Health and Wellness PDF

Health and Wellness how make but Health and course will Most people go...

Health and Wellness how make but Health and course will Most people go to college to learn to a living, wellness teach you how to live, how to truly live life to its fullest potential. Some people seem to think that success is measured by how much money they make. Making a good living will not help you unless you live a wellness lifestyle that will allow you to enjoy what you earn. Regular participation in a sound physical fitness program will provide substantial health benefits and significantly decrease the risk for many chronic diseases. And although good fitness often motivates toward adoption of additional positive lifestyle behaviors, to maximize the benefits for a healthier, more productive, happier, and longer life, we have to pay attention to all seven dimensions of wellnes: physical, social, mental, emotional, occupational, environmental, and spiritual. These dimensions are interrelated and one frequently affects the other. A wellness way of life requires a constant and deliberate effort to stay healthy and achieve the highest potential for well-being within all dimensions of wellness. Lifestyle as a Health Problem As the incidence of chronic diseases rose, it became obvious that prevention was and remains the best medicine. Because of the unhealthy lifestyles that many young adults lead, their bodies may be middle aged or older! Many physical education programs do not emphasize the skills necessary for youth to maintain a high level of fitness and health throughout life. The intent of this book is to provide those skills and help to prepare you for a lifetime of physical fitness and wellness. A healthy lifestyle is self-controlled, and you can learn how to be responsible for your own hcalth and fitness. Healthy choices made today influence health for decades. Wellness Most people recognize that participating in fitness programs improves their quality of life. At the end of the 20th century, however, we came to realize that physical fitness alone was not always sufficient to lower the risk for disease and ensure better health. For example, individuals whorun 3 miles (about 5 km) a day, lift weights regularly, participate in stretching exercises, and watch their body weight might be casily classificd as having good or exccllent fitness. Offsetting these good habits, however, might be risk factors, including high blood pressure, smoking, excessive stress, drinking too much alcohol, and eating too many foods high in saturated fat. These factors place people at risk for cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases of which they may not be aware. Even though most people are aware of their unhealthy behaviors, they seem satisfied with life as long as they are free from symptoms of disease or illness. They do not contemplatechange until they incur a major health problem. Nevertheless, present lifestyle habits dictate the health and well-being of tomorrow.  Good health no longer is viewed as simply the absence of illness. The notion of good health has evolved considerably in the last few years and continues to change as scientists learn more about lifestyle factors that bring on illness and affect wellness. Furthermore, once the idea took hold that fitness by itself would not always decrease the risk for disease and ensure better health, health promotion programs and the wellness concept followed. Wellness implies a constant and deliberate effort to stay healthy and achieve the highest potential for wellbeing. Wellness requires implementing positive lifestyle habits to change behavior and thereby improve health and quality of life, prolong life, and achieve total wellbeing. Living a wellness way of life is a personal choice, but you may need additional support to achieve wellness goals. Thus, health promotion programs have been developed to educate people regarding healthy lifestyles and provide the necessary support to achieve wellness. For example, you may be prepared to initiate an aerobic exercise program, but if you are not familiar with exercise prescription guidelines or places to exercise safely, or if you lack peer support or flexible scheduling to do so, you may have difficulty accomplishing your goal. Similarly, if you want to quit smoking but do not know how to do it and everyone else around you smoke, the chances for success are limited. To some extent, the environment limits your choices. Hence, the availability of a health promotion program would provide the much-needed support to get started and implement a wellness way of life. The Seven Dimension of Wellness Wellness has seven dimensions: physical, emotional, mental, social, environmental, occupational, and spiritual. These dimensions are interrelated: One frequently affccts the others. For example, a person who is emotionally "down" often has no desire to exercise, study, socialize with friends, or attend church, and he or she may be more susceptible to illness and disease. 