Lifestyle

By Aishat M. Abisola

Now that 2023 has begun, we are at a time when it is not uncommon for people to start feeling ill. This can be either physical or mental.

Already, a throat disease (diphtheria) is spreading fast in the North, affecting many Nigerians. Even though this disease can be cured and prevented with vaccines, not many people will be able to gain access to them.

Every single disease in the world works by attacking the immune system without rest, and this is exactly why people need to be more concerned about their bodies. Although the human body is strong, it can still be damaged quite easily, either internally or externally.

Your immune system operates in a very specific manner. It must be strong and complex enough to fight off a variety of illnesses and infections but not so strong that it overreacts to small issues.

It is because of this that we need to be more attentive to our health, especially in times like this. If you look around you, you will see many supplements and products claiming to help boost immunity. However, supporting a healthy immune system is a lot more difficult than just taking a mix of vitamins and minerals packaged into a pill or powder.

From fighting off a cold to flu and then to COVID-19, there are things you can do to help give your immune system what it needs to function optimally, though.

For those who do not have access to vaccines or medicines that can help them boost their immune systems, there are things you can do to help give your immune system what it needs to function properly. None of these methods involves taking supplements.

1. Stay up-to-date on recommended vaccines
If you do have easy access to vaccines, make sure to stay up to date on them. A strong immune system means taking advantage of whatever we are provided with to protect ourselves from harmful illnesses: vaccines.

The human immune system is smart, but vaccines train it to be even smarter by helping it learn how to recognize and fight off certain disease-causing illnesses. Vaccinations make it for your immune system to learn than through infection with harmful germs.

2. Maintain a healthy diet

Just like most things in your body, a healthy diet is vital in maintaining a strong immune system. This means ensuring that sure you eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats. These micronutrients include:

Vitamin B6 (Chicken, Fish, Bananas, Green Vegetables and Potatoes with the skin)

Vitamin C (Citrus fruits like oranges and, strawberries, Tomatoes, Spinach)

Vitamin E ( Almonds, Peanuts and Leafy Vegetables)

Zinc ( Red meat like beef, Poultry, Beans, Dairy products like milk)

Magnesium ( Whole Wheat Products, Nuts, Seeds)

Many health experts believe that your body absorbs vitamins better when they come from dietary sources instead of supplements. So, the best way to support your immune system is by eating a well-balanced diet.

3. Exercise regularly

Despite what many may think, physical activity isn’t just for building muscles and helping yourself de-stress — it also plays an important role in being healthy and supporting a healthy immune system.

Exercise helps in mobilising the immune cells that are outside of the bone into the bloodstream, and it also moves immune cells that are already in the bloodstream in the cell tissues. By doing this, immunity surveillance is increased.

It is your immune system’s monitoring process, and exercise helps the immune cells to be more efficient at detecting and reacting to infections. Staying active and exercising regularly is vital for this to occur.

4. Hydrate

When it comes to supporting the immune system, water plays an important part alongside other roles in your body. Blood and lymph have immune cells in them, and they need water in order to flow and circulate in the body.

You constantly lose water by breathing as well as through urine and bowel movements. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are exercising. If you want to support your immune system, replace the water you lose daily with water that you can use. In order to do so, you need to know what your daily water intake is.

5. Get plenty of sleep

When you sleep, it may not feel as if anything is happening, but there are a lot of processes going on when you’re not awake. Knowing how much sleep you should be getting on a nightly basis as well as what to do if you have trouble sleeping, is the best way to give your immune system the best chance to fight off infection and illness.

6. Minimize stress

Chronic stress can have dangerous effects on your health, whether it comes quickly or builds up over time. Stress can either cause major or minor impacts on how well your immune system functions if it leads to sleep disturbances, a tendency to eat less healthy food, reduced water intake, less frequent exercise, and more.

Stress appears differently for everyone, and however way we choose to relieve it is different too. When you take into consideration the effect it can have on your health, it’s important to know how to identify stress. If you want to reduce stress, it is necessary that you get familiar with any type of activity that helps you relieve it, such as deep breathing, meditation, prayer, or exercise.

