The Most Important Thing...

I’m not much of a Bible reader (just absorbed plenty through years of childhood church time!) but I sometimes still think about some of those stories and lessons. One that has been on my mind a lot lately is the one where someone asks Jesus what the most important commandment is. There were soooooo many rules to follow, even beyond those 10 biggies that people couldn’t really keep up, and I guess they just wanted to know, which one is the REALLY important one? Jesus said there were 2, but they basically boiled down to 1: LOVE. I think about this story a lot because it kind of parallels a topic in health. Health is like anything in that there are rules governing how it works. There are many rules to health, but I think we all know a few of the basics. For health, you need clean water. Yep, everyone knows it. For health, you need enough rest. No arguments there. For health, you need enough clean air to breathe! Yes. check! For health, you need good healthy food. Yes, aaaand…. here we begin down the rabbit hole. Which foods, exactly, or which dietary guidelines, and which supplements, and how many, and for how long, etc.? Nutrition is a sticky topic. I think that everyone agrees that nutrition does have something major to do with health, but the particulars are harder to agree on. (Don’t worry - this post isn’t about nutrition!) What else… for health, you need healthy relationships. Again, this can lead us down a rabbit hole. The point is, if you want to be healthy, there are rules. Lots of rules. Some are big and obvious and there are countless smaller rules that are less obvious! But if we went to Healthy Jesus and asked, what is the MOST important rule of health? I think that this is what he would say: STRESS RELIEF. I mean, isn’t it strange, how when you’re happy and relaxed, full of love and the dopamine is flowing like water (if dopamine flowed, of course) then somehow you are able to get away with eating worse food, getting less sleep, etc.? But when life is awful and the cortisol, not the dopamine, is the thing flowing like water? The imbalances from bad food, lack of sleep and exercise, etc. stack up fast and you lose your heath fast, too! I support everyone in their endeavors to follow the rules of health, and I think it’s great that so many people are embracing the low-refined-carb lifestyle, tracking their fitness, etc. But without the stress relieving component, you are spitting in the wind. Sometimes you can’t do much about the outside stress — high cost of living, awful politicians running the city/state/country, pesky family members or work characters, etc. — but you can change how your body reacts to those stresses, and that’s the part that has a direct effect on your health! For some people, this means going to work it out in therapy or taking up meditation or some other practice. In my experience, the fast-track to managing stress in the body has been through NET (Neuro Emotional Technique). NET helps to pinpoint subconscious areas of stress which are directly affecting the body. I’m going to stop now, because once I get started about NET, I think I devolve into technical jargon that doesn’t actually mean anything to anyone else! Anyway, the point is, if you’re concerned about your health, look to the things that will reduce the STRESS first, and from there you will get the most bang for your buck! Oh, and to finish on another Bible note (because… why not?), there was that story where the crying hooker is washing Jesus’s feet, and his followers are disgusted, like, “Ew, you let that woman touch you? Don’t you know what she is?” And Jesus says something like, “She has loved much, so much will be forgiven her.” Again with the love thing. If you have that covered, then a whole lot of other things will be forgiven! Ditto on the health front. If you can get a handle on the emotional stress, then a lot of whole lot of other things will be forgiven for you, too, so to speak… And that is all I have to say about that! -DK.