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The importance of SEO for small local businesses.

In today’s digital era, the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for small local businesses cannot be overstated. SEO is the art and science of enhancing your online presence to rank higher in search engine results, thereby increasing visibility and driving more organic traffic to your website. This is crucial for small businesses aiming to compete in a crowded market and attract more customers locally.

Firstly, SEO helps small local businesses become more discoverable. With the right strategies, your business can appear at the top of search results when potential customers search for relevant products or services. This enhanced visibility is essential in driving foot traffic to brick-and-mortar locations and boosting online sales.

Moreover, SEO is cost-effective. Unlike paid advertising, which requires continuous investment to maintain visibility, SEO offers a long-term solution to improve your online presence organically. By investing time and effort into SEO, small businesses can achieve sustainable growth without breaking the bank.

To leverage SEO effectively, here are some practical tips for small local businesses:

1. **Optimize for Local Searches**: Use local keywords in your website’s content, titles, and meta descriptions. Include your city or region’s name to appear in local search results. Also, claim your Google My Business listing to enhance your visibility in local directories and maps.

2. **Mobile-Friendly Website**: With the increasing use of mobile devices for internet browsing, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is essential. A responsive design improves user experience and contributes positively to your SEO rankings.

3. **Quality Content**: Publish high-quality, relevant content that addresses the needs and questions of your target audience. Use keywords naturally and create valuable content that positions your business as an authority in your niche.

4. **Build Local Links**: Network with other local businesses and websites to get links back to your site. High-quality backlinks are a significant factor in how search engines rank your site.

5. **Optimize for Speed**: Ensure your website loads quickly to reduce bounce rates. Fast loading times improve user experience and positively impact your SEO rankings.

Incorporating these SEO tips into your website can significantly impact your small local business’s online presence. By focusing on SEO, you’re not just enhancing your visibility; you’re also building credibility and trust with your target audience, which is invaluable for long-term success.


How to Use AI for Your Small Business

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have you ever heard of artificial intelligence Ai and wondered if it could help your small business the good news is it absolutely can I isn’t just for giant tech companies anymore even mom and pop shops can leverage its power to work smarter save time and ultimately grow their success but hold on let’s ditch the confusing jargon think of AI as a superpowered assistant that tackles repetitive tasks analyzes data like a whiz and even helps you understand your customers better sounds pretty cool right so how can you put this helpful robot to work for your business here are three key areas where I can make a big impact one marketing magic imagine creating targeted ads that reach the perfect customers writing engaging content that resonates with your audience and even scheduling social media posts without lifting a finger with AI tools all this and more is possible one say goodbye to guesswork AI analyzes your customer data to to understand their preferences and predict what they’ll respond to one this means you can create marketing campaigns that are laser focused maximizing your return on investment two content creation Made Easy Need help writing website copy crafting catchy emails or generating social media captions AI writing assistance can help you create high quality content in minutes saving you valuable time and resources three become a social media Rockstar AI schedulers can automatically publish your content at the best times saving you the hassle of manual posting three they can even engage with your audience answering simple questions and keeping the conversation flowing two customer service superhero tired of long wait times and repetitive inquiries AI powered chat Bots can be your 247 customer service Champions one always there to help chatbot can answer frequently asked questions handle simple requests and even direct customers to the right resources es one this frees up your human team to focus on more complex issues and provide personalized support two personalize The Experience AI can remember past interactions and tailor its responses to each customer creating a more engaging and helpful experience three get valuable insights chatbots gather data on customer interactions helping you understand their needs and identify areas for improvement three data detective data is gold but turning it into insights can be a challenge I can be your data analysis Mastermind uncovering hidden patterns and Trends you might miss one make smarter decisions AI can analyze your sales data website traffic and other sources to identify what’s working and what’s not one this empowers you to make datadriven decisions that boost your bottom line two predict the future AI can forecast future sales customer behavior and even potential risks two this helps you prepare for what’s ahead and make proactive adjustments to your business strategy three simplify complex tasks from automating sales reports to identifying fraudulent transactions AI can handle timeconsuming data tasks freeing your team to focus on strategic initiatives remember I is a tool not a replacement its real power lies in complimenting your human expertise not replacing it use I to handle the mundane so your team can focus on what they do best creativity Innovation and connecting with your customers ready to get started here are some tips one start small choose one area where I can make a big impact and experiment with a simple tool two focus on your needs don’t get caught up in the hype choose AI solutions that address your specific business challenges three do your research explore different options and compare features before making a decision four start with a free trial many AI tools offer free trials allowing you to test them out before committing with the right approach AI can be a GameChanger for your small business so embrace the future Unleash the Power of your superpowered assistant and watch your business reach New Heights

