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Monthly Archives: October 2019

Why a smile makeover isn’t just something for reality TV

It wasn’t so long ago when cosmetic dentistry was only something available to the rich and famous who wanted to achieve the perfect “Hollywood” smile. Today, however, it’s becoming far more common for people to go to their dentist for a smile makeover.

Today cosmetic dentistry is more popular than ever, with a wide range of treatments available, from teeth whitening to replacing teeth. In fact, cosmetic dentistry is driving growth of the UK dentistry market, which reached £7.1 billion between 2017/18. But what are the reasons for this growth?

There’s an increased demand

Nowadays, both men and women take more time to focus on their appearance. Maintaining “youthful” looks is important for many, and cosmetic dentistry helps them to achieve that. This, in part, is due to changing social norms, with cosmetic dentistry not seen as an exclusive treatment.

However, more and more patients are also starting to recognise the benefits of having a healthy and beautiful smile. This is one of the reasons cosmetic dentistry has seen increased demand in recent years.

Improved technology

For many people, their teeth can be a source of insecurity. From crooked teeth to “gappy” smiles, there are a range of different problems that can lead to people feeling self-conscious in their smile. But cosmetic dentistry can change all of that.

The past decade has allowed cosmetic dentistry to greatly improve due to advances in technology. Treatments have become shorter, more efficient and technology advancements have helped to reduce the pain factor massively! For many people, going to the dentist is often associated with uncomfortable or painful experiences. However, improved technologies have significantly reduced the pain factor, which is a major pull for people looking to undergo cosmetic dentistry treatments.

The affordability factor

With today’s technology and techniques, cosmetic dentistry has not only become more efficient and minimally invasive, but it’s also become more affordable too. The affordability factor is one that has helped to contribute to the rise in cosmetic dentistry treatments.

There are many dentists who, nowadays, offer patients various different payment plans. This allows people to spread payments over time rather than all in one go. On top of this, improvements to cosmetic treatments have meant that they are natural and longer lasting, avoiding the need for frequent return visits to the dentist and the added expense that can come with it.

There’s more variety

Today, there is a much wider range of dental treatments available to combat many different problems. For example, if you’re feeling insecure about a gappy smile, Teeth Bonding From Ten Dental can improve this. Composite resin can be used to sculpt and improve teeth, filling in any gaps and improving the overall appearance.

Composite bonding is an alternative to the traditional (and often feared) braces. Whilst orthodontic treatments like braces come with plenty of benefits, composite bonding is a quicker and more cost-effective alternative solution. With more cosmetic treatments available, people are finding suitable treatments for their dental needs that doesn’t require as much time or expense.

 

Healthiest Food Items You Should Include in Your Diet

When it comes to protecting yourself from diseases and other preventable health problems, nothing beats eating a balanced diet. It also pays to eat nutrient and mineral loaded food items that can help enhance the protective functions of your body. There are plenty of healthy food items that you should add to your usual diet. Take a closer look at these food products and find out what benefits they can provide to your body.

Oatmeal

Oatmeal is rich in dietary fibre that can help you lower your blood cholesterol. It contains plenty of soluble fibre so when consumed, it makes you feel full even after a long day. It’s one of the best food items to include in your diet especially if you aim to trim off excess fat around the belly.

Dried fruits

Dried fruits are also a good source of fibre. There are a lot of dried fruits you can choose from including apricots, sultanas, figs and prunes. They contain plenty of micronutrients and antioxidants that can help you stay healthy. Some of the nutrients you find in dried fruits include vitamin C and polyphenol. You can shop for wholesale dried fruit and consume them as snacks when you go to school or work.

Shellfish

Shellfish such as clams, scallops, mussels and oysters are highly nutritious. These contain high levels of B vitamins as well as iron, potassium, selenium and zinc. They are also easy to prepare. When bought fresh, you don’t even need to season them. If you live in a coastal city or anywhere near the sea, you should definitely take advantage of the bounties of the sea.

Kale

Kale is probably the most famous leafy green today. It’s packed with antioxidants, fibre, minerals and vitamins. It’s a great alternative to spinach because it contains lesser amounts of oxalate, a substance that tends to decrease the intestines’ ability to absorb nutrients.

Nuts

Nuts contain a variety of minerals and nutrients. They’re also rich in antioxidants and protein. Some of the best nuts to consume include almonds, Brazil nuts, macadamia, pistachios, and walnuts. They’re great as snacks but you can also use them when you bake treats or prepare a salad.

