Why Do Doctors Die Young?

If You Really Know Health, Why Is Your Lifespan Less Than 70?

Most doctors die young because they’re trained to treat disease, not to stay healthy. Medical education ignores basics like food, rest, gut care, and daily rhythm. Hospitals exhaust them, pharma makes them dependent, and their lifestyle falls apart. They take pills instead of healing, work nonstop, and ignore natural methods. In contrast, rural healers who live simply—walking barefoot, fasting, using castor oil—live longer. The system breaks doctors while pretending to save others.

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PROLOGUE: THE QUESTION THAT CUTS DEEP

You walk into a hospital.

White coats. Bright lights. Fancy machines.

A doctor stands before you — intelligent, educated, confident.

He tells you what to eat, what not to eat. What to fear. What to take. What to ignore.

And you wonder — “He must be healthy himself, right?”

But look closer.

He’s skipping meals.

Drinks 4 cups of tea a day.

Doesn’t sleep enough.

Has back pain at 40.

Is on cholesterol meds by 45.

BP meds by 50.

Gone by 60.

So you ask:

“If you know so much about health… why aren’t you healthy?”

This isn’t an insult.

This is an honest grief — about a system that breaks its best.

Let’s walk slowly into this mess.

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LAYER 1: MEDICAL COLLEGE – WHERE HEALTH IS NEVER TAUGHT

The young boy or girl who enters MBBS doesn’t enter to push pills.

They want to help. Heal. Serve.

But what do they get?

Zero education on gut health, fasting, or breathwork.

No exposure to food as daily medicine.

No space for rest, silence, or questioning.

No mention of healing — only disease management.

They learn:

To name, not to understand.

To suppress symptoms, not decode them.

To prescribe for safety, not for wholeness.

And they live like their patients — overfed, under-slept, screen-tired, pill-ready.

Real stat: A 2019 study published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry found a staggering 45% of Indian medical students suffered from depression and 1 in 10 had considered suicide.

The training that’s supposed to create healers… often ends up hollowing them.

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LAYER 2: THE HOSPITAL – A TOXIC ECOSYSTEM

Hospitals should be healing spaces.

But instead, they are:

Over-sanitized, under-human

Full of artificial light, recycled air, no sun, no soil

Full of suffering, grief, urgency, noise, EMFs, and machines

The doctor in this setup:

Works 12–36 hour shifts

Eats junk food or skips meals

Gets no time to breathe, stretch, or reflect

Moves from death to death without mourning

Sees 40 patients in 4 hours

Must meet pharma or management targets

Real stat: A 2022 IMA report noted that over 75% of young Indian doctors feel burnt out by their early 30s.

This is not healing. It’s human machinery.

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LAYER 3: THE PILL TRAP – WHEN KNOWING SIDE EFFECTS DOESN’T SAVE YOU

Doctors know what drugs do.

But they still take them. Often more than the average patient.

Because:

That’s what they’re taught to trust.

That’s what they have easy access to.

That’s what the system rewards.

So they pop:

Antibiotics “just in case”

Painkillers for backaches

Statins for minor cholesterol issues

Sleeping pills for stress-induced insomnia

Proton pump inhibitors for acidity caused by hospital tea

But long-term use of these drugs causes:

Gut lining erosion

Liver/kidney overload

Immune suppression

Hormonal disruption

Dependency without healing

They don’t have time to fast. To detox. To reflect.

So they reach for the quick fix — over and over — until their own body breaks.

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LAYER 4: THE LIFESTYLE – FIRST CASUALTY OF THE HEALER

A typical doctor’s life is not what health looks like.

No morning walk

No sun exposure

No home-cooked meals

No bowel regularity

No deep rest

No connection to earth, breath, or gut

Screen fatigue and endless alarms

Health isn't taught.

And what isn’t taught… isn’t lived.

Compare this with a villager:

Eats fermented rice and buttermilk

Walks barefoot daily

Poops before sunrise

Sleeps early, rises with sun

Catches a cold — rests, not panics

No labs. No Google. No prescriptions.

Now ask again — who’s more likely to live past 70?

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LAYER 5: THE EGO – BLIND SPOT OF THE EDUCATED

Another quiet reason doctors don’t live long?

