Equilibrium
Ever wondered why this happens? Well I have; many times.
Exhaustion is our body’s way of telling us to wake up and make a drastic change, a message most of us ignore. In the case of exhaustion, this message is not about one big thing; rather it is about a number of seemingly small things.
First and foremost, our body is telling us to start our day with a healthy breakfast. Coffee and/or dry toast isn’t breakfast! There is a reason why our parents ensured we ate a full and healthy meal before we went to school. Many of us completely ignored this advice when we went to college and laid the foundation of a lifetime of skipping meals, especially breakfast. Either there was no time or there was a brilliant new plan to lose weight without working out. Skipping meals only slows down your metabolism, which ultimately leads to weight gain.
This leads us into another very important, but ignored aspect of life. Experts believe that if you want to lead an active life, you should work out for at least 30 minutes a day. Here, I must add that balance is essential. One reason for being tired is working out too much. It’s human nature to get over-excited about getting fit and then overdoing it by starving and spending every free moment on the treadmill. Sustainable things usually last longer.
Another important factor in feeling fresh is drinking water. One common misconception people have is that they think that tea, coffee and colas constitute as water intake. Even a little deficiency of water can affect our energy levels. Dehydration thickens our blood, drops our energy level and causes premature aging.
Iron is one nutrient that most women need to be careful about. When your iron level is low, you feel agitated and weak. Iron is found in green, leafy vegetables, liver, nuts and eggs. And if you are not getting your daily requirements from your food intake, I heartily advocate the use of multivitamins and supplements.
You must sleep at least six to eight hours a day. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body doesn’t get a chance to recuperate and rejuvenate itself. Then you wake up feeling cranky and angry. Sleeping should mean that the person actually closes their eyes, closes off the noise inside their heads, and rest.
Finally, one major cause of waking up irritated is unnecessary and trivial thoughts. We tend to start obsessing about issues that we usually have no control over, like being scared that your boss will fire you or you won’t get the promotion you have been working towards. Such thoughts exhaust us.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that balance is key to having peace of mind and body. Only when one makes a conscious lifestyle change does one find themselves happier and in a better frame of mind. You want to wake up feeling good and literally bounce out of bed like you did as a child? Then make it happen. There is no miracle pill that can make us thin or successful or happy. When you lose your balance in life, you have to dust yourself off and find it all over again. However, this time stick to it.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (11)
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2nd attempt;
Miss Kazim, you mean well but please be careful in lobbying for the use of supplements or iron source from liver, nuts and eggs. The advice of the physician is very necessary if there are deficiencies identified in blood examination. The teas are antioccidents and should be encouraged to avoid cancer. The non boiled water on the other hand might contain bacterias that are harmful, unless ofcourse one is immune because of regular use. Your articles are otherwise quite fresh and entertaining.
Rex Minor.
2nd attempt: @brig asif alvi: You are definitely a fine gentleman Sir, as a military officer is trained to be a gentleman, but this Napoleonic instinct is not keeping up with the 21st century civilisation. Your army has a colonial structure and unless it is nationalised through reforms, it will never learn that its function is not limited to defending the physical frontiers from within but the ideological integrity of the Nations as well which are within the countrys hegemonic boundries. And most importantly, it must be understood that it is responsible towards the country's constitution and the elected representatives of the People.. I know that you mean well and so does the author of the article who is recommending multivitamins and supplements which could infact prove to be harmful.
Rex Minor
Second attempt at a comment : interesting as always....but to be honest I found @brig asif alvi's comment even more so.
@brig asif alvi: you gave a befitting reply to an uncivilised person. i am no supporter of the army as an institution and do feel we spend too much on it, but competent, diligent and honest men like you who work to make the institution better are the pride of the country and its people.
Immense respect for this very beautiful and talented lady! Miss Juggan Kazim. Equilibrium: What a delightful read! A subject that needs to be understood much and Miss Juggan Kazim made it incredibly easy for all to understand. No doubt, readers will find it a great help in understanding and in applications! Well done!
@Rex Minor
I have always supported a concept of soft approach to security. I understand that we are spending much more than we can afford. The reason for this is incompetence at military as well as the government levels. I also understand that our ambitions are Napoleonic acquired through reading foreign history. We have not really studied our peculiar needs.
Having said that, i must say that your last comment seems to be unkind. I am very proud of my service and my aim was to defend physical frontiers of Pakistan not the ideological!!
@brig asif alvi: You forgot to mention to cut down the army which is costing a lot pf pain on the Treasury. But please keep your spirit of learning, you may come to conclusion about he wasted time in your military service.
Rex Minor
@Brig Asif Ali Sir! you have rightly pointed out at the core issues faced by Pakistan. We should have to focus on equality in terms of opportunities. Qur'an favors discrimination in income on the basis of capabilities only if all of the people have equal opportunities. The time has changed, if we fail to address these issues in near future, the albatross will be around our neck. On the one side, few people are living high of the hog, while on the other hand majority is down at heels. The policy makers should have to sink their tooth into the comprehensive reforms. If the elite class continue their living in an irony tower with their inhumane behavior, the day will come when the masses will retaliate unprecedentedly.
I fully appreciate this article. There is good logic to enable us to try to lead a happy as well an energetic life. But our problems are too complicated. We miss out the real issues the majority of our people face. This reminds me an incident on 2004/5..
In 2004 I was commanding a Brigade in ZHOB( Baluchistan). It is a nice small place and blends desert with greenery. One day i took an expedition of Young Officers and men for hiking to Koh Saluman.
The forest department gave us a guide. He was local Pathan and looked fairly old. On our way up the officers and men kept sharing their stresses of service. I observed every one had some issue to share. We never paid attention towards guide and took it granted that he is tension free.
At the termination of hiking, i called the guide and thanked to him. The man replied "Sir do you know what is the stress of FOOD?". He said my pay is RS 6000 per month and there are ten dependent on me. Each morning my problem is how to feed my family, health services?. He added that you people are discussing stresses which are not life threatening. This was very revealing. And it was so true.
Our society is full of issues and the the major percentage has stress of just living. Added to it are absence of equal opportunities and justice. Life is actually very difficult with us and those who read English press. We are really ignorant of what is happening with the majority of countrymen and how painfully they are dying?
We need to focus our efforts on that side too. The big projects focused are of no value. This is no great governance. We are already at the verge of breaking as a nation and a country. It happened in 1971 and still we are not realizing the real causes. The perception and development differences are too vast. Let me narrate another incident to support my point.
After completing my command in ZOHB, i was joined National Defense University for further education. The basic theme of this study was "national security strategy". We were focused Indian threat, how to handle Mr. Akbar Bughtii, We never actually contemplated economic imbalance, vast cultural gaps and the distribution of wealth.
There are numerous inland and out of country study trips. While visiting Lahore, we were invited to Alhamra Art Council. We witnessed great performance by the students of Kinnaird College, Lahore, this was absolutely absorbing. Conversely, it reminded me ZOHG, the second largest district of Baluchistan. We could never see a woman in street. How will we survive like this, as a nation. Any man coming and seeing this performance will not believe that we belong to the same country.
Our course terminated on a foreign tour and i was assigned to Germany. On return we were asked to present our views. My simple conclusion was " let us make a happy nation with equal opportunities to grow, trust in education and democracy, which itself is a big guarantee for security". But we are still pursuing the wrong goals.
Well said- I wonder how she get all the wisdom of health in her age.
Consider Yoga.