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This article gives the definition of grief and different examples of grief and loss that someone may come across. The article also talks about the myths and facts relating to grief. There is also a section that talks about how you can properly deal with grief. Knowing how to support someone dealing with loss or grief is important knowledge to have for any profession. As a teacher we will have students that lose a family member or a pet, students could have to sell their family home or their parents get a divorce, etc. Knowing how to spot someone having a difficult time and having ways to support them is important.

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Coping with Grief and Loss - HelpGuide.org

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The pain of loss can feel overwhelming, but there are healthy ways to cope with your grief and learn to heal. These tips can help.

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This article shares many facts about trauma. They list how people may respond to a traumatic event, how someone may feel both internally and physically. The list ways children may react to trauma. They also list ways you can find help coping with trauma. This article is very informational and helpful if you want to learn more about what trauma looks like for different people and how you can help those going through a difficult time. This is important information to know as a teacher, because your students may be going through difficult times and knowing how to support them in crucial.

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National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

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How do people respond to traumatic events?

A traumatic event is a shocking, scary, or dangerous experience that can affect someone emotionally and physically. Traumatic events can include experiences such as natural disasters (such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods), acts of violence (such as assault, abuse, terror attacks, and mass shootings), and car crashes or other accidents.

It is natural to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. Fear is a part of the body's "fight-or-flight" response, which helps us avoid or respond to potential danger. People may experience a range of reactions after trauma, including:

Feeling anxious, sad, or angry

Trouble concentrating and sleeping

Continually thinking about what happened

Most people will recover from these symptoms, and their reactions will lessen over time. Those who continue to experience symptoms may be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It is important to seek professional help if symptoms do not improve over time or begin to interfere with daily life. Some signs that a person may need help include:

Worrying a lot or feeling very anxious, sad, or fearful

Crying often

Having trouble thinking clearly

Having frightening thoughts or flashbacks, reliving the experience

Feeling angry, resentful, or irritable

Having nightmares or difficulty sleeping

Avoiding places or people that bring back disturbing memories and responses

Becoming isolated from family and friends

Physical responses to trauma may also mean that a person needs help. Physical symptoms may include:

Having headaches

Having stomach pain and digestive issues

Having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep

Having a racing heart and sweating

Being very jumpy and easily startled

People who have a personal or family history of mental illness or substance use, who have had previous exposure to traumatic experiences, who face ongoing stress or trauma (such as abuse), or who lack support from friends and family may be more likely to develop more severe symptoms and need additional help.

People who experience traumatic events also may experience panic disorder, depression, substance use, or suicidal thoughts. Treatment for these conditions can help with recovery after trauma.

If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org . In life-threatening situations, call 911.

How do children and teens react to trauma?

Children and teens can have extreme reactions to traumatic events, but their symptoms may not be the same as those seen in adults. In children younger than age 6, symptoms can include:

Wetting the bed after having learned to use the toilet

Forgetting how to talk or being unable to talk

Acting out the scary event during playtime

Being unusually clingy with a parent or other adult

Older children and teens usually show symptoms more like those seen in adults. They may also develop disruptive, disrespectful, or destructive behaviors. Older children and teens may feel guilt over not preventing injury or death. They may also have thoughts of revenge.

What can I do to cope after a traumatic event?

Healthy ways of coping can help reduce stress and improve well-being. Here are some things you can do to help yourself:

Avoid the use of alcohol or drugs

Spend time with trusted friends and relatives who are supportive

Try to maintain routines for meals, exercise, and sleep

Engage in exercise, mindfulness, or other activities that help reduce stress

Set realistic goals and focus on what you can manage

Learn about self-care strategies and when to seek professional help.

How can I find help for coping with traumatic events?

If you're not sure where to get help, a health care provider can refer you to a licensed mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical social worker with experience treating people who are coping with traumatic events. Find tips to help prepare for and get the most out of your visit and information about getting help.

In addition, the Disaster Distress Helpline from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provides crisis counseling and support to people experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters. The helpline is free, multilingual, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

SAMSHA also offers an online treatment locator to help you find mental health services in your area.

How can I find a clinical trial for coping with trauma?

