Health (mind+body)= happiness!

After reading a series of posts about “who is happy in DR”, I have come to the conclusion that many people really equate happiness with wealth, women, freedom and problem-free beach life. However, no one has mentioned anything regarding health. happiness maybe found among the things mentioned above but I can assure you that no one, and I mean no one will enjoy their freedom, wealth etc without good health. We take good health for granted but many don't seem to realize that while you are enjoy the great care-free life in DR, you are slowly becoming old and gradually losing our health; some faster than others.
can you be happy if you suffer from chronic arthritic pain or constant constipation, weak bladder or worse, if you suffer from some sort of cancerous disorder? There are diseases without treatment or cure, no matter what amount of money you are prepared to spend.
So lets talk about health for a change as opposed to the regular stuff that we read here.
The best cure for any disease is to avoid it. So prevention is just as important as treatment.
Ex: cancer, diabetes , high blood pressure, gastritis, arthritis and etc do not just appear out of the blue one day and attack your body; in fact, you would have to work on it for many years to actually receive this sort of an illness.
So how do we get ill?
Ex: many people in Dom. Rep are suffering from kidney diseases and diabetes.
Apart from genetic and hereditary disorders, many people simply abuse their health. I see, very few people actually drink water. Instead, we drink sodas, Jugo natural (so called: natural juice)à full of sugar so in effect, same as soda. Everyone drinks beer. Ask yourself, how many glasses of water do you drink a day? many people very proudly tell me that they never drink water and actually believe that drinking juice is more healthier than natural water. So let me clarify this myth. Drinking Juices are not healthier than drinking water. Here is the digestive mechanism involved: when we eat fruits, we consume juice and the fiber we ate at the same time. When fruit is digested inside the body, the sweet juice is slowly extracted from the fiber of the fruit and the pancreas (organ to metabolize the sugar) slowly and at a natural rate produces insulin to metabolize the sugar. But when we drink a pure juice or worse, sugar added juices then there is no fiber present as in a natural fruit thus, as a result, whole sugar quickly floods in your blood stream, resulting in overworking of the pancreas to metabolize the excessive amount of sugar. The pancreas works day and night to metabolize the excess amount of sugar for many years until (like an overworked car engine) it begins to break down; now after a medical check-up, your doctor will inform you that you are suffering from diabetes. Funny, how the diabetes was not present when you had your last checkup 6 months ago. Does that mean, you got diabetes within 6 months? The answer is no, you were working on it since your childhood. Diabetes attacks your kidneys as well and vision, not to mention digestive problems. My grandfather died from diabetes… a painful and slow death.
So if you drink sodas, juices, beer and other sugary substances, you are looking for trouble; in addition to your pancreas your kidneys will also work over time and later you will destroy them as well.
Solution? Drink about 6-10 glasses of pure water everyday. This will clean your system and insure a proper working mechanism of your kidneys and of your digestive system. Health experts believe that 6-10 glasses of water (daily) will cure about 90% of your future illnesses.
The secret to living a long and a healthy life.
There was a study done on people who lived to be more than 100 years without suffering from any major diseases..
Here were the findings.
Not one of them was a serious athlete.
Many smoked and drank alcohol.
Many didn’t even eat healthy.
So what was the secret for living a long life? What was one thing that they all had in common?
Answer: They were all skinny. All ate very little. Not one single one was a big fan of eating food.
So what does that imply? What does that translate into?
Here is what it means.
Lets start from this saying: “Oh, thanks… no more please… I am full… can’t eat another bean…”
How sad; we eat until we can’t eat anymore.
When we wake up, we eat a breakfast (American breakfast : eggs, toast, butter, coffee, potatoes etc), lunch, we eat another full meal and finally we top it all off with a big dinner and then we go to sleep. So the digestive system was working all day long to digest the food that we had consumed and then when its time to sleep and rest, the stomach is still working until the morning and the we start the same cycle again.
In conclusion, the stomach never gets a day off nor gets a good night of sleep. Always working and trying to keep up with your daily intake.
Finally, the stomach will break down like a taxi cab’s engine which has accumulated more than 100 thousand miles on the rough roads. That’s when you will get cancer, gastritis, diabetes, skin diseases, heart illnesses and god knows what else. Thats why you see an overweight person suddenly gets an heart attack at the age of 40 and dies right in front of you.
Solution? Eat less. Give your stomach a break,; fast a few days. Skip dinners and eat fruits and salads for a change. I once fasted for 3 days and I never felt better in my whole life; not to mention, I experienced a whole new level of energy within my body. Exercise and take long walks in the mornings on the beach or swim in the ocean.
If these suggestions are too arduous to uphold then do this: eat healthy and skip heavy dinners, drink 6-10 glass of water during the week but on the weekend, do whatever you do normally.
You will see the difference over time.
Remember, true happiness comes also from good health (mind & body).
Have a nice day.

