Lecture
Health is the main resource for a long, active
life and, like any resource, cannot be infinite.
Therefore it is necessary to think of human health
as an economic resource, the capital of our life.
It is time to recognize that the culture of
health has become a culture common to all
humanity, 127 which must be cultivated from birth. The
WHO (World Health Organization) definition is widely known: that
health is a state of complete physical, mental,
and social well-being, and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity. And we would not be mistaken
if we said that in all periods of human
history, health has been one of a person's
greatest desires, a kind of absolute value. «Be healthy!»
people say to one another. «We wish you the
most important thing - health», our loved ones say.
By and large, health has been and remains
dearer than power and wealth (what use is any
of that to a sick person). The main criteria
of health are: - correspondence of structure and
function (absence of morphological and functional disorders); - the
body's ability to maintain the constancy of its internal
environment (homeostasis); - high working capacity and good well-being
(this last criterion is fairly conventional). FORMULA OF
HEALTH HEALTH 100% = 10% MEDICINE + 20% HEREDITY
+ 20% ENVIRONMENT + 50% LIFESTYLE Statistics - 86%
of teachers do not do physical exercise more
than 3 times a week. - 87% of teachers
do not go to bed at the same time
each day. - 62% of teachers sleep less than
7-8 hours a day. - 78% of teachers
take medication without a doctor's prescription. - 45.5% try
not to get sick but do not succeed. -
32% pay no attention to their health. -
only 13% pay purposeful attention to their health. 128
Risk factors of pedagogical work Labor activity is a
special form of a person's interaction with the surrounding
world. In the course of any labor, a
person expends their physical and mental energy, and there
is activation and tension of most physiological reactions. The
teaching profession, the teacher's work, belongs to the intellectual
forms of labor. Provided that the whole organism
and its individual organs and systems, taking part in
ensuring the work process, function within physiological capacities, the
person is healthy. From a psychophysiological standpoint, this
is extremely responsible, socially significant activity, in which the
element of creativity is great. However, not all the
conditions under which pedagogical activity is carried out can
be recognized as favorable. Certain of them quite
definitely contain risk factors and exert an unfavorable effect
on the human body. In such situations we are
talking about the emergence of occupational or occupationally
conditioned types of pathology. Main causes of illness among
teachers First cause. The main disease-forming factor for a
teacher is occupational emotional stress! And it can be
caused by an inadequate social and material assessment
of their work, which is distinguished by special specifics,
a strict work regime, and the need to master
a large amount of professional knowledge, an abundance
of communicative overloads due to the need for interpersonal
communication amid a considerable number of conflict and stressful
situations. Second cause. Let us think about it -
do only psychological causes destroy a teacher's health?
We see that one person, from some misfortune, almost
falls apart, while another smiles wryly and says: «Thank
goodness it's no worse, I'm a lucky person
after all». 129 And no disturbance of heart rhythm,
no rise in blood pressure, or hardly any. Let
us recall the joke: the unlucky person sniffs cognac
and says it smells of bedbugs. The optimist
sniffs a squashed bedbug and says: «It smells of
cognac». For one person the world, in spite of
everything, is full of joy; for another, of sorrow
and grief. What keeps a person afloat, gives
them strength and the joy of life? Their worldview!
It is the main cause of stability in life!
