By Ittoop Panikulam
Mumbai: What is it that begins with H and ends with it too? – HEALTH
The first H stands for Happiness.
Ask anyone anywhere in the world, “what is the one thing you ultimately want in life?” After a few hesitative responses, the one word conclusive answer would be happiness. Did Jesus know that secret, when He said, “I have come that my joy may be in you and your joy complete”? “I think I am fine and happy” would be a common response to a “how- are- you cliché-enquiry”. Our bodies never lie; so they cringe if what is said is untruth. Mind often does not know to read the alphabets of the body-language. Reasoning is mind’s way. When we are genuinely happy even our skin and the saliva know it and also the specialists. Genuine happiness somehow mysteriously awakens happiness hormones – serotonin, dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin residing in the brain. Its biological and the body tunes in to celebrate its health and wellness. Even if 50% of those enzymes flow through us physically, we will be happy humans. True joy is an all-encompassing experience of the soul, mind, heart and body. You want to be healthy; seek and find the inner road leading you to happiness. Take a daily dose of happiness and see what happens to your health!
E for Emotions
Every emotion, we know, affects every cell in our bodies. We do not have to be a cardiologist or go for an X-ray of the heart to know what is going on in our hearts. If we ask our hearts and it will tell us its truth. In fact the heart is eagerly waiting for us to hear its confessions and not a doctor’s statoscope. If we do not listen to its unhappy whisperings, it will fix up signals that we may become attentive to them. If we still ignore its indicators, the cardiologist will show their symptoms on the ECG print-paper. If we are on fire with anger, don’t think the heart and the body will be kind to us. No hatred, rage, anger, bitterness, fury, irritation or annoyance, externally expressed or suppressed, will be recorded in the best of the scans from the most expensive hospitals. Cultivating a 70 times 7 attitude of forgiveness is probably one of the best of health tonics for the heart. We got to include ourselves and make self-forgiveness a daily habit. Our hearts are unhappy also when we accumulate and hoard sadness, guilt, inferiority, fear, anxiety or any negative shades of unhappiness. Positive emotional quotients almost guarantee our hearts and bodies decent health. All the negative emotions are health hazards and risks. They have no medication or drugs available in the best of medical shops. Go for a daily personal scan of your emotions, take once a day a dose of forgiveness before you go to bed and see what happens to your health.
A for Acceptance
One of the health secrets is to happily, knowingly, willingly and freely say ‘yes’ to who you are. Getting ourselves compared with others is almost an inevitable parody of early childhood that we got accustomed to hear. Being better or worse, takes away the truth and the reality of who we are. Our life is often spent to meet the expectations of others. God does only originals. Tagore speaks about the penury in our hearts, the abject poverty of our uniqueness and the truth that there is no other person in the whole world exactly like us. Even if we know that truth, we keep competing with many around us in so many different ways. Wanting to be better than others has to be replaced by choosing to be a better version of myself. That approach would mean a lot to my physicality, emotionality, mentality and also spirituality. In simple terms, we choose to feel good about ourselves, being who we are as unique children of God. Keep sipping frequently self-acceptance- thoughts and see what happens to your health.
L for Love
A one word summary of all the teachings of Jesus is love. He did not say that it is a health energizer drink. Scientific studies are beginning to show the health benefits of love-enzymes. St. Paul places a caution to those who think love is easy. “If I gave everything I had to the poor and even gave up my body to be burned, but if I am without love, it would be of no value to me” (I Cor. 13. 3). Not charity and martyrdom, but love stands supreme also for the ‘prisoner of Jesus’, Paul. Jesus considers love above all the laws, even the law of Sabbath. Keeping all of the laws won’t improve your health. Love in fact does. Research has shown that the heart creates the largest electromagnetic field in the body than even what the brain does. When love quotient is of fine quality there will be a perfect harmony between the brain and the heart, mental aspirations and heart-warming feelings. If we follow the invitation of Jesus, ‘to love as I (Jesus) love’; we will be walking on the holistic path of health. With genuine love, our entire body remains warm, fresh, supple and lovable and it simply is good for our health. Love could be the best health concoction. Take it in your empty stomach as you wake up and the wellness-brew to have before going to bed at night and see what happens to your health.
T for Thoughts
We, humans are binge thinkers. The mind is turned on as we open our eyes in the morning and it moves on in different gears till sleep turns off the engine. Negative thoughts quickly and easily accelerate the velocity of the brain. Our dogs and cats too got brains, but they do not think. They have heads but they have no migraines. And they are free from most of the chronic diseases humans suffer from. You hardly hear of their coughs. Barely any of them experience blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, cancer or migraine headaches. They walk freely amidst Covid-19 humans without wearing any masks. The main constituent element of the brain is water. A wisdom line from Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven in flour. After a while it is hard to distinguish the dough from the leaven. A thought thrown in the water of the brain, makes everything watery. It quickly spreads all over the body, faster than that of the leaven in the dough. Sow some seeds of unkind, greedy, harmful, revengeful thoughts inside your brain, soon you will experience what a climate of hell is, about which Jesus did not speak. Store up droplets of life-giving thoughts in your brains; and see what happens to your health.
The last H for Health
Health tonic preparation is through. Now follow the direction given below:
“Engrave on your heart ‘what those five letters mean for you’. Repeat them over and over to your friends, speak of them when you are at home and when you travel, when you lie down and when you rise. Brand them on your hand as a sign, and keep them always before your eyes. Engrave them on your doorposts.” (Deuteronomy 6: 6-9)
(Divine Word Father Ittoop Panikulam stays at Dhyan Kutir, Mumbai.)