Please keep in mind the distinction between healing and treatment: treatment originates from outside, whereas healing comes from within. – Andrew Weil
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, and in the cause and prevention of disease. – Thomas Edison
As of today, we begin a new series, shifting the focus from sustainable/green living, which was the topic of the last series, to health.
Health is the greatest wealth, but it seems to be a commodity that, while much in demand, is hard to grasp. Everyone wants to be healthier, but the way most people go about it, is hard to attain.
In the U.S., medical costs are skyrocketing, as are insurance premiums. At the same time, all that money spent is not doing much good in helping people become healthier; sickness rates across the board keep going up, up, up.
The U.S. medical system is a sick care system, not a health care system. It knows nothing about how to help people live healthier lives; it is all about trying to arrest illness – and at that it’s not doing a great job.
And so, over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking about health and how to be healthier in a variety of ways.
Eating well is the foundation for being healthy, but the cultivation of overall good health and wellness includes other factors, and is ultimately about developing the right approach and mindset. If you do that, good health becomes easy to achieve and maintain.
Being in good health allows you to easily live a Low Density Lifestyle, while being in ill health is not conducive to it. Unfortunately, most people are walking around in poor health, and are taking medications in order that they can function, be productive and carry on in their daily routine.
Medications have a number of inherent problems, and do not help to restore health. All they do at best is arrest symptoms and keep you functioning. They can cause side effects that range from mild to severe, can be toxic to the liver, can depress the immune system and can lead to other long-term health problems.
The key to developing good health is empowering yourself and being proactive. If you are not feeling well, this is a signal from the body that something is amiss. If you learn to listen to what the body is saying, and take that message to heart, you will start becoming healthier.
One of the inevitable side effects of a High Density Lifestyle, which is a lifestyle of high stress, is illness. Just the stress of living this way will sooner or later catch up to you.
Now, I’m not saying that you should never take a medication—there are times when they are necessary, but they should only be seen as a bridge, a temporary remedy while you work on the permanent solution.
The great majority of people seek out a doctor when they are not feeling well, with the hope that the doctor will have the answers. But did you know that most physicians are immersed in a High Density Lifestyle? A study published in the September 2008 medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine found that when physicians are in medical school, 50% suffer from burnout and 10% consider suicide.
If this is what they go through when they are trained, how can the profession be of help in understanding how to help a person get off the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle?
I’ll continue in this vein tomorrow, talking about health and how to achieve it.