Clinical trials are research studies that look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat diseases and conditions. The goal of clinical trials is to determine if a new test or treatment works and is safe. Although individuals may benefit from being part of a clinical trial, participants should be aware that the primary purpose of a clinical trial is to gain new scientific knowledge so that others may be better helped in the future.

Researchers at NIMH and around the country conduct many studies with patients and healthy volunteers. We have new and better treatment options today because of what clinical trials uncovered years ago. Talk to your health care provider about clinical trials, their benefits and risks, and whether one is right for you.

To learn more or find a study, visit:

Where can I learn more about coping with traumatic events?

Free brochures and shareable resources

Helping Children and Adolescents Cope With Traumatic Events: This fact sheet presents information on how children and adolescents respond to traumatic events and what family, friends, and trusted adults can do to help. Also available en español.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: This brochure provides information about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including what it is, who develops PTSD, symptoms, treatment options, and how to find help for yourself or someone else who may have PTSD. Also available en español.

Digital Shareables on PTSD: These digital resources, including graphics and messages, can be used to spread the word about PTSD and help promote awareness and education in your community.

Federal resources

Caring for Children in a Disaster : This webpage from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides fact sheets, articles, and other tools and resources on caring for children in disasters or emergency situations.

Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery : This webpage from SAMHSA offers behavioral health resources for communities and responders that help them prepare, respond, and recover from disasters.

Medications for PTSD : This webpage from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs describes effective medications for treating PTSD and considerations for evaluating treatment options.

National Center for PTSD : Part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, this website has information and resources for anyone interested in PTSD, including veterans, family, friends, researchers, and health care providers. The site offers videos, apps, online programs, and other tools to help people with PTSD and their loved ones.

PTSD (MedlinePlus - also en español )

Publications on Disaster Preparedness and Recovery : This webpage from SAMHSA lists publications and digital products on coping after a disaster, pandemic, or traumatic event.

Last Reviewed: May 2023

Unless otherwise specified, the information on our website and in our publications is in the public domain and may be reused or copied without permission. However, you may not reuse or copy images. Please cite the National Institute of Mental Health as the source. Read our copyright policy to learn more about our guidelines for reusing NIMH content.

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Find information about traumatic events, including warning signs that you may need help following a traumatic event, ways to cope, and how to find help.

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This CNN article gives examples of how you can be more physically active this year. They mention going for walks, making to-do lists, going to the gym, and coming up with a daily active routine. It is important for teachers to relay this message onto students so they get in the habit of being active. Now that students have access to electronics they are more inclined to sit inside, we have to be extra persuasive to get kids outside and active.

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Improve your life in 2024 by following our Life, But Better advice for sleep, food, fitness, stress reduction and more. Start with our science-backed guidance on fitness.

This is not going to be the year that you make big plans to be more active and then burn out a few weeks into 2024.

Exercise is important - even if you aren't aiming to be a triathlete. Regular movement helps with longevity, makes us happier and fights against disease, studies show.

What's going to make this year different as you pursue that resolution to incorporate working out into your regular routine is being realistic and working with yourself to get there.

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How to actually keep your fitness resolutions this year | CNN

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You always say you are going to work out more in the new year, but it's so hard to find the time or face the gym. Here is how you fix that in 2024.

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This article talks about how you can identify risk factors and how to predict potential dangers. For sports injuries they mention how stretching and warming up beforehand can reduce injury. Work related injuries are mentioned with facts and examples. This relates to physical education because students should always stretch and warm up before doing extreme fitness activities.

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According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), injury prevention is defined as "activities to prevent, ameliorate, treat, and/or reduce injury-related disability and death."

Prevalence of Injury

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of injuries around the globe is that 1 out of 10 people are sent to the emergency department every year. It was recorded by the National Safety Council (NSC) in their NSC Injury Facts that in 2020, the US had 200,955 preventable deaths, 55.4 million injuries, and $1,158.4 billion dollars in costs.

In contrast to accidents, injuries are not the result of chance. Accidents and injuries are two entirely different things. However, they develop in a predictable manner, somewhat like disease. Before a potential injury occurs, it is possible to identify the risk factors. Therefore, identifying and assessing potential dangers can help to reduce the likelihood of injuries occurring in the first place.

Whether you are a professional athlete, a student, or a worker, injuries can happen suddenly at any place or time. However, there are measures or approaches that you can use to prevent or reduce the possibility of being injured.

