If you are suffering from severe levels of chronic pain, you might think that it’s going to stop you from traveling. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. Instead, you just need to make sure that you are approaching traveling a little differently. These are the key factors that you need to think about if you are going on a trip while you are suffering from chronic pain.
Think About Treatment Options
First, you should make sure that you are getting the right treatment options for your chronic pain. There are a wide variety of different treatment possibilities on the market. For instance, you could explore more traditional forms of medication that you can take with you to reduce the impact of chronic pain that you are suffering from. Alternatively, you might also want to think about exploring more advanced forms of treatment such as those that are promoted by medical experts like Kevin Lucas.
Consider Issues That Exasperate Your Condition
It’s possible that there are certain issues related to travel that could exasperate your condition. There are a few issues worth thinking about here. For instance, you might find that your pain is worse on long journeys. If that’s the case, then you might want to think about exploring flights that have plenty of connections. That way you can make sure that you take breaks to have a walk around between flights and don’t get issues in places like the back or your legs. It could also be worth making sure that you have more space on longer flights. One of the ways that you can do this is by choosing seats near the emergency door.
Another issue that can exacerbate chronic pain is heat. As such, you might want to think about packing products that you can use to cool down. This includes sprays and other forms of cooling treatment that you can use on the go. You could also think about traveling somewhere with a colder climate so that this isn’t as much of an issue.
Insurance
Finally, you might want to think about guaranteeing that you do have the right type of insurance for your next vacation. With the right insurance, you can make sure that you don’t have to worry if your chronic pain flares up and results in you not being able to travel. You’ll be able to get the money back that you paid and book another trip at a later date. You could also think about exploring different forms of insurance too that will cover everything relating to your trip. The more comprehensive your insurance plan is, the greater your peace of mind will be when you are planning a journey like this.
Be aware that chronic pain won’t be covered with all travel insurance plans, so it’s important to do the right amount of research.
We hope this helps you understand everything that you need to know to ensure that you have a great vacation, even if you are suffering from chronic pain. Take these steps and you can still have a great time exploring the world.
We are trained to think of fast food as unhealthy. Therefore, cooking at home has become the epitome of healthy eating. Yet things are not always that simple. A quick trip to the supermarket reveals that most aisles are filled with healthy options that meet a variety of dietary requirements. If you are looking for vegetarian food, you’ll find your favorite meals in packs prepared according to the vegetarian palate. However, don’t be fooled by appearances. A pack of chili sin carne or spaghetti alla vegetarian bolognese may not be as healthy as it seems. Indeed, there may be more than one issue behind our healthy eating habits. Here’s what you need to keep in mind for your next grocery trip.
Read the labels
What is wrong with food substitutes that turn a chili con carne into a vegetarian meal? In theory, there’s nothing wrong with these. On the contrary, they are often the perfect opportunity to add more vitamins and fibers to your diet. However, in practice, it’s a different story. Ideally, you want to get familiar with the labels to avoid bad surprises. Packages, processed, and canned foods may seem like a simple switch, but they can contain high fats, sodium, and sugar. This is often true for processed meals that are designed to tackle special dietary requirements, such as vegan, keto, gluten-free, and vegetarian food for instance. A healthy diet requires nutrition education to avoid some of the food traps!
Cleanse your body from toxins
Even when you make the switch to healthy food and meal preparations, you may find it hard to feel a difference in your health. The body accumulates toxins from an unhealthy diet. More often than not, it can pay off to actively cleanse your body to remove all the toxins. Toxins and parasites may not be visible to the naked eye, but they can lead to discomfort and health complaints, such as itchiness, bloating, fatigue, etc. If you are not sure how to start your cleansing journey, you may want to take a look at this parasite cleanse course that can help kickstart your health. It’s a fantastic way of eliminating the consequences of previous diet choices.
