DRUG FREE HEALTH CARE and WELLNESS

 

Drug free health care, there, l've said it!

This single statement gets many people from all sorts of positions fired up. Either to see it as the work of the flower-power hippy or the rapacious pharmaceutical companys worst enemy. Fundamentalists from all sides need to take a deep breath and re-examine some facts to achieve a balance which actually works.

The way people from a drug free perspective see it is that the first principle should be to have internal strength and power to overcome the health challenges of a modern world. This does not mean that drugs have no place as part of health care. If l had bacterial meningitis and raging secondary septicaemia then i'd be getting those antibiotics into my system as fast as I could. The whole point of the drug free movement is that of wellness. It is wholly probable that if l had been healthy and strong then the bacterial meningitis would never have occured in the first place.

Wellness means looking after yourself rather than running your system into the ground and expecting your local general practitioner to fix you up with a blood test and a miracle cure from Pfizer.

 

Our governmental system and our health system do not really promote or support wellness or disease prevention. How can we have a society where states and nations rely upon the taxes on cigarettes?

Human beings are born with their own intrinsic healing powers, chiropractic ferers to "innate intelligence". What is it that tells a skin cut to heal or your immune system to fight infection? All cultures have age-old traditions that facilitate these powers, from dance, prayer and touch through to plants for natural healing. It's only in the last century or so the idea of synthetic drugs has taken off and replaced that knowledge. A complicated series of events involving a lot of self-interest and corporate power has been behind it.

Modern healthcare is dominated by pharmaceutical, insurance and biotechnology companies overseen by governmental and political professional representative bodies. One outcome of this is that patient care is compromised by who will or can pay. Is the process cost-effective, does something cost too much? Are the pills available on a government rebate system? Health decisions are made by your level of insurance cover. Madness. 

Is it any wonder that healthcare consumers are voting with their feet and seeking out other methods of care? Even in the face of not telling their general practitioner or possibly even with direct opposition from them.

Surely the best way is to take the best of all methods of healthcare and work with the patient. Give the patient control and input into their own health through knowledge and choice. An integrative aproach is the most fruitful technique in having a healthy comunity.

The healthcare system is not working, it just copes,......just. We need to emphasize prevention and wellness from chiropractic and other so called alternative medicines with the best that allopathic medicine has to offer. Neither stands alone as a complex system.

Healthy Medicine as a Lifestyle Choice.

It is time to build a new way to approach health with a new focus, health and wellness. That will take a different notion of how we think of healthcare.

1. The ultimate objective must be to have wellness, where your health is maximized and your output is your choice and not controlled by disease.

2. Change the direction of healthcare from that of treating disease to that of that of promoting health and wellbeing in the whole person.

3. Wellness is seen as a health-promoting and disease-preventing lifestyle through personal control and practitioner care.

4. Chiropractic philosophy has as its core the concept of innate intelligence. The bodies capacity to self-heal is fundamental and to be enhanced by our life choices.

5. As individuals we need wellness care tailored to our needs, to our strengths and weaknesses.

6. Wellness care should integrate the best of current medical and complementary healthcare to provide the most efficient care. If relevant to the disease it is best to try health-promoting methods first but if they do not work then it is time to quickly introduce pharmaceutical or invasive medical techniques,

The Simple Principles of Being Well

Sometimes we as modern and highly educated people just aren't that smart. We have an amazing capacity to complicate the simple. Many people have enjoyed long and healthy lives for thousands of years  before becoming "educated".

One of the problems is the "reductionist" method that we wittingly or unwittingly apply to our lives. We feel tired in the morning because we say we are too busy. We feel we need an answer. The modern educated person always wants the answer now! The television advertisement says l can get my answer in a can from the refrigerator. Instead of reaching for the so-called energy drink in a can full of this this, that and the other why not try turning off the phone, television or computer and getting to bed an hour earlier?

There is a barrage of quick fixes out there for us in the modern world. Most of them are masks and a faulty platform from which to be healthy and well. They are actually a small wedge undermining an edifice of health. Sooner or later those wedges cause a major collapse and we all seem surprised that we are unwell.

