The Unified Theory of Health & Disease
(Hygiene- A Balance w/ Nature)
“Evolving a Holistic Cultural Healthcare Practice”
This book is an optimistic look into the future of healthcare. We have no idea what challenges to our health lie ahead of us: pandemics, wars, or regional calamities. However, as we have seen longevity & quality of life improve in over one century of applying a better understanding of our natural world (through community hygiene & personal care), we have the fundamental principles to build not only an advanced disease-model of medicine but a synergistic, umbrella wellness-care model.
The “Unified Theory of Health & Disease” offers new systems of thinking to enhance both approaches to health; disease-based & Wellness-based. The meta view here, however, is the opportunity to see a common vision, intent & purpose in merging these two perspectives. For the Researcher, the Physician/Caregiver, and for the Patient.
In the traditional sense, a scientist needs a problem to solve in order to form a hypothesis. In that case, this treatise is to resolve a singular definition for “health”; I.e. the “entity” to address. Is it the potential for homeostasis of the individual or community, or is it the instability & the potential for the disease to progress.
These are the basis of 2 common models out there.
I see a future where Medicine & Wellness align.
“It’s not just disease prevention, not a fear of suffering; living in the presence of an impending doom. It’s engaging the promises of wellness, consciously living a vitality for life.” - Fenn
There’s a clear difference between standing up for what is wrong and stepping forward in acting in passion for what is right. “It’s better to fight for something than against something.”
Although our society in general needs to re-define “health”, understanding it as an inner potential, elan-vital, or innate source, is older than the written-word.
Some professions & many professionals are holistic in facilitating empowerment of the individual & community by complementing the spirit-body-mind’s systems’, tissues’ & cells’ homeostasis. The practitioners intent is wellbeing - a recognition, acknowledgement & resultant awakening of the patient to their one treasure, their birthright - a knowing of our true selves; our inner source of health & being. This is unique to the intent of “treating” disease.
‘So many spokes on the wheel of health. Our physical & spiritual, conscious & unconscious, active & inactive components of lifestyle are all contributing or detracting from a great benevolent potential. Teaching people their health is the single source; found within & shared inside-out and that disease is a response to a imbalance or obstruction to the real source of health; a myriad of reactive expressions to the loss of health, enables the patient to be in “harmony” with all other embodiments of the life-potential; the source of health. To live in homeostasis with the benevolence called “life”.
“Fear emerges from the thought of a second.”
CHAPTER QUOTE:
“The vociferous catastrophes of a general order - fires, wars, epidemics - are one single pain, illusory multiplied in many mirrors.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges
The current medical system has a heroic history. Our modern Western medical “healthcare” model was borne out of a military response to acute injuries on the battlefield & from rampant infectious diseases emerging out of the the close proximity of people without hygienic infrastructure & absent public healthcare measures in the explosive growth of cities.
Our modern Western medical “healthcare” model was borne out of a military response to acute injuries on the battlefield & from infectious diseases emerging out of the the close proximity of people without hygienic infrastructure in the explosive growth of cities.
CHPTR QUOTE
Margulis: “cooperation & networking is the successful nature of competition.”
Margulis and Sagan (1996), "Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking".
Authors statement: “STRENGTHEN US & OURS RATHER THAN WEAKEN THEM & THEIRS”
https://www.isepp.org/Pages/San%20Jose%2004-05/MargulisSaganSJ.html
We’ve seen the fitness & Wellness trend steadily emerge in the past 60 yrs, & hit a major “tipping point” in the 21st century w/ wellness transforming every industry from food to travel. The public became inundated w/ media attention to “Oz, Chopra, & Weil”. By 2014, half of global businesses used health promotion strategies & a third had official wellness programs.
Now Wellness is firmly entrenched in medical institutions & government programs. The “Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine” has over 60 members including Yale, Harvard & the Mayo Clinic.
However, for the medical industry; for the medically trained, what is the underlying focus, passion, study? Health? Or Disease? If disease of the “entity” being studied, how is it related to health? Simply a lack of health due to a bodily, injury, dysfunction, deficiency, or an imposing lesion or pathogen?
What if the “entity” was the homeostatic nature of the body; of life, a coordinated balance within & among each of the organism’s cells, tissues, organs & organ systems? Should this be the focus: Care of the cells, tissues & systems of the body, and their essential cooperative networking relationships, to maximize homeostasis?
As a humanistic study, Healthcare is a philosophy, a science, and an art.
Does healthcare promote & enhance health or “treat” symptoms & disease to enable vitality?
Yet, the current U.S. healthcare model lacks a philosophy; a central conceptual science which provides a clear, central objective for the practitioner to contribute to.
