Golden Rules of Healthy Life E-Book

Rittik Chandra

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"Golden Rules of Healthy Life" provides the superior scientific knowledge to excel one of the most satisfying tasks for any man or woman to-day, i.e. to take part in this movement toward truer ideals of perfect manhood and womanhood. This book will show you different methods that you can apply in your life to be consistent as well as have the mindset that you are going to be fit, and live a healthy joyful life.

Leseprobe

Rittik Chandra

Golden Rules of Healthy Life

TO ALL PEOPLE OF THE WORLDBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Golden Rules of Healthy Life

Golden Rules of Healthy Life

BY

RITTIK CHANDRA

Published by:

RITTIK CHANDRA

RITTIK PUBLICATION

93, Mahatma Gandhi Road, 1st Floor

Kolkata- 700007, India

Mobile No.: [phone]

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.rittikpublication.in

Cover designed by: RITTIK CHANDRA

© All rights reserved by RITTIK CHANDRA

 CHAPTER I: AIR

Section I—Housing

Air is the first necessity of life. We may live without food for days and without water for hours; but we cannot live without air more than a few minutes. Our air supply is therefore of more importance than our water or food supply, and good ventilation becomes the first rule of hygiene.

Living and working rooms should be ventilated both before occupancy and while occupied.

It must be remembered that the mere construction of the proper kind of buildings does not insure ventilation. We may have model dwellings, with ideal window-space and ventilating apparatus, but unless these are actually used, we do not benefit thereby.

Features of Ventilation

The most important features of ventilation are motion, coolness, and the proper degree of humidity and freshness.

Drafts

 There is an unreasonable prejudice against air in motion. A gentle draft is, as a matter of fact, one of the best friends which the seeker after health can have. Of course, a strong draft directed against some exposed part of the body, causing a local chill for a prolonged time, is not desirable; but a gentle draft, such as ordinarily occurs in good ventilation, is extremely wholesome.

Air and Catching Colds

It goes without saying that persons unaccustomed to ventilation, and consequently over-sensitive to drafts, should avoid over-exposure while they are in process of changing their habits. But after even a few days of enjoyment of air in motion, with cautious exposure to it, the likelihood of cold is greatly diminished; and persons who continue to make friends with moving air soon become almost immune to colds.

The popular idea that colds are derived from drafts is greatly exaggerated. A cold of any kind is usually a catarrhal disease of germ origin, to which a lowered vital resistance is a predisposing cause.

The germs are almost always present in the nose and throat. It is exposure to a draft plus the presence of germs and a lowered resistance of the body which produces the usual cold. Army men have often noted that as long as they are on the march and sleep outdoors, they seldom or never have colds, but they develop them as soon as they get indoors again.

Of course, one must always use common sense and never grow foolhardy. It is never advisable that a person in a perspiration should sit in a strong draft.

Windows

The best ventilation is usually to be had through the windows. We advise keeping windows open almost always in summer; and often open in winter.

One should have a cross-current of air whenever practicable; that is, an entrance for fresh air and an exit for used air at opposite sides of the room. Where there cannot be such a cross-current, some circulation can be secured by having a window open both top and bottom.

Window-boards

In winter, ventilation is best secured by means of a window-board. This is a board the edge of which rests on the edge of the window-sill, the ends being attached firmly to the window-frame. It affords a vertical surface three or four inches high and situated three or four inches in front of the window, so as to deflect the cold air upward when the window is slightly opened. The air will then reach the breathing-zone, instead of flowing on to the floor and chilling the feet, which is the usual consequence of opening a window in winter. It seems tragic to think that for lack of some such simple device, which anyone can make or buy, there is now an almost complete absence of winter ventilation in most houses.

Air-fans

Air should never be allowed to become stagnant. When there is no natural movement in the air, it should be put in motion by artificial means. This important method of practising air-hygiene is becoming quite generally available through the introduction of electric currents into dwellings and other buildings and the use of electric fans. Even a hand fan is of distinct hygienic value.

Heating Systems

A wood or grate fire is an excellent ventilator. A heating-system which introduces warmed new air is better than one acting by direct radiation, provided the furnace is well constructed and gas-proof.

Cool Air

The importance of coolness is almost as little appreciated as the importance of motion.  Most people enervate themselves by heat, especially in winter. The temperature of living-rooms and work-rooms should not be above 70 degrees, and, for people who have not already lost largely in vigour, a temperature of 5 to 10 degrees lower is preferable. Heat is depressing. It lessens both mental and muscular efficiency. Among the employees of a large commercial organization in New York who were examined by the Life Extension Institute, some of the men in one particular room were suffering from an increase of body temperature and a skin rash. On investigation it was found that the room in which they worked was overheated. There was no special provision for ventilation. A window-board was installed, with the result that the men recovered and no other cases of skin rash occurred in that room.

Dry air

As to dryness of air, there is little which the individual can do except to choose a dry climate in which to live or spend his vacations. Unfortunately, there is not as yet any simple and cheap way of drying house air which is too moist, as is often the case in warm weather.

Humidity

In the cold season, indoor air is often too dry and may be moistened with advantage. This may be done, to some extent, by heating water in large pans or open vessels. But for efficient moistening of the air, either a very large evaporating-surface or steam jets are required. The small open vessels or saucers on which some people rely, even when located in the air-passages of a hot-air furnace, have only an infinitesimal influence. Vertical wicks of felt with their lower ends in water kept hot by the heating apparatus yield a rapid supply of moisture. Evaporation is greatly facilitated if the water or wicks are placed in the current of heated air entering the room. By a suitable construction, the water may be replenished automatically. In very cold dry weather, the air-supply of an ordinary medium-sized house requires the addition of not less than 10 gallons of moisture every 24 hours, and sometimes much more.

