I blame it on my education. Childhood is the cradle in which we get the most basic education. Education is all about learning to live. Right!
If this is the definition of education, most of us are not fully educated. We are yet to learn to take care of our mind and body. The world is facing many chronic health issues. Blood pressure, Diabetes, gastro, stress, depression are some of those that have taken the world by storm. I often see Doctors and Researchers dwelling on this topic of health challenges. Most of the time, they are telling us that the root cause of our ill health, both mental and physical is the kind of lifestyle that we are having these days.
Do you know what they mean to say when they say, “Lifestyle issues”? OK, I will help you with that. I have come to learn this on my own. I was also one of those unfortunate souls who never learned the value of good health in the school curriculum. Though there are few things here and there, that are taught on the periphery. But, predominantly this voice is absent.
What is a Lifestyle?
Here, I am going to tell you about a healthy lifestyle and an unhealthy lifestyle. This can be best explained if I give you my life example. 2 years ago, I had an unhealthy lifestyle. My days would be spent working. I still have to spend close to 12 hours on average. This includes my commutation hours and my time of getting ready. But, if you were to deduct 12 hours from every day of my life, I am left with 12 hours only. Out of these 12 hours, I have to sleep for a major portion. So, I sleep for anywhere between 6 to 8 hours. Therefore, all I am left with in a day is 4 hours of time in a day.
I would think this and told myself that I don’t have time. If I don’t have time to myself, forget about having time to spend on creating a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle would mean going to the gym or joining a fitness community. After a long day at work, I would rather prefer to sit idle at home. I would not like to do something that would ask me to exert myself.
But, I was noticing that due to long sitting hours at work and working in the rotational shift was bringing my health down and weight up. Then there came a phase that my weight was 96 kg. This is the time, that I felt the need to have a weighing machine at home. You see we come to know when we are on an upward swing in our weight. Still, we care to ignore it. The reason: Lack of Health Education and Sensitisation.
We are just OK to move to that critical phase of our lives where our health has been compromised to an extent that we now seek the doctor’s consultation. I reached that phase. I reached it not before I was in my late 30s. I went to visit a Doctor to get some medicines for my fever. I was suffering from fever for a week now. And I was seeing no respite. He checked me and told me that I was running high Blood Pressure(BP). This was a shock to me. Never did I imagine to get high BP.
I just ignored it. I did not care for it. I ignored it on the pretext that Doctors tell you such things to make money. Or maybe I was not ready to hear something so drastic about myself. Till then, I was not knowing about HIGH BP. But, I had gathered that this is some kind of lifelong illness. Obviously, why should I believe that I am now suffering from life? I have noticed that it happens with most of us. We are in Self-Denial mode for too long.
Leave a Reply