The most frequently asked questions of any personal trainer concern getting in shape without sweating, working, or exercising. The media (and every purveyor of $19.95 junk) has convinced the public that work is not necessary to build a perfect body and excellent health. This is wrong; it is bad information. If a person desires to increase their level of health, it is absolutely necessary to actively partake of certain regimens. One of these regimens is regular exercise.

There are many roads that people can take in the exercise arena to tone their muscles and to increase overall health. Like any road, however, if it is not traveled, will get you nowhere; getting started is the key. One can join a gym, he or she can take lessons from a personal trainer, he or she can work at home, and there are many exercise routines that can be used to guide a person that are available on DVD’s or the Internet. All of them, however, require real exercise and dedication to a routine to achieve positive results. There are so many different types of exercise routines, progressive weight training, yoga, martial arts, calisthenics, professional dancing, fencing, to mention only a few, that everyone can find some form of exercise that they enjoy and that they can stay with all of their life. Finding a method of exercise is easy; most folks, however, have trouble actually leaving their easy chair to start moving their muscles.

Motivation is the key to all exercising. Give yourself a solid reason to begin muscle training that you cannot ignore. Something like: it is summer and you want to look good at the beach in your new bathing suit. Increasing and maintaining good health is one of the best motivators; get healthy as a good example for the children; good health and exercise make you feel better. There are hundreds of great motivators. Find one or more that works for you personally.

This article will present one more possibility to tone one’s muscles. I call it Fitness in a Phone Booth because it can be done with a minimum of equipment and in a minimum of space. Most people would prefer to exercise at home or at the office because it is more convenient than having to drive to a fitness facility. If one could exercise effectively in their cubicle at work, or in the limited space aboard a boat, for example, more people who are serious about their health would exercise. Before engaging in any exercise or fitness program, always consult with your doctor to be sure that you can exercise without any problems. This program utilizes three separate, but interrelated, phases. They are (1) knowledge of your muscles, (2) basic stretches, and (3) a series of simple exercises.

The Knowledge:

Phase One – Know your muscles. We want to tone the major muscle groups so it is a good idea to be able to identify them. Basically, we should know the Chest, Shoulders, Arms (biceps and triceps), Back (upper and lower), Abdominals, Calves, and Legs (quadriceps and hamstrings). We will not be concerned about the smaller muscle groups right now because they will get worked along with the larger muscles. We are looking to tone up muscles and to stay healthy; we are not looking to enter the Mr. Universe contest – maybe later on. Knowing the major muscle groups means that we should be able to locate them and to concentrate on them when doing the stretches and exercises. Most people will have no trouble locating these muscles. In fact, if you remember anything from your high school gym classes, you are already familiar with the major body parts. If you need a refresher, any fitness magazine will have a simple diagram that you can use. Total time necessary for Phase One: a few minutes.

The Stretches:

Phase Two – Learn to stretch the major muscle groups. Never stretch a cold muscle. Before starting to stretch, walk in place moderately for about three to four minutes. This will allow your blood to circulate and your muscles will become slightly warm. This is the time you can stretch without injury. If you were ever really cold you know how stiff your muscles can get; you don’t want to move at all and your muscles can get cramped. If you move you actually feel pain. This condition is not good; you must warm up by moving slowly for a few minutes. When you feel warm, you can stretch effectively. Here is another area where concentration on the muscle group is necessary. If we are to stretch the chest muscles, for example, then we want to feel the muscle stretching as we do the movement.

Remember to relax the muscle that is to be stretched because if you tighten the muscle, you cannot be elongating it. Each muscle stretch should be about twenty seconds in time and, after coming out of the stretch, an additional movement for another twenty seconds is highly recommended. You will find that with each successive stretch you can elongate the muscle a little further. This is one way to ascertain that you are stretching correctly.

It is most important to stretch out the musculature before exercising; it will greatly increase your chances of remaining uninjured, not only during the exercise phase, but also for the rest of your day’s activities. All stretching is done slowly, no jerky movements. Do not “bounce” while stretching; this tightens the muscle, just the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish. The more you stretch (over time) the better and more efficient you will become at it. Of all the activities that comprise physical movement, stretching (done well) is the most important. Do not skip this phase.

The easiest way to think of stretching is that you are moving the muscle in the opposite direction from when you are contracting it. That is, if I curl a small weight from my knee to my chest to build the biceps muscle, then I will elongate (stretch) the biceps by straightening my arm to full extension. The best way to learn how to stretch a muscle is to realize that when you stretch it is opposite to the direction of flexing a given muscle. For example, if I want to stretch my bicep (front of upper arm) I will straighten my arm to its full extension. This action is opposite to the curling of my arm to flex the bicep. All muscles work the same way, that is, they contract (shorten) to accomplish the work intended. Stretching, therefore, is the opposite movement to contraction. Total time for Phase Two: up to fifteen minutes.

The Exercises:

Phase Three – Exercise each muscle group. One set of ten repetitions of each exercise is minimum. Two sets are better than one; three sets are better than two, is the general rule. When beginning, one set of each movement is all that is needed. As you progress each day your body will tell you when it can perform additional repetitions. Never exceed your personal limits; when you feel strained or tired, stop for a rest. Be sure to drink plenty of water before, during, and after exercise so that you don’t become dehydrated.

For the chest, shoulders, triceps, gluteus maximus, and spinal erectors we will perform eight count push-ups with alternating leg raises. This movement is actually a squat-thrust with two modified pushups in the middle.

How to do the eight-count push-up:

We will start by standing erect. Next, squat down so that your hands touch the floor near your feet (count 1). Support your body with your hands while you quickly shoot your legs to the rear (count 2). You are now in a “push-up position”. Do the first push-up. While you lower your upper body to the ground (count 3), raise the right leg and hold it up until you push up with your arms (count 4). At this point you are back in the “push-up position”. Do the second push-up. As you lower yourself to the ground, raise your left leg and hold it up (count 5) until you push up with your arms (count 6). You have now completed two modified push-ups. (Note: while doing the push-up, keep your leg absolutely straight. You are working the gluteus muscles.) Quickly return your legs to a position near your hands so that you mimic (count 2) posture (count 7). At this point stand up to the original starting position (count 8). You have now completed one eight-count push-up. Do this exercise slowly to build muscle; do it more quickly to increase cardiovascular strength and stamina.

For the upper back, triceps, biceps, and deltoids we will use the spring stretching equipment. (This apparatus is easily found in any sports supply store. The device is inexpensive and small enough to carry anywhere.) The springs are used in four different directions for the different muscle groups. (1) For the back: Hold the springs at arms length in front of you at shoulder height. Pull the springs apart as you move your arms away from each other and toward the sides of your body. Be sure to keep your arms straight at all times. Stop when your arms are stretched completely to your sides. This is one repetition. (2) For the triceps (back of upper arm): While holding the springs at chest level, touch each arm to its shoulder (the springs are now relaxed). Push the arms out to your sides while the springs stretch to the maximum. This is one repetition. (3) For the biceps (front of upper arm): Step on one handle of the springs to hold it down on the ground while you grip the other end of the springs with an underhand grip. Stand up straight and curl your arm up to your shoulder. This will result in the springs being stretched out. This is one repetition. Be sure to let the springs relax slowly and deliberately. Never let the springs out of your careful control. (4) For the deltoids (shoulder muscles): Let your arms hang straight down below your waist while holding the springs across your body. Raise the arms sideways until your hands are level with your shoulders. The springs should be stretched across your chest. This is one repetition.

Depending upon which model of springs you have, you will be able to adjust the tension so that you can do at least ten repetitions in a set. If you can only do eight, that’s okay, but if you have trouble doing six, then the tension is too high and you will need to adjust it lower so you can increase the number of repetitions.

For the quadriceps, hamstrings, and cardiovascular system we will do squats. (Not deep knee bends). Remember to keep your heels on the floor whenever doing the squat and keep your knees above your feet. That is, be sure that your knees do not protrude further than your toes when squatting. If your heels rise up then your knees will go too far forward, you will lose your balance, and you will strain the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that surround the knee joint. Perfect execution of each movement is extremely important, especially in the squat.

For the calf muscles (gastrocnemius and soleus muscles) we can do simple calf raises. When at the top of the movement, try to flex the muscles as tightly as you can. Until you get very proficient, it is best to hold on to a stationary, solid structure to maintain your balance.

