4 Simple Ways to Keep Your Family Healthy

Keep Your Family Healthy Post Sickness

by with No Comment Health

Keeping your family healthy and free from germs is a crucial thing to consider, especially when cold and flu season hits. When flu bites one member of the family, all the other family members also get affected. Even after the flu has vacated from the room, there are always other germs they leave behind that you should worry of. Some of the bacteria that lurk in uncooked meats can easily cause severe illness, especially to vulnerable babies. Therefore, you should ensure to follow these tips to keep your family healthy post a sickness and head off the virus and bacteria for long:

Get Vaccinated

Every time you pay a visit to your paediatrician, they will always remind you of your child’s vaccine. To keep your family healthy, you and your partner also need to be vaccinated. This is because there are some diseases, when contracted by one member of the family, it ends up affecting the whole family. Therefore, apart from giving your children a vaccine, you and your partner need it too. For example, you may be getting the flu every year, but you have not yet reached a Tdap vaccine. This vaccine usually protects against diseases such as diphtheria and tetanus. This vaccine is essential because sometimes whooping cough is not a severe illness for adults, but it can be dangerous for babies who get seriously sick.

Wash Your Hands

Regular hand washing is usually one of the best ways to stop germs from spreading. Therefore, you should ensure that you get your child up to the sink, especially at critical times like when there is an outbreak of a particular disease. Also, before eating or going to the playroom, which is a faster way of spreading germs through kids because they share their food and toys. After coming from the playroom, after sneezing or using a potty, you should ensure they wash their hands properly. Even a baby can get used to hand-washing basics by watching you regularly washing your hands and wiping them off. This will enable the child to follow these simple steps when they grow up and instruct his/her younger siblings to follow the same direction. As an adult, you should not forget to wash your hands too because it is as important as cleaning the baby’s hand.

Teach Your Kids Not to Share

As a parent, you always work hard to teach your kid the importance of sharing and taking turns on the playgrounds. However, there are a few exceptions to consider when it comes to germ prevention. Therefore, you should explain to the kids that there are certain things they should keep to themselves. It would help if you told your child that something like toothbrushes and combs is not to be shared but are only for personal use. These will allow them to stop spreading germs.

Keep the Kitchen Clean

Diseases such as foodborne diseases are usually an unpleasant disease, though generally not dangerous. It can be hazardous for babies whose immune systems are not fully developed to fight back the disease. This is why you should always pay attention to food safety when you are in the kitchen. Ensure you wash your hands thoroughly before preparing any food in the kitchen, especially when handling foods like fish, eggs, and raw meat. Also, keep multiple cutting boards in the kitchen. An important part of kitchen cleanliness is making sure you use clean water in your home. You can buy a reverse osmosis water filter to help give you peace of mind that your family is using clean water every time.

Get Outdoors

Needless to say sunshine and exercise are cornerstones of healthy living. Make sure you get lots of Vitamin D and supplement your life with good food and exercise.

Health is the first thing one should always consider in a family; therefore, follow the above steps to keep your family healthy.

 

 

Sierra Powell graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a major in Mass Communications and a minor in Writing. When she’s not writing, she loves to cook, sew, and go hiking with her dogs.

 

pexels-burst-545014

Support Your Friends Who Have Allergy Struggles

by with No Comment CareEducationEmpowermentHealthMindset

Does anyone in your family have severe allergies? Do they have a chronic illness? Are they very young or very old? Are they currently in the hospital? Living a life at high risk at this time is difficult, even worse is if you live daily with allergy struggles.

Chances are then that you will be fairly familiar with most of the safety precautions in place for avoiding compromising the respiratory system of all, but particularly those in the high-risk category.  With the exception of mask-wearing, except in hospital situations, this is an everyday experience and necessity for all who experience chronic illness daily.

My children have regularly played our made-up game “When do we wash our hands?”:

  1. When we enter the house
  2. Before we eat
  3. After we finish eating
  4. After we finish in the bathroom
  5. After playing with our pets
  6. After playing outside or inside
  7. If we rub our eyes
  8. If we touch our face
  9. If we have not washed our hands in the last 2 hours.
  10. …. oops, I will stop now!

At our house, we display signs to remind everyone of the most important times to wash our hands. To make it easier for our children we regularly find new and fun ways to wash our hands and keep kids’ hands under the water until they are actually washed not put under the water to claim “clean”.

Our most recent ideas are:

  1. Sing the song to wash your hands in Mandarin (https://playful-chinese.simplecast.com/episodes/wash-hands-in-chinese-with-miss-panda-X6Cz1UV0 ),
  2. Sing the song to wash your hands in Arabic (https://youtu.be/fNTRH-7_ZxI  ) ,
  3. Say any alphabet through twice (English then Arabic works well), or
  4. count backwards in any language from 100.

Even visitors are asked to please remove their shoes and wash their hands before entering our house, partly Arab tradition and partly an attempt at ensuring no allergens enter our home.  Many people find it difficult to comprehend just how much strain living with this level of safety precautions really is. And… we have not even left the safety of our home yet.

 

Leaving home requires ensuring that the emergency first aid kit is packed and anaphylaxis/allergy bracelets are attached to the relevant children. A clearly labelled letter from their doctor is in their pocket or backpack indicating the procedures required to face an emergency and the medication on them that is required if by some chance of fate they are separated from me.


Our allergies ensure that we question and re-question if we really need to go to the hospital or can we go to the doctor?” Or “Do we need to go to the doctors’ surgery or could we ring and get them to prepare the script for the current medication refill and send someone else to collect it and take it to the pharmacy.” Sick people are in hospital and doctor surgery waiting rooms! We do not want to take a child with a compromised respiratory system anywhere near sick people if we can avoid it. A trip to doctors always involves a call ahead and an appointment to minimize the extent of time we need to be sitting near sick people. Most times we are called from a seat outside to come and see the doctor.
 

I am aware that this is not the normal situation that everyone else negotiates – and it is a struggle! It is very scary, all the things you have to remember even before you get to “Wear your Mask and gloves if you need to make essential trips outside”.

Every person with a chronically ill family member, friend, or neighbour is very grateful for your kindness. We are very grateful that even though you are not in an at-risk category you choose to keep wearing your mask, and to only leave the house for essential trips.

 

Thank you…

  • Thank you for washing your hands

  • Thank you for wearing your mask

  • Thank you for staying inside and making only essential trips

 But mostly, Thank you for caring for your neighbors.

pexels-daniel-reche-3601097

Unusual Times Call for More Mental Health Awareness

by with No Comment CareMental HealthMindsetSuicide Awareness

In these unusual times most of us are learning to maintain friendships from a distance, creating new ways to feel connected, and developing new skills to create new connections.  Many new online book clubs, online recipe exchange clubs, and places to share patterns and crafting projects have begun. Our mental health awareness needs to go above and beyond.

“True friends are always together in spirit.”
– Anne of Green Gables, L M Montgomery.

Let’s be honest we are mostly creatures of habit and our favorite things to discuss, and do, bring us comfort when we have no control over the world around us. My this week’s excitement is finding friends to share my love of crochet and languages.  Outside of my obsession with books, my favorite pastime and entertainment is, well, discovering new languages and crochet. Sometimes both work together when the patterns are written in Japanese for amigurumi toys (Japanese cartoon characters recreated as crocheted toys).

Unfortunately, for some people this situation, pandemic, we are thrust into the midst of – without notice, with no warning, brings forth a far darker challenge. With this forced isolation, cutoff from their usual routines, attempting to fight off “the depths of despair”, they are faced with loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Daily life as we know it has become chaos for the largest part, but most of us can readjust reasonably well – finding a new order and adding in the new routines for safety and hygiene (wearing masks and washing hands).

