Our mucous membranes secrete a thick liquid substance called phlegm. It is generated to support our respiratory system. The phlegm-secreting membranes are present in the mouth, nose, throat, sinuses and lungs. Excessive phlegm may cause coughing. We mostly become aware of its presence at the back of the throat when we have a cold or flu. What causes phlegm? Here are some of the most common causes of phlegm: Excessive mucus accumulation Phlegm might build up overnight due to excessive mucus accumulation in the throat or the nose. Throat irritation and coughing are common symptoms. It might also lead to congestion. Cold, flu and allergies Clear, thin mucus is produced in the nose and the throat when you catch a cold. This mucus starts to turn yellow or green when the body reacts with the virus. You might also develop phlegm if you have seasonal allergies. You must get yourself checked if you experience symptoms like coughing, itchy eyes or sneezing. Dairy Products If you're prone to phlegm and developing excessive throat mucus, you should avoid consuming dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt. Milk items contain protein molecules called casein. Casein increases mucus secretions. You should also avoid drinking excessive caffeine beverages and non-herbal teas as well. Effective home remedies for treating phlegm If phlegm is causing you irritation or making you uncomfortable, you should take steps to remove it. Here are three effective natural ways to get rid of phlegm: Stay Well-Hydrated You might be getting this advice often for a lot of ailments. As clich as it sounds, it is indeed effective! Water helps in thinning the mucus and relieving congestion. You should have warm fluids at frequent intervals to get rid of the uncomfortable symptoms of phlegm. Try drinking warm apple juice and having warm soups or broths. Lemon water keeps you hydrated as well. The warm fluids can relieve congestion caused by phlegm by helping the mucus flow. Follow a diet that is good for your respiratory health You should consume a diet containing ingredients such as ginger, garlic, and lemon. These ingredients have medicinal values. They help relieve the symptoms of phlegm by curing excess mucus and treating colds and coughs. Spicy foods such as cayenne and chilli peppers contain capsaicin. Including these in your diet helps in thinning the mucus. Eat berries, licorice roots, pomegranates and oral zinc and drink guava tea. Humidify and moisturize the air: Have a sauna bath Steam is known to treat congestion caused by phlegm. This is also one of the most effective ways to get rid of phlegm. Let the bath water run till it begins to steam. But be careful not to burn yourself. Have a steam bath with the shower head pointed away from you. You may also lean over a bowl of steaming water. Trap the steam by placing a hand towel over the head. Be careful not to scald your skin. You may consider buying a humidifier from the drug store. If you live in a warm climate, choose a cool mist humidifier. These are some easy home remedies for treating phlegm. If symptoms persist despite these natural remedies, you must consult your doctor and take medicines.

Sleeping well is necessary for health and wellbeing, and thus investing in a good quality mattress that offers personalized comfort and support is a must. Since a good mattress is the most influential factor in ensuring that the body gets the required support at night, the best idea is to a mattress that is tailored to provide support and relaxation. Tempur-Pedic Mattresses are created using density memory foam that is more temperature sensitive. The mattress is designed using visco-elastic foam, a propriety material, which is known for providing a firm support, for relieving pressure points and for ensuring a good night sleep. Tempur-Pedic Mattress adapts to the body temperature, especially in cooler room environments and offers a plusher initial feel. Crafted using memory foam, Tempur-Pedic Mattresses mold to the body in response to heat and pressure, evenly distributing body weight. Once the pressure is removed, it then returns to its original shape. The brand offers three different ranges: Tempur-ES, which promises a softer feel, the Tempur-HD, ensuring a firmer feel, and the Tempur-Response, offering a slightly springy feel. The Tempur-Pedic mattresses create adapts to the body size, thus eliminating painful pressure points and also reduces the body’s need to toss and turn in order to have a comfortable, pain-free sleep. TEMPUR material is an open-celled viscoelastic, pressure relieving and temperature sensitive material that adjusts to the exact shape of the body. On the other hand, the generic polyurethane material comprises irregular cell shapes that simply compress underweight. With TEMPUR material, zillions of open cells smoothly move around the curves of the body, thus providing great support with no counter pressure. The mattress automatically takes its original shape once the body weight is lifted. Here are some of the benefits of having a Tempur-Pedic Mattress: Firm Foam Tempur-Pedic mattresses do not sag or lose their ability to conform to your body. At least this won't happen for many years. The mattress conforms to the body's natural curves, providing proper support everywhere. No Pressure on Joints Often, people wake up wake up sore because of the uneven pressure on the joints. Unlike traditional mattresses, which don't mold in accordance with the contours of the body, the Tempur-Pedic mattress takes the pressure of the joints and sore spots allowing for a painless night of sleep. Good Night Sleep The traditional mattresses are prone to developing cavity forms, mainly where the heavier person normally sleeps. Often at night, couples gravitate towards the center of the bed and end up sleeping in the center. This habit affects the holding ability of the mattress. However, the same doesn’t stand true in the case of Tempur-Pedic mattresses. It allows every individual to make their own mold and rest separately. Capacity to Add an Adjustable Frame The brand designs its mattresses in such a way that it allows its users to add one of the adjustable bed frames. This helps you enjoy the best of both worlds. With adjustable beds gaining popularity, Tempurpedic mattress provides the maximum of comfort and convenience. Also, with this mattress, you don’t have to worry about your partner either as you can have your very own twin bed with an individual set of controls. Warranty Tempurpedic mattresses come with a 20-year warranty, which assures that your investment is not wasted. Since they are made using high-quality materials, the mattresses will last you forever. However, if in case the mattress wears out before the warranty expires, the company promises to replace it in no time. Although there are several reasons to choose a Tempur-Pedic mattress, it is a matter of choice and preference. It is advisable to do a proper research and also to read the reviews before investing in a good quality mattress. For this very reason, it is also important to choose a reputable and/or an authorized dealer that promises a money back guarantee. Tempur-Pedic mattresses are designed with firm top layers to minimize pressure points and are embedded with thick cores for one-of-a-kind support.

