How To.....Live Long, Live healthy.

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Bluefront
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How To.....Live Long, Live healthy.

Post by Bluefront » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:16 am

It's not easy. But I can give you some hints, since I'm older than you. ( :lol: )

When you are young, you have the idea that bad things that have happened to others, will not happen to you......wrong. They can and will, but are less likely to do so if you start early in life, to live healthy.

The main thing to remember.....eliminate all risky behaviour, as much as possible. I made mistakes when I was young, and I'm paying for it now. If you're a male, find out about your father's life. If he suffered from something, you are likely to do so......avoid his mistakes. You have also inherited your mother's problems, less of them of course. Keep this in mind.

Here are a few mistakes I made when I was young......

Eating healthy.....maybe the hardest to do. I am diabetic now, so was my father. Keep your weight down, and avoid sweet things at all cost. You can find/make things with sugar substitutes. Do it... Fat stuff is out, lower your red meat input, and don't snack between meals. Almost all snack foods are unhealthy. I'll admit to occasionally breaking the rules. But I try to eat healthy now.....and I regret not doing it when I was young.

Don't smoke....avoid places where others do. My father smoked and died from it. Fortunately I never picked up the habit. If you smoke, turn your life around.....do everything you have to, to stop. Other illegal drugs are obviously out, in a healthy life.

Avoid other risky behaviour.....my mother had arthritis when she was older. I've also got it bad. IMHO.....exercise, but avoid activities that involve high joint impacts. Running is something I always loved...no more. My knees went first, then ankles. Riding a stationary exercise bike is good exercise without the risk of running.

Other risky behaviours.....riding motorcycles. I did it for a long time....even after a badly broken leg. That injury has caused me much grief now that I'm older. Wish I never saw the things.....

SPCR related.....save your hearing. I now have tinittus....caused by loud motorcycles, loud music, power tools without hearing protection, etc. Both my mother and father wore hearing aids. I hope I don't get to that point.

Use your good sense.....things that you do when you are young, will have a much greater effect on you as you grow older. And don't worry, you will grow older. It happens all too quickly.

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Post by Tzupy » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:00 am

No offense, but this coming from the starter of the 'The Death Penalty is Neccesary...' thread - it's a bad start IMO.

More seriously, definitely don't smoke: about a month ago I went to the funeral of a friend of mine, aged 40.
He had lung cancer and lived with it for about 2 years and 2 surgeries, but it eventually got him. :(

About avoiding risky behaviour: it's not always possible to do that. Many people have to do dangerous work because they can't find something else.
And in countries run by dictators or with high crime levels you just speak your mind and can lose your liberty / life (your family and friends too).

As a long term advice, although it may seem odd to some people, here it is: develop metta (limitless good will).
The good karma resulting from your actions performed with metta will benefit you in the future more than eating healthy, not smoking and avoiding all risky behaviour.

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Post by Erssa » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:28 am

Tzupy wrote:No offense, but this coming from the starter of the 'The Death Penalty is Neccesary...' thread - it's a bad start IMO.
Could you please explain this? I don't see how his opinion on death penalty disqualifies him from sharing his personal experiences on how to live healthy.

My advice is to enjoy your life, if you like smoking, go for it. Life is too short to struggle against bad habits. Jeanne Calment smoked her entire life, she quit when she was 117 years old, because nearly blind, she felt too embaressed to ask for light. If you can stop smoking, good for you, but if you aren't up for it, no need to live in guilt. (I stopped 5 years ago.)

Don't avoid risks too much, you might end up regretting playing safe. Do everything with moderation and you're good.

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Post by Bluefront » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:28 am

Tzupy....You make it sound so easy. Face problems with a good attitude, try to live happy, and you'll be a healthy old person. Not that easy.

We are faced with so many medical problems, so many tempting bad behaviours, so many dangerous situations, that it takes more than good Karma to survive. You have to take active steps to avoid the dangerous, unhealthy, way of life.

I also went to a funeral last week....the brother of my best friend, younger than me. Nice guy, never smoked, no motorcycles. Heart attack got him at an early age. My father died at age 66.....I intend to live a lot longer than that. :)

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Re: How To.....Live Long, Live healthy.

