WHAT IS FITNESS?

Fitness is all about tuning and aligning our body and mind towards the sense of well-being. However, it is hard to acquire it, because every individual’s body is different and there is no universal scale to measure fitness. For a better understanding consider the human body as a string instrument which has four basic strings attached to it. We need to decide what type of music we are going to play, rock or pop or classical. And based on the type of music, we have to fix tension on the string.

The four basic strings of our body:

  • Cardiovascular fitness is about how your respiratory and circulatory system responds to various activities.
  • Muscular fitness is about your flexibility, strength, stability, agility, and power.
  • Psychological Fitness is very important factor as it will reflect your performance in the above two strings. Basic understanding about stress response, rest, and emotional intelligence is very important.
  • Energy system is the one that will balance out all the above three strings. It’s not only about food, but also the water and air that should be taken into account.

These four strings are interconnected with each other.

Don’t forgot we need to Rest your system to get its optimum performance.

A basic thing that one should understand is, at every age the human body can be compared to one instrument. For example, till 25 years you’re like a Guitar, where you can be tuned to play rock or pop or anything. And the next 25 years you will become like a Veena, slightly heavier to handle. And during the late 50’s you will be more like a Sitar, where you don’t have to play around with the strings, just touching it will giveyou music. Although you can be like a guitar in the final 25, what really matters is how good you are able to tune your guitar.

You are your biggest enemy. Beware of your own lies!

Human brain is a fascinating instrument. But, it can also be really funny. In the last few years, several studies have been focussed in understanding how we think. A couple of interesting studies are below for your reading entertainment:

Every one thinks they are more intelligent than average. The problem with that is ‘average’ by definition includes every one. How can every one feel they are above average?

Every smoker who is shown videos of dangers of smoking comes out thinking that somehow it doesn’t apply to them and that they are somehow immune to its effects. This has been proved over and over with hundreds of volunteers. Though smoking contributes to 90% of all lung cancer tally, every smoker strongly feels he’s not in that list.

There are two sides to a human brain. One side is a highly developed cognitive brain that makes us smarter than all other species. It makes us capable of accomplishing astonishing feats. The other side(amygdala) is a primitive reptilian brain that puts us in the same league as a rat or a lizard. We use both of them depending on how quickly we must make a decision. While cognitive brain processes a lot of information and is slow to come to conclusion, reptilian brain gives us the ‘intuition’ to make quick decisions under stressful environment. Remember how you maneuveured your car like James Bond and prevented that accident and when you came back to senses, you wondered how the heck did you do that?- That’s Anygdala for you. Problem is when Amygdala kicks in where it should not. Though it gives you a speedy decision, it can be plain wrong where lot of thinking is required. So, remember this — stress activates amygdala. When we think of aging or possibility of cancer, it causes stress to our brain. That immediately activates amygdala (reptilian brain) and turns off our slow thinking cognitive brain. That makes us come to conclusions that will make us feel better but not necessarily factual. When smokers see an a video of ill effects of smoking, the stress immediately activates their amygdala which inturn brings them to a wrong conclusion that they are immune to smoking. That’s why those advertisements against smoking are so ineffective in mass. That’s also why we don’t like the idea of ‘accident or life insurance’. Its also for the same reason that most of us don’t like the idea of ‘working out’ and keeping fit — because we believe we are somehow immune to aging and its effects. First sin is surrendering to this lower brain without facing the facts. These are the facts you must realize right away:

Your body is your most important asset. You must take care of it.

You will age like everyone else. When you are old, your bones and muscles will be weaker than it is now. If they are too weak, you might have a hard time doing even regular tasks.

Proper physical training can keep your muscles and bones stronger all through your life. Right kind of training with right intensity is your best strategy to live a great life.

Spend 5 minutes every day, meditating on these facts. Let it sink in. Your mind set change is your first step to getting fit. I’ll visit you with the second sin, soon!

Meanwhile, drop in to my center or just reply back if you are in chennai and we’ll discuss how we can specifically address your body needs!

And if you are not sharing this, you don’t love people as much. 🙂