Bias creates defense language to support the minds’ theories. For instance, the disease-based healthcare theory holds the liver is well able to manage it’s detoxifying abilities until a state of disease. The holistic-based healthcare theory holds that the liver is compromised much earlier than signs or symptoms of a major, diagnosable pathology reveals it’s self. Medicine uses the term “prodromal” (Latin for “running before”) to explain subtle, early signs & symptoms that indicate a specific disease. The art & science of disease are well-established & held tightly, proprietarily, in medicine. For the medical mind to grasp the idea of care for the body prior to signs & symptoms would entail adopting the premise that health is compromised w/ homeostatic overload much earlier than medical definitions recognize. (Furthermore, any intervention would be based on subtle findings w/o the usual pathology history or opportunity for the pt to obviously respond to treatment. )
Clinical Quality-
“Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis” ~ Sir William Osler
“You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
The microbial world is complex & intertwined with all life - even w/each of our cells, tissues & organs. You cannot “wage a war” on it, on “germs”, without repercussions on the environment & ourselves. The microbes adapt quickly &!will survive. Humans do not adapt quickly & will suffer or die.
Physician Burnout:
-Stanford University research
-JAMA: cost to healthcare facility
(Lisa of physicians,
CHAPTER QUOTE: “Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”
“Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. “
“It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details” (: “It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.”)
Does Medicine Have a philosophy; an Epistomology?
“pathologies of major social, ecological or population impact surpass the molecular, subindi- vidual and clinical realm and challenge the validity of classical reductionism as an approach to understand the nature of illness and disease.”
Philosophy guides research foci, ethics, policy, education, clinical choices and doctor-patient interactions.
Modern medical research is based in all three branches of science: 1.) The formal sciences (math, including statistics), 2.) the natural sciences (esp. chemistry & biology), and 3.) the social sciences (psychology, sociology, and economics).
The organ systems & regions of the body are separated into specialties, siloed focuses. In reality, organ systems are more conceptual organizations for mental compartmentalization, not distinct anatomical or functional systems. The immune system, for example, is even less a subsystem and more an alliance with all elements of the body. So, the body doesn’t HAVE an immune system, it IS an immune system. The health of the Immune “System” is actually the health of the whole person. Similarly, this is true of the endocrine, cardiovascular, nervous... all organ “systems”.
This is an a cognitive dissonance in healthcare. Segregating subsystems ignores fundamental relationships.
As a private health-care practitioner since the ‘80’s, I do provide “holistic-based-care”. In-depth, dialectic interaction w/ each patient draws from a small but growing (Wellness) demographic and has challenged income. So I ask the question, “How can we create a strategic plan for Integrative Health-Care to be applied effectively in our ‘disease-care’ model?”
Let’s get meta on life. It’s bigger than its parts added together. Diversity is an essential strength for a group; “one for all & all for one”. It won’t exist w/o environmental stress nor w/ too much. Yes, a biology is inextricably meshed w/ it’s environment. It’s what we observe and what we are. All life is ever-changing as part of the dynamic universe.
as Poincare’ states, “Science is facts” and so important to use when considering CAM & integrative approached.
However so absent in our reductionistic “science” today (and a major reason “science” is rejected in our culture today) is what is further stated in the quote you share. In his using the analogy of the house, we know the “house” is not just the parts. Rather, the house is only possible w/ these parts/elements in ordered relationships; networking, dynamics, & resultant emergent properties. (The “meta-science” of systems. Also see Herrmann’s Cognitive Style.) As Poincare’ clarifies, “It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details”.
Here’s a story:
A young man, George, suddenly loses his right-side hearing. Petrified & perplexed as to why, he goes to his primary doctor who immediately refers him to the EENT in the medical group who, after a brief exam, refers him to a hearing specialist. After an extensive examination, hearing test & head CT-Scan, the neurologist reports the diagnosis to the patient, “You have ‘Spontaneous Hearing Loss” in your right ear. Confused, the young man responds, “Yes. That’s why I came here.”
This story could go on. One of the tests, the doctor explains, shows evidence that hearing may be restored if George wears an apparatus on his head. “Your insurance will cover most of the cost and surgery will probably not be needed.”
George, still perplexed by the doctor’s underlying thinking, asks: “but wouldn’t it be best to uncover the actual problem?”
The doctor replies, “We don’t know why but w/ the bone-conduction hearing aid you’ll likely to hear almost normally.”
A common symptom treatment is for hypertension. Blood pressure is an effect which “reflects” functions of the body. Food is a category of a myriad of factors which “influences”
functions of the body. The allopaths dilemma in treating high blood pressure w/o addressing the cause; the “why”, is a major reason our healthcare system is in such trouble.
Healthcare disciplines have their own dilemmas:: “When your only tool is a hammer, everything...”
Each discipline has providers which can only see the application of their specific skill in every need a patient comes in with.
As I wrote to a practitioner who was promoting his disciplines treatment (massage therapy) for low back pain as being more appropriate than another discipline’s (chiropractic care):
“Don’t make the same mistake you so easily judge another discipline is making. Addressing every neuromusculoskeletal condition with massage is also commonly only palliative at best.”
A competent practitioner assesses multiple systems to determine the underlying cause(s). Proprioceptive insult can occur first in the joint, muscle, or nervous system. In addition there are external & internal causes, contributions & compensation/adaptations.
https://tinyurl.com/ManualTherapyRGatePart1
The challenge is for all of us to see each disciplines’ strengths for the ultimate benefit of the patient.
--
What is the basis of medicine’s treatment of disease?
To answer this, we must first define disease. “A disorder of structure or function in the body that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects s specific location and is not simply the direct result of a physical injury.”