The principles of being well are almost too simple.

1. Nutrition
2. Exercise
3. Lifestyle
4. Environment
5. Mind

1. NUTRITION

Where do we start? This could be as simple or as complex as we want. To my mind the reason we have so much information, misinformation and malinformation is because there are so many angles that people look at what we consume by mouth.

From a consumers perspective we can look at and are shown food from the angles of;

The list could go on. No wonder people are confused. Where do our disjointed messages and half-truths and part-facts come from? Our resource base unfortunately is an amalgam of sources.

Thoughts on Eating

It's no wonder our nutrition knowledge is a shambles. Hendrie, Coveney and Cox, Public Health Nutrition (2008), 11:1365-1371, found that basic information about eating more fruit, vegetables and fibre, and less fatty and salty foods were known by most. However, more detailed nutrition information was poor, particularly within some demographics.

It must be a human condition to make the simple complex. I believe food and nutrition to be the same, simple. For the great majority who are just average people with average needs the following is a straight forward approach to doing the right thing by your body.

1. Don't eat too much or too little, this isn't that hard for most of us to work out surely. Don't measure every piece of food. It's just unsustainable as a practice for most of us leading to more "failure" and giving up.

2. Focus on food that has had little or no processing. Fruit and vegetables as they arrive from nature. Apples are unprocessed, apple juice is processed. How do l know if something is processed? If it has packaging and a best-by date then it has a high chance of being processed. Processing has a number of potential problems that influence the quality of the nutrition. The processes may involve canning, heating, freezing, refrigeration, dehydration, concentrating, chemical addition, preserving and aseptic processing..... amongst others. Not all of this is evil. Just recognize and keep it to a minimum where possible

3. Try whole grain product. White rice is processed, the husk (fibre) has been removed to make it "easier" to eat. This means you eat more and get less, a poor nutrition outcome l would say. Percy Cerutty, the legendary Australian running coach of Herb Elliot, John Landy and Betty Cuthbert in the 1950's and 1960's was even then of this view. Amongst many other things he forbade his athletes to eat white (processed) flour as it was like a poison without the its husk

4. Foods prepared outside the home you obviously  have less control over. Minimize how often this happens. Once a week is plenty in my view. Food from fast food outlets is often high in kilojoules, salt and fat and low in fibre so you eat more of the energy dense food. Not good nutrition because of what you get too much of and too less of.

5. Eating food with lots of fibre has a number of benefits. It's great for your gastrointestinal tract and it fills your hunger with lower kilojoule food.

6. Eat a wide variety of unprocessed or minimally interfered with food.

7. Habits! Learn good ones, practice them, use them and TEACH them to your children. It is a crime what we feed and teach our children about nutrition. Lots of people are doing a good job but equally one look at childhood obeity would suggest we have a long way to go.

Some Specifics

To be more specific about the broader food to be consumed or limited;

  • emphasize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
  • include lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
  • be low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt  and added sugars.

    • How does Nutrition help Wellness?

    Just remember that we are talking about nutrition in regard to being well. Wellness in relation to nutrition refers to a number of factors

     These don't seem like too much to ask for do they and l'll guarantee we all want them.

    2. EXERCISE

    Exercise and wellness are synomonous and inseparable. In our modern society we are confronted with a barrage of ways to exercise which probably reflects that there is no real single answer. I also believe there to be more than one way and that depends upon many factors. Your age, sex, culture, living environment, personality and exposures are all going to influence what you make of exercise.

    People regularly ask me "what is the best exercise for me"? My answer is always the same. Most exercise is good. However, it is not the exercise that is good but its repetition that creates ongoing value. Thus it doesn't really matter if the latest craze is pilates. Sure it is good but if you don't like it you won't do it and then the exercise form is of little value.

    You must find the activity to be interesting, enjoyable, have purpose and be repeatable. 

    Exercise as a notion has been around for quite some time.

     1.  Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.)

