Unless you have been living under a rock throughout your life, you must have heard of the age-old adage - 'Prevention is better than cure' - Desiderius Erasmus, 1500.

But the real question is – is prevention even possible?

The answer? Well, it depends!

Of course, there are some problems that you can't do much about. However, most of the health challenges these days are lifestyle-induced; like type-2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high BP, anxiety, stress, PCOD/PCOS, Thyroid, and the list goes on, but the good news is that there is a very high chance we can avoid them from happening in the future.

The major issue with people is not the actual access to health care facilities but the awareness and education about health. People simply don’t ask any questions; they just accept the situation without being inquisitive. Somehow, there is a dependency on pills for every small thing like little muscular pain, to a minute stress and anxiety.

Here's an interesting piece of statistics for you -

The prevalence of Obesity will more than double among Indian adults aged 20–69 years between 2010 and 2040, while the prevalence of obesity will triple. *

Scary, right? Well, guess what - this is the reality that we find ourselves in right now.

OK, I'm digressing. Coming back to our concerns around the pillars of health that we should focus on.

There are 6 pillars of health that we should focus on;

1. Food

2. Exercise

3. Sleep

4. Stress Management

5. Belongingness

6. Environment

And why these 6? We're trying to prevent the issues from happening so we can take a holistic approach towards health. The good thing is it may seem like a lot but doesn't take much effort once you know what to do.

Let's talk about these pillars one by one.

1. Food:

We know that eating green vegetables is great for our health, while sugar is harmful to us. It does not quite end there, the food industry is always working towards keeping people hooked on to their products. For example, if you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant, they add MSG to almost all the food, which is know to trigger the sensors in the tongue and gives you that good taste and it also leads to water retention. We need to ensure what we are eating is right because people are hooked on fast foods and don't like to eat enough raw foods with proper intake of protein, fats and carbohydrates. Also, as a best practice, we should build a habit to check nutritional labels.

Today, the commercial foods (non-organic) are only providing around 20% of nutrition compared to what’s expected. We can get higher nutrition by consuming organic foods, but that is not often economically feasible all the time. This means an 80% deficit is what we are creating in our bodies! Wow that is crazy, right?

Our bodies are capable of healing by themselves, but due to factors like our lifestyle, our unhealthy habits, bad diet, lack of workout, environmental pollution, stress etc.. we are unable to do that anymore. The fact is that our cells require a good amount of nutrition for healing and what we are giving it is simply not enough!

BOTTOM LINE: Consider your diet as an integral part of your life so that you eat things that make you feel good. It's not a short-term game, but a rather a long-term one. It is imperative to take proper nutrition so the body's basic requirements can be met.

2. Exercise:

Workout or exercise are significant factors that will determine what you can or cannot do with your body.

Broadly speaking, we have 2 kinds of exercises: high-intensity strength-based and low-intensity endurance-based. We can mix and match it up to not get bored and work on different aspects of our toning and physique.

However, people having a high amount of stress in their life should go for low intensity workout sessions for starters and as they build up their health, they can start adding high-intensity workouts as well. This is because when you add a workout (which is stressful) to an already stressed-out body, it will go into fat storage mode where it will just keep storing your food as fat rather than breaking it down and using it for energy. For example: We all have a storage room in our house where we keep on adding random stuff that we think we might need sometime in the future and we end up never using it. The same way the body starts to store fat without stopping and never use it in most of the cases.

BOTTOM LINE: Exercise is important to tone your body and detoxify your body by releasing harmful toxins via sweat.

3. Sleep:

Who doesn't like sleeping?

I consider sleep to be at the top of this list. #1 hands down. Sleep is the foundation on which we can build sustainable eating habits and also stick to a consistent workout plan. You pretty much lose for an entire day without proper sleep, as your diet and workout will not be effective at all.

Sleep and stress are closely related with a negative correlation. It means more sleep = less stress and vice-versa. Ideally, we should be getting around 7-9 hours of sleep per day. In India, most people don't get enough sleep due to highly stressful jobs or businesses and a lack of awareness about the importance of sleep. No wonder why everyone is dealing with so many issues in their body.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't worry about the time, focus on the quality of sleep and never compromise on it continuously. It's a restart to your body and your body needs it unquestionably, everyday! No questions asked this time around!

4. Stress management:

Stress is a silent killer. We need to handle it much better but unfortunately, nobody really considers that as an issue because most people believe they have much bigger issues in their lives.

There is this stress hormone in our body that is triggered by Adrenal glands called Cortisol, which is primarily responsible for breaking down your muscles and turning them into sugar that gets stored as fat in your belly areas!

Simple things such as walking, head massage, full body massage/spa, meditation, yoga and even reading a paperback book go a long way. Do not go for quick fixes, this habit needs to be built for sustenance and not just survival.

BOTTOM LINE: Do whatever works for you to manage your stress. Don't ignore it as it builds up and then things can go very wrong.

5. Belongingness:

Everyone likes to belong somewhere and be associated with a vision that’s bigger than them. Society is built on the concept of belongingness. Humans are meant to be living together with nature in cohesion. One of the motivations behind groups like NGOs is that joy of giving back.

Therefore, we at Swasthya have built this community where people like to help each other out and give back to the world in terms of helping build healthy habits, sustainable lifestyle changes and reversing so many complex issues.

We are all bound by a common vision of Swasthya - our daily practice of healthy habits. This gives us a feeling of home away from home. These days we are living in a world of pandemic, a virtual world of Zoom and Work from home. So, we definitely need another place where we can be ourselves without any judgement and help each other grow.

Why be a worrier, when you can be a SWASTHYA WARRIOR?!

BOTTOMLINE: Belong to communities that can make a larger dent in society.

6. Environment:

We have seen the effects of global deterioration of our environment in the forms of greenhouse effects, holes in the ozone layer, melting of ice caps, endangering species, to name a few. Even for me, on a very personal basis, I’ve seen its effects in my daily life; the quality of water, air and food I’m getting is not good for my health. All these things are impacting our cells at a microscopic level. Can we do something about it?

Yes, of course! We need to make sure that we do our bit to contribute to having a shot at a better future. Water recycling, solar energy utilization, air purification and many more things need to happen at a global level to change the life of this planet that we call our home.

Having a supportive environment, in terms of having people who are healthy themselves and take good care of themselves, also go a long way in supporting our health goals. Our community is dedicated towards providing a safe environment so that everyone can achieve their health goals.

BOTTOMLINE: Air, water, and sunlight are basic requirements of the body. Let's work towards ensuring that we are giving the body all these so that it cannot just survive but also thrive!

We know that health is a vast domain, and we can’t solve all the challenges that exist. The problem of maintaining your health without putting in too much effort is a big concern, but we know there are solutions provided by the communities that are working tirelessly towards the very same mission, Swasthya being one of them.

So where do we go from here?

Even before Covid, we have had this epidemic of Obesity that leads to so many other issues. The question that we need to ask ourselves is this - are we in charge of our health physically or mentally? Is there a scope for improvement? Am I not able to live my life the way I want to due to my health challenges?

I’d like to give you some hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It was validated by none other than WHO when it said that “Obesity is preventable.” **

When the community of WHO has itself given us a statistics about prevention of obesity and the plethora of health challenges that comes with it, then they have given us Hope!

So welcome to Swasthya, your one-stop-shop for most of your health concerns with a personalized touch and scientific approaches. Let's join hands in the cause and become a part of something that probably would be the biggest mission of our lives.

WHEN YOU HAVE HOPE, YOU HAVE SWASTHYA!

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7039458/

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight

-Shubhankar Mathur

PILLARS OF HEALTH - THE POWER OF 6!