Five Keys To Better Health (The last three keys)

Key 3—Keep Yourself Moving

“If exercise were a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed medication in the world.” (Emory University School of Medicine) Of all the things we can do for our health, few are more generally helpful than physical exercise.

Exert yourself. Leading a physically active life can help us feel happier, think more clearly, have more energy, be more productive and, along with proper diet, control our weight. Exercise need not be painful or extreme to be effective. Regular periods of moderate exercise several times a week can be very beneficial.

Jogging, brisk walking, biking, and taking part in active sports—enough both to get your heart beating faster and to cause you to break a sweat—can improve your endurance and help to prevent heart attack and stroke. Combining such aerobic exercise with moderate weight training and calisthenics helps to strengthen your bones, internal muscles, and limbs. These activities also contribute to maintaining a higher metabolism, which automatically helps to control your weight.

Exercise can be enjoyable.

Use your feet. Exercise is beneficial for people of all ages, and membership in a gym is not required to get it. Simply using your feet instead of a car, bus, or elevator is a good start. Why wait for a ride when you can walk to your destination, perhaps even arriving there faster? Parents, encourage your children to participate in physical play, outdoors whenever possible. Such activity strengthens their bodies and helps them to develop whole-body coordination in ways that sedentary entertainment, such as video games, cannot.

No matter how old you are when you start, you can benefit from moderate physical exercise. If you are older or have health problems and have not been exercising, it is wise to consult a doctor about how to begin. But do begin! Exercise that is started gradually and not overdone can help even the oldest among us to maintain muscle strength and bone mass. 

Key 4—Protect Your Health

Keep yourself clean. Hand washing is the single most important thing that you can do to help prevent the spread of infection and to stay healthy and well.. Do so especially before eating, preparing food, or dressing or even touching a wound, and do so after touching an animal, using the toilet, or changing a baby’s diaper.

Washing with soap and water is more effective than using alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Children stay healthier when parents train them to wash their hands and to keep them away from their mouth and eyes. Bathing every day and keeping your clothes and bed linens fresh and clean also contribute to better health.

Avoid infectious disease. Avoid close physical contact or the sharing of eating utensils with any who have a cold or the flu. Their saliva and nasal secretions can pass the illness on to you. Such blood-borne diseases as hepatitis B and C and HIV/AIDS are transmitted primarily through sexual contact, intravenous drug use, and transfusion. Vaccination can help to prevent some infections, but a wise person must still take necessary precautions when with someone who has an infectious disease. Avoid insect bites. Do not sit or sleep outdoors unprotected when mosquitoes or other disease-

carrying insects are active. Use bed nets, especially for children, and use insect repellents. 

Keep your home clean. Make whatever extra effort is needed to keep your home tidy and clean, inside and out. Eliminate any places where water can collect and mosquitoes can breed. Litter, filth, and uncovered foods and garbage attract insects and vermin, all of which can bring in microbes and cause disease. If there is no toilet, build a simple latrine rather than just relieving yourself in a field. Cover the latrine to keep out flies, which transmit eye infection and other diseases.

Avoid injuring yourself. Obey safety laws when working, riding a bicycle or motorcycle, or driving a car. Make sure your vehicle is safe to drive. Use appropriate protective equipment and clothing, such as safety glasses, headgear, and footwear, as well as seat belts and hearing protection. Avoid excessive sun exposure, which causes cancer and premature aging of the skin. If you smoke, stop. Quitting now will significantly lower your risk of heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke.

Key 5—Motivate Yourself and Your Family

Keep learning. Public and private institutions in many lands provide educational programs and literature on a wide range of health topics. Take advantage of them, and educate yourself about basic ways to improve your health and to avoid endangering it. Keep an open mind, and be willing to make simple adjustments.

The good habits you learn and put into practice may well benefit your children and their children after them. When parents set a good example in regard to healthful nutrition, cleanliness, sleep habits, exercise, and disease prevention, their offspring are likely to benefit.

What more is needed? It takes more than self-interest to establish and maintain a healthful way of life. Eliminating long-standing bad habits can be daunting, and making even simple adjustments often requires strong motivation. Even the threat of serious illness and death may not move some to do what they know is good for them. What will? Like all of us, they need to keep in mind a higher purpose, or objective, in life.

Mates need to remain healthy and strong to continue helping each other. Parents desire to go on supporting and training their children. Grown children need to care for aging relatives. Add to this the noble desire to be a blessing to the community rather than a burden. All of this involves love and concern for others.

STAY HEALTHY!!!