Mind-Body Balance

Most of us are either crunching away on our New Year’s resolutions or have abandoned some, most or all of them. Most of the time we set the bar high – sometimes impossibly high.

 

The one resolution many of us do manage to stick with for a while is healthy eating. With so much information out there on nutrition, many of us finally “get it” and up our game and eat better. And we are all better for it. And combined with that, many of us are using our gym memberships too. So we are on a journey for healthy bodies. But are we ignoring our minds?

Here is some advice I found extremely useful:

Pico Iyer was an externalist — a person who’ll exercise great care over what he puts into his body and never think about what he puts into his mind. Who will dwell at length on everything he can see, in order to distract himself from the fact that it’s everything he can’t see on which his well-being depends. Who will fill his head with so much junk that he can’t remember that wolfing down Buffalo wings is not the problem, but a symptom.

An externalist makes a point — even a habit — of cherishing means over ends, effects over causes and everything that fills him up over everything that truly sustains him. He interprets health in terms of his body weight, wealth in terms of his bank account and success in terms of his business card. He’ll go to the health club, and never think of the mental health club, like someone who imagines the only arteries to be unclogged are the ones that course with blood. Pico has more to say on this – and it’s enriching.

Read more here.

 

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