You know well, today it is 7th of April, World Health Day and we need to affirm our oath of restoring our health on this pious occasion. This is the pious day because health is the most valuable asset of our life – without sound health; we cannot enjoy the pleasures of our life, whether we may classify them into eternal or non-eternal. Believe me, God too won’t be happy with us if we do not keep us healthy in all respects. Whatever is available in this universe, He created everything to make our life possible and happy. It is our working, our attitude and our approach that we use the resources so harshly that you may not be able to find a single person out of thousands around you, who may say that he is perfectly alright and meets all the requirements of being healthy. Out of our greed, we have polluted the resources of life affecting us so badly.
World Health Day 2009 focuses on the resilience and safety of health facilities and the health workers who treat those affected by emergencies. Events around the world will highlight successes, advocate for safe facility design and construction, and build momentum for widespread emergency preparedness. Similarly, the theme for World Health Day 2007 was international health security, which is the first line of defence against public health emergencies that can devastate people, societies and economies worldwide. The aim was to urge governments, organizations and businesses to “invest in health, build a safer future”. In 2006, World Health Day was devoted to the health workforce crisis. Around the world, there is a chronic shortage of health workers as a result of decades of underinvestment in their education, training, salaries, working environment and management. This is a crisis from which no country is entirely immune. Likewise every year, we fix up some theme to meet the priority of the day and endeavor to work accordingly.
The WORLD HEALTH DAYs are reminders to us to gather, think and plan for improvement of health world over. This is an effort on Governments’ level. But meeting the requirements of increasing population is also not possible and somewhere we feel deficit of our aspirations. One thing we can do at our individual level – which I feel is the most important in the process of global planning, we should first care for our health personally. If each of us does it, it will improve world over automatically.
Today, the position of health deterioration has come to this stage that we can not easily find out five completely fit adults we know, who have no health problems like ache, cholesterol, weight, digestive and other physical or mental problems. With our stressful lifestyle, we do not find solace easily. We need to reverse the trend by taking care of our physique and emotional health. We know that our bodies tend to respond positively to the right stimulus. If we undertake, consistently and regularly, suitable exercises and healthy diets – full of essential nutrients, we can change quality of our life. A regular workout would definitely help us to become more fit in our day-to-day working and ensure a sound sleep. If we are fit and enjoying sound sleep, our physical appearance improves too.
It has well established that regular exercise not only reduces the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis significantly even if you undertake as little as 30 minutes for five to seven days a week but adds to your well being also by lowering blood pressure and bad cholesterol levels. It promotes your weight loss and helps de-stressing, apart from improving the quality and period of your sleeping. With this, you can improve your postures, agility, balancing, flexibility and immunity levels as well.
Your exercise routine must include cardiovascular fitness strength and flexibility training. You know that your heart is the most active muscle centre in the body and regular exercise makes it work more efficiently. For this you should undertake exercise like walking, jogging, cycling, swimming or skipping. A minimum 30 minutes a day is necessary to improve functioning of the heart, lungs and circulatory system.
Strong muscles help you to undertake activities with increased energy and ease. For strengthening your muscles, you may need to undertake strength training to improve bone density, body shape and postures with enhancing metabolism. Joining a health club, gym or using appropriate health tools at home will be helpful. You may undertake this exercise for major muscle groups two or three times a week.
Stretching exercise is also crucial for every fitness activity. It keeps your body supple, flexible and free from muscular stress. It helps you to increase blood flow and nutrients supply to joint structures, relax your muscles, mobilize your joints and improve your postures. You can include this type of exercise in your warming up or cooling down phase. You may take up Yoga or Pilates routine twice or thrice a week.
Since fitness plays an important role in improving your quality of life, be happy and undertake appropriate exercise to restore your health instead of very much depending upon medication.