Nobody wakes up in the morning excited about the monotony of their lives!
Most people hate monotony and are proud to say they don’t have a routine.
Because routines are boring!
One definition of routine is an unvarying, habitual, unimaginative life.
Having vegetable soup for dinner rather than pizza? Boring! Going to bed early rather than binge watching our favorite show? Boring!
In the field of wellness, healthy routines and strategies can especially feel boring and monotonous. And I believe it’s a good thing!
Monotony doesn’t mean there’s something wrong!
Listen to Dr. Neal Malik read today’s blog on Optimal Health Daily!
The reason why we associate it with a negative is because of the world we live in.
We live in a world that Ayurvedic practitioners say is “Vata deranged.” The world we live in is not just cuckoo! It’s Vata cuckoo!
Basically it means that in our world, people need to be constantly stimulated, and distracted. Our lives need to be in constant movement to feel real and interesting! A life without excitement is not a life worth living. Or is it?
Should we always run away from our existential fear of boredom?
I love French cinema, I do. It doesn’t always make sense! But I love it because in most French movies it’s still the acting and the story that strike an emotional response, not the background music!
If you look at movies from 20 years ago, you’ll notice that transitions between scenes are slower. Today, they’re much faster and more striking. There’s more music to stimulate emotions and sounds are louder.
With social media and cell phones, we’re constantly engaged in a conversation, expressing and sharing. It seems that we’re either living vicariously through other people’s exciting lives or we’re staving off loneliness.
The taste of foods is what’s exciting!
The more food can stimulate our taste buds the better it is, right? The problem with that is that we can lose our sense of taste in the search for stimulation. We need foods that taste sweeter, saltier, fatter and spicier!
A dangerous cocktail for our health.
Monotony in our health routines is absolutely necessary if we want to experience true well being. We need to take a lesson from mother Nature.
Ayurveda is the system of natural health care par excellence. Its principles and wisdom are based on a keen observation of nature..
Nature goes through cycles, teaching us that the very fabric of life is cyclical. Those cycles are slow and monotonous. But do we say that Nature is boring? No! We’re in awe of its beauty and intelligence. We come to mother nature to seek solace, enlightenment and peace.
The 5 benefits of monotony in healthy routines
#1: Monotony keeps indecision at bay. When we establish a daily routine, food habits and choices we don’t have to wonder what we’re going to do next or what we’re going to eat next. We’re not wasting energy on being indecisive!
We can also predict how we’re going to feel and maintain our energy and focus level. We don’t have to wonder if this particular meal is going to make us feel bloated and gassy!
#2: It connects us with our beingness. At the core of who we are, beyond the distractions of our lives, we just are. The sages of old say that beingness is peace, bliss and freedom. When we’re always stimulated we forget our true nature. We’re not the waves, we’re the ocean upon which the waves happen!
#3: It creates consistency. Consistency will get us to our goals. When we have a vegetable soup every night, in the long run, our liver and other physiological systems like our hormonal system, our cardio-vascular system and our nervous system can eliminate toxins and waste more efficiently and can function more appropriately.
In the long term, we’ll sleep better and more deeply. And we’ll wake up in the morning earlier and with more energy!
#4: We can be more present. And enjoy the present moment with the gifts it has to offer us. A beam of sunlight through the crystal ball hanging at my window showers me with a thousand tiny little rainbows, as I sit on my meditation pillow at the same time.
#5: It makes life simpler. Being able to live more simply ultimately gives us a great sense of self-sufficiency and dependency.
The mind that delights in monotony has more patience and power of expectation
“The endurance of monotony has about the same place in a healthy mind that the endurance of darkness has: that is to say, as a strong intellect will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm and twilight, and in the broken and mysterious lights that gleam among them, rather than in mere brilliancy and glare, while a frivolous mind will dread the shadow and storm; and as a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of fortune in order to reach greater eminence of power or felicity, while an inferior man will not pay the price; exactly in like manner a great mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony which would be wearisome to an inferior intellect, because it has more patience and power of expectation, and is ready to pay the full price for the great future pleasure of change.”
― John Ruskin
It doesn’t mean that we can’t veer from our routines once in a while but for the sake of our health, it’s better if this is the exception rather than the norm.
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