I’ ve been living in London for 5 1 / 2 years now. When I first came to live here, I’ ve struggled to keep my immune system strong and got sick several times a year. I had throat, stomach and sinus infections, colds and some infections I have never had before. It was a tough time, tough start here in London. Usually, I had a blocked nose once a year but moving to London challenged my body and its defence forces more than ever before. After a couple of years, I got slowly used to it but I still feel that in a city like London I really have to learn how to best protect myself from all the unhealthy influences. And so do you.
london challenges our HealtH
I’ ve been living in London for 5 1 / 2 years now. When I first came to live here, I’ ve struggled to keep my immune system strong and got sick several times a year. I had throat, stomach and sinus infections, colds and some infections I have never had before. It was a tough time, tough start here in London. Usually, I had a blocked nose once a year but moving to London challenged my body and its defence forces more than ever before. After a couple of years, I got slowly used to it but I still feel that in a city like London I really have to learn how to best protect myself from all the unhealthy influences. And so do you.
London exposes us a lot to a great level of pollution, noise and hectic. Our mayor said in an Guardian article:“ It’ s sickening to know that not a single area of London meets World Health Organisation health standards, but even worse than that, nearly 95 % of the capital is exceeding these guidelines by at least 50 %.”
( 4 Oct 2017, Guardian: https:// www. theguardian. com / environment / 2017 / oct / 04 / revealed-every-londoner-breathing-dangerous-levels-of-toxic-air-particle)
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Most of my friends who visit me are overwhelmed for the first two days. The adverts, thousands of people, traffic, the fast pace of everything here is resulting in a huge overstimulation. And you need to learn how to handle it without getting stressed and frustrated.
I did this calculation the other day and asked myself, how much time have I spent on the tube? Let’ s say I travel two hours each day( from home to work and back), I found out that I’ m spending 20 days a year on the tube. 20 days, hallelujah! These are 480 hours that I am underground. I could workout all these hours or even work or do something else more productive than being squeezed into a sticky hot tube. After my vacations at the sea I often struggle with the bad air on the tube. I get dizzy very easily. Realising that I’ m spending 20 days a year with commuting and that doesn’ t include any delays I came to 108 days in total that I’ ve been spending so far sitting or standing in the tube trains. What an amount of time. 3.5 months!
I am trying to optimise this time by reading books as often as I can. And I’ ve learned to spend regular times in green areas like parks to give my breathing organs a bit of fresher air. I have not yet researched what long term damages a city life can cause but I am willing to try my best here and take care of my body as good as I can. London is an amazing place to live in and I would never miss it but I’ ve come to realise that we all pay a price for it. That’ s why I have dedicated the first pages to exactly that topic, to how we can manifest a healthier lifestyle here in our megapolis.
Things I recommend that will reduce the stress and the amount of pollution we are exposed to:- Live in a residential area with lots of parks around you.- Live also as close as possible to your work or find a job with flexible hours and possibilities to work from home.- Avoid rush hours which means start working earlier( but also leave earlier).- Workout outside, even in winter, go to your local parks.- Walk as often as you can, don’ t take the escalator or lifts.- Avoid Oxford Street as often as you can.- Live in a street that’ s quite and doesn’ t disrupt your sleep for instance( with noisy drunken people, cars or airplanes flying too low over your house).- Don’ t live in a house with old windows( avoid drafts and noise)- Have a good diet( and how that could look like will be mentioned on the next pages).