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Lifestyle is the insight of a particular person or entire society towards life and it is the way people live, think and behave. In Indian ancient lifestyle, principles of action and the righteous way to perform the work were given significant value. Life had peace, harmony and discipline at that time. However long term changes in our society have compelled us to change the pattern of our lifestyle.
An old saying -“Old is Gold”.
We live in a fast forward world. Where everything is done instantly. We live in an era where TIME = MONEY. It is considered that humans are the most intelligent species on Earth and that’s why we rule the world. However, evolution of human has a very long history. Human ancestors use to learn from their mistakes and acquired new skills and knowledge to do things rightly. Lack of patience in the current time is leading us nowhere. Few readers might not agree to my views. However, I do respect the readers who do not agree with me. When TIME and MONEY equation has failed and human species is battling for life – the age-old Indian practices are working as protected shield to save lives.
Every Indian age-old practice was part of daily life because of some reason. First let us see what all Indian age-old practices we are talking about.
- Strict Personal Hygiene
- Having Kitchen Garden
- Cleanliness of Surrounding
The age old practices, healthy food, nutrition, hygiene, cleanliness all go hand in hand and they did lead to one – a happier and disease free life. That time good practices were natural habits – already present among humans. They were not needed to be taught like nowadays. Another reason for a healthy life was a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle. Early to rise and early to sleep; using natural elements in every sphere of life; consumption of less chemicals and only home grown food were the secret of a healthy life. The hurry in present lifestyle has brought and bought us the ailments. So a return to our former good principles and practices is the only way to restore and preserve the peace of mind. And it’s well known fact that a happy and peaceful mind is the secret of healthy life.
Therefore the question is what is the contrast between the olden days and present days? How have we deviated from the age old serene life? The main factor of this deviation is a fast lifestyle. The fast lifestyle has brought stress in our life and that is the main reason of worry. We have developed the present customs and practice of living as per our convenience. The bad habits are usually easy to develop but very difficult to live with.
The same is not true with the good habits. The good habits are not so easy to develop but very easy to live with. One example can be worthy here. Early to bed and early to rise is a tough habit to develop; yet if we develop that habit, we will have a healthy life with fewer chances of ailments.
Lifestyle is the insight of a particular person or entire society towards life and it is the way people live, think and behave. In Indian ancient lifestyle, principles of action and the righteous way to perform the work were given significant value. Life had peace, harmony and discipline at that time. However long term changes in our society has compelled us to change the pattern of our lifestyle. This change in lifestyle has badly affected our culture, living habits and practice. Deterioration in health is often the result of wrong lifestyle practice. Our age old practices had excellent concepts regarding the all round development of an individual. It is high time to adapt some of the age old practices to adapt age old traditional beliefs and values to fight back some common illness.
A fact: this is 21st century. Our lifestyle is not about always eating healthy food everyday or it is not doing Yoga like Surya Namaskar every morning or we can’t get an Ayurvedic medicine whenever we fall ill. In fact, this lifestyle only talks about a sophisticated way of living a fulfilled life. This Indian lifestyle is essentially a model based on only desire like purpose, gain, pleasure and freedom. We have lost the trail of our age old life when Indians did have quest of joy, completeness and balance in life through simple practices. Those traditional beliefs and values were being transferred from one generation to another; however the speedy life in present and previous century has stopped that transfer.
Nothing has shivered the world so badly like COVID-19 – physically, economically and psychologically. This disease has spread its tentacles of fear, infections and death all over the globe. Still there is a ray of hope. It is now being increasingly proven that those who have a strong immune system will not succumb to the infection. And building a robust immunity is what India’s ancient system of Ayurveda and Yoga has focused. The ancient Indian tradition had two ways: prevent diseases by having a strong immune system; secondly, let the body fight the infection by further shoring up the immune system.
Ayurveda Ayurveda has been focusing on a common truth: “Prevention is the best Cure”. This practice has a wealth of knowledge on health sciences. Actually the traditional foods and their dietary guidelines are prescribed in Ayurveda. This is also an ancient system of medicine which deals with the prevention, treatment and non-recurrence of diseases as well as the management of health. It must be kept in mind that Ayurveda does not stand simply for the cure of certain diseases in individuals. It aims at keeping both the individual and the society healthy and happy by preservation and promotion of physical and mental health and prevention of diseases. Ayurveda continuously gives stress on 3 factors of life, namely: healthy nutrition, natural food and a clean environment.
Yoga To be healthy, one has to be calm, steady and emotionally stable from inside. The term Yoga starts in India. This can overcome various common day to day health issues caused by our complex lifestyle and busy schedule. Various studies have revealed the fact that traditional and ancient Indian Yoga has tremendous healing powers. Yogic practices enhance muscular strength and body flexibility, promote and improve respiratory and cardiovascular function, reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain, improve sleep patterns, and escalate overall well-being and quality of life.
COVID-19 has forced us to be more hygiene conscious. And we all know that hygiene and age old practice go hand in hand as all the traditional age old practices have a root to keep infections away. The ritual of keeping shoes outside, washing hands, sanitizing things before use, cleaning each and every corner of house with disinfectant has become a habit. These habits are nothing new. They were regular customs for our ancestors long ago. Their extra alert nature created laughter among us – the newer generations; but the most astonishing part is we are again going back age old practices to keep chances of infections out of home.
