Living Life blog

Holiday Health

So a couple of months ago I posted on the decisions surrounding my holiday to Majorca - and now it has been and gone.

In fact, I only got back last week so I'm quite pleased to report that I've still got that holiday feeling....and maybe a small hint towards a tan. Anyway, while I was gone I thought of something I'd like to share on here. Basically in between enjoying sun, sea, sand and sangria, I realised that there are quite a lot of health issues to take into account. In fact, some of them ended up costing me a fortune when we realised we'd forgot to pack essentials - such as mosquito repellent. It occurred to me that if someone had written me a quick check list it would have made things a lot easier. So here is mine. Hope it helps on your next holiday!

Holiday health essentials: a checklist

• Mosquito repellent - an essential if visiting somewhere inhabited by these nasty little insects. As I say I found out how important this is the hard way.
• Sun lotion - pretty obvious, but there you go. Tick it off!
• After sun - Aloe vera works a treat on frazzled skin
• Plasters - watch out, pool tiles can be problematic
• Resolve - a good shout for any headaches cause by too much sangria
• Water - It's easy to forget to drink enough water when you're spending each day at the beach, but dehydration can cause lots of problems, especially in the heat
• Health insurance - an essential, don't leave the country without it
• A European health insurance card - providing cut price or free medical care in Europe, it's well worth applying for one of these. Especially since many travel insurance policies now won't cover treatments you could have received free with an EHIC.

Have I forgotten anything? Let me know.......

 

Do You get the Benefits?

Not all of the workers of the world get a fair deal, it must be said. Wage differentials are unfair even between people working roughly similar jobs, working conditions can vary greatly between posts which are paid roughly similar wages, some jobs get all manner of bizarre local holidays whilst others seem to get nothing more than the bare minimum. But these things can work out by other forms of recompense. But do you get the other kinds of fringe benefits which ought to be normative throughout all industries?

Take for instant company health insurance, in most businesses this is no longer seen as a perk of the job but about the first thing on the contract, before people even think about signing it. Why is it so that these things should be a prerequisite of some and not the others? Why should some people get necessarily better healthcare than others simply because of the job title or the sector of the economy in which they work.

It is because some business owners think that their employees are not worth the extra expence even though numerous studies have shown that businesses which look after the health of their employees end up saving more money than they have spent, down to simple things such as healthy workers working better than sick ones, a healthy workforce takes less days off for sickness, and that healthy workers are more likely to be happy workers, and happy workers invariably get more work done.

Insurance for the family

 

We all have home and car insurance and whatnot, but how many of us think about medical insurance? With all the news of cuts in the NHS lately, people  are rightly concerned about potential changes the level of service that we've come to expect.

There are policies whereby if there is a waiting list of longer than a specified amount of time, then for eligible treatment it goes private - could come in handy if the press reports about the NHS this week are anything to go by.

So whether it's insurance for the family, or just one specific type of cover such as stroke and heart cover, then there's a range of policies to choose from. Some types of cover such as health insurance for children are cheaper than you'd think as well so private medical insurance isn't a big outlay.

Online time: what do you use it for?

In yesterday's Grauniad, Charlie Brooker was talking about how his script-writing time was being eaten up by the internet, and how he actually had to re-train his brain in order that he could actually get any work done.

It was maybe a bit of a surprise seeing Brooker write on this subject - I'd just kind of assumed that he'd been playing computer games and doing internet so long that his brain must be unfryable.

I'm beginning to wonder if Charlie Brooker's article this week is maybe the start of something. The start of an era: one where rather than logging on andd surfing the web aimlessly for entertainment - all goggle eyed and lolling tongued - we actually begin  to use our web time in a more structured way.

It's no wonder that we became the way we did with the web. It is almost infinite in variety and scope. It's a newspaper that then becomes music or a film or a letter or a chat with friends or a shppoing trip or a documentary. It's somewhere we can learn about constellations, how to fry an egg, how to fix stuff. But I think sometimes the temptation is to stay there too long, doing things that score high on gratification but are short on value, such as waiting for updates on social networking sites. It's a bit like going fishing, only with less fish. Hey, maybe there are people who take the iPad on a fishing trip and do both. I'd bet that would make for an interesting scan of the brainwaves.

So having read CB's "war against the machines" piece, I have decided to follow suit like a big old copycat. Last night I didn't even fire up the laptop. And when I do open the magic notebook tonight, it'll be to do serious stuff. It doesn't matter what serious stuff. Buying an ebook reader, researching history, looking at health insurance online quotes, maybe even start learning some computer programming (...not)

The internet, yesterday. It wants your brain, says Brooker.

The science of sleep

How long do you sleep for in a typical 24 hour day?

Me, I always aim for eight hours but always end up staying up too late and getting 7.5 hours.

Generally speaking, I don't go in for polyphasic sleep unless I'm on holiday - you can't beat falling asleep reading the newspaper after lunch.

Then there's people like electronic artis Aphex Twin, who claimed in an interview that he never sleeps. Then in another interview that he wrote his best music while lucid dreaming. And both of these can't be true as you need to be asleep to dream?

Winston Churchill famously took a proper sleep in the afternoon - "Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations." And while Churchill may well be correct here, I can't see things changing in the UK workplace any time soon. Bed expenditure would be heavy, for one thing.

Margaret Thatcher was famous for only needing four or five hours' sleep a night - but it has been pointed out that there are many photographs of her asleep during the day, which does kinda take a bit of credibility away from the claim.

