How Fasting, Exercise, and Meditation Can Improve Our Health and Wellbeing
Too much prolonged and uncontrollable stress is harmful to the body and mind. However, intentional and well-controlled pressure is essential and can be invaluable for the growth and maintenance requirements.
We know that fasting, exercising, and meditating can create stress for the body and mind. However, controlled and manageable stressors from these three lifestyle choices make me healthy and happy because they can optimize biochemicals and make beneficial epigenetic impacts.
In this short story, I will explain five health reasons for fasting, meditating, and exercising daily. Fasting, exercise, and meditation contribute to my goals of holistically, naturally, and sustainably addressing health conditions at different layers to improve my health and well-being, investing in my healthspan and lifespan goals.
I wrote about my fasting, exercise, and meditation practices before. For new readers, my daily fasting window is 22, meaning I only eat one meal slowly within 2 hours, improving my digestion.
For exercise, I do strength training (calisthenics and weight lifting) every second day. As a cardio, I walk around 10K barefoot daily. Walking is not an exercise but a hobby for me to chat with my friends or family members or listen to my favorite books or music while walking around the beach or in grassy parks.
I meditate three times for 20 minutes of sessions. As a long-term meditator, I gained many health, well-being, and developmental benefits from regular meditation practice.
Since the mid-1980s, I have read hundreds of scientific studies on the effects of meditation or overall mindfulness practices on the brain. I have also practiced meditation since my early 20s, formally, using both Eastern and Western versions after undertaking formal courses.
Even though scientific papers encouraged me and strengthened my beliefs, I intuitively understood the value of meditation at a young age. When I was in a meditative state, my learning abilities were outstanding.
As these regimens and their effects are comprehensive, I only focus on the crucial points, and I link relevant articles for readers interested in details for each regimen, protocol, and impact.
1 — Cellular and Mitochondrial Health
Our cells create substantial waste products that require cleansing daily. These biological toxins may cause severe health conditions and lead to undesirable disorders if they pass the threshold.
Cellular proliferation and apoptosis, the processes of cell growth and cell death, are tightly regulated by the effects of stressors.
Fasting and exercise are beneficial to keep the cells clean by contributing to removing toxins, pathogens, and damaged proteins.
Both fasting and exercise can initiate autophagy and mitophagy. These biological processes are cells’ self-healing and self-protecting mechanisms. Fasting and exercise can initiate and intensify autophagy and mitophagy.
Meditation can reduce the stress overload on the cells, especially neurons. So, it contributes to homeostasis in the nervous system.
As I introduced both autophagy and mitophagy in previous articles, I won’t repeat the details here. Instead, interested readers might check the following two articles.
2— Metabolic Health
It was a wake-up call for me when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and abdominal obesity in my mid-20s. My condition reflected all factors of metabolic syndrome.
To gain my metabolic health back, I needed to get rid of insulin resistance and make my body insulin-sensitive, leptin-receptive, and fat-adapted.
The two viable options for me were time-restricted eating and regular exercise, which both contribute to insulin sensitivity.
Furthermore, regular fasting and personalized exercise made my body fat adapted, giving necessary energy to all cells and creating an alternative energy source for the brain, making a protective effect on the neurons and neural connections.
Meditation was supplementary to my metabolic health, reducing stress, regulating emotions, and balancing hormones.
3 — Immune Health
Experiencing immune and autoimmune conditions in my younger years encouraged me to focus on this domain.
Routine fasting, meditating, and exercising could improve our defense system. For example, we can reduce the risks of liver cancer via exercise, fasting, and mindfulness practices. Regular exercise is effective in preventing numerous cancers.
Fasting can lower chronic inflammation in several ways, improving immune health. I discussed it in an article titled Ketosis Can Lower Chronic Inflammation and Improve Metabolic and Mental Health in 6 Ways.
Meditation can reduce emotional, physical, and oxidative stress. Fasting and exercise eliminate toxins and pathogens from the body. In addition, fasting rests the digestive system and improves gut health, contributing to immune health.
The combined effects of these three lifestyle habits can significantly empower the immune system and support the defense system to protect the body.