7. Limit Alcohol Intake

A moderate consumption of alcohol doesn’t have any positive effect on your immune system. Evidence suggests that binge drinking, or having more than four drinks in two hours for women and five for men, impairs immunity.

Alcohol can temporarily increase the number of white blood cells, which fight infections, in your bloodstream, but when your liver clears the alcohol from your system, your white blood cell count falls below the normal amount for at least five hours. If you want to work hard to stay healthy, it is best for you to avoid or limit your alcohol intake.

8. Practice Proper Hygiene

If you want to have a strong immune system, proper handwashing is one of the most important things to keep in mind. All you need is just normal soap and water. You should scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds—the length of singing “Happy Birthday” twice. This is the minimum time needed to significantly reduce the number of microorganisms on your skin.

However, it doesn’t matter how good your handwashing skills are if they won’t help prevent infection unless you know when to scrub up. It is advised that a person should wash their hands before and after any type of risky exposure. This includes after using the restroom, sneezing, or coughing.

Your hands should also be washed before you prepare food, after caring for a sick loved one, treating a wound, or touching any publicly used door handles, knobs, switches, or surfaces. If your hands get very dry after washing, make sure to moisturize them with cream or Vaseline.

9. Use the Right Hand Sanitizer

Hand sanitiser tends to kill most microorganisms, which is the next best thing if you don’t have access to soap and water. Before you use it, make sure to look at the alcohol percentage first. Alcohol (ethanol) is the active ingredient in hand sanitiser, working to kill viruses and bacteria. It is advised to use a hand sanitiser with an alcohol percentage that is greater than 60%.16

The human body requires a lot of care so that it can stay healthy and fight off most diseases (or, at the very least, reduce their effects). If you don’t care for your body, you are just setting yourself up for a very bad experience in the future.

Your body is a temple. Keep it clean and tidy. Prevent it from decay with any method that is available to you.

Aishat M. Abisola is a member of the Society for Health Communication, Wuye District, Abuja. She can be reached via aishatmohd02@gmail.com.

By Muhammad Muzdaleefa

Founding leaders of nations matter. A country’s founding moment is often a make-or-mar moment in the life of the country. The trajectory on which the founding leadership sets the country, as well the power of their founding example, often defines and determines the future course of events way past the founding generation. Founding precedents tend to have an exceptional degree of endurance, because founding leaders command a kind and degree of legitimacy and license that is exceptional and which gives them and their example and precedents a special status and the propelling force of path dependency in their country’s history.

George Washington’s founding example, of not offering himself up for election again after serving two terms as (first) president of the new republic, even though nothing in the US constitution at the time imposed term limits on an incumbent president, initiated a tradition of American presidents not going beyond two terms; a tradition that remained in place until Franklin Delano Roosevelt breached it in the 1930s/40s, causing it to be restored by constitutional amendment. Additionally, the contemporary trajectory of American federalism, including the enduring fault lines in its politics, can be traced back to the Federalist/anti-Federalist split in the founding generation; between the Hamiltonian (strong federal/center) and the Jeffersonian/Madisonian (strong states) visions.

The death of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990 (then senior minister after that), has brought the usual apologists of autocratic rule in Africa out of their holes, doing what they do best: making all manner of inapt comparisons and prophecies of “what would have been” had one or the other favorite African autocrat been allowed to rule for as long as Lee Kuan Yew did. There is the implicit suggestion that similar longevity in office would have turned Lee’s African contemporaries into a Lee Kuan Yew or transformed their African states from Third World to First. It is a fanciful thought, one not borne out by the record.

First of all, Africa’s first generation of autocrats did, in fact, stay in power for very long periods. Nyerere, Kaunda, Banda, Houphouet Biogny, Mobutu, Bongo, Senghor, all were in power continuously for nearly three decades. And many current ones, including Mugabe, Museveni, and Biya have equaled or broken the record. None has managed any transformation of the Lee Kuan Yew kind, except in the opposite direction. So, the difference between Lee Kuan Yew and his African contemporaries was not just a matter of longevity in power, it was far more than that. Time itself is a value-neutral resource. It is what you do with the time you have that determines the future course of events. Africa’s autocrats did very different things with their time in power than Lee Kuan Yew did with his. They were bound to reap different results.

