The Six Rules of Health: The Rules of a Healthy Lifestyle

Farzollah Gholizadeh and Fariba Bayrami

The great masters of natural medicine thought carefully about how to protect human health. They say: if a person wants to live in health and happiness, they must follow certain rules. These rules are known as the Six Rules of Health. If a healthy person follows them, they live in health; and if a person falls ill, their treatment should begin with these rules. Only after that should it move on to medicines or herbal remedies, and then, if needed, to manual therapies such as cupping, hijama, leeches, acupuncture and bloodletting (fasd). So, according to the six ways of preserving health, the treatment of illness begins by changing the person’s way of life, taught to the patient as these six ways of preserving health. The six rules are:

1. Breathing, and getting enough oxygen to the body
2. The rules of eating and drinking
3. Elimination and retention (clearing toxins from the body through breathing, urine, stool, sweating, sexual relations, hijama, leeches and so on)
4. Enough sleep and rest
5. Exercise and movement
6. A positive attitude and state of mind

If a person carries out five of these six rules properly but neglects the sixth, they will not be in perfect health. These rules are the foundation of a healthy life, and to treat any illness they must be corrected first; treating illness without correcting them is like pounding water in a mortar. A healthy person who follows the rules of a healthy lifestyle reaches excellent health of body and mind; if they don’t, they will face problems and illness. And if someone is already ill and unhappy, the basic rule of their treatment is to follow this healthy lifestyle, the six rules of a healthy life.

Ill people have, often for years, been steadily accumulating in their bodies the effects of wrong habits: shallow breathing, poor eating, eating against their natural temperament, not giving their body the right and sufficient care, and habits that feed mental and emotional weakness and exhaustion such as worry, stress, anxiety, overwork or excess of any kind. The way to treat illness is to use methods that help the body clear these wastes and toxic substances. The greater the body’s ability to remove toxins from its natural metabolism, the less illness occurs.

The body has a system called the quwwa al-mudabbira (the regulating power), and this power always tries to keep the body in balance. Acute illnesses such as fever, colds, inflammation, digestive upsets, pimples and other skin problems are nothing other than the efforts of this resourceful power to get rid of waste matter and keep the body balanced and healthy. Chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, rheumatism, multiple sclerosis, asthma and kidney disease are, in this view, the result of acute illnesses being suppressed again and again over long periods with chemical or even natural medicines and harmful methods. They also arise from long-term use of sedatives and cortisone, excessive bloodletting and overuse of leeches, a wrong way of living and eating, constant stress, and the insufficiency of glands or other organs.

If we pay attention to the rules of a healthy lifestyle, the body can, in any problem, bring itself back to normal health through its delicate healing mechanism. In other words, the power to heal illness lies not in the hands of the doctor but in the patient’s body. For example, a doctor joins a broken leg with surgery or other methods, but in the end it is the patient’s body that mends it. If we create the conditions with a healthy lifestyle, the body has not only the ability to cleanse itself, but also to heal and renew itself. If we live a healthy lifestyle and eat according to our temperament, our body will wisely rebuild itself.

When we live rightly and eat rightly, the work of clearing various toxins (through proper nutrition, proper breathing, timely urination and bowel movements, sweating, sexual relations, sleep and rest, exercise, walking and so on) happens automatically and correctly. If this work is done wrongly (too little or too much), toxins slowly build up in the body and cause illness. Without clearing these toxins from our body, as said before, any treatment is like pounding water in a mortar.

Alongside a healthy lifestyle, we should support the body with natural, cleansing (detox) products together with natural antioxidants, to neutralise and remove the toxins that cause illness.

Do you know your temperament?

Which foods and herbs suit you depends on your temperament. The free temperament test takes only a few minutes. To learn how temperament and the six rules work together, read What Is Temperament? Why One Prescription Doesn’t Fit Everyone.