Tips for Healthy Living: Harmful Health Habits to Avoid

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This is the last article in our Living healthy series. This list is not exhaustive, it is just to increase our awareness and hopefully encourage someone to live a healthier life.

Today we’ll be talking about avoiding harmful health habits.

5 Harmful health habits to avoid

1. Excessive drinking of alcohol

It is well known that drinking alcohol can lead to major health issues. Do you know that apart from the harmful effects that alcohol can have of various body organs, it is also high in calories and can contribute to weight gain? Too much alcohol also interferes with the body’s ability to absorb calcium which is needed for healthy bones.

2. Avoid smoking

Cigarette smoking is harmful to health. Smoking has been linked to heart attack, breast cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, cancer of the mouth amongst other illnesses. Second hand smoking is equally harmful. This is when a person inhales smoke from someone who is actively smoking. So if a person lives in a house with someone who smokes, they are equally in danger from the second hand smoke as the person smoking.

3. Abusing antibiotics and other prescription drugs

Many times when people experience symptoms like diarrhoea or having a fever, they take drugs like Flagyl and tetracycline to stop the symptoms. Many times, they are not taken in the full dose and are unnecessary for what they are used for. These drugs are antibiotics and should not be used indiscriminately. When drugs are abused, there can be resistance to them. This will make it difficult to find a drug that works, when the person really needs them for something serious.

4. Emotional eating

Sometimes when people are bored or angry or have an exam ahead, tend to eat and snack a lot. Emotional eating is harmful as it helps pile up calories, leading to weight gain which can be harmful to health.

5. Ignoring health symptoms

Have you noticed any unusual health symptom that doesn’t seem to go away? Go to a hospital to have it checked out. This is very important, as some deadly illness; start with mild symptoms that just seem to linger for a long time. Many times, people just assume it’s something mild and don’t go for check-up. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Early detection and treatment (especially for cancers) is important for survival and overall prognosis.

Prevention is better than cure.