3 most important aspects of living -

Yesterday, at the end of my lecture under workers education program, a couple of workers asked me about my philosophy of life, any suggestion for them.. As the time for lecture was already over I gave them short answers and promised to go in to the details next time for sure. The topic of lecture had nothing to do with philosophy of life.

This incident cranked up my thinking process. This blog samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is made for the same purpose, that is to spread what I have learnt and experimented till date. Why everyone should do all the hard work that I did while learning? and we have this platform for blogging provided by the Google to leverage and multiply my learning. Many successful and unsuccessful personalities knowingly or unknowingly contributed to my knowledge or experiences. So it is not possible for me to mention everyone. But I am going to mention the prominent ones as I will go through.

Before you get bored let's come to the point- my philosophy for life (and this blog too), revolves around the 3 pillars-

1) Health
2) Wealth
3) Happiness

All three are interdependent, we can not chase one and ignore others or we can not chase two and ignore the other one. All three must come together to live a meaningful life, or some may say successful life. We can say these three pillars support our life. If one is weak our life collapses, or if there is imbalance in the dimensions of each pillar then we can not live a balanced life.
We must work on all three at a time to get the best out of life. It is not that difficult, once you start, you will start getting the results and you will do more efforts automatically. This is a positive feedback loop. Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, your life will get bigger and bigger. The more you will get results the more will be the motivation.

To achieve this snowball effect, you must start now-

So here we go, one at a time..

1) HEALTH

Wise people say that, "Health is Wealth". It is true, if you are not healthy then you cannot enjoy your wealth or you will have to put a lot of conscious efforts to stay happy. Good health is the foundation for lasting wealth and happiness. Many studies have shown that healthy people receive more salary than weak people. Healthy people are perceived as leaders. The proof is, is there any physically weak actor doing a role of hero in super hit movies? Or which actors do you like? For examples the actors who played the character of James Bond like Daniel Craig, Pierce Bronson, Sean Connery etc.

Second advantage is that, a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. Generally weak and fearful people do illegal or unethical things, simply because they are trying protecting themselves from any imaginable attacks. While healthy people just know that they can deal with anything thrown at them so they just relax and concentrate on something important.

Now enough about the advantages of being healthy, there are lot of them coming to my mind, it will take month to write them down, and probably you also know many advantages and want to be healthy, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog.

Let's now think about how to become and stay healthy-

I recommend you to read my post, How to become Happy?? Then also read the post on Ageing and Anti ageing, then the language of exercise. These posts will give you the basic idea about how to become healthy.

I suppose that you have read the above posts. Now I will take you still deeper in the subject of health -

This pillar of health have 2 elements -

A) Exercise & B) Diet

This Exercise part is again divided in to two broad catagories-

I) Strength building exercise II) Stamina building exercise

Our body have muscle and bones arrangement, where muscle provides the force and bones act as lever and together they help us doing movements. These muscles which helps in the movement of our body are called as skeletal muscles. (they are attached to the skeletal or bones)

There are different muscles other than skeletal muscles, like our heart is made up of cardiac muscles, our digestive system also has muscles which does the movement necessary to mix the food with digestive juices and to push the food forward in to the digestive system. That is food is pushed from mouth to stomach to small intestine to large intestine and then out.(in between it gets digested)

Exercise has to do with working on skeletal muscles and cardiac muscles. Rest of the muscles also get strengthened as a side effect of exercise, because of increased demand from them and also the effect of growth hormones secreted by the glands in our body because of exercise.

Our muscles are made up of muscle cells. Muscle cells are made up of muscle fibres. These muscle fibres are made up of proteins.
There are 2 types of muscle fibres in our body - red and white. Red muscle fibres provide us stamina, that is they help us do repetitive movements like cycling, jogging etc. While white muscle fibres provide us explosive power, that is large force for small duration. For example lifting a heavy object. White muscle fibres produce their power without using oxygen, they develop fatigue very soon, where as red muscle fibres produce power with the use of oxygen, they can do the repetitive action for extended periods.

The ratio of this red muscle fibres to white muscle fibres is fixed for every individual genetically. But we have choice to develop the type of muscle fibres we require with the help of exercise.

To develop white muscle fibres we must do exercises which include lifting heavy weight with minimum repetitions. On the contrary to develop red muscle fibres we must do the exercises which include lifting medium weights with more repetitions. Cycling, jogging, trekking, circuit running, swimming also develops stamina.

I hope you understood the difference between I) strength building exercises and II) stamina building exercises.

