Never give up what you want MOST for what you want NOW.

1. Circadian Rhythms:

The body has an internal clock known as the circadian rhythm that regulates sleep-wake cycles.
The circadian rhythm tends to align with natural light-dark cycles, making earlier bedtimes, such as before 10 pm, more conducive to optimal sleep.

2. Healthy Sleep Habits:

National Sleep Foundation and American Academy of Sleep Medicine stress the importance of adopting healthy sleep habits, including consistent sleep schedules.
Going to bed before 10 pm is often recommended to ensure an adequate duration of sleep, as sleep needs vary among individuals.

3. Sleep Duration Recommendations:

The CDC provides sleep duration recommendations for different age groups, highlighting the significance of getting enough sleep for overall health and well-being.

4. Scientific Studies:

Scientific studies, such as those by Crowley et al. and Czeisler & Klerman, discuss the connection between circadian rhythms and sleep regulation, supporting the idea that aligning bedtime with natural biological rhythms can be beneficial.

5. General Consensus:

The general consensus from these sources is that earlier bedtimes, particularly before 10 pm, can contribute to better sleep quality and overall health.

References

Here are some references and sources that discuss the importance of early bedtime for better sleep:

1. National Sleep Foundation:

Website: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/
The National Sleep Foundation provides information on sleep hygiene and the importance of maintaining a consistent sleep schedule.

2. American Academy of Sleep Medicine:

Website: https://aasm.org/
The AASM is a professional society that focuses on sleep medicine. They provide resources and information on healthy sleep habits.

3. Healthy Sleep Tips – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

Website: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/index.html
The CDC offers information on sleep duration recommendations and tips for healthy sleep.

4. Sleep Education – Sleep Foundation:

Website: https://sleepeducation.org/
Sleep Education, a division of the Sleep Research Society, provides educational resources on sleep and sleep disorders.

5. Scientific Studies:

(i) Crowley, S. J., Acebo, C., & Carskadon, M. A. (2007). Sleep, circadian rhythms, and delayed phase in adolescence. Sleep Medicine, 8(6), 602-612. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2006.12.002

(ii) Walker, M. P. (2017). Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. Scribner.

(iii) Czeisler, C. A., & Klerman, E. B. (1999). Circadian and sleep-dependent regulation of hormone release in humans. Recent Progress in Hormone Research, 54, 97-130. DOI: 10.1210/rp.54.1.97

In his grand daydream, Pippin also imagined getting married and having a bunch of kids. “I’ll be the head of the house and boss everyone around,” he chuckled. He even pictured himself playfully kicking disobedient kids if they misbehaved.

But, oh my goodness! As he continued his imaginative kicks, he accidentally kicked the air so hard that he sent all the pots flying, and crash! They broke into a hundred pieces. Pippin’s dreams were instantly shattered.

Surprised and dismayed, Pippin looked at the broken pots and realized his big dreams had just turned into a big mess. “Well, that didn’t go as planned,” he mumbled to himself, scratching his head.

The village animals, who had been watching the whole scene, couldn’t help but giggle. A wise old owl hooted, “Maybe next time, don’t mix dreams of pots with dreams of kicking mischievous kids!”

Pippin laughed along with the animals, realizing the truth in the owl’s words. The moral of the story dawned on him: Dreams are wonderful, but it’s important to keep our feet on the ground and pay attention to what’s happening around us. So, dream big, but also be mindful of the pots in your life and take careful steps to turn those dreams into reality.

Mousy approached the saint and said, “Sir, I’m in trouble! The cat keeps chasing me, and I don’t know what to do. Can you please help me?”

The kind saint asked, “What kind of help do you need, little friend?”

Mousy replied, “I wish I could become a cat myself so that the big cat won’t bother me anymore.”

The saint thought for a moment and then said, “Alright, your wish is granted. You shall become a cat.”

Mousy was happy for a while, but soon he was back, looking sad. The saint asked, “What’s wrong now?”

