There are three pillars of good health. The first two are well known; the third is not quite. They are – Nutrition, Exercise & Sleep
Before I delve into each of these, a quick couple of points:
- They are not independent forces, which do their work independently. They are interlinked and the goodness of one aspect feeds into the goodness of others.
- They are equally important. You can’t shortchange one for the other. An imbalance in these nullifies the goodness. You can’t be 1/3rd or 2/3rd healthy. You have to give heed to all three. Those who don’t do so, suffer from an imbalance which is visible to the discerning eye.
Before, we get into what, let’s first look at the why…
Why are these the fundamental pillars of good health?To know the answer, we need to time travel thousands of years back, if not lakhs! In the Caveman’s life! Genetically & evolutionary speaking, whatever we are today, the basic structure was designed way back then. Our physiological systems were designed to cope with the lifestyle (we”ll return to this again, in the end) of the Caveman. Or rather, those who could cope with the lifestyle requirements then, survived and carried the gene pool forward; the rest perished.
The next obvious question is..what was the lifestyle of the Caveman? There were a few salient features of his lifestyle:
- He used to stand & walk most of the time. Sitting must have been in the squat position or on the ground. (Oops, no chair!)
- He used to run, sprint, jump, lift, carry weight, climb. (Oops, no machines!)
- He was used to long stretches of hunger. Once hungry, he, along with his comrades, used to hunt. Fail most of the time, succeed sometimes. He used to feast, post the successful hunt. (Oops, no fridge!) So, the typical feeding cycle was:
- He followed the Circadian Rhythm (Oops, no Netflix!)
- He had long periods of Rest & Digest regime (rest, calm and frolic) interspersed with brief moments of Fight or Flight regime (excitement, terror or action).
As I said earlier, the physiology and evolution went hand in hand, affecting each other in a feedback loop. Out physiology got built for variation:
Cut to today..we live with a contrasting lifestyle.
- We sit most of the time in a very “unnatural” position on a chair. We hardly stand & walk.
- Leave aside, other more demanding physical activities like sprinting, jumping etc. How many people, above 45 years of age can jump from a static position onto a 2 feet raised platform with both legs going up together.
- We eat all kinds of junk, all the time.
- With technology (electricity, TV, Netflix), we have departed from the Circadian Rhythm
This has caused a big dissonance between our evolution tempered physiology and the lifestyle. To our physiology, we are still the same Caveman. It is not aware that over the course of centuries, we have transmuted from Caveman to Couchman!
This dissonance causes, what is collectively & aptly called, “Lifestyle Diseases”. This includes obesity, Cardiovascular diseases like High Blood Pressure & heart ailments, Diabetes, Cancer etc
While, the modern lifestyle makes us weak and feeble, the medical science doesn’t let us die. The result – we drag our way to the grave. We exist, we don’t live!
Now that we know why, let’s cut the chase and get to the point…
Moot Point: How do we ensure good health & long “quality life”?
Answer: Three Pillars of Good Health.
As you go through these three simple solutions, please note that the objective of these solutions is simply to give the Caveman inside us a simulation of the old times. The Caveman inside should feel at home. For any confusion regarding any of these three pillars, simply ask the Caveman for his advice!
Pillar 1: Nutrition
Nutrition is the process of providing the necessary nutrients essential for maintenance of life and growth. But, before we get into what to eat, some philosophy!
The easiest way to improve an average is by removing the lowest items:
“Avoiding stupidity is often easier than seeking brilliance.” This applies not just to wisdom, but also to nutrition, amongst many other domains. The best way to improve your average nutrition is by the elimination of non-nutritious food, or as colloquially called, junk food. Junk food is basically anything that we eat, but doesn’t deserve to be eaten. They are empty calories – devoid of any nutrients. They include ultra processed stuff (not calling it food!) including:
- Sugar
- Cooking Oils
- Packaged Stuff like biscuits, cookies, toast, ice creams, instant noodles, chips etc
- Soft drinks
Ok, forget the bullet points. I give you a simple hack…
When it comes to food, most of what God has made is good, most of what man has made, especially after the Industrial Revolution, is bad for our health.