Medicine has a history of being primarily “symptom-oriented”; relief-based, rather than addressing the underlying cause.
This is due to 1.) responding to the public’s demands, I.e. immediate gratification 2.) a necessary evolution in knowledge & understanding (technology, especially imaging, has been a great asset for uncovering internal pathologies)in the function of the human body, biology, psychology, and our relationship to our environment, and 3.) a (historical and meta cognitive) philosophical premise on a dis-relationship between health & disease which persists by the commercialization & profit of the “disease-model” of healthcare (particularly in capitalistic societies.
Alternative approaches in healthcare are similarly entrenched in the “disease-model” of healthcare. As you know, there are many causes of back pain (muscle, joint, nerve, prostate, bladder, bowel, etc). It might mask the symptoms. It might not.
To find one botanical palliative approach among so many options, depends on 1.) the cause (Different tissues & physiological processes respond to different chemicals), 2.) the efficacy (There’s some evidence of cherry extract helping w/ muscle soreness & inflammation. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872786/ ) - as is w/ Arnica, multi-minerals, anti inflammatory herbs e.g. Boswellia, Tumeric, CBD... ) and 3.) the acute status Paul’s suffering in. (Most “alternative” botanical options take time to influence & have a mild effect - if they work at all. If Paul is in acute pain, waiting for the possibility of mild effects may not be his choice.)
It’s worth considering with Paul but they’re limited to POSSIBLE symptom relief. Ultimately, like all chemical approaches, Tart Cherry Extract is not likely to resolve the underlying cause of his pain.
So, if medicine is to simply treat the symptom, allopathy, what about the repercussions of the underlying cause to the ongoing health of the body?
For example, if an anti inflammatory or or analgesic reduces symptoms, what about the underlying disorder? And are other systems being taken into consideration?
What is the basis of acupuncture or chiropractic? They are causal-based approaches that address underlying dysfunctions impacting systems of the body. However the assessment of the dysfunction and its relationship to the patient’s symptoms is an extremely limited science. (The Science & practice of chiropractic is advanced for spinal mechanical dysfunctions. However, very little proof exists for connecting these mechanical dysfunctions to disease outside the spine & the direct neural pathways from the spine.)
Both acupuncture, chiropractic (and clinical nutrition, Ayurvedic, functional medicine, etc.) May be considered “Systems” approaches in healthcare. Meaning, by caring for the function of the spine, or caring for the meridian system, the practitioner impacts other systems & homeostasis. Now the onus is on these Healing approaches to either provide care to those who find their health supported by the care, or, perhaps ultimately, demonstrate how the healing art impacts the whole body, specific organ systems, or , indirectly, results in the body’s restoration from specific disease conditions.
CHAPTER QUOTE:
“In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” ... ~ Thurgood Marshall
Chapter Quote:
“Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.” ~ Sam Harris
Diversity & difference within our society
In chiropractic,
--
Now the health of our planet; health of each of our communities; health of our individual bodies, depend on us, mankind; the predominant species (influencing the direction of the health of our planet), observing these mutually benevolent systems &, (at least) for our own survival, following the principles essential to life.
Where do we stand now & how can we steer humans in the best direction (for survival & success)?
The ethics of healthcare:
It’s common knowledge that the traditional (not contemporary) system of healthcare in Asia was the “physician” (TCM Practitioner) would receive payment for caring for the well-being of the patient but, if the patient was to become ill, the practitioner would receive no compensation....
Our current Health care crisis in the U.S. :
The first step was in resolving a problem is acknowledging there is one.
We’re said to have the “best” healthcare system in the world”. Who’s promoting this idea. How do you qualify “best”?
So why is the US healthcare system estimated to be the least effective & twice as expensive as the other 10 first-world countries? (See PEW study.)
Why is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US found to be medical mistakes? (See Johns Hopkins Study.)
(Give examples of the craziness of the applications of the “pure science” model to an “applied science” scenario:
The next step is to reestablish Health care model priorities based on a continuum of reason. On one end of the scale is wellbeing, based on acknowledging homeostasis, normo-physiology, then to factors supporting health, to prevention of pathology, to disease diagnosis (causal factors not only symptom treatment, then, on the other end, to disease treatment:
A. Wellness care (support of environmental, physical, & mental),
B. Preventive care )Disease-based modalities incl vaccines, smoking cessation and other illness-specific therapies) and
C. Disease care (eradication of pathogens, vaccines, surgery, pain management, physical injury care)
1.) The religious foundation of our concepts of health & disease.
Is disease “evil”?
Are the “gods” happy w/ us when we’re healthy?
Does it make sense to wage war on a disease?
“Fear reduces compassion/ sensitivity & raises disconnecting to one another”,
Can we create a new model of health & disease? (The biome, antibiotic resistance, the opioid epidemic)
Mutual-bacterial vs Mutiobacterial.
2.) Define Disease: over-stress of the body's adaptation system(s) resulting in symptoms.
Symptom: the signs & expressions of the body’s attempt to acclimate to an interference or overload; a distress.
Physicians, if you have to treat the symptoms, make sure your primary focus is organism homeostasis.
“The Mouse-ologist” Story: He doesn’t drop poison; he seals the house from pests,
Regarding infectious disease:
Why haven’t pathogens caused the extinction of man?
Regarding symptom treatment:
“The Allopath’s Dilemma”
The study & treatment of disease, without holding the vital mechanisms of homeostasis at the forefront, lacks a philosophy.
3.) We must then emphasize using the causal model. As Judea Pearl describes in “The Book of Why; The New Science of Cause & Effect”: “There are circles of research that continue to work on diagnosis without worrying about the causal aspects of the problem. All they want is to predict well and to diagnose well.” Furthermore, regarding predicting without regard to cause, Pearl states: “Associations are not enough — and this is a mathematical fact, not opinion.” Once a causal framework is in place, it becomes possible to inquire how the causal relationships would change given some kind of intervention.
3.) Define Health:
Health promotion vs Disease Prevention:
Is prevention still a “disease-perspective” on health? i.e. “preventing what?”
If I care for my health (community, physical body & meta-physically) for the joy of living, this is pro-health. Health-enhancement, supporting homeostasis, nurturing functional wellbeing.
We need all forms of healthcare: medical (disease-based), Preventive (“avoidance” of disease), and lifestyle-based Wellness. However, they must be prioritized as a system and the individual must triage within this competent system.
A.) environment, internal & external) inseparable, life is built by the environment vs life is built (by consciousness) in our environment.
B.) microbiology, our
The amazing complexly integrated biome/microbiome
The brilliant Jenner & his smallpox-protected milkmaid s
Essential “disease care”(medical; allopathic) care for acute care & emergencies, but this isn’t efficient nor viable as a healthcare system.
Prevention is better of a health system. Environmental, community & personal Wellness is the optimum Healthcare system.
How do we best recognize & support all diversity of life?
“Natural Hygiene” theory: exposing our young to the natural environment strengthens their immune systems into & through adulthood. (Ref.)
5.) Health Promotion: An epistemology (philosophy) for All Health Care practitioners.
HP psychology & the placebo affect
Neo-Vitalism
Caring for your body’s self-maintenance:
Digestive system:
Skin (the integumentary system): foods essential fats), water, aerobic exercise,
Respiratory system:
Urinary system:
Nervous system:
Skeletal system:
6.) Spiritual: I do believe & sense that “That”, the All Conscious Creating Source, is within all space, and all arises from this primordial benevolence.
The organization of the macroscopic to the microscopic, the organism to the cell, the cell to the DNA/RNA, the atomic to the quantum, is awe-inspiring (as we temporarily lose the illusion of time & be present in the observation) !These connections then become personally self-evident in this scientific meditation; “nirvana & samsara are one”, and community is nourished through resulting emotions; action.
Fasting: “Managing the dance between eating and not eating is key to healing and longevity. Periodic fasting (not prolonged starvation), according to Dr. Mattson and other brain researchers, enhances a whole soup of gene and biochemical factors associated with better health, lower disease, and longer life. It also improves mental function and lowers the risk for several diseases of aging, including diabetes, heart disease, brain decline, and cancer.”
Film, Ronert Krilich ?
“Oliver Sachs Own Life” movie segment on Science Friday, npr, 2pm, 9/25/20
biolography
On Compassion
Roberta Crisondee
“A man w/ a continuous source of wonder & observations of the world around him”
F.) Compassion, Service and Health Parity:
Essential elements of a Healthy Lifestyle:
1.) Nutrition
2.) Exercise & Structural Integrity (e.g. Posture)
3.) Rest/Sleep
4.) Hygiene (Cleanliness & Order)
5.) Mental Integrity: Changing our life-perspective cannot be understood or accomplished w/ conceptual/intellectual thinking. Transformation is an “inside job”; only experiential. This requires quietly observing our world experiences, our thinking/feelings, & our still inner Self; mindfulness. Awareness of the intellect and using rational thinking to strategize meditation, “dropping into oneself”, is essential, however. Changing our thinking requires regular practice of introspection & mindful connectedness (to ourselves & others). In the end, transformation is sourced from within Us; the “heart”.
The Mind, Past Trauma & Meditation:
we tend to question our place, grace & meaning in this Great Order. When fear takes over, I fall into thinking it’s perhaps a great disorder & I’m so far from being awakened, not to mention enlightened.
Yes, it’s fabulous when I feel those visceral butterflies of connection, excitement in participation (enjoying nature, giving educational lectures, writing ; ) and mind-blowing mutually-benevolent creativity, there is no question of the awakened presence. What a contrast, slap-in-the-face, when I feel I have no sense of the Great Benevolence! Despite being in the midst of a lifestyle of devotional rituals, this gradual shift of spirit occurs. Guttural fear, unexplained anxiety, unshakable depression, and an uncomfortable disconnect w/ others insidiously emerges. Michael Singer, author of “The Untethered Soul”, describes well this “dark night” as a current event triggering one or more of a plethora of past subconscious associations, which leaves us with primal, PTSD-based, physiological & psychological responses. I can accept this but it’s a minor consolation considering how I feel. (Ref.)