But the prescribed 8 hours - is it the healthy way or not? Some reports say 8 hours is bad for you, others say that less sleep means less tiredness. I don't think anyone actually knows anything about optimum sleep volumes.

I'm happy with my 7.5 hours (maybe not first thing in the morning). 

Fidgeting

I've found about forty or so internet sites devoted to the art of fidgeting, and all say that it can help weight loss.

None of the sites were from academic domains, so I'm guessing that all evidence so far published is anecdotal.

But i think I'll give it a go anyway. I'm sitting here bobbing my head as if keeping time to a distant beat, while bouncing my foot up and down as if on an invisible pedal. I might even do a few grimaces in a bit, but I'll have to wait til there's no-one else in the room.

*waits*

*grimaces*

Yupp, this fidgeting thing's going well so far, albeit I only started about 120 seconds ago.

Let;'s hear it for fidgeting. And next time  a family member tells you to stop fidgeting and sit still, respond thus:

"it's not fidgeting! What i'm doing is non-exercise activity thermogenesis"

That'll shut them up. Anyway I'll let you know how I get on, if any weigh gets lost I'll post the results here.

How to fidget - do as above but with an imaginary drumkit instead of a real one.

say no to RSI

Human beings are adaptable creatures. In our relatively short time so far on this planet, we've adapted incredibly well to our environment. Some of us live up trees (environmental protestors have actually set up long-term tree communities), some of us live in ice landscapes, some in the desert. Some people even spend long periods of time under the oceans or in space.

But there are things that the human being hasn't yet quite adapted itself to. Some of these are fairly mundane yet important. Think of things like mobile phone texting or qwerty keyboards. Tapping away at keyboards can actually have serious consequences in the health, causing all manner of complaints from simple RSI to the more ominous sounding carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Like with all ailments, prevention is infinitely better than treatment. Here are some tips to make sure your health is safeguarded when using 21st century technology.

• In the workplace, make sure that your work station set up is comfortable and that you have enough legroom, your monitor at the right height, and the right keyboard setup. Most people have the keyboard sitting at a shallow angle meaning that the typing hand is working at a corresponding angle - this may not suit everyone. I myself use the keyboard flat on the desk, and (touch MDF) haven't had any RSI so far. (Incidentally when I used the keyboard angled, I did). Larger workplaces will have a health and safety ergonomics type officer to advise on keyboards, monitors, seating etc - don't be shy in seeking this advice - your work posture needs to be correct otherwise you could be storing up RSI and backache problems for the future.
• Take a stress break from the monitor. Do non-monitor related tasks for a bit. get up out of your seat once in a while, go to the water cooler.
• If you have any concerns about RSI, seek out the services of a health professional. You're not being hypochondriac or fussy. It's just good sense.

It's also a good idea to take a (sorry for using this word) holistic approach to your health. Have your workstation set up to optimise good health, think about the balance of your diet as well, and how much exercise you're getting outside of working hours. And think about getting affordable health insurance so that you've got peace of mind as well as a good foundation for healthy living. 

Ergonomics - the science of interaction between the worker and the workstation

Wanderlust

We all want to just up and travel to somewhere we have never been before. We all would like to leave responsibility behind and just go for a big wander. But sadly we just can't there's too much on our shoulders.

But we can do some of the things we'd like by offloading the responsibilities onto others, luckily there are plenty of ways to do this. For a start there is the thorny problem of illness, sadly the rest of the world doesn't have the same ideas in healthcare than us in the UK. I'm not saying that the Britain has a better service, they are just different.

So when/if we decide to wander it's better to leave all that in the hands of proffessionals, there are several people who specialise in tailoring an international healthcare plan for everyone depending on their choices, depending on their circumstances.

But mostly everything is covered by just a little bit of preparation before you start to wander, and enough money, and credit cards to see you out of any spots of bother.

Great co-ordination? keep it for the yard...

The guy in this video is showing some silky skills there with the beanbag in lieu of a football, I have to say I wouldn't condone any kind of larking around in the office, especially when it involves projectiles, beanbags, footballs, etc.There's just too much that can go wrong, and that's on top of the risk that the boss might walk in on the skylarking and get (ahem) "irate". especially if you've yolked a bank of desks to gether and turned it into a skateboard cresta run (and no, I'm not talking from experience...)

Even when everyone's behaving themselves it's still prudent to think about all eventualities (however unwanted). And if you're self-employed, it's you that the buck's going to stop with. That's why self employed medical insurance  is a must. As with all insurance, even if (touch wood) you never need to claim, it's still worth it for the peace of mind.

 

 

Salt Mine the new Treatment for Asthma

A large salt mine in Pakistan, reputed to be the second largest in the world, has started to draw long-term sufferers of the respiratory condition asthma. The Khewra mine, which has it's own mosque made from the mineral, as well as it's own internal railway line, has become Pakistan's leading health tourist resort over the last couple of years.

The interesting thing is that there is absolutely no medicine involved. The beneficial effects come completely from the antibacterial nature of salt, which in the deeper parts of the mine have caused an almost completely sterile area, which allows the sufferers to breathe in deeply allowing a clearing of the affected passages.

Although there have been some putative benefits reported from both the mine-owners, and the visitors, most of the clinical studies into the benefits of salt to asthma have shown at best a neutral effect and clinicians recommend that if traveling anywhere for the good of your health [even Pakistan] it would be a lot more prudent to take out international medical insurance beforehand. But have stopped at dismissing this sort of therapy completely out of hand.