Nutrition -> Strength

In my last post I discussed a few things about nutrition.
After nutrition, its strength that we need to seriously look into.

Ok, you might prefer staying a weak, delicate darling throughout your life but mind you, it’s not always feasible to get a helping hand whenever or wherever you need. All of us should try to be self-dependent. Self-dependence not only means economic or financial independence but also physical and emotional independence. Now that does not really mean becoming as strong as Tarzan, physically and as indifferent as the Himalayan sages, emotionally.

All I mean to say that one should be strong enough to sustain small injuries, reduce chances of serious injuries by having strong bones and muscles, be able to carry your own baggage to some extent so that you don't always have to depend on someone to do you a favour. Well, I don't really need to justify myself for stating the importance of being strong. Health and strength go hand in hand to some extent of course.

Let me share some of the tips that would help you to become strong.

Strength:
What is strength?
Now the answer to that question may vary from person to person and the way you want to gain strength depends very much on how you interprete the word 'strength'.

For me, strength is of various types:
Physical strength: The ability to protect the body from major injuries even when the body is exposed to traumatic experiences (strong bones). The ability to carry weights for longer duration (strong muscles). The ability to fight common diseases (Immunity). The ability to carry on with a tiring (physically) work for a longer duration (stamina).

Mental or spiritual strength: The ability to control reactions to emotions like shock, surprise, joy, sorrow, anger, fear, love, hatred etc. The ability to face and live through tough times with a smiling face. The ability to bear insults and criticism without any kind of emotional highs and being able to give it back to the right person at the right time without getting angry yourself or without that dangerous feeling of vengeance but with peace of mind and soul. Being able to forgive and forget bad times and bad memories and being happy and positive at all times irrespective of place, person, time, destiny, situation or any other thing.

Physical strength:
Strong Bones:
That comes from the kind of physical training and diet given to the defence guys.
For normal people like us, some preliminary exercises that involves all possible movements of joints, some jogging, some shoulder rolls etc with sufficient intake of calcium, phosphorous and vitamin D is good enough. So drink an lot of milk and let your skin produce some Vitamin D by exposing it to the morning sun.

Strong muscles:
Again the defence training and diet is the ideal one to be followed but a more customised approach would be to exercise the muscles with weights. Start with lighter weights and increase the weight only when you are comfortable with the lighter ones. Start with 5 minutes of weight exercises and you can increase upto 40 minutes depending upon the level of comfort and alternating the weights with some cardio (aerobics) intermittently. Protien intake is good for muscles, hair and nails. But be careful of taking too much protien especially at age beyond 30-35.
Young boys and girls need a lot of protein as their bosy is in the grwing stage but once the body is fully mature, the protien need of the body reduces except for expectant mothers for whom the unborn in the womb has high protein demands.

Immunity:
Now that comes mainly from diet and lifestyle. Sufficient intake of all kinds of vitamins and minerals help us fight diseases. Also exposing the body to oxygen rich air, greenery and the morning sun help us keep fit and immune to diseases. Regular swimming is a good way of keeping the common cold at bay. Some basic cleanliness in the house and outside is also very essential. For example, carrying a hankerchief to avoid breathing the contaminated air at polluted places or when someone sneezes near you helps to avoid breathing in the common cold virus, clean sanitation and eating habbits help us fight diseases like diarrhoea, amoebiasis, jaundice etc. Clean curroundings help fight malaria, dengue etc. So these are some basic things to be followed. Again being over-protective about the body at times makes it less immune to diseases. For example, if someone has always taken boiled water would instantly fall sick if he ever has to drink simply chlorinated and filtered water. But someone whose bosy is accustomed to that would not have any problems. So here judgement has to be made by each individual on what kind of habbits he wants to cultivate and stick to all his life.

Another good way of protecting the body from some of the very common diseases like common cold, high blood pressure, stress, insomnia etc is to do pranayams or breathing exercises. There are many books and websites available that describe some of the very effective pranayams. But one should make sure to practise them correctly. Just a quick tip : Deep and slow breathing in open and fresh air ( surrounded by greenery) help release stress and rejuvinates the mind.

Stamina:
This is the aspect of strength that determines how long you can sustain yourself in a not so comfortable (referring to physical comfort) environment. Stamina has to be built with regular practice over a period of time. And as your stamina builds up, you can feel the difference.
First day you walk for 20 minutes and you are tired. In a week's time (if you walk regularly), you would comfortable walking for 40 minutes. That's called stamina. Same applyies to jogging or skipping or swimming or aerobics or any other form of physical activity.

So that's roughly all about physical strength.

Mental or spiritual strength is 80% congenital and 20% self developed.
Most of those who have the traits I mentioned while describing spiritual strength are born with those divine traits. The rest like us need to inculcate them in our nature consciously by practising them. Easier said than done, but not impossible. Meditation and some forms of self denial helps, I have heard so. Self denial can be done, only when you learn to stop loving yourself. Or can I say, stop feeling proud about yourself. That's when you learn to kill your ego which is the prime cause of emotional or spiritual weakness. Now again, you need to be sure you are killing your ego and not your confidence. It is almost like an art that needs to be practised hard. I need to try the same, so let us try together and meanwhile whoever comes up first with some technique, if any, can post it here. Else good luck to all, including me.

That's all for this time. Shall continue with Flexibility in my next post.
Till then, be strong, be bold, and be beautiful.