Flip phones are not a thing of the past. They are best to use when you need a basic phone for simply talking and texting. Here are our five best picks:

• LG 450

LG 450 comes with a compact flip design. It is one of the best flip phones by LG. It has cool features like text to speech conversion. The phone has a battery capacity of 950mAh and an internal memory of 256MB. It also has a 1.3MP camera along with a camcorder. The phone comes with bundled services from T-Mobile.

• Motorola RAZR V3

This Motorola model is perfect for regular use. The device has an ultra-thin design and offers a decent performance. It’s a full duplex speakerphone and lets you access the Web, e-mail, Bluetooth, and messages like SMS, MMS, and EMS. The phone has a VGA digital camera and a 680mAh lithium-ion battery.

• Convoy 3 512MB

This phone comes from one of the most premium brands—Samsung. The phone has a rugged and tough design. The sturdy body makes it withstand shock, dust, humidity, extreme temperature, and more. The phone comes with dual microphones that let you communicate easily due to the noise cancellation technology. It is one of the best flip phones you can own.

• Blackberry Style 9670

This Blackberry model is a smartphone. It is a 3G-enabled phone and comes with a full QWERTY keyboard. With its 5MP camera, you are sure to click amazing pictures. You may expand the memory of the phone with a microSD card to store more photos. Other specifications of the phone include Bluetooth stereo music, HTML Web browser, and wireless-N Wi-Fi.

• Nokia 6350

Coming from a trusted brand, Nokia 6350 is a phone with multiple features and capabilities. This phone supports wireless music streaming and downloaded MP3 files. The clamshell design of the phone offers internal screen protection and keeps the keypad clean. The phone also has a small external screen for ease of use. The above mentioned flip phones are among the best in the market. Depending on your preference, select the one you like the most.

T-Mobile is a mobile communications company (US-based), which provides cell-phone services to its customers in several European countries, such as UK, Slovakia, as well as Holland, and Poland. There are approximately 34 million customers for T-Mobiles across the Virgin Islands and the continental US. T-Mobile provides various kinds of cellphone services that consist of broadband access and even the facilities like video conferencing and phones that have been designed for use by the people with the visual impairments. Below are the best features that are included in the T-Mobile Phones, which displays why exactly they known as user-friendly. Keypad T-Mobile comes with varied types of phones which come with an embossed dot over the 5' key; and this assists people with poor eyesight by enabling to browse all around the keypad and thereby use that specific key as a guiding point. T-Mobile even offers phones a varied tone only when a user presses a particular key. This lets users to distinguish between sounds instead of searching in the keypad. Ringtones and voice activation There are certain T-Mobile phones which lets you to select varied ringtones for varied callers. This means that, the blind or visually impaired users will come to know who is actually calling before they give answer. This makes them to receive, reject or ignore the call. T-Mobile even offers best features for the phones like voice-activated calling which allows even blind people to activate calls to the friends as well as families without using the keypad. Screen display Large-screen displays have a great feature of T-Mobile phones which tend to assist users with poor vision, read text messages, as well as get incoming calls. The T-Mobile cellphones which are specifically meant for the blind, as well as visually impaired also arrive well-equipped with back-lit keypads. This means that, keys are much more visible to their customers who have sight problems, especially in the night. While, some phones lets the users to change the font size and contrast levels in order to fit their visual impairment. Battery indicator In order to show whether battery life is running low, these cellphones have come-up with facility like a visual indicator. The T-Mobile phones which are specifically meant for the visually impaired offers phones with clear and audible indicators in order to alert users whenever they wish to recharge their phones. This is specifically important since users with poor eyesight frequently have the brightness which increases the highest setting that reduces the life of a battery.