Post by floffe » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:45 am

Bluefront wrote:Eating healthy.....maybe the hardest to do. I am diabetic now, so was my father. Keep your weight down, and avoid sweet things at all cost. You can find/make things with sugar substitutes. Do it... Fat stuff is out, lower your red meat input, and don't snack between meals. Almost all snack foods are unhealthy. I'll admit to occasionally breaking the rules. But I try to eat healthy now.....and I regret not doing it when I was young.
Sugar: check, pretty much. I rarely get any other sweets than chocolate if left by myself.
Weight: 55kg (121lbs), hasn't gone up or down more than a kg or two regardless of how much I eat or exercise :twisted:
Don't smoke....avoid places where others do. My father smoked and died from it. Fortunately I never picked up the habit. If you smoke, turn your life around.....do everything you have to, to stop. Other illegal drugs are obviously out, in a healthy life.
Check. Good thing all bars/restaurants/clubs in Sweden are smoke-free.
Avoid other risky behaviour.....my mother had arthritis when she was older. I've also got it bad. IMHO.....exercise, but avoid activities that involve high joint impacts. Running is something I always loved...no more. My knees went first, then ankles. Riding a stationary exercise bike is good exercise without the risk of running.
Sad to hear about the no more running. At least my favourite style is pretty easy on the joints (terrain), but I dunno how much I need to worry with my light weight either.
SPCR related.....save your hearing. I now have tinittus....caused by loud motorcycles, loud music, power tools without hearing protection, etc. Both my mother and father wore hearing aids. I hope I don't get to that point.
All my 4 grandparents have or had hearing aids, but I'm not sure how much of that is from damage and how much is from just natural hearing loss with age. After all my mum's parents both lived well past 80 and my dad's past 90.

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Post by Tzupy » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:59 am

My point is that if you can make a CHOICE, then definitely go for the healthy behaviour.
When I first saw Bluefront's thread, I almost had a vision of a death row inmate trying to live long and healthy. :roll:
In the civilized world it's a matter of choice of food, even poor people could eat healthier if they would think if thoroughly instead of buying cheap junk food.
But in poor countries people have to eat whatever they can afford. In my country, 20 years ago, under the communist regime, people didn't 'buy food', they 'found food'.
Whatever was able to quench your hunger and didn't taste bad was eaten, even if some wasn't particularly healthy.
Now I'm trying to eat healthy, no more white bread but only graham, fruit and yogurt, etc. But I don't live by such rules, since this body will eventually die anyway.

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Post by Bluefront » Sun Oct 29, 2006 11:38 am

Of course everyone will eventually die.....but if you chose to live a longer, rather than a shorter life, you can definately make your odds better by living smart and healthy.

You might live a short happy life by ignoring advice, by doing whatever you want, but your life probably won't be very long. If you are starving you will eat anything you can....but that's certainly not likely to lead to a long life. The poor bloke on death row, made some poor choices in life.....but that's the subject of another thread.

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Post by nici » Sun Oct 29, 2006 11:47 am

What ever happened to Live Fast, Die Young? :lol:

I smoke whenever i feel like it, wich can be anything from a pack a day(im probably very drunk then) to no cigs for two months at all.. And just because i simply enjoy it, and have not found any substitute for it. It's a good reason to take a break and go outside. Smoking in a car is blasphemy. Im probably waht you would call a social smoker, but since my social life is pretty limited i don't smoke much :mrgreen:

I love fast cars, and i would ride a bike if i had not broken my back four years ago in a DH race. And even though i did that i would get back on the bike if i could. It's probably worth pointing out it was the type of bike you pedal, though i guess that's jsut the same when you are going up to 80kph down a hill in the woods :roll:

I don't mind if i go in a flaming fireball. I leave the really fast driving to the track though, i would feel crap if i killed someone else, if i die i won't be around to feel bad.

I rarely drink more than one beer or a glass of whisky at a time.

