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Stretching relaxes the mind as well as the body, so you get the benefit of stress reduction as well as better balance and coordination, increased range of motion, reduced tension, fewer injuries, greater body awareness, and improved circulation. No matter what else you do in the way of physical activity (or even just everyday motions), stretching will make it easier for you. That’s all generally good for you, plus it will decrease your chance of falling, and so your risk of fracture, no matter what your bone density. Stretching after exercise will also lessen later soreness and stiffness—thereby making exercise more pleasant and easier to stick with.Many of us are stuck with old stretching habits picked up long ago, and odds are they are, at best, not maximally effective. At worst, they could be making you less flexible and more prone to injury. Whatever you do, no bouncing! Just about every weekend jogger I see stretching is bouncing up and down trying to get that nose a little closer to the knee with each bounce, but in reality that’s the worst possible approach. The muscles knot up tighter with each rebound, and the rapid pace doesn’t allow the muscle to stretch at all before it is contracted again.If this sounds like you—or if you have only dim memories of high school gym class lessons in stretching to go on—I recommend taking a stretching class or checking a recent book or video out of the library to update your technique. I favor “active-isolated” stretching, or AI in fitness parlance, which holds that to stretch a muscle, it must be relaxed. Relaxing a muscle requires contracting the muscle or muscles that work in opposition to it. That is, to stretch the hamstrings (back of the thigh), you should be in a position that relaxes them by requiring contraction of the quads (front of the thigh.) In AI, you hold each stretch for just two seconds, but repeat it, slowly, several times. This is the best kind of stretching to use pre-exercise.You should devote 15 to 20 minutes at a time to stretching to cover all the major muscle groups. For the benefit of your bones, be sure to stretch your back and hips well. The abdominals and thigh muscles all participate in rotating your hip, so they should be targeted as well. Make stretching a regular part of your routine, and you should be able to see a difference within three weeks.The second most common stretching mistake—after The Bounce—is using it as a warm-up. The best pre-exercise warm-up is to simply do the exercise you will be doing at a much slower rate to ease the muscles into it. If you are doing just a stretching workout, you will need to warm yourself up a bit first—walk briskly around the block or march in place for a few minutes, swinging your arms— to get your muscles warm before you stretch them. Or try stretching after a warm shower. The best time to stretch is as a cool-down after another form of exercise, when your muscles are already warm and easier to stretch. Then you may want to use a longer, larger stretch than AI techniques provide, with slow progression.*119\228\2*

Of course! You not only can, but must let him go out and play, go on trips, sleep at a friend’s house. “But suppose he has another seizure?” That’s a risk you have to take. A careful analysis of risks is an important part of raising any child. It is a particularly important part of raising a child with the uncertainties of epilepsy. It is the crucial ingredient in avoiding overprotection. His ability to run around and his intelligence are the same as before the seizures. Most children with epilepsy are neither retarded or learning-disabled. For most such children, the only impairment is that, from time to time, there may be a seizure. For 99.99 percent of the time your child is the same as always.”BUT ISN’T HE DISABLED?” The answer is NO! He can still run and play, go to school, sleep over at a friend’s house. There is virtually nothing that a child who has had a few seizures cannot do. “Can he ride a bike?” Sure. The chances of having a seizure while riding his bike are very small; he is only minimally at greater risk than before his seizures. “Can she swim?” Absolutely, but her swimming must be supervised, just as every child’s swimming must be supervised. “Isn’t there a higher risk that she could drown or have a seizure in the water?” Yes, but only a slightly higher risk, since she has had only occasional seizures and may never have another one. Technically, your child may have a disability. He or she may fit the government definition that enables a person to obtain special services if the seizures interfere with education or work. But having a disability is very different from being disabled.A handicap is often superimposed by society, parents, friends, or schools. A person can also impose it on himself.We find that the best approach to a child who has had several seizures, who has now been labeled “epileptic,” is for you to gain a realistic acceptance of your child’s limitations (if any) and to focus on his potential. This requires a conscious effort to put aside your anxiety and concern about all of the things that could happen. This is not an easy thing to do. It requires acceptance of the fact that there are risks inherent in rearing any child and that most children with epilepsy, especially those whose epilepsy is controlled, face only slightly greater risks than other children.Children who have severe, or intractable, epilepsy and those who have additional impairments such as mental retardation, cerebral palsy, or learning disabilities also require realistic acceptance. It is equally important that these children, too, be encouraged to reach their full potential, and that additional handicaps not be superimposed.*187\208\8*

Blood pressure is most often measured in the large artery in your upper arm with an instrument known as a sphygmomanometer. This piece of equipment consists of a squeeze-bulb pump, an inflatable cloth-covered rubber cuff, and a measuring device with a pressure gauge. The gauge measures millimeters of mercury (expressed as mm Hg). Some physicians use a sphygmomanometer in which the pressure is read from the height of an actual column of mercury. More common are sphygmomanometers employing a readout dial that has been calibrated against a mercury column standard.The word sphygmomanometer was derived from two Greek words: sphygmo, referring to pulse, and manometer, referring to a measuring device. Measuring blood pressure isn’t a new idea. The modern sphygmomanometer was invented in 1895. Other more primitive devices to estimate blood pressure existed before that.To measure your blood pressure, the special cuff is wrapped around your upper arm and inflated with air until the flow of blood in your arm is temporarily stopped. As the air in the cuff is released gradually, an examiner listens with a stethoscope over the artery inside your elbow for the first sound of blood flowing through the artery. The number on the gauge at the first sound indicates the maximum pressure produced in the artery each time the blood is forced from the heart into the large blood vessels. This pumping pressure is known as the systolic pressure. More air is released slowly from the cuff. Within seconds all the pumping or beating sounds stop. At the time the sounds become inaudible the number on the pressure gauge indicates the resting or minimum blood pressure, known as diastolic pressure.While both are important, your diastolic reading is more significant than the systolic, because the systolic level lasts only a short period, after which the pressure begins to fall rapidly toward the diastolic level. Your diastolic reading, taken when your heart is pausing, shows the lower but longer duration of pressure to which the heart and arteries are exposed. The higher the diastolic pressure, the higher the pressure against which the heart must work in order to eject blood into the general circulation. It is this increased heart effort and increased pressure within the arteries and arterioles that may ultimately cause accelerated and more severe atherosclerosis in the arterial system of the body and damage to the brain, kidneys, heart, and other vital organs.
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