Break the chain of infection

Hand hygiene means keeping our hands clean by washing with plain or antimicrobial soap and water or by using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser.

This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent the spread of infections from one person to another in hospitals and in a community.

Easy transfer

Consider this: As many as 14 people in a row can catch infections just by touching a door handle. We use our hands while doing most of our work. Thereby they pick up germs easily and become the easiest medium of transferring viral, bacterial or fungal infections. This is more so in an office environment where we share things like telephones, copying machines and door handles.

Common cold, influenza (including H1N1), chicken pox, mumps, food-poisoning, respiratory infections and skin infections are some of the diseases that can be unwittingly transmitted by just a handshake.

Make sure your hands are washed after you use a bathroom (whether at home or a public one), after you change a baby's diaper, before you feed a child, before your eat and before you start cooking or handle raw meat, fish, or poultry.

Use hand sanitisers after you have touched surfaces in public places, handled waste, touched your body parts, blown your nose, visited someone in a hospital or touched anything potentially infectious. These are more effective and easier to use than soap and water. However, if our hands are visibly dirty, before eating food and after visiting the toilet we must wash our hands.

Physical fitness and you

Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness and specific fitness (a task-oriented definition based on the ability to perform specific aspects of sports or occupations). Physical fitness is generally achieved through correct nutrition, exercise, and enough rest

Physical fitness is to the human body what fine-tuning is to an engine. It is not a race, it's a pursuit. In its most general meaning, physical fitness is a general state of good physical health. It is a foundation for a long and successful life.

Physical fitness is usually measured by periodic tests measuring strength, endurance, agility, coordination, and flexibility. Physical fitness is the capacity of the heart, blood vessels, lungs, and muscles to function at optimum efficiency.

It has two meanings -- General fitness (a state of health and well-being) and specific fitness (the ability to perform specific aspects of sports or occupations). Physical Fitness is important, even on bed rest.

A general-purpose physical fitness program must address the following essentials:

Cardiovascular Fitness: It is the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to muscles during continuing physical activity.

Regular exercises enable more blood to be pumped with each stroke of heart.

Flexibility Training: Stretching increases the range of motion of a joint. It improves suppleness.

Strength Training: Strength training is the use of resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, and size of skeletal muscles.

Muscular Endurance: Endurance is the ability to exert for a long period of time. In humans, it is usually used in aerobic or anaerobic exercise.

Body Composition: In physical fitness, body composition is used to describe the percentages of fat, bone and muscle in human bodies.

Fitness

Fitness, most importantly cardio-respiratory fitness, has been directly correlated to the mortality rate. Fitness can be described as a condition that helps us look, feel, and do our best.

In previous years, fitness was commonly defined as the capacity to carry out the day's activities without undue fatigue. These days, physical fitness is considered a measure of the body's ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist diseases, and to meet emergency situations.

Many sources also cite mental and emotional health as an important part of overall fitness. This is often presented in textbooks as a triangle made up of three sub-sections, which represent physical, emotional, and mental fitness.

Physical fitness involves the performance of the heart, lungs, and muscles. And, since what we do with our bodies also affects what we can do with our minds, fitness influences to some degree qualities such as mental alertness and emotional stability.

People normally prefer walking for fitness activities followed in order by: swimming, fishing, bicycle riding, camping, golf, bowling, exercise equipment, hiking, hunting, aerobics, calisthenics, jogging, and tennis. Women prefer fitness-related indoor activities and men prefer outdoor sports.

The top level of physical fitness tends to mesh physiology and psychology. The exercises improve function of the muscular and skeletal systems, enhance circulation, augment energy and elevate overall individual levels of fitness. The level of physical fitness can be influenced by regular, systematic exercise.

As energy depends on nutrition, proper nutrition is important to physical fitness. If diet is not adequate, the fitness level will drop. Overweight, underweight, and weak individuals will have below average fitness levels.

Exercises

Exercise that doesn't raise your heart rate to a certain level and keep it there for 20 minutes won't contribute significantly to cardiovascular fitness. It is better to select exercises that involve total body involvement.

Such exercises improve and maintain fitness most effectively -- e.g. Running, swimming, golf, dancing, cycling, and brisk walking. The correct exercises will help you decrease body fat and increase or maintain muscle mass.

By performing many different exercises for a low number of repetitions, the muscles are strengthened, elongated and toned without creating bulk. Total concentration on the body during each exercise emphasizes movement quality, coordination and breath.

Health

Healthy people have more active and more interesting life. Physical fitness can also prevent or treat many chronic health conditions brought on by unhealthy lifestyle or aging.

To stay healthy it's important to participate in physical activity. Even those of us who haven't always led active lifestyles, increasing our physical activity now will help us live longer & healthier lives.

To live a full and healthy life, exercise must be a part of it. It is the ability to endure, to bear up, to withstand stress, to carry on in circumstances where an unfit person could not continue, and it is a major basis for good health and well-being. A physically fit body has less chance of acute health problems and chronic disease.

