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She went a whole day not knowing she was having a heart attack. And she's not alone.

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Cigna 2017

Beatriz Martinez was exercising at the gym one day when she suddenly felt unusually breathless and a little dizzy and got a pain in her stomach.

She stopped and took a minute to breathe, which made her feel a little better. But the pain was still there. Maybe she had pushed herself too hard and pulled a muscle?

"I thought it was the exercises, a muscle ache," says Beatriz. So, she decided to call it quits for the day and drove home.

Beatriz Martinez in her home in Miami. Image via Beatriz Martinez, used with permission.

She made lunch, washed her hair, and went about the whole day like everything was normal — even though the dull ache in her stomach never really went away. That evening, she and her husband even went to a party. But at that point, the pain had gotten worse, and by the time they went home, she was vomiting and the pain had spread to her chest.

They went straight to the emergency room.

At the hospital, they ran some tests — and Beatriz was told she was having a heart attack.

One of the most important arteries in her heart, the left anterior descending (LAD), was completely blocked. "That I'm alive, it's like a miracle," she says.

She had a stent put in and she was in recovery at the hospital for six days before she was able to go home again.

Beatriz's story is not uncommon.

Heart disease is actually one of the most common causes of death for women in the United States. But in some cases, it can be prevented — which is why preventive health care is so important.

Image via iStock.

"What creates problems for people are the things that they don't know and therefore can't change," says Dr. Nicholas Gettas, a family doctor who is now a medical officer at Cigna.

With health issues, such as heart disease, it is the cumulative effect over time of risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, that can cause a problem — like a heart attack. That’s why it is important to be informed about your four health numbers: blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and body mass index (BMI).

Image via iStock.

Even if you eat well and exercise, it's still worth getting checked. "You might see a person who is thin, who exercises, whose diet appears to be great ... [but] there is some genetic issue that means that their cholesterol is still high," says Gettas. In fact, he adds, he had a patient with a similar experience.

"The earlier you identify, the earlier you can moderate and modify the issue and the more likely you are to get a better long-term result," he says.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if everyone got their recommended preventive care, we could probably save 100,000 lives in America every year.

Beatriz's experience taught her a lot about the importance of keeping an eye on her health.

Even at the hospital, when everyone was rushing around to treat her, Beatriz says she couldn't help but think they were overreacting because she still didn't think it was that serious.

"I never thought that I had anything wrong with my heart," Beatriz says. She had always thought of herself as healthy: She was active, she exercised regularly, and she wasn't overweight.

Image via iStock.

She was also unaware of something very important: The symptoms of a heart attack are often very different for women than they are for men.

Most of the heart attack indicators we hear about are actually what happens when men have a heart attack — such as the left arm going numb or the obvious severe chest pain. In women, heart attack symptoms can be more subtle, as Beatriz experienced:

  • The pain isn't always in the chest. It can be in the neck, jaw, upper back, or stomach region.
  • Sometimes it just feels like a bad case of indigestion.
  • Other times it just causes shortness of breath — which is sometimes mistaken as a panic attack — or dizziness.
  • It can also cause nausea and vomiting.

This means women are more likely to ignore their pain or downplay the symptoms, causing a dangerous delay in treatment that can be deadly. In fact, according to the Mayo Clinic, women often show up in emergency roomsafter heart damage has already occurred.

Image via iStock.

But there are some warning signs — Beatriz just didn’t know to look for them.

"Before I had the heart attack, I felt breathless a lot and had pain in my jaw, but I didn’t pay attention to that because I didn’t know that was symptoms of your heart," she says. There was also a history of heart disease in her family, she adds, "but I never thought I was going to have it in my life. I never thought it would happen to me."

Beatriz wants other women to know the risk factors for heart disease before a health incident makes them all too aware of it.

She has gotten involved with the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease and has become a WomenHeart Champion. She wants to spread awareness about heart health and the symptoms of heart disease to women across the United States. And she wants to encourage them to take control of their health before they ever get sick.

Image via Beatriz Martinez, used with permission.

It has been almost five years since Beatriz had her heart attack, and she says she's come a long way in terms of taking control of her health.

