Health Tips
Enthusiastic karaoke singers, people with bad flu or those who simply shout a lot and overuse their vocal chords may develop a coarse voices. How can we safeguard ourselves against sore throats and protect our voices?
Drink more water and eat more nourishing food:
We should drink more water and eat more nourishing food (e.g. Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa and Herbal Candy). To prevent a coarse voice, it is vital is to drink a lot of water. Depending on your body weight and health conditions, you should drink about 2,000-4,000 cc water every day. If you weigh over 70kg or use your voice frequently, you can even drink up to 5,000 cc water a day. Some people do not like to drink water but use coffee and tea as a replacement. However, since these beverages contain caffeine and can promote urination, drinking them may lead to dehydration and make our throats even dryer. Therefore, in order to protect and soothe our throats, we can drink water with honey and lemon instead of coffee and tea.
Avoid throat clearing:
When our throats feels dry or uncomfortable, some of us may like to clear it. However, if we clear our throats too often, the friction between the air and the mucous membrane in the airway passages may increase and lead to swelling and inflammation. Therefore, we should quit the habit of throat clearing.
Avoid murmuring:
When we murmur, more pressure will be exerted on our throats and this is bad to the vocal chords.
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Stop smoking and avoid excessive drinking:
Cigarettes contain many irritating substances that can damage to our respiratory tracts. Therefore, we should never start smoking or should stop it immediately. Excessive drinking is also something we should avoid as alcohol itself can irritate our throats. Worse still, some people can become very excited after drinking wine and yelling and shouting can cause excessive friction on the vocal chords. This may cause the inflammation of in the vocal chords or even lead to ‘vocal nodules'.
Eat less hot and spicy food:
Food that is too spicy or too salty can cause harm to our throats.
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During autumns and winters, the difference between day and night temperatures can be quite large and the mucous membrane on the respiratory tract can be easily irritated. People with weaker immunity may get catch a cold or suffer from influenza. This is mainly caused by viral infection in of the upper respiratory tract and spread by the flying particles of the saliva or phlegm of a sick person. According to Chinese medicine, influenza is caused by the invasion of exogenous pathogenic factors. Unexpected changes in weather, walking ins and outs of air-conditioning rooms frequently, overwork, insufficient rest, and general weakness can lead to influenza.
Therefore, we should try our best to stay fit in order to safeguard against influenza by doing the following:
Ensure good air ventilation:
It is important to open the windows often to ensure good air ventilation. If the air can flows freely, exogenous pathogenic factors are be less likely to stay indoors and our body will also be better in adapting to the cold weather. In addition, if sunlight can get into our room, the ultraviolent rays in sunlight can have a disinfecting effect.
Exercise regularly:
We should exercise at least twice every week. Each exercise session needs to last for 30 minutes or more. The exercises need not to be strenuous but should be regular and can include jogging, swimming and fast walking. These activities can improve physique, promote metabolism, relieve stress and enhance immunity.
Develop good living habits:
Good living habits include washing face with cold water and soaking the feet with in hot water. The former can improve the body's resistance to coldness and the
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latter can warm the meridian, promote its circulation and improve sleep quality. Moreover, we need to pay attention to personal hygiene and wash our hands frequently. In addition, we also should not spit in public places or share chopsticks and spoons.
Have a balanced diet:
It is important to have a balanced diet. If needed, we can take one vitamin pill containing 100% (Recommended Dietary Allowance) RDA.
Have sufficient and good quality sleep:
We should have at least seven hours of sleep every day and try to get into bed before 11pm. It will be ideal if we can be in a deep sleep state between 11pm and 3am. During sleep, many of the body's major organs and regulatory systems continue to work actively to repair themselves for the next day. If we work late into the night too often and do not get enough sleep, our immunity system will be adversely affected.
Avoid using too hot water for baths and showers:
In cold weather, most of us would like to take hot baths but this will reduce our body's resistance to coldness and make us more susceptible to cold and flu. The best way to take a shower is to use hot water and cold water alternately or after taking a hot bath, to take a short cold shower before drying our body. These two methods can strengthen the resistance of our body to coldness.
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Deal with stress appropriately:
Too much stress can reduce our immunity. The causes of stress can include heavy workload, relationship problems, setting self-expectations too high and financial problems. In stressful situations, our immunity will be less effective and it becomes more likely for us to catch a cold or suffer from influenza and other viral infections.
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Use Chinese medicine to improve our body conditions:
According to 'The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor', a classic in Chinese medicine, ‘If the right qi exists inside our body; evils cannot makedisturbances'. In other words, if our body is fit, we will not be easily disturbed by exogenous pathogenic factors. Therefore, Chinese medicine emphasizes on 'treating the health problem at the roots'. Chinese medicine formulae will eliminate inflammation and detoxify or remove foreign toxic substances. On the other hand, they will strengthen our body conditions and immunity. If we just get rid of the influenza without improving our body conditions, viruses may easily invade us again. People who frequently get influenza should pay extra attention because this may show that their immunity and general body conditions are weak. These people should take good care of their health.
If you unfortunately have cold or influenza, please pay attention to the following:
Drink more water:
Drinking more water can promote body metabolism. The influenza virus will also leave our body much faster. Our sore throats and coughs will improve and we will recover from cold or influenza much sooner.
Take more rest:
People who have influenza may get tired and develop body pains more easily. Therefore, they should not work too hard or engage in strenuous physical exercises as this may lead to over exhaustion and weaker immunity.
Take Vitamin C pills:
Vitamin C can boost our immunity and increase the body's ability for anti-oxidation. Taking Vitamin C pills can safeguard us against cold and influenza. When suffering from a cold or influenza, Vitamin C can strengthen the antibodies inside our body to drive away the virus.
Avoid oily and greasy food:
When suffering from a cold or influenza, we should avoid oily and greasy food because exogenous pathogenic factors may enter our internal organs and make our illness more serious.
Take extra care when taking a bath or shower:
A hot bath will cause our blood vessels to dilate and the body temperature to drop. This may lead to us becoming susceptible to catching a cold or flu again. After shampooing, we should avoid strong wind and air-conditioning because wet hair may lead to our head catching a cold.
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