There are two main causes that destroy a
teacher's health: the worldview-related and the psychological, with the
second flowing from the first. Worldview-related causes that destroy
health: - inability to accept life «as it is»,
without criticism or protest; - inability to accept
one's social status and remain in it with dignity;
- the presence of high life aspirations; - not
knowing that each of us is needed in
our own place. Psychological causes: - inability to withstand
stress; - absence of the skill of managing one's
emotions; - frequent exceeding of one's psychological capacities; -
inability to cultivate and master the emotion of
joy in oneself, to build an attitude based on
existence itself rather than on the salary received; -
inability to laugh at life's failures. Main risk
factors: - increased psycho-emotional tension associated with the need
for constant self-control and emotional arousal amid a considerable
number of interpersonal contacts; - a significant vocal load;
- static load combined with insignificant overall muscular
motor load; - a large volume of intensive visual
work; - a high density of epidemic contacts; 130
- absence of a stable daily regime; - load
on the same centers of the cerebral cortex;
- sharp redistribution of cerebral blood flow. Any risk
factor of pedagogical work can become the cause of
an occupational or occupationally conditioned disease. These include:
- diseases of the nervous system (neurosis-like states and
neuroses); - diseases of the vocal-speech organs (acute and
chronic pharyngitis-laryngitis, paresis of the vocal folds, singer's nodules);
- diseases of the musculoskeletal system (osteochondrosis of
the cervical and lumbar spine, radiculitis); - diseases of
the cardiovascular system (varicose veins of the lower extremities,
hemorrhoids), - infectious diseases. Having processed statistical data
on teacher morbidity, staff of the V.M. Bekhterev Institute
found clearly pronounced predominant diseases: - cardiovascular; - gastrointestinal;
- disorders of the musculoskeletal system; - blood diseases;
- disorders of thyroid gland function. 54% of
teachers have a body-mass disorder, 70% a disorder of
the musculoskeletal system. Disorders of neuro-psychological health are found
in: - more than 35% of teachers after
10 years of work; - 45% after 15 years
of service; - more than 50% after 20 years
of service. Constant overstrain leads to a number of
somatic diseases (stomach ulcer, ischemic heart disease, diabetes
mellitus, hypertension). 131 The main occupational diseases of teachers
include: - myopia (nearsightedness); - laryngitis; - chronic fatigue
syndrome; - hypodynamia (physical inactivity); - osteochondrosis. Overloads
in pedagogical work are a common occurrence, but after
excessive work one needs to recover fully. How can
this be done under modern conditions? How can one
restore and preserve one's health? Means of physical
culture used for the prevention of occupational diseases have
a principle of health-improving orientation, embodied in physical-culture and
health-improving technologies, which are currently developing intensively. The concept
of a physical-culture and health-improving technology combines the
process of using means of physical education for health-improving
purposes and the scientific discipline that develops and improves
the methodological foundations for building the physical-culture and
health-improving process. The practical manifestation of physical-culture and health-improving
technologies in physical education consists of various fitness programs,
which make up the main content of the activity
of physical-culture and health-improving groups (PHG), created on
the basis of physical-culture and sports organizations, as well
as of personal fitness sessions. The principle of the
health-improving orientation of physical education requires: 1. improving
the functional capacities of the body; 2. increasing the
working capacity of the human body; 3. adapting the
human body to the effects of unfavorable environmental factors;
4. compensating for the deficit of motor activity
that arises under the conditions of modern life; 132
5. observing the following rules: - apply means and
methods whose health-improving value has been scientifically proven;
- plan the effect of the means on the
basis of careful consideration of the capacities of those
training; - ensure the unity of medical-pedagogical supervision and
self-monitoring. Widely known complexes and programs of physical
education with a health-improving orientation: - the Cooper system
(controlled running loads); - the Amosov system (the «thousand
movements» regime); - the Lydiard system («running for life»);
- the Mihao Ikan system (10,000 steps every
day); - the Morehouse system (30 minutes of sport
per week and the everyday observance of the rule:
if you can sit rather than lie down,
sit; if you can stand rather than sit, stand;
if you can move, move); - Thompson's isometric gymnastics
(alternating contraction of muscles without changing their length during
waking hours); - the Pinkney Calan system (Callanetics
- a program for women consisting of 30 stretching
exercises); - shaping; - health-improving aerobics; - stretching. The
most accessible means of preventing occupational diseases are
morning hygienic gymnastics, a physical-culture pause, an active-rest micro-pause,
various fitness programs, psycho-emotional pauses, and autogenic training. Morning
hygienic gymnastics is one of the forms of physical-culture
sessions, the purpose of which is to optimize
the body's transition from sleep to activity. Its tasks:
gradually activate the whole organism, overcome the inertia of
rest, and normalize the general vital tone. 133
It is most effective to include exercises such as:
stretching in bed; breathing exercises; exercises for the spine;
activation of blood circulation through self-massage and physical exercises
(in sequence from the center to the periphery);
stretching exercises for the joints; individual exercises; and concluding
exercises that normalize the rate of breathing and pulse.
The criterion for the effectiveness of morning hygienic gymnastics
is the well-being of the person doing it,
vegetative reactions, and the rate of breathing and heartbeat.
A physical-culture pause is a change of activity in
the form of physical exercises. The purposes of
physical-culture pauses are to restore operational working capacity and
prevent hypodynamia. It is recommended to hold physical-culture pauses
5-7 times a day, 5-7 minutes each. It is
effective to apply exercises in the following order:
- relaxation exercises; - breathing exercises; - exercises for
the spine; - exercises for the cardiovascular system; -
elements of self-massage; - eye gymnastics; - exercises
for preventing flat feet; - individual exercises as indicated.
Fitness programs: - types of aerobic motor activity; -
health-improving types of gymnastics; - types of strength-oriented motor
activity; - types of motor activity in water;
- recreational types of motor activity; - means of
psycho-emotional regulation. 134 There is a whole range of
emotions. Let us describe their approximate spectrum: interest,
joy, satisfaction, pleasure, fright, surprise, grief, suffering, despair, anger,
and so on. The predominance of certain emotions in
a person's life leads to health or to illness.
To make yourself a healthy person, you need
to be stronger than your emotions, but you must
never suppress them. Exercises with emotions Exercise 1. Determining
the spectrum of your emotions. Find out which emotions
live in your mental world. Write down all
the emotions that visit you. Disease-causing: anger, rage, despondency,
anxiety, sadness, fear, apprehension, despair, sorrow. Health-creating: interest, joy,
tenderness, satisfaction, calm, sympathy, surprise, delight, tenderness, admiration.
Exercise 2. Learn to recognize your emotions and feelings
unerringly. Exercise 3. Distribution of emotions. Establish the following:
- which emotions predominate in your life, the «light»
ones or the «dark» ones; - which emotions
carry heavy consequences for you (headache, worsening of well-being);
- which emotions you are comfortable with. Exercise 4.
«Evoking» emotions. Try to evoke the emotions on
the list in yourself. Start with the «light» ones.
In the process of these exercises you should find
out: - which «light» emotions are easy for you
to evoke, and which are difficult; - with
which «light» emotion you feel good and comfortable; -
which «dark» emotions are hard for you to bear;
- which emotion helps you best «take a
hit» (the «conflict emotion»). Exercise 5. Replacing one emotion
with another. 135 Imagine that you have experienced an
undesirable emotion of anger. You noticed it right away
and switched on another emotion, whichever you consider
necessary (calm, joy, generosity). Exercise 6. Emotions and the
word. During a conflict, speak. Do NOT stay silent!
The word is a great gift. Speak calmly
and to the point, clarifying things for yourself and
for your interlocutor. If you are right, appeal to
the best feelings in the person, offering to end
the conflict without humiliation for anyone. If you
realize that you yourself are not right, say so
right away, but try to do it gracefully and
elegantly, and add that you will definitely correct yourself!
Nothing in the world is able to offend
or humiliate you if you do not want it
to! You can spend a year working on your
emotions. A few tips on how to become
a psychologically stable person. Psychological detachment. It is very
important not to enter psychologically into another person's situation.
Everyone has their own path in life, their own
tasks. And it is obvious that it will
be a manifestation of, if not wisdom, then at
least common sense, if we occupy ourselves with our
own affairs and do not intrude into others',
even if these «others» are not strangers to us
but relatives. Staying in the fortress. In order to
feel psychologically confident, one should try to stay more
often in the «fortress of one's own state».
What does this mean? One needs to look good,
to be, in general, a decent person who does
not fall into hysterics, complaints, or despondency -
a person to whom nothing matters, who is wise,
calm, and reasonable. This is you!!! At home, try
acting out this image. Then carry it over into
real life and try to leave your fortress
less often. These consultations cannot solve all health problems.
Therefore we offer you a few more practical recommendations.
136 Exercise. Replacing one emotion with another An emotion
that arises «spins up» within a few seconds,
and then gradually takes hold of the person. Imagine
that you have experienced an undesirable emotion of anger.
You noticed and identified it right away. And
immediately, without letting it «spin up», you need to
«switch on» another emotion. Whichever emotion you consider necessary
(calm, joy, generosity, altruism…). Or that «light» emotion that
is evoked most easily. By replacing one emotion
with another, you did not allow a disease-causing process
to develop in your body. There are health-forming emotions:
interest, joy, tenderness, satisfaction, calm, sympathy, surprise, delight,
tenderness, admiration. The task is to create such an
emotional climate at work that all these emotions are
present in those around you. What a job that
would be, what a life that would be.
To preserve and support a teacher's health it is
necessary to apply therapeutic and health-improving exercises: - exercises
for the spine; - exercises for posture; -
exercises for the cervical spine. Watch over your physical
health: - adequate nutrition; - sufficient sleep of 7-8
hours; - observance of personal hygiene rules; - a
regime of work and rest; - engagement in
health-improving physical culture. Maintain psycho-emotional balance: - positive thinking;
- optimism; - managing your emotions; - a benevolent
attitude toward people; 137 - love for yourself.
How to preserve your eyesight There are special exercises
for training the eye muscles: 1. Raise the eyes
upward, lower them. Repeat 3 times, pause, and close
the eyes. Then open them and repeat the
exercise 6-10 times. 2. Look up, straight ahead, down
- 3 times. Pause - close the eyes. Repeat
6-8 times. 3. Look right - left - 3
times. Pause - close the eyes. Repeat 6-8
times. 4. Move the gaze diagonally: up-right, down-left. Pause
- close the eyes. Repeat 6-8 times. 5. Rotate
the pupils in a circle, first in one
direction, then in the other (repeat 4-6 times). 6.
Change the focal distance: look at the tip of
the nose, then into the distance (repeat 6-8 times).
7. Look fixedly straight ahead for a few
seconds, without blinking, without strain. 8. Close the eyelids
tightly. Then blink them. Squeeze shut again and blink
several times. Do this for 12-30 seconds. Super
exercise. Hold a pencil at arm's length, focusing your
gaze on it. Slowly bring the pencil toward your
nose without looking away. Then just as slowly extend
your arm again. With the help of these
exercises you can improve your ability to focus your
vision to such an extent that in the future
you will not need glasses or lenses. A
sharp headache is a signal that it is time
to see a doctor. Most teachers are prone to
chronic headaches. What relieves tension headache? The simplest remedy
is cold applied to the back of the
head, and tea made from peppermint leaves with honey
and massage of the pain points with lemon oil
(2-3 minutes at each point) also helps. You can
perform the following relaxing exercises: 138 - sit
down, close your eyes, tilt your head back onto
the armrest of the chair, and try to relax
the frontal, temporal, and chewing muscles (you may
open your mouth slightly); - lie on your back;
sequentially, from top to bottom, relax the muscles of
the neck, shoulders, back, chest, buttocks, thighs, calves, and
feet; - breathe with your stomach: on inhalation
- inflate it. On exhalation - draw it in;
the exhalation should be twice as long as the
inhalation; - place your hands behind your neck
and press forward, feeling tension in the shoulders. Alternate
effort with rest. Then interlace your fingers and stretch
your arms forward as far as possible. Rest; -
a circular massage of the temples and pressing
on points along the eyebrows relieves headache. The massage
can be done with natural lavender or lemon oil
(1-2 drops per session). The whole exercise-and-relaxation routine
will take 10-15 minutes. If you are tired and
irritated: - eat a piece of salted fish; -
drink a glass of warm, hot potato broth, boiled
in its skin, 3 times a week; -
prepare a dessert for yourself from 1 glass of
hot milk, egg yolk, and sugar, and drink it
before it cools; - eat more sea kale and
black chokeberry. Recipes for insomnia The best treatment
for insomnia is a diet of raw fruits, vegetables,
and fresh juices. - A cold bath, if taken
for 3-4 minutes before bed. - You can
apply mustard plasters or grated horseradish to the calves.
Or put on socks soaked in warm vodka, with
plastic bags over them and woolen socks on top.
- Take 1 tablespoon of honey with warm
water before bed. 139 - Choose a sleeping position.
On the right side is best. A small pillow
should be under the head, not under the
shoulders. Fighting depression Depression is a state of melancholy,
despondency, gloomy mood, weakness, and poor well-being, combined with
sluggish thinking, slowed speech, and reduced activity and initiative.
To fight depression and fatigue, regularly follow these
recommendations: - place your hands behind your neck and
press forward, feeling tension in the shoulders. Alternate effort
with rest. Then interlace your fingers and stretch
your arms forward as far as possible. Rest; -
slowly take a deep breath through the nose. At
the peak of the inhalation, hold your breath for
a moment, then exhale as slowly as possible;
- every evening take contrast foot baths: pour 40-50
degree water into one basin, and cold tap water
into the other; hold your feet alternately in each:
5 minutes in the hot water, 1 minute
in the cold. Repeat the procedure 5 times, and
then rub and massage them thoroughly with foot cream
or camphor oil. A few more techniques -
Speak your mind! It's good if there is a
kind-hearted listener nearby. So value those to whom you
can turn in a difficult moment, and do not
miss the chance to help a person who
needs «a shoulder to cry on». Relief can also
come from a conversation with a chance fellow traveler
on a trip. Here the factor of anonymity
works - this person does not know you and
most likely you will never meet again. Lonely people
who have cats or dogs often pour out everything
that has built up to their pets. -
Write a letter! You can describe all your griefs
and troubles to a friend, a letter you will
never send. Keep it, reread it after some
time - this will help you look at yourself
from the outside. 140 - Give yourself a present!
This advice can be followed both literally and figuratively.
