Our health expert Anu Paavola discusses the ways nature and nurture affect your wellbeing. How can you improve your health by tuning into your body’s individual needs?
What is it that makes us behave in a certain way? Why do certain things keep repeating in our lives over which we feel we have no control? Does it sometimes seem like you want to say, “I am like this, just accept me as I am”? Or do you stop, think and intuitively feel that there is something you can do about it yourself?
Everyone is born with a genetic makeup that allows their bodies and minds to express themselves and to behave in their own unique way. This will never change. Some people tend to be creative, some achieving and some caring. All of these features mix as well. You can be creative and caring or you could be a creative achiever.
The important thing is to recognise what is your own personal nature and what are your special features.
How learned responses affect our health
When we are born – in fact, even when we are in the womb – we are exposed to a myriad of sensory stimuli, teachings and attractions. We start creating a world of patterns, ways to react to situations, and are ultimately conditioned by what we are exposed to. Subconsciously our brains will learn ways of acting and reacting.
Sometimes these reactive patterns can be so damaging that they interfere with our health. For example, IBS or backaches are often caused by a learned response to stress by the mind.
Our health is greatly dependent on our understanding of how we have developed between these two ends of a spectrum – nature and nurture. That said, these two do not have to be mutually exclusive and can act together as something that evolves in synchrony and creates conditions for optimal physical well-being and mental happiness.
Tune in and find your key to health and wellbeing
The most important thing is to understand what we are truly like.
Sometimes you just have to accept you are not going to have arms like Madonna, because your body has a tendency to build up fat in the arms and upper body. Or you have to cut down on chilli and coffee because your nervous system can’t cope with it and your hormones are all over the place.
Nurturing our bodies in line with our nature is the key to health and wellbeing. Nature has an incredible urge to repair and rejuvenate. The very existence of everything is determined by an innate impulse to create life, longevity and enjoyment of the journey through the different stages of our existence.
All we need to do is tune in. Aligning ourselves with the rhythms of nature, mainly the cycles of the day and seasons, can have tremendous effects on how our bodies behave.
By tuning in we gain self-awareness and re-educate our bodies to cope with stress, whether it is physical, mental or emotional.
If you are interested more in understanding more about your body, see Anu for a consultation at Jivita Ayurveda.