Second, while Lee Kuan Yew was an authoritarian leader, he was not an autocrat. It is an important distinction. Lee built and worked through institutions. He did not destroy the rule of law. Lee’s government passed and enforced draconian laws, but arbitrary and personal rule did not displace government through institutions, rules, and procedures. Lee also assembled and worked with a solid team (the first group of which is featured in the book “Lee’s Lieutenants”). His was not a one-man project; he was captain of a team. Lee’s Lieutenants brought to the table a complement of talents and abilities that Lee, as leader, effectively harnessed and synthesised into a shared vision. There was no “Lee Kuan Yewism” to which all were obliged to swear allegiance or else. And while Lee Kuan Yew did not like or think much of his opposition, he never declared a one-party state. His party contested elections and won those elections repeatedly. The franchise was not aborted. Nor were opposition parties. Absence of electoral turnover is inconsistent with competitive parliamentary politics. The Liberal Party’s overwhelming hold on power in postwar Japan is a case in point.

Lee Kuan Yew ruled for as long as he did, in part because he did not replace Singapore’s Westminster parliamentary system with a presidential system. The title “President” apparently had no particular allure for the supremely self-confident Lee. He was happy to be a “mere” prime minister, which meant that, as long as his party continued to win a majority in parliamentary elections and he retained his own seat and leadership of the party, he was free to remain prime minister. Term limits have been traditionally associated with presidential systems, not parliamentary systems. Today, his party remains in power, even if its electoral strength has diminished over time.

Lee’s contemporaries in Africa, on the other hand, moved quickly to replace their parliamentary systems with presidential rule. It was one step on the road to autocracy. It freed them from accountability to their party, to cabinet, and to parliament. From that foundation, other blocks in the autocratic project fell into place.

There are many other ways in which Lee Kuan Yew and his African contemporaries were fundamentally different. They, like Lee, did not care much for human rights, free speech, free press, and the like. Lee Kuan Yew believed in “Asian values”, not “Western democracy”. And his African contemporaries too defended their own idiosyncratic versions of African exceptionalism. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Instructively, Lee Kuan Yew recalls telling himself, after a 1964 visit to Africa that took him to 17 countries, “I was not optimistic about Africa”. Lee said. And while in Lagos in January 1966 for the Commonwealth Heads of State conference, Lee again recalls, after observing the Nigerian government at work: “I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing to a different set of rules.”

Nothing is gained, except more of the same escapism and revisionism that keeps us stuck in the counter-developmental past, by trying to cast one or the other African autocrat in the mold of a Lee Kuan Yew. We have had no Lee Kuan Yews. Not that we need or must have one. But, well, just saying!

Muhammad Ubale Kiru

Adam A. Zango, for those of you who don’t know him, is a Kannywood Film actor who is popularly known as Adamu Usher for his spectacular dance steps. He appeared in more than 100 Hausa films over the years.

While lamenting why his marriage is in chaos, Adam identified that his wife committed a number of mistakes that may probably lead to their divorce. One of the mistakes mentioned was that she posted a video of herself taken at a beauty parlour while having henna (kunshi) done on her and at the same time dancing.

He indicated that such action was something he prohibited all his wives from doing, and he was devastated by the action. Hence, he stated it as one of the things she did. Now, the irony is this – these people have no shame in picking young girls to act in their movies. They have no shame in displaying these young girls on TV dancing and sometimes even touching them. However, they know quite well that it is wrong, yet they lure young girls into it.

Adam felt so bad that he is thinking about divorcing her because of what he himself is doing with other women and yet posting on the internet.

Dear ladies: You see, most of you are not smart. Men can do things and run away with it, but can you? Adam can spend 50-60 years of his life acting, but for you, the maximum is 40-45. This means what you are doing is not really a good business because, in the end, they will use you and then dump you. They know so well that it is not right, yet, they get you involved because they don’t care about your life or future.

In an interview with Hadiza Gabon, she was asked about when she would be getting married or if she had a fiancee. In her response, she said, “yes, I have a fiancee. As for when I will marry, that I don’t know because I can’t marry off myself”. They have plenty of suitors, but will they be ready to commit to marriage? The answer is NO. because Film is a bad business for women. It doesn’t matter whether it is Kannywood or Hollywood. The majority of them spend their lives pursuing lusty men and, in the end, commit suicide or die in nursing homes helplessly and full of regrets.

By Abdurrazak Mukhtar

Comfort is often seen as a golden ticket to happiness – where we can bask in the serenity and put our feet up. But what if I told you that staying in your comfort zone for too long could be the very thing holding you back from success? This saying suggests that to thrive genuinely; one must be willing to trade comfort for discomfort.

Imagine a world where you never challenge yourself and always stick to the tried and true. Chances are, your life would remain much the same, devoid of growth and new experiences. But that’s not the kind of life anyone of us wants, right? The key to unlocking our full potential is embracing discomfort.

Risks are the building blocks of progress. By stepping outside our comfort zones, we open ourselves to a world of possibilities. Only by testing our limits can we discover what we’re truly capable of. Every time we push ourselves to be uncomfortable, we grow, and our comfort zones expand.

Being uncomfortable doesn’t mean feeling miserable and stressed. It’s about embracing a new challenge and putting ourselves in a position to learn, grow, and succeed. And as we progress, we’ll find that the things that once made us anxious and nervous become second nature.

So, my friend, next time you are cosily nestled in your comfort zone, take a moment to reflect on this saying. Embrace the uncomfortable and watch as you attain new success and comfort levels in your life. The journey may be challenging, but the reward is worth it.

Abdurrazak Mukhtar  sent this article via prof4true1@gmail.com.

By Maimuna Abubakar

People’s opinions of others have always psychologically impacted their social relationships and behaviours without considering an individual’s mental state and capacities. Many people say things to each other that are more painful than some physical injuries. Often that has detrimental effects on the psychological well-being of the parties involved. The issue of body shaming often results in self-loathing and even compels people to yearn for people’s validation.

Body Shaming is the act of humiliating a person by mocking, making jest, or making critical comments about their physical appearance in the form of the person’s body size, shape or weight.

Often, those who body-shame others claim to be just joking. However, the negative impacts of body shaming are numerous; it makes victims self-conscious, brings about issues of low self-esteem and poor self-confidence, and makes victims question their self-worth. Mentally, it creates the feeling of self-disgust or shame in the victims, while some feel like they have some biological defects like something is wrong with their biological makeup.

The media, especially social media and some product marketers, have succeeded in projecting what an “ideal body type” should look like, which is where most body type critics derive their inspiration. They believe that one has to be at least close to those “ideal body types” or that such a person is lacking in their physical structure.

Although fat shaming is the most common form of body shaming, people must understand that ‘skinny shaming’ is just as hurtful as fat shaming. Because some people are naturally thin or fat, it is in their genetics. Therefore, they can’t just gain weight or lose it simply because people say they should.

Body shaming has led many people to develop eating disorders that can be fatal to their general health, such as Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa.

Bulimia or Bulimia Nervosa is a serious disorder that occurs chiefly in females, characterised by compulsive overeating usually followed by self-induced vomiting and is often accompanied by guilt and depression.

Anorexia or Anorexia Nervosa, on the other hand, is another serious disorder in eating behaviour characterised by a pathological fear of weight gain leading to faulty eating patterns such as prolonged starvation.

Eating disorders are currently the mental conditions with the highest mortality rates, as research statistics show in Japan, the USA and other cities worldwide (BMC Psychiatry: 2020).

Body shaming has led to so many attempted suicide. Victims of body shaming, over time, begin to hate themselves as they view themselves through the lenses their critics see them. So many potentials are not discovered because victims of body shaming dread people’s criticism about their physique and, as a result, prefer to keep themselves hidden.

When I opened up a discussion about body shaming with some of my friends and classmates, it surprised me how many of us have, at one point in life, suffered at the hands of body type critics, and some are still suffering.

One of such friends, who is chubby, told me that when she was in her second year at the university, her roommate pleaded with her not to conceal her beauty by putting on the hijab over her well-tailored dress. When she refused to oblige, her roommate accused her of being insecure about her body weight and diagnosed her with an inferiority complex. She said that comment made her see herself differently and that throughout that academic session, she questioned her every action, constantly assessing herself until she deliberately learned to love herself for who she is.