However, with experience, I know well this is the pattern. I return to conscious acceptance of my state of mind & attend to finding the peace between the spinning thoughts. With continued meditation, practiced “attitude of gratitude”, Loved-Ones’ acceptance & support, and a variety of health-enhancing lifestyle measures, connection, the sense of being awakened, will return.
Now these Spiritual Rehabilitative measures take faith, trust, a devotion of time, the energy of concentration and the humility to submit my ego to the great Mind. But was I “awakened” the whole time? Is this an Enlightened life?
I’m thinking trauma & suffering (past & present - even fear of the future) is used to coax individuals to the awakened state. I do believe this is the natural state of being. However, as our brains become traumatized (some more than others) we must train the amygdala - tame it from causing excessive reactions, and practice having our prefrontal cortex lead in awareness (despite the hippocampus’ teasing of the amygdala).
Is this thinking too much conceptual thinking? Is this what it takes to be awakened? To be Enlightened?
The sense of ultimate benevolence is found in meditation (even as being in the flow of sports & art), extemporaneously in many natural experiences, and during extreme physiological duress. Perhaps the experience of death enables this sense &, if we’ve had any positive indoctrination to experience this inner place, trust will carry use to enable a healthy transition away from our material world.
6.) Social Participation; connections w/ nature, community & family.
--
5.) Regarding Wellness Teaching:
Fundamental is an explicit knowledge & philosophy in the non-dualistic concept of health & disease and the knowledge of & ability to integrate physical/mental/social pieces of a whole person/relationship/community. They must have personal experience and heightened compassion in observing diverse healthcare perspectives & cultural competencies. Finally, their lifestyle & behavior exemplify wellness as re-spect-ing (in gratitude, word & actions) one's life, others', and the environment we're part of.
--------
Medical & Natural approaches (and patients) commonly fall into the “panacea”, one-solution-fits all, mindset (either for proprietary reasons or the wonder of a “cure”).
Celery is great but many plants benefit healthy skin - supporting the homeostasis of the body through local & multi-organ system complementary balance.
This author has created an attractive (albeit simplistic) concept map based on theorizing & supported by newly recognized plant benefits to skin health (used topically & orally).
This kind of presentation is the same we see for drugs & nutrients being marketed.
Although adding celery to our diets will likely show benefits to many people’s skin, it won’t for others. The results (whether immediate, aggravating, or latent) depend on so many other individual factors.
It’s the diversity of vegetables & fruits (along w/ a balance of foods providing proteins, essential fats, and other carbs & micronutrients), proper sleep, exercise, stress-management & finding joy in our lives that will have whole-health benefits.
xo, Dad
———-
'So appreciative of emergency
Medical care and its improved applications through rigorous evidence-based research.
'Grateful for the heightened interest in preventive healthcare measures so to avert physical & mental suffering and reduce costs of emergency / disease care.
'Excited to observe the heightened interest, science & participation in personal wellbeing; health & fitness.
'Passionate to work w/ all wellness-minded & holistic-spirited people & communities co-contributing with homeostasis, mutual systems of biology and the fundamental consciousness of life.
We all know the problem: A myopic intellect re-enforced by power & proprietary greed & capitalized on through fear-based control & consumerism.
This is evident in all places of self-serving, opportunistic human involvement.
We all know the opportunity: Present quality of life for one & all through goodness, service to others, and cooperation w/ our (mutually-dependent) environment's life-systems.
----
As the 1840's medical establishment rejected hand-washing in favor of continuing to travel back-and-forth from dissecting cadavers to the maternity ward (despite high infant & maternal mortality rate data presented by their own, albeit soon ostracized Medical Director, Ignaz Semmelweis, MD), new perspectives are difficult to present to a single-minded, well-established oligarchy.
A small part of our society must think for itself, care for itself, and have the results speak for themselves, before a larger paradigm is modified (many times despite the observable facts).
---
Our Healthcare system is a for-profit, disease-care industry. - A conflict of interest; The more disease, the healthier the industry.
We may not be able to convert to a wellness-based model where the public would pay to receive supportive modalities & education in lifestyle health-care (and receive, at no-charge, care if they get ill). However, we could ramp-up our programs to promote more research in wellbeing (better understanding the physiology of homeostasis & it's environmental contributors) & giving "credits" to those who, measurably, care for themselves.
6.) Traditional medicinals were created from local foods, herbs, botanicals...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957173/
“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food."
- Wendell Barry
7.) cancer
“The Emperor of Maladies” by Sidartha Mukherjee
8.) Lessons Learned:
🌿"A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique are the form and veins of my skin, unique are the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. " 🌿
- Herman Hesse
References:
1.) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
2.) https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.20728
“The Case For Innate Source of Wellness”
(The Non-Physical Science of Health Care)
#healthspan
#systemsscience
#systemsthinking
#holistichealth
#vitalism
#healthenhancement
#maximizeresistance
#neovitalism
History of Wellness: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/industry-research/history-of-wellness/
The Ontology of Being: what does it mean to know the definition of ethics if you’re not ethical (if you dismiss your community’s rules); the essential attributes of altruism if you give nothing...
