Vitamin D: What is it?
Vitamin D, calciferol, is a fat-soluble vitamin. It is found in food, but also can be made in your body after exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. The major biological function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. It promotes bone mineralization in concert with a number of other vitamins, minerals, and hormones. Without vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, soft, or misshapen. Vitamin D prevents rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, which are skeletal diseases that result in defects that weaken bones.

What are the sources of vitamin D?
Food sources : Fortified foods are the major dietary sources of vitamin D. Prior to the fortification of milk products, rickets (a bone disease seen in children) was a major public health problem. One cup of vitamin D fortified milk supplies about one-fourth of the estimated daily need for this vitamin for adults. Although milk is fortified with vitamin D, dairy products made from milk such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream are generally not fortified with vitamin D.

Exposure to sunlight
Exposure to sunlight is an important source of vitamin D. Ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Season, latitude, time of day, cloud cover, smog, and sunscreens affect UV ray exposure. It is especially important for individuals with limited sun exposure to include good sources of vitamin D in their diet.

When can vitamin D deficiency occur?
A deficiency of vitamin D can occur when there is limited exposure to sunlight, when dietary intake of vitamin D is inadequate, when the kidney cannot convert vitamin D to its active form, or when someone cannot adequately absorb vitamin D from the gastrointestinal tract. In children, vitamin D deficiency causes rickets, which results in skeletal deformities. In adults, vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteomalacia, which results in muscular weakness in addition to weak bones.

Females who cover their body for religious/environmental reasons, and individuals working in occupations that prevent exposure to sunlight are at risk of a vitamin D deficiency. If these individuals are unable to meet their daily dietary need for vitamin D, they may need a supplement of vitamin D. Individuals who have reduced ability to absorb dietary fat (fat malabsorption) may need extra vitamin D because it is a fat soluble vitamin.

Vitamin D and osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by fragile bones. It results in increased risk of bone fractures. Having normal storage levels of vitamin D in your body helps keep bones strong and may help prevent osteoporosis in elderly, non-ambulatory individuals, in post-menopausal women, and in individuals on chronic steroid therapy. Normal bone is constantly being remodeled (broken down and rebuilt). During menopause, the balance between these two systems is upset, resulting in more bone being broken down than rebuilt. Estrogen replacement, which limits symptoms of menopause, can help slow down the development of osteoporosis by stimulating the activity of cells that rebuild bone.

Vitamin D Deficiency:
Prolonged deficiency of vitamin D results in changes in the bones of children and adults, and possible hearing loss with aging. In addition, rickets (in children) and osteomalacia (in adults) where bones are malformed and weak from poor calcium and phosphorus deposition. Osteoporosis is another adult disease that results from a poor dietary vitamin D and calcium intake. Hearing loss from vitamin D deficiency may progress as the adult ages due to increased porosity of the cochlea bone in the inner ear. Vitamin D supplementation usually repairs conditions caused by poor dietary intake. Prolonged exposure to sunlight does not cause vitamin D toxicity.

The best known activity of vitamin D is its role in maintaining bone. It functions by increasing the uptake of calcium from the intestine through interaction with the parathyroid glands in controlling bone resorption and serum calcium levels. The skeleton is the body's reservoir of calcium and provides calcium through resorption of mineral when serum levels of this essential element drop. Vitamin D also increases reabsorption of phosphate by the kidney tubule, and may directly affect the osteoblast, the cell which forms bone.

The diet is very low in vitamin D, unless you're consuming fish liver. Fortified foods, primarily dairy, are our major sources and may be produced by irradiation or by addition of synthetic forms of the vitamin. Supplementation with fish liver oils or extracts of these oils in capsules are important sources, especially for children or seniors living at higher latitudes and particularly during fall and winter. A reduced incidence of hip fractures has been shown for seniors using calcium and vitamin D supplements.

Concentration : The ability to concentrate varies widely between individuals. Your ability to concentrate will vary from day to day depending upon your energy levels, other responsibilities, degree of interest and involvement with your task. Concentration span improves with practice.

Before you start each study session: do some body stretches or exercises to loosen up your body physically; do a brief relaxation exercise to help clear away unwanted mental distractions. This will help get you focused. Clarify what you are trying to learn and why. Work in short bursts rather than in long coffee saturated sessions. If you find your concentration starting to wander, take a short break. When you return to your study, review what you have achieved so far. If after further efforts your concentration cannot be regained, stop studying and do something else. Before you stop, decide when your next study session will be and what you will study.

Health Issues : Even more than other forms of assessment, the examination process has the potential to lead you to neglect your health. This is because of the misguided belief held by many students that in order to prepare adequately for an exam it is necessary to adjust their lifestyle in a negative fashion in order to "cram" in as much information as possible. This usually involves
skipping meals (or not eating proper meals)
interrupting your normal exercise routine
altering your sleep patterns
This usually means that you will become de-energized or even seriously ill just when you need to be at your peak. To maintain your physical and mental efficiency, especially around exam time, you will need to pay attention to several inter-related areas: diet, sleep patterns, exercise routines, leisure
By maintaining sensible eating, sleeping, exercise and leisure habits, especially in the lead-up to your exams you will maximize your chances of maintaining your energy levels, staying healthy, and enhancing your concentration.

Stress : Feeling 'stressed out' is one of the most common student complaints. Stress is a normal reaction to the exercise of our mental and physical capacities.
Physical Symptoms
There are a number of physical symptoms that alert us to a stressful situation:
our heart starts to race, signaling an increase in the production of adrenalin, our breathing becomes deeper, we are edgier than usual. It is important to recognise that these symptoms are produced automatically. They arise whenever we are confronted with a daunting task that will test our physical and mental capacities - especially if that task involves something new, unexpected, or unknown.

