How to Avoid Unnecessary Drugs
HOW TO AVOID UNNECESSARY DRUGS
1. DON'T GET IN THE HABIT OF TAKING A PILL FOR EVERYTHING
Some people will take a pill to fall asleep, stay awake, have sex, not get pregnant, and believe it or not, there are even infomercials on late-night television for "memory pills" that claim to be able to help you remember names and phone numbers!
Don't fall into this trap by reaching for a pill every time you have a minor ache or pain.
If you didn't have any trouble walking, but you decided to stop walking and start using a motorized wheelchair to get around because it was a lot easier than walking, it would only be a matter of time until you actually needed the wheelchair, because if you stop using your legs, they will atrophy and become too weak to support your body.
And you can develop a similar dependency on ANY drug out there (from caffeine to painkillers) if you rely on them long enough.
All drugs can cause harmful side effects, and if you doubt this, simply walk into a drug store and try to find a drug that doesn't come with any harmful side effects listed on the label.
In fact, one of the most common ways for people to commit suicide is to simply take pharmaceutical drugs in really high doses, and it is estimated that at least 100,000 people in the U.S. alone die each year just from taking the normal and recommended dose of a pharmaceutical drug.
Even if an "immortality pill" was invented that would allow anyone who took it to live forever, I wouldn't want to take it because I don't want to spend eternity suffering from side effects.
2. DON'T PLAN TO GET SICK IN THE FUTURE
Something that blows my mind is the fact that when people go to the store to buy "headache pills", they will buy a HUGE bottle with 100, 500, or even 1,000 pills in it!
The way I see it, if you are expecting to need that many "headache pills" in the future, you will probably end up with a future full of headaches.
I'm not telling anyone to stop taking their meds, but I am saying that instead of going to the drug store and "stocking up" on enough drugs to last you for ages because you are expecting a future of sickness, you should consider going to the health food store and stocking up on healthy foods so you will have a good reason to start expecting wellness instead.
3. FIND AND FIX THE ACTUAL PROBLEM
Pain is a serious conversation that our bodies are trying to have with us, and the message is usually "painfully obvious"... ("DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!")
Did you know that there are rare people who are born with a condition known as C.I.P. (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain) which causes them to never be able to feel pain? And did you know that one of the reasons these people are so rare is because they usually die when they are VERY young?
The curious child who touches a hot stove and doesn't feel the message "OUCH, THAT HURTS, DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!" is a serious danger to themself. And when we take drugs that cause us to not feel any pain or discomfort whenever we make unhealthy choices, we become a great danger to ourselves as well.
If I get bad heartburn whenever I eat certain foods, I interpret that as my body telling me that those foods are bad for my heart and that I shouldn't eat them.
But whenever I see a drug commercial on TV about heartburn, the message is that if I get heartburn from eating certain foods, I should take a drug to cover up the feeling of heartburn so I can ignore what my body is trying to tell me. And if I take that advice long enough, then what started as mere "heartburn" could eventually turn into something a lot more serious. (Like a "heart attack"!)
"Lack of communication" can cause a lot of problems in life, and even a lot of our health problems could be resolved naturally and without drugs if we simply started becoming better listeners to our bodies.
Before I got into health and fitness, if I got sick, my conditioned reflex was to instantly reach for a drug that would make me feel better. But if I were to get sick now, the first thing I would do is ask myself "why" I got sick and "what" I needed to do (or stop doing) to fix the problem naturally. (And reaching for a drug would now be more of a "last resort" than an "impulse".)
4. LET FOOD BE THY MEDICINE AND MEDICINE BE THY FOOD
"When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need."
- Ayurvedic Proverb
Many people have been able to get off their meds by switching to a whole-foods plant-based diet, and if you start filling your refrigerator with wholesome foods, you may find that your medicine cabinet starts to seemingly empty itself on its own.
5. POSITIVE THINKING
The idea that our thoughts could have a serious impact on our physical health used to be laughed at and considered nothing more than "new age nonsense".
But now that "antidepressants" have officially become the most prescribed drug in the United States, it would be hard for anyone to deny that the way we think can have a profound effect on our health.
Yes, you can worry yourself sick or even give yourself a heart attack by spending your life feeling stressed out and angry at the world around you.
And if "negative thinking" can cause serious health problems, then "positive thinking" must have the potential to prevent or even reverse serious health problems.