She started on medication and a special diet immediately after the heart attack. And now, not only does she go to the gym, but she also does aerobics three times a week, and she works with a personal trainer three hours a week. With the help of her doctor, she also keeps close tabs on her four health numbers. And now that Martinez has taken control, her health has never been better.

"I went to my cardiologist [recently] and he said that now, my cholesterol numbers are excellent, my blood sugar is excellent — my numbers are excellent," she says.

Beatriz says that the one thing her heart attack taught her was that she can’t become complacent about her health. "You can die if you don't take care of yourself," she says.

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Joy

Now's your chance to help someone doing good in your community win $1000 towards the charity of their choice

Upworthy and P&G are back with the #ActsOfGood Awards.

Images provided by P&G

Three winners will be selected to receive $1000 donated to the charity of their choice.

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Doing good is its own reward, but sometimes recognizing these acts of kindness helps bring even more good into the world. That’s why we’re excited to partner with P&G again on the #ActsOfGood Awards.

The #ActsOfGood Awards recognize individuals who actively support their communities. It could be a rockstar volunteer, an amazing community leader, or someone who shows up for others in special ways.

Do you know someone in your community doing #ActsOfGood? Nominate them between April 24th-June 3rdhere.Three winners will receive $1,000 dedicated to the charity of their choice, plus their story will be highlighted on Upworthy’s social channels. And yes, it’s totally fine to nominate yourself!

We want to see the good work you’re doing and most of all, we want to help you make a difference.

While every good deed is meaningful, winners will be selected based on how well they reflect Upworthy and P&G’s commitment to do #ActsOfGood to help communities grow.

That means be on the lookout for individuals who:

Strengthen their community

Make a tangible and unique impact

Go above and beyond day-to-day work

The #ActsOfGood Awards are just one part of P&G’s larger mission to help communities around the world to grow. For generations, P&G has been a force for growth—making everyday products that people love and trust—while also being a force for good by giving back to the communities where we live, work, and serve consumers. This includes serving over 90,000 people affected by emergencies and disasters through the Tide Loads of Hope mobile laundry program and helping some of the millions of girls who miss school due to a lack of access to period products through the Always #EndPeriodPoverty initiative.

Visit upworthy.com/actsofgood and fill out the nomination form for a chance for you or someone you know to win. It takes less than ten minutes to help someone make an even bigger impact.

From Your Site Articles
best of humanity
Science

MIT’s trillion-frames-per-second camera can capture light as it travels

"There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

Photo from YouTube video.

Photographing the path of light.

A new camera developed at MIT can photograph a trillion frames per second.

Compare that with a traditional movie camera which takes a mere 24. This new advancement in photographic technology has given scientists the ability to photograph the movement of the fastest thing in the Universe, light.

The actual event occurred in a nano second, but the camera has the ability to slow it down to twenty seconds.

time, science, frames per second, bounced light

The amazing camera.

Photo from YouTube video.

 For some perspective, according to New York Times writer, John Markoff, "If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years."


In the video below, you'll see experimental footage of light photons traveling 600-million-miles-per-hour through water.

It's impossible to directly record light so the camera takes millions of scans to recreate each image. The process has been called femto-photography and according to Andrea Velten, a researcher involved with the project, "There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

(H/T Curiosity)


This article originally appeared on 09.08.17

From Your Site Articles
science
Joy

We've been Airbnb hosts for 7 years. We agree—cleaning fees and check-out chores are bunk.

This is why Airbnb guests actually make the best hosts.

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash

People are right to complain about being charged a cleaning fee and being asked to do chores.

In 2016, My husband and I started renting our basement apartment out as a short-term rental on Airbnb. We live in a college town and figured we'd get some guests during football game weekends and graduations. We didn't realize how many people come to our town to visit their college kids or check out the school, so we were pleasantly surprised by how regularly we were booked.

In 2019, we bought the house next door and now rent out both floors of the old house as separate units. We love being Airbnb hosts and have had a very successful run of it, with hundreds of 5-star reviews, Superhost status and lots of repeat guests.

We also don't charge a cleaning fee or make guests do check-out chores. In fact, we find both things rather loathsome.

What makes us good hosts is that we've been Airbnb guests for years. As a family of five that travels a lot, we've found far more value in Airbnbs than in hotels over the years. We love having a kitchen, living room and bedrooms and feeling like we have a "home" while traveling. We even spent a nomadic year staying at short-term rentals for a month at a time.