 

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A Hartford doctor’s advice on preventing show shoveling injuries

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Connecticut app, and with the heavy, wet snow on the way, we need to talk about safety. According to Harvard Medical School, about 100 people die every year in the US during or just after shoveling snow. Most of them are men, many more people are admitted to the hospital because of a medical emergency. Related to shoveling, and a study in Canada from 1981 to 2014 found that if more than eight inches of snow fell, there was a 16% increase in admissions compared to days with no snow.  Here is the weather forcast.

 

The more it snowed and the longer it snowed, the higher the rates of heart attacks.

Now, given that we’re speaking with a doctor about ways to prevent and reduce the risks, given that we’re speaking with a doctor about ways to prevent and reduce the risks. Joining us now is Doctor Annamie Singh, medical director of Emergency medicine at Hartford Hospital. Thank you so much for being here.

 

Now, those statistics are pretty shocking. Are there certain patients who have certain health risks that you recommend?

Not shovel snow at all. >> So a person who is not in good physical shape will not all of a sudden start running at seven miles per hour. So consider this an equivalent of the same. So if you are not in a good physical shape, or if you have a compromised heart and have been told by your doctors not to physically exert yourself , then you should definitely consider not shoveling at all because it causes a lot of stress on your cardiovascular system. >> Definitely something to take into consideration.

Now, what are some of the heart attack signs that men and women should watch out for? >> So the typical heart attack signs that we all hear and, uh, are aware about is chest pressure, difficulty breathing.

 

A Hartford doctor's advice on preventing show shoveling injuries

But sometimes the signs and symptoms can vary and can be a little bit confusing and can be as gentle as just this generalized feeling of weakness and overbearing. Exhausting Sometimes it can be nausea, sometimes it can be like headedness. So the typical the typical symptoms might not be present.

And this is especially true for females and for diabetic people, as well as people on the more older side. >> Of course, back injuries are pretty common when shoveling. If someone unfortunately strains their muscles, how do you recommend treating that at home and when does it become a situation where someone needs to go see a doctor? >> First of all, you should make sure that your posture is right, that your back is well supported , that your core is braced to support your back, but if it happens, then the one of the things that we highly recommend is rest resting itself can help your body recover much faster.

 

Then depending upon your preference, use cold packs or heat packs can help with the symptoms as well.

If there is no contraindication, then taking Tylenol or any other paracetamol formulation or ibuprofen formulation in the recommended dosage are the first couple of medications that we generally recommend for people with back pain. I would be very, very careful if this was excruciating pain, which is unlikely. What you experience when you go through a back pain. Other symptoms to watch out for would be numbness or, uh, loss of sensation or tingling in your legs. Uh, any problem peeing or, uh, any weakness?

Uh, not an inability from the pain, but actual weakness that you are experiencing in your lower extremity.

 

Those are the signs and symptoms which really worries us. >> Do you have any other tips you’d like to share to help people stay safe ahead of this snowfall? Avoid driving if you can during heavy storms because, uh, trauma and accidents are some things that we often see in Ed after especially the first snowstorm, we see a lot of slips and falls happening right after the first snowstorm. >> So be very careful, especially if you’re on the older side.

Our propensity to sustain fractures even from, uh, smaller, low level falls, increases. >> All right. Doctor Singh with.

 

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Direction Specific Exercises for Low Back Pain | Directional Preference

In this video, we will show you direction-specific exercises in case of directional preference and/or centralization. Enroll in our online course now. Link is in the video description. Hi and welcome back to Physioutors. Directional preference and centralization are two phenomena described in the derangement classification of the McKenzie concept.

