Living standard & working hours

Living standard & Working hours

20th century was extra-ordinary in many ways. The scientific and technological development that took place in this century was unprecedented. After the Second World War was over, the European & American countries and some eastern countries like Japan, Australia and South Korea made tremendous progress in relatively shorter period. Because of heavy industrialization their economies grew very fast and became robust. As a result, the standard of living improved considerably in these countries. Not just the income of the people went up remarkably but also the quality of education, roads, high ways, public transport, medical care, textile, communication and even entertainment displayed considerable improvement. But along with standard of living the cost of living also increased very fast.

Because of speedy development of science & technology, every decade of 20th century was marked by some new discovery or invention. Almost every year the companies manufactured some new machine or instrument, which very soon became an inevitable part of life. First came the radio, then telephone, then television, cars, motorcycles, washing machine, kitchen machine, photo cameras, tape recorders, fax machine, computer, internet, mobile telephone, the list just doesn't come to an end! Each of these facilities soon became a necessity of people. Television became essential, telephone became essential, fax became necessary and so also the computer, internet and mobile. The people who until then were paying monthly bills of electricity and water also started receiving bills of telephone, cable TV, public transport, fax, internet and mobile phone every month.  Because of high inflation and growing tax rates, prices started rising up and lot of money was required to pay all those bills. To earn sufficient money, people who were working 7-8 hours a day earlier started working 10-11 hours (or even more) every day. While doing so they stopped cooking fresh food at home, taking sufficient sleep at night and spending enough time with loved ones, as they had hardly any time for all this. This naturally started affecting their physical, mental, familial and social health.

Unfortunately modern medicine still hasn't fully understood the negative effects overwork. It also doesn't know that the basic capacity to perform work activities differs from person to person. According to Ayurveda, Kapha constitution person have maximum stamina while Vata constitution people have the minimum; the Pitta constitution falls in between. Every person should take into consideration his/her constitution while deciding how many hours he/she should work. But this doesn't happen in reality. As a result, people tend to overwork to meet the high costs of living and pay their monthly bills. But while doing so their bodies and minds get strained & stressed and so they acquire various health problems such as:

High blood pressure
Ischaemic heart disease
Obesity
Diabetes
Diseases of digestive system like loss of hunger, constipation
Diseases of spine like spondylosis, spondylitis
Diseases of joints like arthritis
Diseases of bones like osteoporosis
Hormonal imbalance like hyperthyroidism
Sleep disturbances

None of these diseases has any permanent cure available in the world and people keep on suffering from them for the rest of their lives once they acquire them. So, many such patients from India as well as from abroad approach to Ayurveda every year in a hope that they might find some remedy for their health problems. They have money in their pockets to afford any treatment but no real treatment is available anywhere which would really free them from their illnesses. The damage done by the overwork becomes irreversible and such people become permanent houses of various health hazards. And all this happens mainly because the equation between income and living cost has got disturbed. Living costs are increasing so rapidly that meeting them is becoming impossible. Every year some new facility (like internet or mobile) is becoming available and is soon becoming an essential, indispensable commodity and is increasing the monthly expenditure of people. The whole world has got caught in this vicious circle, which it just cannot escape. People are rapidly losing their health due to overwork and this in turn is putting burden on medical expenditure of governments and insurance companies.

Is their any solution to this problem? As said already the stamina of each individual depends upon his constitution. On an average a healthy individual can work for about 8 hours a day, after which sufficient physical & mental rest is essential to refresh and regain the energy. However, in any office now-a-days work allotted to an individual is so much in quantity that it just doesn’t get over in 8 hours. So people need to work much longer. Those who work independently many times do not earn enough in 8 hours and therefore they too need to work longer. Of course there are also such people who willingly overwork to achieve their personal goals. Whatever the case, this overwork is fast becoming a cause of many health problems.

I think, a global movement is required to address this problem. Governments, employers and people all need to understand the hazardous effects of overwork and make serious attempts to prevent it. It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars on medical research to develop cures for above-mentioned diseases if their causes continue to exist in the society. Ayurveda, Yoga and Meditation can help for increasing stamina and energy. But still there is always going to be some limit for human stamina. We cannot go on increasing our working hours unendingly, as our number of monthly bills go on escalating. Bodies of many people are already refusing to stretch any further. The above-mentioned diseases are nothing but signals sent out by such fatigued bodies indicating that they cannot stretch any more. It’s high time that the whole human society takes note of these signals and does the needful to prevent further damage.  

Dr. Abhijit Mhalank, MD (Ayu), DYA
42/677 Lokmanya Nagar, Pune 411030
Email: ammhalank@yahoo.com


About the Author:



Dr. Abhijit Mhalank is an experienced Ayurvedic physician and has specialized in Ayurvedic pathology. His several articles and books have already got published in various languages. He has also developed a CD ‘Encyclopaedia Ayurvedica’ which is a pharmacopoeia of Ayurvedic medicines in software form and contains data of thousands of Ayurvedic preparations. Apart from English, Dr Mhalank also knows German, Sanskrit and four other Indian languages and has given numerous lectures and consultations in Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. He is regular participant in radio and television programmes.

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