Eplerian Life Philosophy

The Eplerian Life Philosophy is a modern-day healthy life philosophy defined as “Know who you are moment by moment.” This means know where you're thinking from, and that's who you are. You can only think from one location at any time. There are five locations you can think from that include your head, heart, gut, body, and the mind, which is outside the body. Think from your heart with kindness and giving. Think from the mind with solving problems and helping others. 

Your Head: There are three primitive brain regions to think from. These are the amygdala anger center, the cingulate self-thinking stress center, and the accumbens addiction pleasure center.

You need to limit your thinking from these three regions to less than 10 seconds and eventually eliminate thinking from these thee regions.

Something taken from you such as happiness or your opinions triggers the anger center. Decrease the feeling of anger to less the ten seconds by "feeling" the anger with "no thinking about the situation" and the calming system with neutralize the anger response restoring calm. With practice, you may be able to eliminate anger by preventing the trigger.   

Thinking about yourself such as thinking about your problems, bad thoughts about yourself, or negative thoughts about the past or future trigger the primitive stress center. You need to limit these self-centered thoughts to less than 10 seconds because they cause stress. You do this by first recognizing when you have a thought that causes stress and then think from somewhere else - from the heart with kindness to yourself or from the mind with creativity to help someone, Yoga breathing, or distract yourself with upbeat music or talking to friends.      

Your Heart: The function of the heart is to keep itself healthy. The heart will do anything to keep healthy. This is with feelings and decision making. The feelings include kindness, unconditional giving, gratitude, appreciation, and empathy, These feelings provide a healthy outcome for you and for others.

Listen to your heart for important decisions, and you’ll receive a single answer that is best for your health and best for your life. For example, you have a new job offer with a big title, money, and prestige. If you think from your head, then you’ll spend hours and hours with conflicting negative and positive answers, not from the heart. There will be one clear answer, the right answer for your health. 

Your Gut: Take advantage of your gut, referred to as the ‘belly brain’ for healthy nutrition and risk management. Listen to your belly brain for eating the right foods in the right amount at the right time, and prepared in a healthy manner. This will result in eating foods with no added sugar, no added salt, and no processed foods containing omega-6 fats because the gut knows these foods cause inflammation. The gut has a risk management function by using the feeling of fear to avoid dangerous life-threatening situations or a bad business decision. 

Your Body: The thinking feelings from the body include the good feeling from working the muscles during exercise. Visualize the muscles as you strengthen them during exercise. The reason for this feeling is that daily excise of each muscle group is needed for healthy posture and supporting the vital organs and the brain. Combine thinking from the muscle with mind for extraordinary athletic and physical performance.    

The Mind: This is the most dramatic place to be. Need to solve a problem? Need to help someone? Need to make a make a new product or a new company? Use the mind. The mind is outside the body, and its function is creativity and innovation.

Courage is one of the feelings associated with the mind. You’re feeling low or out of energy? Use the mind. Positive feelings associated with the mind include serenity, total calmness, and unconditional love.

The mind is outside the body, so, to use creativity and experience these feelings, you need to be in the slow alpha-brainwave state. This is daydreaming. It’s meditation by traditional eyes-closed, cross-legged meditation, or eyes open while on a treadmill or an elliptical, going for a hike, or a long swim. Eventually learn to be in the alpha-brainwave state spontaneously to use the mind on an as needed basis.

Us the mind for creativity to solve problems and help others, courage to be your true authentic self, and inspiration to improve the world.  

Be Your True Authentic Self: This means eliminating primitive brain thinking.

Think like a human from the heart with kindness and giving; and think from the mind with creativity to help others and innovation to improve people’s lives.

Being your true self brings instant trust and likeability. People want to be near you. You’re kind and giving. You solve problems. You help others. You improve people’s lives. There is no need for complaining, criticism, or blame.

It takes courage to be your true self because you will fail and people will criticize you and may make fun of you, but these are short-lived without meaning. Deal with unpleasant consequences by thinking from the heart with kindness to yourself and from your mind for creating solutions. Be your true self. Strive in your uniqueness. 

Dr. Gary Epler / Eplerian Life Philosophy  

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Listen to the 'Good Thoughts Podcast' about health awareness of the Eplerian Life Philosophy on Captivate / Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Amazon Music. You can also listen through Alexa and your smart TV. 

References:

1. Epler GR. Eplerian philosophy model for managing stress at home and in the community. Preventive Medicine and Community Health. 3: DOI: 10.15761/PMCH.1000139. March 2020. 
2. Epler GR. Eplerian philosophy for health, vitality, and happiness. Open Journal of Philosophy; 10:187-191. DOI:4236/ojpp.2020.102013. April 2020. 
3. Epler GR. Eplerian philosophy model for empowering women for improved health, productivity and innovation. Journal of Health and Medical Research. S(5), page 6. September 2020.
4. Epler GR. Eplerian philosophy for a new way of life. Open Journal of Philosophy; 11(1):171-177. DOI 4236/ojpp.2021.111013. February 2021. 
5. Epler G. Eplerian Life Philosophy: Thinking and Feelings from Five Locations. Open Journal of Philosophy; 13(2):336-341. May 2023. 
6. Epler G. Eplerian Life Philosophy is a model for being your authentic self. London Journal of Medical and Health Research. 23 (10):1-6. October 2023.

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