To create health for yourself, there are three fundamentals that you need to take care of. Food, activity and rest.
When it comes to food, one of the most important things that you must be conscious of is, on a certain day when you eat a certain type of food – whatever you eat – you must consciously notice how quickly does it digest and become a part of yourself. Any food that you eat, if it lasts over three hours, that means you’ve eaten bad food, and that is something to be either avoided, or reduced in quantity. If food moves out of your stomach bag within three hours, this means you’re eating something that your system can handle efficiently. It may not be the best food, but your system is able to handle it.
And between one meal and the next meal, if you create a clear gap of five to six hours and in between if there is no other ingestion – you will see the cleansing process in the system on the cellular level, cleansing will happen. This cleansing on the cellular level is most important and significant for a healthful life. So between meals there must be at least five to six hours of space.
If you’re over 30 years of age, two meals a day, two good meals a day will suffice. One in the morning and one in the evening. After the evening meal, before you go to bed, there must be a minimum of three hours. And if there is a certain amount of physical activity, not necessarily very heavy or strenuous activity. Just simple walking or maybe a dance or something like this. Create something for yourself where, about at least 20 to 30 minutes there is some physical activity after the evening meal. If you do this, largely, your system will be healthy.
If one goes to bed, with food still inside the stomach bag, a certain level of inertia is generated in the system. This inertia, physiologically it’s like accelerating towards death. Death is ultimate inertia. And if you go to bed with stomach full, one thing is it generates inertia. Another dimension is the stomach bag is full means, it will create pressure on other organs in the abdomen region. This will also lead to various kinds of health issues. It’s very important when you go to bed, again, food has moved out of the stomach bag. That the bag is not heavy.
When it comes to activity, in this brief time I don’t want to give you an exercise regimen. The simple thing that we need to understand is, our body is capable of bending forward, bending backward, and twisting sideways on either side. This much activity must happen. Whatever we do, in whatever form. If you do classical Hatha Yoga, that is the best way to do it, scientific way of doing it. If that is not yet in your life, you must somehow make sure every day – you bend forward, backward, and twist both ways, and squat. So that stretching of the spinal column will happen. This much activity is a must for everybody on a daily basis if we want to keep the entire system in a healthful state. Particularly your neurological system, which will be an issue as one ages.
The volume of rest that an individual needs is determined by various factors. What the body needs is restfulness, not necessarily sleep. Most people understand that sleep is the only way to rest. No. If you are in a lively state of restfulness moment to moment in your life, the volume of sleep you actually require will come down.
