Everyone craves a fit body and sound health. No one needs to tell you what is the importance of health for a person. It is the basic requirement for a person to realize his potential and utilize his skills in day to day life. Whatever you do for your living in your life, you certainly know you cannot perform to your optimum when your health troubles you. Interesting and well known fact about health is that when it is doing well, you don’t bother about it, but, as soon as it starts making trouble, it becomes the foremost issue of our lives. A bad health can drain out all the energy, time and joy from our lives.
A general idea about health:
Basically, health is the most stable states of body and mind for their function. The Sanskrit word ‘Shasthya’ for health denotes that it is the original state or its own state. It means Shasthya is the state where our body-mind are supposed to be natural. Sometimes, the human body may be compared with a machine. Like a machine, when all the vital organs of the body function well and work in tandem with each other in harmony, then only the physical body as a whole function at its best. Sometimes, invasion of harmful micro-organism may shatter the function of the body, thereby may cause disease in the body. However, we know, if the internal system of the body is robust enough, external factors can not easily weaken the body. Also medical science of modern day is well equipped for such diseases caused by the external organisms.
What ails our health?
Our physical health can be affected by two ways- externally and internally. Foreign organisms like bacteria, virus and any other micro-organisms may enter into our bodies and can create hindrance for its normal functioning. On the other hand, sometimes, our own physical system cannot function as it should for various reasons. These may be genetic or hereditarical problems, stress, lifestyle and many other reasons. Health issues like blood pressure related problems, diabetes, kidney failure, cancer, obesity, mental afflictions, etc. are caused by internal disturbances of our systems.
Modern day challenges to maintain the health:
Today, our lives are changing due to technological advancement and growing urban environment. Due to the development of medical science epidemics have been almost eliminated from our earth. The mortality rate has been reduced significantly and life expectancy has been increased. On the other hand, technology has reduced the necessity of physical labor and thereby making our lives way more comfortable and convenient in comparison to the lives of our predecessors.
Apparently, modern generation is enjoying an enormous amount of comfort and luxury. However, a closer look into our lives reveals that people of this generation seem to be not in their best of health. People have been suffering from lots of health issues. The booming health care industry also proves that comfortable life has not led us to a healthy life in no way. Lack of physical activities, bad food habits, pollution and stress arising out of the complexity of modern life are the main culprits to damage the health of a person in the modern age. Today, diabetes, blood pressure related disease, kidney or liver failure, cancer, obesity, hormonal dysfunction become too common in our society. One of the alarming issue of the modern age is that the mental health of the people has been affected severely. Depression, suicidal behavior due to unbearable mental stress have now become new-age epidemic. Every now and then, we come across various incidents in every age group of people how they are drained out due to mental stress. Very often we hear a new term like stress management, etc., but, we, most of the people still are yet to find out a way for healthy and balanced life.
Secrets to maintain your health:
Is there any secret to maintain the healthy state? Perhaps, there is not, because, we already know internally what is good for our own well-being. Generally, we tend to ignore it until we lose our health severely. However, let us look at some do’s and Don’ts which are actually basics of maintaining our health.
1) Discipline:
It is the first thing we are taught in our childhood, but, unfortunately, we take it for granted. It seems over simplistic and childish to hear when grown-up people are asked to follow discipline in every walk of his life, but, we should know the body has a natural clock. If we do not care much about our routine and change it frequently without any set rule, our body-clocks get confused. Frequent change in daily routine like time to sleep, waking up, having food, etc. are not good for health. Our bodies will have a hard time readjusting its internal functions, if we cannot live a disciplined life.
2) Physical activities:
We often hear that most of the diseases of the modern age are related to our life style. Due to the advancement of science and technology necessity of manual or physical labor has been greatly reduced. We, now enjoy many comforts and luxury, but, these come at a considerable price. It is a well known fact that lifestyle relating diseases such as diabetes, high or low blood pressure and so on have gradually been increasing all over the world. Recent studies reveal that India is now becoming a hub of diabetic patients. All these health issues, mainly arise out of lack of physical activity in our day to day life. The least amount of regular physical activities may help to keep at bay those murderous devils. As our nature of works no longer allow us to be physically active, we should bring in some of this much needed activity by the following well known but effective ways.
- Exercise: Even though modern man does not have much time and will to do rigorous regime of physical exercise, we should devote at least a few minutes of our day to do some kind of exercises. Easiest and effective form of exercise is walking. Even, if that is also not possible, we can perform some simple stretching exercises in the comfort of our own home. In this regard regularity is utmost necessary.
- Yoga (Hatha Yoga): The ancient Indian science of Yoga has now widely been recognized as a life- transforming method. Yoga is not limited to some stretching, physical postures as we perceive it, but, it is a whole life style itself. The popular physical postures which are generally practiced by many, actually called as Hatha Yoga. Practicing of Hatha Yoga could be quite beneficial, provided we do it right. So, although we may not be able to pursue the Yoga as a lifestyle, but, we may at least incorporate some of the yogic practices into our lives to make it more balanced.
- Outdoor games: Perhaps, the easiest way to bring physical activity in our lives is playing games. If time permits, we should engage ourselves with some outdoor games for some time in daily basis. It will provide us much needed wholesome physical movement of our bodies along with lot fun and joy.
3) Introspection:
Today, people are enjoying more physical comfort compared to the previous generations due to technological advancement in every aspect of our life. Unfortunately, notwithstanding to the material comfort, many of the modern day people have been suffering from various complex issues like chronic anxiety, depression and so many mental afflictions. There are too many cases of suicides of budding young students in premier educational institutions of India. Being suffered from depression in this cut- throat competitive cosmopolitan society is now a common phenomenon. To get rid of such ruthless, lifeless situation, one needs to introspect his or her life. We may bring in some positive habits which may be a great help to keep our mental health intact.
- Meditation: In meditation, we try to distance ourselves from our thoughts. It gives us a way to discard our unwanted blabbering of our mind. It can help to reduce anxiety and other mental afflictions in a great deal. Through meditation we get a calmer mind which is an indispensable prerequisite factor to lead a, healthy life.
- Habit of reading: If one does not want to go through the rigor of the practice of meditation, he may inculcate the habit of reading a good book regularly. Now a day we have many means of spending our leisure time, but reading has some very good effects on our minds. Reading opens up the mind for new ideas as well as it is an incredible exercise for the mind.
- Silence and solitude: Although it sounds bizarre, but, we need some quiet moments of our own to realize our true nature. We are being fed with too much information, opinions, views, arguments, feeling of jealousy, aspirations in this modern age, that we tend to forget our identity. So, keeping ourselves away from the hustle and bustle of our social life, we should spend some quiet time at least once in a month. This will freshen up the mind manifolds. However, this should not be like an ordinary vacation. During such period, one should keep himself or herself away from all kinds of social media, electronic gadgets and any any other form of entertainments. He should merge with the pristine silence and solitude and try to face his own being in that period.
4) Food:
It is said- we become what we eat. To put it more simplistic way we can say food makes our bodies. How our bodies behave it is determined by the kind of food we eat. Therefore, it is important to monitor and regulate what we eat. Everyone has different kind of body and hence, different foods may act little differently depending upon the internal functioning of the body. In Ayurveda, human bodies are categorized as Vata, Pitta, and Kapha on the basis of some characteristics of different types if bodies. It is observed that too much processed food and junk foods can create lethargy in our bodies. Consumption of too much junk can easily lead to obesity and many other health issues.
As such, we are always advised to have a balanced diet. We should invariably include lots of fresh vegetables, nuts and wholesome organic foods. Some live foods such as salads, fruits and sprouts etc. should always be included in our food on a daily basis.
In a, nutshell to be healthy in the true sense in the long run, one must take care of his lifestyle. Moderation in every aspect of life is necessary to enjoy the life to its fullest.
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