“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
– Jim Rohn
In March of 2020, my whole family including me had Covid.
Then, about six months later, I again had Covid.
Then, about one year later, Covid invited me again.
I don’t understand why Covid attacked my body so much even though I consider myself a pretty healthy person.
After this I began to have a new experience of minor pain in one of my internal organ spleen, I suffered from partial thrombosis in the spleen.
I consulted many medical professionals including hematologists, they cured my partial thrombosis but nobody found out the cause despite many medical tests and interventions.
My emotional state was being impacted so I started to become more curious about what’s going on in my body.
I started researching and reading many different books and medical journals, basically related to medicine, exercise, physiology, mind-body relationship, and nutrition.
Reading many books had a very deep positive effect on my knowledge, thinking, habit, and most importantly, the perception about life.
If we become unhealthy and ill then nothing remains important in life, every other achievement or success in life just becomes empty.
After reading many books, I realized there are only certain things that we can control but many things are beyond our control, for example, genetic diseases.
Sometimes, genetics is also contributed by environment, personal history, education, poverty, and community characteristics.
Moreover, I understood that our healthcare system is misguided in treating illness as an isolated case and taking medication for an isolated case only approach.
In reality, any illness responds best to treatments that consider the whole body and underlying causes.
But, in many cases, especially in finding causes and origin of illness, science is not there yet, we have to wait and see how fast we can make progress because our biological body is inherently complex.
There’s just so many unknowns.
Eventually, reading multiple books written by specialists helped me to develop many different habits.
I started doing yoga regularly.
I used to run long distances everyday before which I changed to walking and running every alternate day.
I started doing ten to twenty minutes of meditation practice everyday no matter what early in the morning before starting my day.
I looked at how I became a different person after coping with Covid and health challenges that I’d been dealing with.
And I just try to remind myself of the knowledge, tools, and skills that I learned from different books written by specialists.
Utilizing them by taking action in life, especially by making a simple habit change is the key, and it is very powerful.
Any good habit in life contributes tremendously because we compound its benefits over time, but practicing these activities collectively is what makes a big difference.
We overestimate what a tiny good habit can do in a week or month but we underestimate what it can do in years from now.
I always say a good healthy habit- I don’t say just habit, I say a good healthy habit, if we follow everyday, shows an astounding compounding effect on the whole body in the future.
I can share a simple personal experience.
If you have poor sleep, that obviously increases inflammation in your body and that eventually becomes chronic if not taken the proper steps on time.
But as a simple solution, if you start to take a more plant based diet as a simple habit change, then inflammation decreases gradually, it doesn’t happen overnight but it will happen eventually.
This is the power of daily habit which compounds over time.
If we make small positive changes to our daily habits, thoughts, and routines; that can have profound effects on the well being of our body.
We take everything for granted in life.
We try to value everything in life as much as we can.
But, it’s harder to quantify being a healthy dad or healthy mom or a healthy son or a healthy friend.
How do you quantify these values?
I am a scientist so I want to quantify these values otherwise it is just a vague idea.
One way to do this is compare the progress with time like day, month, year whatever it could be.
We have been hypnotized into the thinking that we can measure the value of our lives by our net worth.
If we look at the empirical evidence, people who make $1 million a year are only incrementally happier than McDonald’s workers who make less than 30K a year.
This statement is not from me, this is from research finding.
Sometimes we find that some people have a lot of money but they don’t have anything else except money because they value everything on money, they sacrifice everything including health for money.
I have worked and experienced these types of people in my life, this is the life trap we should be aware of.
Last month I met a man in a hospital lobby and he said he loved traveling and spending time with loved ones and the family.
He loves to read inspiring stories, biography and history books and wants to travel but he can not do so now because he has to be in the hospital and doctor most of the time.
He said, “I didn’t see the value in free things in life. I didn’t value napping, walking, running, and reading when I was young. These were free when I was young. I can’t do all of these now because my ill body doesn’t allow me to do that anymore.”
“Any long illness like mine can mean a demanding life struggle to survive only, this struggle is my full time job now and it’s hard for me,” he added.
When we become positive, we turn into more positivity as the saying goes positivity creates more positivity, this is another secret sauce of life.
