At the age of 97, Dr Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest serving Physicians and Educators. Since 1941, he has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St Luke’s college of nursing. He has published around 150 books including ‘Living Long, Living Good‘ which has sold more than 1.2 million copies. His teaching encourages others to live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the good doctor himself.
This is the message from Dr Hinohara –
Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We should all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. We can keep that attitude as adults too. It is best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunch time and bed time. All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: none are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies or nothing when I have no time to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice and twice a week 100 gms of lean meat.
Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and the usual hospital work. In 2016 I will have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!
There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing to stay strong.
When a doctor recommends you to take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can’t cure very one. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery. I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.
To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time to get my muscles moving. My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem ‘Abt Vogler’. My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.
Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has toothache and you start playing a game together, she or he immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic needs of patients: we all want to have fun. At St Luke’s we have music and animal therapies and art classes. Don’t be crazy about amassing material things. Remember you don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place. Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.
It is wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goal. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week, and love every minute of it.
And Dr Hinohara’s great journey continues even today in the same place he has created for himself, always available to the needy, serving mankind the best way he can, always willing to try new things. Today he serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the Hospital and Nursing School.
To be born as a human being is a great gift and to live as a human being, serving and supporting mankind while enjoying every moment is a greater gift. It calls for a very special attitude, clear vision, direction and purposeful sustained efforts to reach ones goal. It is possible and all we need are role models like Dr Hinohara to inspire us, and we can achieve greater things, surpassing our role model. Live life enjoying every moment and when you are happy and smiling you will make everyone around you happy.
Raghuraman 