How do you keep healthy?
I wouldn’t ask this except I feel that my own luck is about to
run out.
How do you keep healthy?
I wouldn’t ask this except I feel that my own luck is about to run out.
Most of the time I’m ridiculously healthy, especially since I don’t eat right or get enough sleep. My variable schedule means there are a couple of days each week when I only get two “real” meals and keep myself going in between with an apple and some cheese, a bag of chips or a latte.
At least once a week I open the coffee shop which means I have to get to Gilroy by 4:15 so I have to wake up by 3:15. I tell myself that if Katie Couric can do it, so can I. It’s tough, though, partly because I usually sleep poorly the night before. I’m so nervous about sleeping through the alarm that I wake and check it three or four times.
Other days I work the closing shift so I’m at work till about 11 or so. After I get home I need to unwind for awhile so it’s 1am before I’m asleep.
Naturally, I never open the morning after I’ve closed. But I’m still verging on sleep deprivation.
Then there are all the twenty-somethings I work with. They have each had various permutations of a cold so far this season. One plucky young woman didn’t complain, wasn’t really sneezing or coughing much, but had “that look” in her eyes – that look of even the dim indoor lights being almost too much to bear. Her eyes were watery and kind of red and she looked miserable.
Whatever she had, she got over it and I didn’t catch it.
I’m probably more at risk from handling money, which is notoriously germy, several hours a day. I did a bit of research and the list of bacteria that commonly infest currency sounds like biological warfare.
They’re not just on money, of course. Shopping cart handles are other notorious carriers, as are doorknobs, kids play equipment and for that matter, kids.
In view of this, probably the healthiest thing I do is wash my hands a lot, both at work and at home. I don’t care if I seem like Howard Hughes. I’ve read too much evidence that washing your hands is one of the best defenses against those sneaky pathogens.
The other healthy thing I used to do was get a flu shot every year. But then this past fall there was the mysterious flu shot shortage, so I deferred to the elderly and infirm. When the shortage disappeared, it seemed too late to bother.
When I used to get the shot, I never got the flu. Sometimes I think it was a triumph of medical science, and sometimes I think it was the placebo effect: you know, the beneficial result of believing something will cure you.
Now here I am, shotless, and starting to feel a little funny: heavy headed, kind of achy, burning eyes. No energy and looking for a good placebo.