IMO i generally eat quite healthy. Or atleast i try to avoid McDonald's, sweet drinks and candy. They just make me feel sick, especially McDonald's. Anyway, as long as i eat properly i don't even want snacks. So eating at McDonald's not only makes me feel sick, after one fart and a burp im hungry again, and because it contains no useful stuff to keep the hunger away i feel like eating snacks.

I don't stress over eating healthy though, stress is also unhealthy... If eating red meat makes me feel more satisfied than chicken, i eat the red meat. I prefer dark rye bread over wheat, and i use butter instead of margarin just because margarin tastes horrible and contains all sorts of sheit.

As a conclusion, stressing to live a "healthy" life would kill me.

Now im out for some fresh and filtered air out in the freezing cold. :P

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Post by Elixer » Sun Oct 29, 2006 2:17 pm

There's definitely a balance that needs to take place in everyone's life. I believe in the concept of moderation. I also kind of take the "economic" way of thinking about it. That means that I think the should be benefit>=risk to do it. That means if something greatly improves my happiness but will kill me ten years early I'll do it.

For example I'm going to Russia in two months for three weeks. The standard of living, quality of drinking water, chance of getting mugged, chance of me consuming large amounts of vodka are all things that are going to be much worse for my health over there. But the cost to my health is definitely worth the experience.

But something like smoking I don't understand. It gives you a very mild mood boost for a little while but leads to lifelong addictions that kill people 10 years early and cost them thousands of dollars on cigarettes.

I also take this view on food. I feel better when I eat better. I've noticed however that it doesn't really make a difference if I eat reasonably well or extremely well. However when I eat crap food for a week straight I definitely don't feel as good as normal. Again I don't see the temporary pleasure of eating crap food worth the cost.

Somehow I treat alcohol differently though and maybe I'm hypocritical. I get drunk probably once a week on average. I always drink a ton of water with it and eat something so I almost never have a hangover. It's very bad for you but I guess I view a night of drunken shinnanigans as something to converse over for the rest of the week until the next weekend or similar. It's such a social thing I know I wouldn't have the friends I do if I didn't do this. What do you guys think about this?

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Post by nici » Sun Oct 29, 2006 2:41 pm

Well, drinking just because your friends do might not be smart, but drinking with your friends and enjoying it is fun, and therefore improves your life :wink: It is obviously not recommended to get drunk every day :lol: I can't even remember te last time i was drunk, it must have been months ago...

A pack of cigs usually lasts a few weeks for me, and i don't buy the big family packs, nor do i buy the starter kits.

BTW nothing to do between classes in school is probably the single biggest reason why people start smoking.. You just get thrown out for fifteen minutes with absolutely nothing to do except sit idling.

And even though food in schools is free here, and it's healthy food, it's extremely boring and tastes poor that a lot of people just go and buy some donuts or eat hamburgers, pizza or kebab. I know i did. Also the only place to get water is often a shitty toilet with no mugs, so you end up buying soft drinks.

I am probably just being overly critical, though it's been five years since i finished the eduacation i have to do.

And just because you don't gain weight does not mean it's healthy, just wait till yout doctor says "You should be dead!" when looking at your cholesterol values. :?

Lack of sleep is also unhealthy, and so i need to get some sleep. Got to get up for work in eight hours.

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Post by aristide1 » Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:16 pm

SPCR related.....save your hearing. I now have tinittus....caused by loud motorcycles, loud music, power tools without hearing protection, etc. Both my mother and father wore hearing aids. I hope I don't get to that point.
The human hearing system is not designed for loud continuous noise, motors, exhausts, machine guns. People have had 2nd story apartments above stores with large refrigeration units, they wake up one morning with tinnitus.

Tinnitus and other hearing damage is incremental, cumulative and permanent.

The first sign of hearing damage is not muffled sounds, it's not understanding conversation in a noisy place, like a bar. If you're there you're well on your way.

Tinnitus is an active irritant, which is why it's insidous compared to plain hearing loss. It attacks at the worst times, it's relentless (it makes The Terminator look like the worlds laziest procrastinator), it ruins people's lives. Sudden loud tinnitus is difficult to adjust to, it's not talked about but people commit suicide because of it. But even when it doesn't totally sneak up on you once it's loud you have to adjust. I normally don't like following that up, but people ask me how did it take for me to adjust. Five years. Five years of worse than dead. People think dead is the worst, it's not.

