3 Top Health tips for Travelling Abroad

We all love to get away from our homeland from time to time. After all, there are so many countries to see and experience, so why not plan a trip away? 

While your itinerary may seem like the most important thing to fine-tune, you should also pay careful attention to your health.  

Before your trip

When you’re preparing to go overseas, much of your time will be spent planning your clothing, accommodation and of course your destination. But depending on your intended travel destination, you should also consider planning for your health as well. 

Remember, every country is different and may have several diseases your body might not be immune to. You will need to arrange to visit your doctor at least two months prior to travel, and they will talk you through the many vaccinations you may need. It also pays to research any vaccinations the country you’re visiting require you to have as well. 

Once you have your vaccinations, it’s time to look into travel insurance. Make sure you purchase full travel insurance for your entire family. If someone becomes sick or injured while travelling, it can be a costly exercise if you’re uninsured. 

You should also pack a medical kit for each member of your family. This could include particular medications, bandages and ointments. Pay careful attention to your airline’s rule on liquids and medication before you pack it. 

Lastly, you should ensure everyone is in good health before you leave. Get a full physical examination for every member of your family – including dental and eye health as well.

Food and drink

While it’s exciting to be visiting a new country where you can try out new food, you must be exceptionally careful. Do your research on the country before you leave. 

1. Is the water safe to drink? 
2. What about the food?

When in doubt, use water purification tablets and purchase bottled water. Don’t ask for ice in your drink, either. Avoid seafood and try and eat at busy restaurants rather than small street stalls with not many people around. If the locals aren’t eating it, then you shouldn’t either. 

The most common sickness experienced by travellers is a gastrointestinal infection. Most commonly, this is caused by ill-prepared food and untreated water. Sometimes it may be okay to spend the extra cash to eat at an well known establishment and get your stomach acclimated. 

Insects

Many countries have insects which carry deadly diseases. While you can be vaccinated for many of the diseases these insects carry such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever, it still pays to be careful. 

To avoid being bit by a mosquito, you should wear mosquito repellent with DEET, remain indoors during their feeding time of dusk and dawn, apply repellent to your clothing and bedding, and wear long sleeve shirts and pants when outdoors.  If you are worried about the health concerns of DEET, then check out this web link on what to understand when buying repellent.

Many establishments also provide a mosquito net to cover the bed, but you can also choose accommodation which has air-conditioned and screened units.

Mosquitos, while not a threat in your own country, are a very real one in others. Over one million people die from diseases caught through mosquito bites every year, so always remain cautious.

Travelling with your family can be a memory that lasts you a lifetime, but making sure everyone is healthy can sometimes be at the bottom of your list. Take all the precautions possible to ensure it’s a trip to remember for the right reasons.

Increase your dail energy without drinking coffee? Is it possible?

Whether you didn't get enough sleep, you're stressed or overworked, it's easy to want to reach for that coffee – or two – to get you through the day. After all, it's a quick and easy wake-me-up that offers a quick burst of energy.

However, there is such a thing as 'too much of a good thing', and coffee is certainly not good for maintaining a regular sleep pattern among other things. Below are ways you can increase your energy throughout the day without turning to coffee. Some of this can be applied to children to a certain extent but please consult with a health official firstly.

1. Eat apples

Eating just one apple will allow you to consume 100 calories and 20 grams of sugar. The caloric content includes fats, carbohydrates and proteins which are then turned into adenosine triphosate (ATP). ATP is fuel for your cells and gives you a great energy hit.  Try also to consume apples by slicing them up and throwing them into your smoothie!  There are many ingredients others you can combine with apples.

An apple a day - TRY IT!

2. Exercise

Even though the last thing you feel like doing when you're tired is exercising, it may very well help turn that fatigue into energy. When you undertake cardio exercise, your heart is having to pump faster. This, in turn, makes your heart stronger. If you keep up a regular exercise regime, your heart becomes accustomed to the demands of it and doesn't have to work as hard to circulate blood when you're idle. The less energy your heart uses, the more energy you have for other things!

