10 Habits that can ruin your life

Taking care of someone else’s health is easy but normally taking care of our own health is a thing which many people are lacking behind. There are many healthcare tips that we can easily find on the internet and many healthcare regimes, exercises or routine which we can follow but instead of that, people are having a busy schedule, forget to take out some time and make their own health happy. But before taking much time out, you must know about what you are doing wrong in your daily routine which is steadily ruining your health without even letting you know. There are several bad habits that can wreak havoc on your health and fitness, thereby affecting your life in a detrimental way.

Habits ruining the health

There are many points that can be noted which are contributing in ruining your health. Some of the common habits are as follows:

Poor posture: Posture is a must to maintain as it can make or break the structure of your body. You must not slouch while sitting as it might comfort you but will gradually make your posture bad. Body’s stability and balance are directly affected by an alternative spine.

Working on the computer with the improper position of hand: We know that spending too much time on the computer is not healthy for your eyes and tend to neglect the other harmful effects. Continuously sitting on the computer for long hours can cause numbness and pain. This can increase the risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome. Due to this syndrome, a person may feel tingling, numbness, and pain in the hands.

Stress: If you are not happy with your lifestyle or work then you may release stress hormones that will increase your blood sugar, lower immunity, slow digestion, and can make you obese. Modern life can ultimately lead to chronic stress and to extensive impacts on health such as sleep problems, change in sex drive, irritability and anger.  If you have stress symptoms, taking steps to manage your stress can have numerous health benefits. To prevent, you can go through several stress management strategies such as deep breathing, meditationor yoga. Take some time out for your hobbies, reading a book or listening to music.

Consumption of alcohol: Consuming more amount of alcohol can actually do harm to your body. It is being known that alcohol consumption can lead to various health problems including cirrhosis of the liver or injuries related to automobile accidents. Besides this, excessive alcohol consumption is also linked to heart disease, depression, gout, and cancer or nerve damage.

Smoking: Smoking is injurious to health as it increases the risk of diseases like lung cancer, developing mouth, throat, and bladder cancer. It makes the capacity of your lungs short and if you once quit then the health benefits are almost immediate, because your lungs and cardiovascular system begin repairing themselves within minutes of your last cigarette. Within a month, your lungs will work better and you should be coughing less, feel more energetic, and have less shortness of breath. Quitting smoking can reduce cancer threat; heart disease improves your sense of taste and smell and gives you better endurance.

Breakfast skipping: Breakfast is the first meal you take during the day which energizes your metabolism and charge you for the day. Skipping breakfast can seriously affect your health by making you weigh more, negatively impacting on your hormonal health, cognition, and mood.

Poor sleep: If you constantly avoid your sleep or rest hours, that will lead you to fatigue or higher the risk of depression. Poor quality of sleep can create problem to your immune system function, excessive production of cortisol (steroid hormone), which usually increases the weight and stress levels in the body.

Not drinking enough water: Drinking water is essential for life. If you continuously keep yourself dehydrated by not drinking the proper amount of water throughout the day it will show a major impact on your health. Your skin will become dry and lifeless.

Understanding Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

COPD is short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and is a disease that affects the way our lungs should work.

The major cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is smoking, and around the world countless people have been diagnosed with this disease and it is suspected that a similar amount of people suffer from this same illness but have not yet been diagnosed. It has become the fourth cause of death and may go up in the scale as the population grows older, many of whom are or were smokers.

Another important point is that it is a progressive disease, which means it grows worse in time which is why it is classified as a chronic illness. Chronic means that it develops and worsens over time, while acute implies a severe and sudden onset of the illness - a heart attack or the breaking of a bone, for example. In chronic illnesses there can be acute attacks: in the case of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease an acute attack of shortness of breath can be very complicated.

Understanding chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
As we breathe in and out, our lungs inflate the air goes down the windpipe and into airways (bronchial tubes). Imagine these airways as branches of a small tree. At the ends of these branches there are very small elastic air sacks - think of a bunch of grapes (with air instead of juice) - that inflate when we breathe in and deflate as we breathe out. These grape type air sacks are called alveoli. The breathing process makes them expand (like air balloons) and as the air is released (when we exhale) they recover their original size.

In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it is precisely the alveoli (bunch of grapes) that have been damaged and so in both counts, when we exhale and when we inhale, less amount of air comes in and out.

Some of the alveoli, the ones that have been affected, swell up and lose their elasticity. The airways, which would be the branches in the above description, have also been affected and are both swollen and slightly clogged as they have also been affected. Another aspect is that much more mucus is produced and this also tends to block the airways.

The end result of all this is that less air comes in and is distributed around our body. The air we breathe is made up of approximately 21% oxygen, about 1% other gases, and the rest, 78%, of carbon dioxide. As less air is inhaled and distributed there is a lack of oxygen in our system and this is the major problem of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

One of the ways to assist patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is by oxygen therapy but as always when concerned with medical matters you should and must refer to a pulmonologist.