Thoughts about health. Health and climate. The relation between health and climate.
It’s not because I’m a geography teacher that I want to talk about health in relation to climate (and even not the climate change, everyone thinks about when reading “climate”). It’s just about my experiences as a human being after having lived in different climate zones. The mediterranean climate and the moderate central european climate.
For those who want to know the differences, I try to explain shortly out of my experiences:
Climate in germany:
Well, it depends on where you live. In general its very various, as you know.
Mediterranean climate:
Most of the time in the year its warm or very hot. As you know from your vacation ;) New thing for me: being there also in winter! To be honest, I never thought it can get this cold in winter! In school you learn that it doesn’t get too cold because it’s influenced by the “warm” mediterranean sea. In fact, it feels the same like in germany. It is around 0°C and it feels like -10°C in Germany – perhaps it’s because of the air that’s more humid? Snow is exceptional, but can occur.
But the big thing is, that winter is only about ~3 months. You always feel the strength of the warm sun and after having visited very south of our globe, she comes back and shows it :)
Exceptional snowfall in western turkey in January
In February at the seaside
So, before I left Germany I wondered about how to manage my health, to be precise: how to react when I’m ill or something similar. As it happened often to me that I have back pain because of wrong movement, I went to the physiotherapist very regularly to get rid of my pain. One of my sorrows was: what shall I do when I have again big pain in my neck or my back while I’m in Turkey…?
Well. No worries needed. In the 1,5 years I’ve been in Turkey, I never had to go to the doctor or physiotherapist. Not even once. Not even while being on vacation in Germany. I just felt fine. Concerning “normal” Illness like a sniff or a cold it was the extract of grapefruit that helped a lot. I learned about this by a colleague and good friend in Turkey. I learned a lot from her about healthy lifestyle and natural medication.
Since I’m back in Germany (it’s exactly one month now, that I’m writing this article), there’s always something: hurting chords, hurting joints, and some days ago it hit me hard: Very strong sprain of my neck or higher back. It hurt so much I had to take pills to stand it (I had to do some things, alternative would have been not to do anything and lay still), which I normally don’t do. One day later, I spend 3 hours on the street just to drive to the physiotherapist I know very good. She did again a great job in relieving my pain! I’m so very thankful that she always takes time for me in such cases!
Me - taped.
So, what do we learn about it?
Conclusion (my very personal one): a warmer climate is good for your health!
There are also at least two friends of mine who confirmed my thesis already: They said that they also are ill less often while being in Turkey.
Also Gisela, a german woman who was told to have an illness she can’t overcome, cured this illness by living in the Mediterranean area during wintertime. You can watch the impressive video here (in german):
Gisela on the road - ARD
But… perhaps it’s also about energies?! Who knows… :)
To be very honest… Right now, I can imagine living in Turkey one day. But it’s easy now to think like that. New job to handle, autumn and winter coming… It depresses the mood easily.
Have you made similar experiences? How do you think about this topic?