For Humans Life Can Be Very Humbling

By Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas

[Republished here by permission of the authors from their “Lifestyle Tips for Over 50s,” affiliated with their website “Passionate Retirees,” January 31, 2019.]

“It’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years.”

Many of us think we’re so smart with our iPhones, Ipads, Fitbits, Alexias. and any other device or gimmick that makes our lives, oh, so comfortable. You may have noticed that people who are up often come crashing down to earth with either financial ruin or marital breakup.
    As a chiropractor, I have seen people, both in my profession and in the medical field – and you’ve probably met them too – who think they know everything and pooh-pooh any other health professional, such as chiropractors. I have certainly experienced this over the years. This attitude not only doesn’t serve the public but also, at times, results in a great disservice. So, both the public and health practitioners need to be cognizant of the fact that our bodies are all-knowing and are the ultimate controlling mechanism.
    When it comes to our health and abusing ourselves – whether, with alcohol, over-exercising or doing drugs – we tend to think that we are smarter than our bodies. It’s another form of displaying arrogance. Our bodies give us signals of abuse, but we ignore them because we think we know better. In the end, for most us, the consequences to our well-being can indeed be a very humbling experience.
    In any area of life where we become arrogant and don’t humble ourselves to the magnificence around us, the tendency is to be brought back to reality. Concerning the body, the result is symptoms or diseases.

So, let’s look at some surprising facts about your body:

1. Your eyes alone have 130 million light-sensitive rods and cones in their retinas.
2. There are 206 bones in the human body.
3. There are 650 muscles in the body working in perfect synchronisation.
4. Pain impulses move from the source of the pain to your brain at 1 kilometre per second.
5. The average adult inhales and exhales 14 cubic metres of air every day.
6. There are 10 billion nerve cells in the human brain.
7. Each nerve cell makes contact with some 10,000 other nerve cells, which leads to an astronomical number of communications in one brain.
8. The kidneys filter approximately 200 litres of your blood every day.
9. There are about 100,000 kilometres of blood vessels in the body (distance to the moon is 384,000 kilometres).

    You get the picture.
    When we are humble, we respect and listen to our bodies. If we’re tired, we don’t push ourselves to the breaking point. If we’re full, we don’t override our digestive system and gorge ourselves with food. If we traumatise ourselves, we don’t take the event lightly. Even injuries that happened years earlier can have a deleterious effect on us. As a chiropractor, I often saw this take place. Someone may have had a motor vehicle accident and suffered whiplash as a teenager, or had a bad fall. Spinal changes from such past traumatic experiences can be quite evident on x-ray examinations.
    Our body is an intricately balanced system. Throw things out of balance, and things start to break down. Be attentive to your body and treat it with the utmost respect.

Copyright © 2019 by Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas Ely Lazar, B.Sc., D.C., is a part-time chiropractor and Adele Thomas, M.D., is a family practitioner. They are based near Perth, Western Australia.