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Just add water – but not too much
Given that you’re a walking bag of water, it should be common sense to say you need to stop yourself from drying out. When your body is deprived of water, it steals water from other organs, including your brain, and that’s unwise.
Conversely, your body cannot cope with too much water. Your hypothalamus – the barometer in your brain – runs on a slight lag. So it can take a while for your body to realise it has enough water in the tank. If you’re very thirsty and recklessly drink five litres of water in a short space of time, the cells will become overloaded with fluid. This results in a dilution of critical sodium levels – a potentially fatal condition known as hyponatremia.
All this just highlights how fragile your body can be. Under- or overwater it and you end up like that poor houseplant on your window ledge that seemed like a good idea at the time. In order to thrive, you should aim to consume about two litres over the course of each day.
No thank you, nausea!
More often than not, if the stomach needs to reject its contents, you’re effectively just a bystander. In some cases, however, the feelings associated with nausea can be managed. Ginger is known to contain anti-nausea properties, mainly due to the less than ingeniously named chemical gingerol, and many people find that chewing on ginger sweets or even ginger root can ease the symptoms. It does this by increasing the rate at which your stomach empties into the small intestine (increased gastric emptying).
If your nausea is due to motion sickness, then consider your vision to be key to steadying the ship. Why? Because when there is a mismatch between your eyes and balance sensors, the brain can interpret it as poisoning. When travelling on a cruise ship or as a car passenger, the key is to keep your eyes fixed on the horizon. This lessens the discord between what you’re feeling and what you’re seeing, which helps the eyes and balance sensors coordinate their information better.
The magic pill
There’s one magic pill that improves every facet of your health across the board. The only problem is, you can’t swallow this pill. Instead, you must endure it, or somehow make it enjoyable, and that pill is exercise.
Inactivity is a silent killer. All kinds of evidence exists to show that exercise can reduce the risk of early death. For one thing, you lose around five percent of your muscle mass every decade after you cross the ripe old age of 30. Yes, 30. This rate of muscle loss doubles once you cross 70, and is one of the central reasons why resistance training, promoting muscle strength, can make a massive difference to both quality of life and life expectancy.
Ultimately, regular exercise of any kind benefits the mind as much as the body, and can be easily incorporated into a busy lifestyle. It really is the closest thing we have to real-life magic.
Can you smell that?
Giving your breath a cheeky sniff test can help you assess your health. If you detect the following whiffs, check in with a health professional:
● A sour smell can indicate acid reflux. This means bits of food are making their way back towards the throat, making it a fertile breeding ground for bacteria.
● A smell like mothballs can be a sign that you’re suffering from an allergy or a cold.
● Fruity-smelling breath indicates high levels of ketones in the blood. This is a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis, in which the body doesn’t produce enough insulin to use as fatty acids to make energy.
● A sweet or mouldy note to your breath could be a sign of fetor hepaticus, which is an indicator of liver disease.
● Fishy breath, assuming you’ve not been guzzling seafood, is a sign of end-stage renal failure, in which the kidneys fail to get rid of toxic waste like urea and ammonia.
● A metallic smell or halitosis (bad breath) can be a sign of a bacterial infection in the gumline or an early marker of gum disease. A build-up of bacterial plaque can eventually cause bleeding and gum inflammation if not dealt with. Bad breath can also be a painless indication of tooth decay.
Nail your number twos
Essentially there is an art to pooing for optimal efficiency and good health, and it’s all about the angles.First and foremost, a right angle is wrong. If the torso is at 90 degrees to the hips, the puborectalis muscle which hugs the rectum is in fact pulling extra tightly. This causes a kink in the tailpipe, compromising your optimum poo delivery as you don’t have a clear drop down the rectum. Next, adopt the squat. We’re talking about the torso being at 35 degrees to the hips, which is effectively a squatting position or just try to get your knees higher than your hips.
This can be easily achieved by sitting on the toilet with your feet resting on a stool (not that kind!) or by leaning forwards while resting on the balls of your feet. It means the hips are relaxed and the puborectalis slackened. With the pinch point removed, you’re free to poo without stresses or strains.
Tip: Closing the toilet lid before you flush can keep your bathroom from becoming engulfed in a mist of microscopic poo particles. On flushing with the lid open, the sudden influx of water into the bowl causes a geyser of tiny droplets to rise up at a speed of 2 metres per second before fanning wide in a faecal mushroom cloud.
Patience, now…
This is the part where I tell you the healthy way to pee. Contrary to popular opinion, sitting down to pee provides optimal flow dynamics for both women AND men. There is less pressure on your core, which means your pelvic floor is relaxed. While sitting should be encouraged, I would avoid squatting or hovering over toilets. It’s very unlikely you can get an STD from a public toilet, but if you’re struggling to settle over a chipped, still- warm loo seat, then cover it with paper first. Hovering over the loo just raises the risk of incomplete bladder emptying due to tightened pelvic floor muscles.
If you’re in a rush and need to strain to make it quick, make sure you wait until your stream has started before squeezing. Tightening up before you’ve begun risks shutting off the valves that allows urine to exit the body. Pee patience will always pay off.
The good guys
If you’re prescribed antibiotics, which don’t just nuke the bad bacteria but also the good guys, here’s a simple way to minimise the inevitable digestive disruption:
● Increase your fibre (prebiotic) intake (nuts, seeds, vegetables and beans) to encourage good bacteria to thrive.
● Alternatively, consider a fibre supplement such as psyllium husk (available from health food shops). This is commonly available as a soluble mix that’s gentle on the gut.
● Consider adding sources of natural probiotics to your diet – yoghurt, cheeses, fermented vegetables, etc.
Sweet sleep
We all want a shortcut to a good night’s sleep and a warm shower before bed might just be the key. Paradoxically, the raised temperature of the water serves to cool down your core body temperature and lowers the sleep threshold. Conversely, a cold shower in the morning can kick-start your day by raising your body temperature and making you more alert. Also cleaner!
Brain blast
Here’s a quick and easy way to slow down neurodegeneration, the term used to describe how your brain and central nervous system lose their performance edge with age.
● Regular exercise improves blood flow to the brain, keeping you sharp into later life.
● Sleep clears away toxic proteins that accumulate in the brain through your busy day.
● Social interaction is known to keep the brain engaged, which means making friends is a smart move.
● It’s never too late to challenge yourself! Try learning a new language or take up a musical instrument to reduce the risk of developing dementia.
● Do something that fills you with wonder and awe. Whether it’s a simple walk surrounded by nature, to gazing at the stars and contemplating the meaning of your existence, studies show that blowing your mind can help to keep the brain firing.
(Don’t) feel the burn
Heartburn is another name for acid reflux. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant, but the good news is that you can minimise the chances of it happening by cutting down or even avoiding certain foods.
● Onions are a rich source of fermentable fibre, which can result in increased burping. This can stir up stomach acids and cause it to head against the traffic.
● Limit high-fat foods because they stimulate the release of the hormone cholecystokinin. This can cause the lower oesophageal sphincter to relax, increasing the risk of acid reflux.
● Be wary of spicy food. This is because it often contains capsaicin, a chemical that slows the rate of digestion so that food sits in the stomach for longer and increases the risk of heartburn.