The Age of Fitness; The Antecedent of Disease.
“Healthier by Choice
(Hygiene- A Balance w/ Nature)
“Evolving a Holistic Cultural Healthcare Practice”
This book is an optimistic look into the future of healthcare. We have no idea what challenges to our health lie ahead of us: pandemics, wars, or regional calamities. However, as we have seen longevity & quality of life improve in over one century of applying a better understanding of our natural world (through community hygiene & personal care), we have the fundamental principles to build not only an advanced disease-model of medicine but a synergistic, umbrella wellness-care model.
The “Unified Theory of Health & Disease” offers new systems of thinking to enhance both approaches to health; disease-based & Wellness-based. The meta view here, however, is the opportunity to see a common vision, intent & purpose in merging these two perspectives. For the Researcher, the Physician/Caregiver, and for the Patient.
In the traditional sense, a scientist needs a problem to solve in order to form a hypothesis. In that case, this treatise is to resolve a singular definition for “health”; I.e. the “entity” to address. Is it the potential for homeostasis of the individual or community, or is it the instability & the potential for the disease to progress.
These are the basis of 2 common models out there.
I see a future where Medicine & Wellness align.
“It’s not just disease prevention, not a fear of suffering; living in the presence of an impending doom. It’s engaging the promises of wellness, consciously living a vitality for life.” - Fenn
There’s a clear difference between standing up for what is wrong and stepping forward in acting in passion for what is right. “It’s better to fight for something than against something.”
Although our society in general needs to re-define “health”, understanding it as an inner potential, elan-vital, or innate source, is older than the written-word.
Some professions & many professionals are holistic in facilitating empowerment of the individual & community by complementing the spirit-body-mind’s systems’, tissues’ & cells’ homeostasis. The practitioners intent is wellbeing - a recognition, acknowledgement & resultant awakening of the patient to their one treasure, their birthright - a knowing of our true selves; our inner source of health & being. This is unique to the intent of “treating” disease.
‘So many spokes on the wheel of health. Our physical & spiritual, conscious & unconscious, active & inactive components of lifestyle are all contributing or detracting from a great benevolent potential. Teaching people their health is the single source; found within & shared inside-out and that disease is a response to a imbalance or obstruction to the real source of health; a myriad of reactive expressions to the loss of health, enables the patient to be in “harmony” with all other embodiments of the life-potential; the source of health. To live in homeostasis with the benevolence called “life”.
“Fear emerges from the thought of a second.”
CHAPTER QUOTE:
“The vociferous catastrophes of a general order - fires, wars, epidemics - are one single pain, illusory multiplied in many mirrors.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges
The current medical system has a heroic history. Our modern Western medical “healthcare” model was borne out of a military response to acute injuries on the battlefield & from rampant infectious diseases emerging out of the the close proximity of people without hygienic infrastructure & absent public healthcare measures in the explosive growth of cities.
Our modern Western medical “healthcare” model was borne out of a military response to acute injuries on the battlefield & from infectious diseases emerging out of the the close proximity of people without hygienic infrastructure in the explosive growth of cities.
CHPTR QUOTE
Margulis: “cooperation & networking is the successful nature of competition.”
Margulis and Sagan (1996), "Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking".
Authors statement: “STRENGTHEN US & OURS RATHER THAN WEAKEN THEM & THEIRS”
https://www.isepp.org/Pages/San%20Jose%2004-05/MargulisSaganSJ.html
We’ve seen the fitness & Wellness trend steadily emerge in the past 60 yrs, & hit a major “tipping point” in the 21st century w/ wellness transforming every industry from food to travel. The public became inundated w/ media attention to “Oz, Chopra, & Weil”. By 2014, half of global businesses used health promotion strategies & a third had official wellness programs.
Now Wellness is firmly entrenched in medical institutions & government programs. The “Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine” has over 60 members including Yale, Harvard & the Mayo Clinic.
However, for the medical industry; for the medically trained, what is the underlying focus, passion, study? Health? Or Disease? If disease of the “entity” being studied, how is it related to health? Simply a lack of health due to a bodily, injury, dysfunction, deficiency, or an imposing lesion or pathogen?
What if the “entity” was the homeostatic nature of the body; of life, a coordinated balance within & among each of the organism’s cells, tissues, organs & organ systems? Should this be the focus: Care of the cells, tissues & systems of the body, and their essential cooperative networking relationships, to maximize homeostasis?
As a humanistic study, Healthcare is a philosophy, a science, and an art.
Does healthcare promote & enhance health or “treat” symptoms & disease to enable vitality?
Yet, the current U.S. healthcare model lacks a philosophy; a central conceptual science which provides a clear, central objective for the practitioner to contribute to.
