The 4 Pillar Plan
I have just finished reading 'The 4 Pillar Plan' by Dr Rangan Chatterjee and would like to recommend his book to you. Dr Chatterjee also has a website https://drchatterjee.com and Facebook page. I have included one of his many Utube videos in this blog.
I first came across Dr Chatterjee when someone posted a u-tube clip on Facebook which appeared on my page. I was immediately interested because to me he spoke sense and what he said further expanded on what I have started to discover over the past few years : that every part of our body affects every other part and that in order to help ourselves we must consider every aspect of our lives- for example how much sleep we get, what foods we eat, are we active or sedentary. This is certainly the approach we take as reflexologists when treating our clients, we consider all the factors inflencing the person, knowing that stresses of any kind, be they physical, psychological, social or environmental, can upset the harmony between the body, mind and spirit and cause 'dis-ease'.
In his book he outlines four main elements, which he calls Pillars ( hence the book title), the aim being to examine and improve the manner in which we Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep.
For the four pillars he sets out five ways we may improve for each of the pillars, with the view that improving in each pillar will keep or bring our bodies back into balance and in this way we are less likely to get sick.
Some of the improvements he suggests we implement are:
Relax: to have 'me-time' every day ; keep a gratitude journal
Eat: De-normalize sugar and re-train our taste buds; eat five different vegetables every day
Move: Walk at least 10,000 steps a day; do a form of strength training twice a week
Sleep: Create an atmosphere of complete darkness; spend 20 minutes outside every morning
He explains everything in a way that is easy to understand including the science behind why we should make the changes.
The book has certainly made me think about how I could make improvements and as a result ( so far) I have started to incorporate more vegetables into my diet ( I used to rely on fruit to take me over the 5-7 a day); I have booked to do two strength training sessions a week and have just been to the gym to do my own high-intensity interval training session.
As part of the service I provide for my clients I often suggest/ recommend they implement some simple aftercare advice between treatments. Suggestions may include drinking more water or working one of the reflex points on the hand.
As appropriate to the requirements of individual clients, I have no doubt I will be utilising as aftercare advice, the recommendations of Dr Chatterjees', in future.