Fear of the unknown With exams, the fear of the unknown or unexpected is likely to dominate your thinking. You will probably be asking yourself questions like:

Will I pass? Do I know enough? Will I be able to remember everything? What if they ask something, which I do not know?

The more you think about these sorts of questions, the more likely it will be that your physical response will be an increase in anxiety leading to increased feelings of being 'stressed out'. Once you have recognised the onset of rising stress levels, it is necessary to do something about them, before they affect your study abilities.

There is no such thing as a "bad memory", it's just the way you use it to retain information. The more interest you have in the subject, it is easier to remember. Probably the easiest way to remember things is to use word association. It is a relatively easy process to learn and it can enhance your memory greatly.

In order to do this, you will need to create associations with things you want to remember. Another method is to associate the person's name with something distinctive about them. Can you see the association in your mind? Did your math teacher ever make your class repeat the multiplication tables in grade school? The voice simply went through the entire multiplication tables, from one to twelve. The voice said sentences like, "Twelve times one is twelve, twelve times two is twenty-four, twelve times three is thirty-six," and so on. This method of remembering things you need to keep in your mind is practicing repetition. This is simply a method in that you repeat the information over and over and over until it is successfully stored in your memory.

This method works well for remembering many types of information. Just say whatever it is that you want to remember over and over in your mind. Or, if you can, repeat the information out loud. Speaking the information will better help your mind to remember what it is that your ears are hearing. The topics should be discussed with classmates, friends or family member. More you vomit out loudly to others, better for mind to remember.

Expanding your vocabulary with words you will feel comfortable using for communication. Make a list of subjects that fascinate you the most. The more you enjoy a topic, the easier to learn about it. Once you have found a dictionary for one of your favorite topics, thumb through it looking for words that you have never heard or words you have heard that you don't know the meanings of. The sheer joy of having found the words and their meanings will help them sink into your memory. Since they relate to a favorite topic, you will likely practice and use them regularly with all the commitment needed to make them a part of regular conversation.

To make learning easier and more productive, play word games in a new and more effective way to master several words. Instead of putting separate words on separate cards with separate meanings. Pick four words that all have the same or similar meanings and write them on one side with their meanings clearly identified on the other. Since you will be learning the same or very closely related word meanings for four words, you will be learning four words and one definition with slightly subtle changes.

You learn much more by being humble than by being proud. Just as when driving you should be willing to stop and ask for directions, you shouldn't be afraid to do some digging when there's a word you don't understand. Look it up or even have the courage to ask. Go on a word hunt. Write down what you didn't understand and quickly. Hound that word and its meaning with your own research until you find it. The satisfaction of victory over your ignorance of that one word will bolster your confidence that you can learn many other words if you want to badly enough.

The majority of people list public speaking as their number one fear. Many of us are called upon to give presentation at work, address the gathering or even tell a joke at party. How do you survive such an ordeal? Easily with a little time and practice. The most important in public speaking is to know some thing about the subject. Many times speakers don't have a clear idea of what they want to convey to their audience. You need to know exactly what you want your audience to come away with. Once you know, boil that down to three or four points and elaborate on just those points. You are not a human encyclopedia, too much information can be just a deadly as not enough while giving a speech.

Practice speaking : Work out what you are going to say and practice doing it out loud once or twice. It's always a good idea to time a speech so that you know you will fill your allotted time slot and don't run out of time. Many times spontaneous words or idioms will come out during a speech that will surprise you and delight an audience. You would never want to appear, as if you're giving the same speech for the 101 times, you will appear bored and uncaring to your audience.

Dress : Your dress should be appropriate to the occasion and comfortable. Deciding what you will wear in advance, will make you confident on the day of the speech.

Be yourself : Some speakers become stiff and deadly serious and forget that humor can be one of a speakers most important tools. Don't just regurgitate facts - personal anecdotes and stories can be a wonderful way to reach out to an audience. Do not put extra efforts to enact someone. Be yourself.

The audience : An audience has to be there, because they will listen what you are saying. They want you to do well. Don't think of an audience as unfriendly or hostile, but think of an audience as a group of individuals. Try to make eye contact to one person at a time. But do not get stuck to one or two person through out your speech. Keep changing your focus slowly to cover every one. Work with your audience using their responses to carry you through your speech. You will also not throw up, lose your pants, forget your name or catch fire. These are all things that haunt anyone who has to go before a group of people. It's perfectly normal.

Shyness is a feeling of unease to meet and mix with people - especially those whom we don't know or with whom we don't feel secure. It is a common complaint. Most of us felt shy at some time in our life, and some of us are continue to feel so. The body and mind reflect actions may result into :-downcast eyes, increased heart beat, loss of words, slip of tongue, loss of composure, pain in vertebra, perspiration etc..

To overcome shyness it is important to understand the individual problem. Shyness, is not a physical problem, but rather more of attitude & belief about self and others. It is an imaginary vision about what others are going to think about. We think that others are making negative observation about us. We think that we are not as good as others. We fear that things may go wrong, and so become tense. The negative thoughts feeds our insecurity and the problem spirals.

Our mind wonders that others may think that we are stuck-up, unfriendly or even uncaring or ignorant. The fact is that we become so preoccupied in own feelings that unable to pay sufficient attention to environment. Because we are afraid to speak up and express the true feelings and opinions, which deprive us to many of the joys of life. By putting forth the time and effort, we can overcome the shyness.