Relevance of fluid and adaptive intelligence: One of the most relevant subjects of the day looks like how we approach health and wellness . As the pandemic seemingly wanes we have life lessons deeply embedded in our memories to take on many such eventualities in future.
Having a healthy lifestyle looks like the most reliable option for the times. We live in a world where organisms mutate ,medicines change as per business landscape and diversified research is continuous with very few common threads between countries and agencies on medical interventions for various diseases. The most reliable source of strength to ward of disease and distress is undoubtedly keeping good health. No wonder we have the old saying Health is Wealth. Our body amazingly has up to 1 % body mass by microbes and trillions of microbes inhabit the human body, some researchers claim that the proportion of microbes to human cells is of the order of 10:1.The microbes aid in gut function ,skin and immune functions and collaborators with the magnificent human body for various life processes. Organisms thrive and ward off new invaders causing immune responses. The arrival of new species either from environment or other organism will test the human immune systems and the fluid intelligence of the new species which learns to fight ,learn and then co exist as inhabitants of the new biome. Fluid intelligence among species make them flexible to thrive .This is known as adaptive intelligence and is so vital for organisms including humans who have to change strategies with fluid situations for survival .( Reference : COVID-19 Has Taught Us What Intelligence Really Is Roberg J. Sternberg | August 31, 2020 )
Resilient ways to approach health.
How one approaches health and disease differs from people to people depending upon personality type, environment and past experiences. Broadly I would like to share two approaches from my experience as a highly active military veteran with about 50- 60,000 km of running , pursuing martial arts and playing active sports since last 20-25 years .Broadly our approach to health can go either the proactive way or the reactive way which I term as the forward and backward cycles similar to the spirals in psychology.
Forward cycle : Essential conditions for people who are into the forward cycle have Health as a deeply ingrained value .Our values are formed by wants and rarely by needs. If health has become a necessity then still it could drive the forward cycle but with some effort.
Forward cycle is a path adopted by people who love to take health as an overlying concept to happiness. Some indicators for an imbibed forward cycle could be :-
Tendency to break physical and mental thresholds often for fitness and habits.
Tendency to view age as a positive phenomenon wherein new possibilities arise for health and fitness.
Looking possibilities to find new solutions to health problems.
Making concrete decisions and sticking to health goals with pride .
Finding natural remedies to health problems.
Consuming natural and organic food as a habit.
Long term thinking and loving oneself and ones body.
Learning outlook to health and technology .
Backward cycle : An often a retrogressive loop is the backward spiral pulling us to negative thoughts and sucking the soul into a black hole of helplessness. The backward cycle works under conditions of assumptions and fixedness. Some indicators for an imbibed backward cycle are:-
Fixated to set cure and medicine therapy.
Failure to look at the root causes and often entangled and caught up in symptoms.
Mental models work around setting limitations and restrictions to what one can do.
Bonded to set of medicines and reducing them is impossible due to risk aversion of taking up physical activity which is seemingly looking herculean.
Failure to acknowledge the good effects of exercise and postpone exercise to later timeframe or life stage : I will do it when I require it at some stage in life.
Delay or postpone physical activity with flimsy excuses : I just had food : I am now having a stuffy nose: I just travelled back from hometown!
Accepting a symptom or disease as ones natural tendency : I often catch cold: Its in my genetics: I tend to put on weight. ( external locus of control)
Fear: Getting into a shock when affected by ill health or disease: failure to generate solutions or solve the problem at hand due to paralytic stress !
These two options are Inversely proportional. The over bearing effect of one has a suppressing effect on the other .One needs to tame the backward cycle to get the forward spiral triggered in our daily lives .Eliminating the backward cycle is too much effort but we can make it inconsequent , and useless by avoiding it and replacing it with the positive loop!
The forward cycle once used will create a repetitive habit loop and strengthen and refresh our lives.
Share your thoughts on this subject as to me, this looks like an essence of daily life with changing times and environmental changes!