However, if you need a fixed, unchanging routine to keep you grounded in reality and hold order to reduce the stress and potential panic a major disruption causes, this does not bode well for you. (I don’t ever do well without my morning schedule).

Mental Health Awareness is much more …

mental health awareness

If you are used to getting to the gym or swimming for morning exercise, I was advised walking in the sunshine is a great alternative. This can actually be done as a walk around your kitchen table for 30minutes with the sun streaming in the window, walking around your balcony or down the hallway.

It will give you the same boost to your morning with an adjustment to your routine not a major change or needing to drop it totally. Have you got some favorite music you always wanted to blast out while you were exercising but were never quite game? Today’s the day to make this walking game fun!

Statistics in Australia as discussed by Beyond Blue (www.beyondblue.org.au) show that 1 in 16 people are experiencing depression right now.  Have you checked in with your friends you have not heard from much lately?

Did you call your neighbors and ask, “how are you doing?”.

 

10th September: is Suicide Awareness and “R U Ok?” Day!

In their lifetime approximately 1 in 7 people will experience an episode of Depression, and 1 in 4 Australians will experience Anxiety.  The statistics given by Beyond Blue show that in 2018, 3000 Australians lost their lives to suicide.

That is approximately 8 deaths a day. Fortunately, figures are also beginning to indicate that many more people are seeking assistance when they have Mental Health troubles, be it with Depression, Anxiety or something else. Approximately half of these people will continue on to formal treatments.

October 2020 – Mental Health Awareness Month

In Australia, October is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental Health Awareness Day occurs on 10 October this year. Across Australia various Mental Health Awareness Campaigns are being run on the theme of “Tune In”. The focus is on being present, being aware.  “Strengthening our Community” #strongertogether.

How do we show our support?

  1. Talk about Mental Health
  2. Make the time to ask how the person is
  3. Find out if they need more assistance than you can provide and would like help contacting a professional.
  4. In Australia, if they are in immediate danger call 000 for Emergency Services. (In the USA call 911)

Here are 20 ways that you can take better care of yourself every single day.

Better Health With Healing Ingredients In Your Kitchen

Better Health With Healing Ingredients In Your Kitchen

by with 15 Comments ContemporaryFoodHeritageVoices

‘Popping a pill’ to feel better, seems like the easiest and quickest solution to treating an ailment.

A mild cough or a slight temperature is enough to make most people run to the doctor to get some prescribed antibiotics. *Ironically, frequent use of antibiotics can make the bacteria in our body more resistant to it, thus making the antibiotic useless in its treatment in the future.

Over-the-counter (OTC) medications are usually used in the treatment of allergies, headaches, body pain, cold, etc. However, these non-prescription medications come with their own side-effects like dizziness, nausea, bleeding and more.

From thousands of years ago, ingredients from our kitchens have been used to treat different illnesses and diseases. But these traditional remedies seem to have been forgotten, instead of passed on.

So here is a list of a few hidden gems in our kitchens that have miraculous healing properties.

Honey: The Best Antibiotic

Pure honey is proven to be very effective in killing germs that cause human diseases. Honey is the best natural remedy for treating throat infections, common colds and flu. **In addition, it is also used to treat infected wounds and burns, stomach ulcers and other ailments because it is alkaline in nature.

Black Seeds (Nigella Sativa): Healer of all Diseases except Death

Black seeds act as a natural immunity booster and can protect our body against various germs. When mixed with honey, it is effective in destroying bladder and kidney stones. It is often used in the treatment of diabetes, migraines, digestive problems, asthma and chronic eczema. Black seeds help regulate the menstrual cycle, hence it can be very helpful for women suffering from PCOD/PCOS. It also helps increase the flow of milk in lactating mothers.

Carom seeds/Ajwain: The Gut Healer

Carom seeds are the best cure for most stomach related problems like indigestion, flatulence, constipation, diarrhea and menstrual cramps. It is also a natural antacid and helps keep acidity and acid reflux at bay. Drinking a glass of warm water with soaked carom seeds on an empty stomach, aids in weight loss, as it is a metabolism booster.