Another close friend recounted how her close friends, immediate and extended relatives, would say things like: “Ina zaki kai wannan jiki haka?”, “Da dai kin rage cin abinci ya fi ye maki saboda maza bã sã son mace mai qiba“, “Wacce ko kyau ba ki yi ba. Wannan qiba haka wazai kwasa?” Her friends will joke about her body size, “me kike ci ne haka, muma a san ma na mu ci mu yi qiba“.

They possibly may not intend to hurt her feelings, but little did they know that such comments shatter their friends’ and families’ self-esteem.

Another said that her professor kept addressing her as a married woman, always asking her about her husband and children in class. Her classmates would laugh about it, and she would laugh too. Still, it hurt her every time he made such comments because she believed he assumed she was married simply due to her plus size.

A very close friend said that when she was a teenager, she hated herself so much that she always had suicidal thoughts because people kept telling her that she was too thin, too skinny, too bonny, shapeless etc. “Don’t put on tight-fitting jeans; it’ll expose your thinness”, “Put on baggy dresses to conceal your shapelessness”, “You look more like a boy than a girl”, “You’re ugly and unattractive, please eat some fatty foods to help you gain weight so that you’ll look presentable”, etc.

Although females get more body shamed, men, too, are victims on several occasions. A cousin has refused meals several times because anytime he sits to eat, his parents remind him how fat he is growing and how he needs to watch his weight. They will always compare his size to his friends and other cousins. These are his very own parents!

Another 20-year-old I met recently told me she wished God hadn’t created her because when she was in secondary school, some of her classmates and neighbours always complained about how thin and unattractive she was. It made making friends difficult for her because she couldn’t discern who liked her for real and who was just tolerating her. She, therefore, grew up in solitude, always alone. But now she finds herself in the university and realises she can’t continue her solitary life, yet she doesn’t know how to approach people. She was literally scared of even talking to me.

So, to the parents who see fault in their children’s biologically inherited physical structure, I hope you remember your role in bringing such a child to life. If you find their body size, shape or weight repulsive, remember that your genetics created them.

To friends ( or so-called), relatives ( immediate and extended ) and other members of society, please DO NOT verbally abuse people with your judgemental, unsolicited opinions of them. There’s no nice way of body shaming; “I was just joking” is only an excuse to humiliate people whose daily struggles your feeble mind may not be able to contain.

Finally and most importantly, to the victims of people’s insensitive, inhumane criticism about how you look and why you look that way, know that YOU DO NOT need anyone’s validation to be whom you want to be. Work on yourself, eat healthy, exercise to avoid illness, and keep a healthy head space.

Maimuna Abubakar is a Sociology student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. She sent this article via maimunaabubakar200@gmail.com.

By Lawal Dahiru Mamman

Ann Soberekon, a retired laboratory scientist, was almost lynched by a mob in Port Harcourt following an accusation of witchcraft. Ann was actually suffering from dementia – a condition of the brain characterised by impairment of brain functions such as memory and judgment that interferes with doing everyday activities. 

The incident led a rights group, Advocacy for Alleged Witches, to decry the ill-treatment meted out to those with mental health challenges. According to the group, the attribution of dementia and other mental disorders is rooted in irrational fear, misinterpretation and ignorance of the cause of disease. 

Living in fear of being called names and other forms of stigmatisation is the way people with mental health issues live in Nigeria and even other African countries. Mental disorders are viewed as spiritual attacks, and patients are mirrored as those under the influence of evil spirits, bewitched or hexed. The only way to cure the world of such back in the dark days and put victims out of their mystery is to send them 6 feet down, while in more recent times, stigmatisation and other forms of inhumane treatment are dished out to mental health patients forcing them to instead of seek for solution drown in their unfortunate circumstances. 

With the proliferation of knowledge of mental health, some African nations started signing Bills to protect the right of people suffering from mental health issues. Foremost among are countries like South Africa which signed the Mental Health Care Act 17 of 2002 on October 28, 2002, which then took effect on December 15, 2004, to cater for treatment and rehabilitation of persons with mental health illness. In 2012 Ghanaian government signed Mental Health Act 2012 into law. Zambia signed its Mental Health Act in 2019, and then in June 2022, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Mental Health Bill into law.