They stop being students.

Once they have a degree:

They resist learning from barefoot healers

Laugh at traditional wisdom

Think walking barefoot is superstition

Ignore fasting unless diabetic

See turmeric, castor oil, clay as quackery

But healing doesn’t come from textbooks.

It comes from the body — when we give it space.

Ego makes you blind to that space.

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LAYER 6: SOME DOCTORS DID IT DIFFERENTLY

Let’s not generalize.

There are exceptions — and we must learn from them.

🧓 Dr. BM Hegde

Age 85+. Calm. Active.

He rejected pharma’s dominance.

Talks about gut, food, fasting, castor oil, grounding.

Teaches that good health is simple, not expensive.

👣 Rural Naturopaths

No hospitals. No MRIs.

Just:

Clean bowel

Clean breath

Belly castor oil packs

Daily fasting

Deep rest

People walk in half-dead, walk out reborn.

Their doctors eat less, talk less, and live more.

These are not miracles.

They are simply human rhythms respected.

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LAYER 7: PHARMA ISN’T EVIL – JUST OERUSED

Let’s be clear:

Insulin saves lives.

Antibiotics have a role.

Emergency surgery is real.

Vaccines have helped society.

But…

Using crocin for every cold? No.

Statins at 35? Dangerous.

Antibiotics without gut repair? A mistake.

Treating chronic illness with lifelong pills? Tragic.

Modern medicine is amazing in emergencies.

But real health is what keeps you out of emergencies.

That part — the preventive, the daily, the gentle — is what most doctors never learn.

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LAYER 8: WHERE REAL HEALTH LIVES

You want to live beyond 70?

Look at those who already do — not the ones who die trying to fix others.

They do these things:

Wake before sun

Eat fermented, seasonal food

Walk barefoot

Do weekly castor oil detox

Fast twice a month

Sit on the floor

Breathe deep

Sleep by 9

Avoid heated arguments

Trust small symptoms

Fear nothing

Avoid screens at night

Let time and nature heal

They don’t Google every sneeze.

They don’t rush to hospitals for fever.

They let the body do its ancient work.

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EPILOGUE: DON’T LAUGH — LEARN

If you’re a doctor reading this — this is not to shame you.

It’s to remind you:

You were once a child with soft eyes and a big heart.

You wanted to help. You still can.

But to help others heal — you must heal first.

To restore the body — you must restore your breath, your gut, your silence.

You don’t need to quit your job.

But you can:

Eat better

Sleep well

Fast monthly

Question meds

Learn from grandmothers

Read the body, not just reports

Heal the healer — slowly, surely

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FINAL THOUGHT

So yes — many doctors don’t live past 70.

Not because they’re bad.

Not because they failed.

But because the system failed them — by never teaching them how to live.

Let’s fix that.

Let’s bring real health home again —

To the soil, the sun, the silence, and the self.

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THE DOCTOR WHO FORGOT TO HEAL HIMSELF

A slow-burn poem about the dying doctor and the dead system

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he walks in

white coat

shoes clean

hands washed

mind filthy with exhaustion,

coffee stains,

missed sunsets,

missed childhoods.

he walks like a man

who carries a god

in one pocket

and a death certificate

in the other.

you think he’s wise.

you think he’s well.

but he’s not.

he knows every bone

except his own aching back.

he’s read every disease

except the one growing quietly

inside his own breath.

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I. THE SCHOOL OF FORGETTING

they took a boy

with soft hands

and a quiet heart

and gave him a degree

and a deadened soul.

they taught him to cut

to name

to numb

to write drugs

like cheques he’ll never cash.

they never taught him to cook.

they never taught him to fast.

they never taught him what turmeric does

when it sits on a warm belly

under the sun.

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II. THE HOSPITAL WITH NO WINDOWS

he enters

a place of steel and gas

and fluorescent ceilings

where nothing breathes

and everything bleeds.

a place

where even gods wear gloves.

a place

where everyone’s in a hurry to die

and nobody has time

to rest.

the doctor moves from bed to bed

like a ghost with a stethoscope,

taking notes,

forgetting names,

forgetting himself.

