Health Diary: a Friend in Need

We keep a diary for various reasons, to reflect on happy and sad memories in our personal life and to remember appointments and keep notes in our professional life. A health diary is a similar tool that helps in keeping the track of your health records as well as updating them. Using a health diary you can do number of things which help you as well as your health care providers and physicians. A daily health diary can be used to manage your daily health related activities, food habits, exercise regimes and other essential health concerns. The main objective of health diary is to create an easy and efficient way of communication between you and your doctor and to track your health goals.

Typically, people maintain two kinds of daily health diaries: a personal health diary and a family health diary. A personal health diary can be used to meet the health objectives set by you and your physicians or health care providers. You can include various information inside personal health diary such as:

· Diet: you should plan a healthy and nutritious diet after having a discussion with your dietitian or physician. People with diabetes or obesity problems can create a diet plan to meet the necessary goals. The diet plan may include foods that can be included in your daily meals to get all the essential nutrients such as protein, vitamins, carbohydrates, fats and minerals. You can also arrange the diet in terms of foods taken in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. At the end of every month, you shall see the changes in your body by following this healthy diet diary plan.

· Exercise: you can also plan and develop different exercises for the entire week or month. This record is especially helpful to people who wants to build their muscles, cut down the extra fats, and provide flexibility to the body. Exercises for each day in a week can be planned and worked at accordingly to meet the objectives.

· Healthy lifestyle: some people would want to keep a track on their wellness related activities and habits that they perform during a week or a month. People who constantly move around and indulge in eating out can keep a track on what and how much they have consumed. This plan may also include timings for sleeping, wake up, regular check-ups, smoking, alcohol consumption, meals and so on. This can help an individual to live his/her life in an organized and disciplined way.

A family health diary works in the same fashion. However, you can arrange the details of your family members separately in family health diary. If you are married, you may want to keep a track on vaccinations for your baby, health check-ups for your father and mother and pregnancy tests for your wife. You can surely provide a disease-free and healthy life to your beloved ones by using a family health dairy. The diet plans, exercise plans and lifestyle plans would be changed according to the age, sex and fitness level of your family members.

A health diary can help you at various occasions and scenarios. You can access your health records even when you are out of your city for the business or vacation purposes. In cases of emergencies, the doctors would benefit greatly by the knowledge provided by your records. A health diary also allows new doctors to have a better idea about your health and can provide the most effective treatment in short span of time without repeating tests that have been performed recently. Even a person from non-medical background can provide valuable help in emergencies, if you carry a health diary which includes information such as:

· Name, age, and address

· Past diseases and treatments

· Allergies

· Medications in use

· Major surgeries