HOW TO MANAGE YOUR HEALTH ON RETIREMENT

Health on retirement is indeed a very important issue considering the fact that it is the man who is healthy that can utilize his time, money or property (ies) meaningfully. Hence, the wise saying that “health is wealth”. This is so because without good health all our wealth are meaningless. Thus, being healthy is equated to being wealthy. It is important therefore a public servant who has worked many for years and has retired to be in a state of good health in order to enjoy retirement.
From the medical profession and looking at the layman’s angle, health is a state or condition of the mind or body. Good health therefore is a stabilized or balanced physical, mental and social well being while poor health is a situation where one is unable to enjoy complete social, mental or physical balanced health.
In every concept or norm, there are conditions. The concept of good health is not an exception. There are do’s and don’ts as well as adaptations and when these are met or observed, there is good health while violation of these conditions could lead to breakdown in ones health.
Some of these important conditions are:-
GOOD FEEDING: It is clear that food is vital in the sustenance of life and good food as well as good eating habit or proper feeding ensures good health while poor feeding or bad eating habit would bring poor health.
The concept of good feeding is well explained by the advanced learner’s dictionary meaning of the word “NUTRITION” which says “the process of supplying and receiving nourishment and further adds “the science of food values”. Good feeding for good health or healthy living is therefore a process that ensures that different types of food are supplied and received into the body approximately to ensure adequate nourishment that assists growth ,repair and replacement of body tissues as well as adequate elimination of waste materials, which will otherwise poison the body. It is therefore important that we take a balanced diet that contains all the essential food materials or substances in the proper quantity and of required quality. These essential food materials include: carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin and mineral salts.
Food items that contain these materials are as follows:
Carbohydrate: Yam, rice, garri, millet, maize etc. These should be eaten averagely. Too much of these will cause fatness and storage of sugar that may result in diabetes, a situation where sugar is passed into blood in excess and if inadequately used or burnt up as energy will appear in the blood and urine, causing excessive urination and dizziness as well as poor vision, irritation of the skin, excessive sweating especially at night and excessive appetite for water.
PROTEIN: Meat, fish, eggs, beans, dairy products i.e. Milk, yoghurts, butter and cheese. These are body building foods They help to build up body tissues thereby assisting the growth and maintenance of good health. While they are essential to good health, they should not be eaten in excess. Since excess protein stored up in the body can lead to excessive weight gain as well as give stress the liver which is the organ of storage and kidney which is the organ of filtration that tried to get rid of the excess substances from the body system. Prolongation of this situation leads to conditions posing threat to life. Fatty meat, egg yolk and fried foods should be avoided as these contain fat which cause obesity or excessive weight gain as well as deposit of cholesterol which cause plague or coating in the walls of major blood vessels and the heart thereby leading to hypertension, a condition very well known to jeopardize health and in fact responsible for the death in large number of middle age persons; particularly the high class individuals who live in luxury as well as up to 38% of death among the elderly persons. It is therefore advisable to eat only lean meat such as bush meat, fish, snail and vegetable protein such as beans, grains like wheat and millet.
FAT: Cooking oil such as groundnut oil, butter, lard and fat from meat such as pork cow, corned beef and agricultural reared chicken as well as the yolk of eggs. These should be avoided because they cause the laying down of adipose (fatty) tissues which cause obesity. This gives stress to the heart as well as straining the joints thereby manifesting a condition known as rheumatism which is characterized by pain and swelling of the joints due to accumulation of fluid in the joints. Sufficient exercise at an early stage may reduce the chances of this condition developing as the excess fat cane burnt up during exercise and used as energy thereby reducing the occurrence of obesity or excessive weighty gain in the individual.
VITAMINS: These are essential nutrients in the food which sustain the body tissues in a healthy form. They are present in vegetables and fruits such as vitamin A in carrots and palm oil. Vitamin B in brown beans, unpolished rice and wheat, vitamin C in oranges and grapes. These vitamins are destroyed by heat in prolonged cooking. So vegetables should be eaten just steamed or raw if possible. Insufficient vitamins cause deficiency diseases such as scurvy i.e bleeding gum in lack of vitamin C, beri-beri in lack of vitamin B and poor eyesight in lack of vitamin A.
MINERAL SALT: These include calcium, potassium, phosphorus, sodium and others. They are essential for the proper functioning of human organs as they ensure healthy and stable co-existence of the various body tissues as well as maintain a good balance of body fluids. For example, when one has too little calcium, the muscles, the muscles cannot co-ordinate movement properly and smoothly, resulting in muscular seizures commonly called cramps while reduced sodium chloride cause by vomiting or diarrhea can lead to loss of tissue fluid balance resulting in more vomiting sensation or fainting.

OTHER FACTORS THAT ENSURE GOOD HEALTH ARE:
Good and safe environment: Everyone should ensure that his or her environment is clean and safe. Do not hoard unuseful furniture, old building materials etc around your building. These form hiding place for snakes, rats, scorpion etc. Trim bushes and clear gutters to avoid mosquitoes. Clear septic tank regularly and keep garden clean always.
Rest/Avoid Stress: Essentially, retirement time is a time for rest. Although the retiree should not be seen to be tired by just lying around lazily and engaged to the point of boredom. It must be ensured that proper rest is given to the body. As much as practicable, you should not hurry out of bed in the mornings by compulsion. All such activities that will force you out of bed in the morning should be adjusted if they cannot be avoided. In short, avoid anything that will cause you any type of stress.
Exercise: Sometime everyday, preferably in the morning hour should be marked out for exercise. This could be indoor gymnast or jogging or doing some gardening work before evening bath and a walk before bed time. Whatever you choose, it should just warm up and lighten the body, helping you to relax better.
Avoidance of self medication: Above all, it is advisable for all persons, especially at retirement age to ensure that you report to your doctor regularly for health check ups and in case of ill health, do not treat yourself.
Avoiding financial stress: It is important to lay emphasis on this since it is a major factor in causing untimely death. A man who has successfully retired should therefore learn to spend wisely, budgeting within his ears so as not to cause stress to himself, his family and the society in general.
Cultivating healthy habits: Every person should cultivate habits that encourage good health living, realizing that whatever you do, the sick man cannot be said to enjoy life. It is therefore not wise to “enjoy life” by engaging habits that defer healthy living. It is even more so for the retired man who should now relax and do all that is humanly possible to prolong his life. Such habits as smoking, drinking, uncontrolled love affairs and incurring unnecessary debt as well as poor feeding.
Smoking is dangerous to health because it damages the lungs and reduces man’s ability to breath freely. The body needs adequate fresh air for your blood to be fresh and flow properly (good circulation). Smoking therefore reduces a man’s life span.
Drinking is critically dangerous to health because alcohol is poisonous to blood and body tissues. It weakens the heart and reduces a man’s life span. The period of retirement therefore is not the time to settle down to bottles of beer, wine or spirit.
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