    "if we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health"

    2.  Galen (A.D. 129-210)

    "those movements which do not alter respiration are not called exercise"

    3.  A. Cornelius Celsus (ca.10-60)

    "take exercise: for whilst inaction weakens the body, work strengthens it; the former brings on premature old age, the latter prolongs youth"

    4.  Hieronymus Mercuralis (1530-1606)

    "exercise is deliberate and planned movement of the human frame, accompanied by breathlessness, and undertaken for the sake of health or fitness..."

     

    So we can see by the writings of these learned fellows that exercise is good, few would disagree. Just what constitutes exercise?

    Well gymnasiums have existed certainly as far back as the ancient Greeks with periods of growth in various parts of Europe in the 1800's and since. American schools have had in abundance sinse the 1930's. Popularity within the wider community where people just went to them to "get fit" probably didn't happen in great numbers until the 1970's.

    Nowadays if the phrase "time to get fit" is mentioned then the chances are that people are referring to a gymnasium, pool, sporting ground or studio where you formalize some type of program, hone some skills and repeat. It is my broad observation that most people who start fail the test sooner or later.  That test is that of repeatability. Before too long you will here one or more of the following reasons as to why the program has come to a halt.

     What is really going on here? The issues are numerous but a few stand out front.

    Firstly, exercise is seen as an add-on to your life. By this l mean that not much else changes except you are doing exercise as well. The process of formalizing exercise has not really been done. People try and jam it in between work and home, except on a Tuesday when Isabelle has tennis and Wednesday when l have a late meeting and of course Friday means doing the shopping on the way home. There isn't genuinely space there for exercise to be regular, pleasurable and consistent. The great likelihood is that the exercise pattern will be interrupted and probably not recover.

    Fact; to make room for exercise you must remove something from your day. Let the children walk from school one day, turn the TV off from stuff that really does nothing for you except be a time thief, go to bed earlier and get up earlier- MAKE the time available.

    Secondly, most people have an early burst of enthusiasm, they go hard and often. It's usually within six weeks that it gets too hard or an injury occurs and once again we have a break in the pattern, probably terminal.

    Fact; it is far better to exercise 3 times per week for 48 weeks a year than 5 times a week for 4 weeks then hurt yourself and stop and start. You've seen it all before.

    Thirdly and most important in my eyes. People are yet to catch on that the most valuable exercise you can get is the incidental type. Think about how much life exercise has decreased with access to elevators, automatic carwashes, remote controls, internet shopping, electric golf buggies, restaurant drive-thru's, lawn-mowing services, house-cleaning services, clothes dryers, cordless phones and motor cars. Engaging in more incidental activity can help boost our daily kilojoule expenditure and keep our metabolism burning through the day.

    Here are some more examples we all might like to try:

    Fact; Our modern lives have us completely at a disadvantage when it comes to exercise- but only if we LET it. Act with purpose and planning.

    Wellness and exercise are inseparable

    3. LIFESTYLE

    Looking at what has passed before us is instructive. Looking at what other cultures, even within our own, can provide obvious signposts that we cn learn from.

    It is the simple lifestyles that promote living well and living long.

    Simplifying your lifestyle and pursuing healthy habits will provide the reward you are looking for. This certainly isn't rocket science. We all can see someone isn't well. Which combination of the following unhealthy lifestyles do you think they suffer from?

    These are but a few examples of lives that, staggeringly, are far more "normal" and conventional that others. They are actually examples of lives out of control and the complete opposite of wellness.

    How did they happen? Mostly it is like some kind of morphing process. One thing happens, it seems like a good idea, it gets repeated and before too long you have a conventional habit. One person leaves an office an isn't replaced. One month later it is accepted that the work that used to be done by 6 people is now done by 5. Somebody makes 20 cold-calls in a day, soon it becomes the new standard. One child expresses an interest in guitar, soon you have 3 nights of music lessons. We could go on and on.