1. Physical Wellness Physical wellness is the dimension most commonly associated with being healthy. It entails confidence and optimism about one's ability to protect physical health and take care of hcalth problems. Physically well individuals are physically active, exercise regularly, eat a well-balanced diet, maintain recommended body weight, get sufficient sleep, practice safe sex, minimize exposure toenvironmental contaminants, avoid harmful drugs (including tobacco and excessive alcohol), and seek medical care and exams as needed. Physically well people also exhibit good cardiorespiratory endurance, adequate muscular strength and flexibility, proper body composition, and the ability to carry out ordinary and unusual demands of daily life safely and effectively 2. Emotional Wellness  Emotional wellness involves the ability to understand your own feelings, accept your limitations, and achieve emotional stability. Furthermore, it implies the ability to express emotions appropriately, adjust to change, cope with stress in a healthy way, and cnjoy life despite its occasional disappointments and frustrations. Emotional wellness brings with it a certain stability, an ability to look both success and failure squarely in the face and keep moving along a predetermined course. When success is evident, the emotionally well person radiates the expected joy and confidence. When failure seems evident, the emotionally well person responds by making the best of circumstances and moving beyond the failure. Wellness enables move ahead with optimism and energy you to instead of spending time and talent worrying about failure. You learn from it, identify ways to avoid it in the future, and then go on with the business at hand. 3. MentalWellness Mental wellness, also referred to as intellectual wellness, implies that you can apply the things you have learned, create opportunities to learn more, and engage your mind in lively interaction with the world around you. When you are mentally well, you are not intimidated by facts and figures with which you are unfamiliar, but you embrace the chance to learm something new. Your confidence and enthusiasm cnable you to approach any lcarning situation with eagerness that leads to success. Mental wellness brings with it vision and promise. More than anything else, mentally well people are openminded and accepting of others. Instead of being threatened by people who arc different from themselves, they show respect and curiosity without fecling they have to conform. They are faithful to their own ideas and philosophies and allow others the same privilege. Their self-confidence guarantees that they can take their place among others in the world without having to give up part of themselves and without requiring others to do the same. 4. Social Wellness Social wellness, with its accompanying positive self-image, endows you with the ease and confidence to be outgoing, friendly,and afectionate toward others. Social welIness involves a concern for onesclf and also an interest in humanity and the environment as a whole. One of the hallmarks of social wellness is the ability to relate to others and to reach out to other people, both within one's family and outside it. Similar to emotional wellness, it involves being comfortable with your emotions and thus helps you understandand accept the emotions of others. Your own balance and sense of self allow you to extend respect and tolerance to others. Healthy people are honest and loyal. This dimension of wellness leads to the ability to maintain close relationships with other people. 5. Environmental Wellness  Environmental wellness refers to the effect that our surroundings have on our well-being. Our planet is a delicate ecosystem, and its health depends on the continuous recycling of its clements. Environmental wellness implies a lifestyle that maximizes harmony with the carth and taking action to protect the world around us. Environmental threats include air pollution, chemicals, ultraviolet radiation in the sunlight, water and food contamination, secondhand smoke, noise, inadequate shelter, unsatisfactory work conditions, lack of personal safety, and unhealthy relationships. Hcalth is affected negatively when we live in a polluted, toxic, unkind,and unsafe environment. 6.Occupational Wellness Occupational wellness is not tied to high salary, prestigious position, or extravagant working conditions. Any job can bring occupational wellness if it provides rewards that are important to the individual. To one person, salary might be the most important factor, whereas another might place much greater value on creativity. 7. Spiritual Wellness Spiritual wellness provides a unifying power that integrates all dimensions of wellness. Basic characteristics of spiritual people include a sense of meaning and direction in life and a relationship to a higher being. Pursuing these avenues may lead to personal freedom, including prayer, faith, love, closeness to others, peace, joy, fulfillment, and altruism. Several studies have reported positive relationships among spiritual well-being, emotional well-being, and satisfaction with life. People who attend church and regularly participate in religious organizations enjoy better health, have a lower incidence of chronic diseases, handle stress more effectively, and apparently live longer. Prayer is a signpost of our spirituality, at the core of most spiritual experiences. It is communication with a higher power. At least 200 studies have been conducted on the cffects of prayer on health. About two-thirds of these studies have linked prayer to positive health outcomes as long as these prayers are offered with sincerity, humility, love, empathy, and compassion.Some studies have shown faster healing time and fewer complications in patients who didn't even know they were being praycd for, comparcd with patients who were not prayed for. Altruism, a key attribute of spiritual people, seems to enhance health and longevity. Studies indicate that people who regularly volunteer live longer. Research has found that health benefits of altruism are so powerful that doing good for others is good for oneself, especially for the immunesystem. The relationship between spirituality and wellness is meaningful in our quest for a better quality of life. As with the other dimensions, development of the spiritual dimension to its fullest potential contributes to wellness. Wellness requires a balance among all of its seven dimensions.  ¢ Health Benefits ofaComprehensive Wellness Program Most people exercise because it improves their personal appearance and makes them feel good about themsclves.Although many benefits accrue from participating in a regular fitncss and wellness program and active people generally live longer, the greatest benefit of all is that physically fi t individuals enjoy a better quality of life. These people live 1ife to its fullest, with fewer health problems than inactive individuals (who also may indulge in other negative lifestyle behaviors). Although compilingan all-inclusive list of the benefits reaped from participating in a fitness and wellness program is difficult, the following list summarizes many of them. A fitness and wellness program: improves and strengthens the cardiorespiratory system. maintains better muscle tone, muscular strength, and endurance. improves muscular flexibility. enhances athletic performance. helps maintain recommended body weight. helps preserve lean body tissue. increases resting metabolic rate. improves the body's ability to use fat during physical activity improves posture and physical appearance. improves functioning of the immune system. lowers the risk for chronic diseases and illness (such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer). decreases the mortality rate from chronic diseases thins the blood so it doesn't clot as readily (thereby decreasing the risk for coronary heart disease and strokes). Healthy Lifestyle Habits Research indicates that adhering to the following 12 lifestyle habits will significantly improve health and extend life. 1. Participate in a lifetime physical activity program. Exercise regularly at least 3 times per week and try to accumulate a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity most days of the week. The 30 minutes should include 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise at least 3 times per weck, along with strengthening and stretching excrcises 2 to 3 times per weck. 2. Do not smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of illness and premature death in the United States. If we include allrelated deaths, smoking is responsible for more than 440,000 unnccessary deaths cach ycar. 3. Eat right. Eat a good break fast and two additional well-balanced meals every day. Avoid cating too many calories, processed foods, and foods with a lot of sugar, fat, and salt. Increase your daily consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products. 4. Avoid snacking. Some researchers recommend refraining from frequent between-meal snacks. Every time a person eats, insulin is released to remove sugar from the blood. Such frequent spikes in insulin may contribute to the development of heart disease. Less frequent increases of insulin are more conducive to good health. 5. Maintain recommended body weight through adequate nutrition and exercise. This is important in preventing chronic diseases and in developinga higher level of fitness. 6. Get enough rest. Sleep 7 to 8 hours each night. 7. Lower your stress levels. Reduce your vulnerability to stress and practice stress management techniques as needed. 8. Be wary of alcohol. Drink alcohol moderately or not at all. Alcohol abuse leads to mental, cmotional, physical, and social problems. 9. Surround yourself with healthy friendships. Unhealthy friendships contribute to destructive behaviors and low self-esteem. Associating with people who strive to maintain good fitness and health reinforces a positive outlook in life and encouragespositive behaviors. Constructive social interactions enhance wellbeing. Researchers have also found that mortality rates are much higher among people who are socially isolated. People who aren't socially integrated are more likely to "give up when seriously ill" which accelerates dying. 10. Be informed about the environment. Seck clean air, clean water, and a clean environment.Be aware of pollutants and occupational hazards: asbestos fibers, nickel dust, chronmate, uranium dust, and so on. Take precautions when using pesticides and insecticides. 11. Increase education. Data indicate that people who are more educated live longer. The theory is that as cducation incrcases, so do the number of connections between nerve cells. The increased number of connections in turn helps the individual make better survival (healthy lifestyle) choices. 12. Take personal safety measures.Although not all accidents are preventable, many are. Taking simple precautionary measures-such as using seat belts and keeping electrical appliances away from water-lessens the risk for avoidable accidents.  The Wellness Chalenge of the 21st Century 1. Personalresponsibility for health behavior. Individuals need to become ever more health conscious. Responsibleand informed behaviors are the keys to good health. 2. Health benefits for all people and all communities. Lower socioeconomic conditions and poor health often are interrelated. Extending the benefits of good health to all people is crucial to the health of the nation. 