Healthy Living Tips

MikeA April 7th, 2009

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Infancy

For three or four weeks after its birth, a healthy new baby usually sleeps all day and all night, waking only to satisfy its need for sustenance. However, at the end of this time, each waking period starts to last longer and sleeping bouts become shorter.

This inclination to sleep in the early weeks must not be interrupted but as the pattern changes over the following weeks, care should be taken to develop a certain regularity in hours of sleep. Otherwise too much can be had in the daytime, and restless and disturbed nights inevitably follow. It is best to train the infant in the habit of sleeping in the middle of the day at a certain time and then the actual period of sleep will gradually reduce down naturally to about two hours, more or less. If put to rest too late in the day, a bad night will likely ensue.

The baby should initially sleep with its mother. The low temperature of its body, and its weak heat-generating power make this the preferred option. If the child has disturbed and restless nights though, as sometimes happens for short periods, it is best transferred to the care of someone else and returned to mother early in the morning for nursing and feeding. This is for the preservation of the mother’s health which, through sleepless nights, can so easily be upset. The baby would then also suffer by the influence which such a health disruption could have upon the mother’s milk and her general demeanor.

After about six weeks the child, if healthy, may sleep alone in a cradle or cot, care being taken that it has comfortable clothes and covers appropriate for the room its in. This needs to be sufficiently warm (about 60F) and the cot itself shielded from any cold air currents. It is important to attend to these points since the child’s ability to maintain temperature is less during sleep than at any other time. Guard against subjecting the infant to too much heat though; just aim to keep it comfortably warm with a good circulation of pure air, especially around its mouth and nose.

Early Childhood

Up to the third or fourth year the child should be permitted to sleep for an hour or so in the morning and afternoon. After this it may gradually be discontinued; but it must always be remembered that during the whole of childhood more sleep is required than in adulthood. The infant should be put to bed every night between seven and eight and, if it’s healthy, will sleep soundly until the following morning. No definite rule, however, can be laid down regarding the number of hours of sleep to be allowed since one child might require more or less sleep than another. Regularity as to the time of going to bed is the chief point to attend to. Permit nothing to interfere with this, and then only let the child sleep without disturbance until he or she wakes of his or her own accord.

Later Childhood

The amount of sleep necessary to preserve health varies according to the state of the body, and the habits of the individual. Up to puberty children can sleep for up to twelve or fourteen hours a day; after that, up to ten. Upon awakening, they should be encouraged to rise and not lie in bed unnecessarily. This helps to bring about the habit of early rising, and reduces the tendencies towards idleness which all children have.

It is not a good idea to unquestioningly provide all the conveniences a child might demand in their bedroom (such as a television or computer) simply because “everybody else has one”. This inevitably gives them the idea that their room is exclusively their own domain and one to which all ‘interlopers’ are forbidden, even their parents! This is not healthy development. Parents should remain in charge of their offspring until such time as they leave home and any notion to the contrary should immediately be stamped out. As far as the topic of this article is concerned, such an attitude makes it impossible to monitor their sleep patterns which could, and almost inevitably would, eventually become extremely detrimental to their health and well-being.

Mike Alexander

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Tags: baby, childhood, infant, pre-teens, preventive care, sleep, teens, toddler

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MikeA March 26th, 2009

Mind And Body

Healthy living, when the aim is to have a long and enjoyable life, has every bit as much to do with the mind as the body. Debate still rages about the effects of positive thinking on the ability of the body to heal itself. Nonetheless it is generally recognized that an optimistic attitude and a reasonable degree of self-esteem have been associated in an overwhelming number of studies with physical wellness and health that leads right into old age.

Prevention Or Cure?

“So what is covered here?”, you might ask. “Are you offering tips on how to stay healthy or is the focus on remedies for the ailments that might bother us?”

Well, the answer is: both of the above… and lots more. In the case of prevention, I offer tips on how to enjoy a healthy lifestyle and look after the needs of your mind and body. As far as remedies go, I suggest natural solutions that might be considered first, particularly for relatively mild conditions or those for which medical science has yet to provide a convincing treatment.

What About Conventional Medicine?

Does this mean I am skeptical about conventional medicine, as provided by your doctor?

Absolutely not! It’s just that I think equal weight should be given to all forms of healing, at least until such time as intelligent assessment deems one to be superior to another. I am aware of some of the pitfalls that can come from an almost religious belief in what some call ‘mumbo-jumbo’ cures. But similarly, I am also skeptical about relying wholly on one answer from one person who has been trained to look in one particular way at all ailments—over-prescribing of antibiotics is a good example of what can go wrong with such a narrow outlook.

Advances in modern medicine are truly amazing. Nevertheless, any doctor, if he’s honest, will admit that there is still far more to learn about how the body and mind work than the sum of all knowledge currently available. So far, they have only scratched the surface.

A Long And Enjoyable Life

So why do I think I’m qualified to offer health tips? Am I a physician? No, but I’m now almost 70 years old and I think I’ve learned a thing or two in my long life. I’ve made many mistakes, including some made during the course of my marriage of 45 years and bringing up a son and a daughter. However, both our offspring are now in their forties and seem settled happily into their own lives so we can’t have done too badly. My wife too is still with me and putting up with my funny ways but we are still able to laugh at (and with) each other. We’ve experienced hardship and setbacks, including in my case, ill-health (I had a devastating stroke 15 years ago) but we’ve also experienced travel and adventure and can still enjoy each other’s company.

I joined the Royal Marines at 15 and from the age of 18 served most of the next decade in the commandos, eventually becoming the youngest sergeant in the corps. Fitness and survival skills were paramount for me then but went into decline over the following years. However, my stroke, which left me crippled, was a wake-up call and I now do a 10 km walk every other day and a one hour relaxation session in the intervening days. The result is that I feel almost as fit and healthy now as I did in my younger days (not taking my disability into account, of course).

Product Reviews

You will find brief reviews of various products I think you might be interested in, and which are related to the subject matter, peppered throughout this site. Where they appear, there is invariably a link to the actual product as well. This does not mean I have personally tried the product in question (frankly, that would be impossible anyway) but that I wish to draw your attention to it. By the same token, the inclusion of such a review does not amount to a recommendation either but rather a referral for your consideration.

In closing I would like to stress that I’ve tried to make navigation of this site as straightforward as possible. Simply browse the menus in the right sidebar or, for current posts, scroll below here to view them. Also, I very much hope you will support the advertisers by reading about their products. After all, they make it possible for me to run this website.

Mike Alexander

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Tags: diet, healthy remedies, long life, mind and body, positive thinking, preventive care, self healing, staying healthy, stroke

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