The three point principle that the Chinese follow with regard to their body. The sooner you adopt the system the more the benefits accrued.

So what’s the system you ask?
It’s quite literally the title of the hub.

How does it work?
Quite well for the Chinese over the last few centuries.

What about for us?
Let’s take a look.

Maintain

The sooner you begin to look after your body the longer the individual parts will last you. Let’s consider a car that you buy. For the first few years there are no problems and you are happy with it.

Then the parts begin to wear out and gradually the small niggling problems set in. If you begin maintenance at this stage it will not be too expensive. However if you wait longer and only take it in to the garage when it stops in the middle of the road, you can imagine the bill you will run up.

In a similar manner the body will react better to your orders in the long run if you look after it before it develops any major problem. The way to maintain your body is to exercise it well, feed it healthy food and ensure regular medical checkups to catch any aberrations before they become a full blown problem.

Enhance

Each of us can improve ourselves. Be it on the physical plane, the mental plane or the spiritual plane. As we grow up we imbibe a set of values for each plane from our parents and immediate environment. These are by no means unchangeable.

If you find a better way of doing some menial task you tend to adopt that method over the older one. After all why should you wash clothes by hand when a washing machine will do it so much better and with less effort?

In the same way why should you not read books just because your parents never ventured beyond magazines in their reading habits? So also the spiritual practices that you follow can be enhanced to fit into your belief system.

Growth is nature’s way and it is our choice to continue to learn till our dying day. Trust me there is enough knowledge out there for you to fill up all your days.

Heal

As it is not a perfect world, into each life some trouble must fall. Disease and decay can cause your perfect life to crumble into ruins. It is here that you must find the strength to heal yourself.

When your faith in unwavering in the fact that “This too shall pass” you will find the energy to wait it out. Just as the day follows the night and the darkest hour comes before the dawn, the good times will follow the bad.

Healing the physical body is the easiest. Just go to a doctor and follow his instructions. The mind is more difficult to control and here is where meditation is a great help. To be able to focus your energies on a problem and find the solution is possible through meditation.

The spiritual self is the most difficult to heal of its “Crisis of faith”. This requires more vigor and vitality. The active search can be quite exhausting and does tend to discourage the majority from solving their problems.

Keeping Fit

Is it as simple as that? Yes it is. All you have to do is make sure that maintain the good health that you have. Try and enhance the positive bits of your life, and heal what ever goes wrong at the first sign of trouble.

It may sound simple in theory, but to put it to practice will take more than just a few tries. I  know, I've tried it. Am not doing too bad in the health department, but wish it could be easier to enhance and heal.