Health: Let’s give it little bit cycling!

It was 5:30 in the morning on 3^rd Jan this year, I got SMS from one of colleague, saying Mr. Gupta was died last night due to heart attack. He was on deputation in Uganda and away from his family. He was survived with one son and wife. He was just 43.

Twenty days  back, there was an internal obituary communication, saying that Mr. Panickar was died last night due to hearth attack. He left behind two sons and a wife. He was just 34 and of my age.

These two incidents shaken me and took me aback, I started pondering what made these two incident to take place.

Mahatma Gandhi said “It  is the health that is the real wealth, and gold and silver”. In the fast paced metro cities, like Delhi, we hardly think about health, we always think about wealth and always run behind money. We make excuse of lack of time for exercising. We prefer to commute by car even for getting daily needs from near by shops to save time.

Friends, It is the time to take the decision, the best decision of your life,whatever age you are on today and remember the words of Billy Grahan,"When wealth is lost ,nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, every thing is lost.”

Whether it is to boost your fitness, heath or bank balance or an save your environmental, taking up cycling could be one of the best decision you can ever made. Not convinced? Let me tell few startling facts of taking to two wheels.

1.       Studies from Purdue University in US has shown that regular cycling can cut your risk of heart disease by 50%. According to one of the heart foundation, around 10,000 fatal heart attack could be avoided each year if people kept them fitter.

2.       One long term study carried out by Finnish researcher found that men who exercised at moderate level at least 30 min a day were half as likely to develop cancer as those who don’t. Other studies have found that women who cycle frequently reduce their risk of breast cancer by 34%.

3.       The best gift/benefit you can give to other by cycling is to avoid pollution and build the healthy environment  for your future generation. On an average, cars passenger were exposed to more then ,100,000 ultrafine particle , which can settle in lungs and damage cells. Every car that is off the road saves 5.1 metric tones of CO2 a year, and just 5% increase in cycle commutation across the world would cumulatively save 100 million tones of CO2 emission annually.

4.       There are many cities in the world where cycle runs faster then the cars in choked roads and you get to your destination  faster then the cars.

Friends, you may feel these are just numbers or an epilogue of  good quality research paper, but remember the words of Denis Waitly, the famous writer “Time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted."