The Good Life

We are honored to have a professor teaching our Colloquium course
who actually walks the walk. Not to mention his

A 91 year old chinese man - Not our professor. ;)

experiences go beyond 35 years in living a natural lifestyle. On Wednesday

the third of November, he allowed us to pick his brain to learn some of the things he experienced  through owning his own health food store, being a vegan, and studying

holistic medicine. Now in his sixties he feels healthier and more active

than most twenty year olds, he never has aches and pains, and guarantees he

will outlive most and not die from the most common diseases directly because
of his lifestyle.
    The first thing he discussed was the flaws in western medicine.

Doctors are taught by the pharmaceutical companies and therefore only

understand sickness not health. If you go to a doctor and are given a clean
bill of health this means that you do not immediately have a disease or
close to death, a week later you may drop dead of a heart attack. Health is

a concept that needs to be understood more in the western world. Health (or

lack there of) in our current system treats patients as a victim and leaves

no responsibility on that person for an entire life of bad choices.
Preventative health is key to living a long life without the most common
killers, heart disease and cancer, which are again directly influenced by
the lifestyle you live and the choices you make daily.

    Students in the class then brought up by the point what about cases such as a young child being struck by cancer or a man like Lance Armstrong, arguably one of the most in shape athletes in the world. The Professor then discussed constitution and condition which lies in everyone. This concept refers to both the things we can change (condition) and the things we are born with or cannot change (constitution). Dr. Gerry Segal does believe that certain people are more predisposed to diseases but through daily choices

most people have the opportunity to change or put off their fate. Also, most diseases are hereditary because children tend to eat like their parents did.

    Other things he discussed included the idea that everything you put on your body is just as important as what you put in it. Antiperspirants and

baking soda contain aluminum which leads to Alzheimer’s and cancer. All

plastics contain high amounts of estrogen which causes breast cancer in

women, men with breasts and low sperm cell counts. Dr. Segal briefly

discussed his interest in fisianamy, which is the study of faces; it is an

ancient practice, which he said that people with big ears and big ear lobes

have a better constitution. He relates those people who now have small ears

with no lobes that sit high on their head, like animal ears, a result of

having a poor constitution and perhaps, related to choices of ancestors.

    He also discussed the most important time physically for a person is

prenatal. The change from a single celled organism to an eight pound complex

species in nine months is not duplicated in a human’s life. This brings up

another interesting point. Health is mental, physical, and spiritual, all
the same. If one of these parts of your life are off you are not considered

healthy. So yes, it is extremely important for a mother to not poison her body during pregnancy with harmful foods but it is also important for the mother to be thinking positive, welcoming thoughts, not to be stressed. Also, to be active and allow blood to flow, and oxygen to reach every body part is just as important. As some body parts are not able to function

without movement of the body.
    The remainder of the class Dr. Segal discussed the foods to eat and not to eat and the reasons for this. He also discussed exercise and the three key factors that make up an in shape person: strength, endurance, and flexibility. All of these are just as important as another, many people only focus on one of these areas which is not healthy. He also discussed sleep patterns, habits, and circadian rhythm and its extreme importance to our
health. He also told us of this concept he had been studying called
grounding, which to many is pretty out there. He believes that by walking
barefoot outside for thirty minutes everyday it would cure 99% of the mental
health cases in our society. He also sleeps on a grounding sheet which is
connected to the earth through the bottom plug of the outlet in the wall.
The idea is by “grounding himself or connecting to the earth” helps balance
mood and helps with insomnia, so far it has helped his sleeping habits.