Why do we need a humidifier?

Humidifiers are home essential devices that put moisture back into the air, which can create a lot of benefits for you and your family. If the air in your home is too dry, one solution is to use a humidifier. Humidifiers are devices that emit water vapor to help keep the air in a room moist. They not only adds moisture to the room, but also helps in settling dust particles and thereby improving the quality of the air. 

Why is it important to control humidity levels in your home?

Very dry and very humid air can affect your health as you may experience worsened respiratory conditions like allergies and asthma, and poor skin health.

A 2013 study, showed that increasing humidity levels to 43 percent or above significantly reduced the ability of airborne viruses to cause flu infections. In fact, in a low humidity environment, 70-77 percent of viruses could transmit the disease through coughs, but when humidity was increased to 43 percent or more, that number dropped to only 14 percent.

An earlier 2009 study showed similar results, with humidity limiting the transmission of the influenza virus.

Getting a humidifier may help you avoid getting sick this winter, but it can also give you softer, more glowing skin.

How do humidifiers work?

Humidifiers come in different types but the most common ones used for home are the cool mist ultrasonic humidifiers. Ultrasonic humidifiers produce uniform cool mist with the help of ultrasonic vibrations. These come in various sizes and capacities suited to our needs.

Humidifier Benefits for Adults:
The primary use of a humidifier is to help combat dry air in your home. A dry air may cause problems including:

• Dry eyes
• Sore throat
• Dry nasal passages
• Bloody nose
• Make colds and flu worse
• Chapped skin and lips
• Itchy, dry skin
• Worsened asthma and allergy symptoms

Keeping the air in your home from becoming too dry may help with many of these health issues. Depending on where you live, controlling indoor humidity is not always easy. This is where a humidifier may offer benefits.

Humidifier benefits for babies and children:
For babies and young children, dry air could cause health issues. Using a humidifier may help keep the air within acceptable moisture levels. The main benefits of using a humidifier for babies and kids include:

• Potentially protects their sensitive skin from becoming too dry — When air is dry, a baby or young child may experience dry, irritated skin and chapped lips. It may also aggravate eczema and other chronic skin conditions. Putting moisture back into the air could help your child’s skin stay moisturized.

• Could help them breathe easier — Stuffy noses and coughing can make it hard for children to get a good night of rest. A good humidifier can keep the air in your child’s room moist, which may help keep their nasal passages clear. It may also help loosen congestion.

Benefits of Humidifiers during Sleep:
Humidifiers may also be beneficial for adults, too, especially during sleep. Here are some of the benefits you can get from sleeping with a humidifier in your room.

• Air that is not too dry may help you avoid colds and flu
• Higher humidity may help loosen congestion
• You may experience fewer allergy and asthma symptoms
• Cold and flu symptoms may be alleviated
• Moist air may help prevent dry skin

For any more answers, please talk to our experts at 080-7097-7097. 

Drive your life… In your own ways!!!

How many times have you pondered over the fact that life is not going the way as you have had expected it to. From my experience and from my pals, I am sure that one faces such a phase in life quite often -When you feel like nothing’s working and nothing’s there to hope for. The reason for this can be very silly. We may have had a bad day at work, some friend of ours not talking for some reason, not able to make for a much awaited trip or get-together, money crunch, loss in a business deal, dip in share market, bad health, love failure, delay in marriage and so on. There are basically two kinds of problems - One where you can get through the problem if you put a little extra effort, and the other which looks like a deadlock where your hands will be tied. The latter one is more serious and is capable of driving your mind and body to crazy conduct.
All nasty thoughts reign in one’s mind for long if you let it to be there. So how can you check that? The easiest approach will be to keep oneself busy. Do all the things that you wish to. If reading is your passion, there are scores of amazing works in the market. Sports, music, dance etc are other options. It’s very important that the method you choose should involve you actively else it can adversely affect you i.e. listening to music is not a good option since that’s just a passive way of engaging yourself and in some cases can even aggravate the situation. It’s very well said that an idle mind is a devils workshop. Just look out and make your time worthy by doing things which you like to do.
Alas, there is no point worrying about things when you can do nothing to correct it!

I hate writing...

For the past few moments i was wondering how I started off with this writing thing?? Do I love it?? Is this my hobby?? naaah - I prefer taking a nap over testing my psyche.

These days …yeah..blogging/writing is serving as a means of entertainment to me. But the bitter truth is I HATE WRITING..

I hate writing because it never seems complete, a process that doesn’t stop when you put the pen down.

I hate writing because it occupies my mind, my thoughts, my world whenever I write even a paragraph.

I hate writing for the words that swim in my head, elusive, backing away, vague.

I hate writing because every word, every sentence, every paragraph has me obsessed.

I hate writing because I know that nothing matches it. I hate writing because I hate this feeling, this “knowing”.

I hate writing for the unfinished thoughts, the broken sentences, and the words that never seem quite perfect when I create them.

I hate writing for the mood swings it inevitably brings with it - the excitement, the disgust, the despair, the apprehension, the conflict.

I hate writing for the dark, vast ocean of things you can do with it, and for the choice you must make to choose a single way.