Directional preference means that repeated movements into one direction, so either flexion, extension, or lateral flexion of the lumbar or cervical spine are able to progressively abolish symptoms and/or increase lumbar range of motion. A systematic review of May et al. in the year 2012 found that 70% of patients did exhibit such a directional preference. The McKenzie concept also talks about the phenomenon of centralization. Centralization is a symptom response to repeated movements, which is characterized by the abolition of spinal pain and referred spinal pain symptoms in a distal to proximal direction.

According to the review of May, 44% of patients presented with centralization. The prevalence was higher among younger patients and in acute low back pain with 74% in comparison with patients above 65, or if back pain was persistent, with 42%.

The presence of centralization was also a useful treatment effect modifier in seven out of eight included studies. In case of directional preference and or centralization, a patient’s symptoms can often be modified by performing repeated movements into the preferred direction. In the following, we will show you a couple of examples for the lumbar spine that we find useful in practice for patients with acute low back pain, with or without radiculopathy.

Direction Specific Exercises for Low Back Pain | Directional Preference

Be aware that this is absolutely no strict application of the McKenzie concept whatsoever. Alright, this was our video on direction-specific exercises for low back pain with or without radicular symptoms. Some patients present with fear avoidance behavior. In this case, exercises that challenge the patient’s fear in a graded exposure manner can be helpful. Click on the video right next to me to get a couple of ideas on how to do that.

A lot of this information and much more can be found in our soon to be released online course for physiotherapy of the spine (released in 2020).

Thanks a lot for watching and I’ll see you in another video. Bye..

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Metabolism & Nutrition, Part 1: Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology #36

I weigh about 80 kilograms. Most of that, let’s say 64 percent, is water — though you can’t tell by looking. I mean, as organisms go, I like to think that I look fairly solid. After water, the next largest proportion of me is protein, about 16% — not just in my muscles, but also in things like the tiny sodium-potassium pumps in my neurons, and the hemoglobin in my blood, and the enzymes driving the chemical reactions in every one of my 37 trillion cells. Then another 16% of me is fat, which I’m totally OK with; Four percent of me is minerals, like the calcium and phosphorus in my bones, and the iron in my blood; and 1 percent is carbohydrates, most of which is either being consumed as I talk to you, or is sitting around as glycogen waiting to be used.

But here’s the thing: It’s not like I just ate 80 kilograms of food and then all this happened. Instead, my body, like yours, is constantly acquiring stuff, extracting some of it to keep, burning some of it for energy, and getting rid of the rest. But even the stuff that my body does hold onto doesn’t last forever. Some of the chemicals that I absorb in my food eventually become a part of me. But enzymes wear out, and membranes break down, and DNA gets oxidized.

So, they get discarded. And then I need more of those chemicals to reconstruct the material that I’ve lost. As a result, over the course of my lifetime, my cells will synthesize somewhere between 225 and 450 kilograms of protein … That’s like 3, or 4, or 5 separate me’s — just made of protein.

And all of the protein and fat and carbohydrates nucleic acids that make up me, of course, come from food. Every organism has to keep taking in and breaking down food, to keep resupplying itself with the raw materials it needs to survive.

And all that activity requires energy, which we also gain from food. So, how do our bodies actually convert what we eat into energy and raw materials? The answer is a neverending series of reactions that are dedicated to doing two vital, and totally contradictory, things: One set of chemical reactions destroys the reactants that you give them, reducing big, complex substances into molecular rubble. And the other set reassembles that rubble into new and bigger products that are put together again to make you.

So our bodies are constantly reinventing themselves — in a perpetual state of loss, but also always rebuilding.

And even though all of this is happening at the cellular level, its consequences could hardly be larger. These two sets of reactions are where everything that we’ve learned so far — about the digestive, endocrine, circulatory, and respiratory systems — really starts to come together. Together, these processes make up your metabolism. Now the sciencey word metabolism has come to have a meaning in popular speech, but metabolism isn’t just one thing. People talk about metabolism as meaning, like, how fast your body burns the fuel in your food, or how high your personal energy level is.

