Storyboard18 | Bookstrapping: Life Force by Tony Robbins

This 700-plus page book is not for the faint-hearted. But youngsters will be happy to know that it features an endorsement by the world's greatest athlete Cristiano Ronaldo, among several others.

Five big takeaways

1. Sleep is the chief nourisher in life’s fest. Less than 6 hours of sleep per day impairs the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar. So, when mamma said sleep tight, she meant it!

2. Most people imagine that popping OTC (over-the-counter) drugs is safe. Now during training at medical school, doctors don't learn much about OTC drugs and manufacturers conveniently leave out the side effects from the packaging. This gap in knowledge is a problem. Patients rarely tell their doctors about the OTC drugs they popped on a whim. This is potentially harmful.

3. The big tip: Caffeine has a quarter life of 12 hours; which means that if you have a cup of coffee at noon, a quarter of it is still swilling in your brain at midnight. So if you want to sleep well, try not to have coffee after 11 am.

4. The book says that while cancer, heart attack, diabetes, etc., are viewed as different diseases, they share the same underlying biological mechanisms - chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, angiogenesis, etc.;

5. Chapter 12 has tons of tips that cost nothing to implement. It starts off with a quote by Swami Satchidananda: “You are your own friend and your own enemy.” Hence, good health depends on what we eat, how we respond to stress, how much exercise we do and what kind of psychosocial support we get! Think about it.

Yes, there’s a fair amount of suggestive content in the book; and the authors do recommend lots of therapies, apps and protocols. However they balance it with tons of free advice that you can check with your own doctor, especially the table on page 224/225.

The book delves into pain; which is probably one of the most common reasons for prescription. It outlines varied solutions to pain, such as hyperbaric oxygen, cryotherapy, counterstrain, relief therapy, PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field therapy), VR goggles with a choice of relaxing scenarios, etc.; thereby questioning our default response to pain. But then, it also says that ‘ageing is just another treatable disease.’ How receptive the reader will be to this idea, is directly proportional to what they are going through in their personal lives.

Tony’s belief in regenerative medicine was reinforced when stem cell therapy was instrumental in his own treatment after an unfortunate shoulder accident. Ditto in the case of super athlete Rafael Nadal. Hence, Tony clearly advocates stem cell therapy and the book waxes about their application in the treatment of skin grafts, second-degree burns and as a potential cure for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, heart diseases and type 2 diabetes; not to mention accidents and injuries. This is a space the world will be watching.

Summing up, even cynics will like Tony’s seven words for maximum health - “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”