What ails a modern man?
Few years back, a Japanese student who was doing his internship in IIT, Guwahati has apparently committed suicide in his hostel room. A sad and disturbing news, but, this is not a new phenomenon. Often we hear such heartbreaking gloomy news of young brilliant students from premier educational institutions putting an end to their own lives. Why is this happening? Stress? Peer expectations? Unhappiness?
Young men or women who should have been bustling with life, are even struggling to cope with it! It seems in modern day and age even simply living our life has become a big fuss. We just make mess out of everything; whether it is our career, relationship, foodhabit, we make it complex unnecessarily and become a prisoner of our own web. Perhaps from being a caveman to a smart city’s man, we have walked across the ladder of evolution so rapidly that sometimes we tend to lose our balance.
No doubt, today’s generation has been enjoying lot more comfort and luxury compared to its predecessors. But, if we look closely into our lives, we will find—people of this generation is no way in their best of health. The booming health-care industry is a proof that comfortable lifestyle has not led us to a healthy life.
Modern lifestyle allows us to be physically less active and unfortunately it becomes a bane for us. Now, for many of us food is a luxury instead of a necessity, but we fear to have it more because of obesity, blood pressure, collesterol and what not! Today, diabetes, blood pressure related disease, gastrointestinal diseases, kidney or liver failure, cancer, obesity, hormonal dysfunction etc are just too common for a modern man. Moreover, stress arising out of the complexity of modern life has been alarmingly damaging the mental health of a person in the modern age. Depression, suicidal behavior owing to unbearable stress have now turned out to be a new kind of epidemic. We see– psychologists and medical science have been coining new term like stress management, etc on a daily basis, but, still most of the people are yet to devise a way out for healthy and balanced life.
A general idea about health
The Sanskrit word ‘Shasthya’ for health means the original state or its own state. Thus, health is the most natural state of body and mind. It denotes– being healthy is the state where our body-mind will function at its best. The human body is like a machine. If all the vital organs of the body function well and work in tandem with each other in harmony, then only the physical body as a whole function at its best.
Physical health can deteriorate two ways- externally and internally. Foreign micro-organisms like bacteria, virus etc may attack our bodies and can create disturbances for its functioning. On the contrary, sometimes, our own physical system is unable to function as it should for various reasons. The reasons may vary from person to person; it may be genetic or hereditarical, stress, lifestyle and other reasons. Health issues like blood pressure related problems, diabetes, kidney failure, cancer, obesity, mental afflictions, etc. are offshoots of internal disturbances of our systems.
Modern day scenario
Due to technology and growing urban environment our lives have now a whole new makeover. It is now way more easier and cosy than earlier. Technology has reduced the necessity of physical labor drastically and makes our day to day life very comfortable and convenient compared to the lives of our ancestors. On the other hand, development of medical science has almost eliminated the deadly epidemics from our earth. Now, the mortality rate has been reduced significantly and life expectancy has also increased. But, as mentioned earlier, we as a generation is not enjoying health. Yes, we have not many choices here–we don’t have time or opportunity to work out for the wellbeing of the physical body; also, in this cut-throat competitive time, we would go through stressful situations many a times inevitably. So, what should we do? In cricket, we often hear when a player goes through a lean phase in his career, he is asked to revise his basic games. In the game of life too, we may do the same. Just keep it simple! Do your basics right.
Simple hacks to maintain your health in a hectic life
What is the secret to maintain the healthy state? Have you seen the popular animation film Kong fu Panda, part one? In the later part of the movie, when the protagonist Po was dejected for not being able to sort out his problems, his father Ping revealed that there was no secret ingredient of his special noodles and that startled our Po. To make something special, we have to believe it as special. The same thing applies here too. Perhaps, there is no secret; because, we already know intrinsically what is good for our own well-being. Generally, we ignore it and take it for granted. However, let us look at some do’s and Don’ts, these are actually very basics of our lives.
