On a fine evening, there was an old man who was about to face life and death. He was mistaken for sentenced to death for drinking and committing an act of murder.
For the old man who will be sentenced to death the next day, the executor brought a rotten apple to the old man as his last treat before being executed. When the old man saw the rotten apple, he showed body language of righteousness and unrepentance. Then, he tells the executor with boldness: “I will not eat this rotten apple on your hands. If I eat it, my body will be unhealthy or even falling sick.”
The executor laughed and said to the old man: “What a fool! You’re going to be executed tomorrow, old man. What are you? Talking about health aye?”
With patience and dignity, the old man smiled and answered to the executor: “Even if I die, I must die to be healthy, not to mention I was being accused. As long as I’m breathing, I must keep my health, because I will not give up until my very last breath!”
Now let’s stop here and think: What is health?
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the word “health” defines a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Many organisations and partners including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have endorsed this definition.
In their view, being healthy does not include any diseases. In the past, this definition made sense. However, nowadays, not only is it about being disease-free, managing disease has become a means of healthy living, especially for the elderly.
When we break the word “healthy” apart, we will get
“HEAL” i.e. to make free from injury or disease, to make sound or whole, cure.
and
“THY” i.e. an old-fashioned, poetic, or religious word for ‘your’.
So, to create health for yourself or in other words; to heal yourself, there are three fundamentals that you need to take care of; food, activity and rest.
Our body is the food that we eat. It is a heap of food whichever way, small or big is our choice. Two important things that we must always be conscious of is digestion and absorption of food in our body. The main factory that operates these functions is our intestines. In our intestines, resides thousands or millions of helpful residents known as the gut flora. These tiny fellows are the ones that aid our digestion process and facilitate absorption of nutrients in our body.
Looking in our food choices, we must be considerate and responsible. Because we are not feeding ourselves as a human, but we are also feeding the tiny resident workers. Gut flora loves tempeh, natto, kimchi, sauerkraut and other fermented food. Every disease begins from the gut. To find out a convenient bio-hacking way for your guts, click here.
When it comes to activity, a simple thing we need to understand is our body is capable of bending forward, bending backwards, and twisting sideways. These must happen in whatever we do in whatever form. By doing simple bending and twisting movements help to stretch our spinal cord therefore keeping our entire body system in a good state particularly the neurological system where it will be an issue at one age. If this is not yet in your life, you must somehow make sure it has to be from now and so on.
People often confuse what rest really is. Rest is kind of like breathing, it is automatic. Many of us think using our phones is resting. After all, we are sitting and scrolling or playing games and not doing anything else. But it is exhaustive because we are absorbing the sensory input and our brain is trying to process it all as fast as possible. Rest is merely ceasing work and worry; it is not rest when the body is still but the mind is ruminating. Most people understand that sleep is the only way to rest. No! Rest is not just something we can do daily; it can be done several times a day. As you sit and/ or stand, you can be restful too.
Everyone deserves to be healthy. Let’s focus on our food, bending and twisting activities and relearn to rest fully and wholeheartedly, consider practicing today or right now!
