Hello, hai! Welcome back to my course on Enhancing Soft
Skills and Personality we are on the 7th week, third unit and on the whole 33rd lesson. And this is the second part of Managing Health
and in this unit, in particular we will focus on Diet and Sleep. As usual, we will take a look at the highlights
of the last lesson. We understood in the last lesson that health
is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being that is the definition by
WHO and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. So, in order to maintain this balance that
is to come through a physical reinforcement and along with mental and social well-being
so, you need to actually keep your body in very fit condition, so we learnt in that context
that timely upkeep of body is required for preventing it from untimely malfunctioning.
So, body needs to help you in crucial circumstances,
it should not let you down when you need it the most. We understood that to retain life-energy and
to make full use of it, one should keep the body fit by regular exercise. Exercise, as such is any activity that involves
exerting your muscles in various space to keep yourself fit. So, you can enjoy doing anything that you
feel that it is just fun to do, it can be walking or cycling, swimming or playing tennis
or squash or playing football, volleyball, hockey. So, anything that will exert your muscles
so that is the most important thing. Adding yoga and Meditation will help you to
safeguard yourself from stress that attacks you at unprepared moments and we also found
in this context that morning exercise will be the most beneficial because you will get
the benefit of getting vitamin D by exposing yourself to the sunlight in the morning. While we learnt how to resume discontinued
exercise, we also got a clear grasp of the ways in which we can maintain going for regular
exercise, so in that context we learnt some tips as how we can maintain going for exercise
in a regular manner and then on days when you miss yoga exercise you can supplement
it by other alternatives such as walking or cycling to the office, climbing stairs, instead
of using lift, keeping the car in the car parking area at a distance so that you at
least walk to the car in case you took your car.
So, these are slight supplementary activities
you can do when you are not able to do normal exercises and then you can also make exercise
attractive by using the latest gadgets treating yourself with nice sports costumes and by
joining local competitions and getting boosted up by small victories. Finally, I suggested to you that you should
never break the rhythm and the momentum gained just because of some minor ailments because
those ailments will disappear once you persist with your exercise. Of course, you can minimize the intensity,
the duration but for consistency’s sake, you should not get carried away by slight
headache or slight cold or cough and then just stop exercise for a long time. So, with that thought I also added that we
just looked at exercise we will also look at the other two important aspects of maintaining
managing your health that is diet as well as sleep. Now eating well, so diet amounts not just
to controlling your food habits, but it means eating well, so no exercise programme is complete
without balancing it with appropriate and adequate diet.
Even thinning down people get cheated by attractive
crash course programs saying that, so we will reduce your tummy 30 days, we will make you
thin in 40 days, and then they will say that or they will force you to do lot of exercise
just focusing on the particular spot that is your stomach but those things are not going
to help you completely if you are not going to add your diet or learn how to balance your
diet with the exercise that you are doing.
It has to be complemented by the food that
you eat. So, basically you should ensure that you eat
three regular meals per day and those who are interested in losing weight should eat
less they should never overeat but then, they should eat frequently like four to five or
even six times a day to increase the metabolism. But, in either case one should never skip
the breakfast and as the proverb goes, one should eat like a king in the morning and
eat like a popper at night. Instead of skipping, you should rather eat
a heavy and rich breakfast and even lunch should also not be avoided, whatever work
pressure it may be. Something has to be taken and preferably at
the same time.
If you are used to taking lunch at 1 O’
clock, all the time you should take lunch at 1 O’clock if it is 12: 30 it should be
12:30. So, then only the metabolism will be kept
very active. Light dinner should be taken, it should not
be heavy, it should not be too spicy and ideally before 7 p.m. there are many who are habituated
to take it before sunset that’s again very ideal, but at least before 7 p.m.
So, when you keep on delaying it again it’s
contributing to lot of ill effects on your body. There are interesting books which you can
use to understand what type of food that will suit your body type and your lifestyle. For example, there is one very famous book
by Dr. Peter D’ Adamo who wrote this with Catherine Whitney, the title of the book is
Eat Right 4 Your Type. Now what the authors are trying to tell is
that, you need to eat the right kind of food for your blood type. So based on your blood type, whether it is
A or B, O, okay, whether it is positive or negative so depending on that, so they recommend
certain diet for you. So eating that can save you from certain allergic
reactions of your body or save you from obesity or save you from hormonal imbalances and all
that so since my interest is not in going deep into those aspects if you are interested
you should go deep and then identify what suits your body and then fix your diet accordingly
but the point is to eat well, eat rich food and eat in time and keep the frequency that
is three, four, five, six, okay.
Three, the normal one, and not missing any
of them, so that will help you to maintain good metabolism and stay healthy. Although, these books will give you some kind
of scientific awareness but even without that kind of scientific awareness, you can help
yourself by using your common sense in ensuring certain simple things such as, you should
avoid all white food and choose all naturally colored ones so that means you should avoid
white food like, Maida and Maida products, ghee for example it looks white, try to avoid
white colored ones and then particularly salt and sugar, rather you should choose green vegetables and even within
vegetables you have lot of colorful vegetables like carrots and beetroot and all that and
colorful fruits, different colors, okay.