I have had several dreams where I was trying to have a conversation but this noise didn't allow me to hear it. When I woke up the dream was gone, but the noise was still there. Welcome to the world of tinnitus.

(For some reason it's stops briefly when passing from awake to asleep, that in between state. Whether I hear it asleep depends on that days volume level. That's still relentless in my book.)

If all that hasn't convinced you well consider this - earplugs will improve the quality of your life. The less noise you're exposed to daily the better you will feel. Believe it.

Note - When you go in for a hearing test if you can hear voices talking they are happy. They may check your hearing up to 5KHz, perhaps 8KHz if you complain. So as long as you can clearly hear an A.M. radio that's fine by them, they could not care less if the loss impacts your listening to music. The medical establishment is notorious for bad advice here. I am the poster boy of that.

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Post by aristide1 » Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:23 pm

What ever happened to Live Fast, Die Young?
"I hope I die before I get old"
The Who

"Better to burn out than it is to rust"
Neil Young

That message sold. Now they are old, and so are their fans. Ask them if they still believe it. Actually, ask them if they still believed it after one of their friends overdosed.

Like Howard Stern - some people say anything for a buck.

"She don't lie....cocaine"
Eric Clapton

Really?

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Post by Bluefront » Sun Oct 29, 2006 4:36 pm

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Too true. One thing I've touched on in other threads, is how one's attitude towards almost everything changes as you get older. Things that you take for granted when you are young, gradually become more important. As you start to lose your friends, your family, your loved ones, as you get older.....they suddenly become more important. As you gradually lose your physical capabilities due to aging, you wonder what you could have done differently, than would have improved your presant condition.

It's never too early in your life to consider what your condition will be twenty years or more, down the line. Maybe do something about it....

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Post by cmthomson » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:57 pm

"If you don't have your health, you don't have anything."

A throwaway line from a silly movie, but never a truer line spoke. As I watch some of my buddies fade away from cancer, I think of it more often.

Exercise, don't smoke, and live well.

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Post by Tzupy » Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:19 am

Well, since my spiritual approach has met little understanding, I'll try something more scientific.
There are ways to slow down the bodily decay, some relatively easy to follow, others quite difficult:
1) eat food that contains vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants - against the free radicals; in short, food that helps the cellular regeneration process.
Has anyone tried a broccoli sprouts enhanced diet? I haven't yet, but I heard good things about it.
2) use telomerasys - for those that don't know it's an enzime that stops the cellular break-down clock; but doing so you risk some types of cancer.
3) minimize the chemical and radiation damage to your body: you'd have to shield / filter your living environment, food and drink.
Since most of the food and drink is actually water, try to drink a special water from which the heavy water has been removed.
Heavy water even in the small amounts found in drinking water is an accumulating toxin, leading to faster cellular decay.
About exercise: don't overdo it - the more calories you burn, the more free radicals are generated, so even if on short term you look younger, you'll age worse.

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Post by qviri » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:38 am

You people are old :P

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Post by alleycat » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:54 am

Bluefront's thoughtful and constructive advice makes a lot of sense :wink:. Eat well, exercise and avoid unnecessary risk - this will save you from a life of potential misery. Obviously we all need to get out and enjoy life, and accidents happen, but there's no need to go out of your way to anger the gods.

Like Bluefront, I was a keen motorcyclist in my late teens until my late twenties. Although thankfully nothing major ever happened, I have hit the road hard many times. It's just a fact of life with motorcycles - if you get on one, you're going to fall off it eventually, no matter how good you think you are. While I'm glad to have had some great times, the thought of getting onto a motorcycle now frightens me - I'm just all too aware of the risks. A number of acquaintances were involved in serious accidents, and some were killed. One guy I know needed about 30 operations and has never fully recovered, needing a handful of different drugs every day just to keep him going.