We own a petrol car, we ensure we fill the tank with petrol. We never put Kerosene in it, do we?
Yet, when it comes to our own bodies, our most precious possessions, we happily stuff anything & everything!
So, that was the most important lesson in Nutrition.
Avoid Junk. Eat wholesome food, in as close to its natural state as possible. Religious sentiments aside, it is not vegetarian vs non vegetarian, or proteins & fats vs carbs. It is wholesome vs processed.
Fasting:
Refer back to the Cavemen’s feeding cycle. There were long periods of eating nothing. It was only when they felt hunger, they would look to hunt, fail a few times, eventually succeed. Then, they would feast like there’s no tomorrow. Repeat.
Compare that to the Couchman’s regime. He has a well furnished fridge. At home, in the office, in the mall, food is omnipresent. But, his physiology is old generation – still stuck in old times. His physiology is designed to hog food, convert it into fat and store it for a rainy day. Imagine, what will happen if the system is fed continuously…and that too empty calories! We face consequences like visceral fat, fatty liver etc.
Solution is simple, but not easy. It is simple because it does not need any sophisticated stuff. It is not easy, because it needs discipline & endless repetition. Fasting is the answer. The best and easiest way to simulate a Caveman’s style feeding cycle is – Intermittent Fasting. This is not a fad. This is the oldest and the longest form of feeding cycle that is known to man. Here’s what I do & recommend.
Cut down your eating window. Follow a 16-8 (16 hours fasting-8 hours eating), 14-10, or 12-12 system. There is a bouquet of the benefits of fasting; and they materialise at different levels of fasting. So, through trial and error, find what pattern suits you the most. Here’s the easiest and most popular way to execute this.
Finish your dinner by 8pm, or at least two hours before sleeping (We”ll cover why in the section of sleep). Skip your breakfast next morning. And have your first meal whenever you’re hungry, say by 11.00 AM. I do not even take water for most of this period.
This is the easiest way to stay hungry. Basically, all you have to do is to not eat a few hours on both sides of sleep…that’s it!
You do this daily. Simple, feast in the eating window, and fast in the, well, fasting window!
One Caveat – In my humble opinion, too long a fast is starvation. Starvation eats away not just visceral fat, but also muscles. You need to find an optimum duration of fasting through trial & error.
Some of you may find it surprising that in the section of Nutrition, I have only written about what not to eat and when not to eat. There is hardly anything on what to eat. This is where, to my mind, we complicate matters. Our traditional foods systems have built in a balanced dose of all necessary nutrients – Proteins, Fats, Carbs, Vitamins & Minerals. We unnecessarily complicate things in order to jazz it up. Religious sentiments aside, it is not so much vegetarian vs non-vegetarian, or proteins vs carbs, or some super foods etc. It is more what man made vs what God made. Just avoid the ultra processed stuff and observe fasting.
Pillar 2: Exercise
Transition from Caveman to Couchman: Our physiology took shape during prehistoric times, when we were hunter & gatherer. Back then, we had an active life – standing & walking most of the time, hunting, fighting or running away from predators and lifting and moving heavy objects. Cut back to today’s life and we live a very sedentary life. Situation is so bad that we consider walking as an exercise. Imagine telling this to the H&G that “walking for 30 minutes a day is good for health”!
The purpose of exercise is to provide a simulation to our body of the Caveman’s Lifestyle. If one cannot jump, sprint, climb, fight, push and pull, one would be dead if living in prehistoric times. One survives simply because one lives in a domesticated life with all the luxuries and medical science prowess. But the quality of our life is poor, as we just drag our way to our graves!
So, your exercise must simulate being chased by a predator, or hunting an animal, or climbing a tree, or lifting a stone, or hunting, or fighting a beast or something like that. When the Cavemen were attacked by a predator, those who were quick on their feet survived, those who tried an old day version of warm up, couldn’t continue their gene pool. So, we are the descendants of those who were swift on their feet. These ancestors of ours will hang their heads in shame to look at those of us who waste their time on warm ups and call morning walk an exercise!