When you've experienced dozens of Airbnbs as a guest, you learn what guests appreciate and what they don't. You see what's annoying and unnecessary and what's to be expected in comparison to a hotel. We started taking mental notes long before we started our own rental about what we would want to do and not do if we ever had one and have implemented those things now that we do.

As guests, we know the pain of the cleaning fee, so we don't charge one.

via GIPHY

It helps that my husband has a flexible schedule and grew up helping with his parents' janitorial service, so most of the time he cleans the apartments himself. We could charge a cleaning fee for his time and labor, but even if we were paying for outside cleaners, we still wouldn't put a separate fee onto guest bookings. It makes far more sense to us to just wrap the cleaning fee into the per-night price.

From a host's perspective, the one-night stay is where the cleaning fee question hits the hardest. Whether someone stays one night or 10 nights, the cleaning cost is the same. But spreading the cost over 10 nights is a very different beast than adding it to one night, especially from a guest's perspective. On the host side, if we had to pay cleaners without passing that fee onto guests, we've barely make anything on one-night stays. But on the guest side, a $100 a night stay suddenly jumping to $150 because a cleaning fee was added is painful, and often a dealbreaker. You can see the conundrum.

The way we see it, and as other Airbnb hosts have found, wrapping cleaning costs into the base price comes out in the wash over time, as long as you have some longer-term stays mixed in with the one-nighters. And it's a much better experience for the guest not to get hit with sticker shock on the "final cost" screen, which is already eye-popping when service fees and taxes are added on.

(I will say, this may only ring true for smaller units. If you're renting a huge home, cleaning costs are going to be higher just because it takes longer to clean. But I still don't think the full cost should be passed onto guests as a separate fee.)

As for check-out chores—asking guests to do things like start laundry, sweep the floor, take out the trash, etc.—those have never made sense to us. Hosts should have enough switch-out linens that laundry doesn't have to be started prior to checking out, and none of those chores save enough time for the cleaning people to make it worth asking guests to do it. I can see taking out trash if there wasn't going to be another guest for a while, but usually you'd want to clean right away after a stay anyway just in case it does get booked last minute.

The only thing we ask guests to do is to start the dishwasher if they have dirty dishes (as a guest, I've never found that an unreasonable request), lock the door and have a safe trip home. Don't need to pull the sheets. Don't need to take out any garbage or recycling. Those things don't take that long, but that's just as much a reason not to ask guests to do it. Annoying your guests by asking them to do something extra isn't worth the tiny bit of time it might save the cleaning people.

And you know what? This approach works really well. Approximately 95% of guests leave the apartments clean and tidy anyway. In seven years, I can count on one hand how many problems we've had with guests leaving a mess. That's been a pleasant surprise, but I think part of the reason is that guest are simply reciprocating the respect and consideration we show them by not making them pay extra fees or do chores on their way out.

To be fair, it probably also helps that we aren't some big real estate tycoon that bought up a bunch of apartments and turning them into short-term rentals run by impersonal management companies. People's complaints about how short-term rentals impact local housing economies are legitimate. We're more aligned with the original "sharing economy" model, renting out our home to guests who come through town. And in a small college town with a large university, there often aren't enough hotel rooms during busy weekends anyway, so it's been a bit of a win-win.

I think being right next door, having personal communication with our guests (but also leaving them their privacy), and not charging or asking anything extra of them makes them want to be respectful guests. From our perspective, both as guests and hosts, cleaning fees and check-out chores simply aren't worth it.


From Your Site Articles
travel
Education

Expert says there's only one laundry cycle you ever need, no matter what's being washed

Straight from Patric Richardson, the "Laundry Guy" himself.

Representative image from Canva

Because who can keep up with which laundry settings is for which item, anyway?

Once upon a time, our only option for getting clothes clean was to get out a bucket of soapy water and start scrubbing. Nowadays, we use fancy machines that not only do the labor for us, but give us free reign to choose between endless water temperature, wash duration, and spin speed combinations.

Of course, here’s where the paradox of choice comes in. Suddenly you’re second guessing whether that lace item needs to use the “delicates” cycle, or the “hand wash” one, or what exactly merits a “permanent press” cycle. And now, you’re wishing for that bygone bucket just to take away the mental rigamarole.

