Health and Wellness
Ask These Four Questions Regularly to Stay Healthy and Fit.
These simple yet powerful questions can show us the big picture, promote healthy habits, and keep us responsible for our health and well-being.
Activating Neocortex with Intentional Questions
When left unchecked, the old brain runs the show to protect the body and constantly creates anxious scenarios cluttering the mind to prepare us for threats. Paradoxically these natural tendencies might ruin our lives.
When we don’t use the neocortex intentionally, the amygdala will most likely hijack our lives. Asking questions is a valuable tool that is underutilized for health and well-being goals.
When we ask questions intentionally, we can trigger our creativity and extract information from the vast self-knowledge hidden in our subconscious, where long-term memories are kept.
Questions can activate the RAS (Reticular Activating System), which serves as a bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind. Activating this system helps us achieve our goals quickly and effortlessly.
Questions can silence the background noise manifesting as anxious thoughts and feelings generated by the primitive part of the brain and activate the neocortex (thinking brain) to produce solutions to our problems.
When we don’t use our thinking brain, we act instinctively and lose control over our lives. Before asking these types of questions decades ago, I used to behave instinctively, preventing me from focusing on my health and well-being.
The fundamental requirements of the body are not complex. However, they require constant attention and nonstop action. So, we need to make them a habit so that we don’t miss out on them.
In this essay, I only focus on the fundamental needs of the body with a specific set of questions that I developed in my younger years and always used to maintain my health and well-being.
When we look at the big picture, the body needs four actions constantly. These functions can be encapsulated as nourishment, stimulation, rest, and protection.
My goal is to turn these needs into simple yet powerful questions and encourage readers to ask them every morning before starting the day and during the day. You might reword the questions to suit your needs keeping the fundamental requirements of the body in mind.
Before starting this habit years ago, I used to act randomly based on my feelings. However, this simple life hack enabled me to use my thinking brain more effectively and productively.
Here are four simple yet powerful questions to ask regularly to remain healthy and fit.
1 — How to nourish and energize the body
This question prompts us to think about what the body needs to function. Energy and nutrients are critical needs of the body. We get them from food, drink, and air.
We don’t need to think about breathing as the body automatically does it, but we need to think about food and drink as it requires conscious effort.
Seeing food as nourishment and energy to perform can encourage us to purchase, prepare, and eat nourishing food and drink healthy beverages.
Then we can extend this open-ended question with closed-ended ones to qualify the necessary food and drinks that our bodies need. For example, I used to ask the following questions before purchasing my food. Later, it became a habit.
Is this food whole and natural with the necessary nutrients?
Will this meal provide me with an adequate amount of energy?
Can this food upset my digestive system?
Will I enjoy eating this meal?
There might be more questions to think about the nourishment of the body.
Unfortunately, some people see food only as entertainment and neglect to think about its primary function for the body.
For example, some colleagues used to ask whether we should order Mcdonald’s, Hungry Jacks, Pizza Huts, or Kentucky Fried Chicken each night shift at work.
Those who ask this powerful question used to bring their well-prepared and nutritious food. The health and fitness differences between the two groups were noticeable.
2 — How to stimulate the body
Another requirement of the body is stimulation by moving regularly. Movement is necessary to maintain blood flow, oxygenate the cells, strengthen the muscles, burn excess calories, mobilize fat, and eliminate toxins from the body.
This question encourages us to move our bodies in various ways. It is up to us how to exercise, depending on our needs and goals. Some people enjoy walking, jogging, running, and swimming. Some enjoy resistance training. And some combine them.
Similar to the previous item, we can also ask close-ended questions such as:
Will this exercise make me happy?
Is this exercise enough for me to keep fit?
Should I get more of this exercise?
3 — How to rest and recover the body
As stress is the main threat to the body and the root cause of ailments, the purpose of this question is to focus on resting the body and lowering stress.
After stimulating the body, as mentioned in the previous section, we must find ways to rest. The most crucial way to rest is to get adequate and restorative sleep. It is non-negotiable. Asking this question prompts us to maintain good sleep hygiene.
In addition, we need to rest by taking breaks at work or after exercising. Rest is also an individual matter.
For example, some people take a quick nap. Some sit still or meditate. Some prefer to have pleasant conversations with friends or loved ones. And some play games, listen to music, or watch videos.
Supplementary questions can be:
Do I need to rest now?
Did I relax enough?
When should I take a break next?
How often should I have a break during this activity?
Who can I connect with meaningfully?
By focusing on our sleep, rest, and fun, we can recover the body from the effects of stimulation timely.
4 — How to protect the body
There are many internal and external threats to the body. The most common ones are toxins, pathogens, and extreme temperatures.
Our environment is full of harmful materials. Therefore, asking this question keeps us alert to protect the body from these materials.
Food, drink, and air are the most critical factors in ingesting toxins and pathogens into the body. Therefore, the first question about nourishment and energy relates to this question.
We protect the body by refraining from harmful materials. For example, smoking, taking drugs, consuming excessive alcohol, and overeating food can add unnecessary stress to the body. This question can keep our attention on harmful content for our cells.
Cleaning our bodies and environment requires constant attention. In addition, we also need to strengthen the defense system to improve it.
The previous items, like nutritious food, restorative sleep, rest, and regular exercise, can improve the defense system.
In addition, activating the self-healing abilities of the body can enhance the protection of cells, DNA, and mitochondria. For example, initiating the autophagy and mitophagy processes by fasting, intense exercises, and thermogenesis are viable options.
Conclusions and Takeaways
These questions look basic and straightforward, but they cover the fundamental requirements of our body. Therefore, asking them can enable us to use our thinking brain productively and take personal responsibility for staying healthy and happy.
Unfortunately, some people ignore the fundamentals like nutrition, restorative sleep, regular exercise, rest, and fun.
Some people pay less attention than required to a particular aspect. For example, some eat well but neglect sleep or exercise.
Missing out on one or more of these fundamentals stresses the body, breaks homeostasis, and causes undesirable conditions, leading to physical and mental disorders.
When we ask these types of prompting questions, we can silence the constant alarming thoughts and unpleasant feelings coming from the primitive brain and strengthen our cognitive abilities, allowing us to live in the moment.
Asking questions is also a powerful pattern interruption technique for mental health. Deliberate pattern interruption can encourage us to think, look at different perspectives, solve problems productively, and take timely action.
Nourishment, stimulation, rest, and protection are crucial needs of the body that we can control and manage by focusing on these fundamental requirements using the power of our thinking brains.
These simple questions can establish the basis, serve as a powerful checklist, and rescue us daily from the hijacks of the primitive brain. They provide a shift from anxious to a confident and calm mind.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
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