... dental problems .... colds and flu
... balance ....sleep problems
... joint and muscle pain
Your body speaks to you all the time. But do you listen to what it's saying? Most people don't. Life is much easier if we ignore those little pains, that had week of sleep, the occasional stomach ache, the recurrent colds. Most of the time the problem just goes away on its own, doesn't it?
And the truth is, a lot of people seem to get by just fine ignoring their symptoms and health problems. But that doesn't change this important fact: your body has told you that something is wrong and you chose to ignore it. Perhaps your stomach pain was merely a reaction to a bad piece of fruit, or may be it means that your stomach is beginning to have serious troubles. You just don't know.
Is this how you would treat a car that suddenly made old noises or what you would do if a wet spot started to appear on a ceiling at home? We hope not.
One of the great truisms of life is that a problem ignored is a problem that will soon grow worse. This holds true in relationships, the work place, the government, your home and with your own body. Perhaps it's time to turn your ear inwards.
LISTENING AND REACTING
It's easy to categorise health into two parts. The first part is healthy everyday living and covers issues such as food, exercise, sleep, stress control and energy. Up until this point, we've focused
Your body constantly alerts you to potential health trouble ahead. Your job is to listen - and respond
entirely on just this - how to live every moment in a way that will extend and enrich your health and happiness for decades to come.
The second part of health is what you could call 'capital-letter' diseases: formally named health issues such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma, cancer and hundreds of other diagnosable chronic conditions. These are the age robbers, the killers the conditions that researchers focus on, the ones all of us fear and each of us wants to avoid. These condition are the focus of part 4 of this session, 'Preventing the diseases of ageing', there we'll show you all the best ways to prevent these health traps of the future from catching you.
But there's a third part to health, and that's the focus of the next pages. It's the small health problems, the symptoms the nagging little health issues that mean you fall between being healthy and having a serious chronic disease.
Starting from around the age of 45, most adults begin to experience more nagging symptoms than when they were younger. The main reason is simple - after four decades of life, natural wear-and-tear is beginning to catch up with you. Suddenly, your joints hurt more, your digestion isn't so reliable, your hearing is less sharp and your alertness is in decline come midafternoon.
More often than not, these health issues are small. But our message is big: by taking positive steps to remedy small health issues now, you are taking poistive steps to lengthen your life and stay vibrant when you're older.
Why? Because symptoms are exactly that: the way an emerging problem reveals itself to you. The pain isn't the real problem, for example: it's the cause of the pain that often matters more. Or take a cold. You may be focused on stopping your runny nose, but that's not the most important task to consider -it's stopping the underlying virus from spreading. One doesn't have much to do with the other.
In the pages ahead, you'll discover clever ways to remedy several of the most common symptoms and simple health problems of people aged 40 and above. More importantly, you'll find these remedies also address the underlying health issues.
You'll probably recognise many of these problems - from sore gums to aching leg veins, common colds to after-dinner indigestion, these are the most regular everyday health complaints of adults. we also address a few more specialised issues, such as a decreasing sense of balance and skin problems, which if you handle them now, should have minimal impact on you later.
The big message: long-life living is more than just eating well, exercising and maintaining a great attitude. It also includes listening to your body, and responding quickly and thoughtfully to what it's telling you. With the quick-healing advice in the pages ahead, you'll find out what you need to get the healthy long life you want.
It happens to everyone at some time. You get lightheaded, or your foot catches on a loose rug or you don't spot that patch of ice. Suddenly, you're on the ground, hurt and embrassed. If only we could all instantly bounce back up like six year olds. Unfortunately, as you age, falling becomes more than just a passing episode barely to be considered; instead, it becomes a serious risk to your health and independence.
People generally underestimate the impact of falling, and the potentially dire consequences, even at a relatively young age. A single fall can be even more debilitating than a heart attack. If you're over 65 and you fall and break a hip, for instance, you have a 33 percent risk of dying the following year. If you consider that one out of every three people over 65 falls each year, the scope of the damage is pretty considerable.
Overall, falls are the leading cause of injury, death and disability among people aged 65 and older. Yes, that's right: you're more likely to die from falling in the bathroom than from being in a car accident. Yet by government estimates, half of all falls are preventable. That's why balance is part of the fitness pyramid on previous.
We don't want you suddenly to become obsessed with falling, but a little mindfulness and some pre-emptive home adjustments could go a long way towards diminshing this concern now and for decades to come.
Evalute your balance
It's simple enough. You need either a stopwatch or someone to help you who has a watch with a second hand. Wear flat shoes or have bare feet. Stand up straight with a countertop or chair back in front of you- to grab if you wobble. If you are frail, osteoporosis or balance problems, stand in front of a bed as well, and have someone else around in case you fall.
When you're ready, fold your arms across your chest, shut your eyes and at the same time raise one leg, bending it at the knee as close to a right angle as you can. At the moment you raise your leg, start the stopwatch or have your partner note the position of the second hand. Stop timing as soon as either uncross your arms or have to put your foot down. You can try this several times if you like - the sensation can take a bit of getting used to. Then take a break for a few minutes and repeat with the other leg.
Here are the average scores per age group:
Improve your balance
Exercise, exercise, exercise No matter what you do - walking, strength-training or specific balance exercises - it will help your balance. One physical activity touted for improving balance is the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi (see on the new exercise classes) Yoga, dance, hiking and stretching also challenge your sense of balance, as do sports that emphasise side-to-side movement, such as badminton, tennis and football.