I hate writing for the power it single-handedly wields over the mind.

I simply hate em'.

P.S:
Written in a rare dark mood. I think I’m getting old!!! :-)

Obama -The Superhero

I was reading todays news paper and this news in particular caught my attention. The news is that American President Barack Obama will be featured in a comic strip and will become the super hero “destined to save the great republic of America and dethrone the overpaid despots of the time”.

The comic is(mercilessly) titled ‘The Righteous Retribution of Barack the Barbarian’.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5120374/Barack-Obama-and-Sarah-Palin-appear-in-comic-series.html

The moment I saw that, I started wondering where the world was heading. I mean, having your favorite politician as an idol is one thing, but making him a cartoon character and having him battle against the likes of Sarah Palin and ‘who-knows-who’ is totally out of my understanding boundaries. What if we had something like that made in our country? Hmm… It’s kinda of funny to think of how ‘Super Sonia’ would battle it out against the ‘evil adversary Advani’ to save the world from extinction. Or if ‘Karuna’ would have a chance to beat ‘Dr.J’ in a life threatening dual. (the examples used are purly based on pun and has no connection to any of my political views). With the upcoming elections that would definitely be a blast huh!!!

So much for this so little...!!!

And finally I did it…no no no wait!!! I am not talking about record breaking or anything in general, I just got myself registered for the CFA level 1 exam…now u must be wondering what’s so special to brag about registering for an exam..but that’s not the point I want to make here. In a moment I will explain that, but first of all, just for those who don’t know what CFA is, so here’s the information.

CFA stands for chartered financial analyst; it’s a 3 level self study program conducted by cfainstitute in US. The exam covers all possible topics one can learn during his MBA finance degree…in general if you prepare for CFA level-1, its equivalent to covering around 80% of your MBA finance curriculum… Some of the topics for instance covered in the exam are business ethics, financial reporting analysis, derivatives, quantitative methods, portfolio management etc. After passing all the 3 levels, one is eligible to become a charter holder. Although there are a few requirements prior to becoming a CFA charter like having a 4 year work experience in any financial industry and holding a suitable position related to finance etc.

Now the reason why I am talking about this is that the decision to register for CFA was very hard for me (at least initially), one of the reasons is that the exam fee itself is huge. I paid 990 USD as the exam registration fee and that makes close to 53,000 INR. Not just that, the exam is not even conducted in India, all the candidates in India who write the exam prefer either of Nepal, Colombo, Singapore as their exam centers. In my case I registered my exam centre at Manila, Philippines. The reason I will explain a bit later.

Okay so coming straight to the point, I am soon planning to do an MBA from abroad. Got an admit from a good university. Even that doesn’t explain the need for the CFA exam either as I can study all the subjects covered under CFA during my MBA, so here’s the story. The institute I am admitted is known for its finance program, in my case it just happened that I had always been more inclined to finance field and this one luckily came out to be among the bests in the world. The problem now is, around 70 percent of the admits to this institute’s MBA program opt for finance major which if you look from the institute point of view, it’s not possible. The program has limited seats for every specialization be it finance, marketing or consulting etc. So in order to avoid excess candidates, the institute has laid a few conditions before one opts for a finance major and one among them is clearing CFA level 1 exam before the first term (as specialization starts from the second year). Now being a little smart, I myself thought to clear this hurdle in the beginning itself just after a couple of months of joining the program. This way I will not only be able to alleviate some pressure due to mba studies, but it will also help me with my core subjects. I will be able to choose some good subjects (subjects that I think are easy to clear :D ).

Anyways the tough journey for me seems to have started although I am still talking baby steps towards the goal..the good thing this time is, I know where I am headed.

This one is for you, Mom.

It was my mom on phone the other day. I was tired from the days work and was about to take a nap at my room, just then my phone rang. In a lazy manner I lifted up the phone to say hello and the conversation began.

Me: “Hello mom, why are you calling me at this time, when you know I go to sleep for an hour after coming from office. “
Mom: “I just called to ask you that I haven’t received any mails from you yet, I have been seeing my mailbox since morning, have you sent them.”
Me: (In a sloppy manner): “which mails mom, I have no idea.”
Mom: “The one’s which you told me yesterday, about your blogs.”
Me: “O mom..why are you so keen about seeing my blogs. Alright, I will send you tomorrow when I go to office. Bye mom.” And, I hung up the phone.

A day before this conversation, my mom had called me again and we had this little conversation.

Mom: “what happened to you, you have been writing blogs earlier but now you seem to have stopped doing it. Is everything fine there.”
“yes, all is fine and for your kind information I have written 2 or 3 blogs this week.” I replied.
Mom (in a cheerful tone): that’s great; send those across to my email id.
“Okay, I will” I replied.

After the first conversation, I went to sleep but somehow somewhere this weird thought struck my fancy and I started wondering why is that, my mom always feels so excited about my things. What I do, where I go, what I wear or like..i don’t know but she’s always making me conscious about my stuff.