There are several phases to a full life. First we are born, then we mature (well, we hope so), then we accomplish our main goal in life (our most concentrated work), then we retire from active work, then we die. What was just summed up in one sentence normally takes eighty to one hundred years, if we are lucky and healthy. Existing for close to a century on earth is quite something. There is much time to affect our planet, for good or evil, and the world will certainly be a different place at the end of our lives than at the beginning. Individually, we may or may not have a central role in affecting any real changes to society or to the natural earth. Death would seem to be a logical place to start planning one’s journey through life. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the ability to plan anything for ourselves until we are well into adulthood. If we could have this ability, though, wouldn’t it be a wonderful attribute.

The Plan

Imagine that we could direct our actions from birth utilizing the wisdom that we ought to have acquired just before we expire. In the mature human one may see quite a number of acquisitions in the form of understanding, wisdom, possessions, accomplishments, knowledge, and direction. From this perspective, death takes on a real place as the final phase in one’s life, as opposed to the cessation of it. If we knew, at birth, all the trials, tribulations, accomplishments, goals, plans, and dreams of the next lifetime (ours), how would we alter our activities? Forget for a moment that this knowledge would change the events in our lives, in one way or another. If you could plan your life to maximize your efforts and to culminate these events at the hour of your death, what would you do?

For example, let’s say that I, at my most mature, would desire world peace for everyone, that I would work for harmony between all nations, that I would be able to choose the best path for all mankind, that I would preserve the earth’s animals, plants, and Nature. I would be able to think clearly and deeply and I would reject frivolous and irresponsibility in myself. I would work to improve myself, and others, in as many ways as my intellect would allow. I would have this knowledge and maturity at my birth. Then, as I aged from birth to death, all of my actions and thoughts would work to full advantage to accomplish real things of value.

Because I would have my ultimate knowledge and talents at the beginning of my life, there would be no wasted energy, no false starts, no trial and error learning, no hurting of self, others, or environment. The ultimate life, one of true dedication of respect for life and for the Creator, with no wasted time and no misused energy. Even if we see this as just a fantasy, it is well worth the effort to consider that the termination of our existence must embody all that has come before. We cannot ignore the fact that everything that we experience in life leads us to our final phase in life – death. As such, the moment of our death becomes important in that it defines our every action. For the perfect (?) life there would be a culmination of events and actions that focus on an overall accomplishment.

How To Construct The Perfect Life

When a designer of houses sits down to draw a blueprint, he or she must draw the finished house first. All details must be worked out in advance, on paper, so that a plan can be implemented to lead to the final structure. This overall plan must take into account the costs involved, the materials that will be needed, the personnel that must be hired, and the most efficient methods of construction. Much detail is worked out in advance so as not to waste any time or money during the construction of the finished house. In much the same way, conducting the management of a life (ours) needs an overall plan to work out all the details beforehand so that there is no wasted time or resources, thus, the conundrum.

We cannot have all of this knowledge and expertise at birth; the plan is flawed before we begin. Over the millennia people have tried to substitute the wisdom of others for what we lack at our birth; this is what schooling is supposed to accomplish. I study what Gandhi did with his life and then I try to duplicate, or to exceed, his efforts because, theoretically, I am starting with what he accomplished in his lifetime. This doesn’t work because I won’t know what he knew until I reach the end of my life. Then it will be too late to build on to his model. We begin to see how inept we are as human beings. We really cannot absorb the personality and accomplishments of others because we are not them. Further, the path that we follow through life may not be exactly the path that our mentor followed with his or her particular talents. To duplicate the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, we would have to start with his talents, his lifestyle, we must experience everything that he experienced in life, and we would need the same environment and the same mitigating factors. It is not likely that all of these factors would occur in both our lives.

The best we can do is to address death as early on in our lives as possible. One of the best adages I have heard is to “live today like it is your last day on earth”. What would you do? What would you accomplish? What would be your attitude? What would you say to those around you? Another way to look at this scenario is to ask: “What would you like on your gravestone?” Would your life’s deeds require a large stone, or a small one? Seen from “the grave” we may have a good opportunity to alter our attitudes and deeds so that our gravestone may have some meaning. No matter what you believe happens to us after life, the crossover point, the time of our death, is pivotal. Maybe, when someone comes back from the “other side”, we will learn more and we can then change what we do with our birth to death sojourn. For now, we can only know what happens from birth to death. And the best way to conduct our life is to imagine looking at it from the grave. What changes might we make?

Most people fear death; they want to cling to life so that it will last forever. This activity and emotion might suggest that some of these people have not accomplished anything of worth during their lifetime. It would seem that a fulfilling life, one that has accomplished much in the positive, would reveal a person who accepts the final phase of life as the last page of a finely crafted work that leaves something of value for his or her fellow humans to ponder. Few of us know when the grim reaper will knock at our door. When should we write the final line?

Creating health in one’s self is actually a rudimentary undertaking. Maintaining that healthy state for the duration of one’s life is secondary only to what one does with one’s life. The highest aim, of course, is to do some good for the community in which we live. This community includes the home in which we were nurtured, the neighbors which helped us to grow up, the surrounding territory, the country which provided guidance and protection, and ultimately, the entire world. Really, what else is there to do with life? If we seek to do good for our community and the people then we are worthy of the gifts that we have been given. If we seek to do nothing but take from the community, without giving back in some way, then we disrespect our Creator and the community. If we take all the wars, discontent, inhumanity, stupidity, and other moronic behavior, large and small, we can easily see that a great number of people have disrespected our community. This is not, as ignorant people seem to think, inevitable. There is a cure.

Education is the cure

Before the gentle reader assumes that he knows what is educative, let me define “education”. Most people would say that the schooling that they have been given since kindergarten is education. The more schooling, from grammar school to multiple doctoral degrees, the more people think that they are educated. I say, “No, rather they have been brainwashed for the number of years that they have spent sitting at a desk in school”. Education is far more than learning to regurgitate endless, meaningless facts on a standardized test. Education is only obtained in the real world, living day-to-day. Said another way, education is the combination of schooling, where you learn how to read and to count from one to ten, and experience, where you apply the schooling to daily living. Most schooling does not transfer to daily life. There are very few teachers (a misnomer) who understand education since they have been created in the same dry mold, as they will subject their students. Some of our most respected people, Lincoln, for example, had almost no schooling, yet he showed himself to be highly intelligent and experienced in life – he was truly educated. For most folks, having been to college is some sort of merit badge that is proudly worn. The truth is that most people learned nothing more than to drink alcohol, take drugs, play cards, and otherwise to waste their precious time.

Education is mainly experience with a little schooling mixed in. An example of real education: You are walking down the street and a dog jumps out of the bushes and he bites you. You are painfully aware that a bite from a dog hurts; you have learned something useful. As a result, you will avoid the situation in the future. You will alter your route, or learn to run away from the dog, or learn to prevent the dog from biting you by some means while you confront him (he might be your dog). Can you learn these things from a book? Of course not, there is no emotion, no fear, no real life consequences. It is the same with most television shows; there is no real life application, no emotion, no consequences, no need to deal with future events. School is sterile, and people who possess only schooling, become sterile as well.

Applying education

To make a better world for ourselves and for future generations we must educate, not school, our citizens. To help with this education we will need to use some tools. We can teach the little folks to read and write our language so that we can learn to communicate. We need to be able to count from one to ten, anything more than that is superfluous. We need to show people how to wash their hands and to be safe crossing the street, and so on. These simple lessons are the things that ought to be taught in the first four or five years of life before most of us were sent to brainwashing schools. Once these basic tools are shown to the people, then education can begin.

It is important to understand that education comes from the person; it is not crammed into the person. People learn, they are not taught. If you are taught, then you are brainwashed into thinking that the other person knows more than you know and you must accept it. An educated person has been encouraged to seek knowledge and understanding from within by a facilitator. In our present society, we see that most people have been taught what to think and that thinking for oneself is discouraged. Thus we have made a society of cows who simply gather into a herd to await whatever slaughter the controllers desire.

Chess and globe, a better way

Chess and Globe (CG) is a straight forward (as I see it) Socratic educational tool; there is absolutely nothing to match it, especially in this grossly neurotic society. It is facilitator-driven, meaning that it is my idea that the students will learn stuff. The essence of the concept is that the facilitator creates an atmosphere conducive to learning; the students want to learn because the leader shows them the advantages of learning and education in the subjects presented. CG is not an easy gig. What looks very simple to the untrained eye is really a complex, well orchestrated educative venue predicated on the fact that the learners are real people, albeit small, who deserve the concentrated effort of highly intelligent, highly motivated leaders. One cannot "learn" CG because it comes from inside the participants (all of us). Rather, it is "let out" or "brought to the surface".

Though the leader defines very loose parameters, learning is grown in the rich soil of caring for all creatures, without boundaries, so that all involved may explore whatever intelligence that they possess; they all share and they are encouraged to see to it that their co-participants reach and understand that which they have become interested in learning. The emphasis is more on helping the "other guy" to succeed. The Self emerges in concert with its involvement in others. (It is easy to see from this sparse explanation that, taken far enough, CG can cure mankind's despicable nature and it is capable of bringing about world peace.)

At the highest level we would observe only intelligent people discussing philosophical matters of relevance to all concerned. (You can imagine that finding such people is extremely difficult.) So, when we consider starting at the bottom of the scale, meaning that we are working with little folk, we are really training them to advance to the highest level. Of course not all of them will make it, but if we shoot for the moon, we may get our participants much further along than anyone could reasonably expect; although, expectations are a sensitive area in CG, for we dare not cap anyone's learning. We want to encourage everyone to advance at his or her own pace (governed by their intelligence and the facilitator's savvy) with the limit being outer space - mmm, maybe that's not far enough?

CG is a tool of the soul. We can write volumes on how to do it, but in the end, it depends upon the participants themselves and the facilitator's innate ability to reach into the souls of others, to see what is lacking, and to deftly cause the person to affect his fellow participants. Notice that we do not want to "teach" anyone, this happens automatically without the student realizing that he has acquired self-growth. Remember that we are dealing with a complete entity, the whole person, not just his mind or math or mushrooms. For this reason the leader must be fully adept at reading each person so that the most efficacious method will be applied in each case. To become a leader in CG, one must be fully educated in self and one must have a positive, passionate feeling toward others.

How CG came into being

CG was created from my vast ignorance. The only thing that I did right was to care about the little people. At the time, I lived in a neighborhood where education was not a high priority. I was concerned that some of the kids were doing poorly in school and I wanted to bring them up to level with their classmates. The biggest problem was that I knew absolutely nothing about teaching – this, as it turns out, was my biggest asset.

I attempted to tutor these children in the evening during the summer. What I found is that the kids wanted to learn many things, not only school subjects that troubled them, but other, more interesting things about the world at large. Since I was ignorant of any “teaching theories” I simply let the children guide me in where they wanted to go. I was astounded at the intelligence demonstrated by kids in grammar school. Their grades in school were very low, but once I allowed them to present what they thought on their own, the tutorial took on a very different light.

I expected nothing

Since I didn’t know what to expect, I expected nothing; I didn’t place limits on their abilities; I didn’t crush their creativity; I just tried to encourage whatever they thought. Traditional schooling crushes creativity. And, the more schooling one endures, the more creativity is lost. Interestingly, the most creative thinking comes from our youngest citizens; they haven’t, as yet, been thoroughly brainwashed. The more that I encouraged the students to create, the more that they brought out. The nightly sessions were magical. I saw things that I never imagined. For example, all of the kids were eventually able to mentally multiply three digit numbers by three digit numbers with perfect accuracy in a matter of seconds. The secret: I didn’t tell them that it couldn’t be done. And, when one kid secreted in a calculator to try to gain advantage, I told him to openly use it – and that he would not succeed because the human brain is much faster. He tried the calculator, he failed to gain advantage, and he happily went back to using his brain.

The downside

Unfortunately, when I tapped into these children’s abilities, I made the mistake of thinking that their parents and teachers would be proud of their accomplishments. Once more my ignorance taught me something. Once in a while some of the parents would show up at the sessions just to see what their children were doing. They were always invited to participate in the activities. The children, however, didn’t know that their parents, by virtue of the fact that they were older, were supposed to know more about everything. This was not the case; the kids were much better, and faster at figuring out all of the subjects than were their parents. The adults, of course, were embarrassed. This had a deleterious effect upon all concerned. One very damaging event occurred in the classroom when school started again in the fall. The student (who had been retained in the first grade because of poor academic performance) embarrassed his teacher by demonstrating more knowledge of geography than she could. The principal and the teacher and his parents reprimanded him. This pressure by adults (?) on a seven-year-old boy confused the child. He learned from this experience that he was to remain ignorant and dull if he was to be accepted by the people who were his instructors. Is it any wonder that he reverted back to the place that he had come from? He is but one example of millions of people who are the products of our school system, a system that breeds all manner of poor health, criminality, and crushed creativity.

Is there any hope?

Yes, there is hope but it is a long road to travel from where we are as a society to a better place where people are treated as respected human beings. The central core of creativity is nestled in the toddlers. If we desire to make a better society then the toddlers must be studied; we will have to start listening to their ideas, their wants and needs, to learn about their creativity. We must learn to guide these little people in acquiring the simple tools of communication and safety, but we must be ever vigilant that we don’t crush their fragile thinking ability.

The problem

Where do we find the leaders, the facilitators, to nurture these young people? Surely we must start someplace; we can’t work from nothing. Maybe my kind of ignorance is the answer. Possibly a little story that occurred in my early life will help to illuminate a starting place. My friends and I were about seven or eight years old at the time when we visited another boy’s residence during the wintertime. It was cold and snowy and his mother had a nice fire going in the fireplace where she was allowing everyone to roast marshmallows on long sticks. I felt left out because I didn’t like marshmallows. My friend’s mother saw this, and without a word or request from me, gave me a piece of bread with butter. We all ate and had a good time but the warmth that came to me was the kindness of this fine lady. She was concerned for my comfort and acceptance among my friends and, as I have just related, I have never forgotten. She had boosted my self-confidence and demonstrated how to do a good deed. She planted in me a valuable lesson that may have been the start of something decent in me that I could pass on to others. Now, that’s education.

The science of Psychology tries to explain why humans do what they do. In point of fact, the word psychology means: the study of behavior. From the time of Freud to the present, scientists have labored to come up with good explanations to try to understand the human condition and to try to make a roadmap, if you will, so that we can predict exactly what humans will do given any situation. In spite of the wonderful theories and great strides forward, we have in general, failed. Over time the theories have not become more crystallized, but they have become more muddled and blended. Behavioral theory seems to explain much of how humans are controlled by their environment, by reward and punishment, but it is limited to only a small facet of how humans operate. Psychoanalytic theory suggests how the human mentality and emotions are triggered to produce neurosis and psychosis, but “normal behavior” is not elucidated. Rogerian theory points out that the individual acts according to his own cognitions, but that only explains one person’s behavior at a time. In the present, we are seeing more ideas that say that all the older theories apply in some measure; thus a restructuring of the science of human behavior is always at hand. As a result, we really do not have a good explanation. But maybe we are working in a laboratory that is too small.

We Need To Think Bigger

Suppose that we look to that old standby, evolution, for some answers. The science of evolution attempts to explain the progression of a species from its beginnings to its present form. We have learned about the dinosaurs’ humble beginnings and how they evolved into the giants of the Jurassic Period. Then evolution stopped for them and proceeded with the next group of creatures. We know that all creatures came from the sea and then came on dry land and eventually walked upright. Then man came from the apes and started on the evolutionary road to where we are today. Over time the human animal evolved in many ways. The brain, however, appears to not be up to its task. We seek to explain our present environment by looking at our condition juxtaposed our intelligence. We say that we have become smarter because of all our accomplishments in the areas of food production, technology, buildings, communications, and warfare. We even think that we have conquered space. What we really need is to look at ourselves from a greater distance; we are too close to the problem (us) to see what is lacking.

We can’t say that genetics is the larger area of study because we are only now starting to understand a small bit of the genetic component of the human animal. If we suppose that the human has not yet evolved into what he will become, then the whole field of behavior study takes on a different light. It is one thing to say that an animal is evolved to his finished form; he cannot go any further and what you see is what you get. But if an animal is in the process of evolving, then we cannot judge accurately because we cannot know what the finished specie will look like. Take, for example, the common dog. The world over, a dog is a dog. The canine in China acts and reacts the same as a dog in Brazil, the same as a dog in Mexico, and so on. My belief is that the dog has evolved to his maximum; he is complete evolutionarily speaking. As a result, we see much the same behavior no matter where we see the dog. Whenever a male dog sees a fire hydrant, you know what he will do. This concept is true for most species on this planet. Not so with humans. Of course we can draw similar predictions with humans (not the fire hydrant thing) if we observe the lower activities. When any human gets hungry, of course he will head for the refrigerator; if he gets too hot or cold, he will seek shelter; if he is in danger, he will defend himself (sometimes). But, how do we explain the higher functions, those of the largest part of the brain? It has been said that humans do not use the greater portion of the brain; that we do all of our thinking with a tiny portion of the gray matter. No one seems to know why we have such a large brain; it makes no sense to have something that we do not use. It is doubtful that, like the appendix, it is an organ that was used long ago but its usefulness is no longer needed. If anything, the brain is not used enough. (Interestingly, the governments of our societies actively discourage and punish people for trying to think on their own. It seems that governments actively try to prevent evolution; thankfully, that is impossible.)

This writing is proposing that the brain has not evolved enough to become useful. Further, that the brains of some individuals (Einstein, Gandhi, et al.) have shown more development than the average individual. Why is it that there are geniuses? Why isn’t everyone’s brain developed to the point that we know that war, famine, disease, criminality, and other stupidities are contrary to a decent life? The answer cannot be education because having the correct information crammed down the throats of students is casting pearls before swine; the students are not capable of understanding and implementing the information. It makes more sense to say that the brain in most of us is not yet capable of decent living.

Other Organs

Imagine if you will, the heart not having evolved to its present state if efficiency. We would see the human animal dying sooner than he does today; he would not be able to perform the work necessary to build a community; the heart would be a weak point in the anatomy. Taking the amount of heart disease that we see into consideration, we know that the reason for this disease is neglect and stupid decisions, not evolution, for the human heart has evolved to the point where it can sustain us through tremendous abuse. Notice that we cannot take credit for the heart’s efficiency; it has evolved on its own. We did not educate the heart to this level of functioning. We didn’t sit down one day and say, “Hey, let’s make a better heart.” That is way beyond our abilities – at least for the present.

Some Probing Questions

If we can accept the idea that the brain has not yet evolved to where it should be, then we might also ask why this is so. Why has Nature stopped its process? Or, is everything on track and we are just not intelligent enough to see it? Are the geniuses among us just the precursor to what will be? And, what about the lowest intellects among us? The worst examples of evolution like Hitler, Tojo, or any of the terrorists that sully the Earth these days are either throwbacks to when humans might have been nothing more than marauding animals or, like the advanced among us, they represent the bottom end of the continuum from good to evil. It would seem that an evolved mind seeks harmony among its environs in all areas. It would want peace, not war, freedom, not enslavement, enlightenment, not the seven deadly sins.

Why do people kill themselves? Certainly this is not the act of an evolved brain/mind. The intelligent person appreciates the life that has been given to him; he nourishes and protects the gift of life. Why do the sins of man exist? Certainly these are not the product of an evolved brain/mind. It seems that we may be in a stage of transition between a predator existence of long ago, where the human animal thought only of brutality and greed, and the kindness and altruism that one would expect from the evolved brain/mind. Truly we see both in today’s maelstrom that we refer to as “society”. There are myriad examples of greed, stupidity, criminality, injustices, in point of fact, these negative features are on the rise, and they are encouraged and condoned by moronic, bureaucratic leaders at every level of government. We also see wonderful examples of compassion and kindness in individuals. My observations appear to show that the more evolved brains/minds are nestled in single individuals acting toward other individuals; goodness and happiness seem to abound on an individual level. By contrast, the least developed/evolved brains/minds are more concentrated on the government levels where group dynamics (the herd mentality) proliferate. These observations make sense because the more evolved individual does not need interference by probing bureaucrats; they are self governing and they are more apt to enjoy a fruitful, and fulfilling life. The less evolved brains/minds still retain the fearful, ignorant thoughts of the jungle and, the more crowded this planet gets, the more these unintelligent people need to be herded by leaders of their own ilk. In the meantime, it appears that the struggle between evolved and ignorant brains/minds will intensify. Possibly this is the eternal battle between good and evil. As Gandhi pointed out: good always triumphs over evil. Unfortunately, there will be quite a bit of blood unnecessarily spilt.

If these observations and assumptions are accurate, then it is in the interests of human kind that evolution “hurries up” the process before we decimate ourselves. The field of psychology has contented itself with explaining why people are screwed up, but it is my feeling that evolution, when it has completed the human animal, will answer the question: What does the normal human resemble?

There must be thousands of ways to manage stress. Indeed, if we take a hundred different people and ask each to tell us how they manage their daily stresses, we will get a hundred different formulas for dealing with the same stressors. Some will tell us that they ignore stressors and hope that they will go away on their own. Others use booze or drugs; still others deny that they are stressed at all. All methods of allaying stress have the potential to do the job for us, but there seems to be one element missing in the stress management system. The problem is that we concentrate on the stress more than we concentrate on the management. It is the same thing as putting a bandage on a cut. When do you put on a bandage, before or after the cut appears? Obviously, the bandage is a reactive measure, no cut, then there is no need for the bandage. So, if we are not cut, then we don’t attend to the bandage. We just put it away for the future and forget about it. It may become lost or dirty or inoperable in some way so that, when we need it, we are not prepared to deal with the cut.

How many people adopt a proactive stress management system? Not many, I am sure. This is because most of us treat stress like it is non-existent; when we are stressed, we will apply some strategy. This is not a sound preventive method to keep us peaceful. As in the example of the bandage, our stress management methods can get rusty, or ineffective. Even worse, we relegate our strategies to the closet because we hope that we will never need them; after a while we will forget about them altogether. The concept is ineffective; it is negative preparation

A Positive Approach

A better way to prepare for the stressors that will come to us on a daily basis is to construct our lives as best we can to circumvent as many stressors as possible. We are best prepared when we are proactive. A good example would be in crossing the street. We are taught when we are very young to look both ways before stepping into the street to ascertain that the way is clear; that there is nothing to harm us if we proceed. This is smart. We will avoid the stress of being run down by a vehicle, and we did this by acting ahead of time, by taking a stress management method and applying it to bypass a stressful event. Note how much better this method is than in stepping into the street without looking, getting hit by a car, and then trying to allay all the stressors (physical and emotional) with other methods of stress management after the incident. As the old adage states: “a stitch in time saves nine”.

The Most Needed Element

It is a great idea to utilize common sense in constructing a good proactive stress management system. Unfortunately, most people these days do not know what common sense is; much less do they know how to apply it. Common sense is something that is not taught, in fact, cannot be taught because it is, or ought to be, inherent in a person’s personality. Hence the “common” in common sense. My feeling is that common sense is but one measure of intelligence. To be intelligent one must exhibit many attributes, such as an ability to think independently, to be somewhat creative, to be able to problem solve, and to demonstrate a ubiquitous overtone (or undercurrent) of understanding that imbues every aspect of the person’s personality with a reality of purpose. Attempts to measure intelligence are fraught with flaws that rarely measure what they are intended to measure. As such, most instruments (IQ tests) are invalid. The standard intelligence test merely measures a person’s ability to remember thousands of facts. We say a person is of a certain IQ level because she has scored very well on an IQ test, but this is misleading because this same person may have trouble crossing the street. She may be smart in one isolated area of learning, but she may not possess common sense. Therefore, this high IQ person may not be able to construct a viable stress management system that is proactive.

Some folks possess common sense but they were taught not to use it. This is done in the school system where students are simply battered with certain facts that they are told to learn because they will be asked to regurgitate them on a test. The students learn quickly that isolated facts must be memorized ad nauseam until they are to be recalled on a test. Once the test is done, the knowledge may be forgotten; nowhere is common sense applied to teach the students that they are to apply these facts in everyday life. As I have always told my students: “You are learning to live life. Everything that you come across must fit into your life somewhere; it is a part of the whole. To understand how the facts affect your life is to measure your level of education”. When I teach teachers what to do in the classroom, I remind them that they are teaching “life and living” to their students, not a particular subject. Regardless of the subject matter teachers are teaching their students about life and how to live it. If this is done well, then the students become educated (instead of being brain washed) in life; they expand their common sense and they learn to apply it for a better life.

