Live in Optimal Health

“Wish not so much to live long as to live well”, Franklin.

Being skinny is not the same as being healthy. It is easy to assume that someone is healthy because they are thin, but often times that is not the case. Believe it or not, it is possible to be a fat skinny person. It is also possible to be healthy while being on the bigger side. The goal of any fitness and nutrition program should be obtaining optimal health, not becoming a size zero. A healthy weight is just one part of living a healthy life. A healthy mind, body and spirit are a result as well. When the number on the scale is the main focus there is an increased chance of failure because so much energy is focused on the wrong thing. This does not result in a healthy body or mind.

Optimal health requires nourishing your body through good nutrition, and strengthening your heart, bones, and muscles through a variety of exercises and activities. Body weight is not always an effective gauge of health since there are so many determining factors. Body composition and waist measurement are much more accurate indicators.

Don’t forget about your mind. Your mind and body are one and the same, if one is neglected the other will suffer drastically. By eating right and staying physically fit you are much more likely to be mentally fit. Exercise and nutrition have significant effects on one’s mood and brain function. To be truly healthy it is necessary to decrease stress and increase positive emotions in your day-to-day life. There is no way to completely eliminate stress, but the happiest, healthiest people in the world are the ones that are able to deal with it as they experience it. When stress is not released it builds up in our bodies and causes a multitude of health problems, including weight gain. Exercise and meditation, even in small amounts, is a great way to release stress and calm the mind.

Life is less about what actually happens to us, and more about our response to situations when they happen. Learn to view the glass as half full rather than half empty, and remind yourself daily of the things that you are blessed to have and are able to do. Truly being happy and healthy is living in optimal health, not being a certain weight or size.

Guidelines for Healthy Living

The late comedian, Bob Hope, often said that one of the reasons why older people have trouble losing weight is because their body and fat have become really good friends. Another comedian, Henny Youngman, told an audience that the last time he visited his doctor he complained about a ringing in his ears, to which his doctor replied, “well, don’t answer it”. While neither of these comedians had medical degrees their ability to make others laugh may very well have had healing affects on their audiences.

The concepts of humor and laughter and their relationship with health have been around since biblical times. Proverbs 17:22 states, “A merry heart does well like medicine but a broken spirit dries the bones.” But the idea that humor may positively impact our body’s ability to heal came to light after author Norman Cousins wrote about it in his book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient.

In the 1960′s Norman Cousins was diagnosed with a life threatening and extremely painful autoimmune disease. Cousins, in his attempt to combat his illness, particularly the pain which he suffered constantly, developed a daily regimen that included, among other things, hearty belly laughs. Cousins learned that a 10 minute belly laugh gave him two hours of painless sleep. He later wrote, “Laughter may or may not activate the endorphins or enhance respiration, as some medical researchers contend. What seems clear, however, is that laughter is an antidote to apprehension and panic.”

The medical community has not concluded that laughter is the best medicine but there are members of this community who admit that a dose of laughter does have a positive affect on the human body. Areas of the body which react positively to humor and laughter include the heart, blood pressure, immune system, brain function and mood.

A 2005 study at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, MD indicated that people with heart disease were 40% less likely to laugh in a variety of situations and events than those without heart disease. Michael Miller, M.D., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, reported, “We don’t know yet why laughing protects the heart, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining in our blood vessels. This