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You probably know the benefits and the risks. You know what
constitutes a healthy life and you know the consequences of being unhealthy.
So what? Do you use fast food, drugs and distractions to feel good? Do you
act like a child with food? We write this for adults who want to be healthy
despite the hypnotic marketing suggestions that have been imposed on them
since childhood.
Healthy Lifestyles
Healthy lifestyles are not about starving yourself, becoming a nutrition
expert or living on an organic farm. Healthy lifestyles are not about
being underweight or depriving yourself. Healthy lifestyles are about
feeling great, having energy and enjoying quality relationships with
other healthy people.
The most pervasive obstacles to human happiness are poverty, starvation and
disease. Healthy people maintain an adequate income, eat healthy food and exercise regularly. Does that sound simple? It
could be - unless you are losing the battle for your mind.
How many of your purchases are the results of
post-hypnotic suggestions?
Few people profit from your good physical or
mental health. Many people profit when you and your family eat sh... sugar and
distract yourselves with consumer goods. Many people profit if you try to
fulfill immature obsessions, compulsions and juvenile desires. Many people
profit when you must deal with the medical consequences of unhealthy
lifestyles. Where there's profit - there's marketing and competition.
How can a company entice you to buy their 100% greaseburger (guaranteed to
have no healthy ingredients), or another labor-saving device so that you can
watch more TV? By logic? By appealing to your intelligence? By inspiring
you to greatness? Or by implanting unconscious obsessions?
Battle for your Mind
Healthy living includes not only what you eat, but why you
eat it and what you do with the energy gained. Many people start diets
and quit ... often heavier than they were before. Discouraged, they return
to their mostly-unconscious eating habits, which are strongly influenced by the
hypnotic marketing of processed fast-foods ... marketing often designed by
professional psychologists.
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Foods are substances that are ingested and assimilated
by organisms to maintain life.
Food choices depend upon availability, price, marketing, personal history,
children's desires and satisfying hunger, as well as nutritional needs. |
Most healthy choices begin with emotional maturity. Children
crave sweet foods and may eat them until they are sick. Children love fast-foods
and may pressure their parents into having another all-you-can-stuff-down lunch.
For children, the four food groups seem to be sugar,
fat,
starch and deep fried salty things. And some children never seem
to grow up.
Are you conscious - or are you
sleep-walking?
You already know that your lifestyle choices can reduce
your risk of illnesses such as heart disease, liver disease, cancer, and
diabetes; and defend you against depression, anxiety and dementia. Or
perhaps you believe that you are so special that
these things cannot happen to you.
While no combination of foods can completely protect you
against disease, you can reduce the risk of terrible lifestyle diseases by consuming
more fruit and vegetables and less processed food and fats. But ... what
stops you? Many people act as if they were hypnotized by marketing campaigns.
Do you already know all this - and still live an
unsatisfying, unhealthy lifestyle? Perhaps you learned to associate food with
love and contentment as a baby. Often the first food after
breast milk is some processed food full of sugar and chemicals. Were you
conditioned that sugar + chemicals = love?
Processed foods can be addictive. Many taste good,
especially to children, who can often control what their parents buy! Many processed
foods stimulate endorphins, feel-good chemicals that cause temporary
emotional highs. Healthy people fulfill their emotional needs with
quality relationships - not with food or drugs. But, instead of building
healthy relationships, many people depend on commercial products for their
pleasure.
Drugs & Medications
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Drugs are substances which, when absorbed into the body of a
living organism, alter normal bodily function.
World Health Organization 1969. Expert Committee on Drug Dependence. |
Do you take psychoactive drugs (including tobacco and alcohol)
to cope with reality ... or to escape from reality! Nicotine is pretty good for
dissociating fear and diminishing the effects of stress ... for a while. Alcohol
helps many people deal with depression ... for a short time.
Many people take drugs to control emotions created in
difficult relationships. Do you
believe that drugs can solve relationship problems? Usually there is nothing
wrong with the people you find difficult ... it's more often a question of
your maturity, your communication skills and your boundaries.
Do you use drugs to control depression, rage or
anxiety? Some solutions are worse than the problems.