Health food overload
You’d be surprised to know that a healthy diet could also backfire on you. This can happen when you pack your diet with too much healthy stuff. Nutritionists agree that there can be too much of a good thing. For instance, food such as carrots and sweet potatoes are great for vitamin A supply. However, anybody who used to watch Dr. House with Hugh Laurie remembers the orange patient who consumed too many carrots. This is a downside of beta carotene. Similarly, a keto diet with too much protein could stress your kidneys and liver.
Understand your body
The bottom line: There’s no such thing as a healthy diet that fits everyone. Understanding your body and what it needs can transform your approach to eating. That is where intuitive eating can help many people maintain a healthy diet without following arbitrary rules that may be counterproductive.
Healthy food choices are crucial to fuel your body with energy and nutrients. However, it’s important to build up your relationship with your body so that you can make educated choices that will benefit your health. A healthy food diet is built on self-awareness rather than easy, off-the-shelves solutions.
The thing that you need to be focused on above everything else is your health. If you are not being careful, then you could end up with a really nasty condition that could have been prevented. Of course, this is not always the case and sometimes things just happen even when we feel like they shouldn’t or they happened for no reason. In this article, we are going to be looking at three areas of health that you need to be gentle with, so keep reading down below if you would like to find out more.
Mental
Perhaps the most delicate part of any person is their mental health. Even those who are strong mentally and have strong wills, strong morals and so on, find themselves struggling with their mental health from time to time. You see in the media all the time that even the people we think would be happy, secretly are not. It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter what you have, it is who you have, and it’s how you feel about you. It’s never easy to change the way someone feels about what they see when they look in the mirror, but it is always going to be possible.
If you notice that you are starting to struggle with your mental health, then we recommend you speak to someone sooner rather than later. Do not isolate yourself from the people who care as this will only make the problem worse.
Hearing
The next thing that we are going to look at is your hearing health. There are a number of things that need to be done in order to protect your hearing from as much as possible. For example, you are supposed to wear ear plugs around large appliances such as around a washing machine to avoid the high decibels hurting your area.
If you have already started experiencing hearing loss but you have yet to decide on any kind of treatment, we recommend that you try a hearing aid first. The reason for this is that they are one of the most commonly used pieces of medical technology seeing as so many people are losing their hearing.
Oral
Finally, your oral health is fragile because it is at the mercy of whatever you put in your mouth. This means that if you are constantly putting sugar into your body, eventually your mouth is going to be the place that it shows. Brush your teeth regularly, floss and see your dentist every six months to avoid oral health problems at their root.
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the areas that you need to be gentle with when it comes to your health. Ideally, you need to give your body a break at some point. Even if you are someone who completes a lot of exercise on a regular basis, one day off is not going to tell you. Relax, it will be good for you.
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Photo: Unsplash
Your physical health is so important. When it is not adequately maintained, you can develop symptoms and problems that make life troublesome. To stay healthy, you must keep a good routine. However, you must also consider other areas of your body that may be neglected. Including, your ears. We are exposed to great dangers of hearing on a daily basis - even hearing music on headphones or driving on a busy road can cause an accumulation of irreversible damage. But there are some simple and yet meaningful things that you should know and be careful to do to avoid hearing problems.
Irreversible noise damage can be caused in two ways - brief exposure to extreme noise, such as an explosion or gunshot, or prolonged exposure to noise above a noise level of 85-90 decibels, and especially at loud noises. From the noise of cars or trucks on a busy road, noise in factories, planes, to the most common - loud noise at parties and concerts (in both open and closed places) and listening to loud music at home, with headphones or even in the car. Overtime, the ears can become damaged and hearing loss occurs. You should always be careful when using headphones, that you don’t listen to the music too loudly, after all, it isn’t necessary to have it too loud!
Look at protecting your ears
This is when hearing protection comes into its own. We usually know in advance about situations in which we may endanger hearing - performances, parties, headphones, working with heavy tools such as a chainsaw or drill, shooting noises, etc. In work environments that require exposure to such noises, you will need to protect yourself. In any situation where we know we are about to be exposed to extreme noise, the ears must be protected by ear plugs or some other type of protection. It is recommended to purchase custom earplugs that will optimally cover your ears - they can lower noise levels by 15 to 35 decibels, which makes the ears significantly easier on your hearing. This will greatly improve your ear health and will protect you from damage.
