Despite the fact that so much emphasis on mind over body phenomenon has been placed in the past three decades, we still do not sufficiently appreciate the self-healing powers of our body, and how we negatively influence it by our conscious and subconscious actions. Each individual has a preponderance of one of the humours, ordained by nature (genetic make-up), that defines the physical, physiological and psychological characteristics of the individual and his/her body constitution. Balance or equilibrium of four humours is essential for the maintenance of health, and their imbalance results in disease. Admixture of humours responsible for an individual’s body constitution in a physical sense also determines one’s ‘temperament.’
Temperament is physiologically defined as the pattern of qualities that results from actions and reactions of mass and energy in the structures and functions of human body. It is the final outcome of chemical combinations and interactions amongst various constituents of differing qualities. This new state or the quality emerges only after a uniform state or a state of equilibrium has been achieved as a consequence of interactions of two or more elements. The concept of temperament, based on the presumption of constituent elements and disposition of all animate things, applies to all living creatures. Each species of animals and humans thus have a normal and abnormal temperament. Temperament of man is basically innate due to inborn strengths and weaknesses of various faculties, but is liable to temporary changes due to extraneous factors such as food, climate, rest, exercise, sleep and emotions. To understand the concept of temperament a simple analogy is the example of one molecule of water, which is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. When these two elements are present in their natural states neither of them even remotely looks like, behaves like or have properties like that of water, but their covalent bonding in a 2:1 ratio creates water, a new compound unlike anything else in nature. Similarly, each individual attains a temperament reaching adulthood that is unique only to him/her.
Most common medical conditions of our times, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, anxiety and obesity are regarded as diseases or as causes for other diseases, whereas they are themselves effects resulting from other insidious causes. We treat these effects aggressively but ignore to treat the real culprits, the causes. We claim to have made a lot of progress in treating these diseases but the fact is that we have simply increased use of drugs without effecting a cure. They would probably require less drug interventions if physicians had time to intervene and address social and psychological issues that would promote healthy lifestyles.
Almost all ancient systems of medicine regard stomach as the ‘home’ or the source of all diseases, and should be the first to be dealt with in a disease state. There are two components of satisfying hunger; one is to fill the stomach enough to stretch it from its fasting state to a threshold that stimulates brain’s satiety center, and the other is to have balanced food to meet body’s nutritional demands. Habitual and repeated overeating results in a loose stretched stomach requiring more and more food to satisfy the craving and causing constant overeating and weight gain. With an excessively stretched and loose stomach, the excessive amount of improperly or undigested food is not converted into a form that body can properly assimilate and most of it is deposited as body fat. The first digestion begins with proper mastication (chewing) that prepares food for gastric digestion. However, the modern day busy life does not even allow people to let the body perform this function efficiently.
Most important entity that shapes our personality and plays a very significant role in shaping our character is our mind, the supreme controller of our body. We are equipped with a brain, the consciousness, the intellect and the memory, and together these help us conduct the business of our life. While brain is the physical component and all normal human brains are composed of the same basic units called neurons, intellect and memory vary among individuals and are hidden somewhere in the jungle of ever changing neuron connections called synapses. There are an estimated 100 billion neurons in our brain and each neuron can connect forming synapses with up to 10,000 neurons, a reflection of brain’s capability to communicate across its specialized regions and potential for its activities. All changes in brain, whether cytological, chemical or otherwise are therefore not causes but visible effects of mind’s activity.
Mind has both the conscious and the subconscious components to it. Conscious mind is operational when we are conscious and are aware of our surroundings that is when it influences brain activity and explicitly expresses itself through it. Subconscious mind is partly a reflection of conscious mind, such as our fears and aspirations, but most of it functions independently. It is not simply a channel of expression of repressed memories as suggested by Freud. It, however, becomes more active when consciousness or awareness is in a suspended mode such as during sleep. We go to places during our dreams we have never been to or witnessed in our real life, experience both the pleasures and nightmares, un-thinkable in the real world.
Preservation and improvement of health could be an easy or difficult proposition depending on our determination and mindset. Health-conscious individuals conduct every aspect of their lives in such a way that it becomes an effortless and subconsciously easy exercise to do things that help maintain health. However, for most of us, the average Jane and Joe, a realization of our situation and the mindset and resolve to change it is initially required to achieve the objective.
Knowledge does not begin or ends with us; it has been handed down to us from the time immemorial and will continue to be passed on to future generations. We benefit from cumulative knowledge that is gained by thousands of hard working people, making mistakes and learning from them and passing the lessons learnt to the next generations. What we consider state of the art and scientific knowledge in present age may be regarded as primitive by future generations as we consider some of the past observations. Nonetheless, fundamental knowledge survives times and generations. In Mark Twain’s words: “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”