What do you mean by Healthy lifestyle?

What do you mean by Healthy lifestyle?

When we think about healthy lifestyle, all of us think about just diet and may be exercise. But that is not everything there is to a healthy lifestyle. According to Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, there are 4 pillars of a healthy lifestyle.

1. Nutrition(And it is not called Diet. Diet is what you follow for a few days. Nutrition is what you follow for a lifetime)

2. Movement and Exercise

3. Sleep and Rest

4. Relaxation

All these days we had been thinking healthy lifestyle is all about food and exercise. But it is much more than that. Of course, nutrition and exercise are very important. But they are not the only things we need to follow. I'll go through each pillar and will explain how each pillar is important and what can we do in order to strengthen those pillars. We needn't have the most perfect pillars but we should strive to be better with each pillar.

1. Nutrition:

As I said earlier, it is called nutrition, not diet because you need to follow it for life. You can make adjustments or improvements along the way. I'm not well versed in different kinds of diets like keto diet or paleo diet, to tell you if you can follow them or not. I advocate just one thing. "Don't follow anything if you can't follow it for the rest of your life". In short, don't take up quick fixes. I've literally known few people who followed some crazy diet or starved themselves just for few days or weeks, in order to reduce weight. Most people did it just before their marriage in order to look good in their marriage dress. These things are doing more harm to you than good. Nutrition on the other hand is more of a lifelong habit.

Nutrition not just includes food. Fasting comes under the topic of nutrition too. The difference between starving and fasting is that, fasting is a calculated avoidance of food for how much ever number of hours or days that you mentally and physically can while starving yourself just for few days and letting it go is a quick fix which is basically madness that people undergo in order to look good for their marriage photos or any other such happening, sabotaging their own health in the long term. I can't even begin to explain the benefits of fasting and the effects it will have on your health as well as the innumerable number of significant bad effects of starving yourself. Have a schedule to fast. See what works for you. You needn't be strict to start with. You can go on a water fasting or juice fasting or fruit fasting(Try to have only easily digestible fruits like banana or watermelon. Nothing that will take longer for your body to digest). One of the reason to fast is to clear out your gut(intestines) and give rest to your microbiome(ecosystem living inside your gut). So don't eat biriyani and tell like you are on a "biriyani fast". Basically, try different things and experiment to find out what works for you. I usually try to go on water fasting for upto 24 hours, once a week. I schedule them so that it is usually on the same day of the week so that my body gets adjusted to that rhythm and knows that I'm not starving myself and begin to go into survival mode and start saving energy for the future. Humans are primal survival beings and our body is designed for survival. Once you get past the initial stages, fasting is a great experience. I believe everyone should fast at least once a month. But it should be strategically designed so that the interval between two of your fasts are almost the same. Although if you are not sure if you can fast or not, you SHOULD consult a medical expert before attempting it. Also, pregnant ladies and kids shouldn't fast too.

Similar to fasting, food is also an experimental topic. Some foods might work for you but might not work for your partner or sibling or parents. It's about finding out what works for you. There is no single food that is healthy for all. "One man's meat is another man's poison". You know what are the popular healthy foods(No, corn flakes and oats are not as healthy as the companies claim they are). Make a list of those food, mostly vegetables and fruits. Most people think that food is just for satiating our hunger, filling our stomach when we feel hungry. That is why many people eat everything mindlessly and don't care about what they eat. That is not the case. "You are what you eat", literally meaning all the cells in your body that make you up is made up of what you put in your body. If you put keep putting in waste and toxins, at one point your whole body will be made up of waste and toxins. This condition is popularly known as chronic diseases. Food is the source of energy for our whole body, each organ, all the way up to our cells. Each organ might need different nutrient. You might think eating two idlis is satiating your hunger. So you must be healthy. Or going on small quantity food diet in order to reduce weight(because they think overweight is equal to unhealthy body). You must eat how much your body needs to feel full. In that quantity, you should try to include as many nutrients as possible. If any vegetable or fruit is not working for you, that is, if you feel bloated or get diarrhoea after eating certain food, avoid it. It is your body's way of telling that the food is not suitable for you. I usually try to eat South Indian full meals at least once a day with different curries and vegetables(which is actually the meal our ancestors designed for us. They did so for our benefit), so that I get many nutrients out of them all. I try to eat fruits every single day to get those extra nutrients from them. Try what works for you. Improve. Get better at life.

At the end of the day, if you are feeling tired or exhausted all the time after the "diet" you are following, you are actually staging yourself for failure. Don't go with what's fad today.

And all these doesn't mean you have to be very strict with your nutrition. It's ok to cheat. It's ok to have the food you love which aren’t healthy. But don't regularise it. Don't make it a habit. I, for one, love tapioca chips. I sometimes binge eat on them like crazy. But I try to make sure I don't eat them regularly. I have few food items that I have decided that I won't touch them at all in my lifetime. Parotta and white bread are one of among them because I can't even explain the bad long term effects of Maida. So I try to be strict on those. In the same way, try to be strict on the things that are very bad for your health. If you are not able to right away, then try to reduce them consistently until one day you have weeded out the habit of eating them. Few things that may be harmful to your body, but can be had in minimum amounts, like tapioca chips for me, can be had in limited quantities once in a while. Tapioca is actually good for health. But frying them in oil(I don't know what oil they use at those chips shops) is not so good. My goal is to have them homemade. Until those days come, I have to reduce eating them. Even if it is home made, I shouldn't eat them like crazy. Just what it takes to control my cravings.

Praying before eating is like one of the best things you can do for better nutrition. It improves your digestion and is very much sought after technique for improving your gut health. Never eat your food angry or sad or with worries. Thank God, the Universe, Mother Earth, the farmer who grew what you are eating, the wonderful hands that cooked the food that you are eating(even if it is yourself), and finally yourself for being able to afford the food. Studies have shown that our gut cringes when you are angry or sad. So being happy, or just even eating with a positive mood is very important for your gut health which in turn affects the health of your whole body.

Chew the food well. We have to chew our food not just to break down the food, but to mix it well with saliva. Saliva is alkaline in nature which is used for normalizing the acidic nature of the stomach. So if you enjoy your food, more saliva will be secreted and if you chew your food well, it will be mixed properly with saliva. This is make sure you won't get the so called “acidity” or “ulcer” ever in your life and also you get all the nutrients out of the food you eat.

We have to sip and drink water so that saliva will be mixed well with the water. We have to make sure we sit while we drink water so that we don't get arthritis or kidney problems and we get all the nutrients out of the water we drink. Sit up, take small sips and drink slowly. This is not just for water but for any drink(that is good for your health).

Finally, remember Happy Tummy = Happy You.

2. Movement and Exercise:

We, as humans, are designed to move. That is why legs muscles are the largest muscle group in our body. But it doesn't necessarily mean going to gym or walking half an hour or doing Yoga for an hour. They are definitely beneficial but they aren't just enough. We need to move throughout the day, not just once a day. We can be active in the morning and still have a sedentary life, which is bad for your health. So instead of trying to schedule half an hour walk in the morning(it is good to, but if you can't in the beginning), 10 minute walk three times, spread between different times are more beneficial and achievable. When we try to schedule a morning or evening workout, if we are not able to do it, we are basically skipping movement on the whole. Although I would recommend scheduling a morning or evening workout or Yoga or even a walk, I would strongly encourage everyone to start with a short walk of 10 minutes, three times a day. If you can easily achieve that, increase your goals. If you can't, decrease them. Whatever you do, always have movement and exercise as a priority. We should encourage all our family members to do it, whatever the age they might be at.

3. Sleep and Rest:

Sleep is one of the most important part of our life. We have to think why we, as humans, do something daily that takes up almost one third of our lives. There must be a reason why we feel exhausted when we don't sleep properly. Although Scientists can't completely understand why humans sleep, it is one of the main process through which the toxins in our body are flushed out. Every organ in our body is purified during sleep. For example, there is a system called lymphatic system in our body which clears out the toxins from brain during sleep. It might go into a long discussion on how much time you need to sleep. It differs from person to person. You need to find out how many hours of sleep you need to be feel fresh in the morning. Some basic advice would be sleeping in a dark room, trying to go to sleep and wake up around the same time. Also try to relax, leave out your worries out of the bed before you get into it so that you can have longed deep sleep which is very important to feel refreshed in the morning. Also try to avoid waking up to an alarm because it might wake you up when you are in your deep sleep. Usually we go through 4 different stages of sleep during the night and one set of all those stages is called a cycle. We, as humans, need upto 5 - 6 cycles during a night in order to feel fresh and clear out all the toxins from our body. But the time to finish one cycle may vary from 70 - 90 minutes for each person. That is the reason why one might feel fresh after 6 hours of sleep and others might feel exhausted when they wake up after a short sleep. Find out what works for you by experimenting. And if we wake up during deep stages of sleep, then you will feel exhausted. It feels like you hardly slept. That is why it is important to let your body wake you on its own rather than relying on an alarm. But most of us are working a job that needs us to be there on time. So we keep alarm. It is ok to start with, but if you keep waking up around the same time all the days, you will automatically start waking up around the same time even without an alarm.

Rest and recovery is as important as sleep. Rest means to resting your body apart from the times you move and let it recover. You might still be unhealthy even if you workout 7 times a week in the gym and don't give it proper time for the body to recover. I have done this mistake in the past. I told myself that working out is healthy. It is true but it is not the only thing. Recovery is as important as the workout. Give your body time to heal. Again how much rest you need depends on each individual and how much work you are doing. Allow you body to recover daily and you will feel refreshed every single day. One way might be to take a short nap when your energy drops. But make sure you don't sleep for more than 20 minutes so that you won't enter deeper stages of sleep which will leave you groggier since you did not get all the cycles properly.

4. Relaxation:

This is by far the most ignored pillar but is as important as any other pillar. We seldom care about relaxation. In our busy lives, all we could talk about is stress, tension and pressure. Our previous generation never had this much stress as we are experiencing now. Not because they never had the stressors(things that cause the stress) that we have today but because their mindset towards it was different. Try to look at stressors with a positive solution mindset. Instead of thinking bad that it went wrong, think on how to solve it, how to take something out of it, even if it is just an experience. That is how you replace victim mindset with a leadership mindset.

There are few other techniques that you can easily implement too. When you are angry, take deep breaths. Not just one breath. Take 6 deep breaths. Japanese studies have shown that's how much it takes to calm you down. Meditate daily. Make your kids install the practice of meditation in their lives. “Old habits die hard”. What kids learn when they are young, they take it to their grave. Don't just ask them to meditate. Teach them. Do it along with them. "Kids don't follow your advice. They follow your example". Even if it is just for one minute a day, do it daily. If you are not able to do it daily, start with a weekly habit. Keep an alarm at a time during the weekend when you know you will be free to meditate and when it rings, just go and meditate. "What gets schedules, gets done". By the way, it doesn't have to be at Buddhist monk level. Sitting still, closing your eyes and take few deep breaths is also meditation. If you think it is still too much for you, learn meditation for beginners online. We are using the Internet to just surf through mindless things many a time. We can use it to search for good things like these too. And moreover, these are not at all difficult to find. It is available with just one search on YouTube or Google or any other place you usually use on the Internet.

Try to have some 'Me' time daily, for at the least 15 minutes. For some, it can be meditating and for some it can be just sitting and contemplating without any disturbance. Whatever it might be for you, do it daily. "You cannot pour from an empty glass". Take care of yourself first.

I try to listen to positive speeches on YouTube or Podcast app first thing in the morning. It helps me start the day positively. I follow Tom Bilyeu's channel on YouTube and 'The School of Greatness' channel on Podcast app. There are lot of positive interviews which you can listen to that pumps you up and keeps you motivated. Even though meditation is still a habit that I haven't quite implemented completely, I try to make sure I at least take few deep breaths many times in a day. You can do anything that relaxes you, but don't resort to a bad habit like smoking or drinking for relaxation as they might seem to relax you temporarily but is bad for you in the long run. We want what's best for us in the long run, not a quick fix.

Let us, for example, compare our life to the roof of a room which is held by 4 pillars. Let the above mentioned pillars be the pillars of the room and let the roof be our life. The roof is not going to stand if one of the pillars collapse. Also if they are not strong and they are wobbling, then the roof might appear to stand but might collapse at any time. Just one small trigger is enough for it to collapse if all the pillars are not standing strong.. We should make sure all the pillars stand strong and straight, so that our roof of life doesn't collapse onto us. Kids or elder, anyone and everyone should make sure of it.

You needn’t completely understand everything I've wrote about. Just take the good ideas and start implementing them from today. "Tomorrow never comes". Start today. Start with what you can and how you can.