Nigeria followed suit when President Muhammadu Buhari, as a parting gift, bequeathed Nigeria on the 5th day of January 2023 the long-awaited Mental Health Bill by signing it into law, repealing heretofore extant law, which was known as the Lunacy Act CAP 542, of the laws of Nigeria 1964. 

This is coming after the Bill has failed two attempts. Firstly, it was after the presentation in the National Assembly in 2003 before its withdrawal in April 2009 and secondly, in 2013 when the National Policy for Mental Health Services Delivery set out the principles for the delivery of care to people with mental, neurological, and substance abuse problems, but it was not signed into law.

The Mental Health Bill is a piece of legislation that covers the assessment, treatment, care and rights of people with mental health disorders while also discouraging stigmatisation and discrimination by setting standards for psychiatric practice in Nigeria, among other provisions. 

The assent of the law generated a positive response, with physicians saying the law will afford those in the field the power to work unhindered and also enlighten Nigerians of the dangerous lifestyles that may lead to a breakdown in one’s mental health. 

Doctor Olakunle Omoteemi, a physician in Osun State, said, “Due to the negative perception attached to mental health issues in Nigeria, the society still sees any case related to it as that of lunacy, and as a result of this negative perception, individuals shy away from making known, discussing or approaching professionals to discuss or reveal their mental health status.

“People also often cannot go for counselling based on the prejudice from the society. There is also the issue of stigma attached to it, as people are afraid to be called certain names. With this law, it is hoped that the prejudices and stigma attached to mental health issues will be laid to rest.”  

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said at the 2022 World Mental Health Day on the 10th of October that One Hundred and Sixteen million (116,000,000) Africans suffer from one mental health disorder or another, and according to the President of the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria (APN), Taiwo Obindo, over sixty million (60,000,000) Nigerians agonise from mental illnesses. 

Since the Bill this time around was not allowed to fade in oblivion, it will be safe to say ‘it is better late than never’ considering the statistics of the WHO and that of the president of APN. What is left is for those responsible for the bill to take charge in ensuring that the purpose for which the bill was signed is not defeated.  

Lawal Dahiru Mamman, a corps member, writes from Abuja and can be reached via dahirulawal90@gmail.com.

By Umm Khalid

Playing singles means you are playing by yourself with no one else on your team. You face off against another individual opponent. I found playing singles easier because it was simple: I knew that every ball that comes over the net was my responsibility. No one else was there to share the responsibility with. Playing a singles game is straightforward. One on one.

But it is exhausting. Every ball is your responsibility. There’s no one to help you, no partner to get the balls you can’t reach, no one to back you up. You have to run back and forth to cover the length and width of your side of the court by yourself.

Playing doubles tennis, on the other hand, means you have a partner and the two of you are a team facing off against another team of two. You and your teammate work together to hit the ball back over the net, so each of you has fewer balls to hit, less court space to cover.

But I hated it because it’s very easy to lose when you play doubles. Very often, the ball comes sailing right between the two of you as both of you look, startled, at one another and neither person hits the ball.

The first person assumed that the second was going to get it, and the second person assumed that the first person was going to get it. Neither gets it, and the ball bounces off the court and you lose the point.

Continue playing like this, and you lose the game, the set, and the match. You walk off the court, defeated and disappointed.

Marriage is a little like playing doubles tennis. The only way to win is to have well-defined tasks and to communicate CLEARLY with your partner. The two of you must coordinate so that nothing falls through the cracks. Each person knows exactly what he or she is going to cover. You know you’re on the same team and that you’ve got each other’s back–but you still need to talk about who’s going to do what and what your expectations are and ask for help when you need it.

To have a good marriage, the husband and wife need to work together like a well-oiled machine.

It is, of course, challenging to work so closely with another person, to coordinate tasks, to divide labor evenly based on each person’s strengths.

This is why many modern women prefer to just play singles games, living the single life without the hassle of being on a team or dealing with another person.

