A Lifetime of Health: How Different Aspects of Life Affect Our Wellbeing
When we hear the phrase “healthy lifestyle,” most of us usually think about exercise and diet maintenance, which are definitely among the two most important requisites of leading a long and healthy life.
They are, however, not everything, as there are other aspects of our lives that we can manage for the better with a health-first approach. Keeping that goal in mind, let’s now discuss some of the most important facets of life in general, which ultimately end up affecting our health and wellbeing in more ways than we acknowledge at the time.
Regular Health Checkups
Most of us avoid going to the doctor’s clinic unless something is wrong with us and we are left with no other choice. This is the prime reason why most illnesses are discovered at a later stage which, in best-case scenarios, simply takes longer to cure, while in worst-case scenarios, cannot be cured or managed at all. Cancers are an example of the latter because, by the time the patient is in serious agony, it has most likely metastasized.
If the same patient had come in earlier for a regular health checkup, the growth could have been detected early on at Stage 0, which is completely curable in a large number of cases.
Even simple staph infections, when not treated in time and properly, can cause death in otherwise healthy patients if the bacteria manage to get inside the bloodstream and invade the organs.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what kind of a lifestyle you lead, a lot depends on chance. Of course, if you are exercising regularly and eating a clean diet, those chances are significantly reduced, but unless you are also getting a regular health checkup to confirm your medical wellbeing, there is no guarantee that your healthy lifestyle won’t go to complete waste.
Go for a full body checkup at least once a year and report to your doctor immediately if you sense something has changed, even if it feels too small to take seriously at the time.
Career Choice
There are primarily, three places where we spend the majority of our adult lives, which can be defined as home, commute, and work, so what you choose to pursue as a career option will definitely have a tremendous impact on your lifestyle, health, and wellbeing.
For example, if someone decides to join the police force, there is a documented study with epidemiologic evidence which shows that US police officers are more prone to developing various types of cancers due to the risky nature of their job, which leaves them exposed to carcinogens more often than the average citizen. Melanoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, bladder cancer, and testicular cancer are the most common, but they are not the only types.
Healthcare, on the other hand, is a double-edged sword. Since healthcare workers are basically dealing with a variety of germs during every single workday, they are of course, more prone to catching something or coming into contact with a toxic substance.
At the same time, they also have the best knowledge, term life insurance quotes, and resources to tackle such situations better than people who do not work in healthcare.
There is, however, a clear difference in risk among healthcare employees, depending on what their job entails. Doctors and nurses dealing with infectious diseases are at high risk of contracting pathogenic illnesses if they slip up in the preventive measures even for a second, while those working in emergency departments are always at risk of contracting anything under the sun!
Healthcare administrators have a complicated and demanding job, but they are at the lowest risk of coming into direct contact with pathogens when compared to any other direct healthcare employee. If you are looking to get into healthcare, but do not have a medical background, getting a healthcare administration degree online can be both a great entry point for your career, as well as being a healthy career choice for more reasons than one! In case you are already working in healthcare as support staff, and affiliated healthcare administration course could bring in a huge change in both salary and work environment-related health hazards.
Home Maintenance
This is the other place where we spend most of our lives, so it deserves special attention, perhaps even more than the office does, because the home is where your family is also sleeping at night. If the apartment or house you are living in was built before the 1990s, or even in the early 1990s, it’s best to get it checked for asbestos and lead pipes.
Simple neglect in home maintenance can have deadly repercussions in the form of mold toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, electrocution, fire, and poisonous bug bites to name a few the possibilities.
The idea is to keep everything clean and know what’s in your cleaning products too. It is not uncommon to get poisoned by the same chemicals which you use on a regular basis to clean your home, so use caution and always be careful with cleaning fluids. The same applies to bug sprays, garden pesticides, and rat poison. The last two are actually responsible for the death of hundreds of children every year in the US, and pretty much the whole world.
In case mold is discovered in any part of your home, do not attempt to remove the fungus on your own under any circumstances, as it requires special training to be removed without getting poisoned by certain strains of deadly mold.
In conclusion, joining the gym and eating clean after a major cardiac arrest is a good, positive change, but the goal should be to prevent the heart attack before it happens, or at least, to make sure that every effort is taken to that end. Healthy habits for some are a necessity, while for others, they’re a fad. If anyone wants to lead a truly healthy and long life free of medical debt and suffering, the effort needs to be multifaceted and constant. As you can probably see by now, there’s more to a lifetime of health than just cardio and diet.
