Make your life healthy

Posts Tagged ‘Center’

Fine living is often associated with people of a higher socioeconomic class. This is simply not the case though, and it seems people are finding ways to give their lifestyle lift, perhaps in the form of a healthy lifestyle choices such as planting an herb garden, growing ones own vegetables and participating in family activities that are fun but not necessarily cost much.

There are a variety of magazines, websites, blogs and television shows now dedicated to fine living, and healthy life style options. Life style lift is a term that often refers to enhancing, or improving ones life and others in positive ways. Because feeling good and living well are often associated with one another, such features draw attention among affluent consumers and those looking to pinch pennies alike. To enjoy life money is not the center around which the universe revolves, and so the spreading of luxury ideas at little to no cost has become quite a popular subject.

It used to be that eating organic foods came at a high price. This is still the case, especially if you shop at luxury type food stores.

How is it possible that something straight from mother earth actually costs more than a processed item? Well for starters, mass produced food is just that, less attention is paid to each and every item while there is more direct human contact and control with organic crops that are naturally limited in size and number. Fine living can start in your own backyard with a few simple tips, techniques and know how of planting a full herb garden.

People are often surprised buy the flavorful effect herbs have on food, even with little to no added calories most of the time. What is a luxury to buy at the store is easily attainable in your own backyard, and this can even be a life style lift project your kids and the whole family can take part in.

Planting a vegetable garden is another way to bring fine living associated goods usually high in price at the grocery store, down to a relatively cheap price and healthy life style choice the whole family can get excited about. Healthy life style projects such as planting a garden will inspire children to start good habits early on that hopefully continue into adult life.

It is a luxury to eat fresh, delicious and healthy life style types of foods like broccoli and other greens, but what many people do not know is they have the ability to give their own life style lift right in their own backyards.

In general healthy life expectancy has increased due to several factors of out lifestyle. During the span of the 20th century, average life expectancy jumped from around 49 years of age in 1901 up to 77 years by the century’s end.

The center for Disease Control and Prevention gives the following as the big reasons for our increased healthy life expectancy:

Vaccination

Improvements in motor-vehicle safety

Workplace Safety

Better infectious diseases control

Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke

Safer and healthier foods

Healthier mothers and babies

Family planning

Fluoridation of drinking water

Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard

Another factor contributing to the increase of average life span has been the drastic reduction in infant mortality rate.

The biggest piece of the life expectancy puzzle missing from their list is the ability to remain free from illness and disease. Modern medicine has become very involved with developing methods to mask symptoms and thus prolong our ability to live with a condition, which has contributed some to increased longevity. However, the person still has the root cause of the illness or disease. And most of the time there are side affects of the treatment the patient must live with, stated as a lesser suffering than the original symptom. The question becomes, is their quality of life actually improved when new symptoms from the treatment are then needed to be treated, it’s more like the symptoms are just transfered and altered but not eliminated. This is because the cause has not been altered.

Remaining healthy is the greatest quality of life and anti-aging strategy that can even increase your healthy life expectancy. Imagine if you were healthy enough not to get seriously sick you would not need to get involved with taking drugs and medicines that many times cause more additional unwanted symptoms that the initial ones. And once on these drugs you are likely never off of them because they don’t actually alter anything that supports the real cause. Doesn’t it make you wonder why our huge medical resources are not applied to stopping or preventing the cause?

There is a school of thought that focuses on the root cause and questions why disease has been allowed to take hold in the body at all. If the body’s immune system is functioning properly, disease should not occur. It is thought that the only way for a disease to take hold is for the body to be in some sort of state that is less than optimal or as it should be. Standard medical therapies such as drugs, surgery, and chemotherapy help mask and even diminish the symptoms but the causative condition is really still there. A surgeon can remove a tumor, but the reason the tumor grew in the first place is not addressed. Through this medical process we have been led to believe that treating an illness or disease is a complicated process that takes time and of course lots of money. But what is usually going on is the masking of symptoms rather than a cure, nor restoration to a state of wellness.

