The rising costs of health care have become a problem for many countries in the world. To deal with the problem, it is suggested that the government should spend more money on disease prevention. Actually, many kinds of diseases can be prevented in many ways and preventing a disease is usually much cheaper than treating.

One effective way of disease prevention is to eat more healthy food. For instance, keeping a balanced diet, such as not eating too much animal fat and regularly eating vegetables and fruits, seems to be quite important.

Another useful and costless way of prevention is to exercise often, which is necessary for a healthy mind and body. Regular exercise, such as running, walking, playing sports is a good way to make people feel better.

In addition, health education, included in disease prevention, plays a key role in improving people's health. By giving people more information about health, the government could help people understand the importance of disease prevention and ways to achieve it.

However, stressing disease prevention does not mean medical treatment is unimportant. After all, prevention and treatment are just two different means towards the same effect. In a word, we could save money on health care and treat patients more successfully if the government spends more money on disease prevention.

A good night’s sleep can make you feel better. Researchers say that quality sleep may even add years to people’s lives.

Men who sleep well could live almost five years longer than those who do not. Women could benefit by two years. Researchers also found that young people who had better sleep habits were less likely to die early. But quantity of sleep was not in itself enough to achieve the possible health benefits. Quality of sleep is also important.

Good sleep was based on five different factors. These were: ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours a night; difficulty falling asleep no more than two times a week; trouble staying asleep no more than two times a week; not using any sleep medication; and feeling well rested after waking up at least five days a week.

The findings suggested that about 8% of deaths from any cause could be attributed to poor sleep patterns. Dr Frank Qian is an internal medicine resident physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, America. He said: “We saw a clear dose-response relationship. So the more beneficial factors someone has in terms of having higher quality of sleep, they also have a stepwise lowering of all causes. ”

The researchers included data from 172,321 people. They had an average age of 50. 54% of them were women. They participated in the National Health Interview Survey between 2013 and 2018. The survey looked at the health of the US population. It included questions about sleep and sleep habits.

People were followed for an average of 4.3 years. During this time, 8,681 died. Of these deaths, 2,610 (30%) were from cardiovascular disease. 2,052 (24%) was from cancer. And 4,019 (46%) were due to other causes. Among men and women who reported having all five quality sleep measures (a score of five), life expectancy was 4.7 years greater for men. And it was 2.4% greater for women. This was compared with those who had none or only one of the factors.

More research is needed to determine why men had double the increase in life expectancy compared with women who had the same quality sleep.

There is a limitation of the study. The sleep habits were self-reported and not objectively measured or checked.

While we can’t control the COVID-19 outbreak, we can control how we react to it while keeping ourselves safe as well. 【小题1】.

● Assess our personal risk for getting infected

We can take steps to figure out our own personal risk for developing corona virus: whether there are confirmed cases in our community; whether we’ve been exposed to them, and whether we have immune or breathing problems. 【小题2】.

● Try to limit our news consumption

【小题3】. However, there is such a thing as too much news, and constantly reading news updates isn’t going to help our anxiety levels. The more we expose ourselves to a scary topic over which we feel limited control, the more we will feel anxious.

●【小题4】

Coronavirus seems scary and it’s OK to recognize that our anxiety is normal, while ignoring our stress will only make the anxiety worse. If someone asks us to stop feeling anxious, we can respond with, “Well, what are you doing to be prepared?” If they still insist on minimizing our fears, try to brush them off. Listen to our own voice and gain inner peace from it.

● Follow the correct preventive methods to protect against the virus

Try to avoid touching our eyes, nose, and mouth. 【小题5】. Wash our hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Doing all of those things can help us feel more in control of the situation, which can help ease our anxiety.

If, despite trying these tips, you still feel anxious or that your fears are disturbing your daily life, it’s not a bad idea to talk to a mental health professional.