    We readily place value on these things. Why not? Music is important for many reasons, as is keeping a job. The problem is that largely we are acted upon and allow things to reach their failure point without being aware of the potential. This is because we haven't been trained to value peace and simplicity. If we ask people l'm sure they would say they value it yet we don't really understand that peace and simplicity are actually action steps that need to be pursued.

    So, how do we pursue wellness through peace and simplicity? Here are a few suggestions.

    Giving yourself the time, room and purpose to have a healthy lifestyle will have dramatic effects upon your wellness. It creates the potential to improve your body, mind and spirit.

    4. ENVIRONMENT

    Envirnmental factors have more impact on your wellness than you may imagine. The effects can be subliminal or direct. The environment you expose yourself to can be positive and uplifting or negative and stressful. You may not even be aware of its influence. 

    The effects of your environment can be subliminal as seen on days of different light conditons. On a sunny day most of us feel better about ourselves than on a dull overcast day. The effect is instant.

    Chinese feng shui is an art devoted to constructing your physical environment to optimize energy flow in your home and work situations to reflect the energy needed in that particular place. It thereby can alter your moods and make you relaxed and productive or alternatively stressed and pessimistic. You probably won't even know why.

    The effect of the environment can be direct.Your mood is influenced by a complex web of relationships between sunlight, melatonin (the sleep hormone) and serotonin (the hormone associated with wakefulness and elevated mood). As darkness falls, your melatonin levels naturally increase and as the dawn emerges, melatonin levels decrease.

    Serotonin levels increase when you're exposed to bright light -- a major reason why moods tend to be more elevated during the summer. This hormone is the basis of today's most popular and successful antidepressant drugs, selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These drugs work by helping naturally produced serotonin stay in the bloodstream longer (its normal reuptake from circulation is slowed down), keeping your mood and energy levels higher for longer.

    It is well known that bright-light therapy can bring quick benefits to people with depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder since light affects the melatonin-serotonin system and elevates mood.Knowldge of the power of the sun has been around for thousands of years. Egyptians built sun gardens, the Greeks had helioses, and the Romans constructed their Solaria. All were measures to fortify the body with sun rays. Hippocrates, who is hailed as the father of modern medicine, but whose curative ideas are ignored by our drug-happy culture, built the sanitarium of Hippocrates on the Island of Cos with a large solarium attached to heal with sun rays. "Sol est remediorum maximum," or, the sun is the best remedy, is a line that Pliny the younger gave us in the first century A.D.

    Many people feel a change in their arthritic symptoms when surrounded by damp and cold conditions as found with falling barometric pressure. The theories that attempt to explain this are several with no conclusive evidence to date. One plausible theory suggests that the already inflammed arthritic tissues expand even more with the falling barometric pressure of an approaching cold front and subsequently cause even more pain. 

    Sick-Building Syndrome is another direct influence on your wellness. Symptoms of this include irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and skin, headache, migraine, lethargy, tiredness, concentration problems, asthma, nausea, colds and flu's.

     Don't make the mistake of thinking this is only an office or work environment problem. Your home has plenty of potential to cause the same problems. Some of the causes of sick-building syndrome include;

    Be aware that you wouldn't volunteer to breathe these chemicals in. Yet what we don't know is that many of these chemicals are being emitted from within our work and living environments all the time. They have an impact on your wellness.

     5. MIND

    The mind is like the last frontier. Difficult to see, feel, control and measure. Yet its powers are there for us to see everyday if only we were taught how to look and harness.

    "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it", is a phrase we hear from time to time. Where this comes from is long lost but the anonymous author and those who have repeated it are paying service to something we have all seen. The power of the mind to influence what happens to us.

    "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." - Buddha

    We are aware that environmental factors such as air quality, exercise, pollution, diet and chemicals  can control our gene expressions and the ways we function. That is to say that genetic expression  is modifiable and can be influenced.  There are current beliefs that we are victims of predetermined genetic codes but others give insight into how our perceptions of our inner and outer environments shape our biology and behavior.  That indeed we are able to construct our own wellness around the foundations of a genetic code we were granted.

