Contrary to what some people might be thinking, yoga is not just for the young and middle aged. It is not just about body bending, muscle flexing, and upside down postures that you probably often see in magazines and TV. As a form of exercise that is good for your physical and mental well-being, yoga can actually be practiced by anyone of any age. So if you’re not that young anymore and are starting to have or already have the maladies of old age (that is, rheumatism, arthritis, high blood pressure, etc.), do not fret because you can still—and you should better—practice yoga.

Certain yoga asanas or postures are ideal for the not-so-young. These postures help balance the mental functions and prevent health problems. The following are some of them.

How To Do Yoga for Seniors (video)

Dog Pose. As this asana’s name suggests, you get on the floor like a dog: kneeling and hands flat down with fingers pointing forward. You bend your spine towards the floor and bend it back up, tucking in your abdomen and lowering your head. Then you relax your muscles and let your spine arch naturally towards the floor. The dog pose exercises your back muscles and improves the flexibility of your spine, though is not advisable if you have a back pain or injury.

Double Leg Raise. Here, you lie flat on the floor and bring your both your legs up so your torso and legs would form a 90 degree angle. But here’s the catch: you do that without bending your knees and with your back always flat on the floor. Yes, this exercise is a bit hard to do exactly according to the rules, but hey, practice makes perfect. And if you’ve practiced enough, you can try to “upgrade” by bringing your legs down more slowly each time. The double leg raise will strengthen your muscles on your back, legs, and abdomen.

Locust Pose. Designed to relieve fatigue and strengthen your abdominal and limb muscles, the locust pose is one of the quite simple exercises in yoga. You just lay flat on your stomach with your arms at your sides. Then bring your head up then slowly lift your upper body and arms, with the latter maintained parallel to the floor. Then lift your legs to complete the locust-like position.

Corpse Pose. This is one of the most basic yoga exercises. Not because it is easy but because it is practiced in almost every yoga session. It is often used as some sort of transition between other yoga exercises, because it requires less movement. You lie on the floor with your arms lying relaxed some distance away from your body. You rotate your legs one at a time inside and out. Then you turn your head left and right to exercise the spine. And then you do the slightly difficult part: you stretch yourself out by pulling your limbs, neck, and body away from each other, while practicing deep or abdominal breathing. Concentrate on your breathing and clear your mind. This pose reduces stress, helps you concentrate, and is good for insomnia, diabetes, and constipation.

Chair Yoga. Chair yoga is one of the least physically straining forms of yoga and can be performed by just about anyone and was specifically developed for the elderly. Another great thing about chair yoga is you can do it sitting down and can do it just about anywhere. A chair is used for support while doing yoga poses, enabling even handicapped individuals to perform the yoga poses.

Obesity comes with various medical complications such as high blood pressure and diabetes. The social and emotional stigma associated with it can be detrimental to the teenager. Attempting to lose weight can be disappointing especially when there are poor results. During this time, parents can offer support and gentle understanding as well as express their willingness to help their child overcome obesity.

Teenage girls can be particularly sensitive to their weight and body image. As a parent, it is your job to make them see that there is no such thing as a perfect body and ideal weight. What may be considered as right weight for one person might not be applicable to another.

Encourage your child to set their mind on adopting behaviors that would lead to a healthy weight. You can work hand in hand with your family doctor in setting realistic goals for body mass index and weight depending on the age, height, and general health condition of your child.
In addition, you should make your child understand that reducing their weight is a lifetime commitment. Fad diets lack iron, calcium, and other essential nutrients. Likewise, taking weight reduction pills will not help solve the cause of the problem. Often their effects are short-term without any change in their lifestyle.

As in the case of adults, teenagers require at least an hour of physical activity daily. However, this does not mean that they have to undergo 60 minutes of stretching or physical exercise.
Taking short and repeated bursts of exercise will be helpful in shedding off those unwanted calories.

Moreover, participating in team sports through the school or community is also an excellent way to encourage physical activity. If your child is not an athlete or having second thoughts participating in certain sports, you can encourage them to take a walk or ride a bike can help shed off excess fat.

Shooting hoops in the driveway, jumping rope, or walking the dog can also help reduce excess calories. Vacuuming and washing the car can likewise offer aerobic benefits.

