Look What I Found Today!

Over at Web Worker Daily Celine Roque asks, Is Web Working Better For Your Health?

The answer is generally, yes.

As a home-based worker, I can see it both ways. I certainly don’t have to deal with the stress of commuting and the germs in an office full of coughing people in the winter. As a social animal, I certainly miss out on the face-to-face aspect. And since I live in a one-story house, there’s no climbing several flights of stairs a couple of times a day to burn calories.

There are extra stresses with freelancing, though. I’m the one who has to get out and hustle for work, and it’s not easy in this economy. College tuition just went up again, along with my blood pressure. On the other hand, I have two cats ready and eager to be petted, which helps bring down the blood pressure. I couldn’t have cats in an office cube!

Do you work at home? If so, what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages? If you don’t work at home, would you like to? Why or why not?

I am utterly miserable. The 1904 medical book shows I should take something called nux vomica. I think I’ll pass, thank you very much. So far I’ve had plenty of hot tea (and biscuits!) and have taken all sorts of things to soothe the savage throat. So far, no luck – probably because I’m on a deadline and refuse to stop and rest. At least until House is on tonight. That could be just what the doctor ordered!

So, what do you do for a cold? Feed it? Starve it? Proffer it interesting drinks? I’m certainly open to suggestions.

You may think that Guinness is good for you, but some students at Rice University have found a way to create a beer that just might make you live longer.

BioBeer is made with brewer’s yeast that has had three genes spliced into it. The genes produce resveratrol, the same chemical in red wine that scientists think is good for you.

The only real problem with the beer? The students who produced the brew are too young to drink the stuff. That, and it’s not commercially available yet. We’ll drink to it anyway!

Apparently there’s a reason for that astounding stinky egg smell: It helps regulate blood pressure.

That odor is caused by something called gastrotransmitters, which trigger a blood pressure-regulating enzyme. You think I could make this stuff up?

So remember, the next time your uncle asks you to pull his finger, you may be helping his health!

Via msnbc.com.

1928. The markets were moving ever upward. What could go wrong?

This sheet music may give a clue.

Money bags! Coins! I’ll bet he has 40,000 French Francs in his jeans!

Then comes the lyrics:

If you don’t have a million,

Don’t be sad and blue,

Be thankful for your health,

And the sun that shines on you.

…

And then you follow nature’s course,

Banish all of that remorse,

You’ll fell like a million!

Et cetera. For ten choruses. Why such banal verbiage? Turn the music over.

It’s all about “following nature’s course,” of course.

Everyone in my part of the country is suffering from allergies. Our pollen count today was the highest I’d seen it in ages.

So, what to do? Go to the 1904 medical book for advice, of course!

Treatment: Turkish baths, or hot baths of any kind, concluding with cold water. Electricity, scientifically applied, is also beneficial. The positive pole should always be used internally over the highly irritable mucous surfac, with a small nasal electrode covered with a fine sponge.

Don’t try this at home, boys and girls.

Fellow mid-lifers know that we’re not the first generation to suffer through the agony of hot flashes*, nor will we be the last. Yet, it’s fun to point at previous generations and laugh at what little they knew.

Case in point: A 1904 book on women’s health. From the chapter on “change of life:”

The neuralgias, nervousness, fidgets and hysteriaa which afflict some women at this period are such to make life miserable. Flushings are also a frequent nervous disorder, caused by the rushing of blood to any part of the body. Sometimes flushing is accompanied by excessive heat or violent throbbing….Usually they occur during sleep. They also attend mental excitement of any kind.

The cure? Hot baths and enemas, of course.

If you think women have it bad, pity the poor men:

His system undergoes a process not identical with, but similar to, that occurring in her….He suffers through nervousness, sleeplessness, pain at the base of the brain and insanity.

Well, there ya go.

I wonder what our grandchildren will be saying about how we handle this time of life.

*Whoever decided that hot flashes should be called “power surges” should experience one during a Texas summer. I’m just sayin’.