I can't emphasise enough the importance of avoiding smoking. This is the one thing in life I truly regret. I thought I was pretty smart at the time, but now I know that I'm just an idiot. When I had my first cigarette, I didn't realise that thirty years later I'd wake up one morning with a cough that would never go away. I wasn't even a heavy smoker, my habits were similar to what nici described. I though I had it under control. The trouble with smoking is that it is cumulative. Every puff you take is doing permanent damage. While lung cancer gets a lot of attention, COPD is the common and irreversible result of smoking. It's not just about a shortened lifespan, it's about a long, slow, miserable demise. Hardly the romantic idea of "live fast, die young". It's never as simple as that.

Good health doesn't require special diets, just common sense. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and you can't go wrong. Forget about soft drinks, they are one of the worst of all junk foods. My dentist described cola as "acid wash".

Stay active, get regular sleep and avoid stress. Try to be nice to others. I strongly recommend yoga for strength and flexibility. It will give you an edge in any sport, especially martial arts. In fact, it can enhance every aspect of your life.

My 2c.

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Post by nici » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:29 am

Yes, smoking is bloody stupid, i know. But i have not found anything else to replace it, it's nice to have a smoke after work before i drive home in rush hour. Just watching what happens around you for a moment, or waiting for the rain to stop. I would feel stupid just sitting there doing nothing, and so i would not take small breaks. And yes, that is probably the most stupid reason ever for smoking.

I am not saying that i think "i can smoke X years without permanent damage", but AFAIK the lungs heal to some extent. IIRC if you have smoked for less than two years in resonable amounts, it takes half a year for the lungs to heal. Longer than a few years causes large and permanent damage. I have no idea if that is true or not, i just remember it from somewhere.

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Post by jaganath » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:08 am

On smoking:

Smoking FAQ
No matter what your age or how long you've smoked, quitting will help you live longer. People who stop smoking before age 35 avoid 90% of the health risks attributable to tobacco. Even those who quit later in life can significantly reduce their risk of dying at a younger age.
http://www.gethealthyclarkcounty.org/tobacco/quit.html
Quitting reduces your risk of dying early by 50% within 5 years of quitting smoking. (After 15 years the risk is the same as if you had never smoked.)
alleycat@My dentist described cola as "acid wash".
Pretty accurate. Remember, humans only get one set of adult teeth (unlike sharks etc) so once it's gone, it's gone.
Erssa@My advice is to enjoy your life, if you like smoking, go for it. Life is too short to struggle against bad habits
Yeah, but certain bad habits make it a lot more likely that your life will be short. :wink: Everything in life is about probabilities (ie there are no certainties except death; most taxes can be avoided to some extent).

This is from the Wikipedia article of another really long-lived woman:
In 1995, when asked if she enjoyed her long life, Knauss said matter-of-factly: "I enjoy it because I have my health and I can do things."
It really sucks to be old and basically crippled (ie can't walk, incontinence, dementia etc), but probably better than being dead. However being old and healthy is probably the best of both worlds.
Elixer@I get drunk probably once a week on average. I always drink a ton of water with it and eat something so I almost never have a hangover. It's very bad for you
Actually alcohol is good for you in moderation:

Health effects of alcohol
Dr. Eric Rimm of Harvard reports that people have increases of 10 to 30 percent in HDL in a week from drinking alcohol. He says that “nothing else in the diet can have such a dramatic impact on HDL in such a short timeâ€

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:41 am

It really sucks to be old and basically crippled (ie can't walk, incontinence, dementia etc), but probably better than being dead.
I can't agree with the part about being better than dead. I suspect people who have had devasting strokes would disagree, as would some people on chemo or radiation.

One day at a nursing home I realized, when I was looking at the residents that were not so healthy, that they were souls trapped in defective old bodies. They were trapped.
However being old and healthy is probably the best of both worlds.
Note - you need to be healthy in order to be happy. If you're not happy then people won't bother with you as much, and you end up lonely, and then it's hard to be happy. I think isolation ruins your health.
Yes, smoking is bloody stupid, i know.
So why is it being glorified in movies again? Do the jerks in Hollywood always think "the trend is one way, I will go in the opposite direction", whether or not the direction is good?

