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Longevity – Living Long and Healthy

longevity

Since ancient times, people have strove for longevity – to live a long and healthy life. Do you have a plan? Do you have tools or principles that you practice to optimize your health? How are they working for you? Can you evaluate your lifestyle in detail so you can make the best choices possible to promote health and longevity?

Personal health can differ naturally based on genetics and lifestyle. Each person has their unique benefits and challenges. Genetics can be hard to change but regulating your lifestyle is the area we can all focus on to optimize health.

If I told you there are time-tested ways to balance your lifestyle for greater health wouldn’t you want to know about them? If you were shown a path that you could take towards optimizing your health wouldn’t you take it? Feeling your best allows you to more fully participate in life and be more present for those you care about most. If you agree, health is your most important asset, would it be worth learning practical methods to cultivate and nurture your health to its fullest potential?

There is a lot of information on general health tips for the average person. The principles of natural healing I would like to share offers a higher level of awareness and prevention for each individual’s specific health needs. This is not about perfection but just more specific practices in awareness and prevention for your individual health needs.

Awareness is the first step. Observing your daily lifestyle, knowing your weaknesses and strengthens, knowing your limits, knowing what you can and can’t change and understanding factors that can strengthen or weaken your health over time are practices in awareness and self-care that you can develop. Learning time-tested principles to help you develop a deep sense of awareness and understanding can put YOU in charge of your health.

Prevention is the second step. It’s better to be proactive instead of reactionary. Putting practices of prevention into action is a proactive measure that can keep you on a better path towards greater health. Here’s a known truth – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Instead of the reactive attitude of “not fixing it until it breaks” how about a proactive effort of prevention before it happens? Knowing there’s a drug store around the corner or a doctor down the street, I believe, gives us a false sense of security.

Taking actions in prevention is not only being responsible but it offers the best plan for a long and healthy life.

Adults teaching their children awareness and best practices in prevention can extend the health benefits from one generation to the next. Here’s another known truth I will paraphrase – give a fish and eat for a day, teach how to fish and eat for a lifetime.

Teaching children about awareness and prevention can set them up for a lifetime of success when it comes to making better lifestyle choices to optimize their individual health needs. Greater health embodied in the essence inherited by children from healthy parents can be realized when parents make better lifestyle choices through awareness and prevention.

The modern lifestyle filled with modern conveniences weakens our natural abilities to thrive and adapt. Eating ready-made, processed, prepared foods instead of preparing them yourself is an example of modern convenience that can weaken health. Sugar in ancient times was rare to find. Much effort and many calories were burned to hunt down sugar. Today we just drive up to the Dunkin Donuts window and order – easy peasy!

Exercise is a modern necessity to strengthen a body that is weakened by easy living such as less walking or less physical activity. Patience is a virtue and almost extinct with the modern focus on instant gratification. Learning to be patient is helpful, healthy and crosses into the realm of higher thinking, contemplation and spirituality.

Traditional practices of meditation or the slow movements of Tai Chi have benefits beyond the obvious and can be very supportive. Developing practices in awareness and prevention beyond the obvious can improve your efforts towards greater health.

Relying on government and corporations to supply us with healthy choices has proven to be flawed over the years. How many times have you heard scientific advice changed on which part of the egg is healthy? The FDA finally ruled recently that trans-fat are bad and they’re giving food makers two more years before they are mandated to remove all trans-fats from their products. Does that make you feel like they are looking out for you? Just when you think all is well in the kingdom, look out! Because now I’m wondering what toxic junk they will use to replace trans-fats?

When it comes to food my advice is to commit to educating yourself on this most important and necessary resource to ensure optimal health.

The higher principles of awareness and prevention I’m expressing in this article are not sourced from conventional medical practices or modern pseudo-science. I want to convey the time-tested, natural principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the healing arts of Acupuncture, Tai Chi and Chi Kung. You don’t have to be an acupuncturist or a Tai Chi master to practices these principles. You just need to be aware of these natural principles and put them into practice for yourself. Natural principles have a truth that is effective and just makes good sense. Put your mind to learning them and see for yourself.

I will be posting a collection of articles over the coming weeks called – “Diagnose Yourself Naturally”. Look for articles on longevity, awareness and prevention and share with your friends and family. There are all-natural solutions to help you be the best you can be in health and spirit.

Defining terms of Self-Cultivation:

Self-Cultivation: Identifying your unique gifts and purpose. Taking personal responsibility. Being proactive in matters that support your health and well-being. Pursuing higher thinking and spiritual growth. Outwardly vibrating a natural, infectious and positive Qi.

