Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Ways to stay Healthy (Mentally & Physically)

Physical and Mental health both are important and there are many ways to maintain your health physically and mentally. For Example 

1  .       Meditation

2  .       Exercise/ Yoga

3  .       Healthy Diet

4  .       Sports and games

5  .       Travelling

6  .       Laughter Therapy
7.         Sleep

Meditation:

One of the first things we learn when we try to do this meditation practice is how distracted our minds are! All sorts of thoughts and feelings flow into our awareness, and then we find we’ve forgotten all about the breath. This is a good thing to learn. If we don’t know this we can’t do anything about it.

Most of what comes into our minds is not very useful, and often it’s actually bad for us. For example we find ourselves worrying or getting angry, or putting ourselves down.

The simple principle behind this meditation practice is that if we keep taking our awareness back to the breath — over and over again — then our mind gradually quiets down and we feel more contentment.

Benefits of meditation related to quality of life

Increased intelligence – Scientific studies shown that meditating improves the practitioner’s cognitive and intellectual abilities. This effect of ‘becoming smarter’ has been demonstrated by different types of intelligence tests.

Benefits for students – Regular meditation raises school performance (higher academic achievement, less absenteeism, better graduation rates), and that goes for all school levels from kindergarten to college.

Work efficiency – Research has shown reduction in the stress levels and better decision making. This, in turn, leads to higher efficiency at work place in both small and big organizations.

Creativity & problem-solving – Meditating leads to higher brain integration, which in turn sets the basis for mental alertness, original thought and creative problem-solving skills.

Access to higher levels of consciousness – Whereas ordinary human experience is limited to three states of consciousness (wake, asleep, in deep sleep), one of the benefits of regular meditation practice is access to four more refined levels of being.

Transcendental experiences – Study on meditative experiences which were characterized by the practitioners’ partial or complete absence of time, space, and body sense.

Positive emotions and well-being – Research shows that meditation practitioners have 5 times greater clarified gamma output (positive feelings like love, happiness; well-being).

Business leadership and management skills – Is meditating good for business? Evidence from Ray Dalio to Silicon Valley, from Fortune 100 lists to Harvard Business School.

Personal relationships – Three months of Transcendental Meditation practice brings significant improvement in professional and personal relationships, based on increased happiness and reduced stress.

Marital relations – Study measuring long-term marital happiness with Locke’s Adjustment Inventory. Subjects in the TM group showed significantly greater marital satisfaction.

Life expectancy – Mortality rates from various fatal heart conditions were cut by 48% with regular practice of meditation found a key study with patients suffering from cardiovascular disease.

Pregnancy – Interaction of hormones and surrounding physical environment: What are the benefits of meditation practice during pregnancy, both for mothers and newborns?

Brain coherence – Meditating leads to increased frontal coherence — that is, more harmonious and efficient brain activity — as measured during various computer tasks and eyes-closed rest.

Good sleep – Lower levels of stress mean better sleep, don’t they? Taking up meditation regularly, at least twice a day, is a natural home remedy against chronic insomnia (sleeplessness).

Multiple sclerosis – Meditating reduces attacks of multiple sclerosis and relieves related symptoms (weakness, tingling, numbness, and blurred vision) by boosting energy levels.

Distress & coping – Lower blood pressure, decreased psychological distress, increased coping in people at risk for hypertension, a study with meditating college students found.

Glowing skin – Keeping the hormonal levels well balanced and cutting radically down on daily stress leads, among other good things, to beautiful skin and radiantly beautiful looks!

Prevention and relief for diseases & ailments

Stress and anxiety relief – Arguably the single biggest benefit of meditation is a more balanced nervous system and hormonal levels which eliminate any excessive flight-or-fight responses by our body. In other words, meditation has been shown to naturally lead to a calmer life.

Heart diseases and ailments – Improved functional capacity for patients with various heart conditions / heart failure. Risk of heart disease cut by 30%; mortality from stroke decreases 48%.

Normalized blood pressure – Another crucial benefit of meditation is that it reduces blood pressure on average by 7 mm/Hg. It also thus reduces such conditions as heart attack, aneurysm, artery damage, kidney failure etc.

Immune system – Regular Transcendental Meditation practice strengthens the body’s ability to resist disease by boosting immune cells fighting against viruses, bacteria and toxins.

