Life during the pandemic has perhaps become more indolent for some people, where they sit at the desk and walk hardly a few metres. The coffee table is another five metres away, making it easier than ever to add calories as they burn less.
Their activity levels haven’t changed much which means in most cases that they weren’t exercising much in the first place. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who say they are eating an unhealthy diet now, is more than it was before the outbreak. However, the sedentary lifestyle during the pandemic could help explain the dramatic drop in happiness these days. Interestingly, this inactivity can be changed if we choose a new healthy routine.
I think people have learned to avoid adapting themselves to face stress. Such individuals go ahead eating poorly and staying physically inactive, thinking that such coping strategies might provide relief from stress and bad feelings! Rightly, you should agree with me that, the best approach towards adopting a healthier lifestyle during such a pandemic or otherwise is to avoid vanity and cultivate some simple habits. A simple way to start practising this is to go out for a walk when you feel the need to relax. Who can ignore the fact that human being’s best medicine is walking, which is a cure for many of our physical and psychological illnesses.
Our instincts are often wrong and often we need to do the opposite of what they tell us to do! For instance, when you feel sad, your mind may tell you that if you eat more watching television, you will feel better. Can you believe that your mind is lying to you? In fact, your sadness reduces your brain’s abilities and ultimately affects your decision.
Here, we need to follow other principles, which suggest that true well-being requires more control over the worldly appetite and should not yield to it. Maybe, self-denial can increase happiness by keeping us away from what a researcher names as “hedonic adaptation”, which is the situation in which we got used to pleasant things and stop making us happy.
However, such happiness and relaxing if you are searching for it, lies in your view of yourself and the life you live. If this view is negative, then your life will turn into an unbearable hell and you will be filled with misery and sadness, but if your view of your life and yourself is positive, then your life will turn into a garden — large and full of blossoms of happiness and joy.
Our craving for comfort often leads us to the wrong idea of what will bring happiness. But when we cultivate better habits and healthier practices, the rewards of life would be more than what we had initially imagined.
Dr Yousuf Ali al Mulla, MD, Ministry of Health, is a medical innovator and educator. For any queries regarding the content of the column he can be contacted at: dryusufalmulla@gmail.com
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