Settle Down Now
You can settle up and you can settle down but should you ever
just settle?
In typical English style we have afforded this word a myriad of meanings.
A ‘settler’ is a person who migrates to a new area and then resides there thus being ‘settled’. This brings to mind the plucky people that hopped on the boat that made a brief stop in Dartmouth before eventually landing in the New World.
A ‘settlement’ is an agreement or resolution of a dispute. This makes both parties feel settled, whether it took place in court or out of court, now they can get on with their lives and stop bickering.
As you can see they come back to a state of comfort. It is even the word for a wooden bench to settle down on but in my experience such a seat is rather less than comfortable…
Comfort is a wonderful thing but getting too comfortable takes away the desire to rock the boat.
We are all about boats this month with our wonderful Regatta and all it entails. This time of year should take you out of your ‘comfort zone’ and plunge you into some deep water.
There is no excuse needed to let down your hair and have a fine old time showing off the delights of Dartmouth. After all we are practically perfect in every way and that is a direct quote from Mary Poppins, although I can’t guarantee that she was talking about Dartmouth, in fact I know she wasn’t, but let’s just say she did!
Dartmouth measures up in every way when it’s all about the water and as we all know there is nothing settled about the sea, such a boiling raging torrent is she.
The sea can be like a mill pond one minute and the next minute it can be a churning crashing cauldron of anger. When somebody zooms past you in their motor boat way above the speed limit the wake can cause you to feel quite unsettled, not to put too fine a point on it.
No matter how fast or slow water is moving it is essential to our very being seeing as how we are 65% water ourselves. When a baby is born it is virtually all water (75%) with a few other loveable bits. That is why babies are squidgy and their skin bounces back in a way we can only dream off a few decades down the pike.
How on earth can we walk about if so much of us is composed of water sloshing about inside us and what is it doing in there?
Water has five main functions starting with being a form of transport to get essential nutrients such as, vitamins, minerals and glucose to our cells.
On its way back it gathers up waste products including toxins that our organs’ cells have rejected and expels them from the body in the form of urine and faeces.
We need this magical liquid to break down the foods we eat so they are in a form that the body can absorb.
Everybody knows about regulating the body temperature through sweat. Water allows the body to release heat through the pores in the form of sweat, which is a water rich secretion that then evaporates on the skin surface which has a great cooling effect.
Water is in the lubricant that is found around the joints and acts as a shock absorber for the eyes, brain and spinal column. It even protects an unborn child with the amniotic fluid surrounding it in the womb.
In addition to all those fabulous wonderful things, water can also help your heart to stay healthy. If you are lacking water your blood will become thicker and become resistant to flowing through the body efficiently which can raise blood pressure and also lead to a rise in cholesterol, both of which can lead to heart attacks. Drink up!
So as you can see we totally need water! We can get it from drinking liquid or from foods such as plants, raw meats and fish. We are often told that all types of liquids will do in our quest to take on about 1.5 litres a day that are needed to replace the fluids lost from the body through excretions. However tea, coffee, fruit juice and soda drinks may have copious amounts of salt and sugar in them that must be absorbed by the body then flushed out with – yes, you guessed it – plain water. So take a stab at sipping water through out the day and if you can start the day with a large glass on waking it helps boost blood pressure which has been lowered during our sleeping hours and it preps the stomach to receive food.
So we have got the water bit under control but have we got the right amount of salt to balance everything out? The word salt comes from the Latin word sal which eventually became the word salary in English as salt was once a legal currency. I wonder - did different kinds of salt have different values?
Salt controls our fluid balance and also controls the actions of muscles and nerves. Our bodies automatically regulate the amount of salt but we can help out by being sensible about our intake. An adult needs about a teaspoon of salt a day.
Beware of hidden salt in ready prepared foods, snacks and drinks. You can either take the time to calculate the salt content per portion from the scads of information on the box or carton or you can prepare you own foods and know darn well how much you have added. In deference to the cook, please be kind enough to actually taste a dish set before you before anointing it with salt.
Some restaurants don’t even have salt on the table as the Chef is adamant that he knows how the food should taste. This is a form of culinary bullying designed to make the customer feel ignorant. Once you have tasted and decided you would like it to have more salt then that is your choice and you are paying after all. Do not be taken in by this tyranny.
With all this briny goodness going on inside do not forget that salt and water are great for the outside as well. Soaking in salt water reduces inflammation and encourages the pores to open and secrete oil that moisturises the skin. Salt is anti-bacterial and will heal wounds especially burns if they are soaked in a salt solution.
Mix the ubiquitous handful of salt with a slug of olive or almond oil and use it to exfoliate the whole body. Throw in the juice and zest of a citrus fruit to gently break down the ‘glue’ holding dead skin cells on top of the lovely fresh ones beneath and you have a spa treatment for mere pence.
First Published in By The Dart August 2015 Issue