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” Many pet lovers and dog owners would agree with Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist on this. Humans are blessed with the unconditional love that dogs shower upon us. It only becomes the responsibility of the pet owners to return the love with the best possible care they can provide their dogs. One of the most important concerns most dog owners have is about the fleas on their dog’s fur. This concern is more apparent during summers as the insects prefer residing in a temperature of 65 – 80 degrees. Though dog owners should keep checking their dog’s fur for any sign of flea, they can become proactive in summers to assure that their dog’s fur remains clean and free from the flea. In relation to fleas that dogs suffer from, there are three different types of flea medicines to treat them. Pet owners often compare the best flea pills for dogs, topical flea and tick medication, and flea and tick dog collars in order to get the best treatment and prevention for the flea. Dog owners who have recently adopted or bought a dog and will be taking care of them for the first time should learn about these three types of flea medicines for their dogs. Topical flea medication The topical flea and tick medication for your canine friend come in shampoos, spot-on treatments, powders. These different types of topical medication treatment succeed in removing the flea and ticks from the dog in different degrees. The effectiveness of shampoos in killing fleas lasts for one day, while flea powder keeps the fleas away for a week. Powder and shampoos only get rid of the adult fleas and give the best result when they are used in combination with pills or other treatment. The best flea medicine for dogs often comes in a combination. Powder and shampoos along with spot-on treatments show the best results by eliminating adult fleas, eggs, and larvae and any other parasite. The spot-on treatment alone is usually effective for about 30 days. Topical treatments are essentially for dogs and can harm cats unless they are medically advised. Some of the best topical flea medicine for dogs include Advantage® II, FRONTLINE® Plus, K9 Advantix® II, and REVOLUTION®. Flea pills Other than the topical treatments, there are flea pills available for the dogs. These pills often guarantee success in fighting off parasites. Some pills for the dogs require a prescription form the vet and can come with side effects. Oral pills often target either one of the two problems, i.e., either the flea eggs or adult fleas, and not both. Therefore, taking a combination of medication for the purpose of eradicating the infestation is advised to pet or dog owners. Vets often prescribe flea pills as they are one of the fastest ways to eliminate the pests. If the dogs refuse to swallow capsules, owners can give them oral medications that come in form of chewable tablets. Some of the best oral flea medicines for dogs include Capstar Flea Killer and Comfortis®. Flea and tick dog collars Another type of medication for the dogs apart from topical and oral medications is the flea and tick dog collars. These are essentially used to prevent the infestation of parasites in dogs. While all other treatments are taking place, flea and tick dog collars help with the prevention and recurrence of the parasites by eliminating pests and their eggs from the chemicals that are released into the dogs’ skin. While buying these collars, dog owners should look for the ones that have the word ‘kill’ mentioned on them as it ensures that the collar is meant to treat an infestation along with preventing it. One of the popular dog collars one should use for eliminating fleas and ticks is the Seresto® 8 Month Flea & Tick Collar. Dog owners can use a combination of different types of treatments for the desired result. It is advisable to consult a vet before using any flea medicine for dogs.

The most basic knowledge about financial aid that one can have is that it makes the college education affordable and encourages students from low-income backgrounds to work. As such, it is also known that college finances are more than just the tuition fee. A lot of other expenses come into picture such as room and board, books and other supplies etc. It is quite common in this case to have a doubt as to whether financial aid covers the other costs or not. The financial aid does cover the complete cost of college and includes other costs. The student budget which is the cost of attendance includes everything from tuition fee, room and board, transportation charges, books and supplies and other charges. The cost of attendance could be variable from person to person, counting in expenses for disability (if any) etc. Most of the colleges usually draw three different student budget figures on the basis of the student’s accommodation. The three categories are for students living in the campus dormitory, students who stay in a separate apartment outside campus and those who stay at home with his or her parents. A separate allowance determined by the college will be included in the student budget for those who live in an apartment outside the campus or with their parents. Colleges make use of a local rent survey in order to determine the costs of room and board outside the college. If the cost of the student’s accommodation is higher than the allowance provided, the college will not make any changes to the student budget as subsidizing lifestyle choices is not amongst its capabilities. However, changes will be made if the cost of accommodation is higher due to an existing disability. Most of the time, the financial aid provided does not cover the complete need of the students. In such cases, it is better to optimize according to your needs and keep the debt to be paid at the end of college as minimum as possible.