A Cold or the Flu? Use These 8 Symptoms to Find Out

It’s the holiday season, but, unfortunately, it’s also cold and flu season. You can take steps to prevent getting a cold or the flu by washing your hands frequently with warm soapy water, avoiding contact with infected people and contaminated surfaces, and getting a flu vaccine. However, sometimes these steps aren’t enough.

Colds can happen at any time throughout the year, whereas flu outbreaks tend to be seasonal. In the United States, seasonal flu activity generally peaks between late December and early March. In order for the flu vaccine to be effective, it needs to be administered early enough for the body to react to it and produce protective antibodies before being exposed to the virus. These antibodies develop within two weeks of receiving a flu vaccine (so get your vaccine now, if you haven’t already!).

Why Medical Professionals Insist on Making You Describe Your Pain

Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. It’s a protective mechanism (pain causing a recoil or limp prevents you from further injuring your already compromised body part). Not only does pain indicate that there is a problem, but it can also give you clues as to the extent and location of the injury and which type(s) of tissue are damaged.

6 Stretches for Instrumentalists

This article continues a series examining upper body stretches for specific types of performing artists. The grouping of stretches presented in this article is targeted toward musicians who play while seated with their arms elevated. Future articles in this series will identify key upper body stretches for dancers and musicians who play with their arms lower than the musicians addressed here.

Ten Keys to Making it through Thanksgiving without Feeling More Stuffed than the Turkey

Thanksgiving is a great holiday to get together with family and friends and remember all of the great things and people we have in our lives. Unfortunately, it also has a reputation of offering way more food than anyone could possibly eat without exploding. Survive the multitude of heavy sides, savory entrees, and mouth-watering desserts by following the following tips.

Yoga for Performing Artists: 7 Ideal Poses for Dancers

This is the second article in a series designed to help you identify a handful of yoga positions that will be most beneficial to your particular performance genre. The first article was for marching band members.  This article focuses on dancers.  Check back for future articles for instrumentalists (not marching) and stage crew.

Practicing yoga offers performers many significant benefits, including lowering stress levels, promoting physical and mental relaxation, improving balance, and maintaining or improving flexibility. All of these things can help keep your immune system functioning optimally, maintain a healthy body weight, and reduce the likelihood of falls that can cause injuries. Additionally, regular yoga practice can improve body awareness, which can improve precision of movement, improve aesthetic qualities of performance and movement, lower unnecessary muscular tension, and improve posture.

10 Keys to Saving your Back...and Your Performing Career

This is the second article in a series examining low back pain and injury in the performing arts.

Nearly all people, active or otherwise, will experience back pain at some point in their lives. Most often, back pain is caused by a combination of poor posture and bad mechanics, specifically lifting technique. Adhering to the rules of lifting can save you a great deal of pain and disability – and may even keep you from missing rehearsals and performances due to back pain.

Your Guide to Pain Medicine

Pain is the most common reason people seek medical attention, so it’s no surprise that there are so many different medicines designed to reduce or eliminate pain. Pain signals are sent to the brain through the body’s nerves after pain receptors on the nerve endings have been activated by chemical, mechanical, or thermal damage to tissue cells. Medication and therapeutic treatments aimed at reducing pain work through a variety of mechanisms, including removing/limiting the irritants that contribute to pain, raising the threshold of the nerve endings to delay pain signal transmission (you have to be in more pain before your nerves decide that it’s important enough to tell your brain about it), or preventing or removing the swelling that increases mechanical pressure on nerve endings.

Pain medicine covers a wide range of types of medication, including counterirritants, local anesthetics, analgesics (narcotic and non-narcotic), anti-inflammatories (including steroid-based and non-steroid-based), and antipyretics. This article only addresses oral medication (pills) that is available over the counter (OTC) (as opposed to prescription medications), focusing primarily on analgesics and anti-inflammatories.