When You Are Sick, Rest.

If you want to live a longer, healthier life, one important habit to develop is the ability to say no. This comes in especially handy when you’re not feeling well. If your body is in the process of fighting off a cold, healing a wound, or fighting an illness or chronic disease, then it needs rest. If you don’t rest, your body won’t have enough energy to heal. One way to rest is to just say no to all some of those things that life calls you to do each day.

Granted, there are certain things you can’t avoid unless you recruit someone else to do them for you—for instance, taking care of the children. It’s pretty hard to say no to a diaper that needs changing or a toddler who needs breakfast. Maybe you have a friend, neighbor, or family member you can call on to help you when you don’t feel well. Don’t wait till you’re sick to find someone—just as you’ve probably made a plan for hiring a babysitter in an emergency, make a plan for getting help when you’re sick.

If you adopt the healthy habits you’re learning about in this book, you won’t get sick often. But when you do, getting well should be a top priority, and learning to recognize the first signs of illness is vital to avoiding illness. In our society, when we don’t feel good, we’re pretty much expected to pop a pill and go on about our business. That’s not a very healthy way to take care of our bodies. Some signs to watch for include unusual fatigue, sweating, chills, heightened sensitivity to temperature, excessive thirst, loss of appetite, or unusual muscular discomfort. When you start to get sick, immediate rest may be all that’s needed to stop the illness in its tracks.

If you’re not well, don’t hesitate to take a day off from work. I know that this can be difficult, especially if you work for a small company that may not have someone to cover for you, or if you do a job that no one else can. However, it makes no sense for you to go to work sick, possibly exposing others to your illness as well as making yourself sicker.

If you feel ill, your concentration and productivity won’t be up to par. If you continue to push yourself, your illness may drag out for days, ultimately costing the company more than giving you a sick day would have. Stay home, rest, get well fast, and get back to work. It’s the economical choice.

Many patients tell me they can’t afford to take a day off for illness. I understand that some companies don’t offer sick leave or sick pay. Make it a point to stash a few days’ pay, just in case you get sick and will have a smaller paycheck because of it. If your company does offer sick leave and sick pay, use it when you need to. Don’t go to work sick because you’re saving your sick days for a vacation.

Clear your calendar of any nonessential tasks and concentrate on your health. When you stay home sick, make sure that you behave like an ill person. That means rest. Don’t try to catch up on all those projects around the house you’ve been putting off. Don’t take work home with you to do while you lie around—rest means resting your brain as well. Stay in bed all day. Sleep late. Lie on the couch, read, or watch TV. Baby yourself. Don’t exert yourself—save your energy for healing. Rest is essential to getting well fast.

Don’t let your family intrude on your down time. Explain that you need extra rest, and stick to it. Have other family members do your usual household duties. Take time off from any sports you play, or any exercise that you normally do. It makes no sense to work out when your body needs to be putting all its energy into healing.

The act of getting well requires a talent for saying no to the world. Cultivate it. It’s important to know when to put your health first, and to be able to stick to it. It’s an attitude and a habit that might come in handy in other areas of your life.

Create a Ritual to De- Stress

Stress is a fact of life. It comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes from inside us, in the form of our reactions to daily life. It comes from outside us, as the world around us does not always conform to our wishes. You can’t escape stress. It will never be totally gone from your life. You just have to “deal” with stress and learn how to counter the negative effects it can have on your body.

Stress causes complex chemical reactions in your body that can affect your internal organs. Over a long period of time, stress can cause headaches, heart problems, digestive disturbances, reduced immune function, insomnia, asthma, allergies, pain in the body, and irritability. And that’s just a list of the most common effects of stress. Everyone is affected differently, and everyone reacts differently to stress. The only thing we all have in common when it comes to stress is the fact that we can’t escape it.

Everyone has to combat stress on a daily basis. Stress can be many things—the alarm going off when you haven’t rested enough, interacting with co-workers you do not enjoy, financial or relationship worries, or changes in your life and routine.

Eating right, getting enough rest, and exercise can all combat stress. So can laughing. We know that your attitude and mental state can greatly affect your health. It’s hard to be stressed out when you’re giggling.  I think that creating a ritual to de-stress that works for you can also combat stress. “Ritual,” in this sense, means a procedure regularly followed. It is something that you decide to do regularly, in basically the same way, whenever a good de-stressing is needed.

My favorite ritual for de-stressing is to snorkel in the swimming pool. Now, I’m sure my neighbors wonder what the heck I’m doing out there in wetsuit and fins, splashing around in mask and snorkel and looking at absolutely nothing on the bottom of the pool. That’s okay—regardless of how silly it looks, it’s how I relieve the stress of the day. I enjoy the bit of exercise I get paddling around, and the fact that I’m under the water, where it’s quiet and sheltered from the world, just makes it my favorite place to relax and let my cares float away. This is something that I can do regularly, without taking a lot of time out of my day. I can do it in any weather, any time of day or night, and, after the initial cost of equipment, it’s free.

Now, what is your de-stressing ritual going to be? Ideally, it would be something you could do easily, almost anywhere and anytime. Make it easy—don’t choose a ritual that adds more stress to your life. Pick something that takes between twenty and sixty minutes, depending on how much time you feel you can give yourself on a day when you’re stressed out. Stress is often related to a lack of time, or feeling rushed. We don’t want to add to that. Many times stress is related to financial issues, so choose something that won’t cost more than you can comfortably and regularly afford.

