Condensed Guide to Healthy Living—Revised musing
This is long, should divide into parts I guess—but then again, if interested in this musing there is no need to read it all in one sitting.
Most all musings I write are not in the field for which I have been specifically trained. I am a retired physiologist by trade but have been retired now for 20 years. Thus, reality dictates that in most areas of physiology I am to varying degrees outdated. Preventive medicine was one of my specialities and in this area, for personal reasons, I have kept updated. Many major medical centers publish monthly letters about current health matters and this is a good way to separate anecdotal medicine and scientifically supported medicine. By far the best and most thorough updates are provided by Mayo Clinic. It is hard to go wrong, when one has questions about any condition or purported health procedure or substance, to google in the name of the condition, procedure, or substance, and then, after a comma, type in Mayo Clinic. That way any Mayo Clinic articles will come up first.
My approach here, in a condensed article, is to start with some general considerations, and then restrict the focus to the most important factors in healthy living. The days when you had your heart attack, stroke, or cancer diagnosis and died in a timely fashion are kind of gone. You can linger on for decades now. The object should be to postpone these kind of events as long as possible so you can live on with a better quality of life.
Those who refuse to plan for the future often pay a stiff price in terms of the kind of future with which they end up having. There are hundreds of things we can do with our life today which have the potential to give us a longer HEALTHY life. I think most people are willing to make some adjustments to their current lives in order to increase the likelihood of a healthier life down the road. The purpose here is not be be all inclusive about all the adjustments possible, but to prioritize the adjustments so we can implement the ones that are most likely to have the greatest impact on better health down the road.
First, we need recognize that while more people live longer these days in America, there have always been those in the past who lived a long time, as long as some people live today. Much of the increased life span, being achieved by so many, reflects medical advances which can prolong life, despite so many varied conditions affecting our bodies. Now, more than ever, we need question quality of life along with how long we can be kept alive. What is tolerable to one person will be intolerable to another. For the record, my personal position is that everyone should be allowed to control their own dying process with the proper safeguards in place to prevent abuse. Everyone should be entitled to die with dignity and peacefully when their quality of life is no longer acceptable to them or, if incapable of making sound mental decisions, there exists signed written documents on what to do in such cases when they are no longer capable of making decisions.
We also need remember that genetics plays an important role. My parents are a good example. Neither one of my parents ever adopted any diet or engaged in any organized exercise regimen.They ate whatever they felt like, never jogged, never lifted weights, never performed any stretching exercises——and, my mother lived to be 98 and my father 89. Neither one ever spent any prolonged time in a hospital for any reason and essentially both died at home.
Most people are not genetically endowed to be so lucky. Nevertheless, there are things we can do to prolong a healthy life. For a start—maintaining a healthy weight is important, albeit even this is not clear cut. In every species studied, including humans, individuals live longer on a semi-starvation diet. We all have known individuals who have been ‘skin and bones’ all their lives and live seemingly forever. Few people would probably choose a semi-starvation diet in order to live a few years longer. Most Americans are not deficient in amino acids, fatty acids, glycerol, glucose (the end products of digestion), trace minerals or calories—except in individualized cases which we will mention later.
Since body weight is important, we need to understand that the easiest way to control body weight is to immediately limit caloric intake whenever we rise above 5 lbs from the desired weight. We are essentially born with a certain number of fat cells, and our body weight then depends on just how full these fat cells are. How full our fat cells strive to be is a central nervous system control mechanism. It works essentially like a thermostat and like any thermostat, it can get reset. Once reset, we are going to have more difficulty getting the thermostat to reset at a lower fat cell fulness level. Most of us can lose 5 lbs with minimal effort. If we wait until we are substantially overweight, most of us will have a tremendous problem losing the weight, and an equally tremendous problem staying at the reduced weight.