Major Benefits of Physical Fitness:

o Feel fresh

o Reduce chance of heart attack & stroke

o Reduce the chances of developing adult onset diabetes

o Reduce chances of being overweight

o Manage stress efficiently

o Experience more energy

Want to quit smoking ?

Smoking cessation (colloquially quitting smoking) is the process of discontinuing the practice of inhaling a smoked substance. This article focuses exclusively on cessation of tobacco smoking; however, the methods described may apply to cessation of smoking other substances that can be difficult to stop using due to the development of strong physical substance dependence or physiological dependence (in more common parlance, addiction).

Quit smoking tips like these to help you stop smoking have been around for years. Some of the suggestions you'll read below will connect with you - others may not. And that's fine. Take a scan through them - if something clicks give it a try.

This is just one of a number of articles to come, containing tips to help you quit smoking so come back again and see what new tips I've been able to dig up for you. To see more tips click the link at the end of the article to visit the Quit Smoking Breakthrough.

Here's as basic a quit smoking tip as you can get - "do not smoke any cigarette's at all". According to CDC if you try to smoke a fewer number of cigarettes but not stop completely you're more likely to end up smoking the same amount again.

They add that low tar and nicotine cigarettes "do little good" and that the only "safe" choice is to quit completely, whether it's quitting cold turkey or with the help of some kind of aid.

Another tip to help quit smoking is to "write down why you want to quit". Be specific about what you're looking for out of this effort to quit smoking. Especially in the areas of you life (day to day, and long term), you're health, your family and your children. You may find it surprising just how helpful it is to have a heartfelt "reason why" to help you to quit smoking.

My wife, Trisha, quit cold turkey, no aids, no gum, just cold turkey. Her "reason why" came in the form of a man who was leading exercises on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii.

This guy looked like he was maybe in his late 50's. It turned out he was 93-years-old! When he said his youthfulness was in part to not smoking cigarettes - that was all she wrote! Trisha quit that very moment. That single experience was all she needed to toss the cigarettes for good. Her "reason why".

She still had to be strong about not smoking, it but that "reason why" was strong enough to keep her strong enough about not smoking and making her quit permanent.

Can you think of a "reason why" that's that important to you?

One tip is to realize that "it will take effort to quit smoking". The CDC says that the habit forming effects of nicotine and the bad moods and strong desires of "really wanting to smoke" have to be accepted as something you'll have to deal with. Put another way they said - "there is no easy way".

I have to say here that this statement "there is no easy way" needs to be taken very seriously. Especially if you use any of the "standard" ways or techniques for quitting cigarettes.

I found the truth of this statement every time I'd tried and failed to quit smoking. Over a dozen try's to quit I was pulled back time and again. So yes, you do need to expect it to take effort - maybe a ton of effort - everybody's different.

You see every "standard" way of quitting smoking, whether it's nicotine patches or gum, or pharmaceutical drugs, hypnosis, or herbal formulas, are designed only to "help" you deal with the cravings and urges, the emotional unpredictability and all the other issues you have to deal with when trying to quit smoking cigarettes.

They weren't designed to actually affect the "smoking habit" that ties you to cigarette smoking. With "standard" ways of quitting cigarettes you have to accept that you will have to wrestle with the "smoking habit" you've developed. You may have to wrestle with this "smoking habit" long after the nicotine has left your body. It's an unfortunate fact.

Yes, it's true that I eventually found a way that made quitting cigarettes automatic for myself. A technique that actually made me feel like a non-smoker the instant I quit - 20+ years ago. A technique that actually did "dismantle" my smoking habit. So when I quit, I felt just like I'd never smoked a cigarette before in my life. After over 20 years as a smoker. It really took me by surprise.

But for right now keep this CDC tip in mind and fully expect it to take from a little - to a lot - of effort to quit smoking cigarettes.

Always remember that since half of all adult smokers who have tried to quit smoking have done so successfully - you can quit smoking too. It helps to know you're not alone - when you're going through difficult times. Whether it's quitting smoking cigarettes or any other difficulties. (I think this is one of the attractions to watching Dr. Phil)

So when you're being tugged at from all sides by the urges and desires and memories you have of enjoying a cigarette, remember that many people have quit the smoking habit, so you can too.

That's enough of Quit Smoking Breakthrough's tips to help stop smoking for this time around. More to come.

About The Author:

Joseph Casey developed a powerful system known as "The Breakthrough System for Becoming a Non-Smoker" and "The Secret Silent Litany" to make you feel like a "life-time non-smoker" instantly.

After trying and failing to quit smoking over a dozen times he accidentally discovered 4 specific mind-sets that when applied in a specific manner, and with a unique one of a kind delivery system, actually wipes your smoking habit away completely, instantly.

And afterward the only thing that feels natural about cigarette smoking is that it could never be a part of your life – and serious thought of smoking a cigarette never enters your mind again.