Healthy Living: July 2014

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Hot, humid weather impacts those with asthma

After the brutal winter we had this past year in New England, we all promised not to complain about the heat this summer — yet most have us have long abandoned that resolve.

Poor air quality on these hot and humid summer days can make us all miserable, but for those with asthma, it can be perilous.

Asthma is a chronic inflammation of the lung’s airways characterized by a cough, shortness of breath and wheezing, affecting 300 million people worldwide, including 22 million in the U.S.

Here are some ways everyone can cope with the extreme heat and humidity:

• Stay hydrated with water — avoid caffeinated tea and coffee, as well as alcohol.
• Stay indoors with the doors and windows closed, and air conditioning on. If you don’t have A/C, go to public buildings like shopping malls, libraries, community or senior centers, or a friend’s house.
• Restrict strenuous exercise outdoors to early morning or evening hours.

Hot, humid and high pollen days present a particular challenge for people with asthma. Besides the above, asthmatics need to keep rescue inhalers and medications on hand when attacks occur.

Most physicians give their patients a personalized asthma action plan, specifying how to manage their asthma when it worsens. That written plan should include information on when to seek emergency care.

I asked Backus Pulmonologist Setu Vora, MD, to share some advice for asthmatics.

“A sudden change in temperature can affect the inflammation in patients with asthma. Hot, humid and hazy conditions make people's asthma worse. Stay indoors in air conditioning if you have severe asthma. Using your controller maintenance inhalers regularly keeps your asthma well controlled."

We have a few more weeks of typical New England summer weather. Before we know it, we will be complaining about the snowstorms and freezing temperatures of winter.

Alice Facente is a community health nurse for the Backus Health System. This advice should not replace the advice of your personal healthcare provider. To comment on this column or others, visit the Healthy Living blog at www.healthydocs.blogspot.com or e-mail Ms. Facente or any of the Healthy Living columnists at healthyliving@wwbh.or

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Monday, July 21, 2014

Fighting the weekend food battles

It’s no secret that the people eat quite differently on the weekend as compared to their eating habits during the work week. There are a few reasons for this:

We plan social gatherings on weekends, which present us with foods we wouldn’t normally eat — and opportunities to overindulge. Our schedules are not as rigid as they are during the week, so it can be more difficult to plan meals. We’re just glad to have survived a tough work week and want to reward ourselves.

It’s easy to see how these factors can work against our healthy eating efforts. However, understanding our challenges can help us overcome them. After all, knowing is half the battle (at least according to G.I. Joe…).

So how can we plan for success in the face of our obstacles? Well in this case, we can look ahead to any parties or gatherings we have on our weekend schedules and either commit to having a healthy and satisfying meal before the event, or even better, if you can bring a healthy dish to pass, you and everyone else in attendance will be guaranteed to have at least one healthy choice among the typical party fare — not to mention a conversation-starter. People always ask me about any dish I bring to a party (I can’t figure out why… probably my profession), but it invariably leads to an interesting discussion. Who knows? You may inspire someone to make healthier choices in their life.

When it comes to scheduling, I am just as guilty as the next person, because I rarely have a set meal plan on weekends. I get around this by making sure that I cook enough during the week to have leftovers for the weekend. This strategy helps you to be ready for anything because you don’t need to worry about taking the time to prepare a meal. Simply pull out some leftover chili, lettuce, cheese and salsa and you’ve got a healthy meal in minutes.

Finally, we come to the issue of reward. We all need to feel rewarded for our efforts, and it’s so easy to tell ourselves that we deserve those cookies or chips because we made it through a hard work week. However, I encourage you to break the cycle of using food as a reward because it almost always comes full circle and ends up in guilt rather than satisfaction.

Instead, treat yourself in a different way. Go to a movie, go on a nature hike, have a massage or simply take a long, hot bubble bath. If you take a moment to think about the things that make you feel good, I know you will come up with a list of ways to recharge your emotional batteries in no time. I guarantee you will feel more rewarded, and you won’t have that nagging, guilty feeling afterward.

Now, as a realist, I understand that despite our best laid plans we are all bound to overindulge now and then. And that’s not always a bad thing. Life wouldn’t be worth living if we were always perfectly regimented. So when you do go a little overboard, just let it go and move forward. No sense beating yourself up. The world does enough of that for us.

Good luck, Weekend Warriors!

Jennifer Fetterley is a registered dietitian for the Backus Health System and Thames Valley Council for Community Action. This advice should not replace the advice of your personal healthcare provider. To comment on this column or others, visit the Healthy Living blog at www.healthydocs.blogspot.com or e-mail Ms. Fetterley or any of the Healthy Living columnists at healthyliving@wwbh.org.

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Taking time for your own health is important

Nothing can take the place of healthy eating and physical activity. Nothing.

Instead of thinking in terms of “diets” you need to think in terms of lifestyle change. At its very core, weight loss comes down simply to the balance between how many calories you consume and how many calories you burn each day.

Fad diets often work temporarily because of a gimmick that helps you to severely restrict calories for a short time. However, because calories are so significantly restricted, these diets become very difficult to maintain over the long haul and you eventually return to your old eating habits. What’s worse is that you often regain even more weight than you initially lost because you squandered lean body mass (your body’s calorie-burning powerhouse) in your crash-dieting extremism.

Perhaps instead of looking for a miracle diet, you should consider what is holding you back from eating well and exercising regularly. Family commitments? Lack of time? Poor motivation? Stress? An old pinky injury from back in ’82? (Believe me, I have heard them all.)

Once you have determined what your barriers are, ponder for a moment why you are letting them hold you back. Quite often, our barriers — at their heart — stem from the fact that we don’t feel our health is important enough to make a priority. We are busy at work, or we have to help our kids with their homework, or we must take our mother to her doctor’s appointment. We feel that these things take precedence over our own needs, and that taking time for ourselves is selfish.

It isn’t! The truth is, the only way to be genuinely successful in losing weight and keeping it off is to start by loving yourself enough to put a priority on your own basic needs. And they are needs — make no mistake.

We all need to eat well and be physically active if we are to be our best selves. Once we begin to view these things as non-negotiable necessities, we start to find ways to blast through the barriers.

We take a 15-minute walk on our break time instead of obsessing over emails — they will still be there in 15 minutes and the fresh air will probably help you to better concentrate on them when you get back anyway. We set up a schedule for helping our kids with their homework and let them do more of it on their own – after all, we want to teach them to be self-reliant don’t we? We double the recipe for what we are cooking the day before our mother’s appointment so that we have a healthy meal waiting for us when we get home later that evening.

A focused mind is a powerful thing, indeed. So put your focus on health and you will see the obstacles that you once thought insurmountable become mere pebbles in the road. We are here for such a short time and each breath is such a precious gift. Don’t settle for poor health or even feeling just “OK.” True wellness affords us the chance to fully enjoy life and realize our own potential.

When you think about it, don’t you deserve that?

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Monday, July 07, 2014

Stop bullying now before major consequences occur

Bullying has been in the news so much lately it seems to be an epidemic. Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance.

According to the website StopBullying.gov, there are different forms of bullying:

•    Verbal bullying: This can include name-calling, teasing, instilling fear and shame.
•    Social bullying: Starting or spreading lies and false rumors, and/or breaking up friends and intentionally excluding others from activities.
•    Physical bullying: This form of bullying can involve hitting, shoving, punching, being forced to do things and other acts that can lead to intentional harm to others.
•    Racial harassment: Occurs when behaviors are associated to skin color, race and cultural background.
•    Sexual harassment: Involves unwanted behaviors linked to gender or sexual orientation.
•    Cyber–bullying: The use of digital technology involving the internet, texting, by email and other technological means to cause harm to others.

Unfortunately, the consequences of bullying have been well-documented — both short term and long term.Kids who are bullied can experience negative physical, school, and mental health issues. They are more likely to suffer:

•    Depression and anxiety, increased feelings of sadness and loneliness, changes in sleep and eating patterns, and loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy. These issues may persist into adulthood.
•    Health complaints like headaches, stomach aches, and even nausea.
•    Decreased academic achievement — GPA and standardized test scores — and school participation. They are more likely to miss, skip, or drop out of school.

A very small number of bullied children might retaliate through extremely violent measures. Increasingly, we have seen in the news that many of the perpetrators of recent school shootings had been victims of bullying, and just reached a breaking point.

What can be done? Adults should respond quickly and decisively when bullying occurs. The most important thing is to stop it on the spot. Make sure everyone is safe. Stay calm, and separate the kids involved. Support those who are bullied, and those who were witnesses. Don’t assume kids can deal with the situation without adult help.

If a crime has been committed, or there is a weapon involved, call 911. And probably most important, seek mental health resources or counseling for all involved, as appropriate. Bullying is a pervasive problem in our society, and we must all do our part to curb and stop it.   As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”  

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Thursday, July 03, 2014

Follow safety precautions this Fourth of July

Nothing says “celebration” like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s one summer event that people of every age look forward to each year. Many communities host fireworks displays, open to the public, conducted by trained professionals. The chaos and crowds are all part of the excitement.

I was talking about summer activities with my friend and colleague Jill Schaff, RN, Backus Trauma Program Coordinator. She mentioned how she dreads the inevitable stream of people with traumatic injuries that will present in the Emergency Department around the Fourth of July.

Most of them, usually children and teens, are injured while using consumer fireworks. According to the National Fire Protection Association, consumer fireworks include sparklers and firecrackers. The tip of a sparkler burns at a temperature of more than 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to cause third-degree burns. To put this in perspective, water boils at 212 degrees, cakes bake at 350 degrees and glass melts at 900 degrees.

Few people understand the associated risks of consumer fireworks — devastating burns, other injuries like finger amputations, fires and even death. Despite the dangers, they are not illegal.

Well, now that’s the bad news. The good news is we can all still enjoy the holiday by leaving fireworks to the professionals.

Call your local town hall to inquire if and when a public fireworks display is scheduled. For those in the Norwich area, the July 4 Extravaganza 2014 will be held at the Marina at American Wharf, 1 American Way, on Saturday, July 5, from 7-10 p.m. Family fun and children’s activities will include bounce houses, face painting, local bands, food vendors and most important of all, a huge fireworks display.

Now that’s a celebration. Wishing a happy and safe Fourth of July to all!

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