This pandemic has brought many misfortunes and an important one among them is that it affected people’s mental health. Many of them fell into depression due to this pandemic. Because people who lived with a lot of dreams to fulfil had to stay at home doing nothing and losing their dreams!
IKIGAI – Japanese Secret To Long And Happy Life is a book from Japan that was highly sold during this time. This book was written by living in Okinawa, Japan where life expectancy of the people is 93 years, interviewing aged peoples among them and taking notes from them.This book discuss on how to acquire happiness and live for long years. Most of us would talk about what to do when some one falls into depression. But nobody talks about the precautions that we can take not to fall into depression.
The book speaks of many things that bring us happiness from the lifestyle of people from Okinawa. One among them is about food. It is said to stop eating when your stomach is 80% full. As much as calories increase IGF1 Protein in our body increases which is a protein that causes aging. When we leave our stomach a bit empty calorie intakes decreases resulting in the decrease of IGF1.
Another thing they follow is exercise known as Radio Taiso which are simple movements. Our body is manufactured in a way that consistently needs movement. As we get aged our movements decreases and the lack of any movement is ultimate death. If we sit idol without making movements to our body it affects our metabolism and functioning of the body.
Another thing that they give importance to is friends circle. Having good people around us with whom we can share our happiness and sorrows is a blessing. It reduces our stress and increase a feeling of strength. It keeps our mind young and also helps us stay young.
Another important factor is good sleep. They recommends to sleep early and wake up early. Stress is known as the killer of happiness. It is important to check what we feed to our mind before we go to sleep and after we wake up. Because it have a strong effect what we do with our life.
Accepting yourself is an another factor. We should accept what we are and accept what we cannot change. Acceptance is the harshest lesson life teaches and the most important one to learn. So acquire a heart to accept what ever happens to us and how we are, that which cannot be changed.
