By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
A friend passed by the office today. After the usual “kumustas” we casually compared notes on our health. Nothing really new. Being in our 60’s some health vagaries on both sides became the subject matters of our discussion.
He then mentioned the 4Ts representing matters he must remember or guard against. These you knew about since kindergarten, but no harm in reminding ourselves about them.
Number 1 is “TULOG.” As he put it, a person must get enough rest or sleep everyday. He once went through having a super high blood pressure 250/140 and he found out the necessity of getting enough sleep. Despite denials from some quarters, we know when we were able to get enough sleep the night before. That nice feeling of having been fully refreshed is something we all have experienced. What is enough is not only about sleeping long enough but also about how deep it was. And these differ from one person to another, among so many other things.
The next T according to him refers to “TUBIG.” He has to drink 8 to 12 glasses, or even more, of water everyday. The importance of water cannot be overemphasized but it is worth mentioning that despite our knowledge about this, we often forget about it.
We have to recall again what is often said, what we say is not really important. What matters is what we do. How much water do we really drink everyday? So as my friend related, he was prescribed also to get into a cleansing program to avoid getting again that ‘super high’ blood pressure and a big part of that was drinking lots of water.
The 3rd T represents TSIBUG or food intake. He is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church so he knew about vegetarianism but had been compromising on his discipline regarding this. As a result, he almost got a stroke. Now, he is working his way towards becoming strict again.
The last T in his code is on TRABAHO. Actually, he was referring to physical exercise but he used the word trabaho as he wanted it to start with a T. So what he meant was physical exertion to make him sweat. It was a part of the cleansing he was made to undergo.
No matter how hardworking you are if your work is mental, you have to do some trabaho.
To repeat, we have known about these since we were in diapers, but are we doing them?
I contributed another code, it is M&M. I am not referring to that sweet and addicting chocolate. It is about something we should avoid—matamis at maalat.
Being part of my health sins was being fond of maalat and maasin. But lately, I had to get used to bland foods as I now have to avoid sweet and salty foods due to my high blood.
While things are starting to get better as far as my health is concerned, we have to add the letter “O” which stands for another thing to avoid—OILY foods.
Yes, being fond of fried foods was one of my deadly health sins.
All of these only requires a change in taste. As simple as that. . . . but easier said than done.
So there, nothing new. If you knew what was good for you, chances are, you had been reading the column of Dr. Penny A. Domogo in this paper and you would know that she had been repeating these over and over again, ad nauseum, through various interesting ways, in an effort to drum these into our heads.
Since there is no question about our “knowing”, we have to put more effort into the “doing.” **
