Multiple Studies Link Live Music to Wellbeing

Working as a self-employed consultant, Adam Drybrough creates growth hacking and digital marketing strategies for a number of businesses ranging from startups to established brands. Outside of his work, Adam Drybrough enjoys going to live music events. 

If you ask a frequent concertgoer why they enjoy live music, they might tell you that live music simply makes them happy. A number of scientific studies show links between happiness and attending concerts. 

According to a 2016 study published in the journal Public Health, preliminary data showed that cultural events like concerts “can have an impact on endocrine activity and down-regulate stress.” In other words, live music can lower the levels of stress hormones in your body. 

Additionally, research conducted at Australia’s Deakin University found that people who regularly attended concerts reported a higher level of happiness than those without as much music in their lives. While the findings do not necessarily show a direct causation between happiness and live music, researchers believe the data illuminates how people think about music and how the social connectivity and engagement of live music events can improve happiness.

The History of Skydiving

Adam Drybrough serves as a self-employed digital and business strategy consultant in Calgary. A former competitive figure skater, Adam Drybrough continues his passion for sports and often enjoys skydiving in his free time.

Although the history of the parachute can be dated back to the 1100s in China, the history of skydiving doesn’t truly start until 1797. In this year, Frenchman Andre-Jacques Garnerin used a parachute to successfully descend from a hot air balloon. 

By 1919, Leslie Irvin completed the first successful free fall jump to ever be recorded, and by the 1930s, records started showing people participating in competitive dives. Yet, the sport did not become mainstream until World War II. 

During World War II, the military started developing parachute technology, and many soldiers were using those parachutes to drop into various areas. Despite the serious nature of these dives, soldiers began having fun and they continued skydiving after they returned home from war. These soldiers put on regular competitions and the popularity of the sport began to grow. 

Before long, skydiving had become a national sport and it has since turned into a popular recreational activity.

Protecting the Ears during a Live Music Performance

A self-employed business consultant in Calgary, Adam Drybrough helps corporate, retail, and startup brands improve lead generation and retention through digital marketing. He also assists landowners and developers in creating effective business strategies. Outside of work, Adam Drybrough enjoys listening to live music.

Most live music performances hover between 85 decibels and 140 decibels depending on the music. Since hearing loss occurs due to repeated exposure to decibel levels above 85, music lovers are advised to protect their ears during live performances. Below are a few ways to do this:

Check where the speakers are
Before finding the perfect spot at a venue, attendees should look where the speakers are located. Since most venues place the speakers at the front, it is best to enjoy the show near the back of the crowd to reduce hearing damage. If attendees need to be in front, they should try arriving early and pick out a spot that is in between the venue’s speakers.

Use quality earplugs
Ear protectors, such as earmuffs or earplugs, are a simple way to give the ears a break from loud music. However, cheap earplugs can decrease the music quality, so attendees may want to splurge on higher-quality earplugs. These types of earplugs may cost more, but they reduce background noise so it’s easier to hear the music and lower the decibel level.

Give the ears a break
Live performances that are held outdoors are significantly better for the ears since the noise isn’t as highly concentrated as it is at an indoor venue. Whenever possible, attendees should focus on attending outdoor performances instead of indoor ones. However, when an indoor performance can’t be missed, it’s a good idea to step outside regularly and give the ears about 10 minutes to recover.

Simpler Options for Website Scraping

Based in Calgary, Adam Drybrough serves as a consultant for startups, retailers, and corporate brands. Adam Drybrough focuses on digital marketing and growth hacking strategies to improve customer conversion and retention. One of the oldest growth hacking strategies that companies can use is called website scraping, which is essentially gathering large amounts of data by copying it from other sites.

Data can drive growth, but website scraping involves time--by way of manually copying and pasting data--or programming skill. Programmers can create a robot.txt file that instructs web crawlers to look for specific information. However, individuals who are not great programmers can still engage in painless website scraping with the products that have become available in recent years.

One platform that individuals can use is Parsehub, which helps marketers extract data from any webpage. Import.io is another popular program. Companies not currently engaged in data scraping should look at these and other options to figure out what would save them the ideal amount of time and money while still providing valuable data for fine-tuning marketing initiatives.

How to Create and Ride the Perfect Wake

Calgary resident Adam Drybrough serves as an independent business strategy consultant. When he is not helping startup companies or guiding local real estate developers, Adam Drybrough can often be found wakeboarding.

Creating a good wake is the first key to fun wakeboarding. Boats need about 1,800 pounds of extra weight to produce a robust wake. This weight should be arranged so that it is largely on the rear of the boat and off to one side. 

This arrangement will make the boat lean to one side, which is ideal for wakeboarding. Boat drivers must remember that turning carefully is extra important when the boat is off balance, especially when a wakeboarder falls from the board. 

