Healing via Peppermint Water and Peppermint Detox Recipes

Peppermint is a luscious green, exotic, & aromatic natural herb. Its color varies from light green to dark green. When peppermint is used with water, it has health benefits. Peppermint is an antimicrobial, anti-fungal, & antioxidant herb. It can kill some viruses as well. Plus it’s a great detox, it helps reduce weight.

Healing via Peppermint Water

Green color of peppermint

Green color widely exists in nature. Every park, garden, farm, tree is green. Green color is known to have healing power. When we are looking for freshness and well-being, we better go out to have a bare foot walk on the green grass early in the morning rather than sleeping in and becoming sicker. A green, dense forest walk is known to have natural curing effects. Green color soothes the mind & relaxes the body. Green color affects the heart as well. Green color has calming effect on a person. Thus having mint with its green properties surely heals.  

Fresh breath & teeth health

Being naturally aromatic, drinking peppermint water every day allows fresher breath. It also helps with the symptoms of mouth inflammation & cough. Peppermint has antibacterial properties and it improves teeth health. This is the reason why mint is used in toothpastes. 

Treats nausea

Using peppermint can reduce nausea. Obviously a person at home can’t start inhaling peppermint oil, so one can definitely use peppermint water to treat nausea. 

Exercise Performance

Peppermint strengthens body and helps in disease cure. Intake of peppermint water can boost energy & ensure a better workout. According to a study on peppermint, physical capabilities of participants were increased after using peppermint oil. The participants who used peppermint performed better while doing physical exercises like high jump, long jump, reaction timings to a particular event, & gripping force. 

Soothes stomach

Peppermint is reported to be an efficient herb for a better digestion & cures upset stomach. It helps in making the immune system better. Apart from being a flavoring agent, peppermint when taken post meals reduces irritability & abdominal pains. Peppermint also helps relaxing the symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.  

Skin

Have mint detox water to flush out toxins.   

Have a glass of peppermint water detox to feel its healing benefits.

Beware! too much consumption of any beneficial edible item can be toxic. Before ingesting any new herb or food, one should be aware of its side effects & consult health care provider if necessary.  

Peppermint Detox Recipes

All the following recipes are for 1 glass of water. Leave the ingredients in water for at least 1 hour to overnight (refrigerate). 

OR

All these recipes can be cooked with 1 glass of water for 1 minute. Cool then consume. 

1. Few peppermint leaves with stem + 1 ginger stick + 1 cinnamon stick + 1 cracked cardamom + few fennel seeds (saunf) + 1 teaspoon or tablespoon honey:

2. Few peppermint leaves with stem + 2 sticks Armenian cucumber (kakree) + half lemon + 1 ginger stick:

3. Few peppermint leaves with stem + 1 teaspoon or table spoon honey + 1 cracked brown cardamom + 1 cinnamon stick + half lemon + few fennel seeds (saunf) + 1 clove:

4. Few peppermint leaves with stem + 2 slices cucumber + 1 cracked brown cardamom + half lemon + few fennel seeds (saunf)

5. Few peppermint leaves with stem + 1 slice beetroot + 1 cracked brown cardamom + half lemon + few fennel seeds (saunf)

Written by,

Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram

The Golden Honey, the Honeycomb and Lessons Learnt from Honeybees

Honey

Honey is the most glistening & sparkly golden natural wonder. Nature has bestowed awesomeness to this saccharine feasting treasure.

Honey is energetic.

Honey heals burns.

Honey cures infection.

Honey fights bacteria.

Have a teaspoon of honey every day and you will be great!    

Honeycomb

Honey bees construct their complex nest which is a hexagonal honeycomb, the beehive in rock crannies, tree openings, & building tops, etc. From a honey bee’s perspective, its purpose of life is to work, work & work for its whole life for the endurance and nourishment for its home. The honey comb is so powerfully constructed & forcefully protected that a layman cannot dare touch that for honey. Only specialized beekeepers can take the precious possession of honey bees i.e. honey. The beekeepers need specific equipment to steal their life’s treasure, honey.    

Honeybees

The honeybees are well-organized & coordinated family. In one honeycomb, there is one queen (reproducing female), thousands of workers (female), and few hundred drones (male).

Queen: Every beehive has a single queen. Her job is but reproduction. Queen lays more than a million eggs during her life. The queen lives for up to 5 years. The workers attend & feed queen and prepare next queen.   