Our bodies need a description like Ferrari – 0 to 100 in 6 seconds! When I sprint, I hit the top speed straight away. Even in my uphill running, I try to hit my max speed. The by-walkers look at me with amazement! My single stroke of sprint lasts only seconds. Total run lasts for 20 minutes max. While I swim for about 45-50 minutes, I am half dead after each lap; almost full dead in the first 12 minutes. From then on, I just try to survive the remaining time, with reduced intensity. I generally leave the last 5 minutes for lazy floating around. In a way, I cool down rather than warm up! Even in body weight exercise (a combo of pull up, chin ups, push ups, squats etc),my exercise lasts for around 20 minutes. During those 20 minutes I push my muscles, lungs and heart to their limits around 8 times. A common feature in all forms of exercises that I do is – INTENSITY. There is no fooling around – no music, no mobile, no social media. The body is put through max capacity stress for short bursts of a few seconds, repeated after catching the breath. I do it till I just can’t do it anymore!
Exert refers to vigorous action. The idea of exercise is to push the body to its limits; to explore the body’s limits and then come back to normal. A 45 minute gentle walk in the garden with earpods can have meditative benefits, but please do not call it an exercise. From an exercise perspective, standing & walking is something you are supposed to do the entire day. When you exercise, you put a short but acute stress on your muscular and cardiovascular systems. Expose yourself to a progressive overload with intensity. By the very nature, since your body is pushed to its limits, it can’t be pleasurable like the gentle morning walk with earpods. The pleasure, rather comes with pushing your body to bigger limits – heavier weights, more iterations, faster speed, more laps etc. And the satisfaction comes with increased level of fitness.
Pillar 3: Sleep
Sleep is the third pillar of health. Most of my friends are surprised when they hear about this third pillar. When discussing health, most people only think about morning walks, Gym and diet. While, the first two pillars are at least broadly known, sleep, the third, pillar is conspicuous by its absence in people’s scheme of things. It is the missing piece in people’s recognised health improvement framework.
Sleep is not a luxury in the fast paced modern life, nor is it a symbol of laziness, as often touted by Corporate honchos. It is an absolute necessity. It is the unknown & unrecognised third pillar, which not only balances the structure, but also interconnects the first two in a very intricate manner. Here’s how…
Sleep is like recharging our batteries, or servicing our car, or a detox, or a holiday. Nature has taken millions of years and millions of iterations to create this amazing process of sleep. Sleep partially shuts down a lot of metabolically expensive functions, like the rational part of the brain, digestive system, even the body temperature is lowered marginally, our body is partially paralysed, (remember how weakish you feel when you just wake up) etc. The energy that is conserved in partially shutting down these metabolically expensive systems, is used in addressing almost every aspect of our wellness – physical, mental & psychological. Our physical injuries get attended to, the mental dilemma while taking an important decision is attended to, whatever new information that the rational brain had processed during the day get internalised, by doing so, the space in the “Random Access Memory” of the brain is freed up for fresh information assimilation, the next day. This is what explains the phenomenon when you try & solve a difficult problem, or trying to memorise a poem, but visibly struggling; you sleep over it and when you wake up surprisingly the solution comes or the poem flows. It is this process by which we learn through our experiences – the experiences are processed and the patterns are stored in our subconscious part of the brain, to be used for future references. It is also often said that a child grows maximum while sleeping. Hence, a sound sleep is a must for a good growth of a child. Good sleep also restores & enhances your memory. It also rejuvenates your cardio-vascular and reproductive systems. The Immune system is at its active best during sleep, as it is during sleep that cancerous cells and chronic inflammation is addressed.
Here what Dr. Matthew Walker says about sleep:
“Sleep is the greatest legal performance enhancement drug that most people are probably neglecting….it is the elixir of life. It is the most widely available and democratically powerful healthcare system, I could ever possibly imagine.”
It is probably because of the recognition of some of these aspects of sleep that WHO has designated night shifts as a probable cause of cancer.
Our bodies have immense self healing powers. When a wild animal is injured or unwell, it just gives up everything and sleeps. That is exactly what our bodies signal, when we have a physical injury, a mental/emotional trauma. When we are sulking, all we want to do is crash land on the bed and sleep. All of this is because the body senses trouble, and it knows it has the self healing powers. It wants to shut down some metabolically expensive systems and mend your problems.
Now, the most important part, the linkages. Let’s not look at the three pillars exclusively. Integrate them and look at the process holistically. I’m attaching the chart again.
It is a loop. We have to start from somewhere..let’s start from exercise. When you exercise, you push your system to its limits. Muscles are made to work. They undergo acute, short term stress. They may even undergo micro damages. This leads to high demand of oxygen, blood and nutrients towards them. This pushes lungs and heart to their limits, thereby putting short term acute stress on them. This also makes the body use the quick sources of energy in the blood, followed by stored fat in the body. This empties the energy reserves. This triggers the homeostatic emotion of hunger. This causes a mild alertness in the senses of smell & taste. Now we enter the domain of nutrition. When you eat healthy food, the digestive system, which is already under pressure to supply nutrients, processes the food. In the absence of exercise, there is no demand, so the sense of smell & taste are not in alert mode. But, even then if you feed habitually and thrust the food into the digestive system, it simply converts it into fats and stores it.
Back to our loop. The exercise creates a demand for nutrients. This leads to a regular emptying of fat reserves. Also, fresh intake of nutrients are directed straight to strengthening the muscles, rather than stored as belly fat. The muscles emerge stronger than before.
As I elicited earlier, the strengthening of muscles happens primarily during sleep. It is here that intermittent fasting plays an important role. For the strengthening of muscles to happen properly during sleep, among all the other things that were mentioned earlier, it is important that the body is able to partially shut down all non-essential metabolically expensive systems, including digestion. If you have loaded yourself with a heavy meal late at night, the digestive system cannot be shut down. It interferes with the other functions that were supposed to happen during sleep, and other functions interfere with sleep. This leads to lack of deep sleep, which comes with its problems as well as lack of proper digestion, which also comes with its own set of problems. This tells us why it is proposed that you finish off your last meal of the day at least two hours before sleeping. By the time you call it a day, the digestive system must be free of its duties. Begin you fast by say 8 pm and extend it way past your usual breakfast time. 12-16 hours of fasting cleans out most of the short term fat resources that the body has in its store. Now, notice I’m about to complete the loop, as we segued from exercise to nutrition to fasting to sleep and now back to exercise. End your fast with exercise. This is like a home stretch for your fat inventory burning. It gives you maximum bang for the buck, as far as your fasting goes. And with this you complete the cycle. You’re hungry again – your senses are on alert mode and you’re ready to feast!
Notice that this three pillar loop is not a figment of imagination. This is a close simulation of the Caveman’s Lifestyle. And that’s why it has all the physiological benefits that you can imagine, much more than what I have listed here.
Also, notice that there is nothing fancy that I have mentioned here. You don’t have to fall for any fancy propaganda – magic pills, super food, fad diets or fancy fitness regimes. These are simple things. It only needs discipline. The modern ill-health is caused by the dissonance between the Couchman’s lifestyle and the Caveman’s. It’s a question of tuning our lifestyle (I said, earlier, I”ll come to lifestyle in the end) in sync with the lifestyle of the Caveman. That’s all.
Also, notice that while nutrition and exercise thrive on variations (fast-feast loop & acute short term peak stress respectively), sleep suffers with variations. Sleep needs to be as regular as possible. Go to bed same time everyday, sleep in same environment as far as possible, sleep consistently for at least 8 hours). This helps your body fall in a rhythm in sync with nature. This is called The Circadian Rhythm.
I am no expert in any of these three domains, but based on my readings and my own practical experiences, I am keen to conclude with a very bold statement:
If everybody follows this simple three pillared approach in life – eating wholesome food, avoiding junk, fasting daily, sleeping for at least 8 hours, staying physically active and exercising regularly, diseases like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis etc can me practically erased. We will not need fancy medications associated with such diseases. We will stay younger and live longer and not drag our way to our graves. I Promise!