10 habits for A LONGER LIFESPAN

You have the healthy diet down pat. Now what? General surgeon Dr Karan Rajan shares his practical advice

Just add water-but not too much

Given that you're a walking bag of water, it should be common sense to say you need to stop yourself from drying out. When your body is deprived of water, it steals water from other organs, including your brain, and that's unwise.

Conversely, your body cannot cope with too much water. Your hypothalamus the barometer in your brain - runs on a slight lag. So it can take a while for your body to realise it has enough water in the tank. If you're very thirsty and recklessly drink five litres of water in a short space of time, the cells will become overloaded with fluid. This results in a dilution of critical sodium levels a potentially fatal condition known as hyponatremia.

All this just highlights how fragile your body can be. Under- or overwater it and you end up like that poor houseplant on your window ledge that seemed like a good idea at the time. In order to thrive, you should aim to consume about two litres over the course of each day.

No thank you, nausea!

More often than not, if the stomach needs to reject its contents, you're effectively just a bystander. In some cases, however, the feelings associated with nausea can be managed. Ginger is known to contain anti-nausea properties, mainly due to the less than ingeniously named chemical gingerol, and many people find that chewing on ginger sweets or even ginger root can ease the symptoms. It does this by increasing the rate at which your stomach empties into the small intestine (increased gastric emptying).