* Healthy living | How to live a long & healthy life

Smoking is really, really bad for you. Smoking has the following detrimental effects on your health:

(i) Smoking causes emphysema, which is the loss of lung tissue. This causes breathlessness, the severity of which increases as emphysema gets worse.

Unfortunately, by the time you start to notice any ill effects, you will have lost 50% of your lung tissue. The lung tissue does not grow back. (Some sources claim that if you stop smoking before you are twenty years old, some lung tissue recovery may occur.)

(ii) Smoking causes chronic bronchitis. Essentially this is an infection caused by the accumulation of dirty mucus in your bronchi. The mucus is there to keep your lungs clean by trapping dirt and bacteria, but smoking damages the cells in charge of removing the dirty mucus, so the mucus stagnates and this causes bronchitis.

(iii) Smoking causes loss of hearing and damages your eyesight. The reason for this is simple: nicotine makes blood vessels constrict. The hair cells in your ear are supplied with food and oxygen by capillaries (tiny blood vessels) - if you smoke, nicotine makes these capillaries constrict, which can cause the death of some hair cells in your ear. This causes permanent hearing loss. The more you smoke, the more hair cells are killed and the more hearing you lose.
The same applies to the capillaries in your eyes: smoking makes them constrict, which can make some cells in your eyes die. The more you more smoke, the worse off your eyes will be.

(iv) Smoking causes lung cancer. Lung cancer kills 95% of people who get it, and most people diagnosed with lung cancer die within a year. Doctors say that patients who are told they have lung cancer typically freak out and beg the doctor to save their life; they never say "Fair enough - I knew I was a taking a risk and I accepted it. At least I enjoyed many cigarettes."

If you care about your health and wish to avoid great suffering, quit smoking.

Stress is unquestionably one of the great evils of our time. Stress can have the following effects:

(i) Stress can put you at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes. This is because stress favors the deposition of fat in the arteries.

(ii) Stress can cause short-term memory loss.

(iii) Stress can weaken the immune system, making you more likely to fall ill.

(iv) Stress makes you age faster. You will start to lose your attractiveness prematurely if you are subjected to regular stress.

(v) Stress can significantly reduce your life expectancy. Stress is so bad for you that many doctors blame 80% of minor everyday ailments on stress.

It's really not cool to be stressed - if you are living a stressful life, you must take steps to remove as many sources of stress as possible. That may mean finding another job - getting stressed to make your company owner rich, all for a pathetic check at the end of the month, is REALLY not worth it and is a total waste of your life. Find an alternative. Start your own business, work from home and improve your quality of life.

A healthy diet consists of the following nutrients:

Carbohydrates - needed as an energy source. Sources include bread, pasta and rice.

Protein - needed for growth. Sources include eggs, meat, fish and soya beans.

Lipids (fats) - needed for energy storage, insulation and cell membranes. It is far healthier to consume unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, than saturated fats such as butter.

Vitamins and mineral ions are needed in small quantities - you will assimilate sufficient quantities of these micronutrients if you eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

Fiber (roughage): we cannot digest fiber (cellulose) but it is essential for the health of your gut. Not eating enough fiber will make you constipated and increases the chances of gut cancer.

Tips for a healthy diet:

(i) Avoid eating too much red meat - this increases the risk of gut cancer.

(ii) Eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables - plenty of them. They contain antioxidants that can delay ageing and decrease the risk of cancer. They will also keep your gut healthy and supply you with all the vitamins and minerals you need.

(iii) Avoid saturated fats: these include butter and animal fat. Saturated fats clog up your arteries and put you at risk of heart attacks and strokes. Unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, are much healthier for you.

(iv) Do not eat too much cholesterol, as this increases the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes. Eggs are rich in cholesterol, so do not eat too many.

(v) Do not eat too much - eating too much will make you overweight, and being overweight increases the chances of having a heart attack, as well as decreasing your overall life expectancy. Research has shown that eating exactly what you need and no more - as opposed to eating all you want - can significantly increase your life expectancy (interestingly enough, this has been found to be the case across many species, not just humans).

(vi) Avoid refined sugar: it causes tooth decay and gum disease. Eating too much carbohydrate (sugars are carbohydrates) can also make you overweight, and as mentioned above being overweight increases the chances of having a heart attack.

(vii) Eat several small meals a day. Eating five or six small meals a day is much better for you than eating three large ones. Spreading your daily food intake over several meals makes it a lot easier to lose weight, and is simply much better for your body. Whether you want to lose weight or wish to maintain you hard-earned slimness, you should aim to consume five or six small meals every day.

viii) Taking krill oil supplements will also make a very positive contribution to your health. Studies have shown that krill oil helps to keep the heart and brain healthy, and slows down the ageing process through its considerable antioxidant activity.

Taking regular exercise increases your lung capacity and makes your heart stronger. Regular exercise can also significantly reduce the likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke.

Other benefits of exercise:

(i) Along with eating five or six small healthy meals a day, taking regular exercise is the most important factor in losing weight.The evidence now shows that resistance training (lifting weights) will lose you more weight than jogging and other aerobic exercises. If you are a female, don't worry about becoming buff and losing your femininity: doing more reps with lighter weights will tone you up very nicely without making you look like a body builder.

(ii) Physical exercise will make you more attractive: in addition to making you slimmer and more toned, it will make your face leaner and less flabby, making you look more "hunky" and realizing the full potential of your face. So many people have found that after a few months of taking regular physical exercise, they lose the flab from their face, revealing the facial structure in all its glory.

(iii) Physical exercise promotes the release of endorphins in the brain: this makes you feel full of positive energy and gives you a zest for life. For this reason, physical exercise can also greatly help with depression.

Good sleep is of paramount importance to your physical and mental health. Important things such as long-term learning and tissue repair happen while you sleep, and while it is true that different people need different amounts of sleep, you MUST listen to your body and give it what it needs.

Not sleeping enough may have the following consequences:

(i) premature aging (this is why it's called "beauty sleep": getting plenty of quality sleep will help preserve your attractiveness)

(ii) short-term memory loss

(iii) weakened immune system, making you more likely to fall ill

(iv) increased risk of heart attacks (shown by recent research).

Notice how lack of sleep can cause exactly the same problems as stress.

Furthermore, it is important to sleep at night rather than during the day. Studies have shown that people who work night shifts and sleep during the day have a significantly lower life expectancy than those who work during the day and sleep at night. That's right: there is scientific evidence that suggests that people who have to work at night have a lower average life expectancy. If you are one of them, you owe it to yourself to find a job that does not require you to work at night and sleep during the day.

If your job (or the stress it causes) does not allow you to get plenty of quality sleep this is really NOT acceptable and you are not being fair to yourself. Sort it out.

Financial worries can take a heavy toll on your health: they can give you insomnia, severe anxiety, hypertension and depression. Get rid of your debt - your physical and mental health will be better for it.

You are more likely to live a long and healthy life if you quit smoking, eat healthy food, avoid stress, take regular exercise and get plenty of quality sleep. The scary thing is that many people score very poorly on all five counts. If you smoke, eat badly, do not take exercise, don't sleep enough and lead a stressful life, you are in very, very bad shape. Now is the time to take responsibility for your own health.

Live long and prosper!

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