Sodium bicarbonate - Good and bad for health

Sodium bicarbonate is an extremely cheap and accessible to medicine to treat indigestion. It's usually good when you don't feel well after having had a heavy meal. However, this is not a recommended medicine as a long-term solution, and usually it's not recommended to have sodium bicarbonate for periods of more than one week.

In particular, people older than 60 years and people with high blood pressure should consult a doctor, because sodium bicarbonate is high in sodium and can increase blood-pressure.

Although it's immediate effectiveness to cure indigestion is known, it's abuse may cause other more complex digestion disorders. So better do some research if someone tells you to have it every day as a complement for life.

India: Health tips to prevent water and food poisoning when travelling

In 2013 I travelled three months backpacking around Nepal, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka (former Ceylon) and Vietnam. I always like to absorb the local culture wherever I go, but this time, because I was a bit more concerned about my health, because I was planning to travel alone, stay at the cheapest and shabbiest guesthouses, eat mainly local food at local restaurants or in the streets, and move around visiting shabby old little villages where hygiene habits were bad.

From all, my biggest concern was India, where I was planning to stay at Shirdi, Aurangabad and Varanasi (Benares), because of the negative feedback I had had from friends that always (or too often) get food poisoning when they travel there. This was my second time to the country, but my first time alone and in a wilder way.

I did all I planned to do and experimented all the foods I was curious about, and ate and drank regularly at street-stalls. Here are some tips I followed and that helped me not to get sick a single time:

Insomnio: Consejo del día para ayudar a inducir el sueño

Nuestro consejo del día para los problemas de insomnio.

Éste es un excelente ejercicio de Pilates para la columna y la espalda, pero también es un excelente ejercicio para antes de ir a dormir, porque ayuda a inducir el sueño, gracias a que relaja de una forma muy efectiva los músculos de la espalda, hombros, cuello, y es desestresante:

TIp of the day for people with insomnia

Our tip of the day for people with insomnia:

When you go to bed to sleep, stretch you back. The more simple way is by leaving your legs and knees stretched and trying to touch your feet with your hands. Reach as far as you can, but remain there. Try to stay in that stretched position for a minute, and feel how your whole back relaxes little by little from the tension of the stretching. Try to remain in the stretching position, feeling your muscles relaxing little by little, and stretching more little by little.

Another way to do it, which is even better, is lying on the floor (ideally on a carpet or a mat); lift your stretched legs on top of your head and try touch the floor with your feet. Just reach as far as you can, but without forcing yourself too much. This is a Pilates exercise that is very good for stretching your back. Stay for at least a minute in that position, but be careful not to feel too dizzy and pass-out (the thing is that if you force yourself too much you may feel that the blood stops flowing to your head).

Tip of the day: Help against insomnia

Today's tip for helping against insomnia:

Before going to sleep drink a glass of hot milk. If you can add lime-blossom to it to make an infusion, so much better. But warm milk is a popular treatment for going to sleep. However, if your insomnia is chronic, click here to read my previous post.

Cómo curar el insomnio crónico

Como regla general se puede afirmar que las sugerencias más comunes que se dan para curar el insomnio temporal no funcionan para curar el insomnio crónico. Y me refiero a todas esas recomendaciones que todo el mundo empieza a darnos cuando escuchan que tenemos problemas para dormir, y así es como terminamos por escuchar por centécima vez los mismos "antídotos infalibles" que en realidad nunca funcionan.

Por insomnio me refiero a tener dificultades para dormirse todas las noches, y además no poder mantener un sueño continuo. Uno se despierta varias veces por noche, y a veces no puede volver a dormirse con facilidad. Y cuando esto es crónico quiere decir que a vivido así durante una buena parte de su vida. Normalmente desde la infancia.

La siguiente es una lista de algunas de las sugerencias más comunes que las personas me "recetan" y que no funcionan para curar definitivamente este problema crónico:

Tips on how to cure chronic insomnia

Usually most tips for curing temporal insomnia do not work for treating chronic insomnia. By this I mean the well know list of recommendations that people usually repeat whenever they hear that you have problems to sleep (either talking too long to fall asleep, or walking up too often during the night). The list of usual suggestions we receive are:

Lemmon Juice and its beneficial properties for the health

Benefits of the lemon juice

Lemmon has many properties that are good for health, but we have to be careful because it is also very corrosive for our teeth. That's why it's recommended to dilute it in water before we drink it, and, preferably, warm water.

Here are the main beneficial properties of lemon juice: