The Staying Healthy Thread

A couple of us have recently been discussing the need we all have to remain healthy up to and through CIII and Episode 3. I think this point was especially driven home when almost everyone got sick before/during/after Mile Hi con! This really illustrated how interconnected our situations are! When one or two people get sick, chances are that more will follow.

Rather than leaving our health - and in a way, our capacity to enjoy and fully participate at CIII and RotS - up to chance, it has been suggested that we start discussing health preventative issues now. What strategies can we employ to remain healthy through both the long preparation time and the actual events? We also need to consider simple energy levels as well. We want to be energetic and ready for everything, not exhausted.

To start, this thread is for coming up with various strategies and regimes to keep us all at peak health and efficiency. Second, it will serve as encouragement for everyone to follow these strategies, if we all report what we're doing, keep up with how everyone else is doing, and support each other in this endevour.

So... topics to start with, for staying healthy, especially as the cold and flu season approaches. Vitamins? Herbal suppliments? Exercise? Lifestyle changes? Sleep schedules? Where should we start?

edit: subject line changed to reflect that Episode 3 is over, though our need to remain illness-free remains...

 

The biggest thing will be for everyone to not procrastinate and get everything done at the last minute, thereby giving up sleep and becoming ridiculously exhausted in the weeks leading up to said event... That's what gets us every time... Stress is a killer

 

I think that exercise is a great idea...as soon as my lungs DO clear up...i am going to be hitting the exercise bike starting out an hour a night.

start taking vitamins again...and just planning things out.

being ONE of those who got sick from milehi, i think that this is a great idea to discuss different options.

i think that sleep DURING the CON is a HUGE one!!!

i am planning on going to starfest that next week as well. soo I HAVE to stay healthy.

 

the exercise thing would be realy good. help you out any way, but with all the walking that will happen there, you can be pretty miserable by saturday if your not used to lots of walking. so build up your walking stamina.

 

Everyone needs to be Gel'in!

 

No drinking... that lowers your immune system.

 

Quick responses!

So, so far, we seem to have the following:

Vitamins and/or herbal suppliments. Everyone talks about these, and how much we should all start taking them to help stay healthy... but does anyone actually know which ones we need to seek out, and what the dosage should be? Let's get some research going in this area.

Exercise. Again, everyone seems to agree that this is a good idea, and as JKB rightly pointed out, it can also help get us in good shape for the con itself! However, again... what type of exercises? Aerobic type stuff like power walking, biking, stairs? Weight training? Yoga?

Procrastination on preparation. This is a HUGE one. Procrastination leads to frantic preparation in the last weeks. Frantic preparation in the last weeks leads to extreme shortage of sleep. Extreme shortage of sleep leads to cranky RMFFers, as well as susceptability to illness. So... in the interest of avoiding this, perhaps we should all 1) make a comprehensive list of what we need to accomplish, and 2) create a schedule for getting it done in a timely fashion.

Lifestyle changes. I didn't realize that drinking lowered the immune system! That's really important to know. JGoC, do you know any more details on that? Like, is it a lot of drinking that does this? Or frequent drinking, even if the amounts are reasonable or low?

 

Agreed only drink AT the CON.

i think that this is an important subject...too many of us have gotten sick after CONs...and i don't want to do it anymore.

as far as exercise...i think that cardio would be the best...options that get your heartrate up.

 

I think the main thing at the moment is making sure that we remain healthy throughout the time leading up to the con and the movie, though plans for keeping healthy at the con are very important as well.

But we all have a lot of prep work to do, and noone works well when they're sick. And given that most people see each other on a regular basis, we don't want to have everyone getting sick.

It's also not just a matter of staying illness free for prep. We want to improve our health in general, so that we're in great shape for the con.

 

Don't forget to keep Gel'n!

 

Okay, I have to ask... what on earth is gel'n?

 

gel'n like a fel'n

like magel'n

 

It is a REALLY bad commerical for dr. scholl's insoles.

ha ha

 

I'm Gel'n

 

*blink* So are you saying that we need these gel insoles now, so that our feet are in good shape for the con, that we need them now so that we will walk a lot for exercise, or that we need them for the con, so our feet don't die over those four days?

 

Yes

 

i love the fact that you 'blinked' ha ha ha

i am SO glad my jedi boots are SOOO comfortable...UNLIKE my SG boots...not so much!

 

In an effort to become ilness-free, I'm going in for an MRI of my sinuses tomorrow morning. yay. (Or a cat scan, I get them confused for some reason. /shrug)

Depending on what they see, they will either scrape the insides of my facial sinuses and do a culture of what they find, or possibly more. I'm so excited, I can hardly wait. woo.

ILLNESS FREE IN 2005!!!

 

good luck with that!

 

Yes, alcohol suppresses the immune system via dehydration, as does caffeine, so drinking lots of water, whether you're poundin' back the alcohol & coffee or not, is always a good idea.

Sugar compromises the immune system as well, by leaching valuable vitamins & minerals from the body.

Sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in illness once again due to compromising the immune system.

Exercise is always a plus. Also, periodic stretching throughout the day during the con can be therapeutic by increasing circulation and decreasing the likelihood of cramps, muscle pain, sore joints, etc.

Although we've been joking about it, good, solid arch-supports for the footwear cannot be under-emphasized, as many maladies can be traced back to inadequate support of the bone structures in the feet/ankles/knees. Speaking as a sufferer of chronic heel spurs myself, I can personally attest to this issue.

As far as vitamin/mineral supplements go, I'm a big fan of Echinacea & Zinc in helping to bolster the immune system.

 

Exercise is always a plus. Also, periodic stretching throughout the day during the con can be therapeutic by increasing circulation and decreasing the likelihood of cramps, muscle pain, sore joints, etc.


mid day RMFF yoga class!

ok, those is armor are excused from lotus position.

 

Don't you mean mid-day YODA classes?

 

ooh booooooo, that was bad. he he

 

Okay, here's one that is a big one for many of us, I think:

Fatigue. Constant, mind-numbing, headache-inducing, tired-all-the-flipping-time fatigue. A number of us suffer from being tired for various percentages of our day. Caffeine, as wonderful as it can be, sadly only seems to go so far.

And fatigue, of course, will lead to lowered productivity on event preparations, general crappy bad moods, and is probably another one of those insidious immune system lowering ailments. Bad all around.

So, what can we do to rectify the situation? How do you combat being tired all the time? Obviously, getting more sleep is one start, but ... vitamins? More exercise? Different sleep patterns?

 

The best way to combat that is at the source... Stress!

And the best way to relieve much of that before an event, is to NOT PROCRASTINATE!!!!!

And the second best way.. Is for EVERYONE to pitch in... Just showing up is NOT 1/2 the work, believe me.