But living that single life is exhausting and lonely. Sure, you don’t have to work things out with anyone else and can do things all by yourself…but… you are all by yourself.

Marriage is a joint effort for the sake of Allah, a combined struggle of both the husband and the wife to build and maintain a strong Muslim family. The husband and the wife are a team: they each have clearly-defined assigned roles, but they also don’t hesitate to lovingly step in to help one another if it’s needed.

If you play it right, you can reap all the benefits of playing doubles tennis without the drawbacks.

Make sure that you:

1. Have a clear division of labor, so each person knows which side of the tennis court they’re responsible for. In marriage, we call this gender roles.
2. Communicate clearly, so no points are lost due to each person expecting the other to hit the ball. In marriage, the husband and wife have to communicate effectively with each other to decide which non-obvious tasks fall under whose domain so that all tasks are covered.
3. Ask for help if you need it, so that unlike in a singles game, your doubles partner can bail you out or back you up if you try to hit your ball but miss. In marriage, each spouse has a well-defined role, but one of the beauties of marriage is the ability to ask your spouse for help if you need help. Marriage is a soft, loving relationship between a man and a woman who have love and mercy for one another. You have someone who will willingly step in to carry your load on the days you find it to be too heavy, until you get back on your feet.
4. Be a team player, not selfish, self-centered, or negligent of your role. In our modern age, hyper-individualism has made many people selfish and narcissistic, putting themselves and their own individual whims above the needs of the group or their role in the collective. When you play selfish, whether in tennis or in marriage, you lose.

May Allah bless our marriages, our homes, and our families, ameen.

By Muhammadu Sabiu 

According to findings obtained by The Daily Reality, Kano State has been experiencing a diphtheria outbreak since last Friday, and as of Thursday, at least 25 people had died as a result.

It was discovered that the Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital and Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital in Kano are treating the killer disease, which was first discovered in the state in the late 2022.

Diphtheria infection is a dangerous infection of the nose and throat, according to medical professionals, and it is easily avoidable through immunisations.

Experts say that a sore throat, hoarseness, swollen glands (enlarged lymph nodes) in the neck, trouble breathing or quick breathing, nasal discharge, fever and fatigue are some of the signs and symptoms of diphtheria.

The state’s Ungogo Local Government Area is where the illness, which is thought to be communicable, was originally identified.

According to the state ministry of health’s records, at least 58 probable instances of the disease were recorded during the outbreak, six of them were admitted, and 25 patients had already passed away as of January 13, 2023.

The National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), according to our source, sent medical personnel to the state last week due to the severity of the outbreak.

By Abba Muhammad Tawfiq

Garsa is a sinister superstition label ubiquitously attached to stroke patients particularly in some Hausa-Fulani community. The conception of cerebrovascular accident as demon-ridden problems is continuously denying its victims the pleasure of urgent medical intervention. This delay in appropriate medical care inevitably complicates the patients’ condition and make it even difficult to treat after all the efforts of traditional treatments have proved abortive.

The vagueness over which the accident is traditionally considered as “being possessed” ailment is refuted and cleared by sophisticated medicinal sciences. This piece will help to comprehensively elucidate more on what cerebrovascular accident and its management entail.

Adequate life sustaining nutrients and oxygen necessitate the survival of the building blocks of life. Hence, the circulatory system is primarily programmed to efficiently execute the function of meeting the fundamental requirements of body tissues and cells. This however can successfully be achieved by the way of transporting nutrients and metabolic wastes to and away from the body. Also, establishing a stable homeostatic state in all the tissue fluids by transporting biological chemicals called hormones from the part of its synthesis to where its effect is necessary in order to ensure an optimally continuous survival and robust function of the body tissues and cells through the means of blood and blood vessels.

Physical and organic pathology that disorient the rudimentary pattern of circulation that shape various tissues give rise to life threatening complications. And this conceptualizes the basis of “STROKE” with regards to brain.

Stroke otherwise known as cerebrovascular accident occurs as a result of an interruption to or loss of blood supply to a part of the brain from an assault to the concerned arterial supply to the brain. The American Heart Association defined stroke as “a disease that affects the arteries leading to and within the brain.