We need next remember that the tendency to put on weight is genetically influenced. Some people cannot gain much weight even if paid to gain weight, or at least it will be really hard. And, if paid to gain weight, some people have no trouble losing it when the experiment is over. We do an injustice to many overweight people when we blame their lack of willpower. We are not going to proceed here on the different weight loss programs. It will come as no surprise that which diet program works best for who will vary. Right now the mediterranean diet seems to do well for the greatest percentage of people. No matter which diet we choose, the point here is to engage in dieting whenever we go 5 lbs up on what is decided is our best normal weight.
A lot of weight gain is often affected by our our mental state. Boredom, depression, anxiety, and so on, can all affect our body weight. These emotional states may or may not be easy to correct.
A lot of people think exercise is the quickest way to lose excess weight. There are two cautions here. First, many exercises we like to do also stimulate our appetite which is then counterproductive. Only real strenuous exercise depresses our appetite and then only for a short time. Second, it takes many hours of moderate exercise to lose even a lb of body weight. There are many charts available which tell us how many hours or minutes of different kinds of exercise to lose one pound of body weight. For example, walking at 3 miles per hour would take 12.5 hrs to lose one pound of body weight. Jogging would take almost 8 hours. Even cycling at 14-16 mph would take 5 hours. If you jog for 30 minutes every day you will burn at least 300 calories. Now, to lose 1 lb of body weight you need burn 3,500 calories in addition to your current caloric intake. Thus burning an extra 300 calories per day jogging every day for 30 minutes will take 11.5 days to lose that one lb. But, if we jog thirty minutes 3 times a wk we can expect to lose a little over 10 lbs in a year if our dietary habits stay the same. Keep in mind that if we do this for 5 years we have saved ourselves a 50 lb gain in weight.
From the general observation above it is easily understood why a combination exercise and caloric restriction is often chosen rather than one or the other. This data goes back decades but it seems worth mentioning here. The occupation which generated the longest average lifespan was being a librarian. Back then few librarians were likely to be doing any daily exercise and yet they had the longest lifespan. Perhaps it had to do with a relatively stress free environment. Exercise has a rather variable effect on our emotional state. It relaxes some, mellows them out and they enjoy the exercise. Others may hate the exercise, in fact just get all frustrated and physically exhausted from even mild exercise. So if you would ‘rather ‘ die than take a lap around the track, dieting is the direction to take.
Which exercise is best? For a start, pick one which you enjoy doing and is robust in nature. And keep your age/goals in mind. If you want to look more muscular then choose weight lifting and that sort of thing. But adding lbs of muscle will add additional stress to your body systems—not much, but over the years it can mount up. Track racing, especially at distances, rarely can kill anyone unless they have a cardiovascular condition. Essentially, the greatest amount of stress you can put on your heart and circulatory system will not kill you. If it could, the Olympic 1500 meter race would be a death knell for those who tried the hardest to win. Here is the kicker: It is not short periods of intense stress which kills us, but some small additional stress, day after day, year after year, which eventually give us a heart attack or some other organ failure. When your blood pressure rises, this puts some mild but persistent additional stress on the heart to pump the blood through the blood vessels and eventually we might get a heart attack or a stroke.
When we comment that person X is working so hard under such pressures that he is going to kill him/herself, we may often be right. But again, and we constantly have to do this here—different people react differently to the same stress. For some people a lot of stress is handled as just another day’s work and is actually enjoyable. Barack Obama appears to be of this nature. Most of us could not handle the pressures of being President without serious long term affects on our health. Donald Trump, an angry compulsively aggressive personality by nature, may well be setting himself up for a health crash of some sort from his never ending emotional turmoil. Time will tell.
