Health

Breakfast can help prevent strokes, heart attack and sudden death. Advice on not to skip breakfast!


Healthy living

For those who always skip breakfast, you should stop that habit now! You’ve heard many times that “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Now, recent research confirms that one of the worst practices you can develop may be avoiding breakfast.


Why?

Because the frequency of heart attack, sudden death, and stroke peaks between 6:00a.m. and noon, with the highest incidence being between 8:00a.m. and 10:00a.m.What mechanism within the body could account for this significant jump in sudden death in the early morning hours?


We may have an Answer.

Platelet, tiny elements in the blood that keep us from bleeding to Death if we get a cut, can clump together inside our arteries due to Cholesterol or laque buildup in the artery lining. It is in the morning hours that platelets become the most activated and tend to form these internal blood clots at the greatest frequency.


However, eating even a very light breakfast prevents the morning platelet activation that is associated with heart attacks and strokes. Studies performed at Memorial University in St.Johns, Newfoundland found that eating a light, very low-fat breakfast was critical in modifying the morning platelet activation. Subjects in the study consumed either low-fat or fat-free yogurt, orange juice, fruit, and a source of protein coming from yogurt or fat-free milk. So if you skip breakfast, it’s important that you change this practice immediately in light of this research. Develop a simple plan to eat cereal, such as oatmeal or Bran Flakes, along with six ounces of grape juice or orange juice, and perhaps a piece of fruit. This simple plan will keep your platelets from sticking together, keep blood clots from forming, and perhaps head off a potential Heart Attack or stroke. So never ever skip breakfast.

Honey is a rare gift in the treatment of any illness. For a com-mon cold mix a teaspoonful of limejuice with half a cup of boiling water. Add enough honey to sweeten it. Drink it hot and take rest. The effect is almost immediate.


For a sore throat, mix honey and lime and smear it over the depression below the Adam’s apple on the throat.


Indigestion and pain in the stomach are due to overeating or taking improper food. One can free oneself from these ailments in the following manner.


Mash a raw piece of ginger and squeeze out the juice by adding some hot water. Add honey to the juice and drink it warm.


Keep some powdered dry ginger in an air-tight bottle. For this you must dry the ginger, pound it and strain through a piece of muslin. Take a teaspoonful of this powder, mix it with a few drops of honey and eat it. It is better not to drink water immediately after taking this. This takes away all feeling of sickness and creates desire for food.


In case any insect gets into ear put a few drops of salt solution in the ear. Immediately the insect dies or comes out.


For any throat infection you can gargle with a teaspoonful of salt solution in a glass of warm water.


Salt fermentation is useful when pricked by a thorn or when one has stepped over a sharp stone. Take a clean piece of cloth and tie some common salt within it.


Heat some gingili oil, dip the bundle of salt in it and foment the afflicted part. Repeat the treatment till the pain disappears completely.


In the kitchen, salt water is an unfailing aid for burns and scalds. At once apply salt water to prevent thin bubbles on the skin and other complications.


Neem oil can be used in cases or rheumatism, arthritis, chest infections and especially in fits. The whole body should be massaged with warm neem oil.


Severe earache is relieved by dropping few drops of warm neem oil. A few pods of garlic should be added while heating. A fresh piece of garlic should then be put in the ear to block the hole.


Garlic roasted in the fire without removing the outer skin and then peeled and eaten gives relief for heart burn and gas trouble.


After confinement a halva is made with milk and garlic. This is given to pregnant mothers as a special nourishment.


Take a few cloves of garlic and rub them over a stone adding a few drops of water. Heat the paste in a spoon and smear it over the forehead with bearable warmth. Dry ginger may also be ground to a paste, heated and applied in the same manner. This treatment will give some relief to a person having headache.


A decoction made out of pepper and jaggery or honey is a check on influenza.


A piece of camphor placed on some coconut oil kept in a saucer and lighted gives a good medicinal oil to cure a sick person. When rubbed over the chest it relieves congestion. It is very useful in the case of small babies.


Strong tea without milk or sugar is a treatment for dysentery.


For insect bites and stings a half cut onion rubbed over the offending spot takes away the poison immediately. Lime is also good. When smeared on the particular spot reduces swelling and relieves pain.

Ever heard someone say, “He’s a real pain in the neck” (or other body part!)? Did you know that stress in your life can quite literally be expressed as pain and illness? To make this easier to understand, let’s compare your body to a pressure cooker. If it’s allowed to vent its steam, it will sit there and happily cook along. If it’s not allowed to vent its steam, the pressure will build up and up until the lid blows off! We humans are no different. And, like the pressure cooker we “flip our lids” by becoming depressed. Now, lets say that we have a cooker under pressure, but we’re applying pressure to hold that lid on (the human equivalent would be holding in our emotions). What will happen? Eventually, the vessel will break and the place it will break is at its weakness point.


The same goes for us human beings. If one of your body systems is weakened, this is where a stress-related illness is most likely to develop. If your weakest point physically is your neck, you’ll develop neck pains, back pain, ulcers or frequent colds and flu. You get the picture.


The first step to deal with stress is to learn to recognize when we are under extreme stress. One way is by taking a Life Stress Test. This simple test rates various life events on a point scale. If you score high, then you are at high risk for developing stress-related illness. Another simple test to determine if you’re feeling stressed: take both your hands and touch your neck. If your hand feel significantly colder than you neck, you are stressed. If they are warm, you are relaxed. Other ways you may show stress: sweaty palms, tense muscles, butterflies in the stomach, or rapid heart beat. Learn to recognize the signs of stress unique to you.


Once you know how to recognize when you are stressed, the next step is to learn coping mechanisms. One very important way to cope: DON’T HOLD IN YOUR FEELINGS! Like the pressure cooker, the pressure will find a way out. You can be like the pressure cooker that is venting steam in a controlled way or you can let the stress find your weakest point to come exploding out. Controlled is safer and healthier for you. Controlled ways you can cope include: talking to someone you trust; joining a support group; relaxation techniques; taking some leisure time for yourself; taking a break from the situation you’re in; herbs like Kava Kava or Valerian to help you relax; taking care of your health by eating right, exercising and not smoking; being honest with those around you (maintaining a lie is very energy consuming); letting go of old grudges; doing something nice for others (if you’re not accustomed to doing this) or taking some time just for you (if you are always sacrificing for everyone else). The list is endless. Just vent that steam!


The third and final component: willingness. That’s right, willingness. We have to be willing to let go of our expectations about what we must do. We have to be willing to let go of old guilts and shoulds that are guiding our behavior. We have to allow ourselves to just be human. It’s okay for men to cry and be emotional. It’s okay for women to let someone else have a turn with the household chores. It’s okay to fall short of your goals if you’re doing the best that you can. Some of our biggest stressors actually come from within ourselves!