Day Fourteen: At Home: This is where it’s easiest to ebb the salt tide. If you haven’t already,invest in one oftheherbal salt substitutes. By the say, we recommend avoiding potassium chloride, the most common salt substitute and lookalike. The Food and Drug Administration says no one,especially children, should use it without
Doctor’s O.K. too much can be dangerous, especially if you’re being Being treated for certain medical conditions, like diabetes or kidney or heart disease.
• Limit yourself to two or three soft drinks,a week or less (unless you buy the sodium-free variety).
• Limit fast foods, processed foods and convenience foods, unless they specifically indicate that they’re low in sodium
• Say”no thanks” to high-salt, meats like bacon, ham,sausage, frankfurther and luncheon meats. Pass up the salted nuts,pickles and sauerkraut.
• Fill your shaker with herbs or in the beginning,half herbs and half salt.Cut your use of salt in cooking by two-thirds.
• Go easy on cheese—it tends to be high in salt as well as fat.
At the Market The front lineof your battle againstsalt is the supermarket aisle. Check labels for sodium content. Everything from soup to nuts is available in low sodium varieties these days—not to mention low sodium chese, crackers, pretzels and pickles.
Put Laugher into Your Life:This week you should look again at the diary and kept for the first week. What you’re looking for this time isn’t exactly exercise, though
It gets the body moving and turns the cheeks pink. It isn’t exactly a nutrient though it is nourishing. It’s laughter.
Do you remember laughing that week? Did you laugh today? If you’re not meeting the recommended daily requirement of lots of laughter and joy every single day, then you should make it a priority!
The advice comes from a growing number of doctors, psychologists and “layman”---like Norman Cousins,former Saturday Review editor, who, in his bestselling book Anatomy of an illness(Bantam), describes how he recovered from debilitating spinal disorder by checking out of the hospital(“A hospital is no place to be for a person who is seriously ill,”he writes), and into a hotel room. There he entertained himself with humorous books and films like those of the Marx Brotheres as well as television show reruns like Candid Camera. “I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laugher had an anesthetic effect, and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”
He recovered from the disease,he says beating 500 to 1 odds. Later, he was appointed a senior lecturer at the university of California School of Medicine at Los Angels. After long years resistance, the medical establishment has admitted—and proven the power
That thinking has over health.
“Normal Cousins call laughter an internal jog, and what I like about it is that you don’t have to weal a special outfit.” Says Joyce Anisman-Saltman, a brassy, Brooklyn-bread, certified psychotherapist,assistant professor of Special Education at Southeren Connecticut State University,New Haven, and sometime-standup commedience, who teaches executives, teachers and clients all over he country how to take responsibility for
Putting more laughter into their lives. Anisman-Saltman notes that laughter brings on a host of physiological changes, ranging from the release of painkilling endorphins(which accounts for drug-relief) to a “cleansing “ tearing of the eye”so the world looks brighter,”to an expansion of the capillaries under the cheeks.” “That makes you cheeks pink” she notes “you’ll notice that my cheeks are always pink.” (They ae) “I never wear blush or foundation. It’s because I laugh hard and often. You’ll save a bundle on cosmetics. And it’s especially important for men, who look tacky in blush.”
In an only slightly more serious vein, Anisman-Saltman notes that in addition to the proven physiological benefits, laughter can cut the cycle of psychological negativity that
People can fall into. Laughter can renew their prospective. Here is her advice for putting more laughter and joy into your life;
“Make a list of 20 things you like to do. They don’t all have to be ambitious things,like taking a trip around the world. My list includes things like, “Take showers,”Get my back scratched,” listen to music while I drive`Every single day I do 18 of the 20 things on my list, and if my husband’s not tired, 19.Don’t wait for vacations to nurture yourself—the vacations may never come. But good to yourself every day.
“Call all in Well. If you don’t like your job, and you find yourself feeling teriffic one
Day,take the day off. Why should you only stay home when you feel sick?
If you can afford it,get a VCR This adjunct to a television is a must for chronic pain patients. Use it to record programs that tickle you—Buddy Hackett reruns, the Cosby show, whatever. Then you can watch them anytime you want.
“Devote a corner of your home solely to humor. Get funny books, past up cartoons. (I have cartoons all over the house, even on the front door!) This is not to say that everything can be joyous and happy all the time-but it will help you deal with sderious things.
“And surround yourself with positive people"
Thanks for patiencer reading
MRS