The connections between our mental state and our physical health are rather important. Most of us accept a problem with our kidney or heart or liver etc with substantial realism, and rarely hide the truth on these matters. But many medical problems have to do with improper functioning of Central Nervous System control mechanisms. Here a lot of us draw the line: to admit any malfunctioning of our brain is psychologically unacceptable since that would make us a ‘mental case’. “What’s the matter with Mary?” “Well, she has something wrong with her brain.” “You mean she is crazy with a few screws loose?” Our brain, more so than practically any other organ, has more ways to malfunction than any other organ. Unfortunately, the brain is far more complicated than other organs, and is essentially a vast network of chemical interactions. Trying to restore the proper chemical balance is a really a difficult challenge in so many cases.
It has been well demonstrated that chronic high levels of stress hormones in our bodies is dangerous to our health, especially in our formative years when our systems are still developing, most importantly our central nervous system. We could monitor the level of stress hormones in our system, but is this a good idea? This also gets complicated since we all have goals in life, and to achieve these goals often requires considerable stress to achieve. Achieving goals is essential to contentment with our lives. Of course goals have to be realistic and our environment conducive to achieving them. The current environment for many of our citizens can be way too much stress for many of the inhabitants.
So, we have a serious social problem in our country right now, although yes, it is worse in many other nations. People in difficult environments tend to live a lot less longer than those raised in more affluent environments, BUT there are exceptions both ways. The children of the rich can end up, again for various reasons, with chronic high levels of stress hormones and intense negative feelings about their lives, which can then lead to recreational drug use to rid themselves of their unpleasant feelings. The kind of unpleasant feelings present determines what kind of recreational drug abuse ensues.
Another mental state which affects our general health is the ability to avoid compulsive behaviors and being able to effectively understand when enough is enough, of just about any ‘good’ thing. He who has little and is satisfied, is more likely to have good health than he who has much and intensely wants more and more and more. Our mental state can be one of our biggest enemies when it comes to good physical health.
There are also some general considerations we need to understand about our digestive system. Basically it is simply a tube running through our body from one end to the other. With few exceptions, a substance ingested does not hurt us physiologically if it doesn’t cross the wall of our intestinal tract and get into our blood or lymph system. We need certain trace elements to get into our blood, we need to keep the right amount of water in our blood, we need to digest food so that the basic end points of digestion can occur including glucose, fatty acids, glycerol, and an assortment of amino acids from proteins. We need to drink enough water, limit saturated fats, cholesterol absorption, toxins, and especially too many calories. Problems in digestion involve absorption abnormalities, structural damage, motility problems, and allergic reactions. We need again be aware that our emotional state can affect our digestive system.. For the digestive system to function well, motility and digestive secretions (enzymes) must work well. Motility problems are often related to improper Central Nervous System control. This means certain areas of the brain are not functioning in a way that properly controls digestive motility. The cause can be emotional, genetic, or glandular. Most people who have underlying emotional states which affect digestive motility are not about to seek out mental health professionals. If any of our other organs malfunction we quickly seek out medical help, but almost all of us are quite reluctant to admit any central nervous system problems as a basis for our health symptoms.
Allergies are a whole world unto themselves. Some foods we can't eat because they can't be digested or absorbed properly or they stimulate or inhibit motility. Too much stomach acid may be produced and a lot of people take medicine for that. Unfortunately, many people will come to believe they are allergic to something (like gluten) when they really are not. An allergy to gluten can be medically tested and to believe gluten is the cause of digestive problems without this proof is irrational and prevents the true cause from being determined.
There are several common sense rules for eating. The oldest one, related to me by my dad, goes like this: “If it tastes good don’t eat it.” At any rate don't eat red meat every day or in huge quantities. Avoid foods which clearly cause major alterations in digestive motility (diarrhea or constipation). Don't eat out too much---you basically lose control over the amount of saturated fats, fiber, triglycerides, cholesterol, and salt that you ingest. There is no huge reason that you can't sometimes eat food that is basically not healthy. Just be sure not to make it a daily habit.
In recent years a huge industry of anecdotal medicine has emerged mostly based on better health via certain types of food or beverages which contain special ingredients that get into our blood stream and generate all sorts of wonderful health benefits and defense against a wide assortment of conditions and diseases. Would the health of our citizens be better off without all these ‘magic’ substances? There are also endless mental or physical exercises which purport to make us healthier and more contented individuals. So what are we to make of these endless means to better our physical and mental health? Once again it gets complicated. There is scant scientific evidence available in most cases simply because there are no patents involved and therefore no inducement for companies or individuals to scientifically test these ‘alternate medicine’ claims. The government should test these claims but it does not, because of the cost. There are several reasons why all these ‘claims’ are not a problem, not the least of which is that if these were all eliminated we would be shutting down a massive industry and putting a lot of people out of work. Unemployment is already high enough. Also, rarely do all these ‘claims’ do any harm to our bodies. What people are convinced to ingest does them no harm in most cases. And more important, people who are ‘health nuts’ and are attracted to various alternate medicine activities tend to eat healthier and exercise more than those who pay little attention to what they eat or how much they exercise. So shutting down this huge industry would actually be a health hazard. The placebo effect is a proven useful medical tool in some cases.
When I used to lecture my mother on her ‘unhealthy’ life style she would reply, “If I knew I was going to live this long I would have paid more attention to your advice.” Hard to answer that.
Since our mental state impacts greatly on our physical health, many endless motivational seminars and what-not attract a loyal following. Individuals get hooked as well as companies trying to motivate their employees, or at least try to prevent them from being in a bad mood or have a bad attitude. The attempt here has a basic problem. We can alter how we feel about our lives via improving our life situation, via drugs, via religious faith, and via mental exercises which try to convince ourselves all is just fine even if things are not just fine. The heroin addict has not changed his/her situation in life, he/she just is no longer bothered so much by his/her situation. He/she no longer gives a damn so much. The religious ’true believer’ tolerates a bad life situation because they will eventually end up in a heaven after death, and the person who buys into a motivational seminar experience has learned to pretend all is fine when of course, all is not fine at all. We all have known people who suddenly show up at work exclaiming what a wonderful day it is, the birds are singing, and whatever we might say is suddenly interesting to them—whatever—but their life or work situation hasn’t changed at all. The trouble is, most of us cannot fool ourselves for very long. The reality remains: to really change our lives is no easy task.
The next general question is just whose health concerns us? Just our own? Every citizens health? Until our government represents the needs of all citizens, good health is not available to all of us. Universal health care is less a right than an obligation of any kind of government to ensure that society survives as a prosperous, safe, contented society. Today, an ever-growing population of poor, is stuck in urban, suburban, or rural ghettoes, in which a high but unmonitored percentage of children living therein, pass thru their formative years with excessively high chronic levels of stress hormones. This ensures that a high percentage of them will become physiologically damaged adults which will include mental and physical problems. Some, not a large number, will be able to withstand the stress of their environment, just as not everyone who smokes gets cancer. Preventive medicine is now officially out of governmental vogue including climate change and changing the environment of those living in our ghetto environments. Add to this a clear rejection of the the truthfulness that ‘violence begets violence, and this combination means all of us, and more so the next generation, will find it increasingly unlikely that we can personally take the necessary actions to maintain healthy living.
The U.S. invaded, one way or another, some 50+ countries in the last 5 decades. These invasions, done, I will grant, with good, albeit self serving intentions, has killed tens of millions of people across the globe, all of whom have friends and family. In the process we have not ‘won’ any war essentially since at least 1960, with the exception of Reagan’s war on Grenada, and Clinton’s war in the Balkans. The whole nature of war has now changed—there are no longer uniformed standing government troops fighting battles out on open battlefields—instead it has become ever increasingly unpreventable acts of terrorism by both sides of any conflict. Whether the terrorism is via suicide bombers/shooters, land mines, sniper attacks, or via smart bombs, drones, and endless sophisticated weapons of mass destruction—no one side wins and if some deranged ruler with nuclear weapons resorts to their perfected ‘final revenge’, everyone across this globe is going to lose their good health one way or another.