Encouraging your child to wake up early to eat their breakfast can be difficult but important. Serving a healthy breakfast can kick off their metabolism and provide the energy they need for the day. It will also help them from consuming too much food during the entire day.

If your child avoids high-fiber cereals or whole wheat toast, you can serve the previous nights leftovers instead. Serving one string cheese or a few servings of nuts or a couple of fruits can be healthy.

Making your child eat a healthy meal can be challenging in the light of vending machines lining up their school halls. Encourage your child to substitute a bag of chips with any of the following healthier alternative can be helpful:

* A slice of red, orange, or yellow peppers
* Frozen grapes
* Strawberries, oranges, and other varieties of fresh fruits
* Cherry tomatoes
* String cheese
* Low-fat yogurt or pudding
* Graham crackers
* Pretzels

Encouraging weight loss in your teenage child requires you to work hand in hand with your child on a daily basis. Being there for them can go a long way in their road to a healthy lifestyle.

Don’t wait for tomorrow, start now for a well known acne scars removing procedure.

To eliminate your Acne might be a boring and very tough mission to accomplish. It does not help out a good deal with the aim of removing your acne from different kinds of treatment and procedure available in the market. Most of the people especially the teenagers are very much confused in deciding the right medications against their acne. It is also further irritating because of the propagation and profusion of natural home remedies.

Here are some of the effective ways to eliminate your acne.

All of the bacteria can be easily transfer or multiply from one place to another by means of touching, pressing, rubbing or pricking them, so you must avoid it. Just like small wound that make you worse if you touch them. In relation to it, scars can be formed.

When you decide to apply for a medical treatment, look for an ingredient that is active with benzoyl peroxide. If you apply this treatment, do it twice a day and satisfactorily help to remove your acne. As a starter, you could begin with a low-concentration product and through the next couple of days add more concentration. You can also use treatment products with sulfur and resorcinol.

Wash thoroughly with water and mild soap in your infected skin. Warning: do not overuse soap because it will lead more skin damage that causes dryness that makes you irritate. While on the road to recovery from your long time acne problems, you must avoid using bumpy sponges, brushes and/or granulated cleansers particularly when applying for a makeup. Instead of using oil-based cosmetics you must prefer that is water-based.

When you have acne, avoid using oily hair and skin products such as gels and facial moisturizers. These products will irritate your skin even more. You must avoid touching your skin as much as possible when you have acne. Touching them will eventually transfer to another place and multiply that will cause you more irritation and makes your life worse.

Regular showers, at least twice a day, is a good idea. Dermatologist suggests that you must take a shower in the morning before going to your school/office and in the evening before going to bed. This act will eliminate the impurities and excess oil in your skin.

There are some evidences that stress (either work or emotional stress) is the main suspect of your acne formation. Try not to make your life stressful while you are in the acne recovery. Enough sleep can also help in reducing your acne. Try to get at least 6-8 hours of sleep each night.

We didn’t tackle any natural remedies but you will be advice to have a research about it if you really want to rid your Acne by these kinds of remedies. With the above suggestions you will be beautiful again. Have a happy beautiful life!

Colon cleansing, an old hygienic practice once ignored, is now enjoying a revival of sorts. The rebuke came after some earlier findings that colon cleansing is unnecessary and that the body can do the job itself.

Urban professionals gave it another look. Somehow, a host of modern health problems such as chronic fatigue, constipation, allergies, etc. are now attributed to faulty colons and that this waste disposal system of the body just has to be cleansed.

Colon cleansing methods

Colon cleansing adherents cannot agree on just one method. Today, there are at least three ways in colon cleansing: colonics (sometimes known as colon irrigation), herbal package products, and diet alteration programs.

Colon irrigation is popular among people who want instant solutions to problems. The biggest objection to colonics, however, is the price and the invasive nature of the process. Water, mixed with some other organic cleansers, is pumped into the colon and flushes out the toxins and other waste matter.

The most affordable method – diet programming – takes the longest. This method simply alters one’s diet and supplants it with foods that are naturally beneficial. Fresh fruits and vegetables takes the biggest portion of the diet for a given time period.

Ideal colon cleanser

A whole new industry is now behind some of the most successful colon cleansing products in the market. For the most part, these manufacturers agree that not one product package in the market today is suited to all.

However, they all agree that the ideal colon cleanser should have all the four essentials –fiber, an herbal laxative, an anti-parasite medication, and a probiotic.

