Our Ancestors were Healthier, Wealthier & Happier than us

Our Day-to-day Life is becoming very stressful and complex. Office work, household, certifications, promotions, etc., makes us very stressed. Stress is now a part of our life. We have to like with this stress. The side effects of stress on our body and mind are known to everyone. Stress is responsible for all diseases in today’s life. Stress is a devil to human beings.

In older days people were suffered due to stress to a limited extent. Since the ways of communication among people were limited. Today there are plenty of ways through which people could communicate with one another. The connectivity among people was very little earlier. As the communication devices increased people’s distance has been reduced. Distance and waiting time have significant importance in the relationship also. These effects we have seen at the time of Covid. Work from home has become a nightmare to the peoples.

Moving to ancient times- peoples were happy and long-lived despite having limited alternatives in terms of state-of-the-art medical instruments. Moreover, a disease that might affect people was limited to physical injury which was mostly incurred due to a fight in battle. On the other hand, the mental disease was either rare, not diagnosed, or was present in terms of anger and emotional breakout.

The evidence of novel disease is not mentioned in our holy books also. Thus, you might not have heard that a particular king was suffering from, blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease due to either their stress or due to physical flaws.

In ancient times if a person was suffering from stress, depression, OCD it was assumed that he is affected by God itself. A patient who hallucinated that he was seeing a dog was predicted to die; whereas, if he saw a gazelle, he would recover. On the other hand, temples were used to treating a patient.

Hindu Ayurveda (“knowledge of life”), saw ill-health as resulting from an imbalance among the three body fluids or forces called Tri-Dosha. These also affected the personality types among people. Suggested causes included inappropriate diet, disrespect towards the gods, teachers, or others, mental shock due to excessive fear or joy, and faulty bodily activity.

Treatments included the use of herbs and ointments, charms and prayers, and moral or emotional persuasion. During the Era of Lord Rama (5000–4000 BC), Lord Rama’s father died from despondency, illustrating major depressive disorder.

Now one obvious question Why people of that time had not suffered from incurable diseases? There could be two possible reasons. Firstly, we don't have pieces of evidence of these diseases; people were suffered but we don't have records. Secondly, peoples were highly fit in terms of physical and mental aspects. Lastly, they were very advanced in terms of medicine or their lifestyle was disciplined.

We could believe in the last argument, yes ancient peoples were highly disciplined. These pieces of evidence are present in our Vedas, holy books also. The saints of that time have the habit to complete their routine work before 4 PM. They start studying in the morning time. The Braham Mahurt is known to be an ideal time to study and perform the utmost activity.

Moving further to 1000 years back and after an in-depth analysis, it is found that mental stress was affecting people severely. Some known examples are Rawana and Duryodhana. Both were suffering from stress. Rawana was known in history for his ego. Similarly, Duryodhana is known as jealous of his cousin brothers.

Nevertheless, in ancient times Stress was addressed in a managed way, some examples are-Lord Ram had addressed their family issues beautifully. Similarly, Pandawa had also shown great Patience.

In both examples, they have a fight from higher emotional stress. Lord Rama despite the death of his father has not changed his decision and had struggled for 12 years in the forest. Whereas, Pandawa had also been gone with the same stress. Even more than Lord Rama. Lord Rama was ensured that coming back is easy and he need not have to fight with their brothers. Whereas, Panadawa was uncertain, after completing their tenure whether they would get justice or not.

Now, here an interesting question is, how both these great personalities have attempted the stress. The answer to these questions has been answered in this article. How to fight anger, jealousy, depression, OCD, etc.

Duryodhana and Yudhiristir were suffering from obsessive behavior. Yudhiristir's Obsessive behavior (gambling)had to lead to the dishonor of Dropati.

Now the question comes, did at that time there was no way to get rid of mental stress. The answer is, that time they had spiritual Gurus who always got the directions as per ethics written in our holy books. Additionally, their behavior was also inspired by their ancestors.

Thus, Lord Rama had always adhered to their ancestor saying “ONE MUST KEEP ONE’S PROMISE COME WHAT MAY!”

Whereas, Arjun adhered to the thoughts of Bhagwat Geeta, which has been spoken and told by Lord Krishna. Arjuna was in a dilemma not to fight with their cousin brothers. Could you imagine “Arjun who was the best Archer had denied fighting? He was brave, he had a fight a number of battles and win. Is he has not seen the blood in their past actions? He has seen, however,

If a Doctor would operate to his own son, he might suspect there own capablities and will be in stress.

Although in past Arjuna has done this act many times. However, in the main battle, he had started failing due to an emotional breakdown. And thus, Lord Krishana has done a therapy of him to uplift him from this situation. Thus, it shows the great role of spiritual gurus in Ancient times.

Rawana did not have any Guru who could help them to overcome their diseases. Similarly, Duryodhana was also suffering from a very mental disease that he wants to win at any cost. Here also, Duryodhana was lacking due to the suitable saint.

In modern times, these symptoms were known as some psychological errors or stress. For example, the death of King Dashrath which was a heavy crisis was addressed by the Guru Vashist in a very effective way. Therefore, Vashist had played the role of a psychiatrist for Lord Bharat. Similarly, Arjuna was very disparate due to the death of their son and was again handled by God Krishna.

We could conclude as- Ancient techniques of living life were healthier compared to today's busy life. People were surrounded by more skilled trainers/psychiatric. And stress was managed effectively. Lifestyle diseases were almost none and people were trained to manage emotional breakouts.

We should have to learn all these aspects to live a healthy life.