The Discipline We Forgot — And Why Fasting Is Waking People Up

Today reminded me of something ancient societies understood instinctively but modern life seems built to forget: the body doesn’t thrive under constant feeding, constant stimulation, or constant comfort. It thrives under rhythm. Under restraint. Under the quiet intelligence that rises when we stop stuffing noise into every corner of our lives — and every corner of our stomachs.

I posted a simple line online today:

“Fasting heals 60% of modern diseases.”

Cue the tidal wave. Comments, questions, praise, skepticism, and a few people who looked like they hadn’t gone ten minutes without a snack since 2008. The thread blew up so fast I couldn’t possibly reply to each person. But the reaction itself is revealing: in an age drowning in overconsumption, one sentence about restraint feels revolutionary.

And maybe it should.

Because the truth is painfully simple:

Most modern illness isn’t from scarcity; it’s from surplus.

Overeating, overscheduling, overthinking. As one era starved itself to death, ours is bloating itself into disability. Ancient people weren’t saints — they simply didn’t have refrigerators, Uber Eats, and 24/7 access to industrial-grade calories. Their bodies had room to repair. Ours don’t.

But fasting? Fasting gives that space back.

Not as a trend. Not as punishment.

As biology returning to form.

The Ancient Logic in a Modern Body

People online always want hard science. Fair — so here it is in plain English:

When you stop eating for long enough, your body:

Lowers inflammation
Reduces insulin resistance
Cleans damaged cells (autophagy)
Repairs tissue
Resets immune activity
Gives your gut a break from irritation
Stops the metabolic chaos we call “normal life”

This isn’t spirituality. It’s physiology marching in the same footsteps it has marched for millions of years. We’re not built to graze from dawn till midnight. We are built to cycle.

Ask a doctor how to fix ulcerative colitis.

Ask another doctor how to fix type 2 diabetes.

Ask a third how to fix chronic inflammation.

Every single one of those conditions eases when you remove the metabolic pressure cooker.

Sure, fasting isn’t a cure-all — nothing honest ever is. But if you remove the cause of the fire, the house tends to stop burning. Common sense got buried under a mountain of modern convenience.

Today’s comments reminded me: people are starving for truth more than food.

The Question Everyone Asked

One of the top replies today was:

“Does it help ulcerative colitis?”

The short answer:

It helps the inflammation, not the diagnosis.

The longer answer:

We’ve turned the gut into a toxic battlefield. Too much food. Too many irritants. Too little rest. A digestive system that never stops working eventually stops repairing. Fasting breaks that cycle — it quiets the storm long enough for the tissue to breathe.

It’s not magic.

It’s not myth.

It’s a truce.

And sometimes a truce is the first step toward healing.

My Landlord’s Two-Minute Surgery

Someone asked about my landlord’s ongoing colon cancer procedures — a two-minute clinic visit where something gets cut or cauterized every month. That’s modern medicine: efficient, decisive, clinical. And necessary.

We live in a world where disease escalates faster than we’re willing to admit. And yet most of us cling to the illusion that health is something you “take,” not something you build.

If we fasted more, moved more, slept more, stressed less, and ate real food instead of edible entertainment, half the medical system would lose its customers. But that’s exactly the point: healing doesn’t require permission. It requires personal responsibility.

Ancient people knew this deeply.

Modern people remember it only when pain forces them to.

Why Fasting Feels Like a Threat

Scrolling through today’s comments, I noticed a pattern. Some people were curious. Some were grateful. Some were defensive in a way that bordered on panic, as if missing one meal might shatter civilization.

But that’s modern psychology of comfort:

We don’t fear death.

We fear inconvenience.

If you tell someone they’re overeating, it sounds like an accusation.

If you tell someone they can heal themselves, it sounds like a burden.

The traditional mind didn’t work like that. It didn’t expect medicine to be easy or convenient. It understood that hardship refines, discipline sharpens, and restraint is a purifier of both body and spirit.

Today?

People want every cure except the one that requires effort.

The Real reason Fasting Is Powerful

Fasting isn’t just about the stomach.

It’s about the discipline behind the stomach.

When you willingly withhold something, you rewire your relationship with need, craving, impulse, and fear. You learn what you actually are when comfort is stripped away. That clarity is the real medicine.

No drug can give you that.

No supplement can fake it.

No doctor can prescribe it.

People today aren’t sick because their bodies betrayed them.

They’re sick because modernity betrayed their biology.

And the solution isn’t mystical.

It’s rhythmic.

The Lesson of the Day

There is something timeless about fasting — something ancient that fits into the modern body better than most of the technologies we desperately cling to. It’s a return to the default settings. A reminder that the body is wise when the mind stops interrupting it.

Today’s flood of comments proved something I’ve suspected for a while:

People know something is wrong.

People feel the imbalance.

People sense that healing is simpler than we pretend.

But they don’t know where to start.

So here’s where you start:

Stop eating for a while.

Let your system breathe.

Let your inflammation fall.

Let your gut rest.

Let nature back into the doorway of your body.

This isn’t radical.

This is how human beings lived for 99% of history.

The radical idea is that eating nonstop is healthy — and it’s killing us slowly.

If fasting were a pill, it would be a trillion-dollar industry.

But because it can’t be sold, it gets attacked.

And yet it works.

Not a miracle. Not a cure-all.

Just the oldest medicine we forgot.

And today reminded me that people are finally ready to remember.