Slower ageing — Telomeres, the all-important chromosome endings which keep your cells fresh and healthy, have recently been shown to get a boost from regular meditation practice. This results in longer life and lower risk of falling pray to various ailments.

Cancer patients’ care – Transcendnetal Meditation and yoga practice are considered the most helpful of all available non-invasive therapies for supportive care of cancer patients.

Autism spectrum disorders – Learning to let the mind calm down in a natural, easy-to-do way helps in growing from frequent temper tantrums into a happy, well-adjusted personality.

Alcohol, nicotine and drug addiction – Meditation significantly reduces addiction to and use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. With regular practice, the abstinence strengthens naturally.

Depression & burnout – An interesting study with teachers confirmed that meditation significantly decreases work-related stress, burnout states, and various depressive symptoms.

Eating disorders – Research shows that benefits of meditation include more effective recovery from food addiction, due to lower stress levels. Binge eating, as any other kind of addiction, is largely triggered by stress.

Smoking – Academic studies demonstrate that meditation has 50% of smokers quitting in two years after starting to meditate (i.e., three times more effective quit smoking rate than with therapy).

Alcoholism abuse – A comparative study demonstrated that the effect of the Transcendental Meditation technique on reducing alcohol consumption was 1,5 to 8 times that of other programs.

Trait anxiety – According to the meta-analysis, anxiety disorders (panic attacks, anger, tenseness) are ‘rapidly and substantially’ reduced in the first few weeks of meditation practice.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) – After just 10-days of TM practice, PTSD symptoms (depression, insomnia, fear etc) dropped almost 30 points compared to the base level.

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) – Meditation practice relieves at least five different hyperactivity symptoms (including lack of focus, sleeping problems, depression).

HEALTH IS WEALTH

Good Health is important because a man of health can enjoy great happiness during his life time. Without health we cannot do anything in this world. A man suffering from fever remains confined to bed. He cannot get out of doors. He cannot do anything for anybody.

Health is more valuable than wealth. Even a poor peasant with good health is happier than the rich person with poor health.

A sound mind lives in a sound body. Health is essential for all our activities of life whatever we may be – a doctor, a leader, an artist, we must possess health by all means.

We must follow the laws of health from our very childhood.

• Early rising is the first law of health, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”.
• The first and essential condition of good health is regular exercise at stated times. It should be moderate and given up as soon as one feels a sense of tiredness. Excess is to be avoided and is bound to do harm.
• Walking is the best form of exercise to remain healthy.
• Intoxicating drink and smoking should be avoided for good health

Health education is imparted with the aim of improving the health of an individual or a group of individuals.

Importance of Health Education: Many are the blessings of imparting health education. Health education enables a person to remain physically fit and in proper health.

Health education also teaches about the emotional and mental health of the student. A healthy person is the happiest person in the world.

A healthy person can enjoy life fully. He can carry out his duties in a responsible manner. He is an asset to the family, the society and to the entire nation. He is always full of energy. He lives a long and happy life. A healthy peasant is happier than a monarch without health.

Health education encourages a person to make healthy choices. They are instructed to avoid unhealthy habits. ‘A sound mind lives in a sound body’. Rabindranath Tagore and C.V. Raman, if they were confined to sick bed, could not have won the Nobel Prize. In fact, a sickly student with all his talents and abilities lags behind in the race of life.

Health education brings positive changes in the mind of the student. There are high chances that they would never get caught in the deadly habits of smoking, alcoholism, drug addition, etc.

Neglect of the laws of health is the cause of misery. An unhealthy man lives a miserable life. With all his riches, pomp and power he is the poorest of the poor. He can neither enjoy peace of mind nor sound sleep at night. The world has no charm for him.

Through health education, students are encourages to follow the rules for the preservation of health. Healthy habits should be formed in childhood and youth. We should be moderate in eating and drinking. We should be wise in the choice of plain, wholesome and simple food. Over-eating is worse than no eating. We should get plenty of sleep and get up early in the morning. It is our duty to take regular physical exercise, and to have regular baths for keeping our bodies clean.

Conclusion: Health education is important because health is a great boon to human life. Through health education, students are instructed to adapt the habit of good health and to improve the individual and public health of the country.