And that’s fine for use by personal trainers and fitness magazines. But physiologically, metabolism really describes every single biochemical reaction that goes on in your body. And maybe more importantly, it reconciles two conflicting chemical processes that are always, simultaneously underway inside of you. One of those chemical forces is anabolism. Anabolic reactions construct things and consume energy.

These are the processes that take the small monomer building blocks in your food — like monosaccharides and fatty and amino acids — and build them into bigger, more complex polymers like carbs, and fats, and proteins that are used in your cells. Then, when you need new building blocks, or you need to release some energy, those polymers in your body, or new ones in your food, get broken up — by catabolic reactions.

The processes of catabolism break down bigger molecules, and in breaking their bonds, release the energy you need to stay warm, and move around, and provide your cells with fuel … to build the polymers back up again. To be honest, your metabolism is a lot like Sisyphus. It works really hard.

But it is never finished. And the boulder that your inner Sisyphus is always pushing uphill and watching fall back down? That’s nutrients — the molecules that your body is forever breaking up, and then rebuilding, only to have them break apart again. And these nutrients — the materials your body needs to build, maintain and repair itself — come in six major groups. By volume, the majority of what we consume — and what makes up our bodies — is water, so that’s maybe the most vital nutrient.

Then there are vitamins, compounds that come in either fat-soluble or water soluble forms. They aren’t used as building blocks or for energy, but they’re essential in helping the body make use of other nutrients that do do those things.

Vitamin C, for example, helps improve iron absorption, while vitamin K is crucial to blood clotting, and some B vitamins are important in the production of ATP from glucose. Minerals, like vitamins, they don’t provide fuel, but they have all sorts of other functions. Calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus harden bones and teeth, while iron is, of course, crucial in hemoglobin.

Plus, potassium, sodium, and chlorine help maintain your body’s pH balance and are used in action potentials. So water, vitamins, and minerals are all … necessary. But the three major nutrients that everyone always talks about — the ones you find on food labels, from oatmeal to Pop-Tarts — are carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. Most of the carbohydrates you’ve ever eaten — with the exception of lactose in milk — originally came from plants.

Mono- and disaccharides come from fruits, honey, sugar beets and sugar cane, while polysaccharide starches come from veggies and grains.

The main thing you need to know is that the monosaccharide glucose is the be-all-end-all molecular fuel that your cells need to make ATP. ATP being the molecule that your cells use to drive anabolic reactions, when they need to make new polymers or get anything else done — whether that’s operating a sodium-potassium pump, or detaching the head of a myosin filament to contract a muscle. But ATP is too unstable to store, so cells often store energy in the form of glucose, which they can then catabolize and convert to ATP when they need it.

Metabolism & Nutrition, Part 1: Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology #36

Now, some of your cells can get their energy from fats. But many of the most important ones, like your neurons and red blood cells, feed exclusively on glucose.

So most of the carbs that your intestines absorb are converted to glucose for that reason. But, if it’s not needed right away, that energy can also get stored as glycogen in your liver and muscles, or converted to glycerol and fatty acids to make triglyceride fats. And even though there seems to be a marketing war going on against dietary fats, we most definitely need them. The fats in your adipose tissue store energy, of course, but they also store fat-soluble vitamins, and cushion your organs. Lipids also form the myelin that insulates the neurons in your brain and throughout your body, as well as the oil in your skin, and they provide the vital calorie content found in breast milk.

But there are other important lipids, like cholesterol, which is the precursor to things like testosterone and estrogen… ..

.and, of course, phospholipids, which form the cell membrane in every single one of the three-dozen-or-so-trillion cells you have. Now, if you’re into eating meat, a lot of the fat that you ingest might come from that. But guess what: Plants have fat too. Plants use lipids for energy storage just like we do, except they do it in fruits, and nuts, and seeds.

Which, when you think of it, are kind of like plant breast milk — it’s food for their growing babies. Either way, though, when you eat lipids, your body breaks down triglycerides into glycerol and fatty acids. Those molecules can then be processed and used in the making of ATP.

