shuts down? For one day, no one can use the internet… And for one day, no one is online?

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no Google, no Yahoo, no Skype, no Youtube, no Pinterest, no blogging, no emails, nothing… Nothing from the internet. Your computer boots up, you opened your favorite web explorer… Nothing is showing up! You open your smartphone’s web explorer… And the same thing happens, nothing is showing up!

The executives and the office workers, without any emails, have started to use their phones to talk to each other. Those without a company phone have started seeing the person they want to talk to. Some may say, “This is the first time I heard your voice…” while others will say, “It’s the first time I saw you in person…”. Looking around the office, you will begin to observe that people are no longer confined in their cubicles. They have started to “socialize”… To be in deep conversation by using their “mouths and lips” instead of “keyboards and mouses”.

You also started talking to and seeing your friends… Getting together in malls, restaurants, and bars. You started feeling their presence “for real”… Their faces when they laugh, instead of just the three-letter word “LOL” or by an emoticon that combined “:” and “)”. And for the first time in the past uncountable years, you heard the sound of their laughter again! Yes, it was fun… To be “offline”, and yet together, with your “online” friends!

The day when the world wide web stops and became inaccessible… Will not be a day of catastrophe and social deluge to how mankind lives and interacts.

The day when the world wide web stops will be remembered as the day humanity will regain its human touch!

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The Dull-Witted Meatless Monday Resolution!

“The QC government started its Meatless Monday advocacy with the approval of Resolution SP-5596 in 2012, which enjoins all City Hall employees, public schools and all barangay (villages) to consume vegetables and other non-meat food every Monday.” ( http://www.manilatimes.net/meatless-mondays-in-quezon-city/166553/)

Let me first briefly outline the difference between an “ordinance” and a “resolution”?

“An ordinance is a local law that prescribes rules of conduct of a general, permanent character while a resolution is just a mere expression of the opinion or sentiment of the local legislative body on matters relating to proprietary function and to private concerns. It is temporary in character.” ( http://sp.bulacan.gov.ph/generalinfo/faq.asp)

Meatless Monday is only a resolution as of now and hopefully, will not be passed as a city ordinance. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not against Councilor Jessica Castelo Daza’s advocacy of reducing the carbon print brought about by the livestock production. But her means of meeting her advocacy by encouraging a meatless Monday is downright “dull witted”, to say it in a more tactful fashion. There are so many far-important matters that she should seriously look into, such as the continuing boldness of those ”riding in tandem” to commit crimes in broad daylight, the humongous number of dilapidated public utility vehicles that are spewing toxic carbon emissions from their cranky, old engines, and the growing number of “rugby boys” that are plainly seen by almost anybody in the city, except the Mayor and the councilors who, I believe, had some sort of a blind eye or cataracts that are making them oblivious to these more problematic matters in the city. Add the fact that most major corners and sweet spots in the city are turning into “illegal terminals” operated by the baranggay captains and you-know-whos contributing to the massive build up of traffic during rush hours.

I am not sure why the city is even looking at having a meatless Monday considering that Quezon City has become a haven for people to illegally settle increasing the number of urban poor population in the city year over year. These people don’t even have the money to eat at restaurants… Can we stop their local “turo-turo” and “karinderyas” to stop serving meat in the form of “isaw-isaw”, “Adidas”, and “barbekyu”? Those who can afford and who are meat lovers will eat at home instead or somewhere else except Quezon City on Mondays. At the end, the restaurants will lose a day’s profit, one day a week, four days in a month.

What will be gained from this dull-witted resolution? Definitely not a reduction of carbon footprint nor making the city residents healthier…!

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