IKIGAI: The Japanese Formula For Happiness

IKIGAI book is talked about it is marketed as it is a book that talks about passion or it helps you live a purposeful life.

Of course, it has that in this but it is way more than that because this book talks about so many topics so many aspects mostly related to health and to live a long life and purposeful life.

But you also learned so many things as I learned about Japanese culture and the Chinese culture.

So the main premise of this book is that there the authors of the book went to a town in Japan, which is known for people who are above 90 years of age and they’re all living happily healthily.

And then the 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 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? and literally, you will learn so many things from this book for example: in japan, people have a routine you can say which they follow on a regular basis which is called Radio taiso exercises.

So I didn’t know about that previously. I had to google it and it is such a fun routine to do on a daily basis.

It is like a compulsion in most of the uh fields like in the 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 a community they celebrate little things. They dance together they sing together, they grow vegetables in their own gardens they cook those vegetables and eat them.

So there are so many nuggets of wisdom in this book, there’s mention of peas that these people drink in japan like green tea or jasmine tea there’s mention of grains that they take on a regular basis.

This mention sugar like why they do not consume sugar why they consume less salt what are the harmful effects of all of these food and food groups and then they talk about radio taiso and there’s literally a diagram of radio taiso so 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. It is such an amazing exercise and it’s such a quick workout that you can do.

Then there’s also mention of yoga and there are mentions of styles of yoga-like kundalini yoga, raj yoga, hut yoga, and how to do a sun salutation and again 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 a little proud in my heart when I read this.

Then again there are mentions of other forms of exercises like tai chi and shiatsu and chi gong which has 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 calm in situations that are not in your hand.

There’s a philosophy which is mentioned in this book called wabi-sabi which is again from Japan.

This was very new for me it opened my eyes it gave me a new perspective there are chapters talking about stoicism which is a philosophy that I absolutely love.

There are chapters that talk about the philosophy of Buddhism like how you don’t need to uh you know give away all the worldly pleasures and still, you can stay calm still, you can be detached from things.

So I can say this is a bible for the art of living you know it teaches you a lot of things that you can do on a daily basis which are doable and the concepts are merged from The Japanese culture of Chinese culture and a little bit of Indian culture as well.

Many healthy people live in these countries many unhealthy people also live there. So it’s up to you what you can grab from this book whatever you’re familiar with you can take those concepts.

There are many new things that you will learn in this book which often doesn’t happen because whenever you will pick up a self-felt book most of the 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 things that I didn’t know all healthy things because I am a sucker for all healthy things I love to read.

Things that could make me healthy I love to know about the food that could make me healthy.

I love to learn new routines new 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 is like a summary of how to lead a healthy life or they call it the 10 rules of IKIGAI.

The 10 Rules Of IKIGAI

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. living in the moment
10. follow your IKIGAI

So I can’t actually summarize this book in just a few minutes because this has so much to offer so I strongly suggest you go for this book.