Wednesday, July 15, 2020

All The Things We Do to Be Healthy...



All the things we do to be healthy...and then find out we're not so healthy. For example, the time I went to the doctor with super low blood pressure. "Take salt tablets," she said.


What? Salt tablets? I'd been trying to reduce sodium in my diet in order to lessen fluid retention, help my hand, and be healthy overall. And now I had to do the opposite: over salt everything in hopes of raising my blood pressure without those dreaded salt tablets, which supposedly could burn my stomach.

Other things "they" tell me to do to be healthy that might not actually be healthy?

1) Stop eating when no longer hungry. I was super fatigued earlier this year and I think it's because I was eating to assuage my hunger, but not to true fullness. So now I'm eating more, not less.

2) Drink all the water. Apparently there is such thing as too much water. And too much water can also lower blood pressure.

3) Ditch the salad dressing. Actually, fat makes vegetable vitamins more accessible and digestible. Pile on the olive oil for me!

4) Exercise all the time, as much as you can. Nope! Overtraining is a thing. I took April off running to see if that might be happening for me.

5) Skip the caffeine. As with the salt, I might need some to manage blood pressure. Caffeine can help stay awake at key times, and relieve headaches. It has uses, in moderation.

In many ways, health is unique to the person. And all that the media tells us is not science-based. It's advertising designed to make us buy products that will supposedly heal all our diseases. Nothing and no one can do that, no one on earth that is. These are earthly bodies, and yes we should be good stewards, but we also need to realize that we're perishing, and sometimes the best we can do is stress a little less about health and live a little more.

2 comments:

  1. So true! I think health management really requires us to do our own research and critical thinking. Doctors only have so much time to focus on us as patients and can't really give us a more comprehensive solution other than large reactionary tasks.

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    Replies
    1. That's an interesting thought! I'd be curious to hear a health professional's perspective.

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