Tag Archives: health
Stop Buying Bottled Water! Here’s What to Do Instead
The average American spends about $100 on bottled water each year. Unfortunately, there’s little evidence that bottled water is safer or healthier than tap water.
First of all, many plastic bottles contain phthalates and other chemicals that affect endocrine function. Second, they leave a massive carbon footprint. On top of that, buying bottled water can be expensive in the long run.
Note that some bottled water brands use tap water. Although the tap water is treated, it may still contain bacteria and traces of heavy metals. Luckily, there are better options available.
Feeling confused? Here’s why you should stop buying bottled water and what to do instead!
Bottled Water May Not Be Safe
The safety of bottled water depends largely on the brand. These products are regulated by the FDA and must meet certain quality standards. But even so, the water may come from different sources, including local water supplies.
A recent study conducted on 47 bottled water brands has found that most of them had detectable levels of either heavy metals or PFAS.
Arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals may cause severe toxicity. These compounds have been linked to cancer, kidney damage, high blood pressure, and birth defects.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are just as harmful. Over time, these chemicals may lead to hormonal imbalances, cancer, and liver problems. Plus, they tend to stay in the human body for years.
Plastic Bottles May Contain BPA
Another concern related to bottled water is the presence of bisphenol-A, or BPA. This synthetic compound is used in the manufacturing of plastic products and may affect human health.
BPA can leak into foods and beverages, making its way into your body. In one study, subjects who ate canned soup (which may contain this compound) every day for five days had 1,221% levels of BPA in the urine than those eating fresh soup.
Some brands are now offering BPA-free bottled water. Unfortunately, this option isn’t safer either. BPA-free bottles typically contain bisphenol-S or bisphenol-F, which have similar effects as bisphenol-A.
Note that bottled water is bad for the environment, too. Its entire life cycle contributes to pollution and global warming.
Switch to a Water Filtration System
Bottled water won’t necessarily improve your health or protect against diseases. As far as its taste goes, most consumers can’t tell the difference between bottled and tap water.
Whether you want to stay healthy, make savings, or reduce your carbon footprint, it’s worth switching to water filters. A quality water filtration system, like the ones at FilterSmart.com, will remove dirt, bacteria, chemicals, and heavy metals.
Filtered tap water will always be cheaper than bottled water. On top of that, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that you’re drinking clean water and protecting the environment.
While it’s true that a premium water filter may cost more upfront, you’ll save a fortune in the long run.
Stop Buying Bottled Water Once and for All
As you can see, buying bottled water is pretty much a waste of money. Most brands have detectable levels of chemicals and pollute the environment. Some are no better than tap water.
A whole house water filtration system offers more value for the money. It not only leads to cost savings but may also boost your health. Make the switch today—your future self will thank you!
In the meantime, check out the rest of our blog for other health tips. We’ll show you how to safely store water, how to get better sleep, and more!
How to Build and Promote Workplace Safety Culture
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), more than five thousand people died on the job in 2019. That’s more than fourteen people every day.
Worker deaths are a serious thing and should be prevented at all costs. The purpose of having a workplace safety culture is to look beyond specific safety programs and policies. The goal is to capture the behaviors and mindsets towards the safety of all of the company owners, managers, and employees.
Are you looking to boost team morale and make sure that you’re establishing a safe and organized work environment? If you are, then keep on reading and we’ll walk you through everything that you’ll want to know about building and promoting a workplace safety culture.
Characteristics of Positive Workplace Safety Culture
It’s usually easier to recognize an organization that has a negative safety culture rather than one that has a positive culture. This is because a lack of a safety culture usually means that safety initiatives are not bought into by employees. This usually leads to higher rates of accidents and injuries within the work environment.
While it might seem intimidating to build a positive safety environment, the benefits after the investment has been made will become evident throughout the company.
A company that has a good safety culture will likely experience:
- Decreased rates of accident or injuries
- Lower turn over
- High employee engagement
- Increased employee productivity
But what does a positive safety culture look like? Organizations with a strong safety culture tend to have employees that feel empowered to take action. They also feel responsible for the safety of themselves and their coworkers.
Now, let’s go over several ways that you can build and promote workplace safety culture at your place of work.
1. Define Responsibilities
In order to establish an effective safety culture, you first need to define the responsibilities within your company. This can be done at all levels of the company and includes goals and policies.
2. Create an Organizational Vision for Safety
It’s important that everyone in the organization is on the same page when it comes to the company’s vision for safety. It won’t be possible for you to reach your safety goal if all of the company’s stakeholders aren’t working towards the same goal.