3. Health promotion and disease prevention. A shift from treatment to preventive techniques will drastically cut health care costs and help all Americans achieve a better quality of life PRINCIPLES OF EXERCISE This lesson reviews some of the general principles of cxercise and progression. Understandingand following these principles will help you achieve your desired results. A. Overload A principle of exercise that states that the only way to improve fitness is to increase over tme. This can mean increasing the amount of resistance, increasing the amount of time, or increasing the speed. When just beginning an exercise, it is generally difficult. Over time as it becomes easier todo, it is important to apply the overload principle by increasing resistance, time, or speed in order to continue progressing. Ex. When strength training, you would overload by increasing the amount ofweight you lift. For aerobic activities, such as running, overloading means increasing the speed, distance, or intensity-although only one at a time. To increase your speed, pick up your pace per mile slightly. To increase your distance, add ½ mile or mile to your usual route. To increase intensity, try running hills. B. Progression A principle of exercise that states that a person should start slowly and increase exercise gradually. Ex. Progression can refer to both progressing slowly over a large span of time, such as weeks or months, AND progression within a single workout. For instance, you may start a runningprogram by running one mile and progress one half mile each week until you are running five miles.  Likewise, in a single running session, you may start at a brisk walk, then jog at a 1Sminute-mile pace for a few minutes, then increase to a 13-minute-mile pace, and eventually to a 12-minute-mile pace. Why are overload and Progression necessary? If you run two miles going the same route and the samespeed four times a week for two months, your body willbecome bored. Those two miles will be so much easier to run at the end of two months than it was at the beginning. Your body will have adapted to the pace, distance, and intensity and will not have to work as hard to perform. Thus, your fitness level will not be improving or progressing. Overloading a little bit at a time allows you to improve your performance and increase your fitness level. C. Specificity A principle of exercise that states that specific kinds of exercises must be done to develop specific aspects of the body and specific aspects of fitness. Basically, exercise in a manner that will get you to your goals. Ex. Allexercise will help condition your body generally, but different exercises work your muscles in different ways. So, if you are looking for specific results, use specific exercises. For instance, if your goal is to run a 5k,you should train by running, not by cycling. Cycling will not use your muscles in the same manner as running. If youwant to increase the strength ofyour biceps, use weights or resistance and do some bicep curls. If you want to swim a mile, practice swimming. D.Reversibility This principle states that if you don't maintain a regular exercise program, your state of physical fitness will regress. In other words, use it or lose it! Ex. Studies have shown that even after one week of inactivity, there is evident loss in performance. Within two to three months of inactivity, one can see a total reversal of all benefits from previous activity. Everyone has weeks of vacation, illness, or schedule conflicts that prevent them from exercising. However, it is important to keep in mind that there will some be setbacks and a necessary re-conditioning phase when you start exercising again. You can't expect to  come back to your workouts at the same level you were before taking a break. Take things slowand build back up using progression and overload. E.Individuality This principle maintains that no two individuals will benefit from exercise exactly the same way physically or psychologically. Difference in genetics, age, cxpericnce, body size, and health status can all affect the outcomes of a workout. Ex. What works for one person may not work for the next. This is important to keep in mind for two reasons: 1. Don't compare yourself to others. Everyone will have a different genetic make-up and life situation than you, thus even if you are doing the same workouts, you may see different results. 2. Listen to your body. Find what works best for you and stick with it! Physical Fitness Components As the fitness concept grew at the end of the last century, it became clear that several specific components contribute to an individual's overall level of fitness. Physical fitness is classified into health-related and skill-related fitness. Health-Related Component Health-related fitness is related to the ability to perform activities of daily living without undue fatigue and is conducive to a low risk for premature hypokinetic diseases. The health related fitness components are cardiorespiratory (aerobic) endurance, muscular strength and endurance,muscular flexibility, and body composition. 1. Cardiovascular Endurance Cardiovascular endurance (also known as cardiorespiratory endurance or aerobic fitness) refers to your body's ability to efficicntly and effectively intake oxygen and deliver it to your body's tissues by way of the heart, lungs, arteries, vessels, and veins. By engaging in regular exercise that challenges your heart and lungs, you can:  Maintain or even improve the efficient delivery and uptake of oxygen to your body's systems Enhance cellular metabolism Ease the physical challenges of everyday life 2. Museular Endurance Muscular endurance is one of two factors that contribute to overall muscular health. Think of muscular endurance as a particular muscle group's ability to continuously contract against a given resistance. Long-distance cyclists offer a clear example. To continuously pedal a bike over a long distance, often up steep inclines, cyclists have to develop fatigue-resistant muscles in their legs and glutes. These are evidenceof a high level of muscular endurance. Likewise,holding a plank to develop core strength is another example of muscular endurance. The longer you're able to contract your abdominals and hold your body in a steady position, the greater endurance you have through your hips, abdominals, and shoulders. The extent to which you choose to focus on muscular endurance should be directly related to your own health or fitness goals. It's important to recalize that muscular endurance is muscle group-specific. This means you can develop high levels of endurance in some muscle groups (like cyclists building cndurance in their legs) without necessarily developing the same lvel of endurance in other muscle groups, depending on your needs. But if you want to become an endurance athlete capable of competing in sports that require continual muscle contraction, such as obstacle course races, CrossFit, or cycling. you may want to place a higher focus on training regimens that use high-repetition strength training and sport specific activity to make you a better athlete. 