Tag Health and Wellness

Tag Archives: Health and Wellness

Spring Clean Your Medicine Cabinet

Spring Clean Your Medicine Cabinet

Has it been a while since you looked through all the pills and other items stored in your medicine cabinet? If the answer is “yes,” include getting rid of prescription and over the counter (OTC) medications that have expired or gone unused for months to years as part of your spring cleaning. There are numerous reasons why this is a healthy decision. Sure, it can be tempting to leave a keep a half bottle of leftover pain relievers or some antibiotics around “just in case,” but you could be putting yourself or family members at risk for accidental ingestion, misuse, or overdose. And while it’s true that some pills keep their potency for years, other drugs lose their effectiveness and still others can change composition over time and become dangerous. One example is the antibiotic tetracycline which can become toxic after its expiration date, resulting in kidney problems if ingested. …

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Warning! Office Work Can Be Dangerous to Your Health

Your job doesn’t involve potentially dangerous machines or toxic chemicals. In fact, you sit in a comfortable chair at your desk most of your work day. So you probably assume there’s nothing dangerous about your work environment. Unfortunately, that assumption may be wrong. Researchers are warning that the typical office workplace can be hazardous to your health – simply because of all that sitting behind your desk. Maybe you’ve always thought a person had to be a couch potato who watches too much TV at night to qualify as sedentary. However, it turns out that simply sitting all day while you work fits the definition of a sedentary lifestyle, too. Working out a few times a week doesn’t override the health dangers of a not-moving-around- most-of-the-day lifestyle. Why Sitting too Much is a Health Risk “Sitting is now literally the most common human behavior – more common than sleeping,” says …

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How Much Do You Really Know About Sleep?

How Much Do You Really Know About Sleep?

We don’t usually think much about sleep until we don’t get enough. But a lack of sleep not only makes us tired, it can have serious impacts on our health and even how well we do our work. Unfortunately, a lack of sufficient sleep is so common in the U.S. that it is now recognized as a public health problem by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the CDC, people who don’t get enough sleep have reduced on-the-job productivity and more car and industrial accidents, too. If that wasn’t alarming enough, research shows that sleeping too little raises the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression. How Much Sleep do You Need? The National Sleep Foundation convened an expert panel of doctors and scientists to recommend how much sleep is best for most people, based on age. Loyola University Chicago …

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