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III. THE SLEEPLESS PROPHET

he hasn’t slept right in years.

his gut is a crime scene.

his skin is dry.

his bowels confused.

his neck stiff.

he gives you rest

without knowing it himself.

he tells you to eat light

while swallowing three pills

with two biscuits

and hospital chai.

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IV. THE PILLS HE PRESCRIBES TO HIMSELF

one for pressure.

one for sleep.

one for the acid that burns

from the stress of treating

people who never heal.

he knows the side effects.

he knows the black box warnings.

but he trusts the pill

more than the pause.

he thinks healing is speed

and not stillness.

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V. THE BODY THAT NEVER FASTED

his liver screams.

his kidneys beg.

his colon sulks

like a child in the corner

never listened to.

he says castor oil is old-fashioned.

he says barefoot walking is superstition.

he says fasting is dangerous.

he says turmeric is a spice,

not a solution.

he says too much.

his body whispers truth

but he has long forgotten how to hear.

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VI. THE EGO IN THE WHITE COAT

he laughs at the village healer

who sits quietly

and listens for an hour

before touching you.

he mocks the grandmother

who rubs warm oil

on her grandson’s chest

under the mango tree.

he thinks he’s smarter

because he studied for 10 years

in a building

where no one ever touched the earth.

he knows everything

except the rhythm

of his own breath.

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VII. THE SYSTEM THAT SWALLOWS THE SENSITIVE

he wasn’t always like this.

he once cried

when a child died.

he once skipped meals

to sit with a patient.

but they told him to move on.

they told him to hit targets.

they told him compassion doesn’t pay.

so now he walks quickly,

nods softly,

types faster,

prescribes blindly,

and dies slowly.

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VIII. THE GHOST OF THE HEALER

by 55

he’s on statins.

by 60

he’s in the ICU.

by 65

he’s attending funerals

of friends who never fasted

never breathed

never sat in silence.

by 68

he’s a man with a name

and no rhythm.

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IX. THE VILLAGER WHO OUTLIVED HIM

there’s an old woman in the next village

who’s never seen a hospital.

she walks barefoot to the well,

eats red rice with buttermilk,

sits in the sun every morning,

shits at 5 AM without effort.

she lost two teeth

but not her wisdom.

she fasts on Ekadashi

and tells stories

about the time when people healed

without prescriptions.

she doesn’t own a phone.

she doesn’t need one.

she knows the weather

by the birds

and her body

by the wind.

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X. THE CASTOR OIL BOTTLE IN THE BACK OF THE CUPBOARD

there’s a dusty bottle

in the back of the doctor’s cupboard.

castor oil.

unopened.

unseen.

unloved.

he thinks he’s too modern

for such simplicity.

but it sits there,

still pure,

still waiting,

like all the other things

he forgot to believe in.

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XI. THE CHILD HE NEVER TAUGHT

his daughter

eats processed snacks

scrolls at midnight

has acne at 12

irregular periods at 14

PCOD by 18.

and she asks him —

Papa, what should I take?

he doesn’t know.

he prescribes.

but he doesn’t know.

because

he never sat

under a neem tree.

he never rubbed warm oil

on his belly.

he never felt healing —

only treatment.

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XII. THE DOCTOR WHO COULD STILL COME BACK

somewhere deep in his gut

beneath the layers of pills, pride, and pressure

there’s a quiet place

still alive.

he can wake up.

he can return.

he can fast.

he can walk barefoot.

he can stop fearing fever

and start fearing silence.

he can heal

if he stops treating

and starts listening

again.

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EPILOGUE: FOR THE HEALERS WHO NEVER HEALED THEMSELVES

you are not too far gone.

you are not stupid.

you are not evil.

you are not alone.

you are tired.

you are trained wrong.

you are trapped.

but you can still sit down.

you can still drink buttermilk.

you can still breathe slowly.

you can still touch the earth

and remember.

the body remembers.

the gut forgives.

the liver sings

when it gets a break.

you can still teach your child

to walk barefoot,

to rest when tired,

to poop like a poet.

and maybe

just maybe

you can live

past seventy.

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Because healing isn’t loud.

It’s slow.

It’s gentle.

It’s barefoot.

And it begins with you.