Understand Your Body.

THE INDEPENDENT  18/11/1993

Radiant health is a choice that requires great commitment, says Vijaya Venkat.

NATURAL LIVING is the philosophy of life that shows one how to better one’s health and enjoyment of life through living in harmony with nature. In other words, it teaches one to live fully. Let us start by understanding health and the means to achieve it.

Radiant health is a choice. A choice to change, choose and grow. Choosing to be healthy is a conscious commitment that involves many factors, be it the foods we eat, the thoughts we think, the exercise we do, the expectations we have. Our health is basically determined by three broad factors: heredity — the strengths and weaknesses we are born with, environment— factors outside our control like war, depression, acid rain, earthquakes, terrorism, etc, and behaviour — factors we can control (food, exercise, rest, sleep, emotions, the company we keep, relaxation, etc).

None of these three factors integral to health can be achieved independent of each other. Health is simply the result of healthful living. To improve our health we have to change and improve those things which are beyond our control. Health care is, for the most part, self care.

Choosing to be healthy involves taking responsibility for your health and not blaming your family, doctors or even bacteria and tissues for illnesses. Your health, at this moment, is a result of the countless choices you have already made. Now, while making your new choices, you should appreciate, respect and understand your body. Remember, it is the only one you will ever have.

It is important to cultivate this perspective among children. They should be given not just the proper natural foods but an idea of the entire spectrum of health. A gift of health is an invaluable one and eliminates the need for expensive medicare.

Nature has been doing her job unrelentlessly, at all levels, for centuries, and she has been doing it without much help from us. Conscious help, especially in the last 75 years or so, has not stemmed the rise in disease, illness and deprivation.

The human body is beautifully and scientifically designed. It performs amazing feats of engineering, chemistry and physics which no machine can duplicate. There exists no telegraphic mechanism equal to the nervous system, no radio more efficient than the voice or the ear, no camera as perfect and lightweight as the eye, no pump as smooth as the heart, no electrical switchboard as efficient as the spinal cord, no ventilating plant as wonderful as the nose, lungs and skin. The heart, for example; if treated right, stays on the job for over 600,000 hours. In each hour it makes 4,320 strokes and pumps 15 gallons of blood. All this, like the other functions of the body, is carried on without our conscious effort or knowledge.

A complicated, intricate, automatic intelligence speedily carries out most of the body’s activities — conscious and unconscious. Millions of cells are formed, function and disintegrate, foods get digested and transformed, the heart beats and the eye blinks while you are not even aware of it. So take some time to listen to your body’s comprehensive secrets, its integrated links. And move towards better health.