Red muscle fibres also helps in producing explosive power but white muscle fibres can not work for extended periods. Red muscle fibres have this stamina because of their ability to store oxygen. Generally they can store oxygen required for the time of 6-7 seconds. After that if they don't get their oxygen trey start producing the energy without oxygen, thereby producing lactic acid resulting in to fatigue.

Further it is also useful to understand how our muscles get their oxygen -

Everyone knows muscles get there oxygen through blood. But there is much more going on. Oxygen rich blood is pumped from the heart through big blood vessels known as arteries. These arteries then go on branching and as they branch their diameter is reduced, also their wall thickness goes on reducing, this branching continues until the size of the blood vessel becomes more or less hair like. These hair sized blood vessels are called as capillaries. The oxygen and carbon dioxide transfer happens through these blood capillary walls. (carbon dioxide is generated in almost all the cells of our body when different constituents of the food we eat are burnt with oxygen to get the energy for doing required activities) These blood capillaries have very thin walls and are flexible to facilitate this oxygen and carbon dioxide transfer process.

These blood vessels and blood capillaries have network all over our body and they supply this oxygen rich blood to each and every cell of our body including muscle cells. They go through muscle bundles, but as I said these capillaries are flexible. So when our muscle is in relaxed condition, these capillaries remain open and are filled with oxygen rich blood, at this condition, oxygen from the blood is taken by muscle cells and carbon dioxide is given to the blood. So instead of oxygen now the blood contains carbon dioxide and muscles now have oxygen for approximately 6 seconds requirement. Now when these muscles are contracted to do some movement or activity, these blood capillaries gets compressed or squeezed, but o the one side, our heart is pumping the blood with a pressure (this pressure is known as blood pressure) while at the other side there is less pressure, so almost all the blood from the squeezed capillary goes to the low pressure side (out from the muscle bundle), there these capillaries starts converging, their diameter starts increasing, their wall thickness also increases, these blood vessels now has blood which is not under much pressure, therefore to prevent it from going backward, these vessels have non return valves at places, these blood vessels are known as veins. Veins contains the blood under low pressure so the walls of the veins are thinner than the arteries. Every time a muscle is contracted, blood is pushed in to these veins, these veins lead to heart. They are connected to the upper right compartment of the heart where this carbon dioxide laden blood is collected, this blood then pushed in to lower right compartment of the heart because of the arrangement of non return valves and movement of the heart. From this lower right compartment, blood is sent to the lungs.

Now in the lungs the blood vessels again gets divided in to small capillaries which are present near the inner membrane of the lungs. There are large number of air pockets in the lungs. These pockets provide huge area of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange membrane, through which carbon dioxide from the blood is released in to air contained in the lung and oxygen from the same air is taken up by the blood. Because of the movement of our chest muscles and a diaphragm which is present just bellow our lungs, this carbon dioxide laden air is exhaled out through nose and mouth and then normal air from atmosphere is inhaled for the next breathing cycle.

Now these capillaries again converge and take this oxygen rich blood to the upper left compartment of the heart. This blood then goes to the lower left compartment of the heart through the arrangement of non return valves and movement of the heart. Then this oxygen laden blood is pumped by the lower left compartment to the whole body. (Including itself, as our heart muscles can only use the oxygen provided by the blood running through them in the capillaries. The heart attacks is meany times caused by blockage in this blood supply system to the heart muscles. Because of which our heart muscles also known as cardiac muscles do not get the needed amount of oxygen.)

This circulation of blood goes on till our death. This is how our muscles get their oxygen. You must have understood now why our muscles starts aching when kept contracted. Many times it is very painful to keel a muscle contracted for just a minute. It is because muscles do not get oxygen in contracted condition, blood can only flow through them inside capillaries when muscles are relaxed. Cyclical movements helps in blood circulation. Muscle contraction pushes the blood towards the heart and make room for oxygen rich blood coming from heart. Many times people who has to sit in front of computer for extended periods because of occupation have swollen feet. Or after long journeys we have swollen feet. The remedy is to get up and take a small walk after each hour or even less if possible.

The blood gets this ability to carry oxygen or carbon dioxide because of red blood cells and red blood cells get it because of haemoglobin (an iron containing protein).

Therefore whenever you do your work out, your muscles start healing and growing, grown muscles also have more oxygen demand, this means more haemoglobin in the blood, more powerful heart, more blood pumping capacity of heart, more capacity of lungs is needed.

And you know that our body is a COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM.

Therefore to adapt to all this increased need our body responds by increasing all these supporting capacities. More muscle fibres are build up, more blood capillaries are formed, existing blood vessels increase their diameter( you must have seen professional body builders or actors with lots of visible veins all over their body), the size of the heart and strength of the heart also increases, each pulse becomes more powerful, so heart can now pump more blood with more force with each heart beat. As our skeletal muscles develops new and stronger muscle fibres and new network of blood capillaries, same thing happens with our heart.

All these changes are useful when we do heard work or exercise. But what happens to this increased capacity when we are not doing any hard work? At this time our heart rate falls much lower than normal simply because it can fulfil the requirement of body very easily when not doing hard work. Some sportsman has pulse rate as low as 30 per minute. That is less than half of the average human. Many divers have so much increased breathing capacity that they can hold their breath for up to 5 minutes while diving. Can you imagine doing it?

Our body is a superb piece of genius engineering of nature.

Respect it.

You must be saying we didn't touched the strength building and stamina building exercises much. We will do it in the next post. I think knowing our body and how it functions is important to get the full advantage of exercise.

Next post will be coming soon. Stay tuned..

And have a nice day..


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Is it really good to save income tax??

Yesterday evening I receied a call from an old friend Arun. Arun knew I have interest in personal finance and financial wellbeing of people (though I do not have any formal education in the subject). He asked me he is interested in investing his money in the share market. He said he had exhausted all the tax saving instruments, so now don't know where to park his money. Though he have invested a lot of money in the tax saving instruments he is not satisfied with the returns. (good for him, because "Need is the Mother of Invention".)

Truly speaking Arun wasn't thinking about share market as an investment option, rather he found it as a biproduct while he was searching for more tax saving instruments. Arun was also asking me is there any more tax saving instrument available? Or how do I save my income tax.

Arun's condition represent the condition of most of the middle class employed population of India. As the tax filing due date approaches, people line up at life insurance companies offices or buy some Equity Linked Savings Schemes or life insurance products or pension plans or any other instruments which give income tax rebate. Some smart people do it in the beginning of the financial year itself, they do it systematically so as to avoid the last moment rush. The agents get most of their commission in the last month of tax due date selling such instruments.

After doing all this people brag to their colleagues and friends how much tax they saved. They are so happy with their achievement.

Charley Munger (Warren Buffett's right hand at Berkshire Hathway) says "Invert, always Invert."

So let's Invert,

Arun is saving taxes, that is governement must be losing taxes. Can it be true? I don't think so, why would government lose it's income to favor some life insurance company? I don't know the answer so lets Invert,

Suppose government is losing the tax money, then where the money is going? These tax saving instruments generally buys government bonds or bonds issued by governement undertakings or some other government approved bonds for investment purpose at a fix return rate which is around the same as doing bank fixed deposits.

Where is this money used?
Used as capital by government undertakings or for funding governemnt projects.

Why these projects are undertaken?
To provide the infrastructure for the growth of the nation.

How do the returns are generated?
Through the profit of the undertakings, for example toll collection on highways or express ways or sale of the electricity produced at hydroelectric powerstations etc.

Are you getting the point?
Government is not losing the tax money. Government is just getting a loan on a low interest rate when you buy a tax saving instrument. And if you pay the taxes without saving, then government is getting the money anyways.

So now we understood that we save tax or not, governemnt gets the money it wants. Government wants money to fund the projects and to maintain the armed forces ready for defence or for administrative expenses etc. How the government spends the money is not our topic of discussion here.

So the question still remains, whether it is good to save tax or simply pay it?

The answer is very simple, just look at how much your money will grow if you save in tax saving instruments and how much your money will grow in other investments vehicles minus the tax paid.

If you don't have any idea about how to grow your money more than tax saving instruments then tax saving instruments may be a good choice for you. But otherwise you may consider other options.

Let's see two examples to compare and understand when you save tax,

Suppose,
You have ₹ 1,00,000 as taxable income, you have to pay 10% tax on this income, that is ₹ 10,000. If there is a tax saving investment option which gives you the exemption of this 10% tax so you invest all this ₹ 1,00,000 in this instrument. This instrument gives you tax free return of 8% per year but has a lock in period of 5 years. Therefore after five years you are having ₹ 1,46,932 (calculated with cumulative interest of 8% per year) tax free in your hands.

In second condition,
You have ₹ 1,00,000 as taxable income, you have to pay 10% tax on this income, that is ₹ 10,000. You pay this tax and invest the remaining money, that is ₹ 90,000 in an investment instrument which gives you a tax free return of 12% per year but has a lock in period of 5 years. Therefore after five years you are having ₹ 1,58,610 (calculated with cumulative interest of 12% per year) tax free in your hands.