Maybe your own personal de-stressing ritual is something you do alone, or maybe it’s something the whole family can do together. Maybe it’s a walk along a favorite wooded path, watching a favorite movie, taking a long bubble bath, shooting a few baskets, listening to music (while wildly dancing around the living room), doing deep-breathing exercises, working in the yard, banging on your drum set, or flying your plane. Your ritual may involve some form of exercise, like a long run. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you find relaxation in spending a few minutes meditating. Just as stress itself is different for everyone, so is the de-stressing ritual. The key is to find the activity that works best for you, one that tells you that, whenever you do this activity, you are releasing the stress of the day. This will make it all the easier for you to make a commitment to performing this ritual whenever your stress levels are getting out of hand.

MSG, Artificial Sugar and other Unmentionables...

Chemicals that do not naturally occur in foods are not supposed to be in foods. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Why would you want to eat things that have been proven, over and over again, to negatively impact your health?

From the dawn of time, our bodies have been powered by chemicals that occur naturally in the food substances that grow around us. Artificial ingredients are just that—artificial, meaning that they do not normally occur in your food, and your body does not naturally digest them. Many studies over the years have shown that artificial ingredients can cause health problems. So why are you still eating them? Just because the human race is smart enough to make artificial food doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

A friend of mine came to my office complaining of headaches. She was given a chiropractic adjustment, she got a massage, and she still had headaches. Because headaches are often related to diet, we talked about what she ate. It turned out that she regularly had chicken lo mein at her favorite restaurant, which used MSG. I asked her to order it without the MSG next time. “But MSG makes the food taste better, doesn’t it?” “Well,” I replied. “It’s a flavor enhancer. But which would you prefer: a headache every day, or food that tastes the way it is suppose to taste?”. She eliminated MSG from her

diet. The headaches went away.

It amazes me how many foods still contain MSG, when we’ve known for years that it can cause health problems. Read the labels of the food you buy. Don’t think that, just because you weren’t violently ill the last time you ate MSG, that it doesn’t affect you. It just means the effect is subclinical, which means “not bad enough to notice.” But the effects can build up over time until they manifest themselves as a serious health problem.

Studies have shown that there is a connection between food colorings and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD, or hyperactivity). That statement alone should be enough to make you change your eating habits. Look at all the prepared foods on the market that contain colorings, many of them specifically marketed to kids. One company even dyes red tomato ketchup green or purple so our kids can be entertained by their food. Such things make me wonder about the sanity of the human race.

Could this be why so many kids today are taking prescription drugs such as Ritalin? We fill our children full of chemicals in their food. The chemicals speed them up. Then we give them prescription drugs to calm them down. If you are a parent, I know that you want to protect your kids from things that can harm them. You monitor their friends, what they watch on TV, what they do online. You also need to watch what they eat.  The examples I’ve given are meant to alert you to the dangers of artificial, chemically enhanced food.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen with health problems that decreased or cleared up entirely after they quit using artificial sweeteners. Artificial sugar has no calories because the body can’t digest it. You ingest it and it just sits there in your body, building up year after year. That is not healthy. Next time you visit your local supermarket, take a look at the endless shelves of diet sodas—one of the most terrible foods you can put in your body. Terrible because it’s a fluid of artificial color, artificial flavor and artificial sweeteners, three of the things that you should avoid if you want to remain healthy. Look at all the other products that contain artificial sugar. Are you going to eat it again? I hope not. The next time you reach for an artificial sweetener, think of it as eating Styrofoam. Just say no.

I had a biochemistry instructor whose rule of thumb was “If it ain’t natural, don’t eat it.” Don’t put unnatural substances in your mouth. You learned that when you were an infant, crawling on the floor and shoving in your mouth anything you could grab. Your parents followed you around, snatching things out of your mouth and saying “No! Not good! Don’t eat that!” If you have kids, I’m sure you remember doing the same for them. The same thing is true for chemicals in your food. They’re unnatural substances that aren’t good for you, so don’t eat them.

I admit that this can be a challenge. However, there are ways to avoid most or all chemicals in food products. First, learn to read the labels. Don’t purchase products that have chemicals in them. You don’t have to be a scientist—just don’t buy products if you read the label and can’t identify what the ingredients are.

It used to be that if you tried to eliminate all chemicals from your diet, your diet became very limited. Nowadays there are many all-natural alternatives to your favorite chemically laced foods.

I was thrilled when, some years ago, a natural-foods company came out with an all-natural substitute for my favorite crunchy snack food. With no artificial color and no MSG, I was in heaven. You may have to shop at a health-food store to find a wide variety of products without chemicals. Luckily, the health-food industry is flourishing; each year we have more choices, more widely available, to more communities.

I don’t think sugary sodas are good for you, but I’d much rather see a person drink a soda with real sugar and more calories than one with a sugar substitute. If you’re worried about the calories, drink less soda.

Choose foods that are as close as possible to their original natural state. ( that means with the least amount of ingredients on the label) Your taste buds will adapt over time, and that food will taste just as good as you thought it did when it contained MSG. Put your health first. Work on a more pure diet. Eliminate the Big Three: MSG, artificial colorings, and artificial sugars. Congratulate yourself for taking steps to improve your health. Every chemically enhanced food you say no to is a small victory, and small victories add up to big gains. Now start to eliminate some other chemicals, such as artificial flavorings and dough conditioners.

Remember, no one is perfect. Eliminate as much as you can as often as you can. Think of it this way: Eating a few pounds of those chemicals over the course of your life is less destructive than eating tons of them. Every time you choose an all-natural alternative, you add to your chances of living a longer, healthier life.

Further Reading

A Consumer’s Guide to Food Additives, by Ruth Winter, MS

The Ritalin is Not the Answer Action Guide, by David B. Stein, Ph.D.