They say that hunger heightens the senses. May be true.

And wow, how funny Joachim. I am more than happy to take the 5 minutes to re-inforce what is a great lesson, sadly forgotten. You know-of course-why it is called DIS-EASE. So, AZB, what do you think about Yoga?

Have you ever checked out hacres.com? There are a lot of people who claim that eating only raw fresh fruit and vegetables.

To all of you folks who want to improve your health, whether you live in DR or not.
Christy: your question regarding yoga is a good question. Yes, I recommend Yoga, tai chi or any other exercise which helps you relax. I recommend that everyone should engage in some sort of an exercise program, but all the exercises should be done within their limits.
Take coordinated long walks but walk fast with a healthy rhythm. Yes, walking is preferred over running. You can obtain same results from walking fast in a coordinated fashion as you would get from running. I only worry that some people just make a religion out of any one kind of activity, ex: some people claim to run 5 miles a day and do it on regular bases for many years. My advise: be aware of the consequences. Your joints in the body do have the capacity to rejuvenate but they can only take so much abuse. I have seen many people in my clinic who are now suffering from arthritic disorders in their main axial joint areas (knees, ankles, hip joints). Walks should be performed in early morning or in late afternoon when the sun is not so sadistic. People in pto pta should walk on the beach or on the melecon. In Santiago, you can walk with groups in PUCMM university where security is provided during all hours of the day, even at late evenings. People do walk at the monument but I never see any serious security presence at anytime of the day.
Swimming is also a very healthy exercise; it works your whole muscles of the body and yet relaxes you mentally.
About eating healthy:
I am not a nutritional expert but I do have my beliefs.
I recommend that one should not practice a diet of the extremes. Ex: you have people who eat nothing but junk food and then you also have the other extreme who only eat raw fruits and vegetables.
We should learn from the Orientals. For ex. The Chinese diet is very healthy; they eat a good balance of vegetables with some shreds of meat. Please do note that the Chinese food which is sold to us is not the same food that the Chinese feed their own families. It was a food that was modified for the west, to suit their taste buds. But the Chinese do have great diet and one should take some notes from their cook books. We all must eat lots of fresh salads; green leafy vegetables (romaine lettuce and spinach leaves); the green leafy salads have all the iron and calcium that you need. The raw fruits and vegetables go through your digestive system in within 30 mins, thus your digestive system can rest.
Do eat some meat as well. I recommend more white meat and less on the red meat. But eat a little of everything. The controversy regarding the meat processing and the raising of the animals in the meat industry (injected with growth hormones and antibiotics) is a whole new topic to discuss.
White bread and white rice has absolutely no nutritional value what-so-ever. They are stripped off their nutritional value but yet on the package it say “enriched rice or enriched white flour”. What it means is something like this: I take away all of your money…now you are poor…. Now I give you back a penny…uh-ha…. Now you have been enriched. Eat whole-wheat bread and try to eat brown rice.
Stay away from the carton milk that is sold in the supermarket. That milk is not natural anymore. Look up in the internet on dangers of homogenization and pasteurization. I bet, very few people know what these words mean. Put it like this, these two processes make the already poor quality milk more un-natural. The milk coming from the campos (country-side) is far more healthier and natural to consume than the milk we now get in the supermarkets of the developed countries (including DR). This is also a huge topic to discuss so I will explain all that later.
When you feel a bit un-well, please don’t just jump to the conclusion that you need medication to cure or curb your illness. People don’t seem to take in the account of the side effects or the long term affects of the medication. Ok, before you all attack me to death regarding the importance of medication, let me explain this: I have nothing against with the use of medication as long as it is used when necessary. However, I am totally against the misuse or the abuse of drugs.
Did you know that anti-inflammatory medications can punch holes in your stomach? Yes, they cause ulcers and destroy the linings of your stomach. Aspirin does the same. So if you women suffer from migraine headaches and pop a pill on regular bases, then be prepared for the stomach disorders in a few years (3-5 yrs). Yes, you would still have the headaches and now ulcer as well.