Soluble fiber

One of the most important components of the package would be fiber. They create the bulk needed to eliminate waste. Soluble fiber expands and cleans the colon walls as it passes through, collecting all the impacted waste matter in hard-to-reach nooks and crannies.

After the fiber had collected and removed the wastes including parasites and yeasts, the body gets rid of the fat used in protecting itself from these toxins. The surprise result is some measurable weight loss.

Two of the more popular soluble fibers used in these colon cleansing agents are those from Psyllium husks and oat bran.

Herbal laxative

One important consideration in choosing the right herbal laxative is its safety and non-habit forming qualities. Another is to avoid the effects harsh chemical qualities in others.
An herbal laxative is needed to eliminate the waste fast. Food left to stay longer in the colon than necessary will be re-absorbed.

Once the body is restored to its former state of health and the bowel movements are now regular, these herbal laxatives are immediately removed from the combination. Some strong and potent herbs used nowadays to stimulate bowel movements are Cascara Sagrada and Senna.

Anti-Parasite Herbal Remedy

Another herbal ingredient gets rid of harmful parasites from the colon. Some packages use a combination of different herbs to eliminate not just the adult parasites themselves but also their larvae and eggs.

One strong combination is composed of black walnut hulls, wormwood, and cloves. The walnut hull and wormwood destroy adults and the growing stages of more than a hundred parasites. The cloves destroy the eggs.

Probiotic Blend

In destroying the parasites within the colon, some beneficial bacteria become collateral damage. A good probiotic is needed to re-grow this helpful body flora. Good bacteria help the environment free from harmful yeasts or other parasites from coming back.

Lactobacillus Acidophilus and Bifidobacterium Lactis are two reliable names in probiotics.

Needs for colon cleansing

Understanding of the main components of the ideal colon cleanser is one big step in getting to know colon cleansing. However, it is also important to realize that no one combination works for everyone. What is perfect for someone may not work properly for another.

Having a good idea about the active ingredients of a product helps one to try to search others that fits one’s body system. Somewhere along the way, one will finally meet the ideal combination of a colon cleanser suited to one’s very own body, temperament, and satisfaction.

Practitioners claim there are many benefits, and so do medical studies and researches. Yoga, which is simply based on the premise of uniting the body, mind, and soul, has surprising benefits for the whole being of a person—from managing diseases to connecting to the inner self.

Physical Benefits
Perhaps the most known benefits of yoga are the ones that are strongly associated to the physical wellness of a person. In fact, it is its physical benefits that draw more people to yoga. By doing yoga poses, both simple and elaborate, the body muscles are stretched, thereby making a person stronger, more agile, and more flexible. Yoga also massages all organs of the body, including those that are not externally stimulated. This, in turn, keeps the body from afflicting diseases, or gives off warnings at the first sign of disease.

Yoga poses also make an individual more aware of his body alignment and patterns of movement. After consistent practices, an individual starts to show remarkable improvements in posture, balance, and energy.

Biochemical Benefits
Medical studies have found that yoga positively impacts the body chemistry of a person, resulting in an improved heath. Yoga, for instance, was found to lower cholesterol and triglycerides levels in the body, and therefore can help people with hypertension and heart ailments. Yoga movements also improve the lymphatic system, which consequently boosts the body’s immunity function. In addition, yoga is said to increase red blood cells in the body. An increased level wards off the possibility of anemia.

Psychological Benefits
The amount of concentration required to doing yoga poses trains an individual to quiet his mind, dwell only on the present, and leave the anxieties of the past and the future. When done with deep and mindful breathing, it gently disengages a person from the surrounding tension and allows him to embrace the calmness of being. As he regularly practices yoga, he learns to live at peace and deal with stressors and generally all the troubles of life with a better outlook and positive attitude. The general outcome is a happy, peaceful, and relaxed person.

Spiritual Benefits
The spiritual benefits of yoga may not be comprehensively explained by scientific researches and studies, but practitioners report that practicing the disciplines of yoga allows them to get in touch with their inner selves, cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness and confidence, and have better relationship with others. It also opens a window to connect better with their God and have an improved understanding of them. Though not always easy to understand, life for them has suddenly become meaningful.