In the second condition you are having ₹ 11,678 extra at the end of the 5 year tenure.

Both are very typical examples in India. Anyone can get the returns stated in the second example with little efforts. (efforts like study and research)

Now suppose what will happen if you change the interest rate in second example to say 15% cumulative over 5 years with the starting sum of ₹ 90,000??

At the end of 5 years you will get ₹ 1,81,022, that is ₹ 34,090 extra compared to the first case. Stock market indices like NIFTY or SENSEX gives around the same returns over long term.

The difference among the above cases widens as the tenure increases.

If we replace 5 years by say 10 years the amounts will be-
1) ₹ 2,15,892
2) ₹ 2,79,526
3) ₹ 3,64,100
The difference between 1st and third condition is now around ₹ 1,48,000

If we do it for 30 years-
1) ₹ 10,06,265
2) ₹ 26,96,392
3) ₹ 59,59,059
Now the difference between first and third condition is a whooping ₹ 49,52,194.
(in the first condition, our starting amount is ₹ 1,00,000 while in second and third it is ₹ 90,000)

I hope, now we understand what a little difference in interest rate can do in the long run.

I am not recommending anything to you. The decision is up to you. My goal here is just to stimulate your mind for the good.

Hope I have achieved my goal of stimulating your mind. Think about it and take wiser decisions.

Do write your thoughts and insights on the subjects in the comments section. Better ask a question rather than staying in the darkness. Get some sunshine of knowledge.

See you soon.

Till then have a nice day..

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Happy independence day..

Happy independence day to all of samanybuddhi readers...



May you get your financial independence soon...


Jai Hind..



Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

The Language of Exercise - Our way towards being Healthy

A few days ago I read a news in Times of India -

The Bollywood actor and model, Milind Soman just made the country proud by successfully completing the Ironman Triathlon held in Zurich, Switzerland on 19 July.

Milind Soman has similarity with English actor Jason Statham. Both are fitness enthusiast, both love water, both were spotted by advertising agencies while practicing in water, Milind Soman was national level swimmer while Jason Statham was national diver. And that's how they entered modelling, and later became supermodels and actors. In both cases the advertising agency person liked the attitude towards life Milind and Jason has. Both embraced the fitness for life. And one more similarity is, I have utmost respect for both. (we will have a post on Jason Statham soon.)

This particular triathlon is one of the world's toughest races. The triathlon includes a 3.8-km swim, a 180.2-km cycle ride and 42.2-km run raced in that order without a break which the participants are required to complete within 16 hours to win the title of 'Ironman'.

My favourite childhood hero, 50-year old Milind Soman completed the triathlon in 15 hours and 19 minutes.

"If you are sufficiently aware and monitor your body's response at every stage in terms of nutrition and pace, it will all come together. I wanted to gift myself something special in my 50th year and I am glad I could do this," Milind expressed his feelings to The Indian Express on phone from Zurich.

You can imagine, completing the course of race wasn't an easy task, it was test of physical as well as mental strength. You have to master your body, constantly fight the urge to stop, and keep going.

Milind Soman is an example of real life hero. Think about if you are able to do this even in 2-3 days time limit.

Don't worry, I am not saying I can but with sufficient training and will power anyone can.

So this is how my day started but as I reached my office I met my friend Ajit, he was coughing. I asked, "Hi Ajit, what happened to you?" He replied, "My throat is aching, I don't know why? I didn't do anything unusual, rather I take very good care of myself, don't know still how did this happened." (by saying good care of myself, he implied towards, not going out, staying away from cold breezes, wearing sweaters etc.)

So here my day started with a news about a 50 year old Ironman and now accompanied by Ajit. 😐 All my thought process now got diverted towards this paradox, how one man at his 50 enjoys a good health and other at 28 crying for doctor? The 50 year old guy is physically younger than 28 year old guy.

Ajit was clueless about what is happening to him, and he was thinking to visit a doctor in the evening.

A lot of people have the same experience or must have seen people like Ajit.

The mistake Ajit did was he always tried to maintain a life with little movement to the body or little exposure to the natural things like cold breeze in winter or going out in hot summer afternoon etc. He thought he is taking care of his body.

But the reality is exactly opposite of what he is thinking.

To understand how the reality is opposite, and the difference between Milind and Ajit, Let's dive deep in to the science of our body.

You must have read my previous post on ageing and anti-ageing. If not then you can read it here.

So now you have some basic knowledge about what is ageing. Now I am going to take you still deeper, so stay with me, read slowly and understand what I am telling, we are not in a hurry.