    What are we to make of the mind-body interplay and how it impacts on wellness? Anyone who has watched a scarey movie will note that even though we know it is ficticious, that it is acting and being displayed on an electronic device,....in the comfort of your own living room, yet we still demonstrate signs of stress and fear. Our body responds emotionally and physically. Our heart rate and blood pressure increase, we become more sensitive to sight and hearing and our muscle tension rises.The hypothalamus in the brain appears to control the first physical response. When a human receives a visual, auditory or other sensory stimulus that is recognized as potentially dangerous, the neurons from the eye or other sensory organ send a signal directly to the amygdala. The amygdala then stimulates the hypothalamus to produce corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). The release of CRH triggers the pituitary gland's secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to secrete cortisol. Cortisol in the bloodstream causes an increase in glucose production to provide fuel for the brain and muscles to deal with perceived stress.

    Fearful and negative thoughts stimulate our stress responses in this manner and thereby have an influence on our wellness. Evidence is strong that prolonged stress can increase the risk of any of the following;

  • Raised cholesterol level, increased heart rate and blood pressure, coronary heart disease
  • Smoking and other poor health habits
  • Digestive disturbance, ulcers, constipation and reflux 
  • Tension, headaches and muscular pain
  • Depressive moods, apathy, hopelessness and crying
  • Anxiety and panic attacks
  • Binge drinking, secret drinking and alcoholism
  • Menstrual irregularities
  • Over and under eating
  • Sleep disturbance, excessive sleep and insomnia
  • Irritability and anger management problems 
  • Job dissatisfaction and reduced aspiration
  • Poor concentration, memory problems, indecision, threat related thinking, confusion, inability to consider alternatives
  • Eczema and other skin disorders
  • Fatigue, over activity, inefficiency, poor performance, accidents
  • Increased susceptibility to minor illnesses
  • Sexual Problems
  • Drug abuse

    •  We can see that the mind and its responses can be damaging to our body. While the body is busy responding to fear and negativity it stops doing wellness things properly.  The body does not manufacture new cells as well and the immune system starts to fail. Parasites, viruses and bacteria that ordinarily would be dispensed with take hold and we become sick, not to mention more stressed. Our own tissues weaken and fail.

    The good news. The problems mentioned above are real but since they have in effect been initiated by the mind then changing your mind has the capacity to set the scene for healing. We need to devote time, energy and resources to developing brain programs and patterns that promote wellness-fulfilling responses to the environmental stimuli we encounter. Be careful what you wish for!

    The subconcious mind is trained by your perceptions of the world around you. It behaves and responds according to the way you have interacted with parents, school, community and the broader world. It shapes our mental and physical reactions to stimuli, what we say, what we do and what we think. Not all of these responses are good.

     Further education may frighten you. Your teachers used to say you weren't smart and marked you harshly. Your dad criticized your school report and told you to stop wasting time by continuing your education and just get a job. Subconcious programs about you have been formed so you become fearful and stressed by new exposures and challenges. Easy, just don't start anything, right? Not really. Life is full of new situations that require you to initiate and respond to.

    If life is to be healthy and well we must become responsible for these subconcious programs. Realize what they are, understand how they interfere in your life and prevent you from being well. Devote time and energy to undo the old and relearn healthy responses that facilitate positive responses to your world. Rid yourself of the old negative, poisonous, debilitating and destructive programming. By reframing your subconcious perceptions and responses you will change your mind which will change your internal environments and so chamge your wellness.

    Sounds pretty easy doesn't it? It isn't. Just how do we go about changing our responses? Particularly in a world were the powerless and suffering are medicated to "fix" the problem. Antidepressants are one of the most prescribed medications in the world today. There are a number of differing types but common antidepressants prescribed are Lexapro, Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, Avanza and Endep. They can be an important step in getting you into a position of stability and control but rarely are they the answer alone. Unfortunately our medical system, community and family are poorly trained and experienced in how and where to go beyond the medication. We just hope we will "snap out of it" or it will just go away. Not likely.

