For better or worse, these days we have an almost impossibly wide range of information available to us on ways to stay healthy — lists of new superfoods, elixirs for longevity, the latest vitamins or supplements, miracle antidotes, apps for every conceivable subject, etc. At the beginning of each year, many of us resolve to ‘eat better’ and ‘get fit.’ We resolve to do better than we did the previous year. New books are published every month with the latest theory for how to achieve optimum health. These books promote a variety of theories and plans for maintaining youthful vigor and aging well, but sorting through the research and information on aging and health can be daunting. How can we separate out the latest health fads from what might be truly good for us?
Sadhguru tells us that in order to create health for ourselves, we need to focus on three fundamentals for good health – food, activity and rest.
Eat Right
Sadhguru: “When it comes to food, one of the most important aspects that you must be conscious of is how quickly a certain type of food digests and becomes a part of yourself. If you eat something and it does not digest within three hours, it means you have eaten foods that should be avoided or reduced in quantity. If the food moves out of your stomach within three hours, it means that even if it is not the best food, it is still something your system is able to handle.”
“If you maintain a clear gap of five to six hours between one meal and the other without having anything in between, cleansing will happen on the cellular level. This cleansing on the cellular level is most important for a healthful life. If you are over 30 years of age, two good meals a day will suffice – one in the morning and one in the evening. There must be three hours after the evening meal, before you go to bed. If this includes at least 20 to 30 minutes of light physical activity – such as simple walking – your system will largely be healthy. If you go to bed with food still inside the stomach, it generates a certain level of inertia in the system. Physiologically, this inertia is like an acceleration towards death. Death is the ultimate inertia. Another dimension is that if you go to bed with a full stomach, it puts pressure on other organs in the abdomen. This will also lead to various kinds of health issues. For that reason too, it is very important that before you go to bed, the food you have eaten has moved out of the stomach. As you sleep in different postures, the stomach should not put pressure on other organs at any point.”
Use Your Body
“When it comes to activity, one simple thing that we need to consider is that our body is capable of bending forward, bending backward, and twisting to both sides. This much activity must happen in some kind of form. Classical Hatha Yoga is the best way to do it, and a scientific one. If classical hatha Yoga is not yet part of your life, you must somehow make sure that every day, you bend forward, backward, twist to both sides, and squat so that the spinal column is stretched. This is a must for everybody on a daily basis if you want to keep the entire system healthy – particularly the neurological system, which will otherwise be an issue as one ages.”
Get enough rest… but not too much!
“The volume of rest that an individual person needs is determined by various factors. One important factor is the type and the volume of food that you consume. You must experiment with different types of foods and see which ones make you feel heavy, and which ones leave you light and agile. If you make sure that at least 40% of your diet consists of fresh vegetables and fruits there will be lightness in the body. What the body needs is restfulness, not necessarily sleep. It is a misunderstanding to think that sleep is the only way to rest. Even as you sit or stand, you can either be in a state of restfulness, in a state of agitation, or in a state of inertia. If you are in a lively state of restfulness, every moment of your life, the volume of sleep you require will decrease. If you bring the physical body, the mental body, and the energy body into proper alignment and balance, you will not have any physical or psychological ailments.”
Attend a free webinar “Introduction to Hatha Yoga” to learn more about its deep understanding of the mechanics of the body, and uses yogic postures, or yogasanas, to enable the system to sustain higher dimensions of energy. Visit www.innerengineering.com/freeyoga
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