Don’tmakeholdingitinahabit

Manny Ramirez let it flow behind the Green Monster while playing left field for the Boston Red Sox. Michael Phelps did it in the pool, of course, and a “slow release” is the favourite of many an NFL player. “Every single athlete has to deal with this,” said U.S. women’s national hockey team forward, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson. “No one ever talks about it.”

“It”? Coping with the need to pee. Uberhydrated athletes often have to confront the urgent feeling, but on a long drive or in an intense meeting, chances are you’ve had to decide: Should I hold it in?

Medically speaking, urologists say it’s always better to respect nature’s calling. But the truth is before the age of 50, you have the ability to hold urine in for about eight hours, and it’s OK to do so as long as you don’t do it all the time.

However, some professions — say, nurse, teacher or truck driver — seem to demand that you hold it in frequently. In those cases, you’re risking urinary tract infections, longterm damage to your bladder and even possible kidney damage. Another huge drawback? In 2012, a neurologist from Brown University documented that holding back urination impairs higher-order cognitive functions on a level similar to being drunk.

So when nature calls, it’s OK to hold it in for a little while, but avoid making it a habit, or one day you may lose the ability to hold it in at all.

GROW YOUR OWN (AND WE DON’T MEAN POT)

When Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong advocated growing your own, they almost got it right. Turns out, folks who cultivate vegetables (not weed) transform their diet — and their risk for obesity, cancer and cancer reoccurrence. Now, that’s not blowing smoke.

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers worked with 46 cancer survivors ages 60-plus and found that having your own vegetable garden significantly reduced weight gain in the belly and upped intake of veggies.

This matters because whether you have a normal BMI or are obese, eating foods with high levels of dietary energy density, or DED (that is, foods overpacked with calories in every bite), increases your cancer risk, interferes with recovery from cancer and increases your chances of recurrence. We know that obesity is an inflammatory state, but why does such a diet also harm folks who are not overweight? Well, anyone eating fatty, sugary, processed foods faces health-threatening metabolic disruption. And not only are DEDs implicated in development of cancer, they up the risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia and a lousy sex life.

So if you’re struggling to control your weight, are recovering from cancer, or are trying to dodge Type 2 diabetes, here’s a fun way to increase your health: Plant some veggies.

Windowboxes on sunny windowsills work for herbs, onions, lettuces, even cherry tomatoes. Backyard or community gardens let you add root and cruciferous veggies, and in some areas even fruit. To find a community garden in your locale, visit communitygarden.org and click on “Find a Garden.”

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM FOR DISTRACTED DRIVING

On an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” curmudgeon Larry David has an “incident” on a city bus: Taking public transportation, he successfully navigates a transfer for the first time. He then refuses to be seated and, as he tells the driver to go faster and ignore yellow lights, the bus clips a parked car and the driver has to pull over. “The whole reason I hit this car is because you were ‘yak yak yak’ talking in my ear!” she yells at Larry. His fellow passengers throw Larry to the curb.

As entertaining as Mr. David is to some folks, distracted driving is no joke. According to a new study that looked at data from 781 million driving miles, 36 per cent of trips involved significant phone use. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, more than 58 per cent of teen crashes are from distracted driving, and texting while driving makes it 23 times more likely that you’ll crash, whatever your age.

So, if you need help curbing your enthusiasm for texting and yakking while you drive, consider this: Enabling iPhone’s “Do Not Disturb While Driving” feature cuts cellphone use by eight per cent by turning off notifications when you’re in a moving vehicle. You may get annoyed because it shuts it off while you’re in a taxi or taxiing on the runway after your plane has landed (if it works like Dr. Mike’s does). But we feel those annoyances are worth the benefit. Android users can download the DriveMode app for AT&T or LifeSaver.

THE HIDDEN HEALTH RISKS OF THAT EXTRA DRINK

“It’s quarter to 3 and there’s no one in the place, but you and me ... One for my baby and one more for the road.” That’s the chorus of the hit song “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” originally performed by Fred Astaire in the 1943 movie “The Sky’s the Limit,” and popularized by Frank Sinatra in the 1950s.

The supposed coolness of that attitude toward drinking and driving is hard to accept these days — and getting harder all the time. According to a new study published in Lancet, the current U.S. guidelines for moderate drinking (one a day for women, two for men) threaten your health by upping your risk for stroke, heart failure, fatal aortic aneurysms, fatal hypertensive disease, heart failure and a shortened life expectancy.

Researchers looked at the health and drinking habits of 600,000 people in 19 countries and found that the upper limit for drinking without shortening your lifespan is five drinks weekly. If you’re having 10 or more drinks a week, that is associated with living for one to two fewer years, while downing 18 or more alcoholic beverages weekly is linked to living four or five fewer years. Now, this data conflicts with much data accumulated in prior years, so we really don’t know the optimal amount to drink for your lowest risk of disability and death.

Bottom line? An extra drink or two before you hit the road (always in a cab!) may make you cooler in a way you don’t want to be!

YOU CAN OVERCOME A GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO HEART DISEASE

The 2007 “Nova” episode “The Ghost in Your Genes,” delivered big news: Your DNA contains chemical markers that allow genes to be turned on and off, meaning that, at least for some inherited characteristics, you’re not condemned to their preprogrammed influence. That was dubbed “epigenetics,” and it’s now widely acknowledged that a person’s lifestyle choices can turn off some harmful predispositions for health problems. (The opposite is true, too. You can cause genetic switches to get thrown that create health problems — obesity does that — and then pass those problems on to future generations.)

In one recent study on the power of smart lifestyle choices to dismiss genetically predisposed health problems, researchers looked at data from almost half a million men and women who didn’t have current heart problems, but who had a family or genetic history of heart disease. The researchers found that regular exercise (we say that’s 10,000 steps a day, plus two days a week of strength training and a minimum of 150 minutes a week of aerobics) lowered participants’ risk for heart problems.

A strong (instead of weak) grip lowered participants’ risk of coronary heart disease by 36 per cent and of atrial fibrillation by 46 per cent. Furthermore, high fitness levels were linked to a 49 per cent lower risk for coronary heart disease and a 60 per cent lower risk for atrial fibrillation.

So if your relatives had heart woes, start an exercise regimen (get your doc’s OK) and upgrade your diet, too, so it’s plant-lovin’ and eliminates highly processed foods, red meats and added sugars.