The Chinese couple, 养身不在刻意，贵在自然顺心, has a suggestion for our health.
Professor Foo Keong Tatt, an Emeritus Consultant Urologist (Singapore General Hospital), Clinical Professor (National University of Singapore), and Adjunct Professor (Duke-NUS Medical School), believes in achieving good health through a balanced lifestyle. He keeps fit practising Tai Chi and walks amidst nature, come rain or shine. He plays music (flute and Casio-tone) and paints for relaxation.
One day he posted a painting (above) in our WhatsApp chat group and asked if anyone could interpret the Chinese couplet (对联) he included in his painting. Here are some of the responses to the couplet 养身不在刻意，贵在自然顺心:
“Exhaustive thinking will not nourish our body
But by being free to follow your heart.”
Tan Choon Huat“Maintaining good health needs not to be deliberate
Best is to be natural and follow one’s heart.”
TK HanHong Hai took “poetic license” and offered this (in his words) “crude poem”:
Health not by design,
Just free the mind.
To maintain good health, we should be natural, follow the flow, and be at peace with the world. Like flowing water, we can adapt to different terrains, flow past obstacles, and keep going by flowing. Flow is the essence of our ability to adapt – it is essential for our wellbeing. The positive mental health effects come from our ability to recognise situations that require changes in mindset or behaviour. Flexible people often come across as resilient, a trait linked with positive mental health.
I want to highlight the critical importance of being at peace to our health. Stress increases the production of cortisol; heightens our alertness; and prepares the body to meet challenges – a normal response required for our survival. We now know, however, prolonged stress influences a wide range of diseases of ageing, including heart disease, diabetes and early death. In other words, short term stress is normal while prolonged stress is damaging. It is akin to a car constantly driven in high gear – it wears out the engine – it wears us out—long term exposure to increased levels of cortisol results in the shrinkage of the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is essential for our survival. It detects changes in our environment, compares them to our previous experiences (through our memory), then communicates the information to the pre-frontal cortex, an area of the brain linked to changing our behaviour to meet the demands of a situation. The hippocampus is susceptible to cortisol (a hormone released when under stress). When the hippocampus is exposed to high levels of cortisol for long periods, it degenerates, impairing our memory and ability to adapt. We become less resilient.
养身不在刻意，贵在自然顺心. Yes, let there be flow – let our heart be at peace – and things will fall in place.
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