Cultivating Awareness: developing a deeper sense of yourself and your surroundings.

Longevity: an ideal goal of living a long and healthy life .

Qi: vital life force, energy, providing flow and function.

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Follow The 80 Percent Rule

follow the 80 percent rule

Follow The 80 Percent Rule for Optimal Health

Only go about 80% of your ability. Leave some room to avoid overdoing it. More than 100% means you reach a breaking point. That’s not where we want to be when it comes to natural prevention and optimal health.

I always use the 80% rule in the practice and teaching of Tai Chi and Chi Kung but it can apply to all things in life. In today’s fast-pace lifestyle everything is go-go-go trying to fit as much stuff as we can into a single day. When holidays like Christmas comes along do we cut out activity to make room for a festive holiday? No no noooooo! We try to jam the holiday activities into our already-busy and hectic schedule inviting more grief! Obviously this is bad form if you’re trying to be preventative and take measure to promote health and wellness naturally for you and your family.

Tai Chi and Chi Kung develops a higher level of awareness and more deeply solidifies the mind-body connection. Intensely focusing on what’s outside of yourself inevitably leads to a disconnect for what’s going inside yourself. Developing awareness in how your lifestyle and routines influence your health can give you early warning signs on how to adjust course towards a better path for self-care. Following the 80% rule will give you space to mentally stay focus and centered. A mind full of irregular thought patterns will manifest into irregular health and body function. A steady mind will reflect more stable health and steady body function.

Navigating through life headstrong and blind to your limits will be problematic. The no-pain-no-gain mantra will reveal limits and all too often will result in injury and setbacks. The 80% rule allows room for error. With 20% extra space you can even out the bumps and make your daily routines flow more smoothly. The body runs on cyclical patterns like activity and rest that need regularity and consistency not jittery, hectic patterns of irregularity. Traveling through life is like riding in a car. Irregularity is like driving on a bumpy road with lots of turns and lots of ups and downs. Regularity is a smooth steady ride along a flat road traveling at a steady speed. Which ride would make you anxious and which ride would give you peace of mind?

I often see excessive actions that create setbacks when improvements are experienced with acupuncture. A patient with chronic pain through treatment begins to see improvements. They feel more energetic and spend 10 hours straight over the weekend cleaning the house. When they return for a follow up acupuncture treat they feel terrible – they overdid it, beyond 100%. A long-term, chronic condition is a sign that the body has low healing abilities. Under acupuncture treatment, any excess energy that is experienced should be conserved to deeply enable the healing process more efficiently. It shouldn’t be drained away senselessly as if the body has no limits. The 80% rule needs to be accessed daily or even moment to moment. The expression living in the moment hold true value. Pacing yourself throughout your day with a deeper level of awareness will help prevent setbacks.

Good health, as I always say, is about good circulation or functional flow. When we drain ourselves we lack the energy to keep our body functioning at its optimal levels. No amount of exercise or healthy eating will make up for an overwhelming and hyperactive lifestyle that drains the life force right out of you.

Without sufficient energy maybe your body decides to cut off optimal function to the elimination process. You experience a slow increase of toxins in the body that will eventually lead to all sorts of health issues. Maybe lower than optimal energy means your digestion doesn’t work as well. All that money you spend on food becomes a waste because you don’t have sufficient energy to efficiently digest those all-important nutrients. Maybe without enough functional energy, or qi as we acupuncturists like to say, it diminishes your ability to focus and concentrate. This may lead to poor work efforts, lack of patience and bad relationships and on and on and on.

Follow the 80% rule and be aware of your limits and conserve your energy. Awareness is the key to prevention. The more you understand about yourself and your surroundings the more you can make better choices. You’ll be able to regulate your energy levels and experience smooth, supportive transitions (cycles) in your daily or even yearly routines. Instead of reacting to problems you can make preventive choices and be ahead of the game. You can make choices that will put you on a better path for greater health.

Design your day with about 20% room to move. Make some space so when problems come along you’ll have the capacity to handle them better. Think about the activities and choices you make that pushes your limits to the extreme. Make a conscious effort to moderate them. Perhaps you’re overeating? Only eat until you’re about 80% full. Digestion won’t be overwhelmed. You may feel less bloated with more energy. Perhaps you’ve over-committed yourself and need to reassess your capabilities and the time you can afford to spend to maintain balance in happiness and health. In the game of life, health and longevity following the 80% rule is a great strategy to moderate and conserve your qi for optimal health.