3. Muscular Strength While muscular endurance refers to how fatigue-resistant a particular muscle group is, muscular strength refers to the amount of force a particular muscle group can produce in one, all-out effort. In strength training terms, it's your one-rep max. Like muscular endurance, muscular strength is muscle group-specific. In other words, you may have incredibly strong glutes, but comparatively weak deltoids; or incredibly strong pectoral muscles, but comparatively weak hamstrings. This is why a wel-balanced strength training program that targets allof your major muscle groups is so important.  The extent to which you train for strength is, again, determined by your own health and fitness goals. For instance, if your focus is on health, you know you should be strong enough to lift a heavy box or to casily stand up from a chair. In this circumstance, enhanced muscular strength may be a byproduct of a workout routine focused more on developing muscular endurance. If, however, you want to develop muscle mass or to be able to lift heavier weights at the gym, your training regimen should be focused more on lifting heavy weights. I's possible to improve muscular strength and cndurance at the same time. This can be done in conjunction with cardiovascular training. For instance, circuit-training routines that combine strength exercises and cardio into a single bout of training can make your exercise program more efficient. 4. Flexibility Flexibility refers to the range of motion you have around a given joint. Like muscular strength and endurance,flexibility is joint-specific. For instance, you may have very flexible shoulders, but tight and inflexible hamstrings or hips. Flexibility is important at any age. It plays a role in unhindered movement and can affect your balance, coordination, and agility. Maintaining a full range of motion through your major joints can reduce the likelihood of injury and enhance athletic performance. As you get older, the importance of flexibility becomes even clearer. Think of individuals who are elderly: Many may walk with a shuffle or have a hard time reaching their arms over their heads. This may affect their quality of life, making it more challenging to perform activities of daily living, such as reaching items on high shelves, picking up items off the floor, or simply moving effectively to catch their balance if they start to fall. While completely stopping the aging process isn't possible, protecting your joints and maintaining mobility can help keep you spry well into your later years. How to Increase Flexibility There are simple ways you can work flexibility exercises into your day: Static stretching, where you hold a stretch for 10 to 30 seconds at a time  Workouts that take you through dynamic stretching exercises, such as barre, yoga, Tai Chi, or Pilates Active stretching, such as lifting your leg up high and holding it there, uses the contraction of the opposing muscle to relax the muscle being stretched. Passive stretching, also called relaxed stretching, where you assume a stretch position and hold it with assistance of another part of your body, a partner, or apparatus, like a strap. Isometric stretching, a type of static stretching, uscs resistance to alternate between relaxing and contracting the muscle. 5. Body Composition. Body composition is a method of breaking down the body into its core components: fat, protein, minerals, and body water. It describes your weight more accurately and provides a better glimpse into your overall health than traditional methods. Body composition analysis can accurately show changes in fat mass, muscle mass, and body fat percentage. Skill-Related Component It consists of agility, balance, coordination, reaction time, speed, and power. These components are related primarily to successful sports and motor skill performance. Although participating in skill-related activities contributes to physical fitness, in terms of general health promotion and wellness, the main emphasis of physical fitness programs should be on the health related components. That is the focus of this book. 1. Power Power combines speed and strength. In essence, it's how fast you can generate a maxinmal force. In sports, "power athletes" are those who exert brute strength in short, all-out cfforts, such as Olympic weightlifters, football players, and gymnasts. But athletes in other sports, like basketball, volleyball, and tennis, can also benefit from developing greater power. Jumping to get a rebound requires leg power, while forcefully spiking a volleyball requires a combinationof upper- and lower-body power. Enhance your power by combining resistance and spccd with fast-paced strength-training moves, such as: Plyometric box jumps Pushing a weighted sled while sprinting Clean and jerk lifts Kettlebell swings 2. Speed  When you think of speed, you might think of an event like the 100-meter sprint. But speed, by nature, is relative. An elite 100-meter sprinter needs to be very, very fast, but only for about 10seconds. On the other hand, if a marathon runner wants to improve their speed to set a new personal best, they might aim to reduce their per-mile race pace from 