I suspect just about everyone has had peculiar, unique, bothersome health problems that a medical doctor failed to have any answers. Reaction to such frustrating situations varies from one person to another. General Practitioners are between a wall and hard rock. They are supposed to know everything about every medical episode while a specialist knows a lot about little. Guess who gets the higher salary and more respect? The modern reality is this: if we search on the internet and read all the literature from respected medical centers, we can sometimes find a solution; sometimes through endless hours of creative thinking we can try some simple things which will solve the problem. Often this is the opening where an alternate medicine practitioner can attract business. Even if they have no real answers to the frustrating medical problem they have more time to listen, and we all are attracted to those who will listen more than 15 minutes to our unique problem. Unless it is a question of mind over matter, anecdotal medicine is more often similar to ourselves attempting solutions via our own reasoning and internet search. I could list dozens of times I have had to solve my own peculiar non life threatening problems on my own. As a physiologist, I suppose this is more easily done. Clearly, these pesky problems have no easy solution. The most frustrating situations are the ones involving central nervous system malfunction. If the situation remains for a long time being a continual problem, it is then time to make a trip to some reputable medical center like Mayo Clinic. They will take the time, and approach your situation from a multi-discipline aspect, and this will be the best chance to find a solution. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for modern medicine not to yet have all the answers for every problem. If someone has done all this, it is hard to criticize someone for turning to alternative medicine. As stated before they rarely do any real harm. However, it is ill advised to then go to alternative medicine for other kinds of medical problems. The best chance to solve a developing medical situation is early, and the best chance for a solution is to to take the new situation to a regular medical doctor. An alternate anecdotal medicine practitioner rarely has the kind of medical background as a medical doctor, or the means to get you to the right medical doctor for your unique new problem. By the time you finally go to a reputable medical center with the problem, it may be too late to effectuate the best outcome. Anecdotal medicine should ALWAYS be the last resort.
What do Americans die from each year? In 2010 the stats are as follows:
Heart disease: 597, 689 (31%)
Cancer: 574.743 (31%)
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080 (7.5%)
Stroke (cerebral vascular diseases): 129,476 (7.0%)
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,476 (7.0%)
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494: (4.5%)
Diabetes: 69,071 (3.7%)
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476 (2.7%)
Influenza and pneumonia: 50,097 (2.7%)
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364 (1.1%)
Murder: 14,612 (.8%) The murder rate peaked in 1993 at 24,530 and has fallen ever since.
Avoiding cancer is pretty much a crap shoot with some exceptions. Everyone knows if we smoke we are much more likely to die of lung cancer. But what about all those things that are potentially carcinogenic? Like it or not we need rely on the government to protect us from known carcinogenic substances. This is true simply because only the government is going to (or should) fund scientific studies to determine what is carcinogenic. In the absence of this we get all kinds of charlatans and self proclaimed 'experts' who publish all sorts of nonsense about medical matters. Many of them are would-be doctors who simply lack the academic abilities to gain admission to a medical school. Others are just well-meaning gullible do-gooders willing to believe anything they read. And as I said before, that's okay, they help get others concerned about health matters and that is half the battle. And in today's economic climate, alternative medicine ventures are a way to make a living.
Unfortunately, it is not all that rare for someone to continue with anecdotal medicine when modern scientific medicine could have treated their problem in time to correct the problem. It boils down to this: if we keep our weight down, keep our blood pressure down, exercise properly, eat a balanced diet keeping the intake of certain substances in food down, and find ways to keep our digestive system running smoothly, then we have gone a long way towards living a healthy life. Of course there are hundreds of less important factors we could add, but at some point the return on the investment becomes insignificance, and for most people, not worth the effort.
