Times of illness do not a conservationist make: It is pretty much just scrapping for whatever will provide relief, whether that is three-times-a-day deliveries of tom yum gai or a medicine cabinet stuffed with decongestants.

I’m actually just recovering from a two-week bought with bronchitis. I feel quite guilty about this; yesterday, I stood in the tissue aisle of the drugstore for a full 10 minutes, debating whether my nose was worth the destruction of so many old-growth forests.

In this case, sadly, I must admit: I decided that it was. Had I felt like my normal and healthy, eco-crusader self, I would have made the schlep to the supermarket that I know stocks sustainable boxes of 100% recycled, chlorine-free Seventh Generation tissue.

With a bit of knowledge, even the most pathetic of cold-sufferers can lessen the damage of their feverish footprint. Here are some ideas:

Washable tissues are an elegant, eco-friendly option. In the privacy of your home, who cares if you look like a granny when you’re blowing your nose in an old-timey tissue? You’ll find that they’re also a nice alternative to recycled facial tissues, which feel like sandpaper.

It’s not fun or easy to cook when you’re sick, but a week’s worth of wonton soup delivery can add up to a pile of trash, definitely due to all of that unnecessary packaging (who needs 10 packets of soy sauce anyway?). Just cook up a giant pot of soup that’s full of organic veggies.

With the threat of H1N1 this flu season, it seems like everyone’s going crazy with the hand sanitizer. Though many conventional sanitizers contain harmful chemicals like phthalates, and can actually promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria if they contain the antimicrobial triclosan, a suspected endocrine disruptor. Bottom line? To prevent your illness from infecting others, nothing is as safe and effective as washing your hands with soap and water.

Don’t pressure your doc into prescribing an antibiotic for your runny nose. The common cold and flu are viral illnesses, and while it’s not fun to wait it out for a week while your cough dies off, a dose of amoxicillin will not make you healthier. In fact, it could harm you, since every time you take an antibiotic when you don’t actually have a bacterial infection, you actually increase your risk of later developing a life-threatening superbug.

It’s very tempting to arm yourself with an arsenal of decongestants and sleeping aids, but most of these medications come with a whole slew of side effects — and actually do nothing to lessen the duration of your illness. They also will pollute our soil and groundwater with chemicals once they’re thrown in the trash. Interestingly, some of the best remedies are also the most eco-friendly: a salt water gargle to soothe a sore throat and hot lemon water with honey to calm a cough.

It has four spray settings which are operated by a push-button instead of a head-twist, and it surprisingly never requires any cleaning. The material it’s made of is already protected against mineral deposits accumulating in the head, which as we all know, seriously disturbs flow if it isn’t taken care of by some solvent. But with the Oxygenics showerhead, you don’t have to worry about any of that.

By the numbers, average shower heads spray at 2.5 gallons per minute at 60 PSI. This one sprays only 2 GPMs at the same pressure, and if you’d like a lower pressure, it can save as much as 70% on your water usage.

Available colors are bronze, chrome, gold, and nickel. Does anybody know the difference between chrome and nickel? I’m sure shower head connoisseurs like yourself are intimately aware of the complex differences.

For a video of people luxuriously showering using the Oxygenics Showerhead, click here.

The Mooncup, shown here, is a simple 30mL container made of hypoallergenic silicone that, you guessed it, collects instead of absorbs. It does not, and cannot cause TSS, it doesn’t leave behind any fibers, and it can be left in for a whole day. Where does the environment come in? Simple. This is totally reusable, and pays for itself in just a few months.

There are two sizes. One for women pre-vaginal birth, and one for post. It can be cleaned with sterilizing fluid or being boiled in water for five minutes. And – I’ve seen this myself – it can be restored to new by letting it soak in a weak peroxide solution.

Menstrual cups were developed in the 1930s and went on commercial sale at around the same time as the first tampon.
In that early post-Victorian era it was not considered ‘proper’ for women to touch their vaginal area. The manufacturers of the tampon overcame this obstacle by providing those disposable applicators that can still be found floating in our toilet bowls, needlessly.

Since tampons were much more commercially viable, as they needed to be repurchased, menstrual cups went out of style. When they finally began showing up again in the 80′s for eco-friendly reasons, they were made out of latex rubber, a known allergen. That is, until the Mooncup came out with their silicone version.

