I was sitting in a coffee shop early in the morning and reading some philosophy about life and all the wonders it has to offer. Actually it was a book by the Stoic Seneca that was written about 65 A.D. There is a lot of wisdom in old literature.

As most of you know I read a lot of nutrition literature from the 1930’s- 1950’s because this is some of the best literature on nutrition. They did a lot of their own research, and they weren’t affected by research money, advertising, or politics. Today’s research is very tough to listen to. I hope to bring you some of that great stuff soon, but I went into the way back machine and found this from nearly 2000 years ago.

This was written after an illness of Seneca’s:

“The doctor will be telling you how much walking you should do, how much exercise you should take; he will be telling you not to over do the inactivity- as is the tendency with invalids- and recommending reading aloud to exercise the breathing; he will recommend you take a trip by sea and derive some stimulation for the internal organs from the gentle motion of the boat; he will prescribe a diet for you, and tell you when to make use of wine as a restorative and when to give it up in case it starts you coughing or aggravates your cough.”

In reality, that sounds pretty good, especially if you are looking at loads of antibiotics, medications, and who knows what else. Did you know one of my favorite prescriptions was a “vacation”. I can’t even count the number of people who would come in and get adjusted then go on vacation and feel better than they have felt in years. People rarely have problems on vacation…something to ponder. Yet, when they come home, they return to all their old habits, and old problems.

How cool would that be if your doctor said “Go take a cruise and drink some wine, and while your out there take a long walk about the deck.”

In fairness, they didn’t know about many of the medications we have today, but they did have some. But, it is tough to argue with good basic advice, and I found it fascinating that it was 2000 years old.

Not much changes when it comes to health. People have wanted to be healthy since the dawn of time. Consider some of this old advice.

Enjoy your weekend,

Dr. Altman

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Standard Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.