Fashion trends come full circle and we often see old style statements coming into vogue again, don’t we? Likewise it is time to wipe the dust off the health secrets of our grandmothers and get back to our basics. Don’t worry. We won’t ask you to grind your own flour or milk the cows!
Welcome to the National Nutrition Week. We are setting this week rolling by slowing down a bit and turning back the clock.
The first thing that comes to mind is how healthy, active and simple people were then, compared to us now.
What were the things that kept them hale and hearty?
Every home had a gym of sorts and the elders in the family were the personal trainers who oversaw with a hawk’s eye-the mopping of the floors, the grinding of the flour and the washing of clothes. No question of bulging out or dieting to lose weight. No one ever knew of hypertension, diabetes or a heart problem.
A home and a hearth existed where the women of the house rustled up the most mouth watering food that satisfied the soul. The kitchen was also a medicine cabinet where common aches and pains, cough and cold, cuts and bruises, indigestion, acidity, fever were tended too. Seasons and the weather decided the menu and the local produce was king. Amenities were scarce but people were a satisfied lot. Relationships were important and people had time for each other. Simplicity ruled the roost and the words- stress and tension had yet to creep into common parlance. In a nutshell, lives were as close to nature as was possible.
Homes have now become smart homes where lights and air-conditioning come on as you walk in. Refrigerators tell you if the loaf of bread is over. Alexa finds phone numbers for you. Breakfast consists of more pills than food. All the gizmos that supposedly make life easier for us add to our already sedentary lifestyle, making us sitting ducks for what the medical fraternity terms as lifestyle diseases.
It is not possible to go back to mopping floors and milking cows but at least we can find time for ourselves. An hour a day should be ‘me time’ to do some simple exercises or walk briskly in the fresh morning air, sit down quietly for a while with yourself to do as you please. ‘Eat local think global’ is quite a shop worn but should be the mantra if you wish to be alive and kicking for a while.
Our culture has a ritual of celebrating the evening hours by lighting the lamp at home. By making our evenings a priority like the way our ancestors did, and occasionally having a get-together and chanting and maybe even discussing a bit of knowledge which is very relevant even today, we would be taking care of our emotional upheavals. Going back to our roots thus seems like a wise idea to not only enrich our physical health but also balance our emotions.
5 Tips
- Abhyanga or oil massage for the hair and body can balance the doshas, improve your circulation, keep your skin glowing and your head calm. (instead of moisturisers)
- Yoga
- A few drops of ghee everyday in your navel to balance the restless mind
- Gargling and oil pulling along with brushing – keeps all orifices above the neck clean and improves clarity of thought
- A betel leaf after food to stimulate digestion
