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Bad Air, Good Air
One of the great challenges that many people face, especially those living in cities, is that the air often is dirty and polluted. Other factors working against fresh air include tobacco smoke, especially when it is recirculated in office buildings. Breathing dirty air can lead to numerous health problems, including migraine headaches, nausea, vomiting, and eye and respiratory ailments. In some parts of the world, millions of people, especially children, suffer life-threatening illnesses from breathing bad air, often from poorly ventilated cooking facilities.
In contrast, good clean air usually may be found in abundance in natural outdoor environments, especially around evergreen trees, green plants in mountains and forests, near moving waters such as oceans, lakes, and waterfalls, and after rain. It is estimated that the algae in the ocean provides almost 90 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere, with the rest coming from plants. Live plants in your own home can help to clean the air there and remove carbon dioxide.
How important, then, that we do our best to breathe clean air. Exercise outside, as opposed to indoors, especially in the morning, if possible. In addition, especially for those who work inside, it is important to be able to take regular intervals or breaks in order to get outside and breathe fresh air, again if possible. After just a few moments outside, a person often will feel refreshed and reinvigorated. It’s so much better to sleep at night with a window open, even just a little, so that we can enjoy the benefits of fresh air while sleeping.
“In order to have good blood, we must breathe well. Full, deep inspirations of pure air, which fill the lungs with oxygen, purify the blood. They impart to it a bright color and send it, a life-giving current, to every part of the body. Good respiration soothes the nerves, stimulates the appetite, and aids digestion. And it induces sound, refreshing sleep.
“The lungs should be allowed the greatest freedom possible. Their capacity is developed by free action; it diminishes if they are cramped and compressed. Ill effects follow the practice so common, especially in sedentary pursuits, of stooping at one’s work. In this position it is impossible to breathe deeply. Superficial breathing soon becomes a habit, and the lungs lose their power to expand.”—Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Health and Healing, pp. 151, 152.
Our personal situations vary; some folk have a lifestyle and situation in which about all they ever breathe is fresh, clean air; others, due to where they live and work, might find fresh air a precious commodity that they covet as much as a thirsty person does water.
Whatever your situation, how important it is for the best health to take advantage of fresh air when you can get it.
Read Genesis 1:26. What does this imply about our responsibility to the created world we have been given?
| WEDNESDAY | May 19 |
One of the great challenges that many people face, especially those living in cities, is that the air often is dirty and polluted. Other factors working against fresh air include tobacco smoke, especially when it is recirculated in office buildings. Breathing dirty air can lead to numerous health problems, including migraine headaches, nausea, vomiting, and eye and respiratory ailments. In some parts of the world, millions of people, especially children, suffer life-threatening illnesses from breathing bad air, often from poorly ventilated cooking facilities.
In contrast, good clean air usually may be found in abundance in natural outdoor environments, especially around evergreen trees, green plants in mountains and forests, near moving waters such as oceans, lakes, and waterfalls, and after rain. It is estimated that the algae in the ocean provides almost 90 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere, with the rest coming from plants. Live plants in your own home can help to clean the air there and remove carbon dioxide.
How important, then, that we do our best to breathe clean air. Exercise outside, as opposed to indoors, especially in the morning, if possible. In addition, especially for those who work inside, it is important to be able to take regular intervals or breaks in order to get outside and breathe fresh air, again if possible. After just a few moments outside, a person often will feel refreshed and reinvigorated. It’s so much better to sleep at night with a window open, even just a little, so that we can enjoy the benefits of fresh air while sleeping.
“In order to have good blood, we must breathe well. Full, deep inspirations of pure air, which fill the lungs with oxygen, purify the blood. They impart to it a bright color and send it, a life-giving current, to every part of the body. Good respiration soothes the nerves, stimulates the appetite, and aids digestion. And it induces sound, refreshing sleep.
“The lungs should be allowed the greatest freedom possible. Their capacity is developed by free action; it diminishes if they are cramped and compressed. Ill effects follow the practice so common, especially in sedentary pursuits, of stooping at one’s work. In this position it is impossible to breathe deeply. Superficial breathing soon becomes a habit, and the lungs lose their power to expand.”—Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Health and Healing, pp. 151, 152.
Our personal situations vary; some folk have a lifestyle and situation in which about all they ever breathe is fresh, clean air; others, due to where they live and work, might find fresh air a precious commodity that they covet as much as a thirsty person does water.
Whatever your situation, how important it is for the best health to take advantage of fresh air when you can get it.
Read Genesis 1:26. What does this imply about our responsibility to the created world we have been given?
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