- Discipline: It is the first thing we are taught in our childhood, but, again we take it for granted. It seems over simplistic to hear when grown-up people are asked to follow discipline in his life. But, we know our body has a natural clock. If we do not care much about our routine and change it frequently without any set rules, our body-clocks get confused. Frequent changes in daily routine like time to sleep, waking up, having food, etc would force our bodies to readjust its internal functions. Definitely our bodies would have a hard time in doing so and eventually we have to pay the price.
- Physical activities:We often hear that most of the diseases of the modern age are related to our lifestyle. Due to the advancement of science and technology necessity of manual or physical labor has been greatly reduced. We, now enjoy many comforts and luxury, but, these come at a considerable price. It is a well known fact that lifestyle relating diseases such as diabetes, high or low blood pressure and so on have gradually been increasing all over the world. The lack of physical activity in our day to day life is mainly responsible for these. Some amount of regular physical activities are absolutely necessary to keep away those diseases. We should try to bring in some much needed physical activity in our lives. Let’s look at some of it.
- Exercise: Even though modern man does not have much time to do rigorous physical activities, we should devote at least a few minutes of our day to do some kind of physical exercises. The most easiest, effective and well-known form of exercise is walking. Even, if that is also not possible, we can perform some simple stretching exercises in the comfort of our own home.
- Yoga (Hatha Yoga): The ancient Indian science of Yoga has now widely been recognized as a life- transforming method. Yoga is not limited to some physical postures only, but, it is a whole lifestyle itself. The popular physical postures are actually called as Hatha Yoga. Although we may not be able to take Yoga as a lifestyle, but, we may at least try to include some of the yogic practices into our lives to make it more balanced.
- Outdoor games: It is the easiest way to bring physical activity in our lives. Time permitting, we should engage ourselves with some outdoor games on a daily basis. It will surely give us the required physical movement of our bodies along with lot of joy and other benefits.
- Introspection: Today, notwithstanding the material comfort, many people have been suffering from so many mental afflictions like chronic anxiety, depression and so on. To get rid of such hopeless situations, we need little introspection of our lives. To keep our mental health intact, We may bring in some positive habits which may be a great help in the long run.
- Meditation: In meditation, we are asked to distance ourselves from our thoughts. It gives us a way to stop the unwanted chattering of our mind. Recently, I read a news of a young Indian woman from Bengaluru who committed suicide citing that her mind became her enemy! Not being able to control our mind is not a small issue. So, in this context meditation can be very handy. Through meditation we get a calmer mind which is an utmost necessity to lead a healthy life.
- Habit of reading: Inculcating the habit of reading good books is like having a good company. Now a days we have so many means of spending our time, but reading has no alternatives. Reading opens up the mind for new ideas, on the other hand it is an incredible exercise for our brains.
- Silence and solitude: It may sound bizarre for some people, but, we need some quiet moments of our own to realize our true nature. We are constantly being fed with too much information, opinions, views, arguments, hate speeches and many more negativities in this day and age. So, keeping ourselves away from the hustle and bustle of our social life, we need to spend some quiet time at least once in a month. In yogic practices also solitude and silences are quite important. During the period of solitude, one should keep himself or herself away from all kinds of social media, electronic gadgets and any other form of entertainments. One should merge with the pristine silence and solitude and try to face his own being in that period.
- Food: We can say–food makes our bodies. How our bodies will function, is greatly determined by the kind of food we eat. Therefore, it is important to monitor and regulate what we eat. Everyone has different kind of body and hence, different foods may act little differently depending upon the internal functioning of the body. In Ayurveda, human bodies are categorized as Vata, Pitta, and Kapha on the basis of some characteristics of different types of bodies. It is observed that too much processed food and junk foods can create lethargy in our bodies; that can lead to obesity and fetch many other health issues too. As such, we are always advised to have a balanced diet. We should include lots of fresh vegetables, nuts and wholesome organic foods. Some salads, fruits and sprouts etc. should always be included in our food on a daily basis.
Buddha prescribed that the middle path is the most apt for us. It means moderation in every aspect of life is necessary to enjoy the life to its fullest.
By Saralananda Prakash