For example, allow yourself to spend the whole
day doing only what you like. Or at least
a couple of hours! You must not give yourself
such «presents» often, or the joy from them
will fade. - Help someone else! Redirect your energy
to helping your neighbor, and you will win twice
over. Doing good is always pleasant. - Feel the
ground under your feet! Yes, feel firm support
beneath your soles, jump up and down. Imagine the
horror of a drowning person who has lost support
underfoot. But you have it! - Dissolve your sorrow
in sleep! This is one of the simplest
and most ancient ways of parting with despondency. In
the morning everything seems less hopeless. It is not
for nothing that they say: «Morning is wiser
than evening». Do not forget to set yourself up
for a joyful awakening the night before. - «Every
cloud has a silver lining!» Take a pencil and
paper and try to write down what good
there is in the situation that has plunged you
into such despondency. For example, if you have become
seriously ill, this is of course bad, but
on the other hand you now have the opportunity
to read to your heart's content, to think about
life and your affairs. Having drawn up such a
list, direct your energy toward realizing the good
things you managed to extract from your situation. One
of the active and widely used methods of psychological
self-regulation is autogenic training (AT). Autogenic training («auto»
- self, «genos» - birth) – this is a
system of psychological techniques and self-suggestion formulas aimed at
strengthening health, regulating mental functions and the autonomic systems,
relaxing the muscles, and restoring working capacity. (See
2.8 for more detail.) Those who have mastered AT
and practice it regularly can: 141 - effectively relieve
physical and mental tension, which is of enormous importance
for the prevention of overwork and disease; -
recover their strength faster in the autogenic state than
during sleep, simple rest lying down, watching television, or
listening to music; - activate mental and physical
functions (for example, attention, memory, imagination, capacity for physical
effort); - activate creative resources through the development of
intuition and imaginative thinking; - get rid of bad
habits, using emotional and intellectual activity for this
purpose. It has been established that the autogenic state
arises if a person: - is in a quiet
place; - relaxes in a comfortable posture; -
concentrates attention on something; - is passive, not striving
to achieve any particular result. For autogenic training the
«coachman's» pose is most often used. The criterion for
furniture's suitability for training in the coachman's pose
is that the seat and the thighs of the
person training are positioned parallel to the floor. The
next method of self-regulation is psychomuscular training. It
is based on the effect of words and corresponding
mental images on a person who is in a
state of relaxation - deep muscular relaxation and reduced
mental activity. To induce it, above all one
needs to learn to relax the muscles of the
body. Impulses from the muscles give the brain information
about the state of the musculoskeletal system, and
signals from the brain control the activity of the
muscles. It is easiest to enter a state of
relaxation in the transitional moment from sleep to wakefulness,
when the brain becomes receptive to words and
the accompanying images and representations, and the person becomes
receptive to suggestion. Active-rest micro-pause This is the shortest
form of workplace gymnastics, lasting only 20-30 s. The
purpose of micro-pauses is to weaken general or
local fatigue by 142 partially reducing or increasing the
excitability of the central nervous system. Micro-pauses use muscular
tension and relaxation, which can be applied repeatedly
during the working day. Techniques of massage and self-massage
are used. As an example we give 7 exercises
of direct effect, proposed by Professor V.E. Nagorny for
training the blood vessels of the brain: -
head movements (tilts, turns, rotations); - the same combined
with arm movements; - assuming poses in which the
head is lower than other parts of the
body (raising the legs while lying on the back,
«bicycle», shoulder stand, elbow stand, headstand); - rapid movements
of the head with the emergence of inertial forces
(«chopping wood», swinging movements of the torso); -
bending the spine in the neck and chest area
(bringing the legs over the head while lying on
the back); - intensive breathing through the nose,
sharp contraction of the diaphragm (running, skiing, etc.), breathing
only through the nose («chopping wood» with an intensive
exhale); - techniques of massage and self-massage, including light
tapping of the fingers on the head. For
workers engaged in mental or predominantly mental labor, it
is recommended to include 18-20 exercises of a dynamic
character in the preventive-gymnastics complex. Session duration is 20-25
minutes. When performing the complex, the cardiovascular, respiratory,
and muscular systems are actively engaged. Prevention of unfavorable
factors for people doing mental work To prevent unfavorable
factors for people doing mental work, it is
advisable to carry out the following measures (E.V. Budyka):
- engaging in energy-intensive types of physical exercise with
a large range of movement; - classes in offices
and health rooms using exercise-machine equipment; - psycho-prophylaxis
of nervous strain independently or in psychological-relief rooms. Recommendations:
1. For what purpose is it necessary to do eye exercises.
2. Why is a correctly formed muscular corset needed.
3. What role do breathing exercises play.
4. Can massage be a means of disease prevention.
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