4 — Endocrine (Hormonal) Health
Due to hormonal imbalance, my metabolic and mental health suffered in my younger years. One of the risk factors for metabolic syndrome is the imbalance of insulin, cortisol, and leptin hormones.
Fasting contributes to the balance of these hormones. In addition, fasting substantially increased the growth hormone and contributed to lean muscle gain and maintenance.
As I wrote numerous articles about hormones, hormonal intelligence, neurotransmitters, and endorphins, I won’t repeat them here. Interested readers might check the following articles for details.
5 — Neurological and Mental Health
Fasting and exercise have biological and physical effects on neurological and mental health.
The best contribution of fasting and exercise is to improve hormonal and neurotransmitter balance. Both fasting and exercise can change brain chemistry positively.
In addition to the cleansing aspect of fasting and movement, as mentioned in the cellular health section, they can also increase BDNF and give the brain alternative energy by initiating ketosis.
Conclusions
Fasting, exercise, and meditation provide controlled stress to the body. The physical stress of training and fasting allows the body to grow. Our muscles need stress to grow, and hormones need to balance.
The mental stress of meditation can strengthen the brain, especially the neocortex, to function better.
Paradoxically, the stress induced by meditation can reduce oxidative stress in the brain and the body. Therefore, meditation can contribute to better sleep by reducing stress and anxiety.
The benefits of fasting and meditation were understood by humans intuitively centuries ago. Therefore, many religions made them mandatory for the cultural practices of followers. Recently, scientific studies started understanding the reasons our ancestors intuitively knew.
Our ancestors also evolved by constantly moving. Only after getting comfort through new civilization did we adapt to sedentary life. Suddenly, food became abundant, accessible 24/7, and delivered to our homes.
In addition, we made our food so tasty with unnatural flavors that we wanted to eat constantly without giving our digestive system a break.
However, as our ancient genes were not adapted to a sedentary life and consuming excessively processed food, many metabolic and mental diseases like type II diabetes, heart attacks, cancers, and neurodegenerative disorders like dementia emerged and skyrocketed.
We mocked our neurotransmitters, especially dopamine, by intensifying pleasure and losing focus on natural activities. As our brain cannot cope with orders of magnitude dopamine, it gives us addiction problems, leading to more anxiety and depression. However, we can regain our mental abilities with meditation and other mindfulness practices.
In addition to fasting, exercise, and meditation, I add another controlled stress via thermogenesis using cold and heat therapy, as explained in an article titled Here’s What Happened When I Experimented with Thermogenesis for Decades.
Takeaways
1 — Understand that the body needs some stress to grow and maintain resources. Fasting, exercise, and meditation are controlled stressors.
2 — Regular exercise is critical for health and well-being. However, we need to personalize our workouts based on our needs and goals.
3 — We can reduce the risks of metabolic and mental health conditions by using time-restricted eating with support from qualified professionals.
4 — Benefits of meditation are well-understood by cultures and now well-documented by scientific studies. Thus, introducing mindfulness practices to our lives can enhance our health and well-being.
5 — A customized combination of fasting, exercise, and meditation with support from professionals might enhance our healthspan and lifespan.
Although healthy adults can perform fasting, exercise, and meditation, they might cause problems for people with underlying health conditions. Therefore, seeking guidance and support from qualified healthcare professionals who have access to our medical history is necessary.
My fervent wish is to find ways to package fasting, exercise, and meditation, which might eradicate many diseases. I witnessed that these protocols help people to reverse their metabolic disorders. For example, a Mature-Age Couple Reversed Diabetes and Trimmed Their Bodies with Lifestyle Habits.
I documented many more inspiring cases covering the benefits of fasting, meditation, and workouts compiled in a collection titled Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
In addition to the previously mentioned benefits, fasting, exercise, and mindfulness practices also contributed to my skin health. In another story, I further elaborated on details, giving a broader perspective on fasting for eliminating loose skin.
As mentioned in previous stories, fasting, exercise, and meditation can also contribute to healthy weight management, lower the risks of obesity, and even might contribute to healing Plantar fasciitis (heel pain).
Like millions of others, I greatly benefited from these accessible, natural, and efficient practices. Therefore, I am keen to pass along my tacit knowledge and inspire others to consider them with support from loved ones, friends, and professionals.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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