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“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”- 1 Peter 5:8
We all need it but some are getting far too much and others not nearly enough. The optimum time is 8 hours, somewhere between 8pm to 6am. If you want to properly care for your body, this is a non-negotiable. During these specific hours your brain is sorting and filing information, your body is finally getting time to work on maintenance and repairs.
Having late meals puts your digestive system to work for the next 4 hours right when it needs the rest.
Screen time before bed alerts the brain and wakes you up right when you’re needing to fall asleep.
Late sleep time paired with early starts or sleeping to excess throws off your bodies internal clock and ability to predict a good time to regenerate and repair.
It’s not just us who like predictability and habits, your physical body does too! All these bad habits add together to degrade the body rather than caring for and nourishing it. Your bodies repair crew has quite a job to do in maintaining, restoration and repairing while you sleep. It is imperative we give our bodies the right time and conditions to do the work properly. Allowing us to have healthy and functioning bodies to their full capabilities.
Rest and recovery time for your body is vital and this happens most when we are sleeping.
8 hours of sleep is a non-negotiable, for a healthy and fully functioning body. It is during this time that the body goes into ‘low power’ mode so it can focus its efforts on repairs and recovery. The best hours for this to happen have been extensively studied and the results widely show that between the hours of 8pm – 4am, 9pm – 5am and at a stretch 10pm – 6am are the most beneficial. You can read more on the importance on this in Dr Matthew Walker’s bestselling book ‘Why We Sleep’.
Contrary to current belief, the sun is not a killer in the sky. If that were the case, then skin cancer rates would have plummeted since the release of sunscreens and sun smart campaigns. In reality skin cancer and cancer rates have been on a drastic and consistent increase since the industrial revolution. Coincidental?
It should go without saying that it is possible to overdo sun exposure. Hence the lobster people we see at beaches every summer. You must learn your complexion and its limit because we need daily sun exposure to get our body its primary source of Vitamin D which is essential for the bodys’ assimilation of calcium and many other benefits. If you have fair skin maybe limit full sun to around 15 minutes, if you have darker skin, you will need longer to get the same Vitamin D absorption. This is to be done without sunscreen. Aside from the obvious fact that humans have thrived on earth since our creation, without it needing the relatively new ointments and creams. They are full of a myriad of known carcinogens and toxins. Simply follow the basic rule, if you wouldn’t put it in your mouth then best not put it on your skin.
Really it’s a non-negotiable. Stop breathing and you stop living very soon after. Basically, we need good clean air to give our bodies cells the oxygen they need to function, therefore keeping us functioning. It is crucial that the air you are breathing is as pure and good as it can be. It stands to reason that you don’t want to be breathing in car fumes and industrial plant smog. The best air is fresh clean air. Many cultures have understood this for centuries. Take a look at the Japanese practice of Forrest Bathing.
In cold climates and weather, it is still important that while you are sleeping you are breathing in fresh air so be sure to keep the window open. Of course, that means to be warm and rugged up in your bed. It is suggested that a factor for people waking up tired is because they’re not breathing fresh air while they sleep.
The most powerful way to oxygenate the body is exercise. Which leads to the fourth foundation.
Our bodies need to be moving every single day. Exercise is not an optional thing if you want good health. It’s also not just for the gym junkies. Exercise can be as simple as walking around your block every morning or evening. The more you do that the more you build up strength and ability to walk farther for longer and even begin to try new activities. Exercise should never be a chore.
Find something you enjoy and do it daily or break up your routine with different activities. Anything that will get your body moving. The more consistently you exercise the better functioning your lungs will be. Lack of use causes lung capacity to decrees and even partially go dormant. The great news is it can all be reversed with simple daily exercise.
Some of the best forms of exercises are; Walking, Swimming, Dancing and being intimate. Even join a recreational team for great exercise and great company. Sometimes it takes stepping out of your comfort zone.
“A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” – Provers 25:28
Meaning self-control. Society has a habit of idolising the notion of ‘treating yourself’ (instead of self-control), which is not bad in and of itself but is taken to mean indulging in refined sugar, alcohol, skin absorbing toxins like a lot of makeups, clothing fabrics etc. Temperance is the consistent habit and knowing of not taking anything into the body that will harm it, and also to know the correct balance to taking in moderation the good things.
Learning to know and understand what will nourish us and what will harm us, this is our duty to ourselves. Things like refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, chemicals, herbicides, insecticides, mould, and be very cautious of the electromagnetic field- your exposure to it- many of these should never enter our bodies, however the modern life style has flipped healthy living on its head and confused the masses with that’s good and bad, up and down, right and left. Proverbs is a great place to start when seeking to gain temperance.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it” – Proverbs 25:16
What we eat every day is what we fuel our bodies with. So, the principle applies if you put bad fuel or the wrong fuel in an engine it will fail, become damaged or break all together, the same goes for how our body functions off the fuels (foods) we give it. Now our bodies are far more complex than any engine so how much more should we be considering how we maintain it! Individual diets will vary but the basics are the same. We need fibre, fats, herbs and grains. For anyone looking to improve of reset their eating habits a great place to start is way back at our beginning with The Garden of Eden Diet which tells us we must be having a high fibre diet. To also include nuts, seeds, good fats and oils. Many people today have issues like food intolerances, food allergies, yeast infections etc. all of this can be attributed to the foods we eat and don’t eat and even what our parents, grandparents, great grandparents ate! We must avoid refined sugar! Industrial Oils, canola, vegetable etc, hybridized wheat.
It should be no surprise to say that our bodies need water. We are mostly water at an average of 75%. We need hydration, the right hydration. Our bodies go through roughly 2.3 litres a day which must get replaced. 2 litres should come from pure water. the remaining can come from what we eat. being fruits, vegetables, herbal teas. our digestive enzymes are made from water. So, it’s not only important to eat nourishing food, it’s also important to drink good, mineral rich water. but not with our meals. as water dilutes the stomach acid it is best to stop drinking at least half an hour before eating and then resume around an hour after the meal. you can of course have a few sips if you’re thirsty. this will allow your digestive juices to remain nice and acidic. the stomach has to remain a very acidic environment so that the proteins we eat can be broken down. by not diluting the stomach it allows the mucosal wall to thicken and protect the stomach lining against the acid environment.
Last but not least is Trust.
Trust that God has truly given us a body that is “fearfully and wonderfully made”. God has given you a body with an ability to maintain, repair and heal itself, given the right conditions. We truly are a wonderous creation, the intricate and balanced workings of all our inner cells and the resilience to manage and maintain even with the bombardment of all the harmful things modern life gives us to consume.
God knew full well what He was doing long ag when He first pulled Adam from the soil. He knew what conditions His creation would be exposed to in times past, today, and well into the future. He gave us a resilient body, one that can repair given the proper nourishment and care. God gave us a guidebook, the Bible, where He freely shares with us the wisdom and guidance to know how to live the best life possible. He gave us these incredible brains to use reason, intellect, judgment and the spirit. Jesus says “However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth..” – John 16:13. From the beginning He has given us all manner of herbs to help heal ad service our health. The main principle of health is to pray and seek guidance and council from our Creator. I believe that we have an innate ability to judge what is of help and what is a harm to us. If God made it for us to eat and use, then that’s what’s good for us. God created the body and so he also created its fuel. Vegetables, Fruits, Meats, Fats, Seeds, Nuts, Herbs, all of this was given to us to consume and to nourish our bodies. Why then would you believe that a man made, synthetic or bastardise ‘food’ or supplement is somehow superior to our Creators making?
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20