Globally, stroke is said to be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. It is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the United States. The current prevalence of stroke in Nigeria is 1.14 per 1000 while the 30-day case fatality rate is as high as 40%.

On pathological ground, the disease lends itself to two categorical divisions, namely; Ischemic stroke and haemorrhagic stroke.

The former is the most common type of stroke and associated with blocked or narrowing of the brain’s blood vessel caused by fatty plagues which build up in the blood vessels or by blood clots or other debris that travel through the bloodstream, most often from the heart, and lodge in the blood vessels in the brain. This consequently leads to the death of brain tissue from poor nutrients and oxygen supply to the brain.

However, the latter occurs due to a rupture or leakage in blood vessel in the brain. This is mainly associated with atherosclerosis or a local dilation of the blood vessel (aneurysm) which leads to the burst of the blood vessel hence leading to hemorrhagic stroke

The predisposing factors that lead to cerebrovascular accident can be categorized into modifiable and non modifiable factors. And the major modifiable risk factor for stroke is sedentary lifestyle. People’s manner of living exerts impact on their state of well-being. Obesity caused by unhealthy diet, excessive alcohol consumption and smoking may result in high blood pressure or deposition of fatty droplets in the arterial wall causing arterial narrowing or bursting, thus consequently leading to stroke. Others include uncontrolled hypertension, gestational or pregnancy hypertension and diabetes.

The non modifiable risk encompasses factors such as family history and ageing. Although stroke does not wreck havoc on any age or age group exclusively, but older individuals are at higher risk of having stroke than other individuals. This is because the complications of ageing are mainly associated with arterial narrowing and loss of elasticity. Hence the susceptibility of the arteries to be damaged by fatty droplets and other debris in circulation, thus; resulting in stroke is high.

History of severe idiopathic headache, dizziness and vomiting are being clinically associated with haemorrhagic stroke. Facial, arm, or leg weakness on either or especially one side of the body denotes the onset of stroke. Other symptoms include confusion or trouble in understanding other people, difficulty speaking, visionary problems, trouble with walking and coordination.

Obesity and or weight control by the means of lifestyle/dietary modification and exercises are the mainstay for the prevention of stroke. The revelation of the aforementioned symptoms of stroke should urgently be reported to a close healthcare facility for immediate care and complications minimization. Notable blood pressure should be regulated through exercises and medications.

Multidisciplinary approach is essential for the effective management of stroke. This comprises a team of a well trained healthcare professionals and most precisely doctors, speech therapist, occupational therapist and physiotherapists. Surgical procedures can also be employed to repair vascular damage in the case of haemorrhagic stroke, while obstruction of adequate blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain by clogged garbage in the vessels can be flushed out through the use of medication.

The physiotherapy specialty covers a wide scope in the management of patients with neurological conditions such as stroke and their aftermath on the body function. Following stroke, patients show and suffer from multiple complications such as muscles flabbiness, accumulation of secretion in the lungs and loss of speech, loss of balance and coordination, which may not be or difficult to manage by medication.

Various physiotherapy techniques are applied to improve muscle physiology, prevent deformity, improve coordination, facilitate airways clearance by removal of accumulated secretions in lungs and improvement of overall quality of life. Physiotherapists therefore bridge this gap by playing restorative and preventive role in restoring the lost function and preventing post stroke complications.

Abba Muhammad Tawfiq, graduate of Medical Rehabilitation, University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria.

By Muhammadu Sabiu 

Virginity testing is forbidden, Dr Oluwajimi Sodipo, a consultant family physician at the teaching hospital of Lagos State University, said in Ilorin on Wednesday.

He revealed to the News Agency of Nigeria that the WHO had ruled the practice to be unlawful while he was attending a session for primary healthcare professionals.

Aside from the WHO announcement, he said, the practice was antiquated.

The most common reasons for conducting the virginity test are requests from parents or suitors to see whether the girl is eligible for marriage or to determine her suitability for a job.

According to the WHO, a virginity test is a gynaecological exam done with the intent of determining if a woman or girl has had vaginal contact.

He added that the practice was frequently agonizing, embarrassing, and distressing, adding that the idea of a virginity test was false because a woman’s lack of a hymen did not necessarily indicate that she was promiscuous.