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Questions to ask before you leave a hospital

There are many things that you need to know when you leave a hospital after a surgery. I ran into this first hand last week after my dad has a heart attack and then an angioplasty and my mom took him from the hospital with almost no information.

That kind of thing should never happen.

I speak of all this not just a fitness guy, but as someone that has had to eal with a sick daughter with kidnet disease, as well as a very jarring situation with my dad having a heart attack and angioplasty just a few weeks back. Sometimes we get fantastic information from the doctors, nurnses and other health care staff, sometimes not. Most importantly though we need to be very careful with the way that we take in information. sometimes we miss details given to us and sometimes the health care professionals think that we are aware of certain things when in fact we are not.

First of all the hospital staff including nurses, doctors and other health care workers have a head full of knowledge that you just have to ask the right questions to the right people.

Right after leaving the hospital

doctorsRight after you leave the hospital what do you need to know. Are there any special instructions for that first night?
Are there any medications needed? Some medication may need to be taken that first day but some many can wait.

Are there any dietary restrictions? How about water and food intake over the first 24 hours. Often there are water restirctions or a need for water and fasting or not.

How about baths, heat or ice packs? Are these needed, can you pick them up on the way home from the hospital or wait?

The initial day home from a hospital can be difficult so it is important to know what distractions you can get rid of. The last thing you want to do in those first 24 hours is to be running out to the store to buy things, fill prescriptions, get food, or any other things that can just wait a day.

After 24 hours – Through the first week out of the hospital

As any kind of caregiver you need to make sure that you are very clear on the situation above. You need to know things like dietary restrictions going forward, water and liquids, and then all the crazy things that certain surgeries can bring on. You may need to have multiple medications to track and exercise considerations.

As far as medications. How many and how often. It is important to have a schedule of exactly what has to be taken when and any interactions between the medications. You can get this information from a pharmacist or the doctor and in these cases do not trust your memory. Write everything down. Another problem with medications is the side effects.

Make sure that you know what the side effects can be and what to watch out for. Most people do not show side effects but really the fact is that you will be dealing with medications that are not common to you or your patient so you need to be aware if there is an allergy or side effect showing up.

Finally, as far as I am concerned, most medications are for acute symptoms. Right after a trauma or a surgery you need to take a few things like pain killers, blood thinners, anticoagulants, and anti-inflammatories that you should be able to drop once healing has taken place. Please under no circumstances should you make these decisions on your own, but instead consult with the doctors and other staff that you have access to so that the decisions are not going to set you any steps back in the recovery process.

Food, Drink, and Exercise. What you take in an what you do in the days after surgery and recovering from these often has a bigger effect on the outcome and recovery than anyone really suspects. The fact is that your body will heal with what you eat and drink and what you do for exercise is really important.

Critical changes to your diet and exercise are important if you want to heal or support those healing so be sure to be very aware of what is prescribed for in the area of food and restrictions for foods or other things like sodium. Also after a stay in the hospital it can be very difficult to get a lot of exercise but exercise is critical to recovery. In my dads case after his heart attack we of course had no idea how much exercise a moderately physical guy should get afterwards so it is important to talk to the doctor and nurses to see what they have to say.

Permanent changes are often needed after hospital stays. A car accident, heart attack, or other major life event is just that, a major life event and may mean that you have to make permanent changes. You have to look at diet, exercise, ongoing health care, and even lifelong habits may need to change.

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Cardio as Exercise


Cardio is one of the big three in the game of changing your body, the way I look at it there is diet, cardio and weights. The diet is self explanatory, the cardio is to burn calories before and after the cardio workout and weights are to create more muscle which automatically needs more calories just to maintain.

I will try in the future to add info on individual types of cardio training but for now just want to outline how, when and what kind of exercise counts. Firstly any time that you do 20 minutes or more exercise that does not hurt your muscles I consider it a cardio workout so examples would be biking, walking, running or even sports such as Tennis or Golf or Ballroom dancing. I try to make sure that I do some kind of cardio every day just to get my blood flowing and to get away from other distractions such as TV or computers. Another important thing to try to do is to change up your cardio from day to day just for variety more than anything.

