Ways to Stay Healthy in a Summer Break
Holidays are one of the 30 most stressful events in life, and half the people who spend them abroad fall ill. Isabel Walker suggests how to minimize the risks
According to psychologist John Nicholson, holidays are potentially stressful precisely because they represent such a departure from the norm. He recommends you minimize the strain of your big summer break by building up to it with a succession of mini-holidays (long weekends and odd days off) so blurring the contrast between work and leisure.
If you work like crazy until the last minute and arrive on holiday in a state of nervous exhaustion, you will have less fun and be more prone to illness. If possible organize packing and shopping well in advance and stop work two or three days before leaving so that you arrive on holiday relaxed.
Once on holiday, prepare yourself to tolerate uncertainty and departure from routine. Enjoy rather than resent the fact that the natives do things differently. Make a conscious effort to break your normal time schedules and become receptive to new rhythms.
HEALTH PRECAUTIONS
If you are travelling outside northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand or to areas where sanitation is primitive, you may need vaccination against cholera, typhoid, polio, yellow fever, tetanus or infectious hepatitis. The latest recommendations are set out in the Department of Health leaflet SA35, Protect Your Health Abroad, available from travel agents and social security offices (make sure you get an up-to-date copy). It is best to organize vaccinations well in advance since some take weeks to be fully effective. But a last-minute visit to your doctor or one of the medical centres at Heathrow or Gatwick is better than nothing. Check that your children are up to date with their routine jabs.
Malaria is widespread in tropical and sub-tropical areas and has enjoyed a resurgence, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, parts of South America and Turkey, as the malaria parasite has become resistant to the available drugs. Travellers to malarious areas need to take prophylactic tablets before, during and after their holiday. But even with the tablets, if is vital to avoid mosquito bites by covering up in the evenings. Travel to malarious areas is not recommended for pregnant women or babies under three months.
To deal with minor illness and accidents the following are recommended in the British Medical Association family doctor booklet Health on Holiday: soluble aspirin or paracetamol (with equivalents for children); an anti-diarrhoea mixture such as kaolin and morphine; a senna preparation or similar for constipation, magnesium trisilicate mixture (BPC) for indigestion; an insect repellant stick, gel or spray, preferably containing diethyltoluamide; antiseptic cream or spray for stings and bites; travel sickness pills, preferably containing hyoscine; water sterilizing tablets (if necessary) containing halozone; a cream containing benzocaine or lignocaine for itchy skin; calamine for sunburn.
According to psychologist John Nicholson, holidays are potentially stressful precisely because they represent such a departure from the norm. He recommends you minimize the strain of your big summer break by building up to it with a succession of mini-holidays (long weekends and odd days off) so blurring the contrast between work and leisure.
If you work like crazy until the last minute and arrive on holiday in a state of nervous exhaustion, you will have less fun and be more prone to illness. If possible organize packing and shopping well in advance and stop work two or three days before leaving so that you arrive on holiday relaxed.
Once on holiday, prepare yourself to tolerate uncertainty and departure from routine. Enjoy rather than resent the fact that the natives do things differently. Make a conscious effort to break your normal time schedules and become receptive to new rhythms.
HEALTH PRECAUTIONS
If you are travelling outside northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand or to areas where sanitation is primitive, you may need vaccination against cholera, typhoid, polio, yellow fever, tetanus or infectious hepatitis. The latest recommendations are set out in the Department of Health leaflet SA35, Protect Your Health Abroad, available from travel agents and social security offices (make sure you get an up-to-date copy). It is best to organize vaccinations well in advance since some take weeks to be fully effective. But a last-minute visit to your doctor or one of the medical centres at Heathrow or Gatwick is better than nothing. Check that your children are up to date with their routine jabs.
Malaria is widespread in tropical and sub-tropical areas and has enjoyed a resurgence, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, parts of South America and Turkey, as the malaria parasite has become resistant to the available drugs. Travellers to malarious areas need to take prophylactic tablets before, during and after their holiday. But even with the tablets, if is vital to avoid mosquito bites by covering up in the evenings. Travel to malarious areas is not recommended for pregnant women or babies under three months.
To deal with minor illness and accidents the following are recommended in the British Medical Association family doctor booklet Health on Holiday: soluble aspirin or paracetamol (with equivalents for children); an anti-diarrhoea mixture such as kaolin and morphine; a senna preparation or similar for constipation, magnesium trisilicate mixture (BPC) for indigestion; an insect repellant stick, gel or spray, preferably containing diethyltoluamide; antiseptic cream or spray for stings and bites; travel sickness pills, preferably containing hyoscine; water sterilizing tablets (if necessary) containing halozone; a cream containing benzocaine or lignocaine for itchy skin; calamine for sunburn.
Unhappy birthday to the happiness pill and Alteril
Do tranquillisers spread more anguish than calm? Anne-Marie Sapsted reports.
Headline writers were unanimous. Here was a revolutionary new drug which could transform the most ferocious animal into a docile pet...a drug which, according to the Daily Mail,“could be the biggest boon yet to the mind doctors treating the army of mentally ill and the growing ranks of brain-sick criminals''.
“Into my hand,'' one journalist wrote in awe, “a doctor slipped ten black and green
capsules they looked like .22 bullets.'' Claims of its effects were amazing:
“The `shakes' of the alcoholic are still. And even the criminals become
tractable and more resigned to being behind bars.'' The name of this wonder-drug was Librium, which this month celebrates its thirtieth birthday.
Librium was developed after many attempts in America by the Swiss company Hoffmann-La Roche. It had been tested on animals and humans. Most importantly it was, as the Daily Mail put it, “no relative of the tranquillisers. It is an entirely new formula. It acts on a different area of the brain from the tranquillisers, and appears to be free from their side effects.'' For a short time at this early stage, the drug was available over the counter to anyone who wanted it although one newspaper did warn that a doctor's advice should be
sought. If you want to read more about this article and about alteril to aid you sleep you can read more at http://sleepsilproducciones.com/alteril-the-truth-is-here/.
Librium quickly became a household name; within three years, its makers followed it with what was to become the best-selling drug of all time, Valium. At their peak in the mid-Seventies these and other benzodiazepines (minor tranquillisers), originally nicknamed “happiness pills'' (the Rolling Stones had another name, “mother's little helpers''), were the subject of more than 40 million prescriptions each year in the United Kingdom alone. So much money was made, in fact, that the British government uccessfully sued Roche for the return of Pounds 3.75 million in excess profits.
And yet it was 20 years before serious doubts were raised by Professor Malcolm Lader at the Institute of Psychiatry. His research showed that there were some side-effects, but more disturbing were his findings that the drugs could in certain cases promote a physical dependency almost as strong as that of heroin.
You may also visit us at sleepsilproducciones.com - sleeping solutions for more sleep and other health related articles you would like to read.
Headline writers were unanimous. Here was a revolutionary new drug which could transform the most ferocious animal into a docile pet...a drug which, according to the Daily Mail,“could be the biggest boon yet to the mind doctors treating the army of mentally ill and the growing ranks of brain-sick criminals''.
“Into my hand,'' one journalist wrote in awe, “a doctor slipped ten black and green
capsules they looked like .22 bullets.'' Claims of its effects were amazing:
“The `shakes' of the alcoholic are still. And even the criminals become
tractable and more resigned to being behind bars.'' The name of this wonder-drug was Librium, which this month celebrates its thirtieth birthday.
Librium was developed after many attempts in America by the Swiss company Hoffmann-La Roche. It had been tested on animals and humans. Most importantly it was, as the Daily Mail put it, “no relative of the tranquillisers. It is an entirely new formula. It acts on a different area of the brain from the tranquillisers, and appears to be free from their side effects.'' For a short time at this early stage, the drug was available over the counter to anyone who wanted it although one newspaper did warn that a doctor's advice should be
sought. If you want to read more about this article and about alteril to aid you sleep you can read more at http://sleepsilproducciones.com/alteril-the-truth-is-here/.
Librium quickly became a household name; within three years, its makers followed it with what was to become the best-selling drug of all time, Valium. At their peak in the mid-Seventies these and other benzodiazepines (minor tranquillisers), originally nicknamed “happiness pills'' (the Rolling Stones had another name, “mother's little helpers''), were the subject of more than 40 million prescriptions each year in the United Kingdom alone. So much money was made, in fact, that the British government uccessfully sued Roche for the return of Pounds 3.75 million in excess profits.
And yet it was 20 years before serious doubts were raised by Professor Malcolm Lader at the Institute of Psychiatry. His research showed that there were some side-effects, but more disturbing were his findings that the drugs could in certain cases promote a physical dependency almost as strong as that of heroin.
You may also visit us at sleepsilproducciones.com - sleeping solutions for more sleep and other health related articles you would like to read.