Harshvardhan

“The transactional view of psychological stress reminds us that we can be more resistant to stress, more resilient, if we build up our resources and enhance our physical and psychological well-being in general (for example, via regular exercise, meditation, adequate sleep, and the deep connectedness of interpersonal intimacy, to name four of the most important ones) during times when we are not particularly taxed or overwhelmed. This is our biological and psychological “bank account” from which we can withdraw needed resources on some occasions, and to which we can make deposits at other times. This is really what the phrase “healthy lifestyle” implies.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, Revised Edition: How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation

“The ‘big three’ desirable features for a heterosexual man’s mate are perhaps unsurprising – femininity, health, fertility. Men seek women who look obviously like women; men seek women who have good genes and are healthy; men seek women who look like they have years of efficient breeding ahead of them.”
― David Bainbridge, Curvology: The Origins and Power of Female Body Shape

“cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don’t eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actually eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually practice mindfulness, by which I mean cultivate it systematically in your own life, in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, Revised Edition: How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation

“In the old days, if a king didn’t like the message he was given, he would sometimes have the messenger killed. This is tantamount to suppressing your symptoms or your feelings because they are unwanted. Killing the messenger and denying the message or raging against it are not intelligent ways of approaching healing. The one thing we don’t want to do is to ignore or rupture the essential connections that can complete relevant feedback loops and restore allostasis, self-regulation, and balance. Our real challenge when we have symptoms is to see if we can listen to their messages and really hear them and take them to heart, that is, make the connection fully.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, Revised Edition: How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation