This week I learned the importance of sleep and generally taking care of yourself physically and how that influences your mental health and therefore your reality as a whole.
The butterfly effect is a form of compound interest. The decisions we are making about our physical health in terms of what meals to eat, whether or not to exercise, take a cold or hot shower, or socialize directly influences our mental health in a variety of ways.
The first example, meals, influences the bacteria that we attract to our biome both in the environment that we live and inside our bodies, specifically the gut. The smells we are surrounded by and the health of our environment is proven to have influence on our mental health, and, therefore, future decisions. Your gut produces most of the body’s serotonin which is critical in regulating your mood.
Sleep has been my most critical bump in perfecting my personal reality. I have a thirst for information that is generally left unsatisfied without using creative outlets throughout the day. Said another way, if I am not producing, I must be consuming. This is likely to be another pattern that I should explore in terms of how often I choose to eat based on being “bored”. Part of that has to do with finding meaning and feeling valued in what you are doing. All topics for another time.
The key takeaway of this particular story is that physical health and overall choices about it are the foundation we lay for all other areas of life. This is explained in different forms of thought from religion to philosophy which are the higher forms of thought that we have found to last throughout time. For an example of this in our present culture, please check out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patients in care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas Edison