Sports-related Injury

Sporting injuries are those suffered when participating in sports or physical activity of any kind. Sports injuries occur most frequently as a result of either trauma or overuse of muscles, joints, tendons, or bones when participating in or training in sports. The most common sports injuries include:

Sprains

Strains

Bone fractures

Ligament damage

Bone Dislocations

Concussions caused by hits, blows, shakings, or bumps

How Can Sports Injuries Be Prevented?

There are many ways to prevent sports injuries. Most injuries are caused by lack of training, improper sportswear, incorrect practices, and wrong sports equipment. The measures below can be used to prevent sports injuries:

Warming up and cooling down properly-doing light exercises such as stretching or light cardio exercises can prepare the body for high impact; thus reducing the risk of an injury.

Using correct techniques-doing the proper techniques learned in the training for the kind of sports the athlete is involved in. For example, in weight lifting, improper postures or stances can cause injuries.

Wearing protective equipment and other gear-wearing protective equipment such as helmet for action sports and other gear like knee and elbow pads, eye protection, mouth guards, protective footwear, etc.

Using suitable sports equipment-using proper equipment for a specific sport and a specific person. For example, lifting weights that are appropriate for the strength level of the player.

Work-related Injury

The NSC has provided statistics for the top work-related causes of injuries in 2020 on their website. The prevalence of these causes is a clear need for proper injury prevention measures. Below is a table showing the top 3 causes of work-related injuries with their examples and other information:

TOP 3 OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES INVOLVING DAYS AWAY FROM WORK IN UNITED STATES, 2020

Exposure to harmful substances or environments Overexertion, bodily reaction Falls, slips, trips

Injury rate: 43.5 per 10,000 full-time workers

Injury rate: 26.2 per 10,000 full-time workers

Injury rate: 21.7 per 10,000 full-time workers

Examples:

Electrocution

Exposure to radiation and noise

Exposure to temperature extremes

Exposure to air and water pressure change

Exposure to other harmful substances

Includes contagious and infectious diseases such as COVID-19

Exposure to oxygen deficiency

Exposure to traumatic or stressful event

Examples:

Non-impact injuries: Result from excessive physical effort directed at an outside source; common activities include lifting, pushing, turning, holding, carrying, or throwing

Repetitive motion: Microtasks resulting in stress or strain on some part of the body due to the repetitive nature of the task, typically without strenuous effort such as heavy lifting

Examples:

Slips and trips without falling: Injuries occurring when a worker catches him/herself from falling due to slip or trip

Falling on the same level: Includes tripping, slipping, falling while sitting, and falling onto or against object on the same level

Falling to a lower level: Includes falling from a collapsing structure, falling through surfaces, and falling from ladders, roofs, scaffolding or other structures

Jumping to a lower level: Different from falls because they are controlled and voluntary

Industry most at risk: health care and social assistance

Industry most at risk: transportation and warehousing

Industry most at risk: transportation and warehousing and agriculture

Most frequent case type: Other diseases due to viruses, not elsewhere classified

Most frequent part of body hurt: back

Most frequent type of injury: sprains, strains, tears

NSC Injury Facts
Injury Prevention Approaches

There are several preventive measures that are used to analyze risk factors in order to understand and predict patterns of injury or the likelihood of a risk to result in injury.

Levels of Prevention

Analysis of an injury or risk includes understanding the levels of the occurrence of the injury. Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) has provided the 3 levels of prevention which refer to the timing of an injury as the start of analyzing risk factors for selecting what preventive strategy to take. They are:

Primary level (Pre-event or before the event happened)-answering what can be done to avoid the injury before it occurs

Secondary level (during the event)-answering what can be done to prevent or reduce the severity of the injury as it occurs

Tertiary (Post-event or after the event happened)-answering what can be done to limit long-term impairments and disability after the injury occurs

CDC's Public Health Approach

The CDC uses a systematic step-by-step process called the public health approach in addressing public health concerns, including injuries:

Step#1: Define the problem -this pertains to defining how big the problem is, where it is, and who is affected. This is accomplished through gathering and analyzing data (i.e., surveillance).

Step #2: Identify risk and protective factors -this pertains to giving answers to questions such as, "What factors put people at risk for that injury?" and "What factors protect people from it?" The CDC conducts research from the answers collected and implements appropriate programs to protect people from getting injuries.

Step #3: Develop and test prevention strategies -this pertains to putting into action the plans for injury prevention strategies. The CDC's goal in studying these strategies is to determine how well they are working and if they need to be changed.

Step #4: Assure widespread adoption -this pertains to spreading the information gathered from research and strategy development.

Adoption of the Epidemiology Triangle

Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the patterns and causes of disease and other health conditions, including injuries. As NPAIHB defined it, "epidemiology is the science of disease detectives."

To identify the risk factors and the relationships that exist between them, epidemiologists use a triangular model for disease prevention. The same model can also be adopted to prevent injuries as well.

The injury prevention model shows the relationship between the three factors that influence the occurrence of injury. These factors are:

Host - the injured person

Environment - the characteristics of the physical and social environment

Agent - the energy causing injury (e.g., mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, etc.)

The relationship between these factors means that each characteristic and behavior of a person or the environment can help or contribute to the likelihood of injury.

3 E's Approach

Another well-known injury prevention framework is called the 3 E's of Injury Prevention.

#1) Education -this pertains to teaching members of the organization about the potential hazards in their surroundings and providing information on how to avoid them at the same time.

#2) Environment -this pertains to the process of making a place safer. Safer working conditions may imply that the likelihood of suffering from the following hazards is minimal, depending on the type of workplace:

Slippery floors

Heavy machinery

Loud noises

Heat or cold

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs)

Education is sometimes interchanged by engineering. This means applying engineering controls to make the workplace safer.

#3) Enforcement -this pertains to ensuring that all members of the organization are complying with safety standards, including those from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor) for Injury Prevention

Keeping everyone safe from the risk of getting injured is everyone's responsibility. There are several ways or preventive approaches that can be implemented to prevent injuries. Without the proper tool to efficiently conduct risk assessments, inspections, and investigations, preventing the risk of injury can consume a lot of time which could have been used to take action on the hazards identified instead.

Empower your team, your community, or your workplace with SafetyCulture -the best tool to conduct digitized risk assessments and inspections to help identify hazards.

With SafetyCulture, you can identify and address the factors of the injury to consequently prevent it from recurring again. Additionally, you can:

Identify potential hazards and select safety controls with digitized forms such as risk assessment templates.

Observe tasks, the persons at risk, and select the risk rating based on the risk matrix using the Dynamic Risk Assessment Template Checklist.

Educate your team or workers of the potential risks and the appropriate actions or safety measures that must be implemented with Training.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Injury Prevention | SafetyCulture

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Learn what is injury prevention, the prevalence of injuries and the approaches used to save lives in the home, community, or workplace.

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In this article, Dr. Novak talks about personal wellness and how it affects families. He says that is one person in your family is dealing with an illness or going through a rough patch, it will affect the whole family and it is important that the family works with that person to help them. This can relate to the classroom. If a student is having a difficult time it's up to the teacher to help that student and for the classroom to be uplifting and welcoming.

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Relationships and health are vital parts of life. Whether it be relationships with family, friends or partners, the quality of these relationships is intimately tied with physical and emotional well-being.

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This article gives many different strategies on how to increase mental health in schools and how to implement them in your classes. They talk about why we should promote mental health and how schools should create safe and welcoming environments. Teachers should find this article interesting because it gives different tools and way you can help your students.

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An Action Guide for School and District Leaders

At a Glance

Schools are prioritizing students' mental health, and there are many tools and resources to choose from. CDC created this action guide as a place to start. It can help school and district leaders build on what they are already doing to promote students' mental health and find new strategies to fill in gaps.

The action guide describes six in-school strategies that are proven to promote and support mental health and well-being. For each strategy, the guide also describes approaches, or specific ways to put the strategy into action, and examples of evidence-based policies, programs, and practices.

Audience

School and district leaders of kindergarten through 12th-grade schools (K-12), including principals and leaders of student support teams.

Goal

Provide school and district leaders with strategies, approaches, and practices that can improve students' mental health.

CDC has identified six school-based strategies and associated approaches that can help prevent mental health problems and promote positive behavioral and mental health of students.

Multitiered Systems Of Support

Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are used by many schools and districts to support different levels of students' needs. The strategies in this action guide can align with schools' existing MTSS to enhance the work schools have already started.

Why Schools?

Schools help promote the mental health and well-being of students through education, prevention, and early intervention efforts. They provide an opportunity to reach a large number of youth with strategies that can lessen the impact of negative experiences and improve students' health and well-being.

Schools can establish safe and supportive environments.

Schools can connect students to caring adults and encourage positive peer relationships.

Schools can give students mental health support and link them and their families to community behavioral and mental health services.

Schools that promote student mental health and well-being can improve classroom behavior, school engagement, and peer relationships. These factors are connected to academic success.

Tools to Get Started

The tools below were created for school and district leaders and mental health support teams to help prioritize strategies and approaches, create a plan to put them in place, and communicate the plan with key partners.

This resource [PDF - 2 MB] provides practical tools designed to help you 1) Reflect on what your school or district is already doing to promote mental health and well-being, 2) Prioritize strategies and approaches from the Action Guide to fill gaps and strengthen what is already in place, and 3) Plan for Action to implement the strategies and approaches.

The slides included in this presentation template [PPT - 9 MB] can be adapted and used to help you communicate to key partners (e.g. school staff, district administrators, school boards, parent groups) about your plans for implementing strategies and approaches from the Action Guide.

Additional Resources

Some of the strategies and approaches in this action guide may also improve other important health outcomes, such as experiences of violence and suicide.

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Promoting Mental Health and Well-Being in Schools

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Learn more about promoting student mental health and well-being in schools in CDC's action guide for school leaders.

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This article talks about ways we can prevent tobacco use in not only adults but for young children. There have been many premature deaths in adults and children that relate to illness from smoking or even second-hand smoking. Experts think increasing taxation on these products or creating stricter laws will help with this issue. This is important to think about as a future educator because you want to teach students to take care of themselves and staying away from habits like smoking is very important.

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The medical consequences of tobacco use-including secondhand exposure-make tobacco control and smoking prevention crucial parts of any public health strategy. Since the first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health in 1964, states and communities have made efforts to reduce initiation of smoking, decrease exposure to smoke, and increase cessation. Researchers estimate that these tobacco control efforts are associated with averting an estimated 8 million premature deaths and extending the average life expectancy of men by 2.3 years and of women by 1.6 years. But there is a long way yet to go: roughly 5.6 million adolescents under age 18 are expected to die prematurely as a result of an illness related to smoking.

Prevention can take the form of policy-level measures, such as increased taxation of tobacco products; stricter laws (and enforcement of laws) regulating who can purchase tobacco products; how and where they can be purchased; where and when they can be used (i.e., smoke-free policies in restaurants, bars, and other public places); and restrictions on advertising and mandatory health warnings on packages. Over 100 studies have shown that higher taxes on cigarettes, for example, produce significant reductions in smoking, especially among youth and lower-income individuals. Smoke-free workplace laws and restrictions on advertising have also shown benefits.

Prevention can also take place at the school or community level. Merely educating potential smokers about the health risks has not proven effective. Successful evidence-based interventions aim to reduce or delay initiation of smoking, alcohol use, and illicit drug use, and otherwise improve outcomes for children and teens by reducing or mitigating modifiable risk factors and bolstering protective factors. Risk factors for smoking include having family members or peers who smoke, being in a lower socioeconomic status, living in a neighborhood with high density of tobacco outlets, not participating in team sports, being exposed to smoking in movies, and being sensation-seeking. Although older teens are more likely to smoke than younger teens, the earlier a person starts smoking or using any addictive substance, the more likely they are to develop an addiction. Males are also more likely to take up smoking in adolescence than females.

Some evidence-based interventions show lasting effects on reducing smoking initiation. For instance, communities utilizing the intervention-delivery system, Communities that Care (CTC) for students aged 10 to14 show sustained reduction in male cigarette initiation up to 9 years after the end of the intervention.

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How can we prevent tobacco use? | National Institute on Drug Abuse

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The medical consequences of tobacco use-including secondhand exposure-make tobacco control and smoking prevention crucial parts of any public health strategy. Since the first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health in 1964, states and communities have made efforts to reduce initiation of smoking, decrease exposure to smoke, and increase cessation.

