Help yourself without medicine

Bharat Savur

To be healthy and robust at 80 without hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes, etc. is a magnificent achievement. Especially when you consider the medical evidence -- tiny alterations in the body-tissues at the tender age of 10, sometimes earlier, heral d the onset of these disorders. Sobering thought.

That's why Deepak Chopra was impressed by the hale and hearty 80-year-old Belinda. When asked how she'd managed it, she replied, ``I stayed out of trouble and I worked hard every day of my life.''

Strikingly significant is her simple ``I stayed out of trouble'' -- encompassing a whole world of personal meaning. Belinda ``stayed out of trouble'' because at a deeper level, she lived by an awareness of what is good for her.

Ponder awhile and... we discover that this awareness is in us too -- a faint echo of what is good for us. Yet, most of the time, insensitive, deaf to this echo, we live on automation. Result: trouble.

To avoid this downhill course, we need to be continually aware. It's common sense -- what is beyond awareness we cannot tend to, hence, afflictions catch up with us. If we remain sedentary, stamina lowers gradually and it's years later that we realise we can't run up the stairs as effortlessly as we could. This jolt of recognition is the jolt to our dormant awareness.

We are blessed -- we breathe, blink, move reflexively. Not having to labour over these functions, our tendency is to live on automation too: a sophoric state or non-awareness. Interestingly, when we pay attention to a function, the awareness it brings is immediate. For example, when my students do the `bicep curl', they do it automatically. But, when they grip a two-and-half pound dumbbell while doing the `bicep curl', the response is palpable. Their eyes widen, they nod satisfiedly, ``There's a differe nce. I feel something happening.'' This is awareness -- the beginning of transformation.

Awareness is as much a body-response as it is of the mind. The weighted dumbbell tricks the awareness into awakening. And exercise becomes a voluntary, conscious, not automatic, movement. More. The muscles experience this conscious flexing and learn the awareness of being stronger, more streamlined. Still more. The message of conscious movement reaches the brain, heart, other organs, glands, immune system and they experience and learn a new, more balanced mode of functioning.

That is, the simple action of weight-training acts like a person moving from room to room switching on lights. Each room of the body gets illuminated, aware of a brighter, better way of existing and functioning: a holistic self-fulfilling phenomenon.

The importance of awareness lies in the mind-biological connection it makes and sparks into an intention that fulfills itself. When we help ourselves to a glass of water, it's because the body is thirsty. Awareness conveys this thirst to the mind which t hen triggers neurological processes and biological mechanisms that propel us bodily towards the art of drinking water. If our awareness were dim or non-existent, the thirsty body would dehydrate and die.

Similarly, pain is the culmination of early-warning twinges of the body that were ignored. When pain forces us to pay attention, we consult a doctor. Medicines ease the pain and we slip back to our non-awareness state. Gradually, the pain returns.

As it happened with Charul. Three years ago, she had cervical spondylitis and a lower-back pain. Medication helped. ``I thought I was cured,'' she told me, ``So, I didn't do anything more.'' But, since the last six months, she started waking up to stiffn ess in the lower back. This time, a fitness-savvy friend hauled her to a physiotherapist. This time, her `medicine' was strengthening exercises for the neck and back. Their fitness programme supplied the finishing touch. Just three sessions on their simp le rope-and-pulley equipment and Charul says she has been free of stiffness ever since.

Now, there's a new confidence in her body movements as she works out. Gone is the gingerness. The fitness-phrase ``Use it, don't lose it'' has gained new meaning. There's new hope -- that exercise will also banish the cramp in her thigh -- a childhood af fliction that's prevented her from sitting in the lotus position. There's a new purpose, a resolve that matches Belinda's ``I'll stay out of trouble.''

Our body-workings are the sum-result of our intentions. With our every thought and action comes a physiological response -- blood pressure, heartbeat, respiration, temperature fluctuate. Awareness oversees and subtly provides the skill to navigate these intentions towards a beneficial direction. Paying attention sets priorities that clue us into our personal streams of being.

Weight-training or pulleys -- that work on the body-weight resistance principle -- focus our attention on particular areas of the body. When awareness is stoked, the body senses our intention and becomes alert. Then, as the flow of movements synchronise with the flow of awareness, the stored pains and knots dissolve to bring in a stretched sense of freshness.

It's this freshness that Belinda lives by. An instinctual existence. For, `staying out of trouble' means `staying in health'. In the healing echoes of our awareness.

(The writer is the co-author of the book `Fitness for Life'.)