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ස්ථාන නාම සම් බන්ධ භාෂීය උද්භිදය ගැනය
Ethno-botany, an adjunct to Place-Names studies
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Place-names Main page
Sinhala Technical Terms
සිංහල තෙක්න වදන්

Yogi



website email:  chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca; this effort is linked to our botany to sinhala webpage.

WE DON'T GIVE ANY ADVISE - WE DON'T CLAIM ANY EXPERTISE - we just use our judgment based on biology, chemistry, physics and our cultural memes.

Weight control is the first most important step for good health. A heavy obese body means the heart has to pump harder to get the blood to all the places, and the knees have to carry a bigger weight. You may get high-blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, varicose veins, knee and heel pain!


Four ages of life
0-30 years   The formative period   30-60 years   Mature Adult   60-90 years   Middle age   90-120 or more    Old age

Five Basic Exercises




Diet

  • Remember, exercise is to keep fit, and does little to reduce weight.
  • To reduce weight, cut down to one major meal a day, and the rest should be salads, fruits, nuts, and some carbohydrates. But reduce the amount of carbohydrates (bread, sugar, potatoes, noodles, spaghetti, hoppers, string hoppers, pan cakes, Aloo Dhosai, rice, manioc etc). Replace them with Chick peas, green gram, lentils etc.
  • Include fresh 'Garlic & 'Ginger (both should be microwaved for a few seconds), Turmeric, chopped curry leaves, walnuts, prunes, fresh lemon juice and Parsley ( or coriander leaves, or gotukola) in your salads or cooked salads ('Maellun' in sinhalese is derived from 'malavanava'. The process kills amoeba, E-coli etc).
  • The Kola-kaenda', (kanji) or broth made of cooked chopped green leaves, cooked rice and coconut milk is excellent, but usually they contain too much added salt.The same is true for Japanese Miso soup . Reduce salt in preparing food, but NOT below the daily needed amount. If you get night cramps etc., may be you are overdoing your salt intake reduction!
  • Keep up the humidity in your home to at least 40% humidity, and drink enough water, especially at night. The expensive 'moisturizing creams' are of secondary importance. Very often when people get dry skin they apply cortisones and skin creams, but if the humidity remains very low, and if not enough water is taken, the problem persists. Dryness not only produces itchy dry skin, but also enhances gout and arthritis.
  • Avoid all 'soft drinks' and North American 'commercial fruit juices' as they contain roughly five tea spoons of sugar or more per cup (250 ml). Only tomato juice and soda water are OK; or try green tea. 'Matcha' green tea is the kind used in Buddhist tea ceremonies and the 'tea-powder' is also consumed. So it is used like a kola-kaenda.
    Diet juices contain 'aspartame', which is an important neuro-transmitter chemical, and so we avoid them.
  • In Sri Lanka the humidity is high, and you need to cut down the air humidity to avoid Alu Hang, a fungal growth on the skin that may be treated with sodium thiosulphate.
  • All wines contain substances which can be irritants (allergenic or even a class I carcinogenic) if taken in large quantities. Drink only good, quality wines, in moderation. Never drink cheap wines ('onze degree', etc.) sold in big bulk plastic containers.
  • Avoid using anti-biotic creams for small cuts and bruises, even though they are convenient and painless. You will find that you no longer respond to such antibiotics. Use of tincture of iodine or `traditional old methods' of killing bugs may be OK but they tend to kill good bugs as well as pathogens.
  • Industrial turkey, supermarket chicken, pork and beef contain vast amounts of antibiotics (a practice banned in Europe). Of course open barbaque cooking greatly reduces their impact.
  • But best to minimize or avoid such food. Small fish, 'sprats', sardines, or small wild salmon are safer than big fish because they have had less time to accumulate pollutants and heavy metals. Atlantic salmon stakes are almost always from "farmed salmon" and should be consumed in small quantities.
  • Soya-based foods and beverages are an excellent source of proteins for vegetarians. However, soya is said to be problematic as it binds minerals to some extent, and esp. for women, because of phyto-sterols that may interfere with the hormone cycle, unless the soya has been prepared as done traditionally in China or Japan, after fermentation. However, see Anti-Soya madness!
  • Don't forget that daily need for Calcium and Vitamin C & D. Some claim that you need to go to as much as 2000 IU per day of Vitamin C and Vitamin D [one microgram is 40 IU] although the "recomended" values are in the 500-800 IU range. If you get cuts in the mouth, you need Riboflavin, and possibly other vitamins. Try brewer's yeast or Marmite. Some Ceylon cinnamon, turmeric and Vitamin C (lemon juice!) in your salads daily will reduce the likelihood of gout, kidney stones etc., in additon to drinking enough wate. Avoid "quamato" as it is rich in purines.
  • Don't worry about 'cell-phone radiation', micro-wave radiation, or nuclear radiation unless you live near an aging nuclear plant. Household (geologica) radon may be more important in some locations. The sunlight and UV-light that you get every day are a million times more dangerous. Notice that when you are on some Sri Lankan or Indian coasts, the sand has dark brown deposits. This is Monozite, containing radioactive thorium. People have lived with such deposits and their nuclear radiation, with no known ill effect. There is a natural back-ground level of radiation from such mineral, cosmic rays, UV-rays etc., that is tolerated by our bodies, and even necessary for the evolutionary process. When you take a plane ride you get higher radiation exposure. However, the fall-out isotopes from nuclear accidents are most dangerous as they get into the whole food chain, and remain there for a long time.
  • Avoid 'bottled water' sold in plastic bottles. Carry your own water bottle filled up with city tap water. Municiplaities are required to follow strict codes for good delivering healthy water. if the water s properly chlorinated there is no danger of pathogenic bugs. Boiling the water can drive out chlorine, but the water is "flat" compared to adequately aerated water.
    Plastic Jungle Jungle of Plastic-bottle waste    See chris Jordan's film    See the plastic debris inside a sea gull's tummy