The longer we focus on a positive thing, the more we linger on a happy moment in life.
Then more likely our brain will create a neural pathway for more positivity.
The brain is a superhighway system in our body, the neural network that controls emotions, pain, and movement are like roads.
We generally think of these networks as isolated roads, but they are actually highly interconnected.
So we need more positivity inside us to be healthy.
We have a natural inclination to obsess more over negative thoughts especially of past events, but it’s our evolutionary gift to keep us alive but it doesn’t make us happy and healthy so we have to practice positivity regularly.
For example, research says for every negative thought that you have, think of four good things you’ve accomplished in life.
Life learning experiences automatically teaches us how to be happy and healthy in life.
Sometimes these experiences would be different on an individual basis but the theme is the same: enjoy the present moment and cherish it wholeheartedly with good healthy habits.
Experience the results physically, mentally, and spiritually by taking actions.
These are some of my personal experiences.
Be kind and generous.
Read many different kinds of books that you like, by reading many books we live more than one life which is the essence of living.
Spend time with your family as much as you can, these are the only people on the planet who care about you.
Talk to your real friends more often and do activities with them frequently, learn to know the difference between real and fake friends. Surround yourself with uplifting, supportive friends. Some friends bring you down, they are fake.
Go to the beach and play volleyball with your kids.
Go long distance running or hiking with your loved one or spouse on Sunday morning, you both live different lives on that day because of the hormone you produce that day.
Kiss your cat or dog and talk to them with eye contact, they respond to your feelings with universal language and unconditional love.
Surprise your grandpa and grandma with their favorite food, and watch the overwhelming love and care in their eyes for you.
Meditate five minutes for seven days if you have never done meditation before and feel the differences in your body and mind.
Take little time and effort to connect with another human being especially different from your profession or society.
These are nothing but the ingredients for a happy life which eventually lead to a healthy life and they don’t cost a lot of money.
It’s just a way of living and a choice of a happy lifestyle.
Remember, we invest a lot in our careers and pursuit of wealth, but we don’t care about our body.
We need to invest more in our health otherwise all the careers, wealth, stocks and vacation homes won’t be of any use.
We need to be happy in the face of work, career, life pressures, and it is possible only if we take better care of our body and mind.
And, one more time, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, it only needs a little bit of self-discipline and intention.
In today’s modern technology world, we are sleepwalking through life and ignoring the most valuable thing about our life: being happy and healthy.
We just have to start and go with the momentum of the body and mind.
At some point our body and mind speak with us, we just have to understand that language, for that we have to listen very carefully to what they are saying.
After listening, changing just one small bad habit into a good habit can create a chain of reactions in a positive way affecting so many other habits.
Any new habit looks like restriction in the beginning, but eventually it can provide freedom, the value of which can not be measured.
Freedom for us to be true to our life goals.
Freedom for us to see our life without any guilt.
Freedom from debating every little life issue that we encounter.
With a small right habit, our life will get a purpose and meaning.
We will be living, enjoying, and cherishing life with intention bringing well-being, content, and prosperity together.
Today’s fast changing world has taught us to chase and spend money in the pursuit of happiness.
But once we become exhausted with plummeting blood sugar, the pursuit of happiness changes into a chronic problem.
Health does not become wealth in our twenties and thirties, but when we touch forty we realize it.
Once we realize it, it is already late, then the only time we have is to regret, we know regret does not solve the problem.
We know that science doesn’t have the answer to every problem yet, but there are many common lifestyle habits that can minimize many life risks.
Many times, healing is not only dependent on pharmaceuticals but on the understanding of the body, mind, and spirit.
Body, mind, and spirit asks nothing else, just a little extra time with us.
This is nothing but becoming aware of our body, also called “mindfulness”.
Just keep in mind, good health is nothing but a good lifestyle and ongoing journey.
A good and healthy lifestyle is a process created by many tiny habits, not always a destination.
A good healthy habit is about reclaiming our identity, managing our thought process, and becoming empowered to build the life we deserve.
Our health is an investment and worthy of our effort and long term planning.
Let’s figure out where we are now and where we want to be.
Remember, for most humans, any kind of change is hard, but it’s normal, gain confidence by starting.
Just take a small action step, give it a try.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina