Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Do this test tonight when you go to bed. Put a plate on the floor next to your bed. Lie down with one hand hanging over the bed holding a spoon above the plate. When you fall asleep, the spoon will fall on the plate and should wake you up. If you don't wake up until the next day, it probably means you are 'sleep deprived'.
We live in a world of tired, sleep deprived people. We all know the importance of having a healthy diet and doing exercise, but we don't worry enough about sleeping the hours we need. We might live longer and happier lives if we took our beds as seriously as our running shoes.

Sleepy people - the dangers of sleep deprivation

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For decades, doctors have warned us about the dangers of stress and have given us advice about how to cut down our stress levels. Everyone agrees that long-term stress, for example having to look after someone who has a chronic illness, or stressful situations where there is nothing we can do, for example being stuck in a traffic jam, is bad for our health and should be avoided whenever possible. However, some medical experts now believe that certain kinds of stress may actually be good for us.

'Good stress' is beneficial to our health and may, in fact, help us stay young and attractive and even live longer. 'Good stress' can strengthen our natural defenses which protect us from illnesses common among older people, such as Alzheimer's, arthritis, and heart problems. He believes that 'good stress' can increase the production of the proteins that help to repair the body's cells, including brain cells.


Get stressed, stay young

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A Why do we need to drink water?

We all know that our bodies need water. Water cleans our body, controls our temperature, and helps to keep us healthy. About 70% of our body is water.

B How much water do we need to drink a day?

We often read that we need to drink at least eight glasses of water a day (about two litres). The idea probably came from mineral water companies! In fact, how much water we need depends on the weather and on what we're doing. When we are hot, of if we do sport or exercise, we need to drink more. Some experts say that, in normal conditions, we only really need about on litre a day.

Water - facts and myths

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In Okinawa people live a very long time. They are hardly ever ill. Many people live to be 100 - more people than in other parts of the world. Why? What is their secret?

1 A healthy diet

The Okinawans eat vegetables, fruit, fish, soya, and rice. They usually have seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day. People don't usually drink much alcohol or smoke. They don't eat much meat or fast food.

2 Exercise

Physical activity is very important for the people of Okinawa. Martial arts, walking, traditional dancing, and gardening are very popular with people of all ages.

The mystery of Okinawa

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It's no secret that many college students do not sleep enough. Academic studies, social life, part-time or full-time jobs, and relationships are often more important than sleep. Students experience even more sleep deprivation as midterm and final exams approach.

Sleep is serious business

Lack of sleep can cause these harmful side effects:
  • daytime drowsiness
  • inability to cope with stress
  • weight gain
  • poor health
  • low energy
Most important for students, sleep deprivation makes studying and learning more difficult. It also hurts the body's ability to stay healthy.


The importance of sleep to academic success

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The amount of sleep each person needs depends on many factors, including age. Infants generally require about 16 hours a day. For most adults, seven to eight hours a night appears to be the ideal amount of sleep, although a few people may need a little as five hours’ sleep or as much as ten hours’ sleep each day.
Getting too little sleep creates a sleep debt, and eventually, your body will demand that the debt be repaid.


A large member of people over 65 have frequent sleeping problems, such as insomnia, and deep sleep stages in many elderly people often become very short or stop completely. Microsleeps, or very brief episodes of sleep in an otherwise awake person, are another mark of sleep deprivation. In many cases, people are not aware that they are experiencing microsleeps. The widespread practice of burning the candle at both ends in western industrialised societies has created so much sleep deprivation that what is really abnormal sleepiness is now almost the norm.

How much sleep do we need?

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The beliefs of Vietnamese folk medicine associate illness with the absence of any of the three souls which maintain life, intelligence, and the senses or of the seven spirits which collectively sustain the living body. A number of rituals performed at childbirth, which are aimed at protecting the mother and the infant from medical and magical dangers, derive from these beliefs but they play a relatively limited role in medical behaviour generally. Conversely, Chinese medicine plays a major role in the maintenance and restoration of health and is observed by Vietnamese. Principles from Chinese medicine provide the scripting for the management of birth for both groups and more generally, establish guidelines whereby good health may be maintained.


Traditional Vietnamese medical theory

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The right balance of food and activities will help you feel great and keep healthy. Remember to:
• Make sure that you eat a variety of foods. It is important to eat from all five food groups
• Emphasize cereals, breads and other grain products. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. These contain vital nutrients and leading dietitians recommend eating at least two servings of fruit and three of vegetables every day.
• Achieve and maintain a healthy body weight by enjoying regular physical activities and healthy eating. Being too thin can cause as many health problems as being overweight. Remember, the correct weight for you depends on many different factors including your age, height and sex.
• Eat moderate portions and don’t be tempted to order a larger size when eating out. Skipping meals can lead to overeating as you will be much hungrier later, so be sure to eat regularly if you want to curb your appetite
• You don’t need to eliminate all of your favourite foods but do check the ingredients on food labels and make sure that you reduce your intake of foods that are high in fats, sugar and salt. Choose lower-fat dairy products, leaner meats and food prepared with little or no fat. Take limited salt, alcohol and caffeine.
• If you have a food allergy, make sure you avoid any of the ingredients that can trigger an attack. 

Having a healthy diet is sometimes easier said than done. It is tempting to eat less healthy food because they might be easier to get or prepare or they satisfy a craving. Between family and work or school, you are probably balancing a hundred things at once.

How to improve your diet

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It is very important to have healthy teeth. Good teeth help us to chew our food. They also help us to look nice.
How does a tooth go bad? The decay begins in a little crack in the enamel covering of the tooth. This happens after germs and bits of food have collected there. Then the decay slowly spreads inside the tooth. Eventually, poison goes into the blood, and we may feel quite ill.
How can we keep our teeth healthy? First, we ought to visit our dentist twice a year, he can fill the small holes in our teeth before they destroy the teeth. He can examine our teeth to check that they are growing in the right way. Unfortunately, many people wait until they have toothache before they see a dentist.

Keeping our teeth healthy

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Are you somebody who can't wake up in the mornings? Do you need two cups of coffee before you can start a new day? Do you feel awful when you first wake up? Scientists say it's all because of our genes. How did they find this out?

Researchers discovered that we all have a 'clock' gene, also called a Period 3 gene. This gene can be long or short. People who have the long gene are usually people who are very good in the morning, but who get tired quite early at night. People who have the short gene are usually people who are more active at night but who have problems waking up early in the morning. How does it help us to know if we have the long or short gene? Scientists say that, if possible, we should try to change our working hours to fit our 'body clock'. If you are a 'morning person' then you could start work early and finish early. But if you are bad in the morning, then it might be better to start work in the afternoon and work until late at night. So maybe, instead of nine to five it should be seven to three or twelve to eight.

Are you allergic to mornings?

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We all know that exercise is good for health. So on January 1st we often start the New Year with a good resolution - to go to the gym three times a week. But what happens? The first week we go three times, the second week we go twice, and the third we stop going. The same thing happens with diets. After Christmas we start a new healthy eating plan. We are very enthusiastic at first - but after two or three weeks, we stop.

Don't go to the gym in the winter!

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1. How often do you do exercise?
a. Everyday
b. Quite often
c. Hardly ever/Never
2. Do you do a martial art, e.g. karate, tai chi?
a. Yes, often
b. Yes, sometimes
c. No, never
3. How many portions of fruit and vegetables do you eat a day?
a. Seven potions a day
b. Five portions a day
c. Less than five potions a day
4. How often do you eat meat?
a. Everyday
b. Three times a week
c. Hardly ever/Never
5. How often do you eat fish?
a. Three times a week
b. Once a week
c. Hardly ever/Never
6. How often do you drink alcohol?
a. Often
b. Sometimes
c. Hardly ever/Never
7. Do you smoke?
a. Yes
b. Sometimes
c. Never
8. How often do you meet your friends?
a. Everyday
b. Once or twice a week
c. Once a month
9. How often do you meditate?
a. Everyday
b. Sometimes
c. Hardly ever/Never
10. How often are you in a hurry?
a. Always
b. Sometimes
c. Hardly ever/Never

Do you live the Okinawa way?

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Doctors say that the traditional diet in some Mediterranean countries, for example Greece and Italy, is very healthy. 

Why is it good for you? 

In these countries people eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, bread, pasta, rice, fish, olive oil, and wine. They don’t eat a lot of red meat or butter. This diet is very good for your heart and people in these countries live longer than in other countries.

Eat the Mediterranean way

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What do you know about sleep and dreams? Check True or False.
True False
1. Babies dream less than adults
2. Some people don't dream at all
3. Women sleep more than men
4. It's dangerous to wake up a sleepwalker
5. A sound sleeper rarely moves during the night
6. The best cure for insomnia is to take short naps during the day
7. You can play tapes and learn a foreign language while you sleep


What is your Sleep IQ

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