We can look at Health in a similar way to accruing a savings account. Having a growing Health Savings Account is about making regular deposits or doing things that support vitality on a short, medium and long term basis. Using the analogy of money, we could say that having a "change jar" (where we throw our spare change) is similar to making small or regular daily changes such as healthy eating choices or remembering to consciously breathe (using the whole of the torso; front, back, sides) long, slow, full and deep.
Other variables to be aware of include getting regular proper rest, and becoming aware of eating before the blood sugar drops, and returning to a more whole food diet. Adjusting to age-appropriate physical activity is a learning process, learning how not to do too much or too little and gaining the ability to adjust our own oxygen levels is very easy to learn. We can also learn to invigorate blood circulation and balance energy use-age in more efficient ways such as Qigong/Tai Chi/Yoga.
Posture basics are another form of health standards, and learning to sit up naturally is learned and earned when you are spending many hours in a chair (yes, slouching is very burdensome for the bodily systems and can create long term problems). There are many slight and very do-able shifts we can make that impact our health and self care; becoming aware of the habits that "take from us" is a starting point. Willingness and sincerity are needed to make gradual alterations as we experience the very direct link that is the core of health and wellness.
When we make changes, becoming regular about them is part of the next challenge and moves our awareness into the "inner framework" of self-managed health care. Gradual experience and the mini-changes we make along the way are the core of prevention, small hurdles teach us to return to our adaptable nature and maintain deeper levels of knowing ourselves.
It is not easy to learn that forced change will not last and is an unnatural, unsustainable learning hindrance. The process of reaching an inner agreement is the only true solution...and this will take time before we experience efficiency. It is the natural standards and the refinement of our daily routines that are the basis of injury/trauma recovery and prevention of illness and injury.
We can allow ourselves to make slight shifts in our daily awareness & activities about health, let the natural benefits be experienced and the inclination to feel better comes without resistance or opposition. When we "react", and use "contrive reasons for changing our lives so we can be healthy", it simply does not work. Using the example of taking on a radical change in diet, we can fore-tell the coming of inner resistance and how it will play out. Fortitude cannot last into medium and long term benefits as we can only fight with ourselves for so long before we have to surrender; you cannot win a fight with yourself, some part of yourself HAS to lose. But let's say you don't "stop doing whatever it is that is deemed bad for you", and you instead decide to be very honest with yourself about what it is that is feeling imbalanced.
You can now begin to take a slow and steady approach (if you choose to), which may need support, revamping and course corrections along the way. This is the first step. The second step is just not to forget the first step, that's all, just don't forget, then continue doing the simple little things that help you, the recent changes that are very do-able for you and create the least resistance. This begins the forming of a foundation referred to as harmonizing, and it is important to remember that 'Incremental amounts of effort & progress in the face of changes and "difficult tasks", is the key that separates momentum from stagnation'1.
After an undetermined and fairly moderate length of time, you will have some new choices that expand your skills into the direction of "Health Saving Habits", netting you some new levels of self-knowing and the things that you want to change will seem different, less attractive. Allowing change to occur is the lost natural art of change as it relates to daily-rhythms, not fixing or contriving change, but following the release of something that is no longer useful to you. The slow, patient way (or harmonizing) is really the fast-track to shedding what no longer makes sense or it not useful anymore. Our long term changes come with deeper levels of inner alignment and agreement; where dualistic perspectives provide greater insight and opposites are pondered from the understanding that somehow they are connected. This perspective becomes the process of infinite learning that develops un-common levels of sensing and naturally developing intelligence that leads to the wisdom stages of life, depth and inner development. Rather, we can learn to enjoy the journey and realize that the journey is the goal.
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