Yes, yes, I know, people say, “aspirin helps the heart condition”. Yes it does if you have a heart condition but a healthy person should not take aspirin, thinking that he/she is helping their heart beat better.
This is another reason why so many women suffer from osteoporosis (thinning of the bones, they become so brittle that they can break from a simple fall or an accident). When the stomach becomes weak and destroyed from the use of aspirins or other anti-inflammatory medication that your body is unable to metabolize the calcium and other important minerals from your food intake. So in result your body will extract calcium from your bones to compensate for the lack of calcium in your system Thus, the bones begin to lose their density and become brittle. So what do we do to recover the calcium? We drink milk and take horse-pills of calcium. What is happening now is this: the calcium is not being absorbed by the stomach and the instead the calcium is settling in other parts of your body but most is just leaving your system without doing any benefit to your condition. So now the problem is not having insufficient amount of calcium but the lack of absorption of it by your digestive system. So all the calcium that you eat in the form of pills can very well make a kidney stone for you as its also made of calcium oxcillate.
So it proves that a little information can be proved dangerous for you.
My advise is the leave your body alone and do not saturate it with drugs and medication when you experience a little fever or a simple sneeze.
A drug-free body is more stronger from the inside and thus, enables you to fight illness at a faster rate.
When I get flu I simply sleep 12 hours straight and drink a lot of liquids (also let myself sweat). I usually recover in 1 to 1 and a half day max. Just notice, the people who take medications on regular bases are the first ones to get sick when there is a flue strain in the area.
Lets not forget, its not the bacteria or the virus that makes you sick, but instead, its your lack of resistance to fight off the virus. If virus is what makes you sick than why is it that 4 out of 8 people are sick with flu in an office but the other 4 are completely unaffected? The reason is simple, they have a stronger immune system than the others.
Fever is good for you and it’s a natural defense mechanism to fight the virus (infection). The body heats up the blood to make the environment hostile for the virus to grow. After a while the virus dies and we recover. So tell me this, why do we take medication to control the fever?
Oh wait, if you don’t control the fever, you might die…. Right and wrong. 98% of fevers stay at 99 – 100 degrees F and stay there. If you become a little too hot the take a cold shower and it will come down again. Of course, in extreme cases do consult your doctor but please don’t just jump to conclusions that you will die if your fever doesn’t come down to normal VALUE soon. In 7 years I have taken medication maybe 3 times (only in extreme infection cases) and I have managed to survive without any problems. In fact, I am more healthier now than most people that I know who take medication very seriously.
Take time out to get some sunshine. Most people in larger cities don’t have this luxury as they come into office early in the morning and leave at late evening. They hardly ever get any natural sunshine. Sunshine is very important for us; it makes vitamin D in the body and performs other sorts of miracles as well. The sun gives life to the earth so we must take some sunshine whenever we can. There have been cases when people have been able to fight off deadly diseases (ex: cancer, arthritis etc) just from getting enough sunshine everyday. Just imagine you work in Manhattan (NYC) for 30 years in an office with the florescent light bulbs above your head. Never get enough sunshine and deprive your body of seasonal changes (air-conditioning in summer and heating in the winter). What do you think will happen to you when you pass 30 years doing this to your body?
So once again, the key to a healthy lifestyle is moderation. Eat well and a balanced diet. Don’t over kill yourself with exercises, take long walks with your friends or your love-ones, enjoy the nature and drink lots of water, get plenty of sunshine, look far far out at the horizon of the sea to exercise your eyes and most of all, start committing yourself into doing this from today.
Have a nice day.

I believe in everything you said. No complicated scientific facts and figures, just plain good ol' common sense (which is the most uncommon of them all). You are what you do to your body. If you abuse it for years it will come back to haunt you.

To tell you the truth there is little anyone could add to your post, very thorough and complete.

Pib

Besides the diet and exercise info (which were fantastic), the complete package includes developing your creative or spiritual side, however you decide to do this. Where can you get brown rice in the DR?

It seems this board and the bravenet board get swamped with negitivity to the point that you no longer want to read them. I thank you AZB for some up-lifting comments.