Or they might be converted into other kinds of fatty acids, which your cells can then re-assemble into your very own triglycerides or phospholipids. And your liver happens to be great at converting one fatty acid into another, but there are some it just can’t synthesize.

For example, omega 6 and 3 fatty acids are called essential fatty acids, because your body can’t make them, so they have to be ingested. They get turned into all kinds of useful molecules, like the ones used for synapse formation in the brain, and for signalling inflammation during the healing process. But — if carbohydrates provide energy, and fats insulate and store energy, then just about everything else is done with proteins. They form the bulk of your muscle and connective tissue, but they’re also what the ion channels and pumps are made of in your neurons and muscle cells, and they make up your enzymes, which are responsible for pretty much every chemical reaction in your body.

In other words, your body runs on protein, and pretty much is protein.

Nutritionally speaking, meats, dairy products, eggs, legumes, nuts, cereals are particularly high in protein. But because everything we eat was once alive, and every cell of every living thing contains protein, as long as you’re eating whole foods, you’re at least partially re-stocking your protein supplies. Now it might seem like you’d have eat muscle to make muscle, or eat enzymes to make enzymes, but that’s not how it works. Since all of your proteins are made up of just 20 amino acids, the differences between the thousands of unique proteins are simply in the sequence of those amino acids. And, of course, you have a specialized molecule that knows just which amino acids to put together in what order to make a certain protein.

It’s called DNA. When you consume some hamburger, for example, the protein actin in the meat gets catabolized into its component amino acids, which gets mixed up with all the amino acids from the other proteins in the meat — like the collagen and elastin and titin and myosin — as well as all the protein from the bun and the tomato and the mayonnaise.

Those amino acids then get reassembled using anabolic reactions into your very own, but somewhat different, proteins, as defined by your DNA. Each cell is like a picky little Gordon Ramsay and it has to have every amino acid needed — every ingredient present — before it will even think about starting to make a protein. And just like with your lipids, your cells can improvise, and convert some amino acids to others if they’re missing an ingredient.

However, there are nine essential amino acids that you cannot make from others, and have to eat. Now lots of foods don’t provide every essential amino acid, but when you combine foods, like beans and rice, or pasta and cheese, you do get all of the essential amino acids. Which is important because, remember: after water, you are mostly made of protein. On the order of 16% But what about the one percent of you? The carbohydrates?

How that tiniest fraction of you ends up creating all of the energy, is what we’ll discover next time.

But for now, you’ve learned all about the vital nutrients — including water, vitamins, minerals, carbs, fats, and proteins — as well as how anabolic reactions build structures and require energy, while catabolic reactions tear things apart and release energy. And together, these competing forces form the wonderfully conflicted process known as metabolism. Thank you to our Headmaster of Learning, Linnea Boyev, and thanks to all of our Patreon patrons whose monthly contributions help make Crash Course possible, not only for themselves, but for everyone, everywhere. If you like Crash Course and want to help us keep making videos like this, you can go to patreon.

com/crashcourse This episode was filmed in the Doctor Cheryl C.

Kinney Crash Course Studio, it was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant is Dr. Brandon Jackson. It was directed by Nicholas Jenkins, edited by Nicole Sweeney; our sound designer is Michael Aranda, and the Graphics team is Thought Cafe..

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Cullen Nurseries – Native Trees and Hedging.

Cullen nurseries were based in hackathon, county carlow, we are nurseries, growing and supplying native trees and hedging. We sell directly to homeowners to farmers equestrian centres and we deliver all over. So our business has developed from a smaller market of people that we were working for to a much larger market. We encountered the local enterprise office late last year. We met up with pauline, we went over, we had a meeting with her and we discussed with her what we felt we needed to help our business to expand and grow.

In fairness, pauline came back to us with a plan of training and mentoring. That would be advisable for us to take our business to the next level. Robert and katrina of color nurseries have availed of a number of leo carlo programs and supports. They include, for example, mentoring, and particularly in the areas of digital marketing and digital strategy. Over the last number of months, and as a result of that, robert and katrina decided to access the trading online voucher, which is a voucher of up to two and a half thousand euros.

