[Neurons] 2023 Neurons #18 HEALTHY HABITS FOR HEALTHY AGING

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2023 Neurons #18

May 15, 2023

Healthy Aging #8

 

DEVELOP HEALTH HABITS

FOR HEALTHY AGING

 

It is not rocket science to know that if you are going to develop healthy
aging as your way of moving forward into the future, you need to develop
some really good health habits.  Do you now have healthy habits for eating,
exercising, and sleeping?  That's a very different question from asking, "Do
you know what healthy eating consists of?"  Most people know lots of things
that they could do that would improve their heath and enable aging with more
energy and vitality.  The problem does not lie primarily in knowing, it lies
in doing.

 

Eating

Undoubtedly the biggest problem lies in all of the things that we eat that
we should not.  Sugar is probably the biggest culprit and it is in just
about everything.  Simply cutting out sugar would be a major contribution to
better health and aging.  Similarly, we eat far too much flour and salt as
well.  Personally I have gone on an anti-cancer diet and have eliminated as
much as I can all sugar, flour, salt, dairy, and red meat.

 

That's the doing, yet above and beyond the doing is the thinking.  What you
think and believe about eating, about food, about deserts, about sweets,
about fast food, etc.?  This brings us to your neuro-semantics-the meanings
that you have given to these aspects of eating that are now programmed into
your neurology.  Why do you eat?  For what purpose?  Many eat for
de-stressing, others eat to be social and to connect with others.  Some eat
because it is a reward, or an expression of being loved.  Some eat because
the clock says "it is time to eat."

 

Ultimately, it is your food neuro-semantics that govern your eating.  Over
the years of your life, you have learned various things about eating, and
now those learnings are your neurological programs.  But the good news is
that if you learned your current programs, you can unlearn them and learn
new and better programs.  This is the central theme of Games Fit and Slim
People Play (2001). 

 

Not only do most people eat too much of the wrong stuff, most people also
eat too much.  They take in more calories than they burn.  The result is
that they constantly gain weight.  Statistics indicate that more than half
of the American population is over-weight.   And with obesity, every ten
pounds of extra weight cuts off another year of life.  But this is not
merely a matter of too much food, it is also a matter of too little
exercise.

 

Exercising

What we call exercise is simply movement.  And for well-being and health,
you need to move your body.  That means more walking and less sitting.  That
means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, that means walking up the
escalator rather than riding.  That means getting minimally 30 minutes of
cardio-vascular exercise four times a week.  Do that and you keep your
internal organs in better health.

 

Again, it's not the doing that's the biggest problem, it is the thinking.
What you think and believe about exercise plays the critical role.  It's not
even your schedule or life-situation, it is the meanings that you give to
your situation.  

 

Sleeping

Then there is sleep.  What's amazing about sleep is that what is natural and
easy and non-neurotic for animals is a major source of problems for we
humans.  It takes a human being to mess up something as natural as sleep.
And this is mostly a matter of your semantics.  So again, we ask, "What do
you believe about sleep?"  The biggest barrier today is that people de-value
sleep, discount its benefits, treat it as a nuisance, and do things to
interfere with it.  As a result, a large proportion of the population
suffers from sleep deficiency which leaves them tired, grumpy, stresses, and
not at their best. 

 

By "burning the candle at both ends" most people push themselves so that
they do not get their needed seven to eight hours of sleep.  Nor do they
create a "getting ready to sleep" ritual that helps them relax so they can
release the tensions and worries of the day.  To make matters worse and to
interfere with sleep, many eat and drink just prior to going to bed, others
take their phones with them to bed, and others stay up watching TV or
surfing the internet which does not put them in the best state for sleep. 

 

Eating, exercising, and sleeping-the easiest things you can to to age
healthily and yet the very things most people discredit as having a
significant impact on their health.  Nor is it that most people don't know
what to do.  They do!  The problem is that they simply do not implement.
And why not?  Because their semantics are in the way.  Their meta place is
not organized and well-formed for healthy aging.  That's where the problem
lies, that's where the solution will occur.


 

For more, see Games Fit and Slim People Play (2001); also the training
manual for Unleashing Vitality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

P.O. Box 8

Clifton Colorado 81520 USA

(970) 523-7877

drhall at acsol.net  



 

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