More about keeping healthy

.
I'm a member of Consumer Reports, so they occasionally put clickbait on my Facebook page; but as you can imagine, Consumer Reports clickbait is more like Kale than Dessert.

This particular post was about how to keep healthy as you grow older.  But, reading through, many of the pointers they give make sense for everybody.  I want to draw your attention to some of these that are particularly important, or particularly easy to do.

Vitamins.  These substances help with a lot of body tasks, and among them fighting infections, and bouncing back from being sick.  However: do not take mega-doses of vitamin supplements.  Some of these vitamins only work in tiny quantities.  Having said that, if you have terrible eating habits, by all means take a vitamin supplement.  But select one that gives you the Recommended Daily Allowance, or less.  If they say: "200% of the US RDA!!!" run away!

The better thing to do is to eat a variety of vegetables and fruits.  In these days, experts are recommending that you eat foods with a variety of different colors!  It so happens that this plan gets you a good variety of vitamins and minerals.  (If you can afford it, choose organic veggies, but not all of us can.)

Alcohol.  A drink a day is all that is recommended; and don't start drinking just because it is supposed to be healthy.  A drink a day is probably too many for smaller-built people.  You can easily check out why too much alcohol is bad for your health.

Smoking.  There are two reasons for quitting: saving your lungs, and lowering your nicotine intake.  Smoking in your youth makes your older years a torture.

Sleep.  I should have mentioned this earlier.  Getting at least 6 hours of sleep a day is said to vastly increase the body's ability to heal and bounce back.

Friendships.  As you grow older, your friends move away, some of them to the great Ranch In The Sky, and it is important to make new friends, and keep up with them!  (That's one advantage of Facebook, but unfortunately Facebook is more interested in things that aren't so useful to us...)  The article also talks about hugs.  I totally believe in hugs, but it is kinda difficult to talk about hugs with people you don't really know; like you can't walk up to, say, Joe Biden, and ask for a hug.  Or you can, but ... I am not suggesting that you go overboard, and try to make friends 24/7.  The art of friendship cannot be learned from a single blog-post.  Cultivate the art of being interested in subjects that might interest your future friends and acquaintances, but be honest about topics that leave you completely cold.

For my older readers: keep engaged with the world around you, and avoid getting too upset at every little social change.  The less engaged you are, the more upset you're going to get when you do learn something unpleasant about what's going on in the world.  Television, of course, is not the best way to keep engaged at all, unless you're very selective.  After having had no television for close to 15 years, we decided to get Cable, just to watch the Olympics.  And now we still have Cable, but we find ourselves watching very little TV; less than 3 hours a week.

[Added later:
These pieces of advice may seem as though we--our family--are sort of model citizens.  Actually we're pretty average; it's just that I blog about everything.  I strongly advocate blogging as a means of staying on the straight and narrow, especially if you're a teacher.  Writing about things go a long way towards clarifying ideas for the writer, regardless of whether the writing is being read by anyone.]

Arch, in a good mood this morning.