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What happens in most Indian places of work or school is that very often we have a very very heavy lunch making us incapable of thoughtful work. Since the brain has to dedicate itself to begin the process of digesting the food by sending out appropriate instruction to various muscle cells and the intestine, it induces sloth and drowsiness! Many businesses in Kolkata remain closed after lunch for this exact reason. They need their post-lunch nap or they can’t function!
I am not a foodie and detest over-eating. A light stomach is very essential for me to remain in my zen-zone. Many in my circle though go out exploring the city for newer food-joints to gorge in. Sometimes I do accompany them, but have never been able to eat my way to sloth. I don’t even try; no matter how tempting the menu. I have to find newer excuses to make every time there’s a discussion on a new-found-food-joint.
It then struck me that I never had this problem while in the US. Group of us would go out for lunch. Finish it in 15-30 min. and head back for work to pick up where we left off. Lunch used to be light and good.
On reflecting further, I was beginning to make some general connections between nobel prizes, great scientists and inventors and consequences of heavy lunch.
Take a moment to think about the greatest scientists, thinkers, music composers, and artists of all time. Any names that spring to your mind.
The names that immediately come to my mind – Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, Newton, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Beethoven, Bohr, Tesla, Edison, Maxwell, Turing, Wright brothers, Oppenheimer, Curie, Copernicus, Galileo, Hubble, Ramanujan, C.V.Raman, Bose (of Bose-Einstein Condensates),….
The thing about them is that they were all (mostly) build either average or sub-average – I mean physical stature.
There hardly is an obese scientist or thinker of repute who’s work has mattered immensely. While they certainly appreciated good food, they were not food-junkies. The activity of their brain was reserved for “higher-thinking” and not for digesting the food eaten with no restraint. Some of them may have developed drinking problems, depression orĀ other some such thing, but that’s beside the point.
It seems only logical: don’t over-eat if you want to be-better, climb-higher, reach-farther, achieve-greatness,….Even if you don’t reach the stars, you’ll at least reach healthy-er no matter where you reach.