    We need to do more, a lot more. We need techniques and professionals who can help us reshape our perceptions and interactions with the world to help us become well again. Take responsibility for developing real and healthy responses to the environment around us and our wellness will improve. Discuss this with your health professional. If they don't suggest it themselves then take responsibility yourself. Ask about recommendations for a psychologist, Gestalt therapist, Cognitive Behavioural therapist or other professional who can challenge the current perceptions and responses you have. Behavioural therapy is based on the theory that mental disorders and depressive thinking can be caused by maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. Therapists teach depressed patients to identify and change distorted patterns of thinking and making judgments, as well as behaviors that will improve their mood and life situation. A wealth of research suggests that this form of psychotherapy is effective with a wide range of people who are depressed. Coassistance with antidepressants is considered a valuable ally.

    As discussed earlier wellness can be influences by nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, environment and mind. What can we do on a day to day basis to improve our thinking and positively change our wellness?

    1. Give your brain the water and nutrition it needs. Cut the rubbish
    2. Give the brain carrier, your body, the exercise it needs to stimulate healthy circulation
    3. Give thanks for what is good in your life, appreciate and acknowledge the positive
    4. Recognize what is good for you and do it
    5. Some actions are poisonous, get rid of them
    6. Some people are poisonous, avoid them
    7. Some thoughts are negative, they don't help, change them
    8. Spend time with people who uplift you, not those who drag you down
    9. Give time to people who you can help and uplift
    10. Create time for yourself and give room to develop
    11. Establish habits that invest in you. Meditate, educate, appreciate and love
    12. Learn how to breathe
    13. Learn how to smile
    14. Find your purpose
    15. Find beauty in your surrounds, what you see, hear, smell and taste
    16. Visualize you and your future successes, repeat daily

     This is all designed to reprogram your subconcious programming and change your reactions and responses into ones that help you rather than bring you down. Our capacity to control what we think is our most powerful tool. We just are not encouraged or taught how to deal with it. We are largely unaware of our subconcious programs and how we got them. To experience better wellness we need to alter this perception and create a whole new world of interactions with the people around us. 

    My philosophy is one of setting realistic goals and education is always an important part of my treatment.

    grounding in contemporary medical science and clinical diagnosis. She believes the effectiveness of naturopathic treatment stems from a holistic approach that capitalises on the body's innate capacity for healing and is tailored to your own unique situation and requirements

    It is also ideally designed to prevent health problems by supporting people to participate in their own health care.

    I am particularly interested in the impact of emotions on health and the significance of mind-body communication in disease and well being

    She uses the principles of activity, and a positive approach, combined with lifestyles changes such as dietary modification, and a regular stretching and exercise program to manage recovery from injury. She believes that by upgrading activity and having the patient become less reliant on passive therapy, they can aid in their own recovery.

    I value the importance of education where patients discover how to manage their health and support their body, mind and spirit in healing disease."

    A GP is an ideal person tor the gooo coordinate an individual's health care and helps with decisions on which medical or complementary therapies may be appropriate. A GP can also provide medical screening and diagnosis for those wishing to use complementary therapies, while monitoring their condition and response to complementary treatment

    Chiropractic care offers a safe, proven and effective drug-free choice in spinal health care.

    "Chiropractic can help you get to the cause of your pain and most importantly, it helps you to maintain your long term spinal health and maximise the body's overall health and performance,"

    "Australians need to consider that back pain could be a sign of something more significant, and should not be viewed as an inevitable fact of life that should be put up with," she said. "Back pain can be an indicator of how poor lifestyle choices are affecting an individual's spinal health.

    "Lack of exercise is one of the key contributing factors to back pain and poor spinal health along with other big-picture lifestyle choices such as diet, smoking and poor posture.

    "Making good lifestyle choices and maintaining your spinal health are keys to reducing the risk of back pain and leading a healthy life."

    The philosophy of wellness does not exclude working with the medical fraternity. Their knowledge and training is huge. It should be harnessed, nurtured and used in a partnership for the good of your patient.

    Take responsibility for your health. Ask, learn and accumulate knowledge about health, wellness and longevity.