Snack Time~

1) Snack time can be every day as long you keep it under 200 calories and it isn't composed of unhealthy and non-nutritious foods.
2) Healthy snacks- nutrients, unsaturated fats, proteins, low amount of carbs and sugars
3) Stay away from foods high in added sugars, preservatives, carbs, and processed foods. Keep it under 200 calories, avoid food with high sodium.
Apples-vitamins, heart, nutritious
Peanut butter-vitamins, heart, protein
Almonds-lower risk of cancer, heart disease, protein
Liked that we made food! Big fan of peanut butter, and the one we used wasn't too sweet, but it also wasn't salted or anything.
Good job Alexandria and Simrun!

Blood Pressure Lab

Analysis Questions
1) Compare the systole to diastole.
Systolic pressure is the pressure when the heart contracts. Diastolic pressure is the pressure when the heart relaxes.
2) What equipment is used to measure heart rate? To measure blood pressure?
To measure heart rate, all you have to do is use your fingers. There are seven pulse points that you can use to measure heart rate, but carotid arteries and radial arteries are the easiest places to measure it. Blood pressure can be measured with a sphygmomanometer.
3) Why is using your thumb to measure pulse not ideal?
The thumb also has its own pulse, so using it to measure heart rate in one of the seven pulse points could be confusing.

4) In your own words, describe how to use a blood pressure cuff (sphygomomanometer).
Place cuff on arm, put head of stethoscope above the crease of the elbow, inflate cuff to around 150 mmHg, then open the valve slightly to let air out. When you hear sounds from the stethoscope, the value on the gauge is the systolic blood pressure. When the sounds stop, the gauge reading is the diastolic blood pressure.

In my first test, I had 115 systole to 80 diastole.
In my second test, I had 120 systole to 75 diastole.

Unit 2 Reflection

I really liked what our group came up with in the very beginning when we were asked about the definition of health. It's quite simply, if you keep it simple. Health has many subcategories to be filled to be "sufficient" and "healthy," but I think if you can't find happiness in the things you do, in every aspect of your life, it's going to be really hard to be healthy, physically or mentally. In this retrospect, I'm super healthy. I'm quite the happy person. To me, there is really nothing to be sad about. Nothing can drag me down. Life is too short to care enough to get hurt. But I digress. Not only our school, but according to our psychology class, the majority of teenagers living in the United States aren't the healthiest. Whether it's diet, exercise, sleep, or all of the above, many adolescents aren't doing enough to maintain their health. There are many factors to this, one huge component being school, but in reality, it's procrastination that pulls us down in the dumps regarding our physical health. 

Themes from this unit include the pillars of health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and social life. I learned a lot from every section, but what I found interesting as I looked back to my previous biology classes were how little they talked about sleep. Of course I knew about how bad it was to get little of it, but learning about the hormones that affected my weight and other detrimental effects of racking up a sleep debt was really eye opening. There was actually one period I missed because I had so little sleep that I overslept a little too much, which caused a huge ripple effect. I ended up missing a class in which we did labs that would fit together with the nutritional analysis, which I could only partially complete because of many difficulties. I really liked the sleep diary, and I actually think I will probably continue to use one to see if my averages per week can go up to seriously get more sleep and stay awake during the day. I don't have a link, but I watched a video in psychology that was called Inside the Teenager Brain or something similar. It talked about the different mood swings, but it also talked about sleep deprivation. Kids are really struggling with getting their work done in time to sleep earlier, and it is something that is definitely difficult to address, as kids really need to grow up themselves to get their work done and stay healthy at the same time. This time of our life has huge impact in our future years, and it's a shame how hard it is to stay healthy now.