Improving your health and wellness can seem like a daunting task, especially if you know you have some bad health habits to break. But, several improvements you can make today can result in tremendous health benefits. Here are five steps you can take today that can have a positive impact on your overall health and wellness.
Stop smoking: Everyone knows smoking is bad for you. In fact, people who smoke have by far the greatest risk of lung cancer and increased risk of a cardiac event. But, many people don’t realize that changes in the lungs caused by smoking can actually improve over time once a smoker quits.
Increase your water intake: Sixty percent of your body weight is water. Your body depends on water to carry nutrients to cells and to flush toxins out of vital organs, so getting the right amount of fluids each day is crucial. Men should drink 3 liters, or 13 cups, per day. For women, the recommendation is 2.2 liters, or 9 cups, per day.
Adopt the Mediterranean diet: The Mediterranean diet is a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, olive oil, nuts and fish. The results of numerous studies show long-term health benefits to adopting the diet. The diet has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer when adhered to long-term.
Have your cholesterol checked: You might be surprised to learn that you should begin having your cholesterol monitored by a doctor at age 20. But since coronary artery disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S., it’s a recommendation you should take seriously. Levels that are too high can be controlled by diet, quitting smoking, exercise, and even prescription medication.
— Brandpoint
CHILDREN’S HEALTH: Not sure whether or not your kid is too sick to go to school? Keep your little one home if their temperature is higher than 100.4 degrees; if they have experienced vomiting and/or diarrhea within the past 24 hours; or has swollen glands in their throat. Children with stomach aches, persistent coughs and runny noses should also be kept at home on the couch. Don’t factor in what your child may miss by staying home — the idea is to make sure the germs don’t spread at school.
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SENIOR HEALTH: NIHSenior Health recommends that people born between 1945 and 1965 take a one-time test for Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is a serious liver disease that results from infection with the Hepatitis C virus, which is spread primarily through contact with the blood of an infected person. Hepatitis C has been called a silent disease because people can get infected and not know it.
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NEW RESEARCH: According to a new report published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, too much jogging may be just as bad for you as not exercising at all. The study’s authors examined 1,000 healthy people over a 12-year period, and found that people who ran for four hours a week or more were just as likely to die over the course of the study as people who got no exercise.
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BOOK PICK: ‘The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ by David J. Morris
Over a decade into the “war on terror,” PTSD afflicts as many as 30 percent of the conflict’s veterans. Yet to many of us, the disorder remains shrouded in mystery. Now, David J. Morris — a war correspondent, former Marine and PTSD sufferer himself — has written the essential account of this illness. Through interviews and forays into the scientific, literary and cultural history of the illness, Morris crafts a moving work that will speak not only to those with the condition, but also to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
— Houghton Mifflin Harcourt