In order to look at enhancing prevention of illness and disease we must change our focus from treating to wellness. Treatment is done after something has happened, wellness keeps it from happening. Actually focusing on wellness can also better serve curing or healing what has occurred better than treating the symptoms because it aims to restore the core cause to a desired healthy state rather than just masking symptoms.

Studies have shown that the problem is at the cellular level where the bodies cells are designed to perform many functions, as long as they are healthy. Two things happen which both work against you. Disease can only thrive in the kind an internal environment that is also not good for your cells. So, your body is in a weakened state and the disease is thriving. Plus, your immune system is weaker too and less able to fight off the disease. When in this condition it is very common for multiple problems to exist at the same time making the immune system choose what to focus it’s reduced abilities on.

While all the areas of life expectancy improvement listed above are important the greatest factor knocking us down is still our general health. If your body is truly healthy and able to do it’s job, it would not be normal to be taking medicine every day, rather an exception. And many would not spend years living with a restricted lifestyle because of debilitating ailments. Doing all you can to enhance your overall wellness is key to quality of life and longevity.

Each semester, Gloria Friedgen, SPH’s graduate coordinator, works hard to put together our newsletter, which is coming out this week. The Healthy Turtle got an early peek at it, and this semester’s newsletter is chock-full of fun things. Among them:

* Glimpses back at our renovations progress;
* The Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiatives press conference;
* A notice about the spring’s Maryland Day;
* Information about the new student group, PHEAR;
* A piece on Dr. Rima Rudd’s visit to the Herschel S. Horowitz Health Literacy Center;
* And updates from Dean Gold and all of the department chairs.

One of The Healthy Turtle’s favorite features though, is the page of new faces at SPH. Each new faculty and staff member answered a whole bunch of fun questions about their hobbies, families and favorites. The only downside about the page is that each individual gave about 20 really interesting answers, and there was room enough for only two or three responses. So we are going to publish some of their interviews in their entirety on the blog.

So first up is Linda Vause, the new Faculty Research Assistant for Stress, Health and Addiction Research Program. She can be found in the Department of Public and Community Health. Here’s a bit about her:

Most recent job before UMD SPH: I wrote curriculum for an education management company in Tysons Corner. We designed and developed youth leadership programs…I retired from the Montgomery County Public School System after working many years as a school library media specialist and technology instructional specialist.
Education: BS, MLS University of Maryland….Go Terps!!
Your Public Health message for the World: There is no reason why people in our country, with its abundant resources, should be hungry. Proper nutrition is a key factor in promoting healthy, physical, social and intellectual growth.
Favorite part about being a part of UMD SPH: Being back on campus, rooting for the Terps and seeing how much has, and has not, changed since I was a student.
Hobbies: I enjoy golfing when the weather cooperates and I love art, both as a designer and as an appreciator.
Most exciting place you have visited/lived: Two places stand out, and they were both at the summit of mountains: Victoria Peak in Hong Kong and Ptarmigan Pass in the Rockies. Guess I like heights.
Favorite color: green
Food(s) you’d have a hard time living without: chocolate
Perfect weekend: Sightseeing with my husband, either locally or a bit farther away.
Something you’re good at: Organizing, although much of it is in my head.
Favorite season: Fall
Proudest of: Raising three wonderful children who tolerate my humor and love to come home for some good cooking.
Role model: Rosa Parks. I wish I could have met her. I admire her bravery and that she was part of the solution and didn’t sit back, watching. In the past, I wish I had been more assertive when the opportunity was there.
Goals: To embrace learning new things whenever I can. I also want to be more physically fit. I imagine that being a part of SPH will facilitate that!

Welcome to SPH! If you’d like to reach Linda, you can e-mail here at lvause@umd.edu.

Keep your eyes open for the newsletter coming out this week. In the meantime, take a look back at last semester’s.