Operating Manual for Life -- Book Six
How To Create Your Own...
Operating Manual for Life
by Rel Davis
RETURN TO HOME PAGE
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
BOOK SIX
LIFE AND HEALTH
Your body is just as much a part of who you are as anything else.
If your body is healthy, your mind can function properly.
If it isn't, you'll find it hard to do anything creatively.
As a society, we've had two thousand years of being told our bodies are worthless...
And that only the Spirit is important.
Don't believe it!
Your health is the most valuable possession of all.
66.
Body and mind are one.
There are, I'm told, two kinds of people in the world:
Those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world,
And those who don't.
This arbitrary division of the world into two classes is called a dichotomy.
For some reason, our civilization decided long ago to create a dichotomy of body and mind.
Our body is supposed to be the physical part of us.
Our mind is the ethereal part.
Actually, both are the same.
Every nerve cell in your body is capable of thought, at some level.
Your stomach sends a message to the rest of your body that you are hungry.
Is "hunger" existent only in your brain?
Of course not! You feel hunger with every part of you.
The same goes for every thought and every emotion.
You feel pain and loneliness and exhilaration in all your body --
Your skin, your muscles and even deep inside.
Take care of your body,
If you want to think correctly.
67.
If you want to be well,
Learn to listen to what your body says.
I was raised in Texas.
As a small child I drank "coffee milk" -- milk with sugar and coffee flavoring.
I was drinking black coffee by the time I was 10 years old.
As an adult, I often drank five to ten cups of coffee in a day.
One day I began to wonder why my stomach was upset so often.
Why I often had "pressure" headaches.
And why I frequently had insomnia.
When I quit drinking coffee I went through three days of splitting headaches.
But the stomach pains, the daily headaches and the insomnia disappeared.
My body was "telling" me to do something about my addiction.
Listen to your body.
It's possible coffee doesn't have that effect on you.
But if you are having physical symptoms of any kind,
Your body is saying something to you.
Maybe what it's trying to say is important.
68.
You think with every cell in your body.
Unaware people are only conscious of the voices in their heads.
I'm talking about otherwise "normal" people.
They think that they think only with their minds.
But every cell in your body is conscious.
Have you ever met someone new,
And fell immediately under their spell of words?
Your "mind" thought they were witty and important and friendly,
But your skin felt crawly or creepy in their presence.
Later you discovered they were a con artist.
You should have listened to your body.
If you become aware of how your body feels,
You'll learn to listen to what it's saying to you.
69.
Think sick and you'll be sick.
Just as our body talks to us, it listens to us.
If you think you are sick,
Eventually, your body will become sick.
Pay attention to the words you use to describe yourself.
With all the flu going around, I know I'll catch it too.
You give me such a headache!
I can't stomach my boss any longer.
Those kids are a pain in the neck.
You'd be surprised how often the people who say such things,
End up with influenza, headaches, ulcers and shoulder pain.
A good mental attitude is the best protection against illness.
Really!
70.
Germs don't cause disease.
Hey, wait a minute, you're saying.
We know bacteria and viruses are the agents behind infectious diseases.
That's right, but they don't cause the diseases.
Every second, you breathe in enough pneumococcous bacteria to kill a dozen people.
Why don't you have pneumonia?
Because the bacteria only attack your body when your immune system is down.
The cause of pneumonia is the failure of your body to defend itself.
The bacteria create the symptoms after your body lets them in.
Our bodies' immune systems are extremely sensitive to stress.
Control stress and you can keep an efficient immune system.
Undue stress can be caused by tiredness,
Hunger,
Anger,
Loneliness,
Or internal pressures: the must's and have to's and ought to's that fill our minds.
Mental health is the first step toward physical health.
71.
If you want to be healthy,
Learn to relax.
We live in an up-tight world.
We eat, drink and smoke a lot of things that increase the stress in our lives.
Relaxation is the natural state for your body.
Slow down your breathing and see if you don't feel better.
Breathe more deeply.
Breathe with your nostrils instead of your mouth.
Listen to your body.
If your shoulders are hunched forward, force them back.
Tell them to relax.
Visualize the tension flowing out of your body.
Close your eyes several times during each day,
And imagine yourself in some relaxing locale.
Lying on the sand with ocean waves lapping over your body.
Standing under a waterfall deep in a forest, feeling the gentle spray.
Walking through a field of wild flowers with mountains all around.
Put your body in control and it will relax itself automatically.
72.
What you think and how you feel
Control the production of brain and body chemicals.
A lot of physicians insist that our moods are controlled entirely by brain chemicals.
Take the right chemicals, they say, and any mood can be created.
If you are depressed, the right chemical can cure you.
Don't believe it!
Research has shown that your moods and your actions actually control the level of brain chemicals.
If you are in a happy mood, your brain is busily producing chemicals associated with happiness.
If you exercise strenuously, your body produces pain-reducing chemicals.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
The moods or the brain chemicals associated with the moods?
Knowing the power of the human mind, I believe the mind is in control.
Your mind is in control of you.
73.
Be wary about taking any mind-altering chemical.
Think about all the stuff people stuff into their bodies.
On the streets, even school children can get all the uppers and downers they want.
Uppers to make you more mentally active. Downers to make you less mentally active.
The body is torn apart chemically.
Visit three physicians in a row and you can get enough tranquilizers and diet pills to do exactly the same thing.
Visit your local bar and you can duplicate the result with alcohol.
(One glass of red wine a day will help you live longer. More can actually reduce your life span.)
I've known people with mild depression who visited a physician and walked out with enough drugs to put an elephant into a coma.
They are still taking those drugs a decade later, long after the situation that prompted the depression disappeared.
My personal rule of thumb is this:
If it isn't a question of life or death, I refuse to take mind-altering chemicals.
It doesn't make any difference where you get it,
From a pusher on the street or a physician in a white coat.
A drug is still a drug.
74.
Don't take any medication unless you really need it.
Medications are wonderful things.
I wouldn't be alive today if penicillin hadn't been discovered when it was.
I'm thankful it was available in that Dallas hospital back in 1944.
In an emergency, or in case of major illness,
Modern medicine is truly miraculous.
But we can misuse medicines if we take them when we don't really need them.
Many bacteria have become immune to common antibiotics,
Simply because the antibiotics have been over-used.
Some people take antibiotics when they have a common cold,
Even though a cold is caused by a virus, not affected by any antibiotic.
We have a warlike attitude toward disease:
We'll fight the fever, fight the pain, fight the upset stomach.
Most of the time, however, our bodies are quite capable of resisting illness, if we only give them a chance.
If I have an emergency or major illness, I'll go see my physician right away.
But for most illnesses, I trust old home remedies or herbal cures or even homeopathic pills!
Antibiotics generally kill the useful bacteria as well, including those in your stomach that help you digest your food.
If it's really necessary, I'll take an antibiotic.
But why cause my stomach to get upset if it isn't necessary?
75.
Look to nature for most of your medicines.
If you have trouble sleeping,
Drink a cup of warm milk instead of taking a sedative.
There are a lot of natural foods that can help put you to sleep.
Warm milk is probably one of the best.
It contains a natural ingredient that induces sleep.
A lot of herbal teas will do the same.
My favorites are catnip tea, chamomile tea, and passionflower tea.
Science has identified thousands of foods that can cure disease.
Chicken soup is a wonderful curative for the common cold.
Garlic and hot peppers also help.
Ginger root can cure seasickness.
With a little study, and a lot of listening to your own body,
You can create your own home pharmacopeia!
76.
Learn to be gentle with yourself.
We need to be gentle with ourselves in two ways.
One, we need to stop putting caustic chemicals into our bodies.
We need to start accepting the power of our bodies to heal themselves.
Two, we need to stop putting ourselves down so much.
Some people learn about their own ability to create illnesses.
So they get a cold and immediately begin putting themselves down for making themselves sick!
You became ill in the first place because of stress in your body.
Why add more stress?
Accept who you are and what you are, totally.
Caustic thoughts are just as harmful as caustic substances.
Probably more so.
Always think kindly thoughts about yourself.
77.
Learn to treat your body with respect.
Just as you want to be around people who respect you,
So you need to learn to be someone who respects you.
Your body is truly a miraculous instrument.
Capable of changing temperature in different climates,
Capable of converting some really strange foods into useful energy,
Capable of doing all sorts of interesting things, from dancing to swimming to operating a computer keyboard.
Respect it for the miracle it is.
78.
You are your body.
As far as this life goes, you and your body are inseparable.
If you harm your body, you harm yourself.
If you neglect your body, you neglect yourself.
If you honor your own body, you honor yourself.
A healthy individual nourishes and takes care of their body.
A healthy person takes care of their own mind.
A healthy person understands that mind and body are one.
And they themselves are their body-mind.
RETURN TO OPERATING MANUAL OPENING PAGE
RETURN TO REL DAVIS' HOME PAGE