( 586 ) Lessons for Seniors, from a 97 year old Japanese doctor

​મુંબાઈ નિવાસી મારા મિત્ર શ્રી યોગેશભાઈ કાણકિયાએ એમના ઈ-મેલમાં બે પ્રેરક અંગ્રેજી લેખ Lessons for Seniors, from a 97 year old Japanese doctor અને 8 Things Happy People Do But Rarely Talk About મોકલ્યા એ ગમી જતાં એમના આભાર સાથે આજની પોસ્ટમાં પ્રસ્તુત છે.તેઓ ખુબ અભ્યાસી જીવ છે અને એમને ગમેલી વાંચવી અને વિચારવી ગમે એવી સાહિત્ય સામગ્રી મને મોકલતા રહે છે. 

શ્રી યોગેશભાઈ વિનોદ વિહાર ના માધ્યમથી એક નજીકના મિત્ર થઇ ગયા છે.ગત વરસે એમણે મારી પસંદગીના ભજનો,ક્લાસિકલ ગીત અને સંગીતની ૯૦ કલાક ચાલે એવું ભરપુર મનોરંજનની ત્રણ સી.ડી. પોસ્ટથી મારા માટે પ્રેમથી મોકલી આપી હતી જેના માટે હું એમનો ખુબ આભારી છું. 

દરેક મહિનાની શરૂઆતમાં તેઓ સુંદર તસવીરોમાં મનન કરવા જેવાં મોતી-સુવાક્યો ની PPS મોકલે છે જે ખુબ જ પ્રેરક હોય છે.

મને આશા છે આજની પોસ્ટમાં પ્રસ્તુત શ્રી યોગેશભાઈ એ મોકલેલ પ્રેરક અને ઉપયોગી અંગ્રેજી -સાહિત્ય સામગ્રી ગમશે. 

વિનોદ પટેલ 

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Lessons for Seniors, from a 97 year old Japanese doctor ! Interesting…… 

   97 year old Doctor Hinohara Shigeaki

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest-serving physicians and educators.

Hinohara’s magic touch is legendary:

Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing.

After World War II, he envisioned a world-class hospital and college springing from the ruins of Tokyo ,thanks to his pioneering spirit and business savvy, the doctor turned these institutions into the nation’s top medical facility and nursing school. 

Today he serves as chairman of the board of trustees at both organizations. Always willing to try new things, he has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including one “Living Long, Living Good” that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. 

As the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life,a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself. 

A 97 year old Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara has this to say ….. 

Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too.

It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime. 

All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: 

None are overweight… 

For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. 

Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. 

Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean  meat..

Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. 

In 2016 I’ll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics! 

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. 

The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100. 

Share what you know.I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong. 

When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure.suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure.

Contrary to popular belief,doctors can’t cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine. 

To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving. 

My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler. “

My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. 

Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke’s we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

Don’t be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don’t know when your number is up,and you can’t take it with you to the next place.

Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St…. Luke’s so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the  corridors, in the chapel.

Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20,1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was

 sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives. 

Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. 

To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones. 

Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight  from Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat.As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.

Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. 

My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina. He was a pioneer and one of my heroes.

Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the  problem. 

It’s wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society at large. Since the age of 65,I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.  

8 Things Happy People Do

But Rarely Talk About

Most of us like to think we are fairly happy people, but deep down we might not necessarily believe it or feel happy.

When you look around and see people you grew up with making the most out of life while you keep going to a job you don’t like, repeating the same routine day in and day out, it is easy to feel less than grateful for the life you have.

So what are the secrets of all those happy people? What are they doing to get the most out of life while the rest of us watch it pass by?  

1. They give

Focusing on money is a sure fire way to end up unhappy. In fact, in studies of happiness, researchers have found that once you have enough money to satisfy your basic needs there are only two ways money can help you. One is by improving your social standing and the other is to give it away. By using their money to help others rather than needlessly hoarding it, happy people feel like they are making a positive contribution to the world.

2. They avoid drama

Happy people also tend to mind their own business. While other people get caught up in other people’s relationships or stress out about who said what to whom, happy people choose to focus on the things they have more control over. Paying attention to your own life and letting other people live theirs is a simple way to maximize happiness.

3. They are grateful

While they may not make a point of rubbing your nose in it, happy people are grateful for the things they have. They don’t spend all their time wanting what other people possess or daydreaming about a better life. Instead, they take a few moments each day to think about all the things that they appreciate and make a point of being grateful for them.

4. They look on the bright side

When the going gets tough, the truly happy are often unshaken. Dwelling on failures and imagining the worst case scenario may be the default option for most people, but if you truly want to be happy, you need to make a point of having faith that things will turn out alright. Maintain your perspective and know that, no matter what happens, you can bounce back.

5. They value relationships

Instead of focusing on money and relentlessly pursuing career advancement by working long hours, the happiest people focus more of their time on personal relationships. At the end of your life, you won’t remember a lot of the time you spent at work. Rather, you will value family meals and time shared with friends. Putting people before money is a powerful tool in achieving happiness.

6. They cultivate many different parts of their lives

While they may place a lot of value on relationships, happy people do not define themselves by one aspect of their lives. They maintain careers they enjoy, they have hobbies, and they love learning and growing as individuals. By paying attention to many aspects of their lives, happy people don’t get overwhelmed when one element of their day-to-day life goes off the tracks. If they get dumped, they still have a rewarding career. If they get injured and can’t play their favorite sport for a while, they still have friends to hang out with. Not putting all your eggs in one basket is a key to being a happy person.

7. They don’t focus on material things

While some of us may think shopping is a great way to relieve stress and that having things will make us happier in the long run, others choose to value experiences over material goods. New clothes are great, but it is hard to get as much enjoyment out of a sweater as you get out of scuba diving the Great Barrier reef and the stories you can tell about it afterwards.

8. They follow their passion

Finally, happy people follow their passions. If they wake up and realize that they are unhappy with their job, they aren’t afraid to leave it to pursue something they really care about. It might involve taking a risk. It might lead to a huge failure. But happy people aren’t afraid to stick their neck out and chase what everyone else is afraid to. 

With Best Regards,