Workers: Workers are more than 98% in the beehive. Workers build the honeycomb with beeswax, forage nectar, store honey, store pollen, store water, ensure airflow in the hive, rear the offspring, clean the cells so that queen can lay eggs, feed royal jelly to the queen larvae, guard the hive and have sting for defense of their hive.

Drones: Then drones usually keep flying near the hive, make loud noises & inseminate the queen. Soon after inseminating a drone gets dead. The drones do not even have sting for his or beehive’s defense.

Lessons learnt from Honeybees

Nonstop struggle: In six weeks which is life span of a worker honey bee, it works every fraction of the second for the progress its colony. Every worker has its own predefined task that it fulfills no matter what! No vacations, no downtime!

Yeah we need vacations! Do we work harder than honeybees?

Live for the colony, die for the colony: Upon alert, the guard bees among the workers release a chemical to alarm rest of the bees, show dance signals, follow, harass and then finally can sting the intruder. The sting gets detached from the honeybee and it delivers venom to the victim. The honeybee however, dies soon after stinging. 

Loses life to save the colony!

Life’s work is but for others: Honeybees don’t rest, work continuously, & give in their lives to protect the honey with its amazing benefits. To ensure their own endurance as the honey bees suck the flower nectar and collect pollen, they are also part of the great pollination. The life on earth largely depends upon the pollination by honeybees. Without their partake for pollination, flowers wont bloom, crops would not exist, wildlife will be at risk, then finally humans’ life will be affected.    

We humans, we live for our luxuries, our attires, our wealth, our status!

We Homo sapiens

We think we are marvelous, we think world keeps going because we are practicing amazing stuff on the surface of the planet? The truth is we are the most dependent species on our planet. We rely on the sun, on the moon, on the oceans, on the wildlife, on flora & fauna, on the insects and on what not! 

It’s time we understand the purpose of us being created and act in echo with that purpose. 

Because, the world is revolving fast to its appointed time!   

References:

S. J. Cunard & M. D. Breed, “Post-Stinging Behavior of Worker Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)”, Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Vol. 91 (2), 754-757, 1998. (WWW)

L. Bortolotti & C. Costa, “Chemical Communication in the Honey Bee Society”, Neurobiology of Chemical Communication (Ed.), Taylor & Francis, 2014. (WWW)

Roger Schürch, Francis L. W. Ratnieks, Elizabeth E. W. Samuelson, & Margaret J. Couvillon, “Dancing to her own beat: honey bee foragers communicate via individually calibrated waggle dances”, Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol. 219, 1287-1289, 2016. (WWW)

Biologists discover sophisticated 'alarm' signals in honey bees, 2016. (WWW)

Written by,

Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram

At School

In the class
Teacher teaching
Students learning composition

Paint art by,

Asma Khurram

The Lightening

At night
Stars out
Full moon
Rainy clouds
Raining
Lightening

Paint art by,
Hafsa Khurram

The space

Learning to work with Ms word, inserting space snaps, word to PDF conversion. Making images from PDF.

Dive into imagination. Imagine colorful & amazing space.

Space by,

Asma Khurram

The apple talks?

Getting hands on with paint & writing the imagination.

Learning about health benefits of apple.

Paint art & apple talk by,
Hafsa Khurram

5 points to consider before you choose your fitness program - PART 2

4.    Intensity of workout

Choose a workout that conditions your entire body and doesn’t leave pains in the long run. A workout is worthless if it gives you deep and lasting pains. No pain no gain is one thing, yes you get muscular pains but a pain that is progressing is a sign that something is wrong with your workout. A workout should offer you benefits as you progress through with it & as you incur it to your lifestyle. Not every workout fits for everyone. There are people whose purpose of life is but training. But if you are busy, you are student, or you have to take care of home - you better choose a workout according to your daily diary. Challenges can make you bone tired, leaving you useless for any other responsibility of the day.

Ask yourself:

What your fitness level is at the time of choosing a fitness plan?

Can you over exhaust yourself with an extra exhausting workout then fulfill your rest of the responsibilities of the day?

Can your body cope with the intensity of the workout?

image

5.    The venue of workout

It should be near your home or workplace. Imagine you have come home after a tiring day. Now can you travel again without getting tired to reach workout’s place and then start a rigorous exercise? Find such workout regime that is in the vicinity of where you live. If workout is offered near or at your workplace, it’s worth it. You can attend such workout and incorporate it during your working hours. So when you have reached home you can relax & recharge for the next tiring day.   

Ask yourself:

Is there any workout near your home/workplace?

Can you travel to a far venue without getting tired after a tiring day?

Can you travel every day that far?

  

Choose a sustainable workout according to your body & life style that gives you promising & appreciable results. 

Written by,

Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram

4 Smart Applications of Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered networks for controlling a system of physical devices and computational algorithms. CPS from bird eye view are the integration of tangible systems with intelligent technology, informed via virtual component i.e. internet and have embedded humans for decision making. In CPS the embedding of communication and computational skill into physical mechanisms offers advance connection of humans with the technology. CPS also network with other cyber systems for data acquisition. Cyber-physical systems once advanced and out of their infancy stage, have potential to make the interaction of humans with the world a phenomenal experience.

Applications of Cyber-Physical Systems

Medicine

In the field of medicine, cyber-physical systems are inevitable. When a patient visits a medical practitioner, it will be convenient for the practitioner to access the previous history of the patient already recorded electronically. It will also be beneficial for the patient to get correct prescription or test at the time it matters. CPS transfer & record the medical data and trigger real-time alarms in case of emergency such as sudden fluctuations in blood pressure levels. CPS keep the humans in closed-loop for controlling and taking medical decisions.     

Vehicles

There is always a chance that the engine temperature shoots up suddenly or vehicle components such as steering & brakes get weary especially during long drives. Information about these faults is essential to avoid any potential accidents. CPS have capability to signal such shortcomings in advance. CPS also offer real-time control of the automobile & navigation systems to the operator and internet access to the passengers. Human-centric needs like trip safety can be catered better, when the embedded humans have understanding of the overall integrated system and when they are efficiently assessing the signals.  

 Image   

Home automation

A home can be transformed into smart space when a virtually controlled intelligent system is integrated in to the system of the home appliances. Role of CPS in smart space includes but not limited to the control of lighting, air conditioner, fridge, and even in cooking. Via home control system, signals can be sent to appliances for required function. Faulty appliances can send the message to the control and monitoring station for a quick fix.   

Smart living

The cyber-physical systems if and when integrated into daily stuff that are not by default embedded with virtual intelligence for example keys, spectacles, wallet, cell phone charger or you name it like your favorite ear rings, then living will be intelligent and smart. Imagine you don’t need to squirrel around whole home for car keys, or dive into closet for a pair of ear rings. Simply get embedded into cyber-physical system virtually and locate any wearable or day-to-day use item.

To live smart you have to think smart!     

Conclusion

Once the cyber-physical systems have rooted into the cyber world & become fruitful and have less or controllable security issues, the mankind perspective of how we vision & interact with the world would entirely be prodigious. The future of CPS depend upon how the real-time real things of the perceptible world are visualized & transformed into the virtual entities of the cyber space. CPS must have embedded intelligence with self-adapting capabilities to semantic environment and to human-centric needs.  

References

1. Z. Bai and X. Huang, “Design and Implementation of a Cyber Physical System for Building Smart Living Spaces”, International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, Vol. 2012, 2012. (WWW)

2. H. Ning and H. Liu, “Cyber-Physical-Social Based Security Architecture for Future Internet of Things”, Advances in Internet of Things, Vol. 2, pp. 1-7, 2012. (WWW)

3. R. Rajkumar, et al., “Cyber-Physical Systems: the Next Computing Revolution”, In the Proceedings of the 47th Design Automation Conference, pp. 731-736, 2010. (WWW)

4. G. Yang and X. Zhou, “Cyber-Physical Systems”, 2013. (WWW)

5. R. Baheti and H. Gill, “Cyber-Physical Systems”, From: The Impact of Control Technology, T. Samad and A.M. Annaswamy (eds.), 2011. (WWW)

6. D. Work et al., “Automotive Cyber Physical Systems in the Context of Human Mobility”, National Workshop on High-Confidence Automotive Cyber-Physical Systems, Troy, MI, 2008. (WWW)

7. M. Wolf, “High-performance Embedded Computing: Applications in Cyber-Physical Systems and Mobile Computing”, MK publications, 2014. (WWW)

Written by,

Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram