Guard your Life Force

 

Guard your Life Force

A few years ago I was struck for six by a combination of socio-economic pressures that are familiar to most men and lay on my back for a while with an opportunity to consider how all of this came to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out, quite by accident, that I could do something about it! The first of great import, was to withdraw from unhealthy company. Although it had nothing to do with me, I noticed that the company of a good book, meditation, peace and quiet does more miracles to the restless soul than much of the unending humoring’s of men and women. While western medication concentrates on managing heart conditions, African medicine is focused on the stomach. These two theories are not unrelated. Indeed, there is a connection between the vagnus nerve and whatever emotional im/balance the body is going through. You may be familiar the term, “gut feeling”. It is something like that. Like your body tells you what is and is not working for you. Well without going into high science let me tell you what else I found out.

Second, lying down to rest is a good thing, but getting up to walk is a healing. Developing the discipline of exercise is a very powerful body relief – after the exercise that is. Before the exercise routine the thought of it is a mountain of unbelief.  If you stay down, you are out for the count. When you get up you can go another round – seriously. It sort of does not make sense, but it is profound. The third is really ridiculously basic; You are what you eat. Believe me, there is food the puts you down and food that picks you up. There is food you should and should not eat. The first thing healers put you on is a food diet. Actually, they first check what you have been eating. I discovered that meat and eggs keep my stomach grounded for hours while vegetables tend to clean things up that are stuck in the gut. You may want to listen to your body and find out what dulls your system and what peps it up. Fourth, impressively, is a good night’s sleep. Some people try to squeeze in a few hours in the day to compensate for the night. But I think there a logic to the assigned continuous nocturnal session. It used to be said that, “early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealth and wise”. The most important word that wistful wisdom left out was SLEEP as a necessity, program and dedicated initiative. Sleep is about reflective calibration, regeneration, regulation and holistic rejuvenation of the whole body life force. Some people like to fight over hours. The truth is, do it enough for you. If you don’t, I guarantee, you will get out of bed with and carry a headache through the day. That will make you more tired and less inspired for the next day. Not because you did not sleep, but because you did not sleep enough. There are many reasons why people don’t sleep. Sort them out. It is too precious an energy source to lose.  

The fifth is how heavy you are. When I say heavy; I mean you could be 70Kg and too heavy and 70Kgs and overweight. There is a measureable relationship between your height and your weigh, though your gym instructor may have different ideas. But keeping an eye on your weight can do you wonders. The trick is to find out what works for you. For example, if you are having trouble carrying your body for a kilometer (this actually happened to me) or walking up a flight of stairs, that may suggest a poor correlation between your bone structure, body fat and muscle content. Amazingly, when I am lighter in weight I feel alert and more energetic than when my weight inches up by one too many kilos. Checking my weight weekly I found out that 71-73kgs works for me. Below that my trousers fall down and my shirts begin to hang, but when my weight gets to 75Kgs, I am wheezing about everything and totally out of sync. While there are weight critics who rant about getting rid of overextended body parts, I think it would be better to sell the benefits of carrying your own weight- then, at least, we all don’t have to look like superman. Sixth, is water. I don’t have much to say about this one, but your body is made up of about a 70-80% water balance. When you mess with that balance you are very likely to have toilet problems. Discipline around water consumption is a great debate. As to whether 6-8 liters, cups or glasses (where people have glasses) per day will give you the benefit of a smooth skin I do not know. But like I said, I personally, do not have anything to say here. I cannot keep a water routine. It is flat, tasteless and boring, unless I am sweating after a workout. So I drink a modest amount of non-poisonous fluid as I can during the day and use the toilet experience as a regulator for control of more or less and timings of my water intake.

Finally, seventh, because it runs through everything said before is; the work, will, purpose and spirituality in its broadest sense – based on the understanding that life is a privilege and not a past time. You notice, I started this essay with the words “combination of socio-economic pressures”. That means resolution of the complexity of addressing these pressures is far from simplistic. In the same vein that the weight you may be carrying is a combination of issues, it is important to go through the process of reflection, identification, isolation and action to address, overcome and eliminate the combinational impact of these pressures takes both time and effort. Rebalancing a life after enduring a career or lengthy season of a unique combination of socio-economic pressures is easier said than done. Not to mention the murkiness of disentangling your life from today’s sexy, manic, rapid results, artificial intelligence solution frames and belief systems like “losing weight in week”, “how to fall sleep enough in seconds”, “how to earn, without working”, “how to get your friends to like you”, “fake it until you make it” – world, is a major confusion in itself! But the real challenge here is regaining control of your life force, self-healing, restoration or body balancing, yin and yang, yoga – or whatever you want to call it. The real lasting change is in consciously managing your lifestyle. That takes personal study, application and consistency over time. A few weeks, months and years of sober application.

Allan Bukusi

Note: the author is not a medical expert and offers an opinion from experiential and social observation only.