The spiritual benefits of yoga prove that it does not just heal and improve the visible and physical, but also corrects the invisible and underlying foundations of confusion, unhappiness, and stress. Yoga is all about the complete health of a being, and it provides that by bringing completeness to the body, mind, and soul all at the same time. There lies the beauty of yoga.

Believe it or not, you can find everything you need to make this oil removal mask in your kitchen. Kitchen? Yes, you heard right. Oatmeal is one of the additional wonders and aids in controlling, treating and preventing acne outbreaks. We all know that one of the famous wonders of oatmeal is being a medical treatment for our heart. Is there any connection from the heart to your skin in terms of benefits of the oatmeal? Using your oatmeal you bought from the grocery can help you make a mask and see the benefits in treating your acne disease. Here is a simple step-by-step procedure in making an oil removal masks from oatmeal.

First, mix your favorite ¾ cup oatmeal through half a cup of water, and then boil it for three to five minutes just like cooking your instant noodles. Remove from heat. When the boiled oatmeal is already cool, mix it with a quarter cup of honey and stir well. Is it simple? You’ve been produce an instant oatmeal mask against your acne in just 8 minutes or less.

With the oatmeal is your primary ingredient for oil-removal and mixture purpose. When you apply it to your skin, excess oil will immersed from your pores. It also helps to remove your dead skin cells and somehow exfoliates the skin roughness. As of this moment, you are wondering the purpose of the honey you mixed a while ago. Honey can only added in your oil removal oatmeal masks to make it pasty. The stickiness of the honey will help the mask to paste into your skin.

Upon applying your homemade oatmeal mask, you must pay attention and apply with care away into your eyes. You will experience upon applying an eye irritation. How to prevent it? You can still use a used clean tea bag. Put them into the eyelids upon applying the oatmeal mask to your facial skin. The tea bag had a big responsibility to protect your eyes against irritation and redness while on the process.

After completely applied the oatmeal mask against your acne, you must leave it there pasted for about 15 to 20 minutes. As of this moment, you will feel sticky and uncomfortable but don’t worry about that, think of it the benefits the oatmeal had made for your Acne treatment. After your desired minutes, wash your face gently. Don’t forget not to leave the mask pasted in your face for more than 20 minutes because it is had and very sticky against your skin when completely dried up. Imagine how sticky to remove the oatmeal mask away from your facial skin, truly unbearable.

When you try this very simple and an effective home remedy for your excess oil removal as well as your Acne treatment is actually a big step in fighting skin problems.

People thought the body’s internal disposal system needed help, along the lines of external hygienic practices such as brushing one’s teeth, taking baths, washing hair and cutting nails. Ancient medicine men then developed ways and devices for cleaning the bowels.

However, today’s medical authorities discredited the idea and declared that it does not have any medical value at all. On the contrary, they discovered a list of potential hazards in the practice.

Surprisingly, many people today swore by its medical benefits. As a matter of fact, a whole industry specializing in the manufacture of equipments and other related products are doing brisk business.

The authorities do not actually regulate the use of colon cleansing equipments and products associated with cleansing the colon. However, it exercises control on these manufacturing companies mostly on safety issues, false claims, and quality control.

Like all things in excess, overdoing bowel cleaning is not beneficial. Nor is it recommended.

Here are the top seven in the collated warning notes for users, actual or potential.

1. First order: always consult with your doctor. He is a medical practitioner. He knows your body and your health better than anyone. ‘Anyone’ includes friends and family, especially those people who are selling medical products and equipments for colon cleansing.

   This is a very important consideration, especially if one is currently taking any medication or has other health problems.

2. Always inspect the list of ingredients and their amounts in herbal supplements designed for colon cleansing. The basic premise is that you might be allergic to them, or that they might cause you some other health problems by way of interaction or amount.

   Example: Certain laxatives used in colon cleansing, such as those with sodium phosphate, can cause a rise in your electrolytes, which can be dangerous if you have kidney or heart disease.

3. If a medical practitioner engages the cleansing himself, make sure that he has a good reputation, is widely known in his circles or in the profession at large.

   Important, too, would be to make sure that what he uses are disposable devices and not those that had been used previously.