Salmon

Salmon is considered as the best source for heart-protecting omega 3 fatty acids as well as protein and other nutrients. Eating salmon can help you lower your risk of developing fatal heart problems like hypertension. It’s also incredibly delicious. You can easily prepare a sumptuous meal out of a piece of salmon, a slice of lemon and some fresh dill.

Blueberries

Fruits are rich in vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants. There are a lot of super fruits that you can include in your diet. One of them is blueberries, a fruit well known for its phytonutrients and antioxidants. They help curb obesity because they slow down the development of adipose or fat cells. Blueberries are also proven to be helpful in protecting the brain from cognitive failure.

Staying healthy is the key to enjoying life to the fullest. There are plenty of ways you can protect yourself from illnesses, but nothing can really beat eating right. Take note of the super foods enumerated above and try including them in your daily diet.

 

 

The Perfect Careers for Thrill Seekers

Not everyone is cut out for the nine to five routine. Office jobs and regular routines are fine for some, but people with a desire for adventure and change are unlikely to feel satisfied by this kind of repetitive work. It can be extremely demoralizing for adrenaline junkies to feel forced into jobs that don’t suit their life goals of filling every moment with excitement. Here is a quick list of career options that are perfect for people who want to lead a more thrilling life.

Travel Writer

In the olden days, people could set sail for months on end to explore the uncharted corners of the globe and be labelled a pioneer. Now, thanks to digital technology and the spread of information all across the world, it might seem as if exploring has had its day. This is entirely untrue.

A travel writer gets to visit all kinds of fantastic new locations and earn a living from their journeys. Certain companies will sponsor you to take your trips and report on your experiences. For someone who can’t stay in one place too long, what could be better?

Emergency Services

The emergency services might not be as relaxing as the occasional trip to Peru or the outback, but these types of jobs are far from dull. Choosing to become a police officer, paramedic, or firefighter sets you on a path that leads to no two days ever being the same again. You’ll be interacting with the public in their times of need and will be the first port of call when situations become dangerous. Earn a Bachelor of policing and start your journey towards this exciting career path.

Adventure and Extreme Sports

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of experiencing nature in its rawest forms. Abseiling, mountain biking, skiing and scuba diving are just a few of the many ways you can make money doing what you love. You can either blaze trails for future adventurers or assist people in learning your skills. With dedication and hard work, you can transform your passion into a career.

Wildlife Photographer

In nature documentaries, the camera operator is the first person to witness the fascinating events occurring on the other side of the lens. If you love the outdoors and animals, becoming a professional wildlife photographer or videographer might be for you. You’ll need to be trained in order to properly understand the importance of staying safe in the presence of potentially dangerous creatures while taking your photos or shooting your film. You’ll quickly have a collection of unforgettable moments from your first-hand experience with all sorts of unbelievable animals.

Mountain Guide

If you have a courageous heart and an adventurous spirit, guiding others through the mountains could be an excellent job for you. Not everyone has the problem-solving capability and instinctive awareness to make a good mountain guide, so if you think you’ve got what it take, then start cultivating your training journey, and taking others on the journey of a lifetime.

 

Dental Breakdown – 4 Of The Most Bizarre Dental Emergencies To Ever Go Down

Dentists, hygienists and even dental receptionists have truly seen it all. While no dental emergency is ever a comfortable situation, there are plenty of cases that will leave anyone gasping! Here are four tales that have left a dentist’s chair to become some of the strangest dental stories to have occurred:

1. DIY Dentist With Superglue

A famous story of creative but highly questionable home dental work is a case in England of a woman who felt afraid seeing the dentist about her declining dental health. Rather than facing her fears she decided to keep her smile intact by using superglue on her teeth to stop them from falling out. Eventually, she did seek professional help, and had to have most of her teeth removed and replaced with titanium screws. If only she’d looked at other options such as porcelain veneers or other non-invasive techniques, she could have transformed her smile without the trauma and highly invasive surgery!

2. Plier Tooth Extraction

While you may have heard jokes or old-time tales about the use of pliers for dental extractions, there is a series of terrifying assault cases that occurred in New Zealand, wherein the accused used pliers and tools like screwdrivers to remove their victim’s teeth.

While these actions were violent attacks, there are people who will look into DIY solutions for extractions rather than paying a professional. This almost always causes more damage than relief as you risk permanent damage, leaving part of your tooth in your gums and infections from using non-medical grade tools. In the most serious cases an infection of the gums can lead to septicemia, which can be potentially fatal if not treated immediately. If you experience soreness in your teeth, always talk to a dentist about your options.

