Wellness blogger Sharon Atkins chats to Dr John Demartini in an interview.

Q. What are the most important factors for good health and living a healthy life?

Dr John Demartini- I think holistically when it comes to health and I really believe that if you are not inspired by something that you are doing and you are not living according to your highest values that will have an effect on your health.

If you are also not educating yourself and not learning and you are ignorant about diet and ignorant about health then you are vulnerable.

You want to empower as many areas of your life as possible (social, mental, financial, vocational, physical, spiritual and familial).

Because all of them have something to do with your health. If you are constantly educating yourself and filling your mind with inspiring ideas and you are inspired by something, you are living by your highest values, if you have a career that is meaningful and you are saving money and you are valuing yourself for the future and you are in a relationship that is fulfilling and you are socially interacting with people and you have events to fill up your day so you have things to live for.

But if you sit there by yourself, not doing anything, you will probably eat. If you are out there walking and doing things physically you are more likely to have a well-structured life.

So, I would say that health is inseparable from all the other areas of life. True wellness is an encompassment of all 7 areas in your life.

The greatest exercises that I have seen are walking, swimming, walking up an incline or hill, dancing and yoga or stretching and love making.

My observation says that extreme exercise causes ageing. Excessive cyclists and runners I see they age extremely fast and they oxidise very quickly so I don’t recommend those. They also have a lot of ankle injuries and knee injuries.  Cycling by itself won’t do it but excessive exercise and over oxidising the body I don’t think is wise.

There are repercussions of those exercises. I have seen it for years and watched what it has done to people and I don’t recommend excessive exercise.

Read a previous interview Dr John Demartini on How to Lose Weight Wisely.

Dr John Demartini is a human behavioural specialist, educator, author and founder of the Demartini Institute.

Visit the Demartini Institute for more information.