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Post by Trip » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:24 am

I'd be an unhappy old fart too if stuffed away in a nursing home.

Foggerties ought to be with their family watching the next generation rise and helping to raise it.

When I'm old I won't put myself on machines and expensive drugs just to squeeze out a few more years unless I have something I think I can do later that I need to stay alive for.

I guess smoking is symbolic of living dangerously as well as to the fullest. Also, it's a sign of independence.

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:31 am

I consider not being an addict a sign of independance.
When I'm old I won't put myself on machines and expensive drugs just to squeeze out a few more years unless
It depends on how much time you get out of it and your state of health after the procedure/drug.

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Post by alleycat » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:46 am

Nici, I wasn't having a go at you. It's just that you seem to have similar smoking habits to what I did, making things easier for me to describe. I haven't become judgmental about smoking; it just scares me now.

The lungs don't heal, every cigarette is causing permanent damage to the respiratory system which builds up over time. The only positive spin I can put on the situation is that we don't normally use all of our lung capacity, so some damage will go unnoticed, which is what happened to me.

It is true that the risk of lung cancer reduces after stopping smoking, however cancer is just one of a number of diseases it causes. The other major diseases caused by smoking are cardiovascular disease and COPD, which itself includes bronchiectasis, chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

I have to laugh when I hear about authorities clamping down on drug use, when smoking is a far more serious threat to public health than every other drug combined. Another one of society's bizarre double standards.

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Post by Trip » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:07 am

aristide1 wrote:I consider not being an addict a sign of independance.
Smokers make their own decisions despite or even in spite of the rest of society. Rebels with lung cancer. Just pointing out the obvious though you prob got my meaning the first time... I quit smoking to be free of its addiction, its cancer, and its mutagens.
aristide1 wrote:
Trip wrote:When I'm old I won't put myself on machines and expensive drugs just to squeeze out a few more years unless
It depends on how much time you get out of it and your state of health after the procedure/drug.
Well yea and the cost and discomfort of the actual procedure as well of course. The elderly heal slowly.

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Post by jaganath » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:28 am

I can't agree with the part about being better than dead. I suspect people who have had devasting strokes would disagree, as would some people on chemo or radiation.

One day at a nursing home I realized, when I was looking at the residents that were not so healthy, that they were souls trapped in defective old bodies. They were trapped.
Yeah, in the original version of that post I actually wrote that they would probably wish they were dead; my own grandmother (89), on her bad days, sometimes says stuff like that, crying at the frustration of it all, etc. It would seem that the human soul/consciousness/intelligence/whatever clearly has the capability of going on significantly longer than the body currently does, which is why you see people thinking about cryonics/downloading their brains onto a computer etc.
I have to laugh when I hear about authorities clamping down on drug use, when smoking is a far more serious threat to public health than every other drug combined.Another one of society's bizarre double standards.
What, more serious than crack? You don't think there's a tiny bit of hyperbole there? Also, smoking is at least partially banned in public/work places in most of the developed world, so it's not as if the authorities are not doing anything.

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Post by Erssa » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:51 am

"Tolerant" people tolerate everything except smoking...

I have been on the both sides, so I really know the positive effects on smoking and understand smokers. The benefits are all social, it's nice to go for a smoke with a friend, it's almost like sitting for a cup of coffee. It's also a good ice breaker when meeting new people. "Got a light?" "Sure"...

I started relatively young and quit while I was young. I smoked for 6 years and stopped after I was done with my military service. At that time I was smoking 10 packs a week and it really had bad effects on my health (and finance, since I was paid only 3 euros per day for my first six months in the army, while I was spending ~6 euros on tobacco every day). I had bronchitis 3 times during the year of my military service and a doctor told me that I was in a great risk of getting a serious lung disease, because my lungs got inflammated so easily.

