Topic: Stay Healthy And Prevent Disease
Introduction:
“Health is not simply the absent of
sickness”
What is the true definition of Healthy
Living? It sounds silly that we need to define Healthy
Living. After all, we know what Healthy is and we also know what Living is.
Let‘s first start with what Health is. According to the World
Health Organization (WHO), Health is a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being. Interestingly enough, health is not
simply defined as just the absence of disease. The actual definition of Healthy
Living is the steps, actions and strategies one puts in place to achieve
optimum health. Healthy Living is about taking responsibility and making smart
health choices for today and for the future. Eating right, getting physically
fit, emotional
wellness, spiritual wellness and prevention are all apart of
creating a healthy lifestyle. Since the entire YOU, meaning all aspects of
one’s self, must work in harmony
to achieve wellness, you need to put balanced energy into each aspect of
yourself.
• The body or Physical You requires good
nutrition, appropriate weight, beneficial exercise, adequate
rest and proper stress management.
• The mind or Emotional You needs self-supportive attitudes, positive thoughts and
viewpoints and a positive self-image. You also need to give and receive
forgiveness, love and compassion; you need to laugh and experience happiness;
you need joyful relationships with yourself and others.
I.
EXERCISE:
The very best
Exercise helps
people live better as well as longer. Again and again, studies show that people
who exercise regularly enjoy a sense of well-being. They feel and look younger
than non-exercisers. They have more energy, and they don’t feel tired out –
thanks to better muscle tone and circulation. Routine, vigorous exercise is
also one of the best ways known to reduce stress of all kinds; it can even
outperform drugs in the treatment of mild to moderate depression.
Besides
boosting the psyche, exercise provides countless health benefits. It prevents
heart disease, strengthens bones and reduces the risk of high blood pressure.
It raises levels of the “good” cholesterol, combats obesity and provides
energy.
Studies
documenting the benefits of exercise abound. Researchers have found that:
·
Among 17,000 Harvard graduates
between the ages of 34 and 74, those who burned more than 2,000 calories a week
in exercise increased their life expectancy by an average of two years, reduced
their risk of a heart attack by a third, and reduced their death rate from all
causes by more than on-forth.
·
Even moderate activity helps.
Researchers at the University
of Minnesota studied more
than 12,000 middle-age men at high risk for coronary heart disease. They found
that those who spent an average of 47 minutes a day in such leisure activities
as yard work, walking, golfing or hunting had a 37 percent lower risk of heart
disease and sudden death and a 30 percent drop in overall mortality compared
with men who were active only 15 minutes a day.
·
Similarly, a 1989 report in the
journal Circulation described a group of more than 3,000 railroad workers who
were observed for periods lasting 17 to 20 years. The men with higher levels of
leisure-time activity had lower levels of heart disease. Death rates from heart
disease were lowest for men who burned 1,000 calories or more a week in
activity, but men who reported burning just 250 calories a week – a small
amount – were much better off than men who were sedentary. It would take 10
minutes a day of walking at a three miles an hour to burn 250 calories in a
week.
·
In 1987, the Centers for Disease
Control reviewed 43 studies on exercise and health. It was found that regular
exercise could do as much for heart health as quitting smoking, lowering blood
cholesterol or controlling blood pressure.
·
Postal workers who carried
mailbags had fewer heart attacks than their peers who sat behind desks. If they
did have a heart attack, they were less likely to die or be seriously disabled.
·
Middle – aged men doing heavy
physical work had less heart disease and developed it later in life than men
whose jobs required little or no physical activity. At autopsy, their hearts
showed the same signs of heart disease as inactive men 10 to 15 years younger.
·
Men who walked to work – even when
the walk took less than 10 minutes – showed less evidence of heart disease on electrocardiograms than
men who rode buses or drove.
Exercise staves off heart disease
in part because it alters other risk factors. Regular exercisers are much less
likely to be overweight; exercise not only burns calories, it appears to
suppress appetite. Exercise reduces blood pressure; in fact, exercise combined
with weight loss can often control high blood pressure without medication.
Smokers who start exercise programs often quit smoking. The aerobic exercise –
specifically jogging – has been shown to raise levels of HDL cholesterol, which
is associated with greater risk of heart disease.
Exercise also strengthens bones.
Without exercise, bones lose their calcium and grow brittle. This happens most
rapidly with bed rest ( and it’s one reason patients
are urged to get out of bed as soon as possible, even after major surgery or
heart attacks). Calcium loss has been observed in astronauts returning from
space, where zero gravity can rob exercise of its value.
Weak and
brittle bones due to lack of exercise are common in the aged. For older people,
the upshot is more than a broken bone. Almost everyone has seen an older friend
or relative break a hip and then go rapidly downhill. Too often fractures in
older people mean the end of an active and useful life.