Rather than commit ourselves to just believing everything we read on the internet or in magazines or on television or from some anecdotal practitioner, there are short monthly letters published by some really top notch medical centers. The best ones are Mayo Clinic Health Letter, Harvard Health Letter, University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, Harvard Men's Health Watch, Harvard Women's Health Watch (I think this exists), John Hopkins Health After 50, and there are others. I personally find the Mayo Clinic Health letter the best, along with Harvard Health Letter, the Wellness Letter and John Hopkins Health after 50. Mayo Clinic even attempts to make some analysis concerning alternative medicine. They do their best to evaluate the limited evidence which exists on these methods. We need remember that not all anecdotal medicine is wrong, there just is no scientifically proven tests on them. All kinds of groups claim a lot of things but it means little if the tests employed are not scientific. The group being tested has to be a correct sample, the methods correct, the analysis correct, etc.
The above monthly magazines cost about $24/year and are readable for the average person. Glancing through these monthly short letters will do as much to keep us on track with our own health as any other path we might take. The headlines for each article tell us if the subject might apply to our own situation.
The point is this, and it is not a minor point: None of us need be without quality medical information about our own health matters. We should use this internet access. Just be selective as to which articles you choose to read.
Should we ever rely on anecdotal medicine? Yes we should. There are many medical situations for which modern medicine has no proven solution. Especially when it comes to digestive system disorders, allergies, emotional disorders, and so on, where your symptoms may not be relieved by modern medical knowledge. It would be silly not to try some anecdotal approaches. Since rarely do any of these anecdotal treatments cause real harm, we have nothing to lose trying them if modern medicine fails. It is like playing the lottery, sure the odds are against us, but we just might hit the jackpot and our health problem solved. Of course sometimes a nebulous medical problem just goes away and we will never know for sure why. That's just the way it is and is often the origin of many anecdotal medicine treatments.
It surprises most all of us to learn that 85% of the cells that comprise our body are not human cells. These microbial creatures are so small however, that they comprise only about 3% of our body weight. We tend to think it a life long battle to keep microbes out of our body, but that is the wrong goal. The goal is to keep out just certain microbes and in many cases just a certain number of particular microbes. What I am suggesting here is pure speculation, but it seems possible that many of the nebulous medical problems that plague us may really be an imbalance of this microbial flora which bathes our own cells. This really is a medical frontier in it's infancy, and a difficult one to scientifically test. Past history of scientific advances tells us that progress will be made here too, albeit how soon is hard to tell. There are some alternative medicine practitioners who mess with the microbial flora in our bodies but not having the scientific knowledge to do it carefully, and not having animal models in the testing stage, this is a dangerous game they are playing. Just taking certain antibiotics over a period of time can be risky since we may be ridding our bodies of good microbes along with the bad. Of course sometimes we have no choice, it is either run the risk or our condition can't be cured. But for those who study this sort of thing this is a whole new frontier.
We will now concentrate here on maintaining a healthy life for ourselves in a relatively affluent neighborhood. So maybe the best thing to do here is make a list of things to do to live a healthy life. There is no particular order. The basis for most of it has already been covered.
1. Control our body weight (caloric input)
2. Stick to a reasonable diet. We should be sure our diet contains a good amount of fruits, vegetables, fish, and fiber. Reasonable inclusion of some nuts, dark chocolate, and a glass of red wine each day have some positive proven benefits. Don't fall for every pitch of some magic food or beverage that is going to be a big health boost because it contains some necessary body element like Magnesium or potassium, zinc, etc. Less than 10% of Americans suffer from any kind of nutritional deficiency. Less than 1% have a folate deficiency, about 10% are deficient in vit B12, a few people suffer from iodine deficiency and iron deficiency is not rare. The one vitamin whose stated requirement level may well be set too low is Vitamin D. Again, the biggest problem for most people is not deficiency but a daily intake of too many calories. It has always interested me that when stranded on the sea or elsewhere with no food, the first ones to perish from lack of food are those who are overweight. Our bodies seem to work most efficiently when we are not overweight.