A Proactive System

Having a good stress management system in place, that is constantly upgraded, is the best way to avoid most of the debilitating aspects of stress. Most of our strategies come after the fact; this is effective, but the damages are already done. Think of how much better it would be to head off stressors before they take hold of us. Imagine how much time could be saved if we had a proactive system of stress management rather than the reactive system that we all presently use. If we spent our time honing a system to prevent stressors from taking hold in us then we would not have to spend any time trying to compensate after we have become stressed out.

We can take a lesson from the medical/physical sciences to illustrate. When we go to the doctor and he or she tells us to stop smoking, to lose weight, and to get some exercise, we would be wise to follow this good advice. It is proactive preventive medicine. If we refuse to do what the doctor tells us, we could fall ill with heart disease or cancer. Certainly we would want to prevent heart disease rather than to fight it with operations and drugs after we have fallen ill. Actually, once you have developed a serious illness because you have not treated your body well, there really is no complete cure. You will be disabled (or dead); there is no going back. It is easy to see the wisdom in doing what is necessary to keep from getting seriously ill. Why can’t we follow this same preventive regimen for keeping ourselves from falling prey to stress? Remember that every ailment has a stress component that may also be a cause for the physical disease.

Instead of getting sick (physically or emotionally) it is better to develop a proactive system to keep us well. This would be cheaper in terms of time, effort, and money and it would be more efficacious than treating the malady afterwards. Your body is the entity that does the healing for every disease known to us. The doctors can only assist our body in its task by helping to remove obstacles or replacing lost fluids or giving us sound advice. Therefore, we must understand that our body/mind is the scale upon which we measure our comfort and health. The best thing we can do to help ourselves be healthy and comfortable is to apply preventive measures to try to avoid getting sick. This is why we are wise to eat healthily, to get a moderate amount of proper exercise, and to construct a proactive stress management system. Stress is always the precursor to any disease. When we overload our system with too much stress (even good stress) we put a strain on our ability to maintain our internal equilibrium. Once we allow too much pressure, frustration, or other stressors to overwhelm us, our body breaks down in some area, which leads to disease. At that point our body tries to cure itself but it is already weakened by the stress. Stress is stressful in and of itself. It is like a vicious circle ever compounding to lead to more virulent medical complications. Wouldn’t it make more sense (common or otherwise) to prevent illness rather than to treat it? Of course it would; and the way to start preventing illness is to actively use a proactive stress management system.

Sooner or later most of us will join that burgeoning segment of the population known as seniors, or aged, or aging, or the “old ones”. There are many advantages to joining this group. First, you probably will be retired from full-time work (although every senior I’ve spoken with assures me that they work longer and harder than they did when they had a job), which means that you plan your days around your leisure activities instead of around your weekends. Second, you will probably be financially secure because you have prepared for this time of life during your working years; your house is paid for and you have moved to a region that you have always dreamed about. Third, your obligations toward raising a family have been fulfilled and you now enjoy the occasional visit from “the kids”. Fourth, if you have had a career wherein you added to the wealth of this society in terms of inventions, entertainment, science, discoveries, or societal improvement, you can look back at a society that is better in some way than when you first starting working. Note: the accumulation of money is not an accomplishment of any kind because it benefits only you, not the society. In short, life can get pretty enjoyable when you become a senior.

On the other side of the coin there are a few considerations of which to be aware. When we enter our working years we take on responsibilities for our careers, families, and communities. We become part of the fabric of society. All goes well (reasonably) until we reach the retirement segment of life where we find that we have moved (or have been removed) from a useful, fulfilling life to a position of just existing instead of fully living. The community may have put us out to pasture, or out on the iceberg. All the knowledge and experience that you have accumulated over your life is unwanted by an apathetic culture. Our families and friends may no longer need us because they now have taken over the duties that we used to perform. (It is important to note that I am speaking about the American society that does not care about older people. This society pays homage only to the twelve-year-olds who are irresponsible and who will spend lots of money to make the rich richer. Some others, like the Oriental societies, who revere the old for their wisdom and experience, do not have the worries that plague the elderly in this country.) A senior in America can get to feel useless in a hurry. This condition is a serious blow to the health of the unfortunate older American. Is it any wonder that most of those who can move to other countries so that they can feel more useful or that they can enjoy a more fruitful life? We all want to feel that we are needed for some facet of the society; that we are revered in some way to serve as a testament to a fruitful life. The older a person gets (in America) the more tentative a hold he or she has on life. This is a most serious health threat to the older American.

Physical Diseases Take A Toll

As if the foregoing wasn’t bad enough, the older person also has to deal with failing physical health. All of the pleasant things in life are more difficult to enjoy when our senses start to fail. How can a person enjoy a sunset when his or her vision is mal-affected? Can one enjoy their favorite music when they experience auditory problems? Worst of all, when gustatory and olfactory senses decline we can no longer enjoy eating. Debilitating diseases also ruin life for the older person. Arthritis, gout, rheumatism, hypertension, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, diabetes mellitus, and a host of other medical conditions can make a person very uncomfortable. When we have had a life of relative comfort, a fulfilling career, when we have had well-deserved accolades from significant others, it is doubly difficult to be enthusiastic about getting up in the morning to a feeling of uselessness and discomfort.

All the disease and disrespect that older people have to endure contributes to a high level of stress. As we all know, stress is the overall killer for most people. It is a drain on one’s life energy. It appears that, especially as we age, we need to have a good set of skills to manage stress. It is also wise to formulate and implement a good plan to manage our physical health. For the body’s comfort and well-being we need to eat correctly and to exercise consistently. If we consider our overall health, both physical and psycho-emotional, we will discover the fact that we can enjoy life in spite of how we are treated if our health is good. In short, when you have good health, you have all that is important and necessary to make life meaningful. Everything in life is dependent upon feeling good physically and emotionally.

Promoting Health In The Aging

If we are to survive in our waning years, if we are to enjoy the second half of our lives, we can do no better than to eat correctly for our lifestyle, to moderately exercise in an intelligent manner, and to manage our stress on a here-and-now basis. Believe it or not, the older person needs exactly the same health habits, safety considerations, and feeling of fulfillment as our younger citizens. As we age we need to smoothly transition from our younger years into our retirement years. There is no need to do things differently just because we are getting older. This is good news because it means that all the good habits that we have adopted over a lifetime are still good for us at any age. We will always need to wash our hands before eating, to look both ways before crossing the street, and to maintain an upbeat view of our lives. Otherwise, we will certainly get ourselves into trouble. Our habits worked for us when we were young; they will work for us when we are old.

I know a man of ninety-two years who still cuts his own lawn and he does all his own landscaping. He does minor repairs on his house inside and out, and he still enjoys an opinionated argument on any issue anyone cares to start. He is the picture of health. And why not? He cares about life, his family, and he sees no reason to stop doing what he has been doing all his life. For people like this there is no aging. They feel good or they don’t; age is not a factor.

How To Have A Long And Successful Life

The key to a long and successful life is how well we have prepared for health in our younger, and formative years. If we have nurtured good habits in eating, if we have learned the importance of healthful exercise, and if we have recognized that we have to maintain an arsenal of psycho-emotional tools to keep stress from overtaking us, then we are well prepared. A life of caring about self and others with regard to preserving health, and when it is easy to accomplish, forms excellent habits and tools to serve us well when we get older.

A second key to surviving a long life is one’s attitude toward others. We all belong to our age group. If we are sixty years of age, then most people we know are near in age to us. Some people are so enmeshed in their age group that they can’t relate to other age groups. This is not healthy. When we start to see our friends die off, we start to get a feel for our own demise. We wonder when it will be our time to die. This is negative thinking. It is much better to be able to relate to as many different age groups as possible. If I don’t relate to any one group, then I will not relate to any of their deaths. It has been said that associating with the young keeps a person younger. I believe that this is true at least to some extent. The only problem I see is that of maturity. Young people, by necessity, will not be as mature as someone who has lived longer and who has experienced more of life. This maturity factor then becomes a minor consideration in relating to younger people. Fortunately, because of the myriad traits that make up any given personality, there will always be mutual interests to be found between the generations. Maybe the older person can play basketball very well and so he can find many younger players to relate to at the weekend game at the community center.

