Your Health Depends On Where You Live

Bill Davenhall - Your Health Depends On Where You Live

This is the TED talk I have chosen for my health-related blog post. The speaker is Bill Davenhall who shows the importance of environment in our lives. He works in the U.S., where he has been living his entire life, as a Senior Health Adviser at ESRI. The video is filmed in October 2009 and is approximately 9 minutes long. The goal he is trying to accomplish is to include environmental and geographical data and merging them into patient's medical record together with medication and surgery history.

Summary

Having experienced the heart attack few years ago Bill decided to find the culprit of it. He started looking where no other doctor had looked before: environment. Air and toxic gases, that factories are letting out and which we inhale every day are damaging our health. But we do not worry about it because they are insidious. What we cannot see cannot harm us, right? Our body and our health depend highly not only on our lifestyle and genetics, but on the environment as well.  

3 useful phrases from the video

Geo-medicine - this is new branch of the medicine so many people haven't even heard about it yet. It is the branch of medicine that takes the environmental, climatic and topographic* impact into consideration. It uses modern technology to see the connection between the patient's health and the exposure to the places he/she has been. This is happening while the patient is in doctor's office. 

(source: https://www.esri.com/library/ebooks/geomedicine.pdf
  http://medicaldictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Geomedicine)

*topography is earth science, graphic representation of the surface features of a place or region

Intensive care ward - if you would suffer from serious disease like trauma (injury), sepsis or organ failure, you would be put in an intensive care ward. It is a room in hospital separated from the rest of the hospital and there work highly trained doctors and nurses. If you're in emergency department and your condition deteriorates, this would require immediate transport to the intensive care unit.

(source:http://medicaldictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ward

               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_care_unit)

to recuperate from emergency surgery - if you're recuperating from a surgery it means your recovering, your condition is getting better,  you regain your strength, be on the mend
(source: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/regain)

What is the takeaway message for me?

I am glad I stumbled upon this topic by accident because this is the topic I really like. What I like about it is that Bill took example from his life, his experience and based on that explained why is the area where you live so important for your health. People always talk about how air is polluted, how others don't recycle and how we should start taking care of the planet. But have doctor's taken this global problems into account? No. I hope that you, dear readers, as well as my friends and family will take environment into account next time you don't feel well or feel something is not the way it should be. This is tightly connected to the environmental problems and pollution and I honestly hope that people will start taking care of the planet because it means taking care of your health as well. 

Presentation skills

The first thing that caught my eye was the introduction. First, he starts with rhetoric question: "Can geographic information make you healthy?" It's interesting because the question is so simple but it really makes you think. And, in my opinion, it is because people never really thought about it or read about it. It continues with metaphor he later explains. He says: "In 2001 I got hit by a train. My train was a heart attack." His entire presentation is accompanied by a very good presentation that makes it easier to understand. He speaks in a normal speed and uses words everyone can understand so his message can be delivered to everyday people and not only experts of this field. He also has few humorous moments and what definitely intrigued the audience to pay attention throughout the presentation.

I hope you enjoyed my post and learned some new words as well as notice some tips for the presentation you thought were irrelevant before. If you want to find out more about geomedicine here is the link to Bill's official website:
http://www.esri.com/industries/health/geomedicine
https://www.esri.com/library/ebooks/geomedicine.pdfHis Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BillDavenhall
And some of his posts in Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-davenhall/

"Study hard and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so and the consequences may be… severe."

Even though, I hate Umbirdge as much any other Harry Potter fan does, I cannot deny this statement. You cannot run away from your responsibilities because they’ll track you down in your free time, sleep… And you'll be in bigger problems than you're now.

I decided to write a free post for all of you who have just seen what our next months will look like. Well, I'm extremely bad with time management and during the exams is the smartest idea to practise it! Before „that time of the year“ begins (I'm not talking about Christmas though), I decided to make a study plan for upcoming months. I was almost shocked when I saw how many exams are ahead of me. I started panicking a bit because I wasn't sure where to start or how to organize my time. So, I sat down, took a sheet of paper wrote down some tips that may help: 

You should be studying  

Draw a calendar (or use Word, whatever suits you best) and mark all of the important dates like exams, presentations, culture days, concerts (you cannot study all the time, you need a break too)…For each subject write down what topics will be covered in an exam so you already know what your stronger and weaker topics are. For example, you know your mother tongue better than a foreign language, so you’ll need more time, practice and patience to master it.

After you've familiarized yourself with exam stuff, divide them into smaller sections. Every day do a little bit of everything. In that way, there's no chance you'll find yourself in June with a pile of books to read or countless pages to learn.

Make sure you take breaks every now and then. You're not a robot and you need a break. Make some coffee, go out for a walk, play games, run or go to gym, draw, do something that relaxes you. By all means. Do not work the whole day or you'll go crazy.

This sounds perfect so far, does it? And it sounds relatively easy to accomplish and you feel enthusiastic: "Yes, I can do it and I will do it!" Good job, that's the spirit. But, as it usually happens, excitement that you have now doesn't really last. Usually, when things get slightly harsh, students tend to surrender and leave all the work until the very last minute. Don't do that to yourself. Be a bit more determined.

When it gets harsh and you want to give up, remind yourself how lucky you actually are. Be thankful that you have the chance to go to college and to be buried under a pile of books and papers. Not everyone in this world has that chance.  Knowing that I have a chance to live a decent life and help other people who don’t, pushes me beyond my mental limits and gives me strength to go on.

    

Remember: Your Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Stomach

Here is a recipe for all of you who are too busy to spent hours and hours in the kitchen. This one is very simple and it doesn't take a lot of time, but it's not exactly a light meal. And always remember:

"Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"

This dish will prove you the true meaning of this idiom expression. And please, don't stuff yourself, trust me, you won't be able to breathe.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp. (60 ml.) cooking oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 boneless, skinless halved chicken breasts (around 500 g. or 1 lb.)
18 oz. (about 550 g.) gnocchi
2 lb. (1 kg.) cheese (Gouda),  grated
3 tsp. (of Vegeta (powdered boullion or any other condiment which is a mixture of spices and various vegetables)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 qt. (about 0,5 lt.) cream
1 tbsp. (15 g.) fresh parsley, chopped
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. red pepper

Salad:
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 green onion, sliced
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. pumpkin oil
1/4 tsp. salt
Toss the salad with vinegar and pumpkin oil.

Let's start:

Pour the oil in the large pan and heat it on high flame. Fry the chopped onions for few minutes, until they are soft and their color is somewhere between gold and yellow. Season the chicken breasts with the salt and Vegeta. Add the meat to the pan and mix together with the onions. Add a little bit of water if needed. Leave this to sauté on a low flame for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, put another pot filled with water on the stove and bring to the boil. When the temperature is at  100 °C, add the gnocchi. Boil for a few minutes, and when they bob to the surface, scoop them out with a slotted spoon. If you prefer to drain them in a colander, you can do that instead.

After sautéing the meat, pour cream all over the meat and add the cheese grated. Stir gently and slowly so it doesn't spill out. Add all the spices and herbs (curry powder, powdered red pepper and chopped parsley) and bring to the boil while stirring.

Take a soup bowl and put the gnocchi in first. Then pour the sauce with meat over it. You can serve it with a salad if you like.

Enjoy!

Dobar tek! 

Meet Hobbit

My name is Hanja and I am a 20-year-old student from Croatia. First of all, I will explain the title. In high school I got a nickname "Frodo" and "Hobbit" due to my height and because I love Lord of the Rings. After that it kind of stuck around.These days all of my friends call me like that and I do not mind it at all.  I am very sporty person who tried many sports like athletics, swimming and skiing before I discovered sport that I immediately fell in love with. Here is a picture and a video of my passion. I've been training this sport and competing in it for 12 years (Can you guess what sport am I talking about?). Throughout my life in my hometown Varaždin I dedicated all of my free time to it. A lot of people ask me if I regret spending six days a week in the gym while other people had fun. No, simply because being in the gym made me happy and it taught me some really valuable lessons about life, like dedication and determination.

The answer is gymnastics. On the picture you can see gymnastic grips, type of equipment used on uneven bars. This short video is from one of my last practices on which I am doing two and a half twist into the foam pit. Oh, I just love the feeling of falling in the foam pit after a twist or backflip. Priceless! My favorite apparatus was floor. Even though I do not compete anymore, due to my injury, I still practice to stay in shape. I also work as a referee and help around in the gym as a coach.

In my free time I like to draw. My, so to say, specialty, are characters from computer games like “League of Legends”. Not only am I interested in drawing, but also playing this game with my friends. It is great way of having fun and talking to them at the same time. 

I also like to travel with my friends. There is nothing more fun than going in a foreign country and just wandering around, visiting extraordinary places that are usually hidden from tourist’s eyes. Speaking from experience, real adventure starts when you do something unusual. For instance, if you climb a hill at 2:00 a.m.  in a cold, winter night just for the view and have drink with your friends there.

Well, that would be all you need to know about me. Just kidding. :)
Feel free to ask me any question.