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This article talks about how we may be eating foods with too much sodium. This can cause health problems. There are other substitutions we can use to make our meals healthier. This is helpful to learn about because schools should take into account that students should be eating healthier foods. Schools should think about the food they serve children and if there is too much sodium being consumed.

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Sign up for CNN's Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that will boost your health for life.

Using less salt in your food may seem boring, but the payoffs could be as big as a lowered risk of death, new research has found.

Using a salt substitute when cooking was linked with a lower risk of dying early from any cause or from cardiovascular disease in a new study published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

"We are excited to be able to provide evidence that salt substitutions are effective for improving cardiovascular outcomes when used long-term, up to 10 years," said the study's senior author Dr. Loai Albarqouni, an assistant professor at the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Bond University in Australia. "Previous synthesis tended to focus on short-term outcomes, lasting only two weeks."

The study is a systematic review of 16 randomized controlled trials that were published before August 23, 2023, and totaled 35,251 participants who were around age 64 on average and had a higher-than-average risk for cardiovascular disease. The trials were mainly in China, with the rest in the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Peru, the Netherlands and Norway.

With two-thirds of the findings coming from China, the authors "were surprised at how little salt substitution research has been conducted outside Asian countries," Albarqouni said. "This is partially why we have graded the evidence as 'low to very low certainty' for Western populations - there simply isn't enough evidence to verify that salt substitutes would be as effective in the Western context."

Salt substitution was also linked with a reduction in sodium in urine, and in blood pressure, an effect similar to that of blood pressure medications, the authors found. That could explain the lowered risk of death, Albarqouni said.

The authors acknowledged that in the trials, some of the salt substitutes were not verified and some were purchased by the participants instead of given to them by researchers.

The trials compared the use of common salt - made of about 100% sodium chloride, occasionally with added iodine - with using a salt substitute comprised of 25% to 30% potassium chloride and 60% to 75% sodium chloride.

Another reason why applying the findings to a Western context is difficult is that salt consumption patterns in North America are "driven by processed and takeaway food, while consumption in the research context is more driven by the high amount of salt added during home food preparation," Albarqouni said.

"This is not the strongest study to base a lot of conclusions on at this point," said Dr. Andrew Freeman, a preventative cardiologist and director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver. "But it adds to the body of evidence and the signal in the noise that getting rid of sodium salt in your diet is a big plus and getting potassium in your diet is better,"

And "while we know potassium is beneficial, salt is salt," Freeman, who wasn't involved in the study, added. "If it's sodium chloride or potassium chloride or magnesium chloride, it's all salt. And the best way to get potassium in your body is to eat fruits and vegetables - that's where potassium is most plentiful."

Lowering your salt intake

The American Heart Association's ideal daily sodium limit is 1,500 milligrams per day for most adults, especially those with high blood pressure, and no more than 2,300 milligrams daily.

"If the majority of your food intake is coming from packaged or restaurant food, chances are your sodium intake is too high," Albarqouni said via email. "There are a few physical signs you may be eating too much sodium, like bloating or swelling, tiredness, high blood pressure, increased thirst and/or urination."

If you're concerned about your intake, you can seek medical or nutrition advice from a professional, Albarqouni added.

When buying packaged food, check the sodium content on labels. Some foods can contain more sodium than you think, such as poultry or cereals, Freeman said. One standard-size pickle typically has around 1,500 milligrams of salt, he added.

Besides lowering salt consumption by simply eliminating salt in your home cooking, you can also try purchasing salt substitutes with a composition like the ones used in the study or using salt-free seasonings to add more flavor to food instead, experts said.

The authors acknowledged that more research is needed to confirm whether salt substitution of the study's kind is safe for patients "sensitive to micronutrient manipulation," including those sensitive to potassium - such as people with renal deficiency, they said.

Food with less salt may taste boring at first, but your tastebuds can adjust within just a couple of weeks, Freeman said, so give yourself time to adjust.

"It's also important to remember that reducing sodium intake is just one way to reduce cardiovascular risk without medication," Albarqouni said. "Things like diet changes, stopping smoking and increasing movement can also have an impact. Salt substitutes are not a holy grail to eliminating cardiovascular disease, but are one piece of the puzzle that can help."

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Salt substitution linked with lower risk for dying early, study finds | CNN

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Using a salt substitute is linked with a lower risk of early death from any cause or from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.