    If the city water it is fluoridated, it is even better, as dental decay is prevented. Remember, although chlorine (Cl) is a dangerous gas, chloride (Cl-) is inert, and a component of common salt. Similarly, although fluorine (F) is very dangerous, fluoride (F-) is not dangerous, and has an inert shell of electrons round the fluorine nucleus .
  • Use 'alternative medicine' with caution. Steve Jobs might have lived longer if he had paid less attention to 'alternative medicine'.


Walking, Swimming

  • We aim to do at least two-three kilometers a day - i.e., roughly 25-30 mins. Or at least 20 lengths (1/2 km) at the swimming pool, taking 15-30 mins for seniors. The body weight is balanced by the water, and it is impact free, unlike jogging that may in the end hurt your knee joints.
  • Skipping is excellent, and exercise 5 of 5BX contains a bit of it, without the skipping rope.
  • Climb any stairs if possible and avoid the elevator.


Sleep.

  • Sleep is very easy if one has developed a fixed routine and a set of postures for positioning the arms, legs etc., while ensuring that backbone is well supported by a firm matress or backing.
  • Avoid trying to use alcohol or drugs. Mind controlling meditation as well as mild analgesics (if one has muscle pain or headache) are helpful.
  • Depression and stress related problems need professional help.
  • Breathing problems, sinus and mucous build-up problems and sleep apnea also need professional help.
  • However, other simple factors like the use of lighting with high amounts of UV, lack of melatonine & magnesium, eating too close to bed time etc., can be relevant factors.


Mental exercise

  • The brain also needs constant exercise. otherwise it stops working. Every one knows that if you attempt to learn a language, or even a poem, constant practice is important. Or else you forget, and dementia sets in. That is, exercising the brain is very important.
  • So, retirees, and those who do mechanical jobs which require little brain activity should complement their lives by a mental activity. This could be working on the constitution of a social club, attempting to learn a new language, writing or memorizing lyrics, music or Pali or Latin stanzas, writing code for computer games, designing web pages, or at the least, playing bridge or doing cross-word puzzles!
  • There is currently no evidence that breathing meditation helps to improve memory and mental acuity directly. The evidence is that, depending on the person, various types of meditation help to relieve stress, and may help in many other ways. However, if one's agitation has become chronic, leading to attention deficit, you need to correct chemical imbalances in the brain (by taking suitable medication) before you are able to practice meditation.
  • The whole point is, if one is within one standard deviation of the 'normal constitution', one can remain healthy with simple rules about life-style, health, diet, exercise, mindfulness etc., without using pills that are prescribed to maintain lowered cholesterol levels, sugar levels etc. However, if your physiological problems are way out of the physiological mean, or you have had years of neglect of your health and have a bulging Ping Bandiya (big belly) like the Kandyan Adigars, as well as other health issues, then you probably need medical help, in addition to life-style changes.

This website is maintained under the direction of Chandre Dharmawardana .