All-or-Nothing Extreme vs. Yin-Yang Balance —
The choice between endless frustration and stress-free optimization in health and in life
This piece is the tenth of a number of stand-alone DESTINY postings on how to rise above and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic by shaping up to be healthy, fit, tough and wise. It is based on the author’s multi-decade insights as a cardiologist and the founder in a non-profit lifestyle coaching program completed by thousands of patients and coworkers. All the advice comes from participants’ real-life experiences, state-of-the-art science and diverse time-honored wisdom.
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COVID-19 a super smart killer. It is also our great teacher on health and life. Let’s learn from our miserable defeat, so far.
To date, we find that no single-action drug can conquer it because of the dual-interplay nature of our biology. Let me explain how this ‘Yin-Yang’ balance always works in our body.
This virus over-stimulates our immune system so that the body’s hyper-inflammatory response destroys many of our own vital organs with “friendly fire”. Researchers are now studying anti-inflammatory drugs, such as steroids, to counteract that.
We have tried steroids before in other viral infections. But they sometimes over-suppressed our inflammatory-immune response, thus letting “opportunistic” infections sneak in as second-wave killers.
Blunted, the inflammatory response no longer triggers the body’s healing process to proceed, like it usually does. Open injuries are now left with non-healing.
Steroids, like many drugs, seem to act mainly in an all-or-nothing mode, no in-between.
Whereas in our body, everything is inter-balanced, inter-dependent and in dual inter-play with everything else. Like an inter-connected network of teeter-totter scales or Yin-Yang circles.
From Metacardio© App
Such Yin-Yang, see-saw, cyclical inter-play is typical of our biological life. To function well, we must grasp and balance it well.
. . .
As in our body, everything in existence also seems to be in this same kind of interplay and balance of opposites—non-stop, push-and-pull, give-and-take, never-fixed, not always equal, yet all-in-all pretty even. And everything is linked to everything else.
Think of it as an old-fashion Swiss watch, with the gears running in both directions.
In life, there is birth and death.
In the universe, all matters are made of equal measures of positive and negative energies.
Computers operate by the on-and-off of 0-and-1.
Every beginning comes and goes to an end.
There can be no good without the bad. We need both to move us to strive for better—in health and everywhere else in life.
Nothing real is one dimensional. Getting all hung up on the absolute, all-or-nothing extreme only gives us stress and frustration to no end.
To live well we must embrace the multi-dimensional, interactive nature of reality. And optimize a balance that is possible and desirable for each one of us.
Optimal health and living is almost never
at the extreme ends of best or worst, all or nothing.
It is the proper balance somewhere in the middle
that is just right for you.
Only you can find that balance for your own life. Let’s see about how. And how to balance on it once you find it. We’ll do it through the lens of health and wellness.
Student: “My relatives are absolutely impossible.”
Teacher: “It’s all relative, not absolute. Do your breathing exercise and find your balance.”
Student: “Oh yes, meditation. It works well in practice but does it work in theory?”
— Steve Bhaerman
. . .
HEALTH MATTERS
Let’s balance these pairs of opposites.
Pain and pleasure
Without the pain, a tooth abscess can worsen into meningitis before you know to see a dentist.
With all the pleasures for the palate, welcome to our obesity epidemic.Growth and destruction
Unchecked growth is obesity.
Uncontrolled growth is diagnosed as cancer.
Metabolism, the basic biological process of life, is the body breaking bad to allow making good—in the proper balance.
We need to feel pain for warning.
We need sorrow in life to be wise.
We need pleasure to feel good.
We need satisfaction to be fulfilled.
Winner takes all.— Metacardio©
“Paradocs”: There are good docs and bad docs. There is no one best doctor. Good ones all have something unique to offer. Just like you.
No one is perfect, not even you. If you’re imperfect, you’ve passed the “absolute” smell-test. You are real.
BTW, in medicine, there’s only one diagnosis that’s absolute. And absolutely everybody gets it, including the absolute perfectionist. Death.
“I’m not perfect,
but parts of me are excellent.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
NUTRITION
Eat multi-dimensionally, i.e. a good variety of tastes, colors and textures. The more unusual colors and shapes of veggies and fruits, on the Mediterranean Menu for instance, generally contain a great variety of essential and healthy nutrients.
If you fall off the wagon, like the ‘mortal majority’, get up and re-balance yourself. Wellness and weight are both reversible.
ACTIVITY
Rigidity only turns you into a stiff. “If I can’t do it perfectly, why bother?” is an all-or-nothing kind of dis-ease.
Physical and breathing exercises, yoga, Tai-Chi, meditation and other mind-body practices are like “body whisperers” that help you reach and stay on an optimal balance.
A bicycle that’s standing still cannot balance itself. It has to get moving, like you. Besides, life is a movie, not a snapshot. So, snap out of it and get moving.
FOCUS
The polar bear gets fat to survive its winter hibernation. The tropical monkey stays slim despite having bananas everywhere all year round. Nature is that optimal balance.
No living thing in the wild ever goes on a diet or joins a gym. Absent natural disasters or human interventions, they all naturally settle into their ideal weight and physical fitness to thrive in an optimal balance in their environments.
Ways to sync with Nature: Sing to it, frolic in it, go visit, look at it, picture it, keep a pet, grow a plant, or just close your eyes and breathe.
Only your own body wisdom knows what your unique optimal balance is. You don’t have to figure it all out in your head. (Who can?) Just help it do its job.
Learn what you can about wellness, nurture yourself accordingly, and don’t upset your body’s balance with neglect, bad habits, undue stress, or a sick environment.
Nature is imperfectly perfect,
just as it is.
Get in sync or be sunk.
Clear the noise and follow
your body’s intelligent instructions.Don’t ignore it.
Don’t sabotage it.
— Metacardio©
. . .
TAKEAWAYS
S
teady your balance before getting to next week’s posting by watching this video on a meaning of the Yin-Yang balance, as represented by the picture on top. It is featured in Metacardio©, a wellness coaching app.
Cliché Buffét:
Insights on the Yin-Yang balance collected from over 2000 graduates of our clinic wellness coaching program.
Is it good or bad? Well, it’s both. So cherry-pick.
Take the good with the bad. Tip the balance as you wish.
When maximal is not optimal, you have to make a choice.
Oftentimes, good enough is just that—good enough.
At times, being good holds you down from trying harder to be great.
At times, perfection is the enemy of excellence.
Frequently, it’s the last 1% that consumes 99% of our effort.
Nature is nothing if not always in perfect balance naturally.
Life is relative. Only death is absolute—for the ultimate perfectionist.
Blah, blah, blah…
Just don’t let these make you go nuts, or go nuts for donuts. They can be useful after you apply them to real-life practical use. Like in this pandemic.
Doc Tak
October 18 2020
WRITTEN BY
Tak C. Poon, MD, PharmD, ABIHM, FACC
Board-certified American Preventive Cardiologist now developer of a wellness blog and a lifestyle habit-forming app at www.metacardio.org
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