Distractions
There's nothing wrong with having fun -
especially fun shared with family and friends. Most children excel at
playing - yet they may forget how to play as they get older. Most teenagers
excel at sharing. Trouble starts if having fun alone becomes normal ...
perhaps even a way to avoid sharing.
The difference between men and boys is the
price of their toys. American idiom.
Do short-term distractions divert you from lasting happiness? Are you more interested in things than in people? How
many hours each week do you watch television? Play with a computer? Walk
around shopping malls? Medicate yourself? Are you inspired to live your life ... or
are you just putting in time?
Unhealthy Relationships
For most children, love is quality time with their parents -
children spell LOVE as T-I-M-E. Many teenagers believe that LOVE is the
answer to all their problems ... some cling to fantasies that love can heal
their lives. Most teenagers grow up and become more realistic by age
30. And some don't ... we meet plenty of teenagers in their 40's and 50's.
Most children depend on their parents. Most teenagers
long to be independent. Most adults want to share their lives with compatible
partners. Healthy relationships create a sense of shared
security - a sense of connectedness - a sense of humanity. Healthy
relationships between strong, independent people with similar values
can last a lifetime. Unhealthy relationships can cause tremendous stress.
There seems to be no limits to the pleasure of healthy
relationships - with family, friends, colleagues, partner, children and your
community. And there seems to be no limits to the suffering created by unhealthy
relationships in any category. Yet few people are taught adult relationship
skills.
Don't sleep with anyone sicker than you!
Unhealthy relationships can trigger unpleasant emotions,
which can generate a variety of compensation behaviors and perhaps diseases, including limiting
beliefs and loss of motivation to live a healthy life.
When Too Much is not Enough
The consumer culture encourages you to want more – cars,
larger homes, televisions, computers, gadgets – and marketers will tell you that
you deserve it all and can have it all if you really want it. Instructors of positive
thinking often use words like ‘self-hypnosis’ and ‘mind-control’ ... positive
thinking requires self-deception, constantly repressing unpleasant possibilities
and thoughts.
The adoption of a healthy lifestyle and successful
treatment of lifestyle diseases requires that you resolve emotional challenges
as well as the physical and financial consequences of unhealthy lifestyles. Common
emotional difficulties are depression, limiting beliefs and emotional blocks.
Depression
Depression
is often a healthy response to a life that lacks
meaning. If life seems pointless or you feel guilty for
having hurt people, your happiness may not make sense. Life can also lose
meaning as a result of injustice or transference, for example:
- Abuse, betrayal or abandonment (e.g. betraying a partner or abandoning a child)
- Confusing relationship types (e.g. perceiving
a parent as a partner, or a partner as a child)
Depressed people seem to be more likely to suffer from
diabetes, hypertension and dementia. Depression may reduce the motivation
to take medications and follow prescribed diets and treatments.
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I was so proud of my body. I enjoyed women's
envy and making men crazy ... since I got fat, nobody notices me. I am so
depressed ... without my looks I am nothing. Frankfurt |
People who identify with their body may be deeply
distressed by both disease and medical treatment. Medications, mood
swings and fears of complications may also contribute to
depression.
Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs about the cause, seriousness and
treatment of lifestyle diseases are also important. Limiting beliefs
are often relationship bonds to
family members or to authorities such as teachers, doctors, therapists
etc.
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After a heart attack I was diagnosed
with hypertension and pre-diabetes ... it's not my fault ... my parents
fed me all kinds of crap ... my partner won't eat healthy food ... I
want to go out more but instead we watch television ... my family
makes me sick! Leeds, UK
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Emotional Blocks
Emotional
blocks and relationship problems resulting from
stress and
trauma are an integral
component of healthy lifestyles. Stress seems to heighten the unpleasant consequences
of a poor diet. Emotional stress leads to the secretion of many hormones
that can upset the body and disrupt metabolic control.
Strong unpleasant
emotions affect both mental and physical stability. The most common
unpleasant emotions that we find seem to be
guilt, anxiety,
anger and
sadness.
Summary
We help people replace unhealthy beliefs,
build emotional stability and improve their
relationships. We help people make better decisions ... and enjoy healthy
lifestyles.
Please consult a physician about
any opinions or recommendations about medical issues.
Online Coaching & Mentorship
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers
2003-2012, All rights reserved |