Well, you’re in luck. Turns out there’s only one setting you actually need. At least according to one laundry expert.

While appearing on HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast, Patric Richardson, aka The Laundry Evangelist, said he swears by the “express” cycle, as “it’s long enough to get your clothes clean but it’s short enough not to cause any damage.”

Richardson’s reasoning is founded in research done while writing his book, “Laundry Love,” which showed that even the dirtiest items would be cleaned in the “express” cycle, aka the “quick wash” or “30 minute setting.”


Furthermore the laundry expert, who’s also the host of HGTV’s “Laundry Guy,” warned that longer wash settings only cause more wear and tear, plus use up more water and power, making express wash a much more sustainable choice.

Really, the multiple settings washing machines have more to do with people being creatures of habit, and less to do with efficiency, Richardson explained.

“All of those cycles [on the washing machine] exist because they used to exist,” he told co-hosts Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson. “We didn’t have the technology in the fabric, in the machine, in the detergent [that we do now], and we needed those cycles. In the ’70s, you needed the ‘bulky bedding’ cycle and the ‘sanitary’ cycle ... it was a legit thing. You don’t need them anymore, but too many people want to buy a machine and they’re like, ‘My mom’s machine has “whitest whites.”’ If I could build a washing machine, it would just have one button — you’d just push it, and it’d be warm water and ‘express’ cycle and that’s it.”
washing machine

When was the last time you washed you washing machine? "Never" is a valid answer.

Canva

According to Good Housekeeping, there are some things to keep in mind if you plan to go strictly express from now on.

For one thing, the outlet recommends only filling the machine halfway and using a half dose of liquid, not powder detergent, since express cycles use less water. Second, using the setting regularly can develop a “musty” smell, due to the constant low-temperature water causing a buildup of mold or bacteria. To prevent this, running an empty wash on a hot setting, sans the detergent, is recommended every few weeks, along with regularly scrubbing the detergent drawer and door seal.

Still, even with those additional caveats, it might be worth it just to knock out multiple washes in one day. Cause let’s be honest—a day of laundry and television binging sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?

To catch even more of Richardson’s tips, find the full podcast episode here.


This article originally appeared on 2.4.24

community

People think a Weimaraner was a 'human in a past life' because of his classy table manners

He just sits there and enjoys the conversation.

via Liana S./Pexels

A respectable Weimaraners sits on the rug.

It’s incredibly rare to see a dog, especially a large one, sitting upright at a dinner table. It’s probably even more rare to see one that isn’t bothering with any food. That’s why a video posted by Federica Finocchiaro has captivated the public.

In a video seen over 2.3 million times on TikTok, Federica Finocchiaro shares how her dog, Grayson, a Weimaraner, is a very polite table guest.

“Does anyone else's dog just sit at the table?” Finocchiaro asked as she and her mother, Domenica Vinci, enjoyed breakfast together. “He just sits with us, and we didn't make him sit here... He just loves the company,” she continued.

Finocchiaro then shared a video of Grayson sitting with the family on Christmas. “My mom and I will come downstairs, or we'll be doing something and he's just sitting at the table casually,” said Finocchiaro. “He never tries to eat the food that we're eating—ever.”

@federicafinocchiaro_

Love u grayson #greenscreen #dog #puppy #funnydogs #fyp #wiemeraner #dogsoftiktok #dogtok #foryoupage #pup

Love u grayson #greenscreen #dog #puppy #funnydogs #fyp #wiemeraner #dogsoftiktok #dogtok #foryoupage #pup

Some people in the video's comments speculated about Grayson’s past. "He was human in a past life for sure," Ariel T wrote. “He thinks he's human,” David added.

"His love language is quality time," nonshowbizgf wrote.

Even though it seems strange that a dog would want to hang out at a dinner table, it could be because Weimaraners are very dedicated to their owners. “They can get depressed and act out if they are ignored,” the American Kennel Club wrote on its website. “This can lead to separation anxiety problems, notes the Weimaraner Club of America, so it’s important to teach puppies that there will be times when they will have to be on their own.”


Joy

'Tough love': Woman shares why husbands promise to be equal partners, but never change

"It doesn’t benefit him to change."

via Timur Weber/Pexels

A couple arguing on the couch.