3. Keep our blood pressure down. Once body weight is under control, blood pressure is a logical next variable to get under control. Basically, you cannot harm a normal heart with short term stress. If you could, track races would be more exciting. BUT, a small additional stress, placed on the heart for months, years, decades, can lead to an eventual heart condition. This additional stress can be structural (narrowed blood vessels) or emotional (nervous system hyperactivity). It is best not to live your life under constant emotional stress. Some can handle this (genetics) and others cannot to varying degrees. Diet plays a big role in bld pressure control via cholesterol, triglycerides, saturated fats, and salt intake (kidney stress). The goal is low total cholesterol levels, low LDL cholesterol, high HDL cholesterol, and low triglyceride levels. Most foods are labeled so one can control the intake of cholesterol, triglycerides, saturated fat, and salt. Statins are available now so there is no good reason why anyone should suffer high cholesterol levels. There are certain butters available (not cheap)---Benecol and Take Control---which can lower cholesterol on the average of 17%. They block the absorption of cholesterol from the intestine and need be taken with meals which are high in cholesterol.
4. Learn when ‘enough is enough’ concerning our goals, addictions, and compulsive behaviors
5. Avoid excessive intake of saturated fats, too many calories, cholesterol, salt, and recreational drugs.
6. Exercise with some activity you enjoy on a regular basis. Exercise is beneficial pretty much across the board, albeit again the impact on good health varies on a genetic basis. The key is to find an exercise you like and do it on a regular basis. Can exercise be overdone? Of course. In fact, almost without exception too much of anything can be harmful or kill you including oxygen, glucose, etc. Exercise usually is beneficial for muscle tone, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, our mental state, proper body weight, and a lot of other more minor impacts. As we age the best exercise is one that has some duration to it, not intense bouts of total fatigue, and certainly not one which puts a lot of pressure on joints like the knees, hips, shoulders, back, etc. There is little medical benefit to being a heavily muscled person when one is older. Joints need mild stress when older, not burdened with additional weight to carry around. Never miss a chance to walk more steps like from the parking lot to the store.
7. Find the best way to keep in a good mindset (mood). This will vary depending on your personality. Some will meditate, practice yoga, listen to music, take long walks, and all sorts of other programs designed to help settle your ‘nerves’. This can get really tricky. It is not good for our health to be ‘intense’ most of the day about anything. On the other hand our professional goals may necessitate tension often. There is no one approach that fits all. When a doctor or anyone else at work constantly says “Don’t worry”, that is hardly a simple solution at all. How does one ‘not worry’? This is precisely why a really civilized society should have stress clinics available in all parts of the country. Part of the solution is preparing ourselves for a career which fits our emotional nature. How effectively we handle stress varies all over the place. We can usually improve our stress response but to what degree will vary. I used to tell students, “be realistic, don’t choose a career in which you will be at the bottom of totem pole because others are simply better at the task at hand. This will certainly place a lot of stress on a person.
8. Do not go through life with all the emphasis essentially being on ourselves or our own immediate family. Do not over parent or overly concern ourselves with just ourselves. Living as best we can via the Golden Rule brings more contentment to both the receiver and the giver. Set realistic goals. Attempt to understand the nature of life and form philosophical understandings about life—this will make it easier for ourselves to deal with reality. Connect with nature to the extent we can since we ourselves are part of nature.
9. Be as independent as we can be. Over dependance on others creates too much stress since we cannot control others as easily as we can control ourselves.
10. Genuinely accept the uncertainties of life. There is no benefit from becoming apoplectic when we realize, early or late in life, that we are likely to die from whatever.
11. Pick a good general physician. This is not an easy task. First of all, the best general physicians are usually past the point of accepting new patients. Getting referrals from a doctor about the best specialist is not, according to what one physician explained to me, all that valid. They often will pick someone with whom they have social contact, who seems to be a nice and bright enough guy, but whose success rate is generally not known. And let’s be truthful, we ourselves will pick someone with whom we can chat with easy, will spend more time with us, and so on. The truth sometimes is that the doctor who seldom says much, is relatively brief in encounters, may well be the better doctor. So while this is important, I will pass on this.