Mousy sighed, “Now a dog is chasing me! Being a cat isn’t as easy as I thought.”

The saint chuckled and asked, “So, what would you like to be now?”

Mousy thought for a moment and said, “Maybe if I were a tiger, then no one would dare to chase me!”

The saint smiled and turned Mousy into a tiger. However, to everyone’s surprise, the tiger started staring at the saint with hungry eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you want to eat me?” asked the saint.

The tiger nodded eagerly.

The saint, realizing the mistake, said, “Oh dear! You’ve forgotten the lesson. You should appreciate who you are and not try to be something else. Now, go back to being a mouse, and remember to be content with who you are.”

And just like that, Mousy turned back into a mouse but with a valuable lesson in his heart. From that day on, Mousy embraced being a mouse and learned that it’s okay to be oneself. The saint’s magic became a reminder that everyone has a special role to play, and trying to be something you’re not might lead to unexpected troubles.

The moral of the story is: Be happy with who you are because everyone is special in their own way.

Likewise, if we become proficient in understanding the rules/regulations/recommendations from the Gita, we will experience much freedom in life. We will be able to navigate through the most complex situations of life with confidence.

1. He was free from vice (anagha). (SB 1.1.6)
2. He has studied (adhītāni) religious scriptures (dharma-śāstrāṇi), supplementary (Puranic) scriptures (purāṇāni) and histories (itihāsāni ca) under guidance.(SB 1.1.6)
3. He has also (api) explained (ākhyātāny) them to others. (SB 1.1.6)
4. He was the most senior (śreṣṭho) scholar of the Vedas (veda-vidāṁ) and knew (viduḥ) all great learned scholars (parāvara-vido) including Śrīla Vyāsadeva (bhagavān bādarāyaṇaḥ), the composer of the Vedas. (SB 1.1.7)
5. Since he was a gentle (saumya) and submissive (snigdhasya) disciple (śiṣyasya), he was, in fact (tattvatas), endowed with (uta) all the secrets (guhyam) of the Vedas by his teachers (guravo) as a result of their favor (tad-anugrahāt) upon him. (SB 1.1.8)

One day, the king’s thumb got cut and he shared the news painfully with Birbal. Birbal, maintaining his own devotion to God, responded confidently, “Whatever God does, He does it only for good.” The king angrily threatened Birbal to punish him if he did not change his stance. However, Birbal maintained his position and as a result the king became furious. The king got so annoyed that he threw Birbal into the prison.

The next morning the king went into a dense forest for hunting. While he was chasing a deer, he got separated from his retinue. Suddenly a group of tribals attacked the king and then forcibly carried him blind-folded to a temple for offering him as a human sacrifice. The chief of the tribals took a gigantic sword ready to behead the king. All of a sudden, he stopped and noticed the bruised thumb of the king. The chief announced that the king was not fit for the offering and therefore ordered his men to release him.

The king ran for his life and came straight to the prison where Birbal was kept incarcerated. King Akbar begged for forgiveness and released Birbal. The king narrated the whole story to Birbal concluding himself that whatever God does, He does it only for good. However, the king still had one doubt that he placed before Birbal. He said, “I understand that my bruised finger saved my life today. But, how could God be good in having you thrown inside the prison?” Birbal immediately responded, “If I was not put in the prison, I would have accompanied you on the hunting excursion. Seeing you unfit for sacrifice, they would have me instead for the human sacrifice. So, by God’s grace, I was put in the prison and my life got spared.” Akbar exulted at Birbal’s remark and they both repeated the conclusion in unison, “Whatever God does, He does only for good.”

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Have you ever wondered how meat reaches your dinner plate? If you did, then how did you process it? How would you feel if your pet or a close member of your family were going to get slaughtered for meat? While you are pondering upon these questions, why not we explore through the lens of some well-known facts on animal killing? I sincerely suggest that we should not eat these cute, cuddly, and harmless animals that many of us love to eat.

Health

Where did the Coronavirus come from? We do not know the exact source of the current outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but we do know based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that it originally came from eating an animal, likely a bat. CDC claims that some coronaviruses that infect animals can be spread to people and then spread between people (“COVID-19 and Animals”). Not only coronavirus, but several other life-threatening diseases such as Swine flu, Ebola, MERS, Bird flu, vCJD (a variant of mad cow disease) and SARS can all be traced back to eating animals (“Coronavirus, Swine Flu, SARS: Major Diseases Linked to Eating Animals”). So, it is logical to believe that if we continue to eat meat, we can be subjecting ourselves to many more such fatal diseases in the future.

Based on the CDC data, heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States. One person dies every 36 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease (“Heart Disease Facts”). Guess what? If you eat two or more servings of meat, it has been statistically established by CDC that it is prone to cause a 7% increase in heart disease (Heart Matters Magazine). In fact, eating red meat daily triples heart disease-related chemicals in the body. In 2016, Song and others conducted the largest and longest-running study ever performed comparing animal and plant sources of protein in the human diet consisting of 131,342 participants running for 26 years and found a positive association between animal proteins and cardiovascular death as well as all-cause mortality and an equal and opposite lower risk of death with plant protein consumption (Song et al.). Therefore, a leading nutrition researcher Dr. Charlotte Pratt says that these findings reinforce dietary recommendations that encourage all ages to follow a heart-healthy eating plan that limits red meat (“Eating red meat daily triples heart disease-related chemical”). This means eating a variety of foods, including more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and plant-based protein sources such as beans and peas.

Furthermore, according to CDC, colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. It is the third most common cancer in men and in women. An increased risk for colorectal cancer has been consistently reported for long-time consumption of cooked and processed red meat. This has often been attributed to chemical carcinogens generated during the cooking process of meat. According to a Harvard Medical School survey, meat eating leads to a 28% higher risk of colon cancer (Red meat and colon cancer). Based on a paper published in the International Journal of Cancer, long-time consumption of meat increases the risk for colon cancer by 20–30% as well as being linked to an increased mortality rate for colorectal cancer (Aykan).

Food safety experts say that meat needs to be cooked for long enough and at a temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria. However, experts also suggest that it is not good to eat meat that was cooked at a high temperature. For example, Sinha et al. in a cancer research publication warn us that high-temperature cooking methods were also associated with an increased risk of cancer by 26% per 10 g/day of grilled red meat and 15% per 10 g/day of pan-fried red meat consumption (Sinha). So, this means there is no safe temperature for cooking meat – the meat consumers end up choosing between the risk of bacterial infection and future risk of developing colon cancer. Thus far, we established based on many authorized sources that eating meat is extremely risky to human health.

Environment

The impact of eating meat actually goes much further than incurring individual health risks.

Did you know that slaughterhouses are the number one contributor to global warming? Let’s look deeper.

There are greenhouse gases (viz., carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) that form a protective layer around the earth by trapping the right amount of heat from the sun. These gases need to be at the right level to create a protective shield around the earth. We breathe out carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, and the plants help absorb the excess carbon dioxide. However, if we cause a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere either by running a huge number of vehicles and industries, or by deforestation, that will thicken the greenhouse layer and trap more heat within the atmosphere than necessary. This would lead to increase in the average temperature of the earth causing global warming. Animal farming contributes to global warming in two ways: by adopting an industrialized system of manufacturing food based on fossil fuels and by deforestation.

Animal farming requires huge amounts of land. Forests and wetlands help absorb a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But, when these ecosystems are destroyed to make way for farms, that land turns into a carbon source. An article published in Nature informs us that cattle raised on pastures created by clearing woodland are particularly emission-intensive. This article projects that by 2050, dietary changes could free up several million square kilometers of land and reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by up to eight billion tons per year. Ruth Richardson, the executive director at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, therefore said, “We need a radical transformation, not incremental shifts, towards a global land-use and food system that serves our climate needs.” (Schiermeier) Did you know that all transportation contributes to only 13% of global warming while animal agriculture contributes to 51% of global warming (Andersen and Kuhn)? 

