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Mindfulness

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Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and engaged in the current moment, without judgment. It involves paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations in a non-reactive way. By focusing on the present, mindfulness helps reduce stress, improve emotional regulation, and enhance overall well-being.

Mindfulness Techniques 

  1. Breathing Exercises: Focus on your breath. Inhale deeply through your nose, hold for a few seconds, and exhale slowly through your mouth. Repeat this process, paying attention to the sensation of breathing.
  2. Body Scan: Lie down or sit comfortably and close your eyes. Slowly bring your attention to different parts of your body, starting from your toes and moving up to your head. Notice any sensations, tension, or discomfort without trying to change anything.
  3. Mindful Walking: Take a walk and pay attention to the sensation of your feet touching the ground, the movement of your legs, and the rhythm of your breath. Notice the sights, sounds, and smells around you.
  4. Mindful Eating: Eat a meal or snack slowly, paying full attention to the taste, texture, and aroma of your food. Notice how your body feels as you eat and savor each bite.
  5. Loving-Kindness Meditation: Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Silently repeat phrases like “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe.” Then extend these wishes to others, including loved ones, acquaintances, and even people you find challenging.
  6. Gratitude Journaling: Write down three things you are grateful for each day. Reflect on the positive aspects of your life and the people who bring you joy.
  7. Mindful Listening: When talking to someone, give them your full attention. Listen to their words, tone, and body language without planning your response. This practice can improve your relationships and communication skills.
  8. Guided Meditation: Use apps or online resources to follow guided mindfulness meditations. These can provide structure and support as you develop your practice.

Which of these techniques would you like to try first?

Hi Tech Con-artist

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Con-artists targeting older individuals to take over their property or wealth as they get old usually happens within family or sometime by a friend.

Below is an incident where it happens using technology by person who you have never met or do not even know.

Two days back I came to know of an individual who was kept almost in a hostage using technology and HiTech Cons where trying to empty the elderly persons hard earned money kept for his old age. It all started as below so please read and be careful about this type of emails.

Fishing – An email (Bait) comes in stating the person is been charged $500 for a service the person never used with Paypal. With the email subject stating it as a payment processed. Content of the email is about the reason for the payment made with a fake number to call Paypal (Fake) customer support to correct it.

As soon as seeing this the individual calls the number in the email and here is where it starts.

Member 1 pretends to be Paypal (Fake) employee and takes the call. Starts the apologizing process how it has happened by mistake and (Fake) Paypal would refund the money immediately and is going to be connecting the call to a person who will takeover this issue serious and will refund the money immediate.

Member 2 who pretend to initiate the process and tells the person he is going to be sending a link to initiate the refund process. As soon the person clicks the link your system (computer) is under their control. Now, they also show a popup and make you type $500 to initiate the refund. When the elderly type the amount they add additional few more “0”s to it to make it look like he or she typed $50,000 instead of $500. Another apology (this time from Member 2) happens and this time they want to help you in refunding the $49,500 which now you owe them. Now Member 2 makes it look like it is a fault happened when the elder person typed and make it look like it is the elderly person’s fault. Now he wants to help the elder fix it so he transfers the call to the Senior Tech Con – Member 3.

Member 3 comes as a savior now and starts talking as if he is there to help you in fixing your mistake and talks very friendly and keeps the elderly engaged in the call. In the meantime since they have already taken control of the system a team in the backend (not sure how many) is studying all your other browser to learn about you and bank accounts if any as they know you have your passwords are saved in it or you have kept the browser open.

They ask the elderly person to login to their own bank as if they are going to help them to transfer the excess money wired by accident from fake Paypal and now they have access to their bank account also.

They make you open a “Notepad” and they type the wire details for a bank in Hong Kong where they want you to send the money to resolve the issue with fake Paypal payment. They ask you to turn on the printer to print wiring details for you and they want you to call the banker to do a telephone wire request. They suggest on what need to be told if the banker asks the reason for the wire transfer request- “I am very sick and this money has to go out as it is for a real-estate deal which is very urgent”

Luckily in the incident I have narrated above someone intervened and stopped the progress.

Family or friend Con-artist usually take few years to lure a elderly person but here they are keeping hostage of the elder person for 4 to 5hrs. The elderly person almost gets into a duress state (Stockholm syndrome) that the elderly want to resolve the issue asap so they could be relieved out of the problem. During the whole conversation the elder person is made sure not to call or talk to any other person at home. They are doing this by repeatedly saying “I am here to Help you as I am a honest person” “If I do not solve this problem I will loss my job”

Con-Artist once happened in person now has started using technology to their advantage and now have become smarter. If you have elders at home please make sure to talk to them about this so they are aware of this sought of criminals who need to be in jail.

  • First step they will put you in a weak spot
  • Pretend to help as soon as they feel you have started to believe them
  • Make you feel you did something wrong
  • Make you feel guilty of a mistake you did not do
  • Showing a way how to help them
  • Lure them and make you do what they want you to do

I am not a professional writer and the above content is done for awareness.

Telemedicine

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I was catching up with a friend of mine earlier in the day who happened to have her very first telemedicine consultation with her primary care physician today.   So out of curiosity, I ask her how was her experience and what was her opinion on telemedicine in comparison to her regular office visit?