We already briefly touched on loud music, but if you want to listen to your music a little louder than usual, then you should consider some tips to make sure you’re not inhibiting your hearing. When it comes to headphones, there is a rule of thumb that some experts recommend known as the "60:60 rule". To protect your hearing, you should listen to the music on the headphones at 60% of the maximum volume, for no more than 60 minutes a day. If this is not practical for you, also lowering the volume without limiting the duration of listening will help significantly. It doesn’t take much, but a little goes a long way and you will be surely able to protect your hearing for many years.
Also, you should consider hearing tests as you get older, to rule out any issues and to ensure that your hearing is top notch at all ages.
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When you’re travelling for a vacation or work, it’s easy to become a little careless when it comes to your diet. Intentionally or not, it’s common for travellers to adopt the mindset that what you eat doesn’t count if you’re in another country.
But if you travel regularly or you're away for a long time, you need to be careful about what you put into your body. Although there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself to an occasional ice cream or a cocktail as a treat, you should still make sure you look after your body, no matter where you are in the world.
Eating poorly can lead to all kinds of health problems over time, so if you struggle to maintain good habits when you’re on the road then this post will help you. To prevent you from gaining holiday weight or experiencing iron deficiency symptoms, here are four tips to maintain a healthy diet while travelling.
Prepare your own food
For many people, the cuisine is one of the most exciting parts of international travel. You want to sample all the exotic delights that your destination country has to offer and spend your vacation trying new things. For this reason, you are probably planning to eat out in restaurants more often than not. But when dining out it’s harder to keep track of the nutritional information and make sure you aren’t putting anything unhealthy into your body. Although there’s nothing wrong with exploring new foods, try to prepare a significant portion of your meals. It’s easy to buy healthy snacks, lunches and breakfasts in any supermarket, leaving space for a more extravagant evening meal. Foodstuffs like fruit, raw vegetables, salads, and nuts are all excellent options to keep the hunger at bay.
Do your research
No matter where you are in the world, there are always healthy dining options. But to find them, you should do your research before you travel. Use the internet or ask other travellers for advice about the best healthy restaurants and grocery stores in your destination. This will prevent you from making spur-of-the-moment decisions that are less than nutritious.
Carry a water bottle
The amount of water you drink is just as important as the food you eat, perhaps more so. You must stay hydrated throughout your trip, especially if you are travelling in a hot country so carry a water bottle with you at all times. This will keep your mind and body healthy and stave off dehydration when the weather gets too much. Most town centres have drinking water fountains, or you could ask for a top-up in a bar or restaurant.
Drink less alcohol
When you’re on holiday you no doubt want to let your hair down and have a good time. And for many people, alcohol is a big part of this. If you love an ice-cold beer on a hot summer’s day or a cocktail by the pool, then treat yourself occasionally, but don’t go overboard. Keep track of your alcohol consumption and limit yourself to a certain number of drinks.
There are multiple ways to get active physically. Walking, cycling, running errands, lifting objects, exercising, and many others. Such physical activities can have significant impacts on your overall health. And if they become a routine, you can sustain a healthy lifestyle.
While most people get excited when starting an exercise routine, it can be hard to keep up down the line. Some outside forces and distractions may limit one from sticking to such a practice. Such may include work, school, and family activities or a lack of motivation and giving in to temptations.
Therefore, it would be best to set aside at least 30 minutes to indulge in physical activities that work for your body. If it becomes hard to stick to such a routine, here are ways in which physical exercises can promote your health to motivate you.
Helps with Chronic Illness
Chronic illnesses such as heart diseases, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and urinary incontinence, to mention a few, can get reduced by regular physical exercises. For instance, if you have diabetes, exercising can boost insulin's effectiveness, which ultimately lowers your sugar levels. Exercising promotes your heart's condition reducing the risk of heart diseases.
