An Ancient, Proven, Wellness Supplement That Lasts A Lifetime

An Ancient, Proven, Wellness Supplement That Lasts A Lifetime

By Aid

None of this is intended to be legal, medical, or psychiatric advice. 

    Diet, exercise, yoga, journaling, meditation, massage, vitamins, special alarm clocks, watches that tell you how fast your heart is beating, and books that tell you how to breath. There are plenty of mental wellness aids and supplements out there, each with its own advantages, and some with pretty serious disadvantages. They range from free activities that anyone can engage in to very expensive activities that only a few can afford, and the cost has no bearing on whether a qualified professional would actually recommend it. Given the amount of stress that so many are experiencing these days due to the Covid pandemic and all its accompanying challenges, many people are growing increasingly concerned about their mental and physical well-being, and are looking for activities and products that can help support or supplement their self-care. What if I told you that there is an ancient practice that is an effective, and powerful, activity for supporting your well-being, that will stay with you for the rest of your life, and it’s 100% free to try?

Just a quick note: I refer to these activities and products as “supports” and “supplements,” because I want to stress that none of these activities or items should be seen as a replacement or alternative to seeking professional help when one is experiencing symptoms of a mental illness or condition. If day to day life is getting more difficult, and you’re having trouble coping or experiencing reoccurring thoughts that concern you, your first stop should be at your doctor’s office or mental health provider, and if you don’t have access to those, gaining access to them should be your top priority. However, if you’ve already consulted a provider and are looking for something that can help along with whatever your provider recommends, or if you’re just looking for something that can improve your day to day life generally, I suggest you keep reading.

Regardless of whether you’ve tried some wellness support activities, or if you are brand new to the wellness game, what I am about to recommend to you can be a great supplement that directly improves your well-being and outlook on life. I know this, because it has worked wonders for me, and it has done amazing things for generation after generation going back to ancient times. It may actually be the first wellness tool ever developed by human beings. I am talking, of course, about PHILOSOPHY. Before, you conclude that this is a cop-out and close out of this blog never to return, let me explain briefly. 

Philosophy, which literally means “love of wisdom,” is the study of knowledge, reality, and fundamental aspects of human existence and experience. It is the study of what some might call “big life questions” such as: "What is my purpose?”, “Why are we here?”, “Is there a God?”, “Is the world around me real?”, “What does it mean to know something?”, “What does it mean to exist?”, and even “What is the right thing to do?” as well as many other inquiries. More than that, name ANY aspect of life, no matter how trivial or difficult to discuss, name ANY interest you have or issue that is important to you, and you can relate it back to philosophy, if not find a whole philosophy book written on the subject. You are also spoiled for choice in terms of who you can learn from in the discipline as well. Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Renee Descartes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, and Ronald Dworkin are just some of the most famous thinkers, and that is barely scratching the surface. 

So why should we care about what a bunch of old, mostly dead, people have to say concerning big life questions? Can philosophy provide the answers to our problems? Glad you asked! 

The funny thing is: if you start with a question that matters to you, and then read some philosophy about that subject, you probably won’t walk away with an answer to that question— You’ll probably just have more questions. However, you will not be in the same place as you started. That is because, apart from being interesting and valuable just by itself, philosophy helps you practice at least 2 skills that are incredibly helpful to maintaining your well-being:

1) You will be able to literally READ MINDS! (But not in the way you are probably thinking right now…) 

    Each theorist, whether you agree with their views or not, is a great mind who took a stab at understanding something relevant to human life, and their thoughts have been immortalized in their works. Each of their works is a window into how they thought and saw the world from their own unique perspective. By following the arguments that great philosophers have laid out for you, you can adopt their headspace, and experience their point of view for a while before returning to your own. This ability to get out of your own head, to set your view aside and adopt a different perspective, is helpful when dealing with friends, family, co-workers, strangers, and (most importantly) YOURSELF, because it not only allows you to understand what other people think and why they think it. It can better enable you to understand what YOU really think in contrast to others, and help you to better articulate your own thoughts and feelings.

2) You are learning how to live with uncertainty. 

    The truth is that “big life questions” do not always have easily obtainable answers. The way we understand the world and ourselves better is by refining the questions we have until we start to get answers. In other words, you can only get answers when you ask the right questions. Uncertainty, and lacking clear answers, are major sources of stress in everyone’s life, but they are things we can learn to cope with and accommodate into our lives. Philosophy is all about asking questions and dealing with issues that are uncertain and abstract, or even unknowable. This does not mean that you learn to give up looking for answers. Rather, you can learn to become more comfortable with the answers not being present yet.

Ultimately, apart from letting you practice and develop these useful skills (keeping in mind that the more you practice them, the more you will be able to utilize them in daily life), gaining an appreciation for philosophy and its rich history will show you that thoughts can have a profound influence over our actions, and change the way we see the world and ourselves in it. Therein lies a major key to your own well-being: If you don’t like something about your life, you have it inside yourself to change your relationship with that source of unhappiness. Go to your local library, or go on-line, and give philosophy a try.