Personalities do not have to fit perfectly for the older person to find meaningful friendship with younger people. Embrace the energy that is found in younger people. Older people have this energy too, but many times we forget to utilize this energy because the mirror shows us gray hair and some wrinkles and we mistakenly think that we cannot participate in what is accepted as “young people’s activities”. There is no such thing as age related activities. We are only as old as we feel. Maybe it would be good to throw out that mirror and to mentally picture ourselves as young as we choose. Many older people have attested to the fact that they are able to do anything that younger people can do because they will not put themselves into an age category. This is positive thinking; I highly recommend it.

It is a good thing that life really is easy to navigate. In our early years we are fortunate to learn good health habits and good strategies to manage the many stresses that we will encounter in the years ahead. In the middle years, we work at a career and hopefully do something laudable to enhance the world in which we live. And in our later years we are very fortunate if we can relate to everyone we meet in a favorable way. We preserve our only asset – good health – by employing all of these good habits to the day we say goodbye. The end of a successful life is a serene death preceded by many days surrounded by many friends and family who remind us that we have enhanced their lives in many ways.

In other articles the joy of life has been described as the ultimate goal in living. Reaching a level of integrity, honesty, and education in life, we seek to combine all of our life’s accomplishments so that we can enjoy in full measure. The reason we exist on this planet is to mature as much as possible from cradle to grave. If this is not the task of living then there is no other reason that can be put forth to support the notion that our lives have meaning. There are, however, forces that oppose our journey. Our society, instead of supporting its citizens in attaining joy, actively works against us. It would appear that the society as a whole would rather control and enslave its constituents than encourage and enlighten them. I have heard it said that the Pharaohs have returned – actually, they never left.

Dumbed Down Society

As described elsewhere, the school system in this country has but one function: to brainwash the people so that they can be controlled and led to work to make rich the few who are the controllers. One of the ways the controllers encourage false hope in the masses is to put forth the notion that this is a “free society” where anyone can start at the bottom and work his or her way up to dizzying heights. They can point to several people who have done it; Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln, you know the list. So all of us believe that with hard work and a little luck, we, too, can be one of the captains of industry. The truth? It probably will not happen for the majority of us. But the dream persists, we believe the lie, and we continue to work for the controllers. As there are exceptions to every rule, the exceptions are the few who “make it”. Someone will always slip through the cracks to defy the odds. For the rest of us, the odds are stacked so well against us that we see little if any hope of rising above where we have been put by the “school system”.

In the school system we are taught to read and write and to count from one to ten. Then we are told to seek a job and to stay there for thirty years to receive the rewards of a gold watch and a pension whereby the benevolent controllers will take care of us for the rest of our lives. Who wants to be taken care of for life; certainly not anyone with integrity? They (the school system) provide only enough information to allow us to think that we are being educated, but the truth is that we are only given fragments of information. Fragments only get people into trouble. They mislead the average person so that bad decisions are made throughout life and then, confusion, and disillusionment take over the person’s life. They frequently say, “Is this all there is?” The promises of the school system are shallow and ephemeral at best; at worst they are disillusionments and prevarications. The system is specifically designed to keep the people ignorant while giving them false hopes of grandeur.

The controllers, mainly big business and government, seek to treat the people as cattle to be herded into workstations to manufacture whatever is the product that will ultimately bring riches to the leaders. The key issue is control. There is no freedom where there is control. A good example of the concept is in the Stars Wars movie where Princess Leia tells the general that the more he tries to control the people by closing his fist around them, the more the people will slip through his fingers. Control issues don’t work for controllers if the people refuse to be controlled. This message was well pointed out in the movie. Gandhi proved this concept as well. He told the British that there was no way they could control the Indian population if the population refused to cooperate. He was right.

The Fruit Of Control

When a population allows itself to be controlled by anyone, the results are devastating. If people can never achieve that which they have been led to believe, they lose hope and they become apathetic. First the workplace suffers because this is the arena where the herd has been led. If things remain the same, the workers bring their apathy home to their families. Now the home is destroyed be uncaring people. Next, whatever passion for living that may have existed in the individual family members erodes. Now we have disenchanted, dispassionate people that fit well into the “herd mentality”. We have now come full circle. First the school system has dumbed down its students, then these people move on to the work environment. The work environment disillusions them further, robbing their enthusiasm and passion for living. The plague is visited again upon the home where the next generation is affected. It is easy to see that the young have no chance of escape. They are being bombarded from school, and from their parent’s work area. At the same time the family is being adversely affected by all the advertising through television and other mediums. Our whole society is enmeshed in a cacophony of stimuli where there is no respite. It is no surprise that many people look to suicide as a way out. For most people the only way out is to surrender to the controlling forces; they willingly join the herd and they let themselves be brainwashed into thinking that the controllers are their salvation. They willingly give up their passion for living, their goals, dreams, and desires, and embrace the machine. They live out their lives as pebbles to be trod on by the controllers at their pleasure. When they die, they are already forgotten and replaced by another sheep that has been trained to follow blindly, neither thinking nor capable of questioning what is happening to them. The cycle goes on ad infinitum.

Damage To The Individual

For the individual in such a society as above described, there is no hope, only despair. It is rare that a person can realize what is happening to him or her and actually strike out effectively to retain his or her integrity. It does happen occasionally. We face a grim future when we step out into the real world. This has become a world where no one is revered as a human being, or a person of worth, or is seen as one to be emulated. Instead, we only praise someone who has made tons of money. Why do we think Bill Gates is great? Because he is the richest man in the country, not because of any laudable endeavor he may have undertaken. Why do we think astronauts are great? Actually we don’t think that astronauts are great, we relegate them as proof that man can go to the moon, not that the individual pilots did a great job. Do you remember the three astronauts who went to the moon? What were their names? Who was the first to step on the moon’s surface? Who was the second? Who was the first person to climb to the summit of the world’s highest mountain? What is the name of that mountain and in what country do we find it? Right, I don’t know some of the answers either. You see that we don’t appreciate a person’s talent or accomplishments, we only see that a job was done, that huge amounts of money were accumulated, or that the tallest mountains were conquered. We are taught that a person is nothing; he or she is not worthy of note; that a person’s life does not matter in the grand scheme of things.

Take Note Of The Notable

To find joy in our lives we must find our own worth and then we must not let anyone take it away from us. People matter, nothing else can take the place of an individual’s integrity. We cannot let our individual identity be erased by technology, or control freaks, or governments. Joy comes only from within, we create it by recognizing the good inside of us, by nurturing it, and seeking it out in other individuals.

On a societal level we can recognize the achievements of real people who have trail blazed for the rest of us. There can only be one “first to the North pole”. All the rest of us would have to revere the first person to undertake the journey. He or she took the initiative; it is up to the rest of us to grant accolades for the individual achievement. As we would remember Abraham Lincoln, so should we also remember important individuals who have paved the way, or invented things that have made life easier.

The joy of life depends upon the fact that we see ourselves as noteworthy. Without recognizing the individual’s effort there is no achievement. No matter how technical we get, no matter how big or complicated our machines are, no matter how powerful our country is, everything depends solely upon the individual effort of someone who believed in his or her own ability to get the job done in spite of the control freaks who would rob that individual of his or her just deserts.

The term, Healthcare, is one of the most misused expressions in our society. In reality, we in America don’t have a healthcare system; we have a sick care system. If we had a healthcare system then people would be healthy and the system would keep them so; what we do have is a system that does not activate until the person becomes sick, then it tries to overcome the condition after the person is suffering with disease. There is evidence that in China, if you get sick, your doctor does not get paid until you are well. It is his job to keep you healthy. If he fails to do this, then he does not deserve to get paid. That’s what I would say is healthcare. Look at the word: health care; we care about your health. In America, no one cares about health. It is simply a buzzword, a fad used to make money for the drug companies, fast food restaurants, and Jane Fonda.

