Today, I wrote a book review of Ikigai. I just finished reading this book. I just loved this book so much, that I couldn’t wait to write about it. Most often when this book is talked about it is marketed as it is a book which talks about passion r it helps you to live a purposeful life of course it has that in this, but it has way more than that because this book talks about so many topics so many aspects mostly related to health and to live a long and purposeful life. But I also learnt so many things, like I learnt about Japanese culture, Chinese culture.

Main premise of this book is that the authors of the book went to a town in Japan which is known for people which are above 90 years of age and there are all living happily healthily and then these researchers talk to them about what they have in common, what is their lifestyle, how are they so happy so healthy and so young. So, this book talks about that. And then again there are so many mentions of what the food they eat, what is their lifestyle, what they have in common, what are the exercises that they do on a regular basis.  

Literary I learnt so many things from this book for example, in japan people have a routine which they follow on a regular basis which is called Radio Taiso exercises, I didn’t know about that previously I had to google it and it is such a fun routine to do on daily basis and it is like a compulsion in most of the fields like in army or in school they do this regularly to maintain their health.

Apart from that this, book talks about so many things like how all of these old and healthy people live together, they come together as community, they celebrated little-little things, they dance together, they sing together, they grow vegetables in their own garden, they cook those vegetables and eat them. So, there are so many nuggets of wisdom in this book. There is mention of teas these people drink in japan like green tea or jasmine tea. There is mention of grains they take on a regular basis, there is mention about sugar like why they do not consume sugar, why they consume less salt, what are the harmful effects of all of these foods and food groups.  

And then they talked about Radio Taiso, there is literary a diagram of Radio Taiso like how it is being done. But I strongly recommend you to google it, I did the same I searched about it on YouTube and I found thousands of videos on how Radio Taiso is done and it is such an amazing exercise and is such quick workout you can do.

Then there is also mention of yoga and there are mentions of styles of yoga like kundalini yoga, raj yoga, hath yoga, how to do a sun salutation and there are diagrams about sun salutation. I do sun salutation on a regular basis so, I was so happy when I encountered this and yes, it is mentioned that it has come from India. So, I was like little proud in my heart when I read this. and then there are mentions of other forms of exercise like tai chi, shiatsu, qigong which have come from different cultures.

So, you get to know about so many things so many healthy things. And it just made me so happy. This book also teaches you about resilience, resistance about how to stay clam in situations which are not in your hand and there is a philosophy which is mentioned in this book called Wabi-sabi, which is again from japan and again this was very new for me to open to my eye it gave a new perspective. There are chapters talking about stoicism which is a philosophy that I absolutely love. There are chapters about the philosophy of Buddhism like how you don’t need to give away all the worldly pleasure and still you can stay calm, still you can be detached from things. So, I can say this is a bible for art of living. It teaches you a lot of things that you can do on daily basis which are doable.  

And all the concepts are merged from Japanese culture, Chinese culture and a little bit of Indian culture as well, which are I think all rich cultures. Many healthy people live in these countries, many unhealthy also live there. So, it’s up to you that what you can grasp from this book whatever you are familiar with you can take those concepts. There are many new things you will learn in this book which often doesn’t happen because whenever you will pick up a sell fell book most of things would be there which you already know it happens all the time with me, but this book gave me a lot of new ideas, new healthy things which I didn’t know. I am sucker for all healthy things so, I love to read things that could make me healthy, I love to know about food that could make me healthy, I love to learn new routine and exercises. And this book gave me so many new ideas to begin with. So, I strongly recommend you to read this book.  

There are 10 points at the end of this book which is like a summary of how to lead a healthy life or they call it the 10 rules of ikigai, so I like to mention them to you.

1. Stay active; don’t retire.

2. Take it slow.

3. Don’t fill your stomach.

4. Surround yourself with good friends.

5. Get in shape for your next birthday.

6. Smile.

7. Reconnect with nature.

8. Give thanks.

9. Live in the moment.

10. Follow your ikigai.

So, I can’t actually summarize this book in just few words because this has so much to offer so, I strongly suggest you to read this book.