Health & Beauty Mind The Gap
Mind The Gap
And stand clear of the doors. Move down the carriage to let other passengers on. Endless taped tannoy announcements echo through the tunnels of the London underground. Ticker tape signs hang above platforms telling you the next train arrives in 2 minutes or 4 minutes. We are being baby sat for our entire journey; at no point do we have to think for ourselves or about others because our behaviour is being dictated to us like we are in a cult. We don’t plan or wait without the end being in sight.
Do you remember when you knew the train was coming because a small gust of warm air would precede it and sometimes you would swear a bit of old newspaper lying near the tunnel entrance waved its headline at you so desperate were you for the ‘sign’? We never knew how long we would stand there on the dirty platform and had to read the front of the train to know where it was going. But today in final flourish of not giving us the benefit of the doubt they tell us to stand behind a painted line two feet back from the edge of the platform in case we fall onto the tracks…
Health and safety have rendered us helpless and in no danger at all because we would never attempt anything ‘not safe’ anymore. This is the way of most things today.
Buying a piece of kitchen equipment means reading instructions simple enough for a two year old to get the message. Do not put your hand in the blender while the motor is running. Really? Always put the lid on to prevent splashing. Golly I never would have thought of that by myself! Do not put hot liquids into the bin. On and on in a patronising tone or is it? If current generations have been told how to react and behave in words of one syllable since they started pre-school then maybe they really do need to have simple concepts and codes of behaviour explained to them?
Even social behaviour is monitored by the government leaving some parents feeling they have been let off the hook and they can let the teacher sort it out. It used to be said that you were a reflection of your home and your parents; when did that become out of date? The traditional place of learning was at your Mother’s knee but now with so many women working either out of financial necessity or chasing a career goal or bowing to social pressure to ‘be something’ apart from a Mummy, many children spend more time at the knees of women and men paid to look after them who don’t have a vested interest once their shift is up. If a child is badly behaved at least he or she will soon be out of their hair leaving them free to go home, job done for another day.
Guidelines determined by a group of well meaning politicians on what is and is not acceptable behaviour seems daft to me. What has gone so terribly wrong that we need to be told that bullying is bad and not paying attention to the teacher is not on? What has happened to our moral compass?
Making a mistake and learning from it is not the done thing anymore. If you fell off your swing and scraped your knee because you were going too high you jolly well did not do that again. If you burnt your hand on the stove then you learnt to take care because you understood that heat equals pain. Your skin is set up to alert you to these dangers and has been since we arrived at our status as human beings.
The skin, or rather ‘your’ skin can tell you an awful lot about the big wide world and it does not need to look things up on Wikipedia. It does not need a ‘think tank’ to give it permission to get on with what it does best and that is protecting you and what lies beneath. Despite your best efforts to give your skin a hard time by roasting in the sun, eating junk food, using harsh soaps and not getting enough sleep, it soldiers on adapting, ducking and diving as it goes.
If you break it down into sections you find that skin does the following: offers protection from invasion of bacteria and environmental elements, regulates the body’s temperature with a system that makes our modern technology look lacklustre, deals with excretion and also acts a sensitivity meter to external changes.
70% approx of our body is made up of water and 35% of that is in the skin. It makes sense then that this water must be replenished when it is lost through sweat and other excretions. Becoming dehydrated is a serious thing. Your skin will let you know its time for some water, by thirst or/and by having a pounding heart, crashing headache, aching limbs and an inability to concentrate. Replacing lost fluids is easy – drink water, of course, but any liquid will do and eat fruits and vegetables - they are mostly composed of water. If you apply your moisturisers to damp skin then you trap that water, which is then absorbed so keeping your skin plumped up is simple and inexpensive. This is especially the case if you have been soaking in the bath, your skin has absorbed some of the water as well as some being on the skin’s surface. Slather on that body lotion quick!
Our skin is covered in a fine film known as the acid mantle, which is there to protect us by stopping bacteria, viruses and other nasty things entering the body. This is self-governed by the skin which replaces it if it is broken down due to excessively harsh soaps and so on. Becoming OCD about germs and constantly washing your hands will result (ironically) in a way for germs to sneak in. Bacteria love a warm damp area to set up camp in so drying your hands properly is vital.
Temperature control is one of the great things the skin does. It keeps us warm by making the fine hair, found all over our body, stand up; by alerting the teensy tiny muscles attached to each and every hair. This traps a layer of warm air around the body. People who are very thin will have more of this hair present as the body tries desperately to off set the lack of a fat layer to insulate it.
Blood is cleverly diverted to protect the internal organs, which is why you look pale when you are very cold. When it’s hot, our skin keeps us cool by sweating; the sweat evaporates on the surface and lowers our temperature. You look red or flushed as blood heads for the surface to get cooled down. Amazing.
The skin tells us if something is hot or cold by touch and we react accordingly unless our skin is compromised. Test the water before getting into the bath!
Your skin is always striving to do the best job it can so pay attention to what it is telling you and give it a helping hand occasionally.
Happy Trails, Readers, Happy Trails.
First published By The Dart March 2014
