None of us can de­ny the fact that pre­scrip­tion drugs are on the rise. Note I am not against pre­scrip­tion drugs as it has its place and can save lives for a num­ber of folks. But what if you want to live a med­ica­tion-free life? Which begs the ques­tion is it pos­si­ble to be healthy and live a long life with­out the aid of pre­scrip­tion drugs?

This may be pos­si­ble if you start young, make healthy lifestyle choic­es, fo­cus on pre­ven­tion while giv­ing the body the cor­rect amount of raw ma­te­r­i­al so that it can heal it­self. How­ev­er, when it comes to our di­et, most of us know what to do, but for some rea­son, we find do­ing it eas­i­er said than done. If you want to stay healthy with­out med­ica­tion, no doubt eat­ing well is one of the most im­por­tant ways to do that. Your fo­cus? Stay away from processed foods es­pe­cial­ly those that in­clude ni­trites, you should do your own fried foods with lim­its, most piz­zas, most fruits juices, white bread, note, most com­mer­cial bread are un­healthy es­pe­cial­ly if eat­en in large amounts as they’re made from re­fined wheat and gluten, which is very low in fi­bre and es­sen­tial nu­tri­ents and that may lead to a rapid spike in blood sug­ar.

So, let’s move on, what if you couldn’t tie your shoe? I mean many folks take that for grant­ed un­til one day you re­al­ize it can­not be done be­cause it’s the symp­tom of a big­ger prob­lem. Your health is wrapped up in the lit­tle things you do dai­ly so it’s im­por­tant to pay at­ten­tion to the sig­nals your body sends.

Fred Ni­et­zsche was ab­solute­ly cor­rect in his as­sess­ment when he de­clared: “There is more wis­dom in your body than your deep­est philoso­phies.” The thing is we of­ten times take for grant­ed how well our body serves us un­til all of a sud­den it no longer does. This is what hap­pens on a dai­ly ba­sis, your body com­mu­ni­cates to you con­sis­tent­ly through silent whis­pers, echoed emo­tions, gut feel­ings, aches and pains and still get ne­glect­ed by al­low­ing oth­er things to trump our health.

The no­tion of ill­ness is baulked at by many of us dur­ing this time, ac­com­pa­nied by a sense of in­vin­ci­bil­i­ty or this can­not hap­pen to me syn­drome and so this type of at­ti­tude or lifestyle gives way for to­tal de­struc­tion and soon enough you re­al­ize that na­ture is not so for­giv­ing when you choose to be com­pla­cent in los­ing the ge­net­ic lot­tery. What most of us fail to un­der­stand as hu­mans; just as strik­ing a match makes fire, ill­ness can per­vade the body overnight and when the light goes out there’s lit­tle one can do to reignite it.

Let me re­peat, you have the abil­i­ty to cre­ate em­pow­ered health by pay­ing at­ten­tion to your body’s in­nate wis­dom through at­ten­tive dis­ci­pline. In our “MAD” quest to at­tain ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions, many con­ceal the body’s cry for help while they sat­is­fy their crav­ings. Yet one can nev­er ever ful­fil your de­sires if you are not in har­mo­ny with your in­ner be­ing. So, the next time you feel re­al­ly tired in­stead of reach­ing for more caf­feine, sim­ply slow down and take a well-de­served rest.

It’s nei­ther my place nor du­ty to cast judge­ment on how one or­gan­is­es their life how­ev­er it’s my du­ty to help an­oth­er hu­man in­cor­po­rates good health habits. Keep read­ing the Health Plus Mag­a­zine in your Trinidad Guardian.