There is a neat little story that is based upon a poem that shows clearly the stupidity in our nation’s thinking – or lack of thinking. There was a town in the mountains that had a long, winding road running up and down the slopes. On one very sharp turn, on the side of a hill, there were many accidents where people had misjudged the turn and ended up driving off the side of the hill to crash at the bottom of the ravine. Many, if not all, of them were killed in the accidents. The town’s people wanted to do something to prevent these deaths. There were two options proposed. The first proposal was to build a guardrail around the sharp turn to prevent cars from driving into the ravine if the driver lost control of his car. The guardrail would keep the vehicle on the road and circumvent a tragedy. The second proposal was to not put up a guardrail but instead to provide an ambulance to be stationed at the bottom of the ravine so that when a car would fall, the ambulance would already be on site to carry the unfortunate victim to the hospital. Logically, the first proposal is the only option; it is borne of common sense. Why would we want to have the car crash, hurt or kill the driver, and then clean up the mess? The damage is already done. But the town’s people voted and they purchased an ambulance instead of a guardrail. This story perfectly illustrates the perverted thinking in America. We purposefully cause illness through bad eating habits, lack of exercise, and increased stress in every aspect of our daily lives. And we think that is okay because we have provided hospitals and clinics to fix us when we fall ill. Stupid.

What is Healthcare?

If we were to construct a healthcare system, what would we include? What form would it take? First we would have to care about our individual well-being. There would have to be awareness that healthy is better than sickly. We would need to desire health and to understand that it is up to the individual to provide his or her own level of happiness. For this to be understood we need to be educated by personal thinking and experience. For example, if I have a stomachache I ought to figure out why I have this discomfort, reason out a cure, and then pursue the cure to stop the discomfort. Remembering the incident will prevent the same discomfort in the future. That is education. It is based on common sense and logic. The course is simple, direct, and intelligent.

The Basic Elements

Further education needs to come in the form of learning about the three major factors in maintaining health. These are (1) nutrition, (2) exercise, and (3) stress management. The more we know about these areas, the higher will be our level of health. We need to add some insurance to our proposed healthcare system. Suppose that we have done everything in our power to stay healthy and, in spite of that, we are visited by some disease or accident that renders us unhealthy. There are trained people, called doctors, who specialize in treating disease and physical trauma. These specialists (I’m assuming that we are talking about general practitioners) can provide additional care because these people have taken education that allows them to carry on past the individual’s abilities. We need to find talented medical people so that, when necessary, we can avail ourselves of their services. It is much like taking care of your car. An intelligent person learns as much as possible about his or her vehicle to maintain it in good running order, but there are times when the engine needs the special talents of the mechanic. In constructing our own healthcare, we would learn as much as possible about our body and how it works and then we intelligently and intentionally take care of it. Why would anyone want to abuse their most important asset (themselves) and then go to some uncaring company, spend lots of money, and probably die? The answer, of course, is that no intelligent, sane person would neglect the health of his or her body, mind, or spirit. Personal neglect would signal a sick mind in an unintelligent person.

One of the most overlooked situations in our daily living is safety. This means that we will look both ways before crossing the street, we will be aware that kitchen knives need to be handled carefully, we will read the ingredients on food and drug items that we get from the supermarket, you know, all the things that good parents instruct children to do. And we will be aware that it is our responsibility to treat with care our fellow citizens. Make sure we are sensitive to the feelings of others because we don’t know what burden they might bear. Safety entails many elements of our day. We need to be constantly vigilant.

In Review

To construct our personal healthcare system, we need the following: Awareness, understanding, the basic elements of nutrition, exercise, and stress management, and a backup system comprised of doctors, nurses, and other providers when we, after our own best efforts have been exhausted, are in need of additional care. And we need to be safe in all things and in all situations.

Once we have undertaken the task of personal healthcare, then we need to encourage our fellow citizens to do the same for themselves. By gathering together to learn more about health we multiply our own knowledge and we are able to make good decisions about community healthcare – like choosing a guardrail to prevent accidents rather than providing an ambulance after the person becomes a victim. Our aim is preventive healthcare.

Preventive Healthcare

When we as a community have accomplished a healthcare system, it would be wise to embellish it. No intelligent person wants to be sick and so we would build into our system a way of preventing sickness from intruding into our lives – as much as is humanly possible. Education is the key. Remember that education is attained when we combine experience with instruction. Schooling is little more than brainwashing; it leads to misinformation that in turn causes most of us to make bad decisions. We are told to exercise but we have only been exposed to television trash and gimmicky misguidance. We want “the easy way”. There is no easy way. We can only go forward by doing things the “right way”.

There are millions of different foods in the supermarkets. We are told to eat certain foods because we like them, or that your finicky children won’t eat something, so here’s another item that they will eat – coated with sugar, no doubt. We are told to consume lots of protein, especially red meat. Does anyone wonder why Americans have more heart disease than poorer countries? Red meat is a major contributor to death by heart disease, stroke, and cancer. We eat this unhealthy way because we have been brainwashed into thinking that we need copious amounts of sugar and red meat. When educated, intelligent people learn of the facts, they limit the amounts of these substances. But the marketing lies are persistent. For preventive maintenance of a healthcare system we would want to eliminate the advertising of harmful substances and to educate the public against the deliberate attempts by big companies (and the government) to make the population sick. Remember that big companies are in business only to make money (at your expense) and that government is only interested in gaining neurotic control over every aspect of your life. No one cares about you, except you – if you are a thinking, intelligent person.

Stress, as everyone should by now be aware, is ubiquitous. Stress is involved in some way with every ailment of mankind. There is no malady without a stress component. In our healthcare system there has to be a stress management component. By keeping stress in control in our daily lives we give ourselves the best foundation upon which to build health. When we are unstressed we can think clearly, we can make good decisions, and we can conduct our lives so that our actions lead to maximum health.

The time to start on a personal healthcare system is right now. Question every bite of food that you eat, ask yourself what exercise you will do today, and stay alert to every stressor that crosses your path 24/7/365. Why waste a minute of your precious time feeling ill? Do something to increase your health today.

In the continuing search for a good definition of health we might consider looking at the condition from a negative direction. Essentially, what isn’t good health? Normally when we speak of the healthy condition we observe a tranquil, radiant, well functioning person. We say she is healthy. Sometimes, the outer look of a person can be deceiving. Under that radiant smile can lurk all manner of diseases and discomfort. Who can detect cancer, heart disease, arthritis, or diabetes just by looking at someone’s smiling face? In fact, the person in question may not realize that she has anything wrong inside. Most people do not recognize symptoms of serious ailments when they are present. And they can suffer for many years without knowing that anything is wrong until the body is finally broken down, when it may be too late to regain health.

Why Don’t We Care About Our Health?

Basically, we are taught to ignore our health. We have been brainwashed since childhood that someone else will intervene to keep us feeling good. There is very little good advice to which we have been exposed to properly instruct us in the importance of maintaining a healthy condition. Clever advertising has been developed over many years to subvert our good sense and logical thinking. We are told (on the surface) to eat right and to exercise, to see the doctor for checkups, to take vitamins, and to not worry. Sounds good, but imbedded in this advice is the message that you don’t have to actually perform anything yourself. Nowhere are you told that you must actually take charge of your own life, to select the right foods for yourself, to get off your butt and sweat while doing real exercise instead of the phony, packaged nonsense that is sold on the television. This double message brainwashing confuses most people who may not be serious in tending to their own healthcare.

Societal Infantilization

As a society we are told to leave all responsibility to others; that we are not required to do anything for ourselves. In truth, there is no such thing. No one, no agency is going to make you eat correctly, or make you go to the gym, or force you to go to the doctor for a check-up. Still the lies persist. The advertisers and government are responsible. We are led this unhealthy way so that doctors and drug companies can make lots of money. If the people were taking care of themselves there would be very little use for pills and unnecessary procedures. One example is cosmetic surgery, or elective surgery, where there is no advantage in gaining health, but only in feeding one’s vanity. So prevalent is the problem that the most successful (meaning the most profitable) hospitals are the ones that house an area that specializes in elective surgery. In seems that we are more interested in the shape of our nose, or how big our breasts are, than in the condition of our overall health. We will spend thousands of dollars on useless medical procedures but nothing on a pair of walking shoes.