She reported that it was more convenient as now there was no huge wait time like while visiting the doctor’s practice and a person didn’t need to be physically present at the office to see the doctor; but when rating the personal connection during the visit, she said office visit was better.

So what went wrong with this new mode of consultation called as Telemedicine?

During the conversation, the doctor was almost all the time occupied with computer entering data into it and failed on the facetime and eye contact that we are used to and so much expect.

Why does this matter?  Patients need this eye contact from their physicians while they are trying to explain their health issues to get assurance that their concerns are being heard. When this personal connection is lost, the patient feels like their issues are not heard and the patient is not confident or content with the treatment plan given to them without making any reassuring eye contact.

Is it a healthy practice? Definitely not. As disconnection would lead to the patient not being able to engage with their providers with confidence which results in loss of comfort and care.

The patient feels the doctor is more involved in filling their EHR documentation than listening to what the patient has to say.

EHR documentation takes a major chunk of a physician’s time in a practice, but what is the point in having the best documentation when patient engagement is lost?

Let us say if the doctor gives the full facetime and does the reporting after the visit or at the end of the day, will the provider be able to recollect the relevant and vital information from the visit to be fed into the EHR?

Vital signs recording and blood work, what happens to this? – Do come to our office to get this done. Next question would be then why need this telemedicine consult?

There are apps available for recording the vitals of a patient, but these come at a price where the question would be whether the patient would have to pay for it or is covered under patient’s medical insurance?

My friend’s virtual visit with her physician lasted 25 minutes and there was a co-pay of $75 charged to her credit card.  So, are people ready to pay this price for a virtual visit???

  • How long is it going to take for Telemedicine to change into an acceptable healthcare practice model?
  • How successful is it going to be in long run?
  • Will adaptation change on what can be expected?

United Airlines- My frustrating experience

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After a long time I decided to use the miles I had with Continental airlines now called as United airlines. Price not competitive but I had to use the miles so ended up buying the ticket.

Frustration started with packing luggage as even the first bag checked in need to pay a fee of $25/bag. Once checked in and started boarding everyone had big bags to take it inside the craft so the next pressure of finding a space to keep the handbag started and everyone looked at each other as if enemies and even heard murmurs if the space above their seat is taken by someone else.

There came the snack cart which everyone looked for and the joke is all snacks priced $7 and above so the person who was seated next to me who thought it was free has to return it back after he came to know it is priced high and not a reasonable price even. Come on guys are you guys soo running in loss cant afford a cookie?

There comes another joke of an announcement- “This aircraft is equipped with Direct TV” everyone eagerly put their headphones to watch the TV…. Guess what… It stops working once the flight gets ready to take off and if want to watch more need to pay $7 or $5 depending on the duration of flight. The monitor doesn’t have “Power Off” button so we have to go through the abuse of seeing some odd advertisement if we don’t pay for direct tv.

I have some more suggestions for Continental airlines now called United to drain money from its travellers.

  1. They could put a credit card swiping machine to control the level the back rest of the seat could go and make some money.
  2. They could also put one more machine to control the rest room. Pay and use restrooms.
  3. Charge for the soft drink and water.
  4. Automated credit card payment for each time we press the button to call the hostess.
  5. Gadget usage fee to use any gadgets inside the flight.
  6. Lastly to get out of the flight a fee

Questions raised in my mind:

  • How far this airlines could drain money from the travelers?
  • Is this airlines suffering in revenue for them to hurt a travelers like this?
  • Is this airlines trying to help the people who are going through economy recession and job loss or trying to put more pressure to the people and use this suffering to hurt them more like a sadist?
  • Is this airlines creating more jobs for this country with all this money it makes?

Sad to see big companies like this guys abusing the people even after knowing the situation of the country and its people. Banks are already abusing their customers with bunch of fee and here another industry which abuses.

Taxes on people making more than $250k and corporations

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Businesses started forming back-end offices in other countries due to not able to afford to have employees in their office here which in turn increased unemployment which affected the consumers (unemployed) to afford product or services.

Higher taxes on people making more than $250k and corporations

Is it like a fine for being successful or trying to create a corporation?

Is it like a indirect message now to all people making >$250k to move their money to some other countries to prevent getting fined with taxes?

We gave way to move businesses to other countries and now this Taxes will do the rest so all successful people will move out of this country at one point due to this tax abuse. Innovator and Entrepreneurs will also not form companies.

How good is to run your business in the cloud?

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http://www.apptivo.com

I always used to think having my own software apps  to run my business is better than using an online version of the same software. Price did not matter as i felt like I take control when i have my own software. I had them installed in my laptop and i felt like I am in charge and don’t have to worry of my information in the cloud. This all changed when my laptop got robbed just in front of my eyes and I stood there helpless and there went all my saved documents and my Accounting software which i had for almost 3 years.

The first thing I did is to have my accounting online software and also started using Apptivo for my business so I could store all my business related contacts, documents and they even have a free invoicing option which I could use to invoice my clients. All in one place and best of all, this services are free for me to use.

Check them out at http://www.apptivo.com as they have much more Apps which might be a good fit for your business and in this economy getting this kind of applications for free is not available anymore. Boost for businesses to take their operations to the cloud for free.