Homeostasis: Universal Principle of Life

“What is the one universal principle that has not changed? Something that you would hold to be true, no matter what, when it came to health?”

I was being asked a deep question, having just concluded my talk to seventy entrepreneurs.

Homeostasis, I said without hesitation.

Coined by Walter Cannon, a physiologist, it means the ability of a body to maintain stability while adjusting to its environment.

So what is homeostasis and why is it so important, in my opinion?

We are physical beings. Being physical imposes limits under which you can function. Which is another way of saying that the human body operates best when it finds itself under the right conditions.

Simple examples illustrate this. Your body temperature is 98.6°F. Numbers higher or lower are out of range.

Your normal heart beat is 72. Anything above or below for any sustained period is out of range.

Park the argument of what is normal. Whatever normal is, you want to be close to it.

You don’t have to make too much effort. Your autonomous system does the heavy lifting for you. So if your temperature rises, you will sweat, if it falls, you’ll shiver.

You have a feedback loop and self-regulate for homeostasis.

Unless you do something that knocks it off-course. The equivalent of a meteorite knocking a planet out of its orbit.

It takes a lot. Your body will go to great lengths to keep you in balance. Symptoms, pain, inflammation, fever are all indications of your body trying to achieve stasis.

Your body craves normal.

This principle is not unique to your body. Human beings need to live in sync with nature. Our planet exists in harmony with the sun and so on.

Balance, or homeostasis, is a driving principle for everything that we know about our universe.

Even the Buddha urged us to follow the middle path with ourselves and those around.

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