Once a large wake has been created, wakeboarders should focus on finding the sweet spot on that wake. Look for the trough about 5 feet behind the boat. Forgoing the rope entirely is possible in this section of the wake, and learning to stay within it by shifting body weight is good practice for any wakeboarder.

Advice for Content Optimization

A self-employed business consultant in Calgary, Adam Drybrough offers clients a range of services, focusing on helping landowners and real estate developers. Adam Drybrough also provides online marketing advice and search engine optimization (SEO). Creating optimized content is key to a strong SEO strategy, so here are some useful tips.

1. Title tags. In the past, content optimizers have used a webpage’s title tag to place a keyword. However, in the modern search environment, you should look more toward gelling your title tag with the queries potential visitors will make. Use a tool like AnswerThePublic.com to find out what people are searching for and write title tags to suit those searches.

2. Make it readable. Unless your content is specifically geared toward technical subjects, your aim is to make it as readable as possible. Accessibility plays a large part in search rankings, so avoid huge words and always consider how you can explain complex subjects to the layperson.

3. Avoid keyword stuffing. It is a practice that has existed since the dawn of search engines, but keyword stuffing is now more likely to get your website penalized than it is to achieve high rankings. Examine your content and avoid any unnatural uses of keywords. If a sentence must be rewritten to accommodate a keyword, it likely doesn’t belong there in the first place.

Support for Champions Helps Children of ALS Parents

Calgary resident Adam Drybrough serves as a business development consultant and establishes digital marketing and growth hacking strategies for startup businesses and brands in the retail and corporate sector. Beyond his professional pursuits, Adam Drybrough supports the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Society of Alberta. The organization’s services include the Support for Champions program. 

Designed to enhance the lives of children with parents afflicted by ALS, the Support for Champions program helps relieve the financial burdens associated with the disease. Parents with ALS may experience difficulty in affording childhood activities and accessing the necessary resources to help their children deal with emotions such as anger or grief. Funds supplied by Support for Champions enable families to afford participation in social activities for children as well as access support services.

Persons eligible for the program include children aged 18 years or under who have or previously had a parent diagnosed with ALS. Children must live within the province of Alberta at the time of registration, and parents must register with the ALS Society of Alberta prior to applying.

Useful SEO Tips for 2017

Since 2010, Adam Drybrough has served real estate developers and landowners as a freelance business strategy and development consultant. Beyond this work, Adam Drybrough leverages his experience in digital marketing to provide search engine optimization (SEO) services to clients. Here are some top tips for SEO in 2017.

1. Quality content. As has always been the case, quality content is a major factor in an SEO campaign. However, search engines now look for content that adds true value for users, so try to offer something unique and relevant to your website visitors in everything that you write.

2. Work with influencers. Social media websites, particularly LinkedIn, offer you the opportunity to connect with key influencers in your sphere. Provide useful insights on such sites and open dialogues with people who you think can help. Building relationships with influencers could lead to you contributing to their efforts and receiving natural backlinks to your website.

3. Rich answers. According to a study by Stone Temple Consulting, a leading digital marketing consulting firm, rich answers, which are answers pulled from websites and shown at the top of the search results for a query, now appear for approximately 40 percent of queries in Google. Create clear content with easily identifiable headings to increase the likelihood of having it appear as a rich answer on relevant search queries.

Improving Ice Skating Balance

Adam Drybrough, a self-employed business and government relations consultant in Canada, spent several years participating in ice skating championships. Placing within the top 20 for ice dancing during the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Canadian National Championships, Adam Drybrough has skated in both the junior and senior level events.

All types of ice skaters rely on their balance to perform various maneuvers on the ice. Below are just a few off-ice exercises to help skaters improve their balance:

- Skating hops: From the skating stance, skaters should bend forward at the hips until their torso is parallel to the floor. Then, while bending the knees, skaters balance their body weight on their right foot. The left foot should be resting roughly one foot behind the right foot and the body should be close to the floor. By pushing off the floor and hopping forward, skaters transfer their weight to the left foot. At the same time, their left arm moves backward while the right arm moves forward to maintain balance.

- Single-leg balance: This exercise begins with skaters standing with their feet roughly hip-width apart and their back straight. By bending the left knee to a 90 degree angle, skaters balance on their right leg for as long as possible. They then switch their weight to the left leg and repeat the process until their stabilizing muscles are tired. To add extra challenge to this exercise, skaters can perform it while standing on an unstable surface with their eyes closed.

- Single-leg squats: While standing on their left leg, skaters bend their right knee and raise it up so that it hovers in front of their body. Once they are stable, they bend their left knee and push their bottom back until their body is lowered by 45 degrees. Skaters then go back to their starting stance and continue the exercise several times before switching to the other leg.