So, enjoy eating all these fruits so that
is one simple step you can take and then you should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
preferably the seasonal fruits and vegetables whatever is available during that season. So that is really healthy and it should be
fresh even if you are to pay a slightly extra money for something that is organic, something
that is taken fresh from the garden so you shouldn’t mind paying that and you should
save yourself from food which have been preserved, food that needs to be preserved and hence
preservatives are used. So, you should try to avoid those ones, so
make it fresh and then go for seasonal ones and ensure that daily you will have rich source
of minerals and vitamins from these food intakes. And get the right balance of carbohydrates,
proteins, and fats and to add apart from this food intake, drink minimum two liters of uncontaminated
water every day.
So, I am particular about uncontaminated water,
so you may use whatever good water purifier but then it is important that you should drink
uncontaminated water, pure water, two liters at least in a day, more the merrier but at
least 2 liters and do not drink carbonated that is all kind of colas and soft drinks
which you get and alcoholic drinks. So completely try to avoid this if you want
to live longer and healthy.
The next point, apart from the dietary tips
that I have given you so far, is related to maintaining health in terms of managing your
sleep. Early to bed and early to rise as the proverb
goes, will make a man healthy, wealthy and wise provided the person who goes to bed enjoys
a sound sleep till the morning. So, the proverb will not work out if you are
disturbed in your sleep and then if you are not taking a sound sleep. There are interesting books like Kacper Postawski’s
Powerful Sleep—Secrets of the Inner Sleep Clock. I have given the reference to this book at
the end you can just browse it from the net itself. So, such books actually analyze sleep with
scientific precision and offers very beneficial insights. However, if you learn how to discipline your
body especially by doing exercise, you will be able to get adequate sleep at night and
just this disciplining and getting adequate sleep can also be ensured by some simple steps
which I would like to suggest to you.
The first one is, when you exercise regularly,
you will normally get good sleep at night. So that is the most important benefit of exercise
and slightly if you push yourself in whatever form of exercise, you will get that deep,
sound sleep and nobody can disturb you, no noise can affect your sleep because the body
feels fully exhausted, the muscle would like to relax and then you get good sleep. Secondly, a short nap helps in quick rejuvenation
so 15 minutes nap, sometimes they call this as power nap so even in office when you sit
on your chair you can close your eyes and then just take a nap even if you are aware
of what is happening around just closing your eyes and relaxing.
So that itself will rejuvenate, so 20minutes,
30 minutes is fine but then if it is going to be stretched for let us say two hours,
somebody sleeping for three hours in the afternoon which is actually becoming an extended sleep
or truncated sleep, so that is not going to give you quality sleep at night. So, this long nap or short sleep in the afternoon
should be avoided, so if at all you have to take it has to be 15 minutes, at the most
of 45 minutes but not more than that. Eating heavy spicy food at late night can
affect the quality of sleep. So, what you have to do is that after eating
that food, you should at least take short walk so that it again helps in your metabolism
and then contribute to getting good sleep. Using mobile phone, laptop on bed will eventually
kill sleep because you will sleep with the gadget and then you that you will all the
time feel like watching what is happening there, so working on the laptop and then just
dozing off so that is not going to give you good sleep. In fact, the bedroom should be free from any
electronic gadgets (particularly, TV).
It’s really a bad habit to just watch TV
and then fall asleep without even knowing when you fell asleep. Keep the environment of the bedroom clean,
you can use oxygen generating plants like Aloe Vera to keep the air pure. You should wash as well as change the bed
sheets and pillow covers once in a week and you should also use a pillow that you feel
cozy and comfortable for resting your head. So, if a pillow is giving you some kind of
uncomfort, change it, find something by which you will be able to rest your head peacefully
and get sleep. And same thing goes for your feet also, if
you need a pillow for your feet for additional comfort use it and it will help you if you
can sleep at the same place of your bed and at the same hour to make sleep a spontaneous,
normal, regular activity.
You go, lie on the same bed, same place and
then the same pillow which is clean and neat and then put your feet, use the same bed sheet
and then just as soon as you lie, within three to five minutes you should be able to like,
switch off your machine and then you should be able to just go too deep sleep. So, train yourself towards that kind of sleep.
Also, you should train yourself to get up
without an alarm, by which, you will ensure complete sleep. Now what happens you may need let us say asleep
for half an hour more, which you can even adjust by hurrying up or taking bath quickly
since you have kept an alarm you get up at the time but then you just again snooze it
and then again it alarms gives the alarm after 10 minutes, again you snooze it, then another
10 minutes now you are just only disturbing your sleep and then you will not feel active
even after you get up.
