The bottom line is that the human body is complex and subtle, and oversimplifying – as common sense sometimes impels us to do – can be hazardous to your health. – Andrew Weil
Fitting a walk into a busy life can be challenging, so I suggest walking rather driving to work or to run errands as often as you can – in other words, think of walking as alternative transportation. – Andrew Weil
The usual justification for eating extra meals is that it keeps the metabolism ‘revved up’ so that weight loss is easier. There is, however, very little hard evidence that supports this idea, and a fair amount that disputes it. – Andrew Weil
The more people have, the less content they seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we’re to be happy all the time and our children are to be happy all the time is toxic, and I think that really gets in the way of emotional well-being. – Andrew Weil
Massage therapy has been shown to relieve depression, especially in people who have chronic fatigue syndrome; other studies also suggest benefit for other populations. – Andrew Weil
Whenever I write about mental health and integrative therapies, I am accused of being prejudiced against pharmaceuticals. So let me be clear – integrative medicine is the judicious application of both conventional and evidence-based natural therapies. – Andrew Weil
Limit or eliminate late-night computer and television viewing. A computer or TV screen may seem much dimmer than a light bulb, but these screens often fill your field of vision, mimicking the effects of a room filled with light. – Andrew Weil
Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens – roughly 200,000 years – people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things. – Andrew Weil
Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy. – Andrew Weil
I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system – one that depends on ruinously expensive drugs and surgeries that treat health conditions after they manifest rather than giving our citizens simple diet, lifestyle and therapeutic tools to keep them healthy. – Andrew Weil
If the only way you could read an email was to run a mile first, the urge would quickly die. Human beings constantly do subconscious effort/reward calculations. Tapping a screen is the easiest of physical tasks. – Andrew Weil
Conscious breath control is a useful tool for achieving a relaxed, clear state of mind. – Andrew Weil
Pay attention to your body. The point is everybody is different. You have to figure out what works for you. – Andrew Weil
One of the most obvious ways dogs can improve our physical and mental health is via daily walks. – Andrew Weil
The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight and well-being. – Andrew Weil
Many exercise forms – aerobic, yoga, weights, walking and more – have been shown to benefit mood. – Andrew Weil
The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it’s too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios. – Andrew Weil
In the world at large, people are rewarded or punished in ways that are often utterly random. In the garden, cause and effect, labor and reward, are re-coupled. Gardening makes sense in a senseless world. By extension, then, the more gardens in the world, the more justice, the more sense is created. – Andrew Weil
Technology has a shadow side. It accounts for real progress in medicine, but has also hurt it in many ways, making it more impersonal, expensive and dangerous. The false belief that a safety net of sophisticated drugs and machines stretches below us, permitting risky or lazy lifestyle choices, has undermined our spirit of self-reliance. – Andrew Weil
Excess exercise tends to be counterbalanced by excess hunger, exemplified by the phrase ‘working up an appetite.’ A few people with extraordinary willpower can resist such hunger day after day, but for the vast majority, weight loss through exercise is a flawed option. – Andrew Weil
The world is beset by many problems, but in my opinion, this hijacking of our brain’s reward centers by electronic media is potentially one of the most destructive. – Andrew Weil
Human bodies are designed for regular physical activity. The sedentary nature of much of modern life probably plays a significant role in the epidemic incidence of depression today. Many studies show that depressed patients who stick to a regimen of aerobic exercise improve as much as those treated with medication. – Andrew Weil
My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society. – Andrew Weil
As an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1960s, I was fascinated by my visits to psychologist B.F. Skinner’s laboratory. – Andrew Weil
You can’t afford to get sick, and you can’t depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It’s up to you to protect and maintain your body’s innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live. – Andrew Weil
For many in the modern world, carving out time for both traditional seated meditation and exercise has become close to impossible. – Andrew Weil
Giving gifts to others is a fundamental activity, as old as humanity itself. Yet in the modern, complex world, the particulars of gift-giving can be extraordinarily challenging. – Andrew Weil
There’s a great deal of scientific evidence that social connectedness is a very strong protector of emotional well-being, and I think there’s no question that social isolation has greatly increased in our culture in, say, the past 50 years, past 100 years. – Andrew Weil
If you have difficulty sleeping or are not getting enough sleep or sleep of good quality, you need to learn the basics of sleep hygiene, make appropriate changes, and possibly consult a sleep expert. – Andrew Weil