That’S available for businesses to develop their e-commerce offerings. The local enterprise office has helped us to push our vision forward by teaching us to encompass so many different facets of our business. We’Ve availed of trading online, voucher, mentorship marketing training and also helping us drill down into our numbers and understand our sales, where our sales are coming from and also where our costs are going and how to correlate the sales with the costs. So it’s given us an overall view of how we can look after our finances as well as promoting ourselves, and it’s also encouraged us to look at lean properties and principles to make sure that we’re running our business in the most cost and time effective. Because, at the end of the day, this business is to enable us to have a work-life balance with our young family and we’ve learned so much from the local enterprise office to help us to do all of those things.

[ Music, ] at the local enterprise office. In carlow, we’re open to working with the whole business community in county carlow, so if you’re a carlow-based business and if you feel you need support or need to seek advice or if you have queries about grant assistance or mentoring or training opportunities. Please give us a call or send us an email, and one of our staff will get in touch with you and start the conversation with us. [, Music ]. You

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Use Forest Bathing for Immune Boosting


hi guys I’m back with a very exciting topic today we’re going to talk about using forest bathing to boost your immune system now this was used in Japan in the 80s for physical and mental health this is not about just actually taking a bath in nature it’s about getting out in nature and breathing in or taking in the forest atmosphere so there’s three interesting studies I want to just talk about briefly and they’re out of Japan

and they relate to being out the forest being exposed to native evergreens like the spruce and pine and other evergreen trees so this is the essence of forest bathing you’re out in the forest and you’re breathing in certain chemicals from these trees there are essential oils they isolated this really interesting immune benefit from being exposed to certain essential oils that are actually being emitted from the trees in the forest

so that group of compounds is phytoncides now there’s many different individual chemicals in this category but here’s what they found this chemical significantly increases your natural killer cells now the natural killer cells are part of the immune system under the innate section the innate category of the immune system is something you’re born with these white blood cells don’t have to be trained they just know what to do and natural killer cells do a several things one thing is they will punch a hole into cells that have been infected by viruses and caused the cell to commit

suicide so they destroy not just a cell but the virus inside it and they have certain chemical weapons that they use there’s actually three studies and I put the links down below the first study was in 2006 it was performed in a small group of people for three days and two nights that went into the forest and they did before and after testing and they found significant increase in the number of killer T cells as well as a significant spike in this compound the next study was done in 2008 for three days and then they compared that to people that were in the city that actually went out for a and they spend time relaxing they just wanted to differentiate is it something in the forest or is it just about going for a walk okay and they found people in the forest that did the to our walks had significant increase but not only do they

find a spike in killer T cells but also in the weapon tree that that cell uses to annihilate virus infected cells now in the last study which was done in 2009 this was done in a hotel room and what they did is they infused this essential oil with this chemical throughout the air and guess what they found they found significant increases in natural killer cells and the weapon tree that they use in addition to that they also check their adrenaline levels and they found that their adrenaline was decrease so not only

did they have the immune benefit but they had the stress reduction benefit at the same time and one last thing I wanted to show you okay these are two groups the forest group and the city group and these are all the essential oils that are being admitted from the trees in summary I want to emphasize again and I’ve done this in several videos the great importance of strengthening your immune system and here’s a real natural inexpensive way to do it to stimulate your natural killer cells and the weapon tree they use to kill off viruses getting out in nature spending some time walking in the

woods being exposed to all these amazing things that are emitted from these trees and one last interesting thing I want to make note of is that the effects that were created in the body lasted for at least a couple weeks once you’re out of lockdown hopefully very soon you can get out in the woods be exposed to these trees and really receive the benefit the immune benefits that you can get from being out in nature

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Video with your blogs


We’ve probably all heard about the importance of using video when you’re blogging so i’m going to demonstrate that i’m going to shoot a video here upload it to youtube plan a is to make sure i have approximately 300 words of speech in the video that will then be converted into text which will become the information within my blog post if i was doing this for real i’d make sure i had a very carefully planned out script that was very relevant and had all the right keywords and key phrases included in it so that when it converts into the text it will do really really well for seo all i’m doing here is creating a video that i can then use as a blog post and right.

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What is an Anxiety Disorder?