3. Come Up with a System for Open Communication
Organizations that have a strong workplace safety culture need to invest in making lines of open communication within the company. You also need to make sure that workers are updated on new safety protocols in order to make sure that the procedures and policies can be implemented successfully.
One great way to share new information is with monthly talks about understanding health and safety. You want to allow for employees to openly communicate with regards to safety within the workplace.
4. Involve Employees at All Levels
Making a workplace safety culture starts from the ground up. It’s important that workers of all levels are included in the planning and implementation phase of any new safety procedures.
You can make your employees feel more involved by asking for their opinions during the initial planning phases. You can also prevent possible pitfalls later down the road during implementation.
5. Rebuild Reporting System
Your reporting system will need to focus on the positive. Your employees should feel free to share their safety concerns without any repercussions. When you reward workers who share their safety concerns, you’ll be able to rebuild your system and encourage other workers to report their concerns as well.
6. Implement Hands-On Training
When you’re building and promoting a workplace safety culture within an organization, it’s important to utilize proper training. Sharing best practices and developing opportunities for workers to have hands-on learning sessions will help your workers retain and successfully implement new safety procedures.
Also, when you invest in quality training, you’ll be showing your workers that you care about their safety. You’ll also increase team member support and buy-in.
7. Management Modeling
If you want your safety initiatives to be successful, then you need to make sure that the model is from the top down. This means that managers need to make a commitment to employing a safety-first work style. They should always be demonstrating safety is important and valued.
8. Hold Employees Accountable
Companies that fully embody a strong workplace safety culture will know that safety is of the utmost importance. Every worker will feel responsible for their own safety as well as the safety of their coworkers.
A big part of this feeling is holding your workers accountable. The more that an employee feels accountable for safety initiatives, the more likely they’re going to take action to improve the safety around them.
9. Celebrate Success
Keeping your team members updated about company progress is necessary for driving safety initiatives. Recognizing departments, individuals, and the company as a whole for its improvements can be a useful way to boost team morale.
The Importance of Knowing How to Build and Promote Workplace Safety Culture
Hopefully, after reading the above article, you now have a better idea of how to build and promote workplace safety culture. As we can see, there are a lot of benefits to establishing a good workplace safety culture. And it will be much easier to accomplish this if you make everyone feel involved and responsible for the safety of others.
Are you looking for more helpful articles? Make sure to check out the rest of our site today for more!
Silent Death: 5 Chronic Diseases Plaguing the World Right Now
The risk of chronic diseases has risen worldwide in recent years. These are often silent but deadly conditions. Combined with our current Covid-19 pandemic has caused many complications for public health officials.
Keep reading to learn more about the most common chronic diseases plaguing the Earth right now.
1. Coronary Artery Disease
According to the American Heart Association, coronary artery disease, also known as heart disease, is the number one reason for deaths in America, accounting for about 13 percent of deaths in the year 2017. Heart disease significantly increases your risk for stroke, another common killer, especially in older adults. Genetics play a role in susceptibility.
Other factors like lifestyle, diet, exercise habits, smoking, and alcohol consumption all play parts in a person’s chronic disease risk. Medication, surgery, and lifestyle modification can reduce your risk.
2. Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic, sometimes lifelong condition that impacts the way your body uses glucose. While it is most common in adults, children are capable of developing it as well. It’s typically controlled with medication and insulin therapy.
Type 2 can be reversed through weight loss, maintaining a healthy diet, getting regular exercise. Controlling diabetes is crucial as it can cause nerve damage, kidney damage, and impair wound healing.
3. Dementia
The term dementia is a blanket term for conditions including Alzheimer’s disease that have an effect on memory, critical thinking and problem solving, language, and many other skills needed for daily function. The typical age of onset is 65 or older. However, certain types can develop early in life, although it’s uncommon.
The group Rare Dementia Support raises funds for families and individuals with rare forms of dementia. You can take a look at their website to see how you can get involved.
4. Asthma
Asthma is characterized by swollen airways. Irritants like strong odors, smoke, dust, pollen, or exercise can induce an asthma attack. During these attacks, the muscles swell even more and restrict breathing.
It can only be treated and managed, as there is no cure. With medication, like an inhaler or bronchodilator and lifestyle adjustments, a person could significantly reduce the frequency of attacks.
5. Cancer
Cancer is not a single disease; rather, it is an umbrella term for a wide range of conditions caused by abnormal cell growth. One of the most common cancer types is of the lungs. Those who do or have smoked tobacco are at an especially high chance of developing and dying from this.
It may not present with symptoms, but when it does, it causes trouble breathing, chest pain, hoarseness, and more. A chest x-ray is typically necessary to diagnose it.