4. Avoid companies selling colon cleansing products with very broad, inflated claims of efficacy. Nowadays, the advertising thrust is that cleaning the bowels will cure specific illnesses (constipation, arthritis, etc.) or the fuzzy claim that colon cleansing can really improve one’s general health conditions.
5. Stay well hydrated by drinking lots of fluid if undergoing colon cleansing. This is to prevent dehydration which can be potentially dangerous. Some enema preparations have been associated with heart attacks and electrolyte imbalances.
6. If colon cleansing is used for treatment against constipation, try drinking water and other fluids first. It is also good dietary practice to eat fiber-rich foods and getting regular exercises to fight constipation problems.
7. Finally, repeated colon cleansing may interfere with the proper functioning of the colon itself. Some people become dependent on laxatives and enemas to move their bowels.
   Moreover, there is danger of loss of vitamins and minerals that have to be replaced. Some herbs used may reduce the effectiveness of other medication because of interaction.

What all these means is to simply be on alert. The medical profession may not have slammed on the practice because it is still along the lines of personal hygiene. What the authorities may be concerned about is the extensive commercialization and some over-the-top claims just to help in sales.

In the end, people may have forgotten that the body has its own amazing mechanisms on how to clean itself internally. Barring diseases and excessive strain, colon cleansing is, to be honest, simply redundant.

Myth 1: Fad diet results are forever

Fad diets or popular weight loss program scan help you lose your weight in a short period of time, but it does not help you in keeping the pounds away. Making sure that you would be staying fit and maintaining the weight that you have achieved is by making changes on your lifestyle. There is approximately 95 percent of fad diet followers who would regain their weight after a year or two.

We are what we eat. What we are are based on our food intake, activity or exercise routine. Weight loss is not just about sacrificing unhealthy food that we love once in a while. It is about consistently eating healthy and making nutritious food choices, eating the right amount of food, and increasing physical activity.

Myth 2: There are certain food like grapefruit and celery that could help in weight loss

Unfortunately, scientific studies have found out that these cannot burn fat. Although, it is possible for some food to increase the metabolism of the body, it does not mean that it could burn fat and lead to weight loss. The best way to burn fat is to limit the amount of saturated fat, unhealthy food and calories that you intake. And at the same time, increase your physical activity like exercise and mobility.

Myth 3: Low-fat or non-fat food or drinks means that it has zero calories.

Processed foods are never calorie-free. Sometimes the non-fat or low-fat would have the same number of calories compared with the regular product. Non-fat or low-fat products could contain additional sugar, flour or ingredients which could still add to calorie number of the product. So what you can do to limit your calorie intake? Check the Nutrition Facts label of the processed food to identify how much calorie it is for each serving. You would based how much you eat to limit your calorie intake.

Myth 4: To lose weight faster, miss meals.

This is among the most common myth. Studies showed that if you skip breakfast or any meal it is more likely to increase their weight. Why? Because they feel more hungry throughout the day and eat more in the next meal. It would be better to eat four to five times a day in small proportions. Just make sure that the food you will be eating is healthy, low-fat and low-calorie.

Myth 5: Eating red meat would increase your weight. This is the same for dairy products.

Yes it is true that red meat contains fat and cholesterol, but it also contain protein, iron and zinc which is essential for the body to function properly. When eating red meat, it is best to avoid those that have visible fat. You could choose mead with lower fat like tenderloin, extra lean ground beef, flank steak, and similar kinds of meat.

For dairy products, there are low-fat and non-fat milk, yogurt and cheeses which has the same nutritional value but lower in fat and calories.

These are just some of myths surrounding weight loss. Bottomline is, if you would like to lose weight and retain the results for longer period of time, then lifestyle change is the key. You would have to be committed in sticking to a healthy dietary plan and change the bad eating habits that you have learned over the years. This may be difficult since change does not happen overnight. Just take it one-step-at-a-time. Losing weight does not mean how many pounds you have lost in a week, but how successful you were in the long run.

If you think that naked yoga is about doing yoga naked, then you couldn’t be more right. Naked or nude yoga indeed is practicing yoga without clothes on. It was popularized in the west in the late 60’s when some filmmakers depicted it in their movies. And not long after, groups teaching naked yoga slowly started sprouting out. The first groups, however, had been mostly for male only and had few students. But what can one expect? Even if you belong to one of the most liberal-minded nations in the west, you probably would still know about physical personal privacy, which is, not showing your naked body to total strangers.