It’s What’s Up Front That Counts

Why don’t we care about our health? We are apathetic. We have been schooled since the beginning to not care. For example, when I was in the Boy Scouts many years ago, I was taught about first aid and general health. The book that we used was very thick and loaded with information on the body. We learned by classroom instruction and practical application. We could do everything from putting on a band-aid to immobilizing a broken bone and even minor surgery. We could rescue people from a lake and perform artificial respiration, treat for shock, pull people from burning buildings or car wrecks, and we understood what, and why, we were doing these things. There was even a case where we set a dislocated bone in the wilderness because there wasn’t any way to get the person out. Today, there is no such instruction. Everyone is taught only one thing: call 911. We are told that our efforts, such as CPR, have only a two-percent chance of saving the victim. There is no instruction given in understanding anything do to with health, only that we must be concerned with being sued. We are shown several procedures to help a victim but we are advised not to perform them lest the victim take advantage of us. Why do they call us “Health Providers” when all we are allowed to do is dial 911?

There is more emphasis put on “looking good”, meaning that we stopped to help someone, or maybe called 911, than in helping a victim who cannot wait for the EMT. I learned from a friend of mine, many years ago, that if you stop to help someone in dire need of attention, to never give your name or other identifying information for fear of getting sued. Thus we have learned that our efforts, knowledge, experience, and good intentions are not appreciated by an apathetic society. When in such a hostile culture, why would anyone want to put him or herself in jeopardy?

As an example of lack of health I would point out that apathy, and the misinformation and lies that promoted it, are both the reason for and the substance. In order to have a healthy condition for an individual, or a society, one must start by caring to promote and maintain health. We don’t care about such matters because of a lack of education and a bad example set by our caretakers (teachers, leaders, parents, and others).

What Can We Do?

First, health must be understood for what it is, the only acceptable condition for the person to be able to enjoy life. Education, not schooling, would demonstrate to the individual the value of taking care of one’s self. Then, having experienced care taking, one can administer to one’s fellow citizens. There ought to be only praise for someone helping his fellow traveler. The Good Samaritan law states that a person administering to someone in need cannot be held liable. Unfortunately the lowest level of scum in our society – lawyers – has ruined this law so that even it can’t protect a person.

Next, everyone ought to be made aware that good health is the only treasure that we have on Earth. If you have your health, you’ve got everything. If you don’t have good health, all your worldly possessions will not another minute buy. Putting good health at the top of our priority list is essential; what else could possibly take first place?

Making New Year’s resolutions usually includes “getting in shape”. And when one seeks to improve their health they think that they have to go to some sort of a gym and to work out with weights. They aren’t wrong. Weight lifting is a time tested, efficient way of gaining muscle and losing some fat.

When we lift weights we improve many things in our bodies. Gaining muscle tone is, obviously, the most well known of the benefits. Less well known are benefits such as lowering blood pressure, increasing HDL cholesterol, promotion of restful sleep, increasing flexibility, reduction of stress, and greater strength. Pumping iron is not just for “muscle heads”. We do, however, want to lift weights properly. If we have improper technique then we can injure the body and have a bad experience. Many people who are not experienced in weight lifting think that huge weights have to be hoisted to the ceiling. They feel that “more is better”. They are wrong. To stimulate a muscle to grow we need to abide by three simple rules: (1) stimulate the muscle with a proper workload, (2) give the body the proper nutrients (food) to build muscle, and (3) afford proper rest (and sleep) so that the muscle can rebuild itself. Without these three essential steps, your body cannot become healthier.

Proper stimulation of muscle tissue involves making the muscle work against a little more resistance each time you work out. This is called progressive weight training. Yes, this is how Arnold did it. And don’t be fooled by most of the models on TV (who have wonderful bodies) when they tell you that the latest fad (usually some trivial piece of plastic) has produced the magnificent muscles that you are looking at. They had to build those muscles by pumping iron.

How to do it…

Basically, you need to find out how strong your muscle is when you start to exercise. Maybe your biceps muscle can properly curl twenty pounds. This is very light but you must start where you are – not where someone else is in his or her level of training. So you start by lifting twenty pounds. Your goal is now twenty-five pounds. You keep working towards your goal weight until you can properly curl twenty-five pounds. Then your goal becomes thirty pounds, and so on. Each increment may take one (or two) weeks to accomplish. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your muscles won’t be either. We must be careful not to overtax the muscle too soon. Some people try to go too fast by lifting more than their muscles can accommodate. The result is over-training, a condition that leads to the muscle not achieving its full potential. Both strength and hypertrophy are forfeit. Slow and patient, with proper technique, and a sensible plan, are the magic steps to goal attainment.

When a muscle is forced to lift a little more than it can lift, the muscle fibers “tear down”; they become damaged. The body then repairs the damage if it has the right building blocks and if there is enough time for rest and sleep. An example: Let’s say that a house has been destroyed by a tornado; it is ruined. We want to build it up again so we gather the building materials. But, we want to build the house stronger this time so we purchase more wood and fastenings that are heftier and solid. Then we start the building process. Of course, it takes time to rebuild the house. It could take several months, or years, depending upon how big and extra strong we want to make it. It is the same with building a body. When the muscle is overwhelmed by lifting a weight that it cannot lift well, it becomes torn down; it needs repair. We gather the building materials, in this case we need slightly more protein and lots more carbohydrates, and then we need time for the body to utilize these building materials. It may take months, or years, depending upon how big and strong we want the muscle to grow in size. Yes, Arnold took many years to build his body to perfection. It is important to mention that the famous bodybuilders use massive amounts of supplements in their training routines. This procedure is not recommended for the person who desires better health and longevity. Supplements are ephemeral; they are for specific goal attainments that should only be of interest to top athletes. For the average person, like you and me, proper nutrition is the right approach. Supplements are contraindicated. Also, protein, which has been touted as the magic ingredient in building our bodies, is not needed in huge amounts. Once again, the correct amount for your body size is the right amount for muscle repair and growth.

Eating For Your Workouts.

Remember that the amount of food that you need depends upon your body size. When Arnold was building his body he ate a tremendous amount of food, took massive amounts of supplements, and lived a life that few of us could imagine. But what if you are small boned and five feet tall? If you ate like Arnold did, then you would gain fat, not muscle. Remember that if you overeat, your body can only use a certain amount of that food, all the rest it will convert to fat. What we need to do is to determine how much food you need to sustain yourself and then eat only that amount. This will stabilize your weight and fat levels. If you work out several times a week with heavy weights and cardiovascular activities, then you need more carbohydrates because these give you the energy to go through the workouts, they supply the energy to lift the weights. You could increase your protein intake a little if your muscles refuse to grow normally. For the body builder, you should take in about one gram of protein for each kilogram of body weight. Another way of deciding how much protein to eat is to match the size of your palm (including thickness) with the total amount of protein you will intake per day. The smaller person will, therefore, be consuming less protein than the larger person, but each of the people will be consuming the right amount of protein for his or her size body. Also, remember to consume only quality protein, like lean beef, poultry, or deep-water fish. If you try to get your protein from greasy hamburgers, you will take in too much low-quality protein and too much fat.

Your carbohydrate intake should be vegetables with a low glycemic index. (Glycemic index refers to a food’s ability to turn into sugar during digestion. Sugar is bad for building a healthy body.) That is, you want complex carbohydrates, like whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, or potatoes. Forget the bread and pastries. (Note: you may want to pick up a copy of the book, SugarBusters. It has a good list of foods and their glycemic indices.)

Time For A Nap?

Now that you have an idea of the building blocks for the body, now you must give the body the time it needs to repair and build the muscles. Everyone is different when it comes to the amount of sleep that they need. But everyone ought to aim for six-to-eight hours of sleep per night. Naps are great at any time of day. If you feel the need of a short nap, by all means, take it. Our body has many needs for sleep and rest and not all of them are apparent to the average person.

We must be sure to not overwork a muscle before it is repaired. For this reason, proper weight lifting technique requires that a muscle not be worked more than once a week. If you are lifting heavy weight, really tearing down the muscle on a Monday, for example, then let that muscle rest until next Monday before working it hard again.

Pumping heavy weights to increase health is easy if you abide by the basics. First, lift only a little more than your muscle can lift properly, always increase the weight slightly over a period of weeks. This is called progressive weight training. Second, be sure that your dietary provides the right amounts of protein (not too much) and plenty of complex carbohydrates so that your body can have the material to build up the muscle and the energy to workout. Third, provide enough rest and sleep to allow the body to repair itself and to grow stronger.