Choices For A Better Wellness

BlogJan2022

Choices For A Better Wellness

Making efforts now saves us from suffering unnecessarily later.

The sacrifices we make today are a way of taking care of the person we will be tomorrow, of avoiding insurmountable problems.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors made the greatest efforts, in the summer, to gather food and animal skins that would allow them to make it through the winter.

Yes, it was hard to collect things from dawn until dusk, hunt mammoths, catch salmon in the rivers, then smoke them to preserve them.

But it was infinitely less painful than finding themselves in the middle of winter without anything to eat, and watching their children die one after the other.

Sacrifice: one of the greatest discoveries of all time

The human being made one of the greatest discoveries of all time that coming to the realization that sacrificing oneself today – often – made it possible to be better tomorrow.

Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed in advance. But you are putting the best odds on your side.

Sacrifice is perhaps too heavy a word, I prefer to say choose to eat better, to go outside every day, to do exercise, and to adopt a positive attitude.

For example: children learn very early that they will have to go to school, rather than sit quietly on the sofa in front of the TV. They will have to take to lessons, homework, exercises (school, physical, artistic), exams, competitions, selection interviews, training.

But it’s worth it. The constantly renewed experience is that the more a child tries, the more he is encouraged and supported, the more he goes to the limit of his abilities, the better his future is likely to be.

It is no coincidence that our era is both the most prosperous and the one in which the education of children is the longest of all time (it often lasts up to 25 or even 30 years).

For adults, it is exactly the same.

Reduce self-inflicted suffering and disease.

Life has in store for us, whatever we do, all kinds of suffering that we cannot avoid: illness, old age, bereavement, injustice, violence…

And if, fortunately, we are personally in good health and do not suffer any injustice, we necessarily suffer from seeing other people who are not as lucky as us: family, friends, neighbors, or simple strangers, in the streets or on television, which remind us that suffering is everywhere in the world.

Suffering is a universal fact of life, it awaits us all.

But we know that we can, at least, reduce our risk of self-inflicted suffering by putting in the effort today.

We can for example:

  • quit smoking
  • reduce alcohol consumption
  • eat more fruits and vegetables
  • do more sports, physical activity
  • take the time to cook, rather than eating junk food
  • choose a good nutritional supplementation
  • follow a regular rhythm for going to bed, getting up and eating meals
  • remove sources of noise, stress, anger in our lives
  • grow an organic vegetable garden if possible
  • avoid additives in our diet
  • protect us from toxins and endocrine disruptors
  • drink green tea or water instead of sugary drinks
  • limit our sugar consumption
  • ensure good intakes of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids
  • get out in the sun regularly and take a daily vitamin D supplement
  • reduce our consumption of medications
  • make sure to maintain a reasonable weight
  • etc.

Each time there is a small sacrifice (a choice). It would be easier to say: “it doesn’t matter”; “I don’t care”.

But every time we wonder if these efforts are worth it, let us remember the cost and the limitless suffering of a life after a stroke, a heart attack that has largely destroyed your heart, diabetes, or widespread cancer, for us or for our loved ones who will perhaps suffer even more than us from seeing us suffer.

Prevention is cure!

These words may seem moralizing, harsh, I am well aware of that, but the fact is they are… true!

To your good health!

Colombe Gauvin N.D.