Some authorities doubt any ill effects from extreme dryness. This is a subject yet to be cleared by experimental research.

Freshness

It is obvious that fresh pure air is preferable to impure air. Air may be vitiated by poisonous gases, by dust and smoke, or by germs. Dust and smoke often go together.

 Lighting by electricity is preferable to lighting by gas, as some of the gas is liable to escape and vitiate the air.

Tobacco Smoke

A very common and at the same time injurious form of air-vitiation is that from tobacco smoke. Smoking, especially in a closed space such as a smoking-room or smoking-car, vitiates the air very seriously, for smoker and non-smoker alike.

Dust

As to dust, the morbidity and mortality rates in certain occupations, particularly those known as the dusty trades, are appreciably and even materially greater than in dustless trades.

An accumulation of house-dust should be avoided. The dust should be removed—not by the old-fashioned feather duster which scatters the dust into the air—but by a damp or oiled cloth. Dust-catching furniture and hangings of plush, lace, etc., are not hygienic. A carpet-sweeper is more hygienic than a broom, and a vacuum cleaner is better than a carpet-sweeper. The removable rug is an improvement hygienically over the fixed carpet.

Bacteria

The bacteria in air ride on the dust-particles. In a clean hospital ward, when air was agitated by dry sweeping, the number of colonies of bacteria collected on a given exposure rose twenty-fold, showing the effect of ordinary broom-sweeping.

Sunlight

The air we breathe should be sunlit when possible. Many of our germ enemies do not long survive in sunlight.

Section II—Clothing

Air may be shut out not only by tight houses but also by tight clothes. It follows that the question of clothing is closely related to the question of ventilation. In fact it is a reasonable inference from modern investigations that air-hygiene concerns the skin quite as much as the lungs. Therefore the hygiene of clothing assumes a new and hitherto unsuspected importance. A truly healthy skin is not the waxy white which is so common, but one which glows with colour, just as do healthy cheeks exposed to the open air.

Porous Clothes

The hygiene of clothing includes ventilation and freedom from pressure, moderate warmth, and cleanliness. Loose, porous underclothes are already coming into vogue. But effective ventilation, namely such as will allow free access of air to the skin, requires that our  outer clothes—including women’s gowns and men’s shirts, vests, vest-linings, and coat-linings—should also be loose and porous. Here is one of the most important but almost wholly neglected clothing reforms. Most linings and many fabrics used in outer clothes are so tightly woven as to be impervious to air. Yet porous fabrics are always available, including porous alpacas for lining. To test a fabric it is only necessary to place it over the mouth and observe whether it is possible or easy to blow the breath through it.

Air-baths

At times we can enjoy relief from clothing altogether. An air-bath promotes a healthy skin and aids it in the performance of its normal functions. Not everyone can visit air-bath establishments or outdoor gymnasia or take the modern nude cure by which juvenile consumptives are sometimes treated (even in winter, after becoming gradually accustomed to the cold); but anyone can spend at least a little time in a state of nature. Both at the time of rising in the morning and upon retiring at night, there are many things which are usually done while one’s clothes are on which could be done just as well while they are off. Brushing the teeth, washing the hands, shaving, etc., necessarily consume some time during which the luxury of an air-bath can be enjoyed. Exercises should also be taken at these times. Exercising in cold air, if not too cold, with clothing removed, is an excellent means of hardening the skin and promoting good digestion.

Tight Clothing and Shoes

The constriction from rigid or tight corsets, belts (the latter in men as well as in women), tight neckwear, garters, etc., interferes with the normal functions of the organs which they cover. All such constriction should be carefully avoided. The tight hats generally worn by men check the circulation in the scalp. Tight shoes with extremely high heels deform the feet and interfere with their health. The barefoot cure is not always practicable, but anyone can wear broad-toed shoes with a straight inner edge and do his part to help drive pointed toes out of fashion. Such a reform should not be so difficult as to rid the women of China of their particular form of foot-binding. Several anatomical types of shoes, that is, shoes made to fit the normal foot instead of to force the foot to fit them, are now available. In all except cold weather, low shoes are preferable to high shoes. When possible, sandals, now fortunately coming into fashion, are preferable to shoes, especially in early childhood (but the adult, whose calf-muscles and foot-structure are not often adapted to such foot-gear, must be cautious in their use lest flat-foot result).

Cottons, Linens, Woollens

Only the minimum amount of clothing that will secure warmth should be worn. Woollens protect most, but they require the least exercise of the temperature-regulating apparatus of the body. While wool is also highly absorbent of moisture, it does not give off that moisture quickly enough. Hence, if worn next to the skin, it becomes saturated with perspiration, which it long retains to the disadvantage of the skin. Consequently woollen clothing is best confined to overcoats and outer garments, designed especially for cold weather. The underclothes should be made of some better conducting and more quickly drying material, such as cotton or linen. In winter light linen-mesh and medium wool over that, or “double-deck” linen and wool underclothes, can be worn by those who object to either linen or wool alone.

Colour

As to colour, the more nearly white the clothes the better. This is especially true in summer, but there is believed to be some advantage in white at all seasons.

Those who have learned to clothe themselves properly find that they have grown far more independent of changing weather conditions. They do not suffer greatly from extreme summer heat nor extreme winter cold. Especially do they note that “raw” or damp cold days no longer tax their strength?

Section III—Outdoor Living

Out-of-door Air