So, we can easily infer that if most of the world population take up a plant-based diet instead of eating meat, it would certainly help reduce global warming. Let’s take care of our health as well as our planet by cutting down on meat eating! As of now, we only have one planet – the Earth to live in – if we don’t take care of it, we would all perish.

Cruelty

Now, let’s switch gear to muse on the humane aspects of animal killing. Britannica describes how the slaughter of an animal involves three distinct stages: preslaughter handling, stunning, and slaughtering (Nolen). It is claimed there that in the United States there is humane treatment of animals during each of these stages as required by the Humane Slaughter Act. The stunning of the animal done mechanically, electrically, or using carbon dioxide is believed to have created a painless condition for animal killing. The animal killing is evidently done in an organized and industrialized manner in developed countries but if we take stock of all the processes used in producing meat around the world, one can easily conclude that there is indeed a lot of violence in the slaughterhouses. There are many places in the world where there is no such humane slaughter standard at play, animals are treated quite mercilessly. Moreover, according to Vox news (Matthews), even the US government has never really enforced these humane slaughter standards.

At this point, ask yourselves two questions: (1) Would you feel comfortable if your pet is killed with so-called humane treatment? (2) If a murderer chooses to anesthetize a human subject before murdering, would that be considered a merciful act? The answers to these questions would certainly be subjective, but it stands to reason that such selfish and willful acts of animal exploitation must have some pernicious consequences individually and collectively as it is popularly said that what goes around comes around.

The famous poet, George Bernard Shaw, therefore, very eloquently expresses himself as follows: “Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends. I choose not to make a graveyard of my body with the rotting corpses of dead animals. A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses. While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”

Meat substitutes

If you are convinced by the facts and reasoning presented thus far, and even thinking about abstaining from meat, you might be also feeling anxious about your current attachment to the taste of meat. Fortunately, there are not just valid but exciting plant-based alternatives offered by Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat patties. You can now avoid meat while retaining the same satisfaction of munching on a succulent hamburger. And Cheyenne Buckingham writes in “Eat this, not that”: “it will taste all the better knowing that you’re doing something good for the planet while you enjoy your dinner.” (Buckingham)

One may also challenge whether a vegetarian food can really serve the protein requirement of our body. Protein is a key part of any diet. The average person needs about 7 grams of protein every day for every 20 pounds of body weight. Because protein is found in an abundance of foods, many people can easily meet this goal. The Harvard school of public health recommends that we should get our protein from plants when possible. The good news is that the plant kingdom offers plenty of options to mix and match (“The Nutrition Source”). To get the most out of a vegetarian diet, one can choose healthy plant-based foods, such as whole fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts, and whole grains. There are many informative sites which detail such information as well as guide one with vegetarian recipes and diet plans.

Conclusion

If you are traveling on a freeway and happen to see a dead animal lying on the road, I am sure you won’t feel like saying “It’s yummy!” That seems to indicate that we are not naturally inclined to eat dead carcasses and therefore meat is an acquired taste. Regardless of the mechanism in which meat diet has been indoctrinated within our society, the status quo is that animals and their products are consumed in abundance all around the world. According to a 2018 Gallup poll, 95% of U.S. adults subsist on a meat-based diet. According to the US Animal Kill Clock (“Animal Kill Clock”), close to four thousand animals are getting killed every second. People are so used to eating meat that they neglect to even think of what is on their plate and how it was procured. In this article, we established with various evidence that meat eating has a deleterious impact on our environment as well as health thus creating an ecological imbalance on the earth. I urge the readers to sincerely consider the presented valid alternatives in the light of the collective well-being of humanity at large. Consider becoming a vegetarian and cut down meat in your diet. If you are a little hesitant, try eating one less ounce of meat every day till you cut it off completely. You will feel good yourself that you made a sacrifice for our animals, our environment, and our health. Thank you for reading!

Bibliography

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