My journey to good health – Major PL Devand

I am “certified team leader healthy for life program”. I completed this 15 moths on line certification program, and got certified in Feb 2006, under the guidance of Dr Ray D Strand, of USA. In last so many years, I have learned to be healthy for the life and leading absolute healthy life,at an age of 74 free from any chronic disease. Following are few facts about my journey to good health:

1. 1. Recently I leant “Breathing normalisation” of Dr  K P  Buteyko of Russia. I find this was one of the most valuable addition to my good health tool kit.
   2.  I started running marathons in 2012 at the age of 68. Since than I finished a number of Half (21.09km)and full(42.19 km) marathons in India and abroad.Incidentally I was awarded silver medal and cash prize in SCMM( Standard chartered Mumbai Marathon) 2015 in my age group of 70-74 years.
   3. I learnt running from text book and Pose method of running developed by Dr Nicholas Ramanov is my default method of running.
   4. While practicing running, I learnt about importance of body posture to run well and injury free.
   5. Alexander technique helped to maintain natural body posture.
      1. Alexander Technique: Let neck be free and head is forward up so that, back is lengthened and widened. This is called primary control and should be maintained all the time while seating, while walking ,while running even while sleeping.
      2.  Most of the athletes and common people suffer from “Forward Head Posture.” It is about distortion of head and neck and back alignment. The average human head weighs between 8 and 10 pounds. In the neutral posture, head directly over top the spine; the head feels nearly weightless, because the body is perfectly balanced. But for every inch the head moves forward, it feels as if its weight has doubled. This is due to the effects of gravity (simple physics – remember the terms lever and fulcrum?).
      3. The muscles of the neck, shoulders and upper back are forced to work to support the head in this position. The resulting strain on your muscles is exhausting and once these muscles become exhausted is when we are more prone to discomfort and injury.This may cause lower back pain, spondylosis sciatica pain etc,asthma even constipation.
   6. I am surprised, body posture and breathing are two basic to health, affecting health of people through out life but,they hardly pay attention to these vital aspect of good health. You may see many elderly persons walking with head protruding forward couple of inches suffering from various health issues result of avoidable bad posture.
   7.   Similarly avoidable over breathing/ mouth breathing very common in people. As per research cause of a number of chronic diseases. For example in north America, more than 60% people over breath. I also found hardly any body is conscious about breathing so fundamental to good health.
   8. Frankly speaking, I become conscious about breathing only in last one year. It gave me a number of dividends: Namely not getting tired easily, snoring stopped all together, anxiety got controlled, better sleep, improved digestion,clear headedness ,improved self confidence/ self control , relaxed body, better concentration, better control over anger to name few.
   9. Both about body posture and breathing normalisation I started briefing people informally during my morning work outs or friends I come across. I got very good response from this informal audience.
   10. There fore I will share about Body posture and breathing normalisation first.
   11. I am a “certified team leader healthy for life program” and luckily leading a perfect health at 74 years of age, thus will be happy to answer any question related to good health and nutrition etc including weight management.

I will be happy to get your feed back on what I shared above.

Major P L Devand(Retd)

Certified Team leader healthy for life program.