Health Blog

A healthy body and a sound mind

3 Tips for Keeping Your Kids Healthy This Cold and Flu Season

By

With the summer drawing to a close and the colder winter months coming up on the horizon, it’s time to start thinking about how to keep your family safe and healthy as cold and flu season are on the rise. While there are plenty of things you can do once your child comes down with a cold or the flu, it may be even more important to do all you can to prevent them from getting sick in the first place. So to help keep you from having to use the humidifier all winter long, here are three tips for keeping your kids healthy this cold and flu season.

Disinfect As Often As You Can

Colds and flu infect your body by being spread from other people. Their germs either get given to you and your kids directly or, in some cases, are simply placed on objects that you then use. According to BabyCenter.com, these viruses can live on surfaces for up to three hours, making it especially important to clean commonly used surfaces often. Try disinfecting things like table and countertops, light switches, door handles, phones and other objects a few times a day to keep the germs at bay. You can either use cleaning wipes, commercial chemicals, or homemade cleaning agents that typically aren’t as harmful to young children.

Maintain an Active Lifestyle

Although it’s cold and dark during the winter months, Parenting.com shares that being active during the winter, especially in the outdoors, is a great way to keep yourself healthy. Having a physically active and healthy body makes you better at fighting off germs and other bacteria that could make your kids susceptible to illness. Additionally, getting exposed to even 20 minutes of sunlight each day increases the amount of vitamin D in your body and keeps your energy levels up. Consider finding something your family can do together outside to make sure everyone stays as healthy as possible.

Keep Hands Clean

Kids are known for getting this hands in all kinds of sticky, dirty messes. Because of this, it’s vital that you stress to your kids the importance of keeping their hands clean during cold and flu season. DripDrop.com shares that when people wash their hands properly, they are 31 percent less likely to get these types of infections. Along with making sure your kids keep their hands clean, you should also remind them to keep their finger out of their eyes and mouth as well as away from their face to stop the spread of germs more fully.

Even with all your efforts to keep your kids safe and healthy during the winter months, it’s still possible for them to come down with a cold or the flu. But by following the tips mentioned above, you are doing all you can to keep your children as healthy and happy as you possibly can.

A Healthy Home: Keeping Your Kids Healthy During Renovations

By

 

Renovations are a key part of turning a house into a home, but without proper precautions, children can easily get hurt during the process. As parents, then, it’s our job to make sure we can provide a safe environment for your children to live, eat, and play while the house is undergoing this kind of work.

How separated from the renovations your children need to be depends on how old they are and what kind of work your home is undergoing. As you begin, however, keep these 3 common home renovation risks in mind and guide your children accordingly.

Old Home Problems

Some of the biggest problems found in old homes and often revealed during renovations are lead paint and asbestos in the house. Lead paint was commonly used in homes through the 1970s, and many parents undertake renovations to eliminate this old paint; if small children ingest chipping lead paint, it can build up in their bodies and cause developmental delays. So long as you keep children out of the rooms where this paint is, however, and make sure they’re properly cleaned up, everyone should be fine.

Asbestos is even more dangerous than lead, and has been linked to cancer, but for many years it was used as insulation in homes and public buildings. If workers will be removing asbestos from your home, it’s best to have your kids stay elsewhere. Your home will need to be fully cleaned and the air purified before they come back.

Fresh Paint Problems

Unlike lead paint, most of us assume that modern paint products, beyond smelling a bit unpleasant, is perfectly safe. That’s why parents have no qualms about painting murals in children’s rooms or otherwise accenting the home with paint. Unfortunately, some paints can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be toxic in large quantities. While an occasional fresh coat of paint won’t hurt your kids, you may want to have them sleep in a different room for a few days until the air clears.

Consider Navigation

Depending on what renovations you’re having done in your home, construction may create navigational barriers where children can get hurt. For example, if a hole is being made in walls or flooring, you can guarantee that children will want to inspect the area. With older children, you can set limits during the construction period, but with young ones, you’ll need to entirely block off any interesting areas to make sure they don’t get hurt.

One way to help your children steer clear of ongoing construction is by setting up alternative spaces to use during the renovations. If you don’t have access to your kitchen, put a few convenient pieces like a toaster, microwave, and kettle in the garage or family room so that there is still a place they associate with eating. This helps them develop new, temporary habits until construction is over.

If you’re struggling to make alternate arrangements for your children during the renovation process, just remember that they’ll be completed soon. For the time being, set up playdates, take a weekend trip, or visit grandma to keep the kids safe. You’ll all be happy to come back to your beautiful home when the work is done.

3 Things to Have Around in Life to Increase Your Wellbeing

By

Wellness is a highly debated topic. It’s illusive. Everybody wants it. Some know how to get it. Some know how to keep it. Some don’t know how they lose it so easy. It’s obvious that health and wellness are needed in life to make an individual happy.

It can mean a lot of different things to different people. To some, wellness means being loved. For others, wellness means eating well, or exercising. Still for others, wellness means finding a spiritual connection in which to root their lives. No matter the person, there are 3 things you should have around in your life to increase your well-being. [Read more…]

How Men And Women Deal With Addiction Differently

By

Men and women are different, in many ways. While both deserve equality, since both are humans, you also need to understand some of the differences. One difference, in particular, that many people don’t always think about is the fact that men and women have different reactions to the same amount of drugs or alcohol, and that addiction happens for different reasons for both sexes and is also dealt with differently by both sexes.

According to the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) 44 people die every day in the United States from a drug overdose. Many more of them need help. While it was once thought that drug addiction and alcoholism were more of a man’s issue, the number of women addicts has been increasing. [Read more…]