Bias creates defense language to support the minds’ theories. For instance, the disease-based healthcare theory holds the liver is well able to manage it’s detoxifying abilities until a state of disease. The holistic-based healthcare theory holds that the liver is compromised much earlier than signs or symptoms of a major, diagnosable pathology reveals it’s self. Medicine uses the term “prodromal” (Latin for “running before”) to explain subtle, early signs & symptoms that indicate a specific disease. The art & science of disease are well-established & held tightly, proprietarily, in medicine. For the medical mind to grasp the idea of care for the body prior to signs & symptoms would entail adopting the premise that health is compromised w/ homeostatic overload much earlier than medical definitions recognize. (Furthermore, any intervention would be based on subtle findings w/o the usual pathology history or opportunity for the pt to obviously respond to treatment. )
Clinical Quality-
“Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis” ~ Sir William Osler
- a health providers accuracy in coming to a diagnosis & in clinical judgements
- Patient trust influences Tx outcome
- Pt disclosure depends on the relationship w/ provider (psychosocial info & leads to biomedical info); not based on Providers diplomas on wall
- Completeness of information intake & recall requires listening to the patient
- Increased cost in malpractice ins
“You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
The microbial world is complex & intertwined with all life - even w/each of our cells, tissues & organs. You cannot “wage a war” on it, on “germs”, without repercussions on the environment & ourselves. The microbes adapt quickly &!will survive. Humans do not adapt quickly & will suffer or die.
Physician Burnout:
-Stanford University research
-JAMA: cost to healthcare facility
(Lisa of physicians,
- Mayo Clonic Research (reduces work 30-50%)
- If less compassion, more burnout & earlier retirement
CHAPTER QUOTE: “Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”
“Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. “
“It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details” (: “It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.”)
Does Medicine Have a philosophy; an Epistomology?
“pathologies of major social, ecological or population impact surpass the molecular, subindi- vidual and clinical realm and challenge the validity of classical reductionism as an approach to understand the nature of illness and disease.”
Philosophy guides research foci, ethics, policy, education, clinical choices and doctor-patient interactions.
- If science is based on the search for underlying, integral laws and unified disciples, what is the fundamental basis of the study of various disease entities observed in the body (pathology)?
- Does a call to “a war on cancer” inspire a passion which truly motivates?
- (If finding a “cure” for a disease necessitates starting a war, then why don’t we peacefully enhance our body’s health through lifestyle change to promote wellness & prevent disease?)
- (or, Does a “war on disease” stimulate passion? Instead of starting a “war” to “finding a cure” for disease, let’s peacefully & compassionately look to enhance our bodys’ health through environmental & lifestyle change to prevent disease and, most importantly, promote wellness.)
- Does aberrantly unleashing an antibiotic, meaning “against life” fit into the ecological scientific model of a biome?
- Is the evidence-based-medicine approach acknowledge the individuals needs & support a caring relationship?
Modern medical research is based in all three branches of science: 1.) The formal sciences (math, including statistics), 2.) the natural sciences (esp. chemistry & biology), and 3.) the social sciences (psychology, sociology, and economics).
The organ systems & regions of the body are separated into specialties, siloed focuses. In reality, organ systems are more conceptual organizations for mental compartmentalization, not distinct anatomical or functional systems. The immune system, for example, is even less a subsystem and more an alliance with all elements of the body. So, the body doesn’t HAVE an immune system, it IS an immune system. The health of the Immune “System” is actually the health of the whole person. Similarly, this is true of the endocrine, cardiovascular, nervous... all organ “systems”.
This is an a cognitive dissonance in healthcare. Segregating subsystems ignores fundamental relationships.
As a private health-care practitioner since the ‘80’s, I do provide “holistic-based-care”. In-depth, dialectic interaction w/ each patient draws from a small but growing (Wellness) demographic and has challenged income. So I ask the question, “How can we create a strategic plan for Integrative Health-Care to be applied effectively in our ‘disease-care’ model?”
Let’s get meta on life. It’s bigger than its parts added together. Diversity is an essential strength for a group; “one for all & all for one”. It won’t exist w/o environmental stress nor w/ too much. Yes, a biology is inextricably meshed w/ it’s environment. It’s what we observe and what we are. All life is ever-changing as part of the dynamic universe.
as Poincare’ states, “Science is facts” and so important to use when considering CAM & integrative approached.
However so absent in our reductionistic “science” today (and a major reason “science” is rejected in our culture today) is what is further stated in the quote you share. In his using the analogy of the house, we know the “house” is not just the parts. Rather, the house is only possible w/ these parts/elements in ordered relationships; networking, dynamics, & resultant emergent properties. (The “meta-science” of systems. Also see Herrmann’s Cognitive Style.) As Poincare’ clarifies, “It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details”.
Here’s a story:
A young man, George, suddenly loses his right-side hearing. Petrified & perplexed as to why, he goes to his primary doctor who immediately refers him to the EENT in the medical group who, after a brief exam, refers him to a hearing specialist. After an extensive examination, hearing test & head CT-Scan, the neurologist reports the diagnosis to the patient, “You have ‘Spontaneous Hearing Loss” in your right ear. Confused, the young man responds, “Yes. That’s why I came here.”
This story could go on. One of the tests, the doctor explains, shows evidence that hearing may be restored if George wears an apparatus on his head. “Your insurance will cover most of the cost and surgery will probably not be needed.”
George, still perplexed by the doctor’s underlying thinking, asks: “but wouldn’t it be best to uncover the actual problem?”
The doctor replies, “We don’t know why but w/ the bone-conduction hearing aid you’ll likely to hear almost normally.”
