WHAT IS GOOD HEALTH?
By S. M. Acharya

Good health should and would mean that you should be
healthy enough not to have to go to the doctors
frequently. But today, unfortunately, good health has
come to mean eating rich, rather unhealthy fast foods
or new dishes made by the so-called culinary experts,
going to costly gyms, visiting high class clubs and
5-star hotels and restaurants and eating the costliest
and least healthy dishes.
Good health has almost become a big business for the
rich, by the rich and for the rich and simultaneously,
luring the poor and the not-so-rich to become the
customers for the products made by the rich and sold
by the rich making the poor poorer.
Most people who suffer from various aches and pains
these days are those who have injured themselves at
the high tech gyms or by practicing intricate yoga
exercises. St. Patanjali who wrote the Yoga Sutra had
advised a few simple rules and exercises to make a
person healthy in the body; mind and soul so that one
could attune oneself to the higher soul (parmatman) to
attain 'nirvana' or 'samadhi'.
But the businessmen of yoga have devised hundreds of
new asanas (yogic postures and practices) and have
turned the practice of yoga into a high tech costly
device for those who can afford high fees and visit
them regularly. They have written books that give you
new ideas that were never meant or thought of even by
Patanjali, that too, just to make more money by
selling their questionable products and devices.
So, if you want to understand what is good health,
you will have to go back to nature because modern
lifestyle and thinking has taken us away from Mother
Nature. After minting billions of dollars by the major
multinational companies by selling infant food
formulations in replacement of mother's milk even by
telling the mothers that by breast-feeding the baby,
their youthfulness and beauty would deteriorate, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) has now come up with
the natural truth (a millions of years old fact) that
mother's milk is the best for the baby.
So also, we have now come to know that natural food
that is least processed or tampered with is the best
for good health. It contains natural vitamins,
minerals and hundreds of micro-nutrients which even
the so-called health experts do not yet fully know.
As for example, after thousands of years of
advancement of human knowledge, we are told that skin
of the lowly potato that is banned for diabetics,
contains edible chromium that is good for them.
Similarly, we are processing the food grains and
pulses to remove their outer skin that is good for
health not only because it gives us the valuable fiber
to keep away constipation but also it contains a host
of micro-nutrients, many of them unknown to human
beings. And, mind you, constipation is the cause for
inviting many health problems including back pain,
stomach troubles; flatulence; acidity and even cancer
of the colon.
Medicines may be good to cure a disease if it is
unmanageable naturally. But medicines and health
supplements can never promote real good health. Many
such supplements can be cause of new diseases when
they are consumed unnecessarily although strictly they
might not be required. The more you go away from
nature, the more you are going to suffer ill health.
That is why our 'shastras' (books of traditional
knowledge} have even advised against indulging in too
much of anything including sex. Too much sex would
give you a false sense of happiness and achievement
but that is bad for the health of both the men and the
women. So never over-indulge in any thing.
If you eat natural food containing more of seasonal
fruits and vegetables and less of processed things,
drink plenty of pure potable water and do some natural
exercises (see details given at the end of this
article}, then you do not need any gyms, specialist
doctors other than the good old family doc or
intricate yogic practices. A few natural exercises not
requiring much time; money or any extra efforts can
make you lead a healthy and so to say a 'kicking' life
right upto the ripe old age of hundred years or more,
full of pleasure, hapiness and a sense of achievement;

Hence we have given the following good health slogan
(Ghosh Vakya}:
"Three minutes a day;
"Keep the doctor away"
AND
When ever too tired; just lie down and do the same
relaxing exercises for about three minutes to come
out:
"FRESH LIKE A FLOWER"
each abd every time whether it is day or even dead of
night.

The following are the simple yogic exercises for
spinal health which is the master-key to all round
health of the body; mind and the soul:
1. Lie straight on a hard bed facing upwards, palms
under the head, relax and jerk up both the feet
towards the head without moving the heels. Rotate both
the feet, right foot to the right and left to the left
to join them again as before. Repeat ten or more
number of times.
2. Do the same movements in the reverse direction,
also 10 times or more and relax.
3. Jerk up the feet upwards as in 1 above and release
the pressure to go back to the original position, also
ten times.
4. Draw both the feet about two feet towards you, the
way it may be most convenient, as one normally does,
knees raised and feet on the bed, the way one keeps
them many times. Then lift up both the feet suddenly
keeping the heels there only. Then strike the knees
together quicly but softly and jerk back the feet with
a mild thud on the bed to the original position.
Repeat 10 times or more.
5. Lastly, draw back and straighten both the feet
together slowly at a snail's pace and when one is
fully stretched, take a deep breath and yawn to relax
completely. Get up sideways using the hands as the
lever without giving jerk and start walking normally.


(The writer is the Director of Nature Cure and Spinal
Rehab Centre and the founder of the new nature cure
technique, ATBSNR and can be contacted on 020-26870204
or by email at smacharya@... ; website
www.atbsnr.com)




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