Carom seeds are also very effective to treat cold, cough, flu, joint pains and arthritis naturally. Being an antioxidant, it purifies the blood and flushes out toxins from our body, thus giving us glowing skin. In new mothers, it aids in healing the uterus and increases the flow of milk too.

Flax seeds: A Natural ‘Wonder-Drug’ for Women

Flax seeds are a rich source of Omega 3 fatty acids and ‘LIGNAN’, which helps prevent breast cancer, balances hormones, maintains regularity of the menstrual cycle and reverses aging in our body. ***They are very helpful in treating PCOS/PCOD naturally. These nutritious seeds lower blood cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart attacks. Flax seeds are very high in fibre, thus they promote digestive health and reduce gut inflammation. They also help reduce the ‘dry eye’ syndrome.

Black Pepper: The ‘All-In-One’ – Antibiotic, Antioxidant, Anti-inflammation

Black pepper is considered to be the ‘king of spices.’ It is known to stimulate skin pigmentation and is used as a natural alternative in the treatment of the skin disease Vitiligo. Black pepper helps lower blood pressure, reduces inflammation and clears the nose and chest of congestion. It stimulates appetite, aids in weight loss and protects against premature aging. Black pepper is also known to be a natural diuretic.

Cinnamon: The Immunity Booster

Cinnamon has the highest source of antioxidants than any other spice. It is a great immunity booster and helps fight viruses that cause cold and flu. Cinnamon lowers blood sugar and helps fight diabetes. It also lowers swelling, reduces inflammation and aids in fat burning. Cinnamon can also be used as a natural mouth freshener.

Turmeric: The Inflammation Fighter

Turmeric contains ‘Curcumin’, which is a cancer-fighting compound that is proven to reduce the growth of cancerous cells. It helps fight chronic inflammation, which plays a major role in the cause of arthritis, Alzheimer’s, cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Vinegar: A Natural Cleanser

The safest way to consume fruits and vegetables is by rinsing them well and soaking them in a vinegar solution for 15-20 minutes. Vinegar helps get rid of any dirt and/or any residual pesticides. Unless you are growing your own fruits and vegetables, this is the best way to ensure that what goes into your mouth is safe and clean.

With the upcoming flu season, here are some great tips to beat the weather blues.

Raising World Children Cold and Flu Natural Relief

1. Fight the cold – roast some carom seeds/ajwain, put it in a sock and tie up. Inhale the vapors and keep it beside your pillow all night. The soothing aroma will fix your clogged/runny nose. This is by far the best natural remedy for babies and kids.

2. Battle the cold and cough – boil water with some turmeric (antibacterial), carom seeds, & a black tea bag (antioxidant). Once hot, add a teaspoon of VICKS vapor rub and mix. Sit on the floor for inhaling as this is the safest with hot water. Cover your head and the vessel with a thick towel, and inhale for at least 10-15 minutes. To treat babies and toddlers, boil and keep the vessel in the room where they sleep. The vapours will help the child breathe smoothly.

3. Cough relief –  make a honey-ginger syrup with freshly extracted ginger juice, some finely grated ginger and honey. Add this syrup to hot water and drink often.

4. When you get the flu, start your day with a cup of warm water infused with honey, black pepper, turmeric and cinnamon. All the above ingredients have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Wishing good health and happiness to everyone!

 

References:-

*www.kidshealth.org

**Islamic Medicine, Yusuf Al-Hajj Ahmad

***www.fertilitychef.com

Minali Bajaj-Syed is an Indian, born and settled in Kuwait. Having lived in Kuwait, India and the United States, I have had the opportunity to experience a diverse set of cultures. Thus, I consider myself as a global citizen. I am always learning, evolving and trying to spread some positivity. On most days, I am a mother to two kids and a food blogger on Instagram @cinnamon_cardamom.