Most drugs don't actually make you "feel better", but rather, they make you "feel less", and for those who are feeling a lot of physical or mental discomfort, drugs can provide a temporary escape from what they are feeling.
There can certainly be situations where a person is in so much physical pain that it would be better for them to take a "painkiller" than have to suffer through it. But a lot of people become addicted to "painkillers" and will continue to take them long after the physical pain is gone to escape a mental discomfort that is ultimately being caused by negative thinking.
There are a lot of great motivational speakers out there, so I would encourage you to start reading, watching, and listening to people who leave you feeling uplifted and inspired, and please avoid negative content like the plague that it is.
6. DON'T WATCH, READ, OR LISTEN TO THE NEWS
Below are 3 reasons why I feel that watching the news can wreck your health...
Reason #1 - Negativity
You can't fill your mind with negativity and expect to be healthy, and it's no secret that the News focuses on the negative.
Not only do negative News stories tend to get the most ratings, but if viewers are scared enough or outraged enough they will literally be "glued" to the News and feel unable to turn it off.
Back when I used to watch the News, I noticed that not only were they giving me reasons to feel scared, angry, or depressed, but whenever they would go to a commercial break they would show drug commercials with messages like...
"Do you suffer from depression?"
"Are you living with unbearable anxiety?"
"If so, then ask your doctor if this new drug is right for you."
I used to believe that I needed to watch the News to be "informed", but I eventually started to realize that the News was actually an "infomercial" for drug companies where they would give me every reason they could find in the world to make me feel bad, and then they would show ads for drugs to make me feel better.
Luckily, I decided to just stop watching the News, and the anxiety that I would get whenever I watched it magically went away when I stopped watching it, and without me having to take any of their drugs.
As long as the News is partnered with drug companies, they will continue to do whatever they can to keep their ratings and your anxiety as high as possible, so please stop watching it.
I also recommend that you don't have websites like www.yahoo.com set as your "Internet Home Page". Because if you do, the first thing that you'll see any time you get online will be their "Top News Stories", and since negative stories tend to get the most clicks, you will likely be getting exposed to a lot of negative "click bait" headlines like, "17 Killed in Bus Bombing in Israel!" or "Over 800 Die Due to Hurricane Charles!", or "Global Covid Death Toll Nearing 1,000,000 As Cases Continue to Surge!".
After seeing enough dramatic headlines like these, you can start to become so desensitized to them that within just a few seconds of seeing the most tragic headline imaginable, you will be browsing YouTube or Facebook and will have already forgotten about it, and I feel that this kind of desensitization to tragedies can be just as unhealthy as getting stressed out about them.
If you don't watch the News, I can assure you that you will still be hearing about major events that are going on in the world, but when you hear about them from friends, family, or co-workers, their intention won't be to make you feel so bad that you have to go to a doctor and ask for a drug just to feel better.
Reason #2 - Division
They say that there is "strength in numbers", but that isn't always true. There is only strength in numbers when there is "unity", and the News is clearly set up to have a very polarizing effect on society.
When you watch the News, they aren't just trying to fill your head with negativity, they are trying to program you to take on a "you're either with me or against me" mentality towards the world.
Please turn off this kind of divisive programming because those who allow themselves to become hardwired to think this way will not be immune from serious mental health problems in the future.
Reason #3 - Prejudice
The word "prejudice" means to "pre-judge", and I feel that the News teaches people to be prejudiced.
It is estimated that the time the News devotes to covering "bad news" compared to "good news" is roughly 17 to 1. This causes people who watch the News a lot and who are constantly hearing about the worst in people to start expecting the worst in people and become prejudiced towards strangers.
"Albert Einstein" once said that the most important decision you will ever make in life is whether you believe that you live in a "friendly universe" or a "hostile universe", and the News clearly wants us to believe that we are living in a hostile universe.
I grew up way out in the country where there weren't a lot of jobs, so once I became an adult, I moved to the city and found a job working at a factory. On my first day at the factory, I was in the break room with my new co-workers, and they all started talking about the guns that they owned, and something about the way they were talking about it made me wonder if I had just moved into a neighborhood that was a lot more dangerous than I previously thought. So, later that day I approached each of my co-workers individually, and I asked them why they needed a gun to feel safe, and every one of them gave me the exact same frightened and wide-eyed response...
"DON'T YOU WATCH THE NEWS???"
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