A common symptom treatment is for hypertension. Blood pressure is an effect which “reflects” functions of the body. Food is a category of a myriad of factors which “influences”
functions of the body. The allopaths dilemma in treating high blood pressure w/o addressing the cause; the “why”, is a major reason our healthcare system is in such trouble.
Healthcare disciplines have their own dilemmas:: “When your only tool is a hammer, everything...”
Each discipline has providers which can only see the application of their specific skill in every need a patient comes in with.
As I wrote to a practitioner who was promoting his disciplines treatment (massage therapy) for low back pain as being more appropriate than another discipline’s (chiropractic care):
“Don’t make the same mistake you so easily judge another discipline is making. Addressing every neuromusculoskeletal condition with massage is also commonly only palliative at best.”
A competent practitioner assesses multiple systems to determine the underlying cause(s). Proprioceptive insult can occur first in the joint, muscle, or nervous system. In addition there are external & internal causes, contributions & compensation/adaptations.
https://tinyurl.com/ManualTherapyRGatePart1
The challenge is for all of us to see each disciplines’ strengths for the ultimate benefit of the patient.
--
What is the basis of medicine’s treatment of disease?
To answer this, we must first define disease. “A disorder of structure or function in the body that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects s specific location and is not simply the direct result of a physical injury.”
Medicine has a history of being primarily “symptom-oriented”; relief-based, rather than addressing the underlying cause.
This is due to 1.) responding to the public’s demands, I.e. immediate gratification 2.) a necessary evolution in knowledge & understanding (technology, especially imaging, has been a great asset for uncovering internal pathologies)in the function of the human body, biology, psychology, and our relationship to our environment, and 3.) a (historical and meta cognitive) philosophical premise on a dis-relationship between health & disease which persists by the commercialization & profit of the “disease-model” of healthcare (particularly in capitalistic societies.
Alternative approaches in healthcare are similarly entrenched in the “disease-model” of healthcare. As you know, there are many causes of back pain (muscle, joint, nerve, prostate, bladder, bowel, etc). It might mask the symptoms. It might not.
To find one botanical palliative approach among so many options, depends on 1.) the cause (Different tissues & physiological processes respond to different chemicals), 2.) the efficacy (There’s some evidence of cherry extract helping w/ muscle soreness & inflammation. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872786/ ) - as is w/ Arnica, multi-minerals, anti inflammatory herbs e.g. Boswellia, Tumeric, CBD... ) and 3.) the acute status Paul’s suffering in. (Most “alternative” botanical options take time to influence & have a mild effect - if they work at all. If Paul is in acute pain, waiting for the possibility of mild effects may not be his choice.)
It’s worth considering with Paul but they’re limited to POSSIBLE symptom relief. Ultimately, like all chemical approaches, Tart Cherry Extract is not likely to resolve the underlying cause of his pain.
So, if medicine is to simply treat the symptom, allopathy, what about the repercussions of the underlying cause to the ongoing health of the body?
For example, if an anti inflammatory or or analgesic reduces symptoms, what about the underlying disorder? And are other systems being taken into consideration?
What is the basis of acupuncture or chiropractic? They are causal-based approaches that address underlying dysfunctions impacting systems of the body. However the assessment of the dysfunction and its relationship to the patient’s symptoms is an extremely limited science. (The Science & practice of chiropractic is advanced for spinal mechanical dysfunctions. However, very little proof exists for connecting these mechanical dysfunctions to disease outside the spine & the direct neural pathways from the spine.)
Both acupuncture, chiropractic (and clinical nutrition, Ayurvedic, functional medicine, etc.) May be considered “Systems” approaches in healthcare. Meaning, by caring for the function of the spine, or caring for the meridian system, the practitioner impacts other systems & homeostasis. Now the onus is on these Healing approaches to either provide care to those who find their health supported by the care, or, perhaps ultimately, demonstrate how the healing art impacts the whole body, specific organ systems, or , indirectly, results in the body’s restoration from specific disease conditions.
CHAPTER QUOTE:
“In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” ... ~ Thurgood Marshall
Chapter Quote:
“Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.” ~ Sam Harris
Diversity & difference within our society
In chiropractic,
--
Now the health of our planet; health of each of our communities; health of our individual bodies, depend on us, mankind; the predominant species (influencing the direction of the health of our planet), observing these mutually benevolent systems &, (at least) for our own survival, following the principles essential to life.
Where do we stand now & how can we steer humans in the best direction (for survival & success)?
The ethics of healthcare:
It’s common knowledge that the traditional (not contemporary) system of healthcare in Asia was the “physician” (TCM Practitioner) would receive payment for caring for the well-being of the patient but, if the patient was to become ill, the practitioner would receive no compensation....
Our current Health care crisis in the U.S. :
- 7th in literacy
- 27th in math
- 22nd in science
- The worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world:
- 49th in life expectancy
- 178th in infant mortality
- 3rd in median household income
- 4th in labor force
- 4th in export
The first step was in resolving a problem is acknowledging there is one.
We’re said to have the “best” healthcare system in the world”. Who’s promoting this idea. How do you qualify “best”?