It is almost unfathomable to think that the Earth is ripping around the sun at about 30 kilometers per second. Perhaps less scary, the Earth rotates at a measly 460 meters per second or about 20 times the speed you travel down the 401 if you are at the equator.
We do not feel the tremendous speed because it is constant. No acceleration means that we are totally unaware of how fast the Earth is moving in the same way that a plane ride at 500+ kph is uneventful except during turbulence. We only notice a something how fast things are moving when we are forced to slow down.
I love this analogy for considering the pace of our lives.
I was lucky enough to spend a Canada’s 150 camping (with the bears!!!) in Algonquin Park for the first time. Beyond the incredible beauty of the park, I was almost immediately stunned by how amazing the slow pace of life felt. It was an incredible juxtaposition to life in downtown Toronto, where we all seem to be running around like lunatics.
If you have spent anytime camping or at a cottage you will know the peaceful serenity of sitting lakeside, going on hikes and focusing on little more that food, shelter, fire and good company; especially if you forego a cell phone and television. For me it was the perfect reminder of the speed of life in Toronto and how much energy and mental focus it takes to balance the tremendous number of tasks and distractions we face on any given day.
When camping, you are engaged almost solely in making meals, avoiding mosquitos (and bears!!! – we had a bear encounter) and having fun. A typical day in the city means traffic, countless phone notifications, stressful work, deadlines, errands and more. There is very little time offered to stop, rest, take a breath and be mindful of the incredible things going on around you.
This is not how we evolved to live.
Our brain is evolutionarily thousands of years old. It has not, and will never catch up to the pace of life we face on a metropolitan day. Like camping, we are evolved to work in a series of sprints interrupted by periods of rest. We are not evolved to charge into work for hours on end in the most hellish marathon of long days you could imagine.
Consequently, an unmitigated fast-paced life promotes a whole host of major health issues related to chronic activation of the adrenalin system. Chronic stress causing elevated cortisol is associated with heart disease, cancer, reduced immune system function, poor sleep, diabetes, and other health problems no one wants to deal with.
Why do I bring this us you ask?
We recently released our new MOVE Curriculum E-book to our practice members and social media followers. It is designed to provide the strategies to meet the required movement your body needs to be healthy. Like the Brain-Body Connection that we enhance through of NeuroStructural Chiropractic care, MOVEment is required to be healthy.
Our MOVE Curriculum (FREE DOWNLOAD) gives you the strategies our patients use to get the most out of their care and meet the health requirement of Movement.
FUEL (nutrition) is also a requirement for health.
But there is one more thing that is required to be healthy that you might not be aware of…
Your body needs to RESET! We know that our body must be constantly regenerating and repairing itself in order to be healthy and it needs periods of rest to do this. Sleep is when the vast majority of these processes occur and is why it is required for optimal health.
But there is more required than just sleep for regeneration of the body and mind to ensure your optimal health. While there is far too much to cover in this short blog post from our upcoming RESET Curriculum release, I would like to bring it back to camping for a second.
The pace of life that we have evolved to live with, and that is healthiest for us, is different than what most of us are currently experiencing. Our body needs time for rest, regeneration and repair and most of us are simple not making the investment to rest our body and mind as required. It again is not a luxury but rather a requirement for health.
I am of the opinion that the primary reason that our society is so tired and run down is that we are not aware of how significant of a problem it is. Additionally, most of us are unaware that there are strategies to ensure our mind and body are engaged and energized respectively, to the degree we all want.
To remedy this, we have been busy designing the RESET Curriculum to help to provide the strategies that are required to fulfill these requirements. To give the body and mind the rest and regeneration it needs there are numerous strategies we have outlined:
- DEEP SLEEP
- CALM MIND
- PLANNED REST
- RECHARGE
Unless you are lucky enough to live at a camping pace without stress or pressure, we highly encourage you to download our RESET Curriculum (next Monday July 24th) to learn how you can get DEEP SLEEP, have a CALM MIND, find more time for PLANNED REST, and RECHARGE to better manage your energy and your health.
Like our planet, you might not realize how fast your body and mind are travelling right now because it is just what you are used to
– Dr Alex