Research shows that couples are becoming more egalitarian as it pertains to income. But when it comes to the division of domestic labor and taking care of families, there is still a considerable gap between the work done by men and women in heterosexual marriages.

Consider this: the average woman dedicates 4.6 hours per week to housework, while men contribute only 1.9 hours. Furthermore, women spend nearly 2 more hours on caregiving, including child-rearing than men.

Men and women are still having a hard time creating equal partnerships, and, more often than not, it means that women are the default parents of their children. They are also in charge of domestic duties and often have to make lists for their husbands and nag them to do their part.

​Abby Eckel, a popular social media wife and mother, thinks this needs to end and uses her considerable platform to push to equalize domestic labor. In a video with over 900,000 views, she explains the harsh truth of why some men take advantage of their wives and refuse to change.

This is a harsh truth. But it needs to be said. He simply doesn't care. 

@itsme_abbye

This is a harsh truth. But it needs to be said. He simply doesn't care. It should not take conversation after conversation after conversation for your husband/boyfriend/partner to list, learn, and change. It's because he doesn't care. It doesn't benefit him to change. Approaching your husband AGAIN to discuss household inequity is likely to fall on deaf ears because he has been EXPLOITING your time, energy and labor. And if he didn't care when he started doing it, he sure as shit isn't going to care now. And he likely knows there will be no consequence when he doesn't. Because again, this probably isn't the first time this conversation has been had. And nothing happened the last time you had, so why would it happen no? This is the very reason I tell women who are early in relationships, and those that are single - start out as you mean to go on. This requires setting boundaries for yourself and the person you're in a relationship with. Be clear and upfront on what you expect out of it, what you will and won't do. Because the second you start cleaning up his place, or your shared space, doing his laundry, looking after and caring for pets without setting firm expectations, you'll soon find yourself being the sole owner and doer of those tasks. And trying to set boundaries after the fact - AFTER a man has benefited from you doing it, isn't likely to happen. #marriage #datingadvice #relationshiptips #marriedlife

“This is going to sound harsh, but I think a lot of people actually just really need to hear the truth, and it’s because he doesn’t care. It doesn’t benefit him to change,” she says in the viral video.

“Approaching your husband again to discuss an issue, whether it’s household inequity, you not feeling considered, or you not feeling like he’s putting any time and effort into it, is likely going to fall on deaf ears because he’s been exploiting your time, your labor, your energy and if he didn’t care when he started doing it, he’s not going to care now,” Eckel continues.

Unfortunately, according to Eckel, if there are no consequences for refusing to be an equal partner, he won’t change. She equates it to parents who make threats to child children but don't follow through.

“Eventually, things are going to go back to how they were. You’re going to stop nagging him and he’s going to be fine with it. Until you bring it up again. And then again, nothing happens because there’s no consequences. So why would he want to change?” she says.

Eckel believes the key to avoiding this trap is to set firm boundaries at the beginning of the relationship.

“Be clear and upfront on what you expect out of it, what you will and won’t do,” she continues. “Because the second you start cleaning up his place, or your shared space, doing his laundry, looking after and caring for pets without setting firm expectations, you’ll soon find yourself being the sole owner and doer of those tasks, and trying to set boundaries after the fact — after a man has benefited from you doing it, isn’t likely to happen.”

Obviously, not all men have problems doing their fair share of domestic labor in a family. Eckel made another video in which she shares the positive qualities that an equal partner brings to the table.

"I don't have to make him a list."

"I don't have to ask him to help with things around the house."

"He knows how to shop at the grocery store without pictures."

"He doesn't expect me to handle everything alone."

"He plans date nights without me having to beg for it."

"He does his own laundry."

"He makes his own appointments."

"My stocking has never been empty."

"He makes his kids' lunches in the morning."

"He makes his son's therapy appointments and takes his son to them."

"He doesn't believe that just because he goes to work, he shouldn't have to do anything when he gets home."

"He takes a genuine interest in me and my interests."

"He knows how to fold towels."

"He takes our kids to bed and knows our teachers' names."

"He doesn't make me feel bad if I'm not in the mood."

"He acknowledges and appreciates what I do and tells me often."

"He does basic adult tasks without being asked."

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