I woke up an hour later, prepared myself a cup of coffee and sat infront of my study table. I started thinking for a moment. I then remembered a recent chat that I had with one of mom’s college colleagues a couple of weeks ago. She was online on Gtalk, when had I just opened my gmail account, a minute later I got a small pop up window showing my Aunt’s instant message.

Aunt: hello
Me: hello Anand Aunty..how r u?
……
(then some intro conversation starts…and so I am skipping this)
……
Aunt: your mom told me something.
Me: what aunty?
Aunt: that you are good at writing blogs..she showed me your blogs.
Me(looked surprise): oh..so you have also seen them.
Aunt: seen them…I have read them.
Me (I thought for a second “read them..how many??”): It was not a big deal aunty. I have been reading business articles since my college days and so keep writing anything that comes to my mind.
Aunty: but you do write well Beta…I am proud of you. Do meet me when you come to Yamuna nagar.
Me: sure aunty..thanks.

My mom had been telling her friends about my blogs…what else she would have told about me to her friends….”I thought for second”. And Aunty was telling that I write good blogs…I know she is definitely lying. My mom must have told about my blogs in her as usual exaggerated way even though they are pretty okay and nothing of a sort to make any kind of hype. I am sure this is the reason why my aunty is showing her interest over my blogs as if she likes them, whereas the reality might be different. She’s definitely hiding the truth. I was feeling really annoyed and was not in a mood to think of it anymore.

The next day I was about to leave to office from my room when suddenly my eyes struck at a greeting card that was lying flat over my study table. It was a b’day card from my mom which she had send a few days ago.

There was something strange about this card as if it was trying to say “look at me”. I stretched myself across the bed to reach for my study table; I took the card in my hands, opened it and starting reading the lines that were written on it. I was suddenly taken aback after reading those lines as if they are trying to tell me something.

Card lines:

”Watching you change and grow and become the special man, I always knew you would be.”

“What if you could see yourself the way I see you, then you’d know, how much I have loved…"

Suddenly several thoughts started flowing in my mind raising various questions and with them there respective answers. I realised for the first time that how much important I am to my mom. A day before I was really annoyed with her but suddenly I started realising something great. I was getting answers to all my concerns that i had about her on “What I do, where I go, what I wear or like”.

And i started analysing… May be she feels happy to see me grow up and become a special man. May be she asks me about by whereabouts every time I go out just to show how much she is concerned about me. May be she thinks that I write good and has much more faith and confidence in me than I think for myself. May be she wants to show the same feeling to her friends in college where she goes to teach everyday.

All happened so sudden that all my anguish started melting away and I felt a deep sense of affection. I took the card, wiped it with my hanky so as to remove dust if any and placed it right in front of my table, picked up my bike and the room keys and locked the door with a strange smile on my face thinking “well…that’s the beginning..”

Small things do matter…!!!

Its been 3 long working days for me from the last Sunday that now I have started feeling bad about not been able to complete a pending task.

Sunday was a special day for me…not just because it was my B’day but because this was for the first time I received wishes from so many people..some over phone, and a lot many through email, orkut community etc. My orkut scrapbook is almost flooded with scraps wishing me happy b’day and that’s what is giving me sleepless nights. I have not been able to reply back to all of them who took time to wish me. May be I should skip my lunch for today and spend that time at an Internet Café. Now I am feeling the need of an internet connection at my home.

Another thing that was bothering me for the past 3 days was the Sunday evening when I was having dinner with my Jeeju (sister’s husband). This was what happened that evening when I along with my Jeeju, my cousin sister and her 2 brothers went out to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Bangalore. Being my b’day I was suppose to treat them, as opposed to that when the bill came, it was my Jeeju who took the troubles to pay, despite me being continuously forcing not to. And it happens every time I go out with them. I guess he is always so nice to me, but this time I was not ready to accept that and so I did something that now I am not sure if it was right or not.

That day, after coming back from the dinner, it was getting very late so my didi asked me to stay at their place. We were about to sleep just then I stepped out of my bed to reach for my bag and took out an empty envelope. I placed two, (1000 rupee) notes in it and over the top of the envelope I wrote a small message “Sorry Jeeju, But it was my day”. I left this envelope over the top of the refrigerator so that no one notices. The next morning I was about to leave from their place, I started my bike and drove a couple of yards away, just then I paused for a moment and took my cell phone out from my pocket to send a text message on my didi’s cell phone. The message read “check, there’s something placed over the refrigerator..”. I felt somewhat nice after that.

Today when I woke up in the morning, my cell phone showed an unread message, the message had arrived yest. night when I had gone to bed. It was from my didi and she wrote “It was not okay, Princy”. Now I am feeling sad again. May be I have this childish or immature line of thought that always tells me to do small things. It makes me a little concerned every time some one does a thing for me and I remain restless unless I repent back.

Now I am going to call my Jeeju and cousin to express sorry for what I did that day and I am sure they won’t feel bad. This reminds me of Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) words in his speech at a graduation event where he addressed to the graduates to “Stay young, Stay foolish”. I guess it’s my foolishness that prompts me to say sorry every time I hurt someone, but guess what, its gives me a peace of mind too. :D