Habits
The healthiest habits: Eating a healthy diet, avoiding/minimizing intake of sugar and sweets, drinking at least 8 glasses of filtered water, exercising daily, and sleeping 8 hours (when possible) daily; taking mini vacation/staycation to de-stress, doing charity work for our needy fellowmen, and having regular medical/dental checkups.
Fruits
The healthiest fruits are lemons, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, limes, grapefruits, blackberries, avocados, apples, pomegranates, pineapples, bananas
Vegetables
Asparagus, beetroot, broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, garlic, kale
Drinks
Besides pure filtered water, milk, coffee, tea, kombucha, and vegetable smoothies are the healthiest drinks. The worst beverages are soft drinks — they are poison to our body, especially to children, increasing the drinkers’ risk for metabolic syndrome. Thirst quencher sport drinks like Gatorade contribute to childhood obesity. Drinking hot water upon rising in the morning is healthiest, instead of cold drinks.
Recreational
Non-drug is the healthiest: Gardening, swimming, volleyball, skiing/snowboarding, horseback riding, hiking, yoga, paddling. Find a practical choice for yourself and your circumstance.
Exercise
Healthiest: Swimming, tai-chi, tai-bo, normal or brisk walking (jogging eventually damages joints). Personally, I find tai-bo a personal preference, tailoring duration and intensity to what my senior body could take and endure with safety.
Diet
The healthiest: Mediterranean Diet – plant-based diet of a lot of variety of vegetables, olive oil, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, herbs, and spices. Fish, other seafood, lean beef, lean poultry, and sweets sparingly. Besides quality of food items, quantity is vital to good health. Maintain a normal weight and live longer.
Attitude
The healthiest attitude includes waking up cheerful, being positive and always hopeful, loving and compassionate, forgiving, showing courage under fire, with malice towards none, bringing your own sunshine to people everywhere you go.
Brain exercise
The healthiest: Solving memory games, jigsaw puzzle, crossword puzzle, reading stimulating books, writing letters/stories, chess, sports competitions for seniors, social interaction with people. Like our muscles, the brain needs exercise.
Exercise for joints
The healthiest exercise that minimizes damage to the spine, hip, knee and ankle joints are walking, bicycling, swimming, and water aerobics. Jogging is becoming less popular because it has been linked to damages of the hip, knee, and ankle joints over time.
Sleep apnea
The healthiest way to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), prolonged frequent breath-holding while asleep resulting in hypoxemia (low blood oxygen level), is with the use of a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. Using items advertised as treatment (nose clips, mouth guard, medications, etc.) are unhealthy and dangerous. CPAP addresses the pathology of OSA and effectively keeps the collapsing airway passage in the throat wide open with air pressure for normal air exchange.
Shoes for walking
The healthiest (to minimize trauma to joints, prevent foot blisters, and provide foot comfort) for women is the Ryka Devotion Plus 3, and for men, the Brooks Glycerin GTS 19. Both are available at amazon.
Cities in the world
The Top 12 healthiest (and happiest) cities: Valencia and Madrid in Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Vienna, Austria; Copenhagen, Denmark; Frankfurt, Germany; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Helsinki, Finland; Berlin, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; Fukuoka, Japan; and Geneva, Switzerland. The people of the United States were the unhappiest in 50 years, according to the mid 2020 study by NORC at the University of Chicago.
My challenge: Enjoy life, be the healthiest and the happiest, if possible!
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Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, a Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus based in Northwest Indiana and Las Vegas, Nevada, is an international medical lecturer/author, Health Advocate, newspaper columnist, and Chairman of the Filipino United Network-USA, a 501(c)3 humanitarian foundation in the United States. He was a decorated recipient of the Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash Award in 1995. Other Sagamore past awardees include President Harry Truman, President George HW Bush, Muhammad Ali, Astronaut Gus Grissom (Wikipedia). Websites: FUN8888.com, Today.SPSAtoday.com, and philipSchua.com Email: scalpelpen@gmail.com
