Reflection 1 Health/Stress

From the Book

North Charleston, South Carolina Copyright by written permission only

My objective was to immerse grandma, your dads and myself in the culture; thereby learning about culture through experience. (Ed Note:  Dr. Jones spent a number of years in Germany as a Research Scientist) We did learn through experience, but it felt like a child who learns that a burner is hot by putting his hand on it.

Like many North Americans who live abroad for the first time, we were shocked to discover that Germans are NOT like us; and, they all speak a foreign language. I tried to point out that God speaks English and so should they, but the Germans retorted that truly great philosophical discourse requires German and God is obviously a German philosopher. Who could argue with such a logical view of God, but he's really an English speaking mathematician.

These conversations were best reflected upon with a glass of wine. As many teenagers know, one of the defenses when in conflict with parents and others is sarcasm. It's tough being sarcastic in a language that you don't speak, and even when I learned to speak, Germans didn't understand my sarcasm.

Language, culture, work environment, food, church, absence of friends, schools, no English TV all contributed to elevating stress. After three months of exhibiting all the symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic, I came upon a book called the "Body Maintenance Manual." 

Among the exercise and diet advice was a table that related points to stress topics like the ones described above. It stated that 100 stress points would cause some kind of emotional or physical problem. My stress points were in the neighborhood of 500, that suggested that paranoia was well deserved.

I was ready for intellectual growth, but cultural growth was another matter and required maturity. Intellectual and cultural growth, parenting and life require physical stamina. Supplemental vitamins and exercise were far more important for me than diet and sleep.

Because large agricultural firms are concerned with getting more crops from less land and then shipping those products to distant markets, we may not be getting all the nutrients that we need from our food. Hence, I discovered that vitamins and minerals along with exercise aided in my quest for wellness.

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13/01/2009 04:24 PM

The effect of large doses of vitamin supplements was not well understood. Consequently, I was experimenting on myself. However, understanding how your body works and taking care of it is each person's responsibility. The medical profession can do amazing things to cure disease and injury, but wellness needs to be each person's focus. My personal health evaluation was a study in Psychology, Kinesiology, Physiology and Nutrition.

Psychology was used to determine that I was going nuts from stress. Physiology helped me assess what was happening to my chubby body and how it negatively impacted my response to stress. Kinesiology helped define the exercise required and assess the impact. Understanding nutrition helped me understand what foods impacted exercise performance.

Statistics and Design of Experiments helped me determine the appropriate metrics and evaluate what conditions improved my physical condition and reaction to stress. Metrics were simple:

1] How fast did I complete a three mile run?

2] How much weight could I lift and how many times?

3] Did the twitch in my eye and paranoia go away?

4] What was my weight and waist and hip circumference?

Data collected (listed in order of impact on metrics) included:

1] vitamins (especially B complex and E),

2] barometric pressure (surprise),

3] Food - meat (strength), sweets, carbohydrates (endurance),

4] Liquids consumed,

5] Alcoholic beverages consumed and

6] Hours slept.

I discovered that exercise reduced the negative effects of stress. 45 minute runs and 45 minute weight work outs on alternate days along with a multiple vitamin and extra B and E helped me survive the ordeal.

Most people exercise under the level at which their body pays attention. After exercising for the last 30 years, my reward is that I need to exercise harder if I want my body to pay attention.