Transcription
53 years. Do you even imagine how many days that is, how many hours? I am a doctor, or rather, I was a doctor. In these half-century, I have signed 4,000 death certificates. 4,000 times I have heard this sound, when a pen scratches paper. It is precisely this sound that means everything to me: finito. The story is over. And you know what I will tell you? I will not talk about cancer now, nor about a brick falling on your head. I will say something unpleasant, but honest. The majority of these 4,000, they simply gave up ahead of time. They wrote themselves off. It was not genetics that killed them, nor bad ecology, but their own habits. Small, daily ones, the kind where you tell yourself: "Well, so what if I don't do it. I am 1002 years old. I am not Superman. You know, nothing hurts me only when I sleep. But I am here and I am talking to you. And my patients, who were 30 years younger than me, they have long since turned to dust. Why? I have calculated five killers, five things that you are doing right now, and they are slowly, imperceptibly devouring you. Number one is the chair. You are sitting now, comfortably, your backside is soft, but inside you there is stagnation, a swamp. I noticed back in the seventies, I had a patient, a workshop manager, a huge man, his fists were all day in the office, on the phone. And he had a tiny, fussy secretary. She was constantly running around him, bringing coffee, bringing documents. This manager died at 64, his heart stopped, but the secretary lived to 90, she even danced at his wake. Why? Because when you sit, your blood thickens, it turns into jelly. Gravity pulls everything down, into your legs. Lymph is our drainage. Without movement, everything stands still. Lymph does not work without movement. You sit, and toxins accumulate. And this, I will tell you, ends badly. I had a judge, an acquaintance, proud, important. He boasted that every morning he did 45 minutes of exercises. He sweated, he tried, he thought he could cheat nature. And then he would come to work at the court and sit in his chair for 10 hours. He died at 61. Stroke. No more Bach. His morning exercises did not save him from his daytime immobility. You cannot stock up on health in one morning. You have to get up. Every hour I set an alarm. Every hour it rings, I get up. Whether to drink water, or to spit out the window, but I get up. Your legs must work, otherwise they will become your anchor to the bottom. Second. Sleep. Oh, how I love these heroes. Doctor, I sleep 5 hours, and I am like a cucumber. You are not a cucumber, you are a fool. Forgive the expression, but it is so. The brain at night works as a cleaner. While you are unconscious, sluices open in your head, repair modes are activated, cleaning, sorting, garbage removal. I will not be smart with terms now, the essence is simple. Deep sleep is necessary, period. If you sleep 5-6 hours, the cleaner does not have time. The garbage remains. Night after night, year after year, your head gets filled with junk. And hello, dementia. I have seen people who were proud of sleeping little. At 60 years old, they could not find the toilet in their own home. And waking up five times a night is not age, it is illness. Especially if you jump up at night, go get it treated. You need to sleep dead, like you're killed, to wake up alive. Third. Loneliness. Think it's nonsense? The silence in an empty apartment sometimes kills faster than vodka. Loneliness is stress. The body thinks it has been abandoned in the forest, that it is alone against predators. Cortisol starts to spike, accordingly, inflammations start to creep in, everything that can possibly flare up, flares up. I have seen old people with a bouquet of ailments: heart, kidneys, liver, but their house is full of relatives, friends, grandchildren are shouting, neighbors come for salt, and they live. They creak, but they live. And I have seen healthy men, rich, strong, but alone. His wife died, he quarreled with his children, he sits in his mansion like an owl. He burned out in 2 years. Cancer or heart attack. A person needs a person. You have no one to talk to. Go to the store, argue with the cashier. Join a chess club, call an old friend, even if you haven't seen each other for 100 years, don't let silence devour you. Fourth, food. Here I am angry, very angry at my colleagues. For 40 years we have lied to you. Fat is poison. Eat porridge, drink juice. Bread is the head of everything. Pfft. We have raised a generation of diabetics. Sugar, buns, pasta, uh, instant porridges. This is not food, this is feed. After 60, metabolism changes. What you ate at 40 and got away with, at 70 can come back to bite you in your test results and blood pressure. At 65, I stopped listening to smart advice. I threw away the sugar bowl, stopped buying bread. I eat meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, butter. Fat is needed for the brain, not your fat-free slop. Well, okay, for some it will work, for some it won't, but the thought is one: stop living on sugar and all sorts of crap. My test results are better than those of forty-year-olds. And those who revived dried bread and refused butter, I have already seen them all off. And fifth, anxiety. The quietest killer. There are professional sufferers. Everything is fine with them, they have a pension, their children are settled, the war is far away, but they sit and tremble. What if prices go up? What if it rains? What did the neighbor think? Anxiety is acid. It corrodes you from within. Your stomach tightens, your blood pressure jumps, your sleep goes to hell. You need to learn to be indifferent. Can't change it? Then spit on it and don't think about it anymore. I have seen patients who died of fear of death, before death itself, and I have seen those who laughed and smiled in the face of their diagnosis. And they pulled through. I will tell you about my Maria. My wife. We lived together for 61 years. I loved her more than life. She was stubborn as a mule. Her knees hurt, so she hardly walked. She sat by the TV all the time. "It hurts me," she would say, she slept, she took her pills poorly. Instead of establishing a routine, she ate pies, as her mother taught her. It tasted good to her, you see. And she constantly worried, God, how she worried, about her grandchildren, about politics, about the weather. She died 8 years ago at 94. You will say: "Grandpa, you've gone mad, 94 years. That's wow." And I will tell you, the last 15 years were not life, they were existence. I saw her fade, her mind extinguish, as she turned into a helpless child. I changed her diapers. I fed her from a spoon. She did not recognize me. She could have lived these years alive. We could have walked, talked, laughed. But she chose the couch and the pie. She chose the easy path. And the easy path often leads to a difficult end. I live alone, I cook soup myself, I clean myself. I walk in the park, in rain, snow, I don't care. I go anyway. I call my grandchildren, even if they are busy. I sleep according to schedule, like in the army. I am not special. I just want to live, not just exist. Do you hear the clock? Tick-tock. Tick-tock. It's not the clock ticking, it's your time running out. While you were listening to me, you became 5 minutes closer to the pit. What will you do when the video ends? Will you stay sitting, go make a sandwich, or turn on the news to get nervous? Then don't complain later. I warned you. 4,000 people didn't listen to me. Don't be the 4,001st. Get up, come on, get up right now and go stretch your ass. If it was useful, write at least one word about it below, so I know I wasn't ranting into the void. Share with others what helps you live, not just exist. Someone will really need it right now. Take care of yourselves. Goodbye.