Week 7 This week focus on watching less television

The average American watches almost 5 hours of TV every day! Challenge yourself to watch as little as possible, see if you can watch 1 hour or less per night. Let yourself watch you favorite shows, but turn it off after that. It is amazing how the television has an ability to suck you in. Without realizing it you have been watching for hours. In many cases you start with watching a show you enjoy, then it turns into what is the best thing on after that. At the end of the night you: might be able to build a robot or remodel your house (even though you don’t own any tools), you might know everything about all the celebrities (that you will never meet), or you might now know every punch line from you favorite movie (after watching it for the 100th time.)

Television is entertainment and it is designed to keep you attention. Everything we do in life either builds us up or tears us down. Positive things build us up and negative things break us down. If you are watching a show ask yourself is this building me up? If not turn it off. Violence, drama, negativity, poor language. What are we exposing to ourselves, our kids? In addition to what the TV does to your mind, by sitting for that many hours per day and often eating while watching it is no wonder what as a society we are becoming obese so rapidly. If the average American cut that TV time is half and watched 2.5 hours and exercised the other half we would go from one of the most overweight countries to one of the fittest.

You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish by limiting TV hours. You will also start to enjoy life again, instead of getting through it.

What can you do?
• Talk to your spouse
• Play with the kids
• Read a book
• Exercise
• Find a hobby
• Meditate
• Go for a walk
• Play games
• Listen to a motivational or inspirational CD
• Volunteer
• Listen to your favorite songs
• Go to bed early and get the sleep you need

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben