Health Homework (13) Learn how to protect yourself physically
Vitamins reduce but don't eliminate violence. Most doctors never advocate physical defense for their patients because 1) doctors themselves don’t have those skills, 2) doctors don’t sell those skills.
We take antioxidants to protect ourselves from free radicals (biochemical defense), and we exercise to protect ourselves from weakness (eg, sarcopenia, lack of muscle), depression, cancer and cardiovascular disease (metabolic defense). But most doctors never advocate physical defense for their patients, mostly because 1) doctors themselves don’t have those skills, and 2) doctors don’t sell those skills.
A healthy diet provides some protection from disease. Vitamins reduce the incidence of violence but they do not protect you from other people who choose to inflict violence. Being “healthy” requires more than optimal nutrition; you also have to keep yourself physically intact, and that requires the use of personal safety tactics as discussed below. Personal safety at the social level also requires participation and leadership.
Here are the 5 key components of self-defense and physical self-protection; ideally we should all have at least 4 of these components.
Personally, I’ve got 5+ of these 5, as I will describe in each section below, including a new video just posted last night.