3. A regular sleep pattern

Adults require between seven and nine hours sleep per night and if you're not getting that, you may suffer from fatigue during the day. Due to today's modern technology, some people aren't going to bed to go to sleep. They are staying up late to browse the internet, play on apps and engage on social media. This has played havoc on regular sleep patterns, especially with teenagers and professionals who constantly need to be connected.

A way to combat this is to remove technology from the bedroom, and try enjoy uninterrupted rest time. This includes no cell phones, TVs or computers. It also helps to avoid eating meals past 6pm as well as sugary treats or high energy beverages.

4. Drink plenty of water

One of the main symptoms of dehydration is fatigue, and most of us aren't even aware that our water intake is to blame. Our body weight is made up of approximately 60 percent water, and all our organs need it to function. If you begin to feel tired, sluggish or irritable, dehydration may be the cause.

Try this 

Drink two glasses of water and see if that makes a difference to how you're feeling. You will most likely notice a huge boost in your energy levels. On average, we should be consuming eight glasses of water per day. If you struggle to stick to a water drinking routine, find a 2L water container and mark each cup in the bottle.

One cup should make up an eighth of the bottle. Aim to reach each mark during your day at break periods. This could include breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper.

Resistance Training better than cardio? Do both!

It has been ingrained in our heads that to lose weight we must do exercise.  That is a given.  But the theme for the past decade is that different form of exercise will give you different results depending how much time is put into it. 

Everybody wants go the fast track route and we can all agree that we have chosen this path sometime in our lives.  In 2017, new research has shown that what we thought was one of the best forms exercise to lose weight maybe only be second best?  We are talking about cardio.  Yes the dreaded exercise where sweat profusely on the treadmill trying to lose those holiday pounds.

What researchers have found is doing weights may be the better choice in order to lose weight than doing cardio.  Cardio still great to do because within the study it has shown that this form exercise will help you lose weight.  Deeper into this area, the research have noticed the cardio group also gain some lean muscles but as compared to the other group(weight/resistance training) they had to spend double the time performing this exercise.

Do Not Stop Cardio

The point of this study is not to drop cardio and start doing strength resistant exercise because as we age we need to do both.  They both benefit us.  Resistant training helps us with straightening our body mass and helps keep us in a healthy situation no matter the shape of your body is.  Cardio is just as important because it provides health for areas in the cardiovascular department.

What you should do is to do some resistant training at the beginning of the day and finishing off with some light cardio in late afternoon.  If you’re not sure specifically what to do, please look online for some programs that combine the both or talk with a health specialist.

The final message from the experts is to also not forget the impact of eating healthy.  If you eat unhealthy than the cardio and resistant training will be thrown in the garbage basically becomes wasted time.  Be sure to have a great diet to go along with your exercise routine and it does not have to be expensive. The best kind of quick meal after an exercise is a nice smoothie!

Don’t always Buy Expensive Healthy Food?

When you’re shopping at the supermarket and trying to decide which brand of cereal is healthier than the other, you are probably pulling your hair.  This is in the case for the average population based on a new study that shows that shoppers automatically connect expensive foods to healthy foods.  A study out of Ohio State looked at volunteers who went shopping and notice that overall the volunteers attached healthy food products to that of being more expensive.  And if they saw something cheap, but was considered healthy, than they became skeptical and had a tendency to look at the ingredient list because they thought they were going to get ripped off.

What the researchers are saying in detail is that when you’re comparing two products which both don’t have much information on its nutritional value, then the shopper for some reason automatically picks the more expensive one, sometimes the price is double in comparison.

What is interesting to note is that healthy food is not expensive if you do your homework.  There are many healthy foods that you can buy in bulk or if you just purchased the storebrand.  This is always a great way to stock up on nuts or ingredients for your smoothie.  There is no reason to buy the more expensive brand-name because they have the same ingredient.  Also if you want to buy organic make sure to understand when it is in season in order to get it at a better deal.

Buy nuts in Bulk

When reading the ingredient list or the words on the front of the product, make sure to be suspicious of the word “natural”.  In the United States the word natural is not even regulated.  Because of this, there is no evidence that it is even beneficial for you.  Carefully always look at the ingredient list is the key here and look for the sugar content.  Another interesting information on sugar is sometimes these healthy products make no mention of it.

