Health and Wellness

Health and Wellness
Health is a word often associated with good fitness. Early definitions of health focused on illness.

The first medical doctors concentrated on helping sick people get well; they treated illnesses. Health was considered as nothing more than absence from disease.

But as medical and public health experts received better training, they began to focus on prevention of illness and disease as well as in the treatment of people who were already sick.

This new focus led world health experts to define health as more than absence from disease.

In recent years the definition of health has been expanded to include wellness, as state of being that enables you to reach your fullest potential.

Wellness includes intellectual, social, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects. It has to do with feeling good about yourself and with having goals and purposes in life.

Wellness is more likely to be present in individuals who assume responsibility for their own health.

So illness is the negative component of health that we want to treat or prevent, while wellness is the positive component of health that we want to promote.
Health and Wellness

Health Reflects Life

Health Reflects Life
Annoying fact: The better our lives, the better our health is likely to be. Studies show that life is unfair in this way.

Among these findings: low job satisfaction is the number one predictor for future heart attack.

Socio-economic standing – income, educational level and power predicts general health better than any other single factor except age.

It gets worse. College students who remembered loving relationships with their parents have been found thirty years later to have far less illness than those whose parental relationships were more strained.

People who believe their spouses love them live longer. People with more friends are healthier. Laugher and happiness make the immune system work better.

Sex is good for your; fun is good for you. People who report lower stress levels have lower blood pressure and stronger hearts.

It is almost as of our bodies know how we feel about our lives as of our immune systems and all our other miraculous self healing mechanisms get discouraged when we get discourages as if they feel hopelessness, grief, and stress when we feel these ways.

It’s not just that happy people exercise more or eat better – though they tend to. “Mind/body” research demonstrates that our bodies, especially our unconscious self care systems (such as the immune system), react to our life situations as strongly as do our conscious selves.
Health Reflects Life

Obesity and Weight Loss

Obesity and Weight Loss
Obesity clearly poses a danger to health, have been associated with numerous health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain types of cancer.

However, diets for weight loss have been shown to be ineffective and even damaging to health.

A well balanced that avoids the wrong dietary fats, refined sugars, and excess calories (which all contribute to weight gain), regular exercise, drinking adequate amounts of pure water and stress reduction can help maintain a healthy weight.

Weight loss has become a national obsession in America. As many as 40% of women and 24% of men in the U.S are trying to loose weight at any given time through such diverse methods as diets, special dietary supplements, exercise, behavior modifications and drugs.

While this obsession is often fueled by psychological needs (the urge to conform to an artificial of beauty fostered by media, fashion and peer pressure) rather than physical needs, it is estimated that 97 millions Americans are overweight.

Excess weight has been linked to a number of health problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, gallbladder disease, respiratory conditions, as well as breast, endometrial and uterine cancers in women and cancer of the colon and rectum in men.

In fact, 85% of Type II diabetes cases are attributed to obesity, along with 45% of hypertension, 35% of heart disease and 18% of high cholesterol.

Obesity has also been shown to result in a decreased life span for both women and men and may be contributing factor in as many as 300,000 deaths each year.

The answers to weight gain and weight loss, though, are not always simple and easy.

Under controlled settings, most people trying to lose weight are usually able to lose about 10% of their total body weight, but up to two thirds of that weight is regained within a year.

To achieve significant and permanent weight loss, you need to come up with a plan – incorporating healthier eating, exercise, and stress reduction.
Obesity and Weight Loss

Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Lifestyles
Doing regular physical activity is a healthy lifestyle that health experts feel is among the most important. Not only does it help you prevent many of the major illness and enhance your physical fitness and health, but also it can contribute to good health in other areas as well.

Their list includes some of healthy lifestyles that you can adopt to promote good fitness, health and wellness. These lifestyles are only of benefit if you choose to do them. The choices you make have much to do with your fitness, health and wellness.

• Be Physically Active

• Adopt Good Personal Health Habits

• Eat Properly

• Manage Stress

• Avoid Destructive Habits

• Adopt Good Safety Practices

• Seek and Follow Appropriate Medical Advice

• Practice Other Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Lifestyles

Exercise for Your Health

Exercise for Your Health
Exercise can have many additional benefits, beyond helping you lose weight and keep it off and being an important part of building a healthy, strong, flexible body that will serve you well for years to come.

Exercise can safeguard your mental health. Studies show that being physically active increases your self-esteem, improves your body image, and decreases your risk pf serious depression. Exercise also helps prevent or reduce anxiety. It can be a great stress reducer and mood enhancer.

Exercise can prevent catastrophic disease. It not only protects your heart and lungs, but also can be a factor in preventing certain forms of cancer. For example, studies have found that women who are physically active as teens and young adults significantly reduce their lifetime risk of breast cancer (as well as osteoporosis, the painful and debilitating loss of bones that cripples many women in their later years).
Exercise for Your Health

Exercise for Fun and Fitness

Exercise for Fun and Fitness
Regular exercise and physical activity are vital to your physical emotional health and can bring you fun and fitness at the same time. Having chronic illness and growing older can maker an active lifestyle seem far away. Some people have never been active and others have given up leisure activities because of illness.

Unfortunately, long periods of inactivity in anyone can lead to weakness, stiffness, fatigue, poor appetite, high blood pressure, obesity osteoporosis, constipation, and increased sensitivity to pain, anxiety and depression. These problems occur from chronic illness as well. So, it can be difficult to tell whether it is the illness, inactivity or combination of the two that is responsible for these problems. Although we don’t have cures for many of these illnesses, yet, we do know the cure for inactivity – exercise.

Most people have a sense that exercising and being active is healthier and more satisfying than being inactive, but often have a hard time finding information and support to get started on a more active way of life.

Regular exercise benefits everyone, especially people with chronic health problems. Regular exercise improves levels of strength, energy, and self confidence and less anxiety and depression. Exercise can help maintain a good weight, which takes stress off weight- bearing joints and improves blood pressure, blood sugar and blood fat levels. There is evidence that regular exercise can help to “thin” the blood, or prevent blood clots, which is one of the reasons exercise can be particular benefit to people with heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease.

In addition, strong muscles can help people with arthritis to protect their joints by improving stability and absorbing shock. Regular exercise also can help nourish joints and keep cartilage and bone healthy. Regular exercise has been shown to help people with chronic lung disease, improve endurance, and reduce shortness of breath. Many people with claudication (leg pain from severe arthrosclerosis blockages in the arteries of the lower extremities) can walk farther without leg pain after undertaking a regular exercise program. It also suggested that exercise may even increase life expectancy. Regular exercise is an important part of controlling blood sugar levels, losing weight, and reducing the risks of cardiovascular complications for people with diabetes.
Exercise for Fun and Fitness