Never Give Up! – Reflection

Hello again! Today I will be reflecting on this TED talk by Diana Nyad about her journey and feat of swimming 100 miles from Cuba to Florida.

Source: BBC

As a swimmer and surfer, I understood the difficulty of swimming in the ocean and that in it of itself is something I could only dream of accomplishing. Her story of constant failure, but eventual success, is one that I found inspiring and shows how hard work really does pay off. She managed to achieve the seemingly impossible and that gives me hope that I will eventually be able to fulfill me dreams and desires.

Picture from my swim coach

For the past couple of years, I have had the hope of eventually making a very fast cut in swimming and making it to regional championships. It has always been in the back of my mind, and now that I’m so close I feel like it is actually achievable. I still have to improve greatly before the end of high school, but this talk inspired me to believe in myself that I can improve and that I can achieve my goal. I have had constant setbacks with various injuries, trips and other issues that have come up, which have prevented me from feeling 100% and trying my hardest. These issues may come up again, but over the past three years I have steadily improved, so I have faith that I can push through.

 

The talk itself was very good, with bits of humor, strength and overall life lessons within the talk. I don’t usually listen to inspirational speeches, as I often don’t connect to the person talking or I find it doesn’t help or inspire me, however her talk I was able to relate to, due to the fact that I swim. I think she conveyed a positive message of always trying and striving for what I want. I would recommend anyone to watch this talk, linked at the beginning of the post or you can watch the video embedded below.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my opinion on Diana’s talk and make sure to check out some of my other posts!

 

Heart Disease in Women: A Healthy Solution

Hello again! Today I will be talking about what other members of my Sports Med and myself did to increase awareness of heart disease and help prevent heart disease!

 

We used the Design Thinking Model to create our product, which is this website. There are five steps: Empathize, Design, Ideate, Prototype and Test. I will describe briefly what we did for each step to create our website to help lower the rate of heart disease in women!

Design Model Thinking Process

We initially began our project learning about heart disease in women, who’s affected, what the causes are, what the symptoms are and other statistics on how many women are killed each year and more. We empathized with those with heart disease, learning what they are going through, why and how there is no real cure to heart disease, only ways to manage it. Women that have heart disease, we realized, are usually older, in less physical form than they should be and often genetics play a role. However, because heart disease is so prevalent and widespread, there is no real definition for women who have heart disease, any women can get it, which is the scary part. Check out this video, a PSA I helped create, for some more quick facts on heart disease.

We learned that heart disease in women is usually caused by other factors in one’s health, which lead us to believe that if the initial health of a women can be kept on track, the number of women with heart disease could be lowered. If a women has previous health issues, her likelihood of developing heart disease increases. Health issues are caused by poor diet, lack of exercise and lack of healthy habits. Overall health, specifically diet and exercise, I believe, is what I defined as the main problem that could, and should, be addressed.

To address this problem, my group members and I brainstormed and came up with various ideas. Because of the limited amount of time we had to work together, we concluded that a virtual product would be best so we could collaborate on our own time and in our own homes. We wanted to make a product that could be seen by many people and could offer a simple solution to a complex problem. We determined that diet and exercise are key, controllable factors that we could inform, give ideas on and motivate people to live healthier lifestyle. We brainstormed solutions that were virtual, and could address health, and we could have done an app, a Facebook group or page, or various other virtual products. However, we decided to create a completely new website.

 

The prototype that we decided to create is a website, helpforhearts.wordpress.com, that gives information on heart disease, as a background, places to donate and volunteer, but mainly it lists healthy recipes and workouts for people to refer to so they can improve on a certain portion of their diet or daily exercise. Many people don’t know that healthy can taste good, and so the goal of the website is to create a location where people at risk or that have heart disease can go on, search a recipe for dinner and have a multitude of healthy options that will help improve their health and heart disease.

The home page of our website

The website is only recently published so we cannot say whether it has made an impact or not yet, however there have been a couple of visitors, which is a positive sign. There are multiple tabs, drop down menus and features that make the website, in my opinion, visually appealing. We have asked some people, and they said that they enjoyed the website, finding it helpful with tips on being healthy for diet and exercise. We hope to gain more feedback on what we should improve and how we can bring even more awareness to this disease and how to prevent it. I cannot determine whether impact on heart disease itself has been made, however, I hope that this website gives people more ideas and creative ways to stay healthy and fit, while enjoying themselves!

 

Researching women and heart disease, coming up with solutions and creating this website was a great experience that I learned a lot from. It is a horrible disease that needs more awareness and solutions and I hope the website and tips help the goal of more awareness and more prevention.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and remember to check out our website to see how you can help!

 

 

Sources Used:

Women’s Heart Foundation

CDC

The Heart Foundation

American Heart Association

Mayo Clinic