3. Tooth or Garden?

A much more light-hearted tale and serious reminder on the importance of regular flossing is a story about an interesting discovery during a patient’s root canal procedure. While cleaning their patient’s root and gum, the dentist came across some food, identified as seeds lodged deep in the gums. Where it gets weirder is, the dentist could see that there were some visible, tiny sprouts emerging from the seed. This story produced the quote, “I realised it was a tomato seed sprouting a plant” from the operating dentist!

While getting small bits of food stuck between your teeth and gums is common while eating, especially with smaller food items like seeds, it’s important that you maintain your oral hygiene by brushing and flossing your teeth every day.

4. One Mouth, 232 Teeth

A very interesting case is that of a boy in India who was found to have 232 teeth in total. Unlike the above stories which were the result of people’s actions, this extreme characteristic came down to a very rare medical condition called composite odontoma. This resulted in the boy experiencing a set of benign tumors that grew teeth inside of them. After a seven-hour procedure, the excessive teeth were removed and the patient has since fully recovered. The dentists who operated had never seen anything like this before. Fortunately, this bizarre case and its happy ending have been shared all around the world.

As shocking as the stories may seem, they also inspire gratitude for our dentists and the work that they do. If you are experiencing any discomfort, are unhappy with your dental appearance or notice anything unusual in your mouth, always seek help from a reliable dental professional.

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4 Essential Solutions for Better Performing Websites

Getting the most value out of any website requires trial, error and dedication. Even the most stunning and useful websites may take months or years to build sustainable traffic bases, which can be quite frustrating for webmasters and brands seeking a quick and easy way to gain exposure.

Ultimately, the performance of any website is affected by a variety of factors, which include its content and navigational features, marketing strategy, and the presence of elements such as search engine optimization and social media activity. While these factors may take time to formulate, there are certain features anybody can implement today that will immediately begin delivering results.

Below are four essential add-ons and solutions that’ll super-charge any website’s performance and deliver better results.

Marketing Dashboards

Extracting maximum value from any website requires a comprehensive marketing strategy. After all, how can people find you if you’re not promoting yourself across a variety of channels and mediums? While there are a variety of organic marketing solutions that should be used to promote any website, uniting these – plus any and all paid marketing efforts – under one proverbial roof can be difficult.

Enter marketing dashboards. These useful solutions can integrate fully with not just your website, but its social media and email marketing efforts as well. These tools help websites set goals, monitor performance, and adjust strategies based on whether current efforts are producing results.

As described by The Ecommerce Manager, the best marketing dashboard solutions will include a litany of features that help you become a better webmaster and marketer.

Social Media Integration

In many respects, brands now turn to social media for increased attention, traffic and sales. Ensuring that your website is optimized for social media is crucial – and thankfully there are solutions that can assist. Solutions like Mashshare and WP Social Sharing are great in that they can be customized to automatically publish new content to social media, integrate social sharing functions on your website, for mailing list integration via your social media accounts, and detailed analytics. The more attention you receive for your website on social media, the bigger your digital empire will grow.

SEO Plugins

Optimizing content on any website requires an understanding of both what users want and what search engines expect. Search engine optimization is a powerful form of boosting awareness for any brand, but it can be a complex subject to master. One way to assist in the process is by using SEO plugins on your website.

A variety of options exist, such as WordPress SEO by Yoast & SEMrush. These utilities can help in optimizing blog post titles, keyword usage, link distribution and overall content quality. The better your SEO becomes, the more prominently your website will rank in search results. The end result is more traffic driven to your website from search engines like Google and Bing.

Speed Optimization

Last but definitely not least, raw performance of a website can make a huge difference in how visitors perceive you and your brand. The last thing you want is a slow website: not only does it make it less likely for visitors to stick around, shop or otherwise interact with your content, but search engines also penalize slow websites as well.

There are many tactics and plugins for improving page speed that’ll ensure you’re not losing traffic due to an unoptimized web design.

Improving the function of a website requires effort, but the results often speak for themselves. By optimizing your website for search engines, improving overall speed, integrating content with social media and utilizing a marketing dashboard to monitor progress, even the humblest of websites can expect to see tangible progress in little to no time.

 

5 Quick Ways to Cut Down on Your Energy Bills All Year-Round

Everyone worries about their bills at some point and household energy bills are often one of the big expenses in any household. That’s why it’s important to keep them affordable as much as possible. Luckily, there are many things you can do to ensure your bills are kept under control, and it usually means just making a few small changes to your lifestyle.

