Lifestyle—it changes according to our location, our salary, our friends, and our age. What we eat and drink, how active we are, and the amount of rest we get, may all depend on these societal variables. Here are some classic examples:
When we live in a town that has slow, but adequate bus service, yet few of the townsfolk own cars, we are apt to run more errands on foot. This is a real-time scenario in the average, small town in Israel.
If we have extra money to spend, besides the amount that it takes to fulfill our basic needs, we tend to buy more nosh, cookies, and ice cream for the family. This is common in Western countries.
When we are older adults, and our young children are no longer waking us up in the middle of the night, we should be able to get more sleep. Unless the computers and phones are lit late into the night, preventing our brains from developing natural drowsiness.
If we live in a hot climate, we are apt to be more aware of the dangers of dehydration, so we drink more. Yet the dangers of mild dehydration exist everywhere in the world, affecting productivity and health outcomes.
The sound advice of our Sages, from the Rishonim until today, consistently guide us toward greater awareness about our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The well-researched results of medical studies have proven much of Chazal’s advice to be true, regardless of how our surroundings affect our personal lifestyle. Yet we seem to follow the example of the society that surrounds us without considering the long-term effects of its influence. Let’s take a quick look at how the cycle of lifestyle success works in our favor when we heed the wisdom that is available to us. We can respect the mind-body connection and ultimately attain greater goals in all of our life’s endeavors, be they moral, financial, or health-wise. The more we understand how lifestyle issues affect our capacity to remain calm and content people, the greater the level of care and guidance we can give our children and other family members.
Aside from proper clothing and shelter to protect us from the outside elements of weather, there are four basic needs that a human being must fulfill in order to survive physically in this world: food, water, sleep, and exercise (physical activity). These are very general terms. As each one of these elements is a topic unto itself, there is much to say on the subject matter. The nature and quality of each of these four elements determine how quickly and effectively they improve a person’s physical and emotional state,supporting life itself. The Rambam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, and the Mishnah Berurah each contain health guidelines that are now being proven in documented medical studies.
For this article, it is the relationship of these elements that is of most interest to us, because the daily cycle of living either makes or breaks the family dynamics in one’s home.
There is actually a balance that is constantly at work between these four elements, and this balance affects our mind-body-soul connection. Here are a few tips, in order to understand its effects on our nervous system.
Our lifestyles have changed drastically in the last 75 years. For one, physical activity, be it vigorous housework, walking or physical labor, triggers chemicals and hormones in the brain that regulate positive emotions. This natural feeling of happy contentment supports the nervous system, and controls moodiness and emotional outbursts.The way we lead our lives today predisposes us to being considerably less active than all the generations before ours. This immediately affects our health and emotional state of mind. Sluggishness of brain activity affects our focus and intelligence.
Take into account that the more that we actually move, the more we naturally feel a sense of thirst. Our physical activity is interdependent on us drinking enough water. Low fluid intake makes us weak and emotionally exhausted, and this affects our capacity for any further activity. The fact that we need to replenish anywhere from 10-16 cups of fluids a day (depending on your gender, your stage in life, and the climate you live in), does not lessen despite someone being inactive most of the day.
When we drink plenty of fluids, particularly water, we naturally minimize hunger pangs, and feel less of a need to snack throughout the day. Being active makes a person more likely to take a fruit or cut vegetables as a snack, if they are available, because of their thirst-quenching water content, automatically affecting the person’s diet to becoming more balanced and nutritious.
Proteins of all types, plant (lentils, beans, peas, nuts, seeds) or animal proteins, boost our muscle and increase brain development. This is particularly important after performing physical activity, so staying physically active requires adequate protein intake. Carbohydrates from whole grains increases brain power and energy, up to a certain point. If eaten more than that point, the carbs are stored as fat on the body, to be used on a rainy day (and how many rainy days do we really have?) A person eating too many calories from simple carbohydrates (sweet drinks, cake and cookies, white bread) increases immediate energy but diminishes physical stamina. This is caused by the speed at which these foods are processed in the body, causing high spikes in blood sugar and nervous energy, which again affects one’s level of emotional stability, triggering poor anger management, tantrums and meltdowns. There are many further consequences caused by the digestive system working overtime by placing too much food at once in the digestive tract. Needlessly, this tires a person, complicates health and adds excess weight making it more difficult to carry oneself when performing physical activities.
A person tiring easily in this way doesn’t necessarily sleep better—actually, the opposite may be true. If the person is tired from over-exerting his digestive tract, as opposed to having tired his body through healthful activity, his sleep will be of a poorer quality. The body repairs and resets itself during sleep, cleansing the cells, processing memory and storing information for long-term retrieval. The more healthful and deep the night’s sleep is, the more strong, healthy and energized a person will be in the morning, both in body and mind. The better a person sleeps, the less food he needs in a day to keep him going, as also the hormones that detect hunger and satiety develop during sleep. The less confused hunger, the more a person drinks because his senses detect thirst easily. The more healthful fluids and the more physical activity, the deeper the sleep, and the more ready we feel to make proper choices in life, to work, to focus and study, to deal with life’s daily stresses, and have meaningful interactions within our community and family.
Don’t you owe it to yourself and your family to simply take care of yourself? And them?
This week: Take the cycle of food, water, activity, and sleep, and bring it to life in your home. It is the cycle of life’s basic needs that brings greater joy and energy to everyone—your parents, the baby, your teenager, your husband, and yourself.