Instead, if you use your instinct, if you
use your circadian rhythm, if you train yourself tell yourself and then make yourself conscious
with regard to the surroundings and the time. So, you will be able to get up on your own
if you decide that you have to get up at 5:15, 5:30, 6: 00, 7:15 so you can do that by practice. So, avoid using this alarm, today this alarm
has become a very disturbing thing, it has become an extended organic component of the
human beings which you should try to discard. And then the next suggestion I would like
to give is with regard to the duration that you need. So, while children need up to 10 to 11 hours
of sleep and the young babies would need even13 to 16 hours and adult will need about eight
hours of sleep in standard terms. A regularly exercise body supported by meditation
and yoga can sustain with 5 to 6 hours of sleep also so people who are super trained
in yoga and meditation so from a very long time so they will be able to maintain with
six hours five hours also. But normally, you will need seven to eight
hours so while sleeping in order to gain these seven to eight hours you can focus on other
things such as keeping the bedroom as dark as possible because some people get distracted
by light and then it takes long time to reach that unconscious level.
So, keep it as dark as possible and then I
said do not use mobile, so in case you just keep it on the bed and sleep remember to switch
it off or keep it in silent mode so getting frequently disturbed by mobile calls or notifications
from social media is the easiest way to get insomnia, that is sleeplessness. Your mind always is troubled, and it is not
used to getting long sleep for six to eight hours in a stable, peaceful manner. In case you are having problem getting sleep
quickly, listen to light soothing music so only in case that you do not get sleep for
a long time otherwise you should be getting sleep naturally. Some people use this method of counting sheep
so that also helps in some cases like they imagine counting sheep okay, so you have to
count, so you have to visualize one herd of sheep and then you have to start counting
one, two, three, four, and then normally, it’s experience that when reach about 100,
you may fall asleep without even knowing that you have fallen asleep.
Okay, eating a banana an hour before bedtime,
and or drinking a glass of warm milk can act as sedatives to make you relax and get sound
sleep. Again, even if these ones do not help some
people use breathing exercises so they sit for 15- 20 minutes, they breathe, they take
a very deep breath inside themselves, they take deep breathing and then exhaling so that
also helps them relieve all stress and then relax, having a bath so can also give you
good sleep. Now having understood that how you can gain
good sleep, let me conclude this with cautioning you as how you should avoid sleep deprivation
and why you should avoid it also, if you reduce your sleep and that can become dangerous. So, as I said seven to eight hours of sleep
is required for adults, sleeping less than six hours are only for two to three hours
are not sleeping at all can be really dangerous.
So, lack of sleep causes mood swings so people
you get irritable, suddenly angry and it also accounts for poor concentration, so listening
power is reduced, you cannot concentrate on anything that’s happening, it can be combined
with some persisting headache, also in terms of your bowel movement it can obstruct normal
bowel movement. So, it can cause constipation leading to fissures
and fistulas and other unnecessary complications, it can also result in loss of appetite, but
the worst thing is that it increases the blood pressure and enhances the flow of toxic secretions
in the body affecting many vital organs leading to sudden collapse and imminent death.
There are many stories, there was a story
about a CEO in Mumbai. So, who is otherwise very fit and then goes
to the gym regularly, works out like anything, morning, evening, afternoon, very good in
diet and then very good in communication skills, very loud leader and all that. But one day, one morning he was just found
dead, people found that in his passion for achieving more goals, more targets for the
company he was exerting himself and then slowly he reduced his sleeping hours, there were
days he was doing without sleep and the average sleep that he was getting was just two hours,
so it just killed him. Eventually, one day when he got sudden heart
attack and then he just died on the spot. Overall, sleep is one of those rare things
that money cannot buy.
So you will remain blissful if you train yourself
to sleep as soon as you go to your bed and sleep for seven to eight hours without any
disturbance that is a bliss and that is possible by training yourself, by using exercise, by
following the suggestions that I have given you and using your own appropriate improvisations
in this kind of exercise so you will be able to maintain that balance between mind, body
and the emotional socializing that is also required to keep yourself free from stress. Let me conclude this with the secret of good
living, the secret of living well. this is from a Tibetian Proverb, it goes like
this— “The secret to living well and longer is:
eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure.” So far in this course, we have discussed about
maintaining your health, maintaining diet, I suggested how you can use diet which actually
amounts to not overeating so it is something like eating half, walking double is your ability
to add to your exercise and we already did something about using laughter in communication
and the importance of humour in communication and developing your soft skills and personality.
So, laugh triple, so more than the amount
that is required and then love without measure is something that I would like to discuss
in the coming lessons. So, once again, I wish you to live well and
live longer and these are the two books that I gave quick reference, one is on, Eating
Right by identifying the diet that is required for your blood group. And the other one is about getting Powerful
Sleep and then resetting your Inner Sleep Clock. I hope with these suggestions, with these
recommendations and then motivations you will start your exercise program, you will eat
well and you will also sleep well and peacefully and I hope you will start enjoying this journey
of living a very happy and healthy life, so wish you all the best and have a very nice
day.
Thank you so much for watching this video. Page PAGE 2 of NUMPAGES 2.