If you experience chronic urinary incontinence, exercising your pelvic can help manage the condition. However, if symptoms persist, it would be wise to consider using a straight catheter, which effectively enables you to drain or empty your bladder conveniently.
It Promotes Your Mental Health
Most people will indulge in physical exercise to build a better body. However, physical exercises go beyond that by promoting your mental state. Various ways in which physical activities promote your mental health are reducing depression, improving your brain functionality, fostering your memory, and improving your mood.
When you engage in any physical activity, your body releases chemicals into your brain, resulting in feel-good emotions. However, not all physical exercises can promote your mental health. The most effective ones include running, yoga, resistance training, swimming, dancing, and high-intensity workouts.
Helps Maintain the Right Body Mass
Managing body weight can be daunting as many things contribute to achieving the ideal body weight. Foremost, you have to fight off hunger by identifying what foods can keep your stomach full for more extended periods. Secondly, you have to keep count of your calorie intake, plan meals, track your weight, avoid all kinds of temptations, and many others.
Fortunately, exercising regularly can lift a massive burden from such a lifestyle. If you want to maintain the ideal body weight, exercising can help you burn more calories as you build your dream body. If you look and feel good about your physical appearance, it can boost your self-esteem and confidence.
Promotes Better Sleep
A natural way to sleep better at night is by exercising your body. Research done shows that exercising can help alleviate sleep in most people who find it hard to fall asleep. And moderate physical exercises are what you need to achieve a good night's sleep.
If you get enough sleep, you can maintain a healthy weight, reduce the chances of getting chronic illnesses, reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and promote your memory.
At all costs, don't skimp on exercising regularly. Set aside time to conduct a simple workout that goes a long way in improving your overall health. Good physical health ultimately leads to a happy life.
Happy Monday friends! I hope that you had a great weekend! It was a lovely (and rainy *smiles*) weekend here in the south. I thought today would be the perfect day to update on our move back to Tennessee as I receive so many questions each day about how things are going, how teaching is going, how we are settling in, etc. In many ways it is completely surreal that this week marks two months since we moved. In some ways it seems like yesterday and in other ways it seems like it has been years.
Overall
Overall the entire move has been relatively smooth. These last eight months have been a whirlwind of getting adjusted back to teaching full time, adjusting to a much busier (and very different) schedule then the years while I was sick, still working through the loss of my daddy, and then processing the long goodbye of my precious grandmother, plus cleaning out the house in Tennessee. I would say that there are many times that I feel like we are taking one day at a time and just taking things each moment as they come, but that the move itself has been smoother than I could have imagined.
Teaching
I could go on and on and on... (and on *smiles*) about this, but I will sum it up by saying that I have the most incredible students and I am loving being back in the classroom with them each day. There has been an adjustment to a different culture (every school has its own culture) but I have been met with grace by students and parents alike and it is surreal to be living out a dream that I fought to get back for ten years. I can't believe that I am looking at less than 40 days with this group of students and if I think about it to long I will start to cry because they are just that incredible. This first year back to full-time teaching has been beyond any hopeful expectation that I dreamed about from sick days.
There has also been a lot of work. Being away from the house for 5 years and coming back to things that you haven't used in years and for me nearly a decade since I had moved into my parents home incredibly sick and just got more sick has resulted in lots and lots of hours going through things, donating items, and carefully deciding what I want to keep and get rid of. There are a lot of emotions, tons of thought processes on this and also a different kind of grief stage to work through in this process. It has been a lot of work and a lot of processing.
The entire mold remediation process was difficult beyond words and one that I still have grieved in different ways. For all of y'all who have lost things in natural disasters or because of something similar. I am so sorry for your loss. I never understood what that would feel like and my heart truly breaks for you. I hope that you were met in love like I was. My students are incredible.
I think anyone who moves understands all of the emotions that come with finding your "place" in a new space. I miss my friends from up in New York/Vermont a lot and I am grateful for grace in just giving myself time to adjust. I definitely don't have the social life that I would like to have, but again I think some of it is a mixture between moving, adjusting, work schedule, and COVID.
