Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Improve Your Health
STEPS TO IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH
Assuming you feel lousy and seriously want to change the situation, for whatever reasons. You feel you are at the bottom, and can only go UP. Maybe you are already taking a lot of drugs or supplements, but you are not satisfied. Maybe your doctor is bawling you out for not taking care of yourself, but you don’t know what to do. It took you years to get into this situation. Give yourself a year to get out. But start today.
First Week: Start a HEALTH LOG or journal. Don’t make any changes to your life. Collect data for yourself and your health care professionals. Purchase a ruled notebook (Steno, planner, other) and divide page into two columns. In one column, write down everything you eat or drink, and the time. Note exercise type and length of time. (Example: E=1/2 hour of housework.) EVERYTHING! In column two list symptoms, such as time in bed and hours of actual sleep, presence of pain, type and where, and the time. Note bowel movements with description. Shortcut: Make a key for medications, or other routines. “Water” can be a “W” circled, coffee a “C” circled, juices a “J” circled, etc. Note if there are extra portions of food. Rate the day 1 to 10 for pain, 10 being the most pain you have ever experienced, in symptom column.
Second Week: Continue the Health Log. Make an appointment with a naturopathic doctor, allergist, nutritionist, or chiropractor. Make no other changes. Visit your library or bookstore and browse books on diet and health in general. Vow to stop all whining, and to just write it down in your health log.
Third Week: Continue Health Log. Begin 5 minutes per day stretching before you dress, but after you are up and moving about, after drinking a glass of water and eating. Do not exceed 5 minute limit to intentional exercise sessions. Add more sessions if you think they are beneficial.
EVALUATE YOUR HEALTH LOG ENTRIES before your appointment with health care professional. Collect and include any data from medical tests from past years. Write down your questions in your log, which you will take with you, and get answers to before you leave his/her office. Make a zerox copy of your health log entries to give to the professional. If he/she does not offer testing, ask about blood and saliva tests for food allergies and intolerances, and a hair analysis for heavy metal poisoning. (These tests may cost you something, but are worth it for the information you will have in managing your health.) Be sure to request copies of all the outcomes. Staple them into your Health Log, or start a separate binder for test results.
Fourth Week: CONTINUE YOUR HEALTH LOG INDEFINITELY. START DOING WHAT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL RECOMMENDED, if you think it will help. If you do not have confidence in that plan, find another health care professional NOW.
Improve your diet and water intake. You already know a lot about what you should do. Now it’s up to you to practice some self-discipline. Reduce the amount or type of foods your should not eat/drink. Follow the advice you have for you specifically (which is not the same for everyone). Plan to cook more and make enough for leftovers, so you can take your own food with you the following day, until you can cook again. Instead of reading menu’s in restaurants, browse in the supermarket fresh food sections. If you do not cook, now is a good time to learn some basics. Reduce alcohol, caffeine, salt and sugar, and add spices to your cooking. Do NOT drink chlorinated water. Do drink 8-8 oz. glasses (one gallon) of good water per day, and even more if you are still drinking coffee or sodas, which dehydrate you.
Begin a routine of stretching. Most organized classes assume you are healthy enough to begin there, and you are probably not ready to begin a class. After the first three weeks, work up to 20 minutes stretching before dressing, and 30 minutes daily of other exercise (walking, exercycle, dancing, strenuous house or yard work counts). See my website (http://www.teleport.com/~mrivera.) for a complete description of my daily stretching routine, which requires no equipment, no special clothes, no friends standing by, and very little space, in other words, no excuses. Music does help me keep going.
Begin your “mental work”, learning about yourself, your psychology, what your personal stake is in the situation. Try the Well-Being Journal exercises, by Cappachionne. Or see my website for a thought provoking self-questionnaire.
Begin your spiritual work. If you do not already have a faith practice, try reading one Psalm each day, and underline any words which strike you. Begin with the prayer from Oprah: “O God. I open my heart. Come and sit inside me.” Your are the “god” of a little universe that is praying to you to help it out, but not in English.
Reduce stress in your life. Make a list of your responsibilities, number them in the order of their importance from 1 to 10 (or whatever number), and cross off the bottom three. Remove yourself from those responsibilities. If you died today, they would get along without you, and they can do it now.
Take full responsibility for your health! Because no one else will.
Questions or comments: womenbefriends@yahoo.com.
