American Indians consider the earth to be an extension of their bodies and try to coordinate their bodies with the movements of planets and also the rhythm of the seasons.
I was watching an interesting video by Sadhguru in which he explains what happens to the earth between the hours of 3 am and 4 am. Interesting video which I attach here, he has lots of words of wisdom on how to guard your bodies, and also about people who are always searching for peace when the cause of lack of peace in their lives are not addressed. Harmony is what we need, rather than any one single mantra or yoga or meditation. American Indians would teach you
Be grateful
Be humble
Be ready to help
I am an Endocrinologist, a physician specializing in Diseases of Hormonal disturbances in the body and its metabolism.
I am happy to be working with the indigenous people as I can talk about disease (the western way of looking at dysfunction of the body) in terms of illness (the indigenous way of looking at suffering) by using terms which has a significance to the Native Person.
Like this example. I wanted to educate a native person living in a western society about the destruction of original microbiome with which they cohabited for thousands of years.
I would use the metaphor of the Amazon Rain forest.
Amazon rain forest exists in harmony with all its inhabitants, whether trees or vines or insects or animals. When you cut down a tree, the european invader does not understand this, you destroy more than the tree, with it dies many of the other forms of life that depend upon that tree.
In the very same way, the microbiome that exists in the guts (I am talking about nutrition to the person) has lost its harmony and now is dominated by one or more of the predominantly bad group of microbiome. He understands as it makes perfect sense to him.
When I first met the people of the Red Earth, they told me it is the food of the white man that made them sick and at that time I could not figure it out. Now we know that FOOD or that which is sold as FOOD is the primary source of many of the inflammations in our bodies.
so they understand well when I say that between 3 am and 4 am many of the hormones in our bodies wake up and we have to be aware of these cyclical changes in our bodies.
Look at the top panels
Men and Women
The CORTISOL which is the hormone of chronic stress goes down on a daily basis and then wakes up at around 3 am -4 am, just about the time when Sadhguru teaches that earth is also waking up also.
We have to understand ourselves what is happening within ourselves, this body and mind that is the source of all happiness and sadness and its relationship with what is around us, not only people but also what nature has provided, that which has been there before us and that which would be there after us.
Another metaphoric way to introduce the concept of exercise in the morning (prayer and exercise are common among indigenous people in the morning at a fasting state) is to talk about Yoga and Pranayama and Meditation and equate it to what the native people naturally did.
As I can demonstrate to my patients or to you, that Pranayama can decrease insulin resistance and that it is one of the better ways to prevent Diabetes among people who are aware that the body is moving on in an unhealthy direction or already may have become pre-diabetic.
YOGIC PHILOSOPHY AND INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY ARE VERY SIMILAR.. many of the things Sadhguru says would make sense to the indigenous people because they had never forgotten the sense of their place and that of their bodies in their connections with the universe.