The best time to get a cardio workout is in the morning. I myself ride a bike to work 25 minutes each way in the morning and afternoon and one of the main reasons that I like this is that when you have a workout of any kind in the morning it will raise your metabolism for 12 hours afterward, now most of the calories that you burn would likely be during the workout by I know that I feel better for hours after my ride compared to a non riding day. Here is a breakdown of the calories consumed during some activity; it is OK to just compare them more than trying at this point to deduct them from your caloric intake per day.

Calories Burned Per Hour Per Body Weight

Activity 75 lbs 100lb 150lb 200 lb
Bicycling, 10 km/h (6 mph) 135 160 240 320
Bicycling, 20 km/h (12 mph) 225 270 410 540
Running, 9 km/h (5.5 mph) 365 440 660 880
Running, 11 km/h (7 mph) 510 610 920 1,220
Running, 16 km/h (10 mph) 710 850 1,280 1,700
Jumping Rope 415 500 750 1,000
Swimming, 23 m/min (25 yd/min) 155 185 275 370
Swimming, 46 m/min (50 yd/min) 270 325 500 650
Tennis, singles 220 265 400 530
Walking, 3 km/h (2 mph) 125 160 240 320
Walking, 5 km/h (3 mph) 175 210 320 420
Walking, 7 km/h (4.5 mph) 245 295 440 590

There are many ways to fit this cardio into your day and if the morning does not work, or you want to kick your body into high gera, then a cardio workout in the evening can be a great way to improve your health.

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Coping With Workplace Stress



Stress, stress, everywhere you look, including workplace stress. But nowhere more than at the workplace. Workplace stress causes hours and hours of lost productivity for companies, while for the employees the stress can cause ill health or the loss of their job. What are the causes of stress in your workplace and what can be done about it?

Coping With Workplace Stress

Coping With Workplace Stress

Coping With Workplace Stress

There are several issues that cause workplace stress. One of the top stressors is your workload. If there is too much work for you to handle, it’s going to cause stress. Is this a temporary problem such as a looming deadline for a big project? Temporary extra work is easier to fix if you organize yourself. Plan out your project and create lists to follow to best make use of your time. If you can outsource any of the more menial work consider doing that to reduce your load.

Another big stressor is constant interruptions. These interruptions can come in the form of phone calls, meetings, coworkers showing up at your desk, sudden priority emails, or any number of other things. Minimize the distractions as best you can; answer priority emails quickly with as few words as possible or send them on to someone else who should be handling it, turn off your phone or have an assistant hold your calls, and keep meetings short and to the point or ask if the issue can be handled by email. Sometimes it works to keep your phone ear piece on so when a coworker comes by to chat, they’ll keep on going because they think you’re on the phone. If that doesn’t stop them, let them know that you’re occupied with a task at hand but can quickly answer one question.

Conflicts and Workplace Stress

Conflicts with coworkers is another cause of work stress. Your best bet is to try to avoid any unpleasantness by avoiding the employees that give you problems as best you can. If you must work with them, try using email to communicate and stick to the assignment at hand. You can also try to adjust your attitude by finding at least one thing that’s likeable about the other person. You can still enjoy your job without having to love everybody there.

Fear of job loss can certainly cause stress. Communicate with your company to find out just how founded your fears are. Layoff rumors and business downturn stories may be untrue and unfounded. If you find the rumors are true, then you can formulate a plan and take action. Taking action reduces stress.

Sometimes the stress is from not knowing what is expected of you in your job or not knowing how to do your job. Again, communicate your concerns and ask for guidance and/or proper job training.

How to Relieve Workplace Stress

Communicating your needs with management can go a long way in relieving stress, but there additional ways. Exercise in the off hours and even stretching at your desk is known to help alleviate stress. Try a quick walk outdoors at lunchtime. Nature plus fresh air are good stress relievers.

Playing relaxing music with headphones will relax you and keep the stressors at bay. So will closing your eyes and concentrating on slowing down your breathing. Take a brief vacation in your mind to anywhere that makes you happy.

Change your perspective and attitude. Look at the problem from a distance, as if you were looking at someone else’s problem. This can help you come up with solutions. When you start replaying a conflict over and over, tell your thoughts to “Stop!”

Sometimes you just need a vacation to unwind and refresh your batteries. If you can’t get away, plan on taking some evening-only vacations and plan something fun for those evenings.

Workplace stress is a very real problem that’s not going away. Learn what causes you stress at work and find appropriate ways to deal with it from the above suggestions.

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