Important Factors Affecting Life Span (Part 4)
There are two kinds of factors that affect man’s life span: the ones affecting man’s physic directly like nutrition; the ones affecting man’s psyche directly and his physic indirectly like spirituality. Some of these factors are discussed in this part and the next parts of this article.
Nutrition
One of the important factors that can help calculate the length of man’s life is nutrition management, i.e. what to eat, how much to eat, and how to eat. In addition to eating helathy and nutritious food, avoiding gluttony will play a key role in determining the length of your life. Avoiding gluttony is so much important that the Almighty God has expressed His wrath toward those with a habit of eating too much: "Eat from the good things with which We have provided you and do not transgress [or oppress others] therein, lest My wrath should descend upon you. And he upon whom My wrath descends has certainly fallen into destruction."
Therefore, we can certainly say that those with wise management of nutrition and eating food live longer.
Effective Relationships with Other People
Effective relationships with other people, especially with relatives, is another important factor for calculating the length of one’s life. It is a key factor in helping human beings live 30 years longer than what you have expected. Cutting off kinship relationships with relatives and other people will reduce your life span very much.
Imam Sadiq (A.S) says: “I know nothing better than observing the bonds of relationship to increase life span. The Almighty God increases the life of the one who observes bonds of kinship to the extent that life of one who is expected to die in three years is extended to thirty-three years and the life of the one cutting off bonds of kinship is shortened from thirty to three years.” (Al-Kafi, Vol. 2, P. 153).
Translated by: Sadroddin Musawi
Other links:
Alcohol in Islam
Avarice, the enemy of life’s comfort
Greed, unnecessary pain