I stopped smoking, not because I was worried about my health, but because I had a discussion with my army buddies where I said that "Quitting smoking is as easy as things can get, it's not like you have to do anything, you just passively stop doing it. How simple is that? I could do it anyday I wanted." When they told me that I couldn't do it, I couldn't stop smoking, I did it just to prove my point of how easy it is. I haven't smoked since, not even a single inhalation. I still think it's one of the best decisions I have made up in my life and it gives me great pride. And I'm especially proud that I didn't cave in and start smoking again when I went throught the worst phase of my life couple of years ago. I haven't been sick in 5 years now. When I stopped I got sick immediately, but after that I haven't had even the slightest cold.

I save directly ~1500 euros per year for not smoking, and undirectly I save even more money, because when I ran out of ziggies and went to shop, I used to buy some other crap as well, that I wouldn't have bought, if I had not went to the shop in the first place. I'm a student so that's like 15-20% of my yearly income. I also invest my spare money in stocks, so the money saved comes back with a good interest rate.

I hate anti-smoking zealots, like I hate all zealots.

Trip
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Post by Trip » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:17 am

Tobacco is natural, so I'm not as opposed to it as transfats etc. Just for the record.

If there was a healthy alternative that created smoke, I'd be on it in a flash. I tried a healthy (tobacco free) cigarette once but never again...

I couldn't quit cold turkey. I worked my way down to a few a day and then quit cold, but I had to work my way down first.

alleycat
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Post by alleycat » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:28 am

jaganath wrote:What, more serious than crack? You don't think there's a tiny bit of hyperbole there?
I think there has been more hyperbole about crack. Although it is a serious problem, it's nothing like the smoking epidemic. According to this:
It has been estimated that, in England, 364,000 patients are admitted to NHS hospitals each year due to diseases caused by smoking. This translates into 7,000 hospital admissions per week, or 1,000 day
...
Deaths caused by smoking are five times higher than the 22,833 deaths arising from: traffic accidents (3,439); poisoning and overdose (881); alcoholic liver disease (5,121); other accidental deaths (8,579); murder and manslaughter (513); suicide (4,066); and HIV infection (234) in the UK during 2002. World-wide, almost 5 million die prematurely each year as a result of smoking.
Smoking has become normalised, so its effects are in may ways no longer shocking. Crack, being a relatively new phenomenon has greater shock value, especially when presented in a way to gain maximum impact in the media. Although crack is highly addictive and creates immense problems for its users and those around them, it won't spread beyond a certain small portion of the population willing to experiment with hard drugs. Smoking will remain the number one health problem for some time.

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:12 am

Trip wrote:
aristide1 wrote:I consider not being an addict a sign of independance.
Smokers make their own decisions...
I agree that's true of the first cig, the second, the third, but after that?
Trip wrote: ....despite or even in spite of the rest of society.
Unfortunately true on both counts. I never was impressed with the Marlboro man myself.

klankymen
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Post by klankymen » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:15 am

interesting anecdote, not saying this is scientific or anything, but it is starting to strike me as an interesting coincidence:

in the last 3 years I can only remember being sick twice (except maybe some runny nose in the winter), and they went as following...

this spring, for the lent i decided to quit alcohol, for no real reason, not because of belief or anything, just for fun. anyway, 2 days later i had a cold, and 2 days after that I had this nasty slime on my tounge and all over the inside of my mouth and no voice, couldnt taste anything, not to mention i probably lost 5kg worth of weight just blowing my nose. anyway i had this for about at least 3 weeks and had my cold for about 3 more. at some point it was easter, and it was spring, and i had vacation, and lent was over, and i went out and partied again, and thought no more of it.

recently, maybe a month ago or so, i decided to quit drinking again, for an indefinite time... so all of a sudden last week i start to get headaches, and feel tired all the time. i wake up one morning with 103° fever (39,4) and headaches and no apetite at all. i havent eaten anything in the past 3 days except a half a sleeve of saltine crackers, and my throat is starting to hurt too.

now i'm not neccesarilly writing this to complain, allthough complaining is fun, but i'm more and more starting to think that the alcohol kills the bacteria and keeps me healthy... so here's me considering ending my abstinence, i can do with some dizziness when i get home, as long as it keeps me from puking everything i eat.

so take this as you will, but i might be one of the only people that drinks alcohol to stop him from throwing up

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