Health
Are you sick or healthy? Most people understand that when the subject of health is raised. But health is much more. Health is according to theWorld Health Organization"a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".
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complete well-being
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personal strength
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Performance
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social environment
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cultural, access to facilities and services
Health - Belief - Model
The model is a health psychology model. It is intended to determine how committed a person is to a health intervention. Does this health problem represent serious consequences? Do you acknowledge the problem and try to solve it?
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Do I need/should I take action? So it's aboutwhywe determineddecisionsfor ourHealthmeet or if not meet.
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demographic and socio-psychological variables
Perceived effectiveness of health behavior:
Benefits - costs of health behavior
perceived health threat:vulnerability
motivation for better health
Action triggers, probability of health behavior
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Example:
A well-known example is smoking. We imagine a person who is now 25 years old. She has been smoking since she was a teenager. In the meantime she has noticed that she is getting weaker and weaker. Our thoughtful person one day notices what is written on the packet of cigarettes and reads everything carefully. She starts thinking. In addition, she noticed that the air ran out when climbing the stairs. Two threats have already been identified. Could it lead to lung cancer? Also, thanks to a friend, the person realizes that the cost of the cigarettes is extremely high.
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How is behavior changing now? It could well be that our person is more concerned with the topic of smoking and has the motivation to stop.
When the subject of physical health is raised, three major themes can come to mind that are of very great importance. This is es nutrition, themovementand theSleep. We now want to deal with it a little more together.
nutrition
For us, nutrition means eating. Everyone knows the statement "I try to eat healthily".
First of all, the word try is already a wrong approach. "I try" means something like "Sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't". In addition, many are not aware of whatHealthy eatingmeans. Fast food isn't that good, vegetables are healthy and sweets should be avoided because they're unhealthy... That's exactly what we often get as an answer.
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Come on, let's dig into this a bit more:
How do we best define "Healthy eating"?
By healthy eating we mean foods that make us feel betterphysicalandspiritualgive feeling In addition, nutrition should not cause disease, but alleviate or cure disease.
What is our food made of?
Fats, proteins and carbohydrates, each of us has heard at least one of these terms. These are so-calledmacronutrients. These are energy suppliers in our body.
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Vitamins and minerals aremicronutrients. These support and control processes in our body.
macronutrients
fats (lipids)
proteins
carbohydrates
nutrient
micronutrients
vitamins
minerals
movement
Sport and exercise are good for the body. You've heard this phrase from a lot of people. Whether from a parent or friends.
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If I walk a lot during the day, for example because of my work, then I also do sports. Or not? For this we take a closer look at the two terms:
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Movement:This means an active movement of the skeletal muscles. This can cause us to use up energy. Thus, every activity of the muscles is to be marked as a movement.
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Sports:This is a special form of movement, which consumes significantly more energy and significantly more activity of our muscles.
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Despite everything, this is only a rough classification. There are now many types of sport, including intellectual sport, such as chess.
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We are mainly talking about physical sports here.
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Why should we exercise?
Since we are in the field of health, let's look at health aspects, what sport or exercise can do to us. Everyone is free to decide whether to do some sport or not.
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On the left we look at which aspects somethingto enhancebe able. On the other, i.e. the right side, we list aspects, whichriskscan prevent.
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improvements
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Improvement in cardiovascular performance
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Better coordination and improved balance
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More stable bones, thus also a bone health
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Wellbeing
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Healthier quality of life
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Improved thinking ability
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Improved sleep quality by switching off more often
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Sport makes you happy!
risk reductions
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strokes
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depressions
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breast cancer
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Cardiovascular diseases
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diabetes
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high blood pressure
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colon cancer
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Metabolic diseases
Now it's your turn. Are you starting to do some sport? Try it out. It can't hurt anyone. Movement is good. Even a little walk is a good start.
Sleep
You wake up tired and you think, "How am I going to get through the day today?". This is exactly why we address the topic of sleep.
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Sleep is a very important way to give the body a break. This recovers and prepares for the next day.
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We ask ourselves what healthy sleep looks like, what happens during sleep and what we can do to prevent bad sleep.
What happens while you sleep?
Through the so-calledelectroencephalogram(EEG) we know that a lot happens during sleep. Our brain waves are recorded by the EEG and we know that different brain areas are active. Sometimes they even run at full speed.
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During sleep we go through several stages of consciousness. Diving into another world is evidenced by our dreams. We now look at the different phases of sleep:
Fall asleep phase: This is the time when we want to go to bed and sleep. For some, the phase lasts five and for others 20-30 minutes.
Light sleep phase: The light sleep phase is a bridging phase between the individual phases. The body comes to rest here. We start here, with the processing of the day. This phase is quite superficial, so we might wake up to small disturbances.
Deep sleep phase: We get into the deep sleep phase through the light sleep phase. In this phase many important and relaxing things happen in our brain. It has its own systemglymphaticSystem, which releases toxic proteins. These are a waste product. Our brain gets a cleanse. For this reason, the phase is of very great importance.
Dream sleep / REM: Each deep sleep phase is followed by a dream phase. In phase, the eyeballs roll and twitch. For this reason, the phase is also called "Rapid Eye Movement(REM)". Here the breathing and the heartbeat become faster. It approaches the waking state. But the muscles are paralyzed. This does not mean that you wake up immediately afterwards. You can see the on Diagram that a light sleep phase can come after the dream phase.
A cycle takes about 90 minutes.
Healthy sleep
We all know that sleep is important. It can affect our health and have serious consequences if we sleep unhealthily. Of course, everyone has had a bad night's sleep. Despite everything, we should be careful that we don't regularly sleep unhealthily.
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What does healthy sleep actually look like now?
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Important tips and information are:
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sleep about 7-8 h
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spend at least 90 minutes in the deep sleep phase
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little stress in the head, shut down your brain a bit
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don't sleep irregularly, find your sleep rhythm
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try to fall asleep with music or a book
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no disturbing lights
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sleep with a good mattress
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eat light meals in the evening
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give up the evening cigarette
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It's best to try different things. Deal with the topic and find your right sleep. This will make you feel much better and fitter!
