Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) described virtue as the habit of choosing the mean between two extremes: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is the habit of choosing the mean between recklessness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency).
Habit and routine structure our daily lives. The healthiest habits are virtuous, meaning the avoidance of extremes in feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
In “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Goldilocks tasted the Great Big Bear’s porridge, which was too hot. The Middle-sized Bear’s porridge was too cold. The Little Wee Bear’s porridge was just right, and she ate it all.
Goldilocks avoided dietary extremes. She ate only what was “just right.” Some may say Goldilocks was trespassing. Others may say she was inquisitive with a spirit of adventure.
I say let us remember Goldilocks when we come to the dinner table.
Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) tells us in the Greek Way that the balance or “Golden Mean” seen in ancient Greek sculptor and architecture, consistent with the “habit of choosing the mean between extremes,” was enhanced by the nearly perfect visual atmosphere, entirely free of debris.
Aristotle’s concept of the Golden Mean encapsulates the principles of moderation, courage, and generosity as fundamental virtues necessary to attain moral excellence.
The Ancient Greeks’ “Golden Mean” may improve your health, even save your life.
The Golden Mean holds that virtue exists between two extremes, whether in emotions, actions, or traits. By avoiding excess and deficiency, you encourage a balanced and virtuous life.
“Lifestyle” is best understood as the answers we give to hundreds of self-questions. These questions, almost automatic, are critical to our health and life span. They come to us in individually significant forms.
The self-questions may tug us consciously, unconsciously, and even in the realm of the partially conscious, including spiritually. You may wonder whether a second helping of pie is excessive. For many, the question flashes across our minds just as we swallow the delicious but caloric treat.
Lifestyle-related diseases, also known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), are now the leading cause of death globally, surpassing infectious diseases.
These health conditions are mainly associated with lifestyle choices such as diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use. The increase in sedentary behavior and processed foods puts many individuals at risk of developing conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers.
Subject-matter experts provide a panoply of popular explanations for the dramatic increase in lifestyle diseases.
Many explanations are plausible and acceptable, but they overlook a powerful and prevalent one, the loss of caring, a harmful sense of despair.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has the authority to define new psychiatric diagnoses and remove outdated ones. The diagnoses are published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA (DSM).
A new psychiatric disorder was established recently, ARFID, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.
ARFID, as defined in the DSM-5, involves consistently failing to meet nutritional or energy needs. This can appear as a lack of interest in food, avoidance due to sensory issues, or concern about the consequences of eating.
The eating disorder causes significant weight loss or poor growth in children, nutritional deficiency, reliance on feeding tubes or supplements, or severe disruption of social functioning.
ARFID is characterized by restricted food intake that results in significant issues, which are not related to body image concerns and have considerable impacts while excluding other possible causes.
ARFID can impact people of any age, sex, or weight, with varying symptoms and severity. Early treatment is crucial for managing its physical and psychological effects.
A psychiatric disorder is an important consideration in our discussion of lifestyle. A depressed person, for example, may chronically feel exhausted and find little interest in life. A depressed college man said, “Nothing seems to catch my eye.”
A brisk 15-20 minute daily walk, paradoxically, will energize depressed people. The clinical evidence for this is overwhelming.
Physical disorders may also contribute to less desirable lifestyles. In fact, no one should seriously begin an exercise program without first consulting their physician.
Virtue may stimulate some sluggards into a healthy lifestyle, but biblically we are reminded to take care of our bodies:
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
Consider the “Golden Mean” of the human body itself.
One of the most important concepts in medical history was discovered by a virtuous man. The discovery was the concept of the internal environment of organisms, called “homeostasis.” The man was Claude Bernard (1813 – 1878), a French physiologist.
Bernard’s father, Pierre, was a winegrower; his mother, Jeanne Saulnier, was of peasant background. When Claude was very young, his father failed in a wine-marketing venture and tried to make ends meet by teaching school. Despite his efforts, the family never prospered, and when he died, the survivors were left in debt.
Educational opportunities were limited for a poor winegrower’s son in Louis XVIII’s France. The boy learned Latin from the local priest and attended a Jesuit school at Villefranche, where no science was taught.
At 18, Bernard completed his secondary schooling at Thoissey without a diploma and began an apprenticeship with an apothecary in a Lyon suburb.
Eventually, after years of disappointment, Bernard entered the University of Paris to study medicine.
Outwardly reserved and even shy at that time, he had an inner strength that was to overcome poverty and discouragement.
In its simple and most brilliant form, homeostasis describes the vast complexity of function within the healthy human body as having no extremes.
Bernard discovered that the vasomotor nerves control the dilation and constriction of blood vessels in response to temperature changes in the environment.
In cold weather, the skin’s blood vessels constrict to conserve heat, while in hot weather, they expand to shed excess heat. This mechanism demonstrates how the body maintains homeostasis despite external changes.
Still germane for modern science is Bernard’s concept of the milieu intérieur, or “internal environment,” of the body.
At his death Bernard was accorded a funeral arranged and financed by the government, the first ever granted to a scientist in France.
In 1928, American physiologist Walter Cannon popularized Bernard’s concept of homeostasis, further establishing its foundation in modern medicine.
A patient’s vital signs (blood pressure, core body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation) are the first measurement indicating if there is a homeostatic imbalance.
A basic metabolic panel is a quick blood test to show electrolyte disturbances, if present, to guide diagnosis and treatment. Measurement of the inorganic ions, kidney function (BUN/Creatinine ratio), and glucose enable us to fix those abnormalities as well as the underlying cause.
Homeostasis is involved in every organ system of the body. There are no healthy reasons for extremes in homeostasis or in the way we live.
Our body, mind, and spirit will achieve optimal meaningfulness when we adopt a virtuous lifestyle that is habitual and routine.
Aristotle regarded happiness as a state of living well, attained through a lifetime of virtuous actions. Flourishing is the ultimate good, serving as the end goal of human existence, necessitating both internal qualities, such as virtue, and external factors, including friendship and the necessities of life.
“Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.”
A.E. Housman (1859-1936). The Cherry Tree, verses 2 and 3.
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.