The 5 Most Common Chronic Diseases Worldwide
Heart disease tops our list of the most common chronic diseases, which is a contributor to strokes. Other deadly chronic illnesses include type 2 diabetes, dementia, asthma, and cancer. Support groups are available for those living with such conditions.
If you want to learn more about current events and news in the world, check out the rest of our blog!
Storing Water: How Long Does Water Keep in a Bottle?
Just about everything that you buy in a grocery store has an expiration date on it. From milk to meat to bread, you’re going to find expiration dates stamped on all of the items that you place into your cart.
Believe it or not, that will also go for bottled water in most instances. A lot of the companies that manufacture bottled water so that people can go about storing water include expiration dates on their products. And they do it for a bunch of good reasons.
If you’re someone who drinks bottled water on a regular basis or if you’ve gotten into the habit of storing tap water in water bottles in your home, you should be aware of what can happen to water over the course of a few months. It might make you think twice about drinking water that’s been in your home for a long period of time.
Continue reading to learn more.
Storing Water Can Make It Taste Stale
The first thing that you might notice when you take a swig of water that’s been stored for a long time is that it’ll often taste stale. While this water might not be bad for your health, it isn’t going to quench your thirst like fresh water will.
Water sometimes goes stale when carbon dioxide from the air finds its way into the water. This can make it a little bit more acidic than it would be otherwise, which leads to it developing a stale taste.
Storing water for too long could ruin it for you if this ever happens. It’s why you might want to steer clear of doing it.
It Can Also Become Contaminated by Plastic
As we just mentioned, stale water isn’t going to be too harmful to your health. It just won’t taste great.
Water that has been contaminated by plastic, on the other hand, can cause health complications. It’s why you should stay away from storing water for more than six months or so.
When you store water in plastic bottles, the plastic from these bottles can get into the water. You can then move this plastic into your body by drinking it and it can build up over time. It could potentially harm your gut health and cause respiratory issues at the same time.
This is another reason why you should try not to keep water bottles around for long stretches of time.
It Could Even Lead to Bacterial Growth
If you’re going to store water, it’s important to do it in the right way. You need to keep it sealed up tight in a cool, dark area where it won’t be exposed to any air or sunlight.
If you don’t seal water bottles up properly, bacteria might be able to get into them and wreak havoc on the water. This could obviously be very bad for your health if you then drink water with bacteria in it.
It’s one more reason you might want to think about refilling a water bottle every day and drinking from that rather than drinking from water bottles that have been sitting around for months on end. Click here to pick up a great water bottle for yourself.
Keeping Water in a Bottle for Too Long Could Be Very Bad for Your Health
You might be able to get away with storing water for more than six months without doing any harm to it. Water doesn’t technically expire like most other things.
But why risk it? You could be forced to deal with any or even all of the issues listed here when storing tap water or keeping old bottled water around. You’re better off drinking fresh water as often as you can.
Find more great health and wellness tips in the other articles on our blog.
Best POS System For Personal Trainers?
Personal trainers are often independent or self-employed individuals that train with clients at multiple gyms, parks, and health centers. The nature of the work is unique, and so are the needs of the customers when it comes to payment processing. The best POS system for trainers and their clients will be different depending on the trainer. However, it’s certain that a variety of payment options should be available, and that the terminal should be just as trim as the trainer to keep up with the busy pace of a fitness business.
Here are a few suggestions to get you pointed in the right direction:
Always On the Go
Personal trainers may take payments at the gym, but they may also take them at the beach, or on a mountain. For personal trainers, the best POS solutions are usually wireless ones. Wireless payment processing does not require a phone or Internet connection to communicate with an acceptor.
Wireless POS terminals give trainers the freedom to take payments with devices small enough to take anywhere. Wireless credit card machines use radio towers to transmit payment requests for debit card, credit cards, and many support new chip technology.
Security Features Anywhere
Trainers may not consider payment security first when researching payment solutions, but security should be a priority for every business owner, no matter the business.
Wireless POS terminals offer the same security features that stationary POS systems offer. Be sure your service provider follows PCI DSS regulations, which includes encryption processes.
Your clients trust you to take care of their bodies and minds, be sure you take care of their personal information.
Software Support
In addition to taking payments anywhere, trainers may also benefit from software solutions that streamline payment processing.
For example, trainers that teach a weekly class may enjoy automated payment processing for regular clients. This helps build a better customer experience, and limits the time needed to collect payments.
If you’re a personal trainer, don’t wait to make payment processing a priority. Use the tips above to get started today!