... balance ....sleep problems
... joint and muscle pain
Your body speaks to you all the time. But do you listen to what it's saying? Most people don't. Life is much easier if we ignore those little pains, that had week of sleep, the occasional stomach ache, the recurrent colds. Most of the time the problem just goes away on its own, doesn't it?
And the truth is, a lot of people seem to get by just fine ignoring their symptoms and health problems. But that doesn't change this important fact: your body has told you that something is wrong and you chose to ignore it. Perhaps your stomach pain was merely a reaction to a bad piece of fruit, or may be it means that your stomach is beginning to have serious troubles. You just don't know.
Is this how you would treat a car that suddenly made old noises or what you would do if a wet spot started to appear on a ceiling at home? We hope not.
One of the great truisms of life is that a problem ignored is a problem that will soon grow worse. This holds true in relationships, the work place, the government, your home and with your own body. Perhaps it's time to turn your ear inwards.
LISTENING AND REACTING
It's easy to categorise health into two parts. The first part is healthy everyday living and covers issues such as food, exercise, sleep, stress control and energy. Up until this point, we've focused
Your body constantly alerts you to potential health trouble ahead. Your job is to listen - and respond
entirely on just this - how to live every moment in a way that will extend and enrich your health and happiness for decades to come.
The second part of health is what you could call 'capital-letter' diseases: formally named health issues such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma, cancer and hundreds of other diagnosable chronic conditions. These are the age robbers, the killers the conditions that researchers focus on, the ones all of us fear and each of us wants to avoid. These condition are the focus of part 4 of this session, 'Preventing the diseases of ageing', there we'll show you all the best ways to prevent these health traps of the future from catching you.
But there's a third part to health, and that's the focus of the next pages. It's the small health problems, the symptoms the nagging little health issues that mean you fall between being healthy and having a serious chronic disease.
Starting from around the age of 45, most adults begin to experience more nagging symptoms than when they were younger. The main reason is simple - after four decades of life, natural wear-and-tear is beginning to catch up with you. Suddenly, your joints hurt more, your digestion isn't so reliable, your hearing is less sharp and your alertness is in decline come midafternoon.
More often than not, these health issues are small. But our message is big: by taking positive steps to remedy small health issues now, you are taking poistive steps to lengthen your life and stay vibrant when you're older.
Why? Because symptoms are exactly that: the way an emerging problem reveals itself to you. The pain isn't the real problem, for example: it's the cause of the pain that often matters more. Or take a cold. You may be focused on stopping your runny nose, but that's not the most important task to consider -it's stopping the underlying virus from spreading. One doesn't have much to do with the other.
In the pages ahead, you'll discover clever ways to remedy several of the most common symptoms and simple health problems of people aged 40 and above. More importantly, you'll find these remedies also address the underlying health issues.
You'll probably recognise many of these problems - from sore gums to aching leg veins, common colds to after-dinner indigestion, these are the most regular everyday health complaints of adults. we also address a few more specialised issues, such as a decreasing sense of balance and skin problems, which if you handle them now, should have minimal impact on you later.
The big message: long-life living is more than just eating well, exercising and maintaining a great attitude. It also includes listening to your body, and responding quickly and thoughtfully to what it's telling you. With the quick-healing advice in the pages ahead, you'll find out what you need to get the healthy long life you want.
It happens to everyone at some time. You get lightheaded, or your foot catches on a loose rug or you don't spot that patch of ice. Suddenly, you're on the ground, hurt and embrassed. If only we could all instantly bounce back up like six year olds. Unfortunately, as you age, falling becomes more than just a passing episode barely to be considered; instead, it becomes a serious risk to your health and independence.
People generally underestimate the impact of falling, and the potentially dire consequences, even at a relatively young age. A single fall can be even more debilitating than a heart attack. If you're over 65 and you fall and break a hip, for instance, you have a 33 percent risk of dying the following year. If you consider that one out of every three people over 65 falls each year, the scope of the damage is pretty considerable.
Overall, falls are the leading cause of injury, death and disability among people aged 65 and older. Yes, that's right: you're more likely to die from falling in the bathroom than from being in a car accident. Yet by government estimates, half of all falls are preventable. That's why balance is part of the fitness pyramid on previous.
We don't want you suddenly to become obsessed with falling, but a little mindfulness and some pre-emptive home adjustments could go a long way towards diminshing this concern now and for decades to come.
Evalute your balance
It's simple enough. You need either a stopwatch or someone to help you who has a watch with a second hand. Wear flat shoes or have bare feet. Stand up straight with a countertop or chair back in front of you- to grab if you wobble. If you are frail, osteoporosis or balance problems, stand in front of a bed as well, and have someone else around in case you fall.
When you're ready, fold your arms across your chest, shut your eyes and at the same time raise one leg, bending it at the knee as close to a right angle as you can. At the moment you raise your leg, start the stopwatch or have your partner note the position of the second hand. Stop timing as soon as either uncross your arms or have to put your foot down. You can try this several times if you like - the sensation can take a bit of getting used to. Then take a break for a few minutes and repeat with the other leg.
Here are the average scores per age group:
- 20-49: 26 seconds
- 50-59: 21 seconds
- 60-69: 10 seconds
- 70-79: 4 seconds
- 80+: most people can't keep their foot off the floor for more than a second or two.
Improve your balance
Exercise, exercise, exercise No matter what you do - walking, strength-training or specific balance exercises - it will help your balance. One physical activity touted for improving balance is the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi (see on the new exercise classes) Yoga, dance, hiking and stretching also challenge your sense of balance, as do sports that emphasise side-to-side movement, such as badminton, tennis and football.
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