Dr. Bindya Singh has been a proponent of healthy living since she was a teenager. Her new book “Nine Easy Steps to Complete Health and Well-Being” discusses her healthy-living approach.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Dr. Bindya Singh, 45, has been interested in living healthy – physically and mentally – since her teenage years, which gives her a lot of expertise on the subject. In her new book, “Nine Easy Steps to Complete Health and Well-Being,” Singh puts this expertise to work. 

Singh became interested in spiritual health when she was about 15 years old when she accompanied both of her arthritis-stricken grandmothers to religious conferences, looking for help with their affliction. According to Singh, she enjoyed the religious trips with her grandmothers because she learned about the peace and calm that can come from spiritual conversations. 

Several years later, Singh said she became infatuated with living well and preventive health. “A lot of my friends would be reading novels on romance and stuff and I would just be sitting in a library looking at information on health, whether it is diet or whether it’s mental health or whether it’s meditation,” she said.

This focus on spiritual health, mental health and a healthy body stayed with Singh throughout her life.

A healthy mind, body and spirit are the three cornerstones to Singh’s new book on health. “Unless you can control your mind, you really cannot address the needs of your body,” she said. Singh is the director of outreach and community education at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, specializing in neonatology and pediatrics, and a clinical faculty member at Stanford University. She went to medical school at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, India. Singh is also the founder of the Healthy Center Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy living. 

In her book, Singh talks about the importance of a stress-free, positive attitude mindset. She said negative attitudes can have long-term effects on bodies, which can lead to harmful physical effects like hypertension, stress-induced heart attacks and depression.

“Just like in real estate, they say ‘Location, location, location,’ I say in mental health, it’s very important to address ‘Attitude, attitude, attitude,” she said.

She added that people can relieve their minds from stress through meditation, which she delves into by talking about simple steps to master the practice.

Singh labels useful tips to take care of a person’s attitude and stress “ABCD.” The “A” stands for attitude and addressing yourself; the “B” stands for bringing in the experts – whether in reading, music or books on tape, she said it is important to keep the company of inspirational experts who can bring out the best in a person; “C” stands for the company a person keeps, and that everyone should monitor the people close to them, because if there are negative attitudes surrounding a person, it will rub off; and “D” stands for people developing their environment by surrounding themselves with positive colors and pictures to help them feel good.

She also writes about how to organize a busy daily life to find time for healthy living. Singh is a physician, an intensivist, and has three children, yet she has found time for herself. As an example of a creative way to take advantage of time for a healthy living, Singh relays how she lost the weight of giving birth to her third child, about 10 years ago, by setting up a treadmill next to the TV and exercising while her son watched a series on learning the ABCs.

“You have to innovate and instead of finding excuses not to do it, you should find reasons to do the right thing,” she said.  

Singh’s book also covers topics like eating right, sleeping right and exercising. She said her book addresses the long-term needs of living well, which helps differerentiate it from many of the other diet and exercise books out there today.

“This book completes the picture because it gives you all the aspects of health that you need to get under your belt,” she said.

The roots of Singh’s book stem from a period in her life when she was reading and attending conferences and seminars on health-related subjects.

According to Singh, she took copious notes on these topics and began writing her book about nine years ago, after deliverying a baby. She admits she still cannot explain why she started writing, but said it consumed her.

She said she originally wrote for herself, her family and friends, but her parents told her to go further with her information since it presented such a full view of health, unlike today’s segmented books that only focus on eating well or the body, for instance.

Singh said her book is for anyone who cares about themselves, their families, and want to attain not just physical, but also long-lasting mental and spiritual health. She said it contains information to help anyone looking to control their life and be healthy and happy. 

“Destiny is the choices you make with the chances that you’re given. So I hope that we all can make healthy and happy choices,” she said.