Anyway, more about that another time.
My point is, how confusing…sorry, absolutely frustrating it must be for you to have the rules changed every 5 minutes.
Remember, how after 10 years of being told how good margarine is for us, we find out it can be extremely harmful due to the trans fats?
Red meat is good one year and then a study shows how it contributes to heart disease. A few years later it’s good again because of the iron. High carbohydrates one decade, low carbs the next. Dairy is good, dairy is evil. Wheat is a staple food for 5000 years…today, “sorry wheats no good, if you have x,y,z, you better cut it out”.
Confusing?…you bet. Do you ever want to scream, “Just make up your mind”?
Well, I’m on their side on this one. You see, it’s the nature of modern scientific research that it can never be conclusive. It depends who is in the study. Change the people or any of the myriad variables (that are impossible to ‘control’ for), and you get different results each time.
Anyway, with this in mind, I thought, we’d look at some general tips to try and help you avoid some of the frustration and confusion, that stems from the changing nature of research findings.
* In a future blog, we’ll give you an overview/recap of why we often quote ‘Ayurvedic’ science, Maharishi Ayurveda, as opposed to modern science and how they can give you some more clarity and confidence regarding your health choices etc.
Tips:
1. Appreciate your body is ‘infinitely intelligent’, and that if you listen to it, it will tell you everything you need to know.
Feel confident you can start trusting your own mind & body, to tell you what’s healthy before necessarily listening to ‘the experts’. When your tired…rest, when your hungry…eat, if you feel like a certain vegetable…eat it. Only ‘your’ body knows what’s exactly right for you at any one time. Respect it and follow it’s lead.
2. Appreciate that your ultimate potential and ‘natural’ state is to enjoy great health & wellbeing, to not get seriously sick.
Understand that just because others around you may age prematurely/get sick etc, that doesn’t mean you have to. By living in tune with nature’s cycles (proper daily routine – mealtimes, sleep, exercise etc), eating good food & following your ‘dharma’ (activities/jobs etc that you find easy, enjoyable, fulfilling & successful), you can drastically increase your chances of enjoying a relatively healthy life, well into old-age.
* Note; we still have our own karma (that can bring about ill-health), to contend with, but we don’t have to suffer as badly as we might. Also, remember that how you view life, structures your reality. There is an old ‘vedic aphorism’ from the sage AdhiShankara, that runs along the lines of. “We only grow old and die, because we see others grow old and die”. So focus more on what you can do to lead a long healthy happy life, rather than focusing on those around you getting sick and ‘trying’ to ‘avoid disease’. There are plenty of cultures, where sickness is relatively uncommon and people stay healthy until their deaths…of natural causes!! Use them as your role models & copy their habits.
* We basically cover those habits in these tips, so keep posted.
3. When looking for a health system to guide you through life (as opposed to treating disease), ask yourself if you want to follow a system that is only a few hundred years old, changes it’s advice every few months, is based on a science that for decades has been shown to be incorrect and results in about 50% of the people who use it, having a ‘chronic’ disease or disorder, that they will have for the rest of their life. If so, follow modern science.
* Please Note. I’m talking here about a prevention-focused, lifelong health approach, not a system for treating you in life threatening situations. Modern medicine is great for that. I’m not knocking modern medicine, just suggesting it’s not ideal in a general lifelong health promotion sense.
Would you rather follow a system that has been around continuously for over 6000 years (proven over time), is based on universal, eternal laws of nature that never change, and focuses fundamentally on creating ‘perfect health’ and living life in complete happiness and bliss (not diagnosing & treating disease)?
If so, keep reading my blogs, because as you’re aware, most are based on the eternal science of Ayurveda (Maharishi Ayurveda).
In future blogs we’ll look directly at the differences between modern science/medicine and traditional science/medicine (Ayurveda), so you can hopefully take another step towards avoiding some of the confusion.
LAUGHTER MEDICINE: Speaking of Modern Medicine:
A man and wife entered a dentist’s office.
The Wife said, “I want a tooth pulled. I don’t want gas or Novocain because I’m in a terrible hurry. Just pull the tooth as quickly as possible.”
You’re a brave woman said the dentist. Now, show me which tooth it is.
The wife turns to her husband and says “Open your mouth and show the dentist which tooth it is, dear.”
