9 Requisites for Happy Living-Goethe

1. Health enough to make work a pleasure.
2. Wealth enough to support your needs.
3. Strength enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them.
4. Grace enough to confess your sins and overcome them.
5. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.
6. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbour.
7. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.
8. Faith enough to make real things of God.
9. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Begin Your Day With A Walk . . .to help reduce your cardiovascular risk.

Walking as a fitness activity is a low risk and easy to start routine. It is especially easy and good for middle age men and women and has proved its health benefits in numerous studies. An eight-year study of 13,000 people found that those who walked 30 minutes a day had a significantly lower risk of premature death than those who did not.

A regular walking program can help:

• Reduce blood cholesterol
• Lower blood pressure
• Increase cardiovascular endurance
• Boost bone strength
• Burn calories and keep weight down

Get Ready
A walking program is simple to start. All you need are comfortable clothes and shoes. Layer loose clothing, keeping in mind that exercise elevates the body's temperature. Shoes specifically designed for walking are best.

Every workout should begin with a brief warm-up and a few simple stretches. Walk around the house or in place for a few minutes to get the blood flowing to the muscles before you attempt to stretch them. Although walking primarily works the major muscles of the legs, don't forget to stretch your back, shoulders and arms. This will help to loosen up any tension you may be carrying and make your walk more enjoyable as well as more effective.

Get Moving
In the beginning you can make your routine less strenuous by limiting how fast and far you walk. Keep in mind the following:

1. Walk short distances. Begin with a five-minute stroll and gradually increase your distance.

2. Forget about speed. Walk at a comfortable pace. Focus on good posture, keeping your head lifted and shoulders relaxed.

3. Swing your arms naturally, and breathe deeply. If you can't catch your breath, slow down or avoid hills.

4. Be sure you can talk while walking. If you can't converse, you are walking too fast.

Get Fit!
Walking as a fitness activity has numerous options. Once you have reached a point where you can walk a few kilometres with relative ease, you can start to increase the intensity. Walking uphill, can help you to increase your cardiovascular endurance, is a great way to tone the legs too. Concentrate on lengthening your stride or increasing your speed. And don't forget to reward yourself after each workout with a few minutes of relaxing stretches to help prevent sore muscles. Listening to lively music while you walk is also a great way to energize your workout.

Caution: But if you wear headphones, keep the volume down and watch out for traffic that you may not hear.

Many experts recommend that you walk a minimum of 20 minutes a day. But there are no hard and fast rules. Fit walking into your schedule whenever you can (always empty stomach). It is not necessary that you walk every day, even hour-long walks two to three times a week is good habit. The best schedule is one that keeps you walking and keeps you fit!

7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe

Popular culture is loaded with myths and half-truths. Most are harmless. But when doctors start believing medical myths, perhaps it's time to worry.

Published in the British Medical Journal , researchers looked into several common misconceptions, from the belief that a person should drink eight glasses of water per day to the notion that reading in low light ruins your eyesight.

"We got fired up about this because we knew that physicians accepted these beliefs and were passing this information along to their patients," said Dr. Aaron Carroll, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. "And these beliefs are frequently cited in the popular media."

And so here they are, so that you can inform your doctor:

1. Myth: We use only 10 percent of our brains.

Fact: Physicians and comedians alike, including Jerry Seinfeld, love to cite this one. It's sometimes erroneously credited to Albert Einstein. But MRI scans, PET scans and other imaging studies show no dormant areas of the brain, and even viewing individual neurons or cells reveals no inactive areas, the new paper points out. Metabolic studies of how brain cells process chemicals show no non-functioning areas. The myth probably originated with self-improvement hucksters in the early 1900s who wanted to convince people that they had yet not reached their full potential, Carroll figures. It also doesn't jibe with the fact that our other organs run at full tilt.

2. Myth: You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day.

Fact: "There is no medical evidence to suggest that you need that much water," said Dr. Rachel Vreeman, a pediatrics research fellow at the university and co-author of the journal article. Vreeman thinks this myth can be traced back to a 1945 recommendation from the Nutrition Council that a person consume the equivalent of 8 glasses (64 ounces) of fluid a day. Over the years, "fluid" turned to water. But fruits and vegetables, plus coffee and other liquids, count.

3. Myth: Fingernails and hair grow after death.

Fact: Most physicians queried on this one initially thought it was true. Upon further reflection, they realized it's impossible. Here's what happens: "As the body’s skin is drying out, soft tissue, especially skin, is retracting," Vreeman said. "The nails appear much more prominent as the skin dries out. The same is true, but less obvious, with hair. As the skin is shrinking back, the hair looks more prominent or sticks up a bit."

4. Myth: Shaved hair grows back faster, coarser and darker.

Fact: A 1928 clinical trial compared hair growth in shaved patches to growth in non-shaved patches. The hair which replaced the shaved hair was no darker or thicker, and did not grow in faster. More recent studies have confirmed that one. Here's the deal: When hair first comes in after being shaved, it grows with a blunt edge on top, Carroll and Vreeman explain. Over time, the blunt edge gets worn so it may seem thicker than it actually is. Hair that's just emerging can be darker too, because it hasn't been bleached by the sun.

5. Myth: Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.

Fact: The researchers found no evidence that reading in dim light causes permanent eye damage. It can cause eye strain and temporarily decreased acuity, which subsides after rest.

6. Myth: Eating turkey makes you drowsy.

Fact: Even Carroll and Vreeman believed this one until they researched it. The thing is, a chemical in turkey called tryptophan is known to cause drowsiness. But turkey doesn't contain any more of it than does chicken or beef. This myth is fuelled by the fact that turkey is often eaten with a colossal holiday meal, often accompanied by alcohol — both things that will make you sleepy.

7. Myth: Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals.

Fact: There are no known cases of death related to this one. Cases of less-serious interference with hospital devices seem to be largely anecdotal, the researchers found. In one real study, mobile phones were found to interfere with 4 percent of devices, but only when the phone was within 3 feet of the device. A more recent study, this year, found no interference in 300 tests in 75 treatment rooms. To the contrary, when doctors use mobile phones, the improved communication means they make fewer mistakes.

"Whenever we talk about this work, doctors at first express disbelief that these things are not true," said Vreeman said. "But after we carefully lay out medical evidence, they are very willing to accept that these beliefs are actually false."

Original writing by Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor

Extra pounds, and attitudes about them, can affect doctor-patient relationships

Extra pounds, and attitudes about them, can affect doctor-patient relationships

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Doctors can be fairly significant, one would think, in helping people combat obesity-related health problems. But a good working relationship usually begins with respect. And that might be a stumbling block.

In a new study, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report on their questioning of 238 patients -- and their physicians -- from 14 medical offices about their encounters. The patients for whom doctors said they had little respect just happened to have higher body-mass index scores.

Here's the news release. The study is to appear in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

And here's a recent L.A. Times column from Dr. Valerie Ulene suggesting that doctors might be at least partly to blame for those weight problems: What the doc doesn't say: You're overweight

Plus, an article exploring the effect of a physician's excess weight on patients: Does a doctor's weight matter?

Apparently, attitudes about weight can affect both sides of the doctor-patient relationship.

-- Tami Dennis

Photo: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg