I’ve never smoked in my life and I let nobody do it in my presence (even close relatives are banned from the flat if they want to light up). I do physical exercises every day, rarely eat chips and sweets and never drink pops. I allow myself to visit fast food restaurants only once or twice a year. My only sin – a glass of beer once a month…

I’m sure every person should pay attention to the food he or she consumes, be physically active and try to get rid of bad habits. As far as the latter ones are concerned, they are HARMFUL not only for ourselves but also for people who are around us now and for our future children. It’s not accidental that smoking and alcoholism are called “diseases dangerous for the society” nowadays.

I wanted to talk about food in detail. Being precise, surfing the site devoted to healthy living, I’ve come across an interesting article in which the benefits of eating slowly are enumerated and explained. The author tries to convince us that eating fast is a problem, a harmful habit, a bad example to follow.

According to a recent research, people in the USA usually need 11 minutes to have a meal. But it’s an average amount of time. Some breakfasts and lunches may last for only 2 MINUTES!

Firstly, slow eating helps us taste our food better and experience more flavors and scents.
Secondly, it’s a widely spread problem that the members of modern families usually gather together only at the dining table. When the meal is over, everybody is busy with his or her work again. So, spending more time on family meals we can easily turn an ordinary dinner into a social event and improve relationships with close people.
Thirdly, it has been proved that if we slow down, we’ll be able to achieve the sense of fullness earlier and eat less.
Fourthly, eating slower improves digestion. According to the article, we should chew more to give our stomach an easier job.

P.S. Being honest, I’m now trying to convince myself first. I always wolf down food.

To prevent stress from affecting their well-being, people should use special techniques: meditation, yoga, deep breathing exercises. It’s also quite easy to learn to use herbal treatment.

In the most serious cases the aid of a professional doctor can be a way out. But…maybe we should just smile more and do the things we like more often. Positive thinking will save us from anxiety and depression or, at least, reduce them.

Still it’s true that the more developed our civilization becomes, the more worried the humans get. We become busier every day and this causes stress. I think the main problem is the following: everybody can easily say “I’m tensed. I’m depressed. Stress is killing me”. But not everyone is ready to think about his or her life critically and find mistakes that have led to such dissatisfaction. For there is only one thing all people try to hide or justify (when it’s too late to hide) – their laziness, both intellectual and physical.

I’m sure anxiety and neurasthenia don’t appear out of the blue. Maybe a person just can’t control his or her emotions and prefers to unleash them always. Then he or she regrets about it and feels guilty. And some people, on the contrary, hide their emotions all the time and suffer from it in their own way. Maybe, a person doesn’t even try to organize his or her daily activities properly and has no rest because of it.