AS I wrote in my previous article (here), in the area of psychological illness (depression anxiety, panic attacks etc.) I believe many lives have been saved due to medical intervention.
However, unfortunately, I also believe many lives have been lost because adequate attention has not been paid to the other three legs of the stool particularly the leg of learning and meditation.
I really believe that living in the modern world without awareness can place enormous stresses on the body, so as I write about each of the three legs (ie. other than medicine) I will often compare modern living with that of our ancestors.
The reason this is important is that our bodies and the way they operate have evolved over millions of years and thus our bodies still react in a prehistoric way, despite rapid changes that have taken place in the world especially over the last hundred years.
A classic example of this is that it took from the beginning of time, up to the early 1800s for the world population to reach 1 billion in population yet since then, over the next 200 years it has now reached over a staggering 7 billion.
Our world is changing so rapidly in so many ways, but our bodies cannot keep up with these changes thus resulting in various forms of stresses.
If we don’t address these problems at a national and international level, world health and thus the world economy, is going to reach a crisis point.
Exercise
It is vitally important for good health that we exercise on a regular basis. I believe that five 40 minute sessions of moderate intensity is required on a weekly basis.
It is important that this exercise is seen as enjoyable and not seen as a chore. A good example of this is walking and cycling with friends.
We can see how many people have come to realise this for themselves – thus we see many people out walking on the roads at night (look at the fat mile!) and also the huge increase in cycling of recent years.
The reason for this is that modern living has become very sedentary (e.g. sitting in front of a computer all day) whereas in our ancestors time running, walking and manual labour was part and parcel of daily living and thus they were able to burn off any excess energy.
My main advice on exercise is J.D.I. ‘Just Do It’
Diet
All I can say about diet is that the food that is generally available to us has changed enormously over the last hundred years.
Many modern foods are laden with fats sugars and salt along with all the preservatives and additives. The fast modern life style has forced people to dine in restaurants, fast food joints, garages (the breakfast roll!) and mega supermarkets.
Many of these foods have the nutritional benefit value of eating a cardboard box. It is playing havoc with our digestive systems and the evidence has been the enormous increase in world cancer and diabetes.
Our ancestors didn’t have to worry about this as these types of food didn’t exist – remember the modern style supermarket is only with us about 40 years. The evolution of our bodies and digestive systems are unable to cope with these changes – thus stress – thus disease.
Tip – Examine the style of food that our ancestors ate – vegetables, fruit ,nuts ,leaves, meat (organic if at all possible) and eat in a similar manner ie smaller portions on a regular basis.
Learning and Meditation
All I can say about learning is that we should be open to learning every day as long as we live. The two most dangerous words in the English language are ‘I Know’. I love the following piece of advice ‘Live as if you are going to die tomorrow – Learn as if you are going to live forever’ .
Meditation has enhanced my life in more ways that I can possibly explain. It can save us wasting enormous amounts of energy on useless thoughts and it can bring so much to our lives by connecting with our own body intelligence.
It is a practice that is very little understood in the Western World, but all I can tell you is that the benefits are huge. There is a great book available free on the internet called ‘mindfulness in plain English’ and this will explain the benefits in more detail.
Tip – Just like exercise J.D.I. ‘Just Do It’.
Next week I am going to write about the benefits of laughter and humour in our lives.
• Roger Harty is a life coach and can be contacted on 087-6128336, on twitter at @Innerjoyz1 or by email rogharty@gmail.com
