Resting

Life is very toxic. There are events and there are interactions with others. They are inevitably imperfect. Events occur as a result of natural forces and actions of others and ourselves. Since all people are imperfect the consequences of their actions are imperfect; this accounts for many events. Interactions with others are necessarily imperfect since the people involved are all imperfect. So we suffer the consequences of the imperfection. To some extent this is "toxic".
That is why we must ensure that resting is an integral part of our daily lives. We have to create a habit of rest. Perhaps in hobbies or perhaps in exercise time. It can be in meditation. Or it can be in having tea. Some cultures have "siesta". But many people don't understand resting. Even resting can be toxic. We use television a lot (average american watches 20 hours per week). Television is very toxic. It is an unnatural interaction, because we don't get to respond. We're just presented to. What we're presented is a lot of violence and advertising. Advertising tells us that we have to have more than we have since what we have is not enough, or inadequate. It has to do that because its intention is to sell us something that we don't already have. The advertiser has to create a desire or a need which is also a lack of satisfaction. The programming has to create something spectacular. That is rarely restorative.
We live a very busy life. We live in constant doing something. Even when we don't do anything, we don't tend to have quiet minds. We don't rest. We go and do something and become toxic. Then we don't stop and "detoxify". We just keep going all of the time. I see so many people who can't get to sleep. They just can't turn their mind off and rest. People actually lose the ability to rest. There is constant stress just in our daily lives.
Often, the patients come with stress induced or stress exacerbated illness. Often, they ask me if this illness could be from stress. That is because they realize, somewhere deep down, that they are under an unhealthy amount of stress. They don't know any way to stop that stress. It seems to be an integral component of life. It is, I think, an integral component of our culture: of our focus on productivity and business.
I wish there was a way to measure the disease burden of stress. All that I can say is that in my own practice the stress of our culture is creating a great deal of illness. There's no science to prove it, but I think a lot of our epidemic of obesity is due to stress. People eat too much because they have stress. Eating (very temporarily) comforts us. It is one of the only ways that people have left to detoxify. Sadly, they eat in a way that is actually toxic. We are left with nothing that can detoxify us.
I often say to people "Don't have stress." They laugh because it seems like I must be joking. The notion is unimaginable for most of the patients. They know that there is no way one can live without stress. I can see that we have some input into our stress level. We can detoxify. It's just that there is no generally known method for it to be found.