  • Get a smart meter

Around half of households in the USA have a smart meter, so if your home hasn’t had one set up yet, it’s worth considering. A smart meter is a good way of seeing how much you’re spending every time you run the dryer, cook dinner, or take a hot bath so that you can budget appropriately.

  • Turn down your thermostat a couple of notches

You probably wouldn’t notice if someone turned your thermostat down a couple of Fahrenheit, yet you can save about 10% on your bills by having your heating turned down just a little. Many people are used to wandering around their house in t-shirts, even in the middle of winter, so keep yourself bundled up, and you won’t have to spend so much on energy. Wear slippers and have a blanket nearby on the couch, so if you feel cold, try snuggling up first, then turning the heating up second.

  • Get your appliances serviced

As appliances age, they become less energy efficient, but there’s usually no reason to replace them. Get things around your house serviced regularly, and they’ll last for longer, as well as giving you peak performance. For example, find an air conditioning specialist to carry out a service, and your system will work more efficiently and cost less to run. It can help you avoid those costly summer energy bills from running the air con all day.

  • Check your insulation

Poorly installed insulation could mean money is escaping from your roof and walls every day. If you often feel drafts and have to turn up the heating to cover them, or you find certain rooms are warmer than others, then it might be because of poor insulation. Newer homes usually have better insulation than older properties, but you should still check it every year and replace it with thicker insulation if needed.

  • Unplug appliances if not in use

It’s easy to get in the habit of keeping things plugged in all the time, even if you’re not planning on using them any time soon, but unplugging unused items can save energy and save you money. Unplug everything from the TV to the toaster when not in use, and you’ll soon notice the savings on your energy bills. Even a few cents soon add up over the year.

Saving energy doesn’t mean you have to sit in a cold or boiling hot house and not enjoy your life. You can still save money on your bills while living comfortably, and if you follow the above tips, you won’t notice much difference, other than the smaller bills coming through your door.

 

How to Prepare Your New Startup for Business

As most serial entrepreneurs will tell you, coming up with the idea for a new business really is the easiest part of your whole endeavor. If you fail to manage the set-up period of your business with foresight and adequate planning, it’s likely that you’ll be left without a coherent and working business as you enter into your first few months and even years of operations. This article intervenes just before this moment in order to direct you to the key areas of set-up solidity you’ll need to work on in order to get your startup truly ready to enter the market.

Staff and Hiring

Startups are often liable to rapid growth. A small foothold in the market can quickly expand exponentially, leaving you with far too many orders to manage and far too little time and staff to manage them. The key here, therefore, is to have a back-up for the speedy hiring of staff members. You might choose to:

  • Set up flexible and temporary contracts with individuals who might be able to help in peak periods
  • Set up a relationship with a recruitment agency in order to get quick temp work when it’s needed
  • Run a constant call for applications on job sites in order to constantly find resumes on your in-tray

However you choose to manage this staff requirement, you should ensure you’re prepared for high volumes of orders.

Equipment

If you’re not entirely a web-based business, it’s absolutely imperative that you have your own processes, procedures and supply chain requirements planning to the umpteenth degree in order to operate efficiently when you come to start trading. Do your research, and check out sites such as https://www.superdrysystems.com/desiccant-air-dryer-systems.html, where you’ll discover expert equipment like industrial air dryers, that can help you manage your supply chain better. Onboard these early in order to comfortably embed them into your processes when you begin trading as a startup.

Financial Modelling

Your financial models will form part of your strategy for your startup in the months and years ahead, partly because you’ve been setting yourself financial goals and perhaps showing these to investors. As such, you’re looking for ways to match the figures you came up with. Model and plan your finances in order to:

  • Anticipate when you might need a cash injection to bolster your startup
  • Understand how much cash you need to invest in your company
  • Get a solid understanding of your cash-flow from the get-go
  • Be on top of payroll, tax and other business fees all in one place

Finances are the base of your company, so make sure you get them right before you embark on your business adventure.

Digital Tools

Don’t forget that, while you’re forging a new identity for your company in the digital age, that there are literally thousands of apps and software packages to help you do business better. If you’re interested in onboarding this kind of product or service into your business, it’s time you did the research in order to weigh up the pricing plan with what you expect it’ll save you in the long-run.

These tips are designed for startup entrepreneurs who’re ready to take their business into market for a successful and bright future.