Tuesday, December 14, 2010

To take or not to take responsibility for our lifestyle choices?

There was no way I was going to read the following (which is paraphrased) and not get back to blogging...

"The advantage of modern pharmacopoeia is that we can abdicate responsibility for how our lives are lived. What and how much we eat, what and how much we imbibe, how much we work, the games we played etc.
Unhealthy habits can now be enjoyed and the disastrous results minimized by a little colored pill."

The fact that this is the basic rule under which our society now operates should scare the hell out of us. How do we change these rules for ourselves and our families? Is there a way that is viable for us to begin taking a bit of control and learn to be more aware of what our needs are? Can we realistically give up the "need" for instantaneous relief from whatever ails us?

Hmm how to begin such a process?
Of course (for those of you who know me well) it would be a no brainer to begin with our brain, the center of everything.

Do you know that the nerve cells that arise when we are still in the womb can live 100 years or longer? This is super impressive life-span when compared to the cells in the lining of our intestines which live only for a few days and red blood cells which have an average lifespan of three months!
In the old days it was believed that once the nerve cells died that was it, game over, they were not replaced but now we know that new nerve cells do arise and in more than one region of the brain...even in older brains not just the youth!
As always with knowledge comes responsibility, this time it is the responsibility to nourish the cells that we have and to do our best to stimulate the growth of new ones.
With this in mind we are going to begin discussing a series of thoughtful lifestyle choices that each of us can employ on a daily or weekly basis, that will help us be able to give up the need for a "quick fix" from a little pill by being more in tune to our needs and by being proactive with our health! In other words we will begin to learn the process of taking care of our brain so that it in turn can better take care of us!