Pharmacy Links
- Canada Online Pharmacy
- Canadian Pharmacy
- Cheap Tramadol Without Prescription
- Compare prescription drug prices and save your money.
- Online Pharmacy
Tags
Categories
- Allergies
- Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid
- Arthritis
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- General Health
- Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction
- Skin Care
- Weight Loss
- women's health
When coal, wood, or gas is burnt in fireplaces, stoves, or radiators, it consumes oxygen. Oxygen is essential for life. When such heating methods are used, make certain that air is entering the room. If the doors and windows fit so snugly that you do not feel any air coming in when you place your hand near the sills, be sure to open one of them a little. Always be careful to protect a gas flame from draughts that might blow it out and cause gas to pour into the room. This has been the source of many serious accidents. Electric heaters and electric stoves do not use up the oxygen in the air. Care should be taken when standing near heaters in night attire made from synthetic materials. Many of these materials are highly inflammable, and serious burns have resulted when the wearer merely brushed against a hot heating appliance, causing the garment to burst into flames.
Room temperature
There is, or course, a problem when it comes to getting along with people whose standards of comfort differ from your own. The average person seems to prefer a room temperature between 70° and 75° F. If you like to be warmer or colder than your associates, try to take care of this by the clothing you wear. Garments should be loose enough not to restrict the body in any way and should permit the absorption or evaporation of perspiration. They should be chosen for comfort rather than simply for style.
Air-conditioning
Air-conditioning is certainly an aid to comfort, but it sometimes is a problem, especially if the control is fixed. An air-conditioner should have a thermostat so that room temperature can be adjusted to your own comfort and health requirements. In the summer, you may go from an air-conditioned flat, in an air-conditioned car, to an air-conditioned office, and back again at the end of the day. This means that the body has had little opportunity to make the healthy adjustment to varying climatic conditions that is so important to maintaining a sturdy constitution.
On the other hand, air-conditioning can be a lifesaver. Hot, humid weather places added strain on the circulatory system. For persons suffering from some heart disease, this added strain may be intolerable. Living in an air-conditioned environment may be advised by your physician if you have a coronary condition; but be sure and get his advice before taking this expensive step.
Humidity and comfort
Besides the freshness and temperature of air, its moisture content (humidity) may influence health. Again, each individual must find his own prescription. Some people feel well in cold winter climates where the indoor air is extremely dry. Other people notice that this dry atmosphere causes irritation of the nose and throat. Some people are relatively comfortable when the air is warm and moist in summer. Others are so oppressed by humidity that they need a fan or an air-conditioner. Because perspiration evaporates more readily in dry air, thus cooling the body, most people mind the heat less when it is not combined with dampness.
*3\68\2*
The two lungs, which, like the heart, are completely encased by the ribs of the thorax (chest cavity), lie on each side of the heart. They supply the body with oxygen. The blood picks up from the lung capillaries the oxygen that the tissues must have, and carries it in its red cells throughout the body. Carbon dioxide, which the tissues give off as a waste product, is carried back to the lungs and expelled through breathing.
What commonsense precautions should you take to care for your lungs? First of all, especially in view of what we know about the effects of smoking on the lungs, you should give up smoking or cut down from high-risk cigarettes to the lower-risk mild cigar or pipe. I discuss this in the entry smoking in the encyclopaedia section.
Next, if you are a worker in any industry where dust, gases, and smoke are inhaled, you must learn the risks involved now, because industrial materials such as silica will have produced their irreversible damage to the lungs by the time symptoms appear. You can do a great deal to protect your lungs against infection if you study the entries pneumonia and tuberculosis in the encyclopaedia section.
*35\68\2*
If I had to answer that question in one word, I would say, ‘Habit.’ Many fortunate individuals never want to eat more or less than they need to maintain their ideal weight. When they exercise a great deal, they eat more heartily than when they spend a quiet day at home; if they have a huge meal at noon, they just are not hungry at dinner time.
Their appetites are regulated by their requirements, and they seldom develop bad eating habits.
The late Dr. Norman Jolliffe, when he was teaching at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, coined the term ‘appestat’ for the mechanism that regulates the appetite. People who keep their desirable weights usually have appestats that are set exactly right.
In many people, however, the appestat is easily influenced or conditioned by habit. A patient of mine who had been visiting relatives and eating the huge meals they set before her, in order to be polite, came home two months later and told me her appetite had increased. On the other hand, people who do not get enough to eat for some time may develop low appestats and poor appetites.
Emotional factors can play an important part in over-eating or under-eating. People who feel lonely and unwanted often eat a great deal because it is one of their few pleasures. Women with small children have frequently told me they overeat simply because of boredom, or because nibbling makes them feel calmer and better able to cope with the children. On the other hand, worry and tension or the desire for attention and sympathy can also keep people from eating. Deep psychological problems naturally call for the help of a specialist. But often I have found that many of my patients who have fallen into bad eating habits can break them by willpower and the type of information given in this chapter.
*27\68\2*
So far, this chapter has consisted almost entirely of what to do and has said almost nothing about why to do it. This is because I want to provide workable rules and ready facts about foods for the many people who are not interested in proteins, vitamins, calories, and so on but do want to eat the proper foods. Information on these and many other related topics can be found in the encyclopaedia section. (A good place to start is the entry on diet.) However, I would like to make a few remarks about the reasons for a well-balanced diet. First, you should remember that food provides the body with four essentials:
Energy
Repair materials
Growth materials—from infancy through the period of active growth
Vitamins and other special substances
Usually, your appetite will tell you just how much food your body needs. This indicator is so sensitive that some people go for years at almost precisely the same weight. If more food is taken in than is needed for fuel, building, and repair, the body stores it as fat. If too little food is consumed, the body burns its reserves of fat and protein.
*19\68\2*
The first thing to do is to discover how intense the habit is in your case. You may find out that you can cut down from a packet of cigarettes a day or the continual puffing on a pipe to one smoke after each meal. Try it. Smoking that little is almost always harmless. If it does not work—and it usually does not—go back to smoking again for a few days. Then set the day, preferably a Monday, when you will come to grips with the habit and break it by the technique that follows.
Breaking the habit
Day 1: Do not smoke in the morning except for one cigarette after breakfast. Do not smoke your favourite brand, but substitute for it a cigarette you do not care for, preferably one that has a filter; or use a cigarette holder with a filter.
Day 2: No smoking in the morning. No smoking in the afternoon except for one cigarette after the noon meal, substituting for your favourite brand as described above.
Day 3: No cigarette, except one at night if you really need it. Plan a busy day and evening, avoiding social gatherings, which encourage smoking. Go to a movie theatre, a library or some other place where smoking is impossible or difficult.
Days 4-6: Eating, chewing gum, sucking sweets, and so on are very helpful. Do not worry about gaining weight during the first week or so when you are breaking the smoking habit. It also helps to find something to do with your hands, such as knitting, or simply twirling a key ring or handling the coins in your pocket. If you find yourself nervous and jittery, especially on the fourth, fifth, and sixth days when you have no cigarettes at all, take some aspirin or a sedative which your doctor may prescribe for you. Day 7: If by now you are not proudly boasting that you have broken the smoking habit, but are going around biting your nails and feeling a nervous wreck, then you will either have to make it by sheer will power, or, preferably, visit your doctor, who will help you over the difficult withdrawal period with heavier sedation and the encouragement he can give better than anyone else.
Caution: Watch your weight. People who give up smoking usually gain weight. After the first week or so, or when you no longer crave a smoke, check your diet as I suggest in the next chapter.
*11\68\2*