Must Have Smoothie Ingredients

If you want something sweet but at same time you want it healthy, is this even possible?  Sometimes you just want to binge on something delicious but at the same time, you do not want to ruin the diet that you may be on.  Because of our lives are very much busy, it is difficult to cook something or even spend the extra dollar for something healthy.  One type of food that does not take a lot of time and if you have the ingredients ready to go, then this may be your savior.  Yes I am talking about the ever popular smoothies. 

The trick is to basically store your ingredients that you will be using for any of your smoothie in an organized way so that when you are busy, you can just make it fast.  Best of all, it is cheaper than buying any smoothie at any supermarket or the mall since you can customize and use the ingredients of your choice.  The other trick is to purchase ingredients that are on season or in bulk.  This will save you lots of money.  Vegetables or fruits will not work because there are perishable but you can get stuff like Chia seeds, flaxseeds, cinnamon and cocoa powder.  You can purchase vegetables and fruits in the frozen section but remember it isn’t as healthy as fresh vegetables.  If you have no choice, than is okay once in a while.

I mentioned cocoa powder in my list and you’re wondering why this ingredient is important.  Well if you didn’t know, it has iron and magnesium.  These two power houses of minerals will provide you the energy and antioxidants needed for your body to function.  Put this in your smootie and you will have that chocolate aroma and you will not have bad breath.

Supposedly it helps with stress and also provide the necessary benefits for your heart.  Another powdered that I did mention is that of Maca.  Make sure to get the raw kind as this will give you the energy boost that you need through your hectic day.  You will see that your endurance will improve and your hormones will be elevated.  I guess it is kind like aphrodisiac in a way but not really.

One more item I want to bring up before I end this article is that of flaxseed.  Flaxseed has been around for a long time and found in many bulk stores that sell seeds.  Only recently, in the last 10 years, that it has become one of the essential seeds to have in your diet.  The reason being, it has the following: protein, omega-3 and fibers.  On top of all that it is one of the best ways to get antioxidants which will improve drastically your cardiovascular conditions.  I find it very easy to store because it is a seed.  Just grab a pickle jar and use that as your vessel for storing any of your bulk seeds that you buy.  Make sure to keep it in a dark area such as the cabinet and make sure it’s in a cool spot.

There is one last tip I want to say, even know I wanted to end this article earlier, and that is peanut butter.  If you are not allergic to it, then the raw stuff is probably the best choice to have in your cabinet.  This will make your smoothie tasty and creamy.  

Also it is one of the best ways to stop your hunger especially if you need to wait an hour or two before dinner.  You can just have a tablespoon of it on a piece of whole-grain bread.  Thinking about it now, you can actually use any other nuts such as almonds and cashews to curb your hunger but I find peanut butter is the best because everybody has it.

Do you have a problem with bad breath?

 I’m sure many of you do, as I have falling in that category many times.  It seems to come and go.  The difficulty is when knowing it because most of the time someone has to tell you and’s usually someone close to you like a family member.  Most ranges will not say anything and try their best to not smell your stinky breath. 

So what causes bad breath? 

Well there’s a few theories and one being that if you have a dry mouth, usually you will have bad breath.  Also if you’re saliva is thicker than usual or if you have a sore this also leads to having a bad breath.  The usual culprit is the food you eat such as onions and such and the best remedy for that is to brush your teeth or rinse out your mouth right after eating it.  Sometimes though, it is a condition if it stays around.  This condition is called Xerostomia and is not a disease but a condition caused by medication.

This Xerostomia as mentioned above is could be caused by your medication that you’re taking.  Yes this is no joke as it seems if you’re taking a certain medication it may cause you to have dry mouth as one of its side effects. 

According to experts, 400 drugs have been known to cause this side effect.  Even more so, the number is much larger as many drugs can cause mild “dry mouth”.  All this will lead you to have bad breath.  So make sure to discuss with your doctor if you’re having bad breath that is consistent over a few days or weeks. 

Now, there are ways to improve your dry mouth and it simply by drinking water or getting a humidifier.