I can’t believe what my boss just said to me. She must think I’m doing a terrible job. I have to quit. All my friends are so happy when they go out. I don’t get it.

I can’t even imagine what they’re thinking of me. If I don’t get this internship I’ll never get a job. I don’t know what else I can do. I’m stuck. I hate airports.

Driving there, construction, traffic, parking, and then security. Everything about it just overwhelms me. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problems.

While everyone experiences stress and anxiety at some point in life, some people become so overwhelmed they can’t manage their day-to-day or minute-to-minute lives. I know.

One of these voices is mine. There are several types of anxiety that can affect people in different ways. You might have heard of specific phobia, social phobia, panic disorder, or generalised anxiety disorder, or others. Some of these seem like they might be manageable, like a fear of heights. It’s not always convenient to avoid tall buildings, but you could do it.

Others, like panic disorder or social phobia, might be harder to manage, because they cause problems in unpredictable times, like when you’re in public. Each anxiety disorder is different, but basically they all have one thing in common. They cause excessive worry that affects thoughts, feelings, and physical symptoms. And that causes problems in person’s life for at least six months. For me, I struggled with generalized anxiety disorder.

I was worried about everything. Things I couldn’t control, like getting stuck in traffic and being late for an appointment, made me really angry.

I worried about what other people thought of me. Looking at my schedule each morning was the worst part of my day. It felt impossible to do everything I put on my list.

This really caused problems in my relationships. I yelled at people. I know I seemed demanding and rigid. At night I was exhausted and sad, and I’d cry because I was so upset. Most people with anxiety disorders also experience physical symptoms like shortness of breath, racing heart, sweating.

Some people even get headaches or high blood pressure. Stress and anxiety are very real physical problems, and eventually people avoid doing anything stressful so they don’t have these symptoms. The good news is that anxiety disorders are treatable. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, exposure therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, are evidence-based treatments that can treat any type of anxiety disorder.

Relaxation techniques, controlled breathing, and meditation have also been shown to be effective in reducing the physical symptoms of anxiety.

There are lots of medications that are also helpful, including medications for depression and anxiety known as SSRIs and SNRIs. Social support, stress management, and self care techniques are also common parts of any treatment plan for an anxiety disorder. I was worried about so many things for so long. But I got help. I worked with a great counselor and took an SSRI.

I even started yoga. Now, when I begin to feel stress, I can look at the situation more carefully, slow down my breathing, and take care of any tasks that are reasonable. Treatment can really help people overcome their symptoms of anxiety. I know. I did.

(electronic chimes).

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Introduction To Marketing | Marketing 101


If you’ve ever wanted to know: What marketing is, how it works and how it applies to your business, then stick with me, because in this episode I’m going to be breaking down exactly what marketing is, how it all works and why it’s such an important, if not the most important, element to business success. Let’s get to it. Hey there my name is Adam Earhart, marketing strategist and welcome to The Marketing Show where we help you grow your business generate more leads, customers, and sales by making way better marketing, so if you’re interested in learning the latest and greatest marketing strategies, tools, tips, tricks and tactics, well, you may want to consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell.

Alright, let’s talk marketing, something I love to do. As I fell in love with marketing years ago, when I first got interested in figuring out why people buy and act the way they do and later how to influence and persuade essentially affect human behavior.

Because, whether you have a business or not Marketing happens pretty much every day. Any time you try to convince friends or family to see a certain movie or eat at this restaurant or not that or basically try to convince them to do anything, Marketing is happening. Also, marketing is really important to understand, because you are constantly being marketed to by everyone from everywhere. From something as simple as someone trying to sell you a pair of shoes to something a lot bigger, like buying a new house or moving across the country or even changing careers. All of this, requires and uses marketing.

So, with all that said, let’s dive into it. But first, let’s cover what marketing is not, so once we’ve got that clear, we can cover exactly what it is.

Now, I know when I first got involved with marketing my understanding was pretty limited. I didn’t really have a clear picture of exactly what marketing was so I also kind of fell prey to the notion that marketing was advertising. Well, in reality marketing isn’t advertising but advertising is marketing.

