Health and Wellbeing Special Edition

Five things you should know:

1. You can get too much of a good thing
Even Carrots can kill you! Want to know more?

2. Your environment may be poisoning you
Manage the toxic contamination from your immediate environment. Find out more...

3. Keep an open mind about your health
Even professionals can miss the key issue if their focus is too narrow. Find out more...

4. Psychological health affects physical health
Stress can actually make you sick. Find out more...

5. Build positive habits from an early age
Give your kids the gift of health for life. Find out more...

The Golden Rule: Knowledge is power. Empower yourself to achieve good health and wellbeing by learning what makes your body tick.

Books and DVDs
Click here to browse current specials on books and DVDs

Health Problems
Click here to find out more about steps you can take to improve your health and wellbeing

Take care of yourself
Click here to learn more about looking after your physical and mental wellbeing

Career Opportunities
Click here to find out more about career opportunities that might interest you

You can get too much of a good thing

A fast route to deteriorating physical health and emotional wellbeing is to focus too heavily on one aspect of your life at the expense of other areas. Balance is vital. The hazards of working too hard are well documented but what about too much play? If your hard-partying lifestyle is eating into your sleep, exercise or work routines, it will be just as damaging to your overall wellbeing as being a workaholic.

Balance is important in every aspect of our lives. Doing too much of a single type of exercise without appropriate rest can result in injury. Likewise, eating too much of any one type of food is a problem – even healthy food. If you eat too many carrots, you risk developing carotenosis, a condition that causes the skin to turn a sickly yellow colour and is potentially fatal. Keeping your life in balance will ensure that you avoid many of the key lifestyle traps that contribute to poor health and make you susceptible to disease. ACS has a range of courses focusing on physical health and wellbeing if you would like to learn more about looking after your body better. These include Back Care and Aquafitness.

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Your environment may be poisoning you

Thanks to modern manufacturing processes, we are surrounded by chemicals, toxic fumes and radiation in our immediate environment. Building materials such as paints and glues give off a variety of toxins, computers and electrical equipment emit poisonous fumes as they heat up, electrical circuitry in lighting and appliances creates electro-magnetic radiation. Constant low-level exposure to such harmful environmental pollutants can affect your long term health.

But there are ways of improving the health of buildings to make them safer for humans. Find out more about safer building materials, fittings and furnishing by studying our Healthy Buildings course.

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Keep an open mind about your health

Consulting experts when you have a problem is very useful and important. You can never know everything yourself but it is important to recognize that neither can any one health professional. Specialists will have a tendency to concentrate on an issue through the filter of their own professional bias. For example, a nutritionist will tend to look for nutritional answers; a surgeon will tend to look for anatomical answers. Taking a holistic approach to your health may open avenues to wellbeing that a purely medical approach may not unearth. If you would like to find out more about natural health and alternative therapies, ACS offers a range of courses on subjects such as complementary medicine, functional nutrition and naturopathy.

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Psychological health affects physical health

Taking care of our bodies is only half the battle when it comes to achieving good health. We also need to take care of our mental wellbeing. When a person becomes stressed their blood vessels contract, food doesn’t move to the cells as well, waste isn’t removed as efficiently. In extreme cases, they can feel shortness of breath, palpitations, nausea and debilitating fatigue. In short, a person's mental and emotional wellbeing has a flow-on effect to their physical wellbeing. Learning how to manage stress is a huge step forward in achieving overall good health. To learn more about the effects of stress on the body and how to manage stress, you could consider studying our Stress Management course.

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Build positive habits from an early age 

Doing a massive overhaul of your lifestyle as an adult can be a difficult task. You will be tackling years of poor habits that have become entrenched in your behaviour and routine and need to be completely unlearned and replaced with better practises. This may involve a commitment of time - for example, to cook a healthy meal rather than pick up a fatty takeaway meal on the way home, or to incorporate a regular exercise program into your lifestyle. Such changes will involve sacrifice. You may need to give up other things you enjoy, like time in front of the television or computer, in order to achieve them.

Building healthy habits from an early age is an important foundation to lifelong good health for your children. Teaching them how to look after themselves when they are young will help to prevent them from falling into lifestyle traps that will negatively impact their health and potentially shorten their lifespans in the long term. Give your children the gift of health by teaching them how to eat well and look after their bodies. Our course in Children’s Nutrition will give you a good foundation in the basics of good nutrition for little people.

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Books and DVDs

Books:      
Aerobic Fitness
Filled with scientific insights and practical tips about how to improve your aerobic fitness.
             
                 

Aquafitness (special offer available, see link below)
Give yourself a tough workout without taxing your joints with heavy impact. Aquafitness is a great way to get in shape, especially for people who are recovering from an injury or want to make a gentle start to an exercise program.

DVD:

Resistance Exercises  (special offer available, see link below)
Strengthen muscles and improve core body strength using the easy-to-follow exercises on this great DVD

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Got a Problem? Learn how to fix it

Food allergies? Study Nutrition 3 to find out more about how to manage your allergies and food intolerances

Sensitive to chemicals and pollutants? Study Healthy Buildings to find out more about the potential source of your problems and how to reduce their impact.

Bad Back? Study Back Care I to learn how to manage your back problems and treat back injuries.

Got an injury or health problem that makes exercise difficult? Study Aquafitness to find out more about gentle exercise options for you.

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Take care of yourself - study a short course

Stress Management

Personal Fitness

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Careers in health and fitness

Counsellor –Diploma in Counselling and Psychology

Nutritionist – Advanced Diploma in Functional Nutrition

Medical - Pre-Medical Studies giving access to medicine degree

Life Coach/Fitness Leader – Various Certificates and Diplomas available

Complementary Medicine Professional – Advanced Diplomas in a range of specializations

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ACS Distance Education
Phone: +61 7 5562 1088
Fax: +61 7 5562 1099
Email: admin@acs.edu.au