Living with Balance: How Routine, Mindful Habits, and Rambam’s Wisdom Help Reduce Stress

A study published and featured in a special CNN report, found that the more structured and routine your life is, the less likely you are to experience chronic stress. Based on the findings, the World Health Organization issued new recommendations encouraging people to adopt routine lifestyle habits. These include:

“Exercising daily, smiling as much as possible, limiting media consumption — especially news, and renewing social connections that may have been neglected,” the guidelines state.

A Chinese physician named Dr. Choi, who contributed to the recommendations, explains that incorporating consistent physical activity into your daily routine is especially beneficial.

“Regular exercise — of any kind, can significantly help you cope with psychological stress,” he says. “Since all of us are affected by tension, try to organize your busy life into a structured routine. If you repeat the same activities each day, and even eat the same foods daily, it will reduce stress levels.”

Rambam (Maimonides) offers almost the exact same advice, particularly regarding eating the same types of food consistently.

Yitzhak Ben Uri, one of the pioneers of natural medicine in Israel, who studied Rambam’s medical writings extensively and even lived according to them, wrote that: “In all his medical works, Rambam repeatedly emphasizes the importance of proper eating habits and the removal of waste from the body — as an essential condition for preserving health.”

Among Rambam’s recommendations: Do not eat when you are not hungry, maintain proper exercise and healthy bowel function — and preserve a consistent diet, deviating from it as little as possible.

He writes: “The various types of harm increase greatly according to the changes in types of food.”

Rambam even defines frequent changes in diet as “a form of evil.”