10 minutes per mile to 9.5 minutes per mile, a speed they would have to maintain for a little over four hours. These two fictional athletes train differently, but with a similar goal: become faster for their sports. So speed training will differ based on the sport you're training for. Regardless of sport, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is one of the best ways to improve speed. This training involves working at an all-out or near all-out effort for set periods of time, followed by set periods of rest.3 It repeatedly challenges your aerobic and anaerobic systems, teaching your muscles, heart, and lungs to grow accustomed to working at higher levels of intensity. The length and intensity of the intervals you use will be longer or shorter, less challenging or more, depending on your sport. Runners can try HIIT speed drills like these: For marathon training: Try mile repeats, a style of interval training where the runner goes all-out for a full mile before resting and doing it again. For sprint training: Focus on shorter intervals. A sprinter would be better off performing shorter, more intense intervals ranging from 40- to 400-meters in length, runníng all-out, and then resting before repeating. These same concepts apply whether you want to be faster in swimming, cycling, or even sports like soccer and basketball. Interval training featuring bouts of high-intensity exercise related to your specific sport can help you improve your speed 3. Agility Agility is the ability to move quickly and to easily change direction. Basketball players, for instance, are incredibly agile. They have to move in every dircction, jumping, sliding, twisting, and backpedaling in quick response movement of the ball and to the other players. Their bodies have to be trained to respond and change course at the drop of a hat. Agility drills commonly involve exercises that develop foot speed and direction change,such as: Ladder drills: Usc an agility ladder to practice quick and spccific foot placement.  Cone drills: Set up cones in a "T" or star shape, then sprint, slide, backpedal, or change direction depending on which cone youre approaching. 4. Coordination So many sports and activities require well-honed hand-eye (or foot-eye) coordination, including badminton, golf, soccer, basketball, football, racquetball, archery, softball, ultimate Frisbee, and more. All require you to be able to see an external object and respond precisely with your hands and/or feet to meet a pre-determined objective. Think of hitting a golf ball off a tee, catching a fly bal, or blocking a shot on net in hockey or soccer. To improve your coordination, try exercises such as: Playing catch Jumping rope Juggling Dribbling a ball Throwing objects at specific targets 5. Balance Gymnasts, yogis, skaters, and surfers all need highly refined balance skills to be able to participate in their sports. But these aren't the only athletes who benefit from balance training. Balance itself refers to your ability to adjust your body position to remain upright. It deals with proprioception, or knowing where your body is in space, and being able to make adjustments to your position as your center of gravity changes during movement. There are few sports where balance doesn't play an important role, and there are lots of activities where balance is required for enhanced performance and safety. Trail runners, for instance, benefit from balance training because it can help prevent them from rolling an ankle or taking a nasty fallafter tripping over a root or slipping on a muddy path. To train your balance, try: Standing on one foot Standing yoga poses BOSU ball workouts Using balance discs to perform squats, lunges, and push-ups 6. Reaction Timne  Reactiontime refers to how quickly you can respond to an external stimulus. Think about a tennis match for a moment: The best competitors react almost instantaneously when the ball comes off their opponent's racquet, sprinting toward the location where they expcct the ball to bounce. Reaction time hinges heavily on your mind-body connection. Your eyes see a stimulus, your mind interprets the stimulus, and your body reacts in accordancewith that interpretation. Much of this mind-body reaction relates to knowledge of the sport or activity in question. A professional tennis player can almost instantly interpret and predict the movement of a ball. This knowledge enables them to react more quickly (and accurately) to the stimulus. On the other hand, a novice tennis player may see the ball coming off the opponent's racquet, but won't be able to interpret what they're seeing as quickly, causing their reaction time to slow. Reaction-time training tends to be sport-specific, but these activities can help: Fielding a ball (softball, baseball) Protecting the goal as other players try to score (soccer, hockey, lacrosse) Tools such as lopsided reaction balls Playing table tennis or hacky sack Basic Nutrition Good nutrition is essential to overall health and wellness. Proper nutrition mcans that a person's diet supplies all the essential nutrients for healthy body functioning, including normal tissue growth, repair, and maintenance. The diet should also provide enough substrates to produce the energy necessary for work, physical activity, and relaxation. Nutrient Good Sources Major Functions Deficiency Symptoms 1. Calcium Milk, yogurt, cheese, Required for strong Bone pain and green leafy teeth and bone fractures, periodontal vegetables, dried formation; disease, muscle beans, sardines, maintenance of good cramps salmon muscle tone, heartbeat, and nerve function. 2. Copper Seafood, meats, Helps with iron Anemia (although beans, nuts, whole absorption and deficiency is rare in grains hemoglobin humans). formation; required to