Our body is made up of tiny cells, every organ we possess is made up of these tiny cells. These tiny cells have their life cycle. Every second, many tiny cells are borne and many tiny cells die. The new borne cells replace those who died. The process of death of cells or breakdown is called as Catabolism while that of birth and growth of new cells is called as Anabolism.

Anabolism and Catabolism are together called as Metabolism.

Birth or growth or repair ➡ Anabolism

Death or breakdown ➡ Catabolism

Anabolism ➕ Catabolism ➡ Metabolism

Remember these concepts, you'll often hear it or read it while studying the subject of health, nutrition, exercise, ageing, anti-ageing, sports training, strength training, sports nutrition etc.

So when Catabolism is higher than Anabolism, we age. That is our body loses muscles and bones.(loses bones means, the bone density reduces, bones becomes more brittle) To reverse the ageing process we must increase the rate of Anabolism.

The question is how?

First let's understand the situation of Ajit just mentioned above.

To understand his condition just know what our body is. To define our body in just three words-

Our body is- A Complex Adaptive System.

Though the definition contains the word Complex, there is nothing complex in this definition. Let's understand the simple meaning of this definition word by word -

Complex - there are many systems like blood circulation, muscles plus bones, brain, digestive system, temperature regulation through skin, breathing, excretory system, resistance system etc. are working together, therefore our body is complex.

Adaptive - our body changes itself to adjust with the surroundings or the movements it has to do. For example, we sweat in the hot atmosphere to lose excess body heat or we shiver in the cold to produce heat, or our muscles gradually strengthen when we do hard work repeatedly etc.

System - system is an arrangement of interdependent things to get required results.

So after understanding such an easy definition you must have got it that to become strong you must do hard work, if you sit idle, your body will adapt to sitting idle by reducing it's muscle mass and bone density, also the blood circulation and breathing capacity (together known as stamina) will also get reduced.

Our friend Ajit is sitting idle, therefore he is making himself weak, his anabolism is low, and metabolism is also low. So a weak man like Ajit is unable to resist any infection and just getting out of home without any body protection like sweater, hand gloves, helmet etc. is getting him cough and cold.

Now the question arises,

Is there any chance of Ajit getting out of this condition?

The answer is yes, if he learn the 'Language of Exercise'.

To become strong and reverse the process of ageing Ajit have to increase the rate of Anabolism. He can do it by exercising regularly.

What happens when we exercise?

Exercise in simple terms means giving more load on muscles than normal. This may be done for a particular amount of time or in cycles depending on the type of exercise. When muscles have to deal with more than normal load, muscle fibres break at places because of this higher than normal load. You will say this is the process of Catabolism, it will worsen the condition and make Ajit age faster, but wait, you are partially right. This is the condition of Induced Catabolism, this Induced Catabolism wakes up our body's adaptive nature. The Adaptive nature quickly recognises an unusual condition to which our body is not prepared. So this Adaptive nature encourages the secretion of growth hormone and other hormones in the body which help in Anabolism. Now these hormones make that damaged muscle heal and grow so that when same amount of load is given on the same muscle, the muscle will be able to bear it without or with minimal breakdown.

But there is a delicate balance - our body has limited capacity to heal and grow, depending on the nutrients we are eating and digesting, the rate of Anabolism depends on it, a part of Anabolism is used to repair the damage caused by exercise and rest of the part for growth, so we have to make minimum damage, that is minimum Catabolism to Induce maximum Anabolism. If we inflict lots of damage for quick results, then mostly you will get disappointed by the pain and lack of results.

Don't just blindly go after no pain no gain, which is frequently said by fitness trainers or that extra repetition which is impossible for you. Some things just takes time.

You can't get a baby in one month by making nine women pregnant. Some things just takes time.

- Warren Buffet

Though he said it with respect to compounding and investments, his words are equally applicable in the field of health too.

This process of induced Anabolism lasts for up to 48 hours. So keep sufficient distance between exercising the same muscle. The beauty of this Induced Anabolism process is that, it uses fats as source of energy for the repair and growth, so your fats are being burnt even after you stop exercising.

Remember, in the previous post I said, increase of fats and decrease of muscles is the process of ageing. But here when proper exercise is done, muscles are grown and fats are burnt to repair and grow the muscles. So this process is definitely anti ageing, right?

THIS MY FRIENDS IS THE LANGUAGE OF EXERCISE.

This is how you can reverse your age by inducing Anabolism and automatically reducing fats.

Hope I have contributed something to your knowledge about our own Complex Adaptive System known as Body.

Do ask questions and do give your feedback.

We will meet soon again, till then, Have a Nice and Healthy Day.


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.