My wife recommends you try it. In fact, she insists. (She’s a bit weird.) I say go for it. Make women happier during that time of the month. It’d do well for all of us. And it will get her off my back.

Apparently, divorce can be bad for your health. So can being widowed. So says Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. Leave it to sociologists to make such amazingly innovative observations.

But here’s the data she found. Divorced and widowed people have 20 percent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They even have 23 percent more limitations on their movements, like walking, climbing nonfunctional escalators (or stairs), or doing ballet. Ha ha, that last one was not part of the survey, but I’m guessing it’s true anyway. In all seriousness, though, her survey included the health of 8,652 middle-aged people with different marital histories. There were big differences between those who stayed married and those who divorced.

Though it’s obvious that divorce is just a bit stressful, Waite found that people who remarried still retain the scars of the damage done by the original divorce.

In the surveys, health was assessed in four categories. They are chronic conditions, mobility, symptoms of depression, and what respondents thought of their own state of health.

Here are some more sociological observations Waite made: (Warning: the self-evidence of these may cause temporary blurring of vision.) “Married men have better health habits. They lead a cleaner, healthier life, and less times in bars and eat better. Women tend to manage men’s interactions with the medical system, get him in for a colonoscopy and make sure he gets a flu shot.”

Now that we know, and with Swine Flu on the rise, it’s more important than ever to grab a wife, hold her down, and make her force you go to a proctologist immediately.

Mark Heyward, another sociologist at the University of Texas, found in a similar study that divorce has a lasting impact on cardiovascular disease, even after remarriage, by as much as 60 percent.

Even so, we’ll go out on a limb and make the claim that being stuck in a miserable marriage can also be bad for your arteries. So the best advice is, if your marriage is just boring and you need to revitalize it, try doing that instead of getting divorced. It’ll save you on medical bills and keep your arteries nice and smooth. If you really hate each other’s guts, then you can get out of it if you need to.

Picture a divorce as a guy with a jackhammer drumming on your cardiovascular system as you sit in divorce proceedings and discuss dividing property, visitation rights with kids, and other things that may make you choke. Your system, says Heyward, may never go back to original condition after that.

Something not so obvious is that those who never married are usually better off than people who married, lost a spouse through divorce or death, and didn’t get remarried. I remember seeing 40-year-old cousins of my wife who have never been married looking just a few years older than me, and I’m 25. Though I think that’s more of a function of not having kids and not having to deal with changing soiled diapers several times a day. I’m think that could add decades to your lifespan, at least.

Omega 3 oils contain some essential fatty acids that appear to be wonderful in not only preventing prostate cancer but even treating existing cases. For those people who dislike fish or are on special vegan vegetarian diets, Omega 3 amounts are even higher amounts of Omega 3 oil than fish. The idea of treating prostate conditions by Omega 3 oils has come partially from research made on men from Asian countries like Japan who eat large quantities of fatty fish ( tuna in particular) and have much lower percentages of both heart disease and prostate cancer than those from western countries. Fish receive the omega 3 fatty acids either directly from easting seaweed or from eating fish that eat the seaweed (i.e. the food chain). Men living in western countries have a disproportionate imbalance between Omega 6 fatty acids, which cause heart disease and cancer, and Omega 3 ones, which actually inhibit these diseases.

Women also benefit greatly from diets high in Omega 3 which not only lower risks of heart disease but breast cancer as well.

Omega 3 fatty acids contain folic acid (vitamin B-9) and lycopene, that bright red pigment found in tomatoes and other red fruit, such as bell peppers. Lycopene has been found to be excellent in the prevention of prostate cancer.

When looking for Omega 3 food supplements, be sure to check to see whether the processing involved in manufacturing is cold processed and not heat processed. Heat processing destroys much of the nutritional value of the oil. If you like fish, however, eating fatty fish like salmon, tuna, or mackerel may be your best source of Omega 3. People preferring more natural and organic food product sources can find excellent amounts of Omega 3 oil in flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and avocados.

During his career as a Professor of Surgery at Columbia University, as well as directing the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Oz has made natural anti-aging foods and exercise programs a life-long study, as well as a personal lifestyle. By combining a daily program of healthy diet, proper exercise, and adequate sleep (nature’s great restorer), Dr. Oz has proven that persons can reduce their physiological age to a point that it is as much as 12 to 13 years less than their actual chronological age.

Dr. Oz’s program is really very simple. Some of the “age defying foods” he advocates people should eat include anti-oxidants such as asai fruit, a Brazilian fruit found in the Amazon rainforests that is very high in antioxidants; as well as less exotic ones such as blueberries, green and white teas, broccoli, and red wine. He also advocates taking a number of spices including ginger (excellent for decreasing high blood pressure), paprika and cayenne pepper (reduces risks of Alzheimer’s and other brain dementia diseases) as well as others such as rosemary ( which rejuvenates the skin and is beneficial in relieving digestive disorders and headaches).

Dr. Oz also advocates eating foods high in dietary fiber such as whole grain breads and pastas (much better than simple “whole wheat” varieties), flax seeds (full of Omega 3 oils as well as fiber) and fiber rich vegetables such as cabbage and celery. Omega 3 oils, which protect the body against heart disease, are also high on his list of required foods. Fish, which are high in Omega 3 oils, actually obtain them from ingesting algae, he said; and he advocates eating foods containing this vitamin and mineral rich plant from the sea.

Exercise routines recommended by Dr. Oz include those which help expand lung capacities and improve the body’s circulation. These can include yoga and other sports which emphasize deep breathing. Even meditation is a good practice, since sounds such as “yom” help keep the sinuses clear through vibration.

And last, but certainly not least, adequate sleep of at least 7 hours per night is important to help the body’s natural restorative processes to function properly.

One of Dr Oz’s most authoritative health guides is a book published in 2005 entitled You – the Owner’s Manuel: an insider’s guide to the body that will make you healthier and younger. Written together with Dr. Michael Roizen, it was featured on the New York Time’s Bestseller list.

One such spot is the Dead Sea (actually a lake), which lies in the desert between Israel and Jordan in the Middle East. The Dead Sea Valley is the lowest place on Earth, standing 300 meters below sea level. Yes, much lower than the Netherlands. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is known as the Salty Sea, because the ground in the valley is rich with salts. As a result, the lake itself is very salty, making the water relatively heavier, and thus allowing people to easily float above them in a lying position.

The salty atmosphere also filters a large percentage of the sun’s hazardous radiation, making it more difficult for people bathing in the lake to suffer sunburns. This is why people with Psoriasis from all across the world come to the Dead Sea to enjoy its unique properties. Sun exposure is a proven remedy for Psoriasis, and it’s safer to “get some sun” down in that valley.

More often than not, we get a headache due to dehydration. When the volume of water in our blood vessels drops below a certain point, we feel pain that’s aimed at alerting us: “Hey, it’s time to saturate the body!”

In fact when the levels of water in our brain decrease, our blood vessels constrict, and this occurrence slows the overall metabolism of the brain, making us less ” mentally sharp”.

So please, don’t dry your brain out. It’s your most valued commodity. Indulge it with a glass of water. It’s the best gift you could give it.

However, there are alternatives. Recent years have seen a surge in organic cosmetics. Usually, these soaps, toothpastes, and make-up, are made of herbs, vegetables, and fruits, without being mixed with additional chemicals or color additives.

I want to present a natural shampoo made in Canada from organic hemp. There’s no animal fat in the ingredients — in facts, it’s even suitable for vegans. The delicate smell of the shampoo bar comes from sweet oranges, and it’s both gentle and antiseptic.

This item, along with other hemp products, and even hemp clothes, can be found at Rawganique.

Have a good scrubbing!

I have not only been purchasing organic foods and reading all food labels but more recently I have started looking at the ingredients in household cleansers, cosmetics and skin care products. My search for healthier products led me to become a representative for One Group, a company that produces certified organic personal care products.

My personal favorite in terms of skincare is a product called Ambrosia Essence. Its expensive, but it is by far the best product I have found to help me with my rosacia. I still have some redness, but in comparison to what I have been living with for years this is heaven. I don’t know if this product would give the same results for other folks but it is working well for me.

If you are on the search for a more natural, or organic option for your personal care products the skin deep website it a great place to start. They have all kinds of products listed and each one has a safety rating. Take a look and see if you can’t find a cleaner, greener alternative to what you are currently using.

Written by Anita Kaiser