Assuming you feel lousy and seriously want to change the situation, for whatever reasons. You feel you are at the bottom, and can only go UP. Maybe you are already taking a lot of drugs or supplements, but you are not satisfied. Maybe your doctor is bawling you out for not taking care of yourself, but you don’t know what to do. It took you years to get into this situation. Give yourself a year to get out. But start today.
First Week: Start a HEALTH LOG or journal. Don’t make any changes to your life. Collect data for yourself and your health care professionals. Purchase a ruled notebook (Steno, planner, other) and divide page into two columns. In one column, write down everything you eat or drink, and the time. Note exercise type and length of time. (Example: E=1/2 hour of housework.) EVERYTHING! In column two list symptoms, such as time in bed and hours of actual sleep, presence of pain, type and where, and the time. Note bowel movements with description. Shortcut: Make a key for medications, or other routines. “Water” can be a “W” circled, coffee a “C” circled, juices a “J” circled, etc. Note if there are extra portions of food. Rate the day 1 to 10 for pain, 10 being the most pain you have ever experienced, in symptom column.
Second Week: Continue the Health Log. Make an appointment with a naturopathic doctor, allergist, nutritionist, or chiropractor. Make no other changes. Visit your library or bookstore and browse books on diet and health in general. Vow to stop all whining, and to just write it down in your health log.
Third Week: Continue Health Log. Begin 5 minutes per day stretching before you dress, but after you are up and moving about, after drinking a glass of water and eating. Do not exceed 5 minute limit to intentional exercise sessions. Add more sessions if you think they are beneficial.
EVALUATE YOUR HEALTH LOG ENTRIES before your appointment with health care professional. Collect and include any data from medical tests from past years. Write down your questions in your log, which you will take with you, and get answers to before you leave his/her office. Make a zerox copy of your health log entries to give to the professional. If he/she does not offer testing, ask about blood and saliva tests for food allergies and intolerances, and a hair analysis for heavy metal poisoning. (These tests may cost you something, but are worth it for the information you will have in managing your health.) Be sure to request copies of all the outcomes. Staple them into your Health Log, or start a separate binder for test results.
Fourth Week: CONTINUE YOUR HEALTH LOG INDEFINITELY. START DOING WHAT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL RECOMMENDED, if you think it will help. If you do not have confidence in that plan, find another health care professional NOW.
Improve your diet and water intake. You already know a lot about what you should do. Now it’s up to you to practice some self-discipline. Reduce the amount or type of foods your should not eat/drink. Follow the advice you have for you specifically (which is not the same for everyone). Plan to cook more and make enough for leftovers, so you can take your own food with you the following day, until you can cook again. Instead of reading menu’s in restaurants, browse in the supermarket fresh food sections. If you do not cook, now is a good time to learn some basics. Reduce alcohol, caffeine, salt and sugar, and add spices to your cooking. Do NOT drink chlorinated water. Do drink 8-8 oz. glasses (one gallon) of good water per day, and even more if you are still drinking coffee or sodas, which dehydrate you.
Begin a routine of stretching. Most organized classes assume you are healthy enough to begin there, and you are probably not ready to begin a class. After the first three weeks, work up to 20 minutes stretching before dressing, and 30 minutes daily of other exercise (walking, exercycle, dancing, strenuous house or yard work counts). See my website (http://www.teleport.com/~mrivera.) for a complete description of my daily stretching routine, which requires no equipment, no special clothes, no friends standing by, and very little space, in other words, no excuses. Music does help me keep going.
Begin your “mental work”, learning about yourself, your psychology, what your personal stake is in the situation. Try the Well-Being Journal exercises, by Cappachionne. Or see my website for a thought provoking self-questionnaire.
Begin your spiritual work. If you do not already have a faith practice, try reading one Psalm each day, and underline any words which strike you. Begin with the prayer from Oprah: “O God. I open my heart. Come and sit inside me.” Your are the “god” of a little universe that is praying to you to help it out, but not in English.
Reduce stress in your life. Make a list of your responsibilities, number them in the order of their importance from 1 to 10 (or whatever number), and cross off the bottom three. Remove yourself from those responsibilities. If you died today, they would get along without you, and they can do it now.
Take full responsibility for your health! Because no one else will.
Questions or comments: womenbefriends@yahoo.com.
# posted by MJS @ 12:59 AM 