Today, this kind of yoga has already gained considerable popularity even among women. Most classes are just all-male or all-female, but many yogis are now also holding co-ed classes in which they don’t run out of students. So, you might ask, how could all these people do the whole mind-body-spirit yogic exercises while being butt-naked in the presence of other people? The answer: they just let go.

Different yogis have different ways of instructing students in naked yoga classes. Some let their students mingle, while some don’t, because they want to make it clear that their classes aren’t for people merely looking for romantic partners. But one thing is the same among nude yoga instructors: they will all do their best to put you at ease in their class.

Yogis help their students let go of embarrassment and any uncomfortable feeling by telling them that one’s body is a temple that contains oneself. Clothes are merely materials used to protect the body and are not extensions of the body. Thus, one should not feel any discomfort when removing his or her clothes. Clothes, as yogis say, are not really in accordance to the principles of yoga. They aren’t referring to the clothes per se, but to clothes as symbols of social division, materialism, and lack of respect for one’s body.

Well, isn’t it true? People wear clothes to show they are distinguished and have money to spend. People judge other people by their clothes. People wear and don’t wear certain types of clothes, because they want to hide their bodily imperfections—scars, sagging breasts, birthmarks, stunted manhood, cellulite, etc. And thus, people don’t accept themselves—their bodies, especially—as they are.

As for letting other people see what your mother only saw when you we’re a baby, yogis would tell you that you should not be embarrassed because we are all part of nature; we are equal, we are the same, and we are one. Thus, you should think of other naked bodies as something natural. And, just as with your own body, think of other’s bodies as sacred temples you should respect. In this way, you get to respect others’ bodies and accept your own as it is.

But aside from these “freeing one’s body” reasons, naked yoga also gives the advantage of letting the yogi see the actual alignment of the student’s body. Even with body-fitting clothes or so-called yoga outfits, the yogi might still miss what the student is doing wrong in a yogic posture or asana.

Having done yoga using only their yoga mat, some naked yoga practitioners find it indeed a better way to do yoga. So why not try it yourself? At least you wouldn’t have to worry about butt crack peeping while you do certain poses.

Keep yourself hydrated. We’ve always been told to drink at least eight glasses of water a day, and there’s more than just one reason for that. Dehydration has been pinpointed as one of the reasons for having dry skin since the skin is not getting enough moisture to keep it healthy and supple. If you haven’t made it a habit to drink plenty of fluids, start doing so now. Water not only helps in moisturizing your skin from the inside, it also aids in cleansing by flushing the toxins out of your body and lessens your chances of having clogged pores.

Minimize contact with water. No, this is not a contradiction to the previous step made to confuse you. If you think that a faster way to hydrate your skin would be to apply water on it as much as possible, think again. Water may be moisturizing your skin while it’s still wet, but once it dries up, it also strips away the natural oils and leaves you even drier than before. This can lead to more skin flaking off, accumulating in the pores and leading to more breakouts.

Cleanse your skin. Remove dirt, oil, makeup and other irritants that may have made their way to your skin throughout the day. Try using oil-free toners or hypoallergenic skin cleansers. Always remember to clean your face before bedtime, otherwise you’ll only be allowing more bacteria to accumulate and more pores to get clogged.

Moisturize constantly. Moisturizers might not be the first thing that will come to your mind when thinking about treating acne or at least preventing further breakouts, but when the acne is appearing on dry skin, applying the right moisturizer can help alleviate the irritation and won’t worsen your acne. There are already different types of moisturizers to choose from: creams, gels, water-based, oil-free, and more. Once you’ve found the one that suits you best and does not worsen your skin condition, apply it everyday right after showering since it is at this time when it’s easiest for the skin to absorb the moisturizer.

Reconsider your acne treatment. Have you been using the same medication for your acne for a long time now? If you find your acne and your dry skin getting better throughout this time, well and good. However, if you’ve found that some of your conditions are getting worse, it might not just be the changes in temperature and season that are causing it. Perhaps it’s time to set another appointment with your dermatologist and have him check if your current treatment is still working as effectively as you expect it to.

The main purpose of dry skin acne treatments is to keep your skin free from irritation and aggravation to prevent it from flaking, cracking, and becoming more painful than it already is. Just make your own effective regimen to clean and moisturize the skin and follow it religiously. Sooner or later, you’ll find that your winters won’t be as cold and drying as it used to be anymore.