Stressed, distressed and BP rising

Lifestyle diseases are likely to kill 270 million Asians by 2015, says the World Health Organisation. And of those, hypertension or high blood pressure is going to be one of the biggest killers. It could kill you and me, too.

The scary figures on World Hypertension Day: 1 billion suffering from high blood pressure globally and by 2025 over half a billion more victims. And all this is supposedly because of lifestyle, or rather a ‘fast’ lifestyle. What makes things scary is that you and me are working for that lifestyle. That laptop, the oh-so-soft double-bed mattress, the designer bag, the flat-screen TV or that home theatre… Ever since working and earning stopped being about roti, kapda aur makaan, ‘pressure’ has almost become synonymous with ‘work’. And then there is high blood pressure.

Hypertension along with some other lifestyle-borne diseases will kill more people than you and I can imagine. Tampons, sanitary napkins with plastic shields, lazyboy chairs for ultimate TV-watching comfort, crash diets to get rid of that beer-gut, addiction to sleeping pills due to insomnia, insomnia due to the sleeping pills... we are increasingly becoming a generation caught in its own silk web.

A generation that is ageing, tiring and collapsing faster: Fatal heart-attacks to 27-year-olds, high blood pressure in 15-year-olds, women menopausing at 30 and nervous breakdown and burn outs at 20. The culprits? Not cocaine, crack or heroine, but simple things and innocuous habits. While we are busy increasing our bank balance, we’re goofing up, fatally, on the basics—sleep, posture, food and self-image—of healthy living. With today being the World Hypertension Day, here’s a look at high blood pressure and the other significant Luxury-borne Killers

The has-bean bag

Most of us have beanbags: single people have two, small apartments have one and even big mansions have a beanbag or two in the kids' room. However, the same beanbag is your ticket to a life of pain and paralysis.

Continuous use of the bag — the worse kind of posture imaginable – will change the shape of your spine forever. Similarly, extra-soft, double bed mattresses, promoted as the ultimate in bedroom luxury also do not provide the right kind of support for your spine.