Let me explain. Basically, marketing is a major business function that’s made up of a bunch of other parts, one of which of course is advertising, but there’s also a ton others like: PR, market research, social media, content marketing, search engine marketing or search engine optimization, pricing and pricing psychology, copywriting and one of my personal favorites, direct response or direct response marketing and quite a few more.

So, saying that marketing is just advertising and kind of like saying that finance is just taxes or HR is just hiring people or legal is just not getting sued. Sure, these are all important but there just one piece of the entire puzzle. This is why if you’re just getting started in marketing can seem pretty overwhelming which is why my suggestion is to find an area that you find interesting, fascinating, like say social media or content marketing, start there really get some roots and branch out later.

Alright, so now that we’ve got that covered, what exactly is marketing? Well, as I’ve just covered, you know that marketing is made up of a bunch of different sub segments things like: content marketing, email marketing and social media, all the things we talked about.

But what exactly is the nature of marketing, which sounds like some kind of documentary “The Nature of Marketing” – on this week’s episode of The Nature of Marketing – Well, one of the first things you learn in any first-year marketing course is the four P´s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. Product being the details around whatever product or service is being sold. Price being the price, kind of obvious, but there’s obviously a lot more that goes into it than just that.

Place is where the products being sold and promotion, we’re just kind of the fun stuff. This is essentially how you’re gonna sell more of the product and what you’re gonna do to get the word out about your service and while all of that is accurate and true and the four P´s do make up a part of marketing, well, I prefer a simpler easier to understand definition. Marketing in its most basic sense, is communicating value to your customers. It’s essentially answering the question of your customers “Why should I care?” Marketing helps people solve their problems by clearly defining and delivering solutions and really explaining the benefits of the solution so they can get better results.

Marketing is about connecting with people, understanding their pains and their problems and their frustrations, making them feel understood so that you can position your business as the solution to their problems and essentially just make them feel better and marketing is a really powerful force. As anyone that’s been in business for any length of time can tell you, it’s not always the best product or service that wins, in fact it rarely is, rather it’s the product or service with the best marketing. Like it or not, that’s just kind of how it works which is why having good marketing is just so important.

So my favorite definition of marketing is that it’s communicating value to your customers but there’s another side entirely that’s rarely talked about but still equally powerful and that’s creating value for your customers. You see, marketing can create value and your marketing in and of itself can be valuable.

An example could be a blog post that helps someone out, even before any money has changed hands or an advertisement someone sees that brightens their day and makes them laugh whether they choose to buy or not or the way that a product or service is delivered, the packaging let’s say which is so luxurious and over-the-top that it makes the customer feel special just for having purchased it. You see, economics assumes that people make buying decisions rationally, logically and with perfect information but this is rarely, pretty much never the case.

We as humans are emotional, often highly illogical and rarely have the full set of facts when making any decision, which explains why marketing is so important and so powerful. After all, if we made all of our purchasing decisions based solely on logic and utility and the value we would get from these products, well, the entire luxury goods market wouldn’t even exist but not all marketing is created equal. You see, when it comes to marketing like when it comes to pretty much anything, there’s good marketing and there’s bad marketing.

Bad marketing is all of the reasons that marketing gets such a bad reputation. It’s that hype, spammy, over-the-top sleazy salesy icky kind of marketing that we all know we’ve all seen and nobody likes.

It’s the stuff that looks cheap, makes people feel dirty, even just looking at it and promotes bad products or bad services that really helps nobody. It’s the fake countdown timers you sometimes see on websites the going-out-of-business sales that never end and the pushy promotion of useless products. That’s bad marketing.

Good marketing on the other hand, helps customers achieve their goals, makes them feel better about themselves and has the power to truly change the world. So my question to you is: What kind of marketer do you want to be? That that was a rhetorical question. If you say the bad guy, I got nothing for you but if you say the good kind and I know you did, then make sure to check out this video right here which I’ve got linked up on the page which is going to give you even more practical and effective marketing strategies to help take your business and your marketing to the next level and way beyond that. Alright, so thanks so much for watching, make sure to check out that video now and we’ll catch you next time on The Marketing Show

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