All of the above was not written to address all the issues which affect how long we live a healthy life. There are plenty of more complete books on the topic and you can’t go wrong if you read information, including books, written by Mayo Clinic on this topic. The goal here is simply to get ourselves on the right track and not be overwhelmed by the tons of untested claims abounding in the age of over information.
Finally, each of us need come to some sort of resolution as to what kind of life we are willing to tolerate. This mostly applies to old age but not always. Living a long healthy life is clearly a universal goal for all of us, but there is such a thing as living too long also. We all have known those who have gone through a most difficult dying process. Modern medical advances are wonderful and all that, but these advances can also keep people alive way past what the person might be willing to tolerate. What any of us might be willing to suffer in order to stay alive is going to differ considerably. But for sure, as time goes on, the control over our dying process should be determined by the person dying, not the government, and not someone else's religious beliefs. Fear of death is often enhanced by fear of the suffering that might be involved. Some people are kept alive for long periods of time under circumstances, which if done to a prisoner of war, would be considered torture. Add to this the fact one of the reasons medical insurance is rising so rapidly is that modern medicine can keep people alive for months and years, even decades, whereas in earlier times they would just have died quickly. Thus, individual control over one's dying process and cost of medical treatment are two major problems modern humanity faces.
Everything covered above is really just the basics. How much further anyone wants to take healthy living will vary. If eating something containing substance X will cause .1% of people to develop some particular kind of cancer, then people will differ as to whether they wish to run the risk of ingesting that substance. Of course we do this all the time. Every time we drive a car we take a chance. Here are some of the risks already calculated: Note: the risk below that is most amazing is the flu stat. The percentage of people who still resist getting a flu vaccine is simply amazing. While the risk of dying from flu is not real high, this is deceptive. First of all the risk rises greatly with age (90% of deaths occur in people 65 or older) and secondly, the misery many suffer from a severe bout with the flu or the length of time it takes to totally recover should make any logical person take a flu shot absent MAJOR reactions to the shot. We all know people who can't return to work for months because of a bad bout with the flu. And yes, in this case, many scientific studies have been conducted relative to the safety of the flu shot.
A good source of info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm
Take a look at the following chart, which was put together from a variety of sources. It shows the total number of deaths annually due to various disease-related and accidental causes, as well as an average individual’s lifetime risk for a given health worry. On the scariest day of the year, maybe this will help put it all in perspective.
Risk
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Annual Deaths
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Lifetime risk
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Heart disease
|
652,486
|
1 in 5
|
Cancer
|
553,888
|
1 in 7
|
Stroke
|
150,074
|
1 in 24
|
99,000
|
1 in 38
|
|
Flu
|
59,664
|
1 in 63
|
Car accidents
|
44,757
|
1 in 84
|
Suicide
|
31,484
|
1 in 119
|
Accidental poisoning
|
19,456
|
1 in 193
|
MRSA (resistant bacteria)
|
19,000
|
1 in 197
|
Falls
|
17,229
|
1 in 218
|
Drowning
|
3,306
|
1 in 1,134
|
Bike accident
|
762
|
1 in 4,919
|
Air/space accident
|
742
|
1 in 5,051
|
Excessive cold
|
620
|
1 in 6,045
|
Sun/heat exposure
|
273
|
1 in 13,729
|
62
|
1 in 60,453
|
|
Lightning
|
47
|
1 in 79, 746
|
Train crash
|
24
|
1 in 156,169
|
Fireworks
|
11
|
1 in 340,733
|
In the last analysis the best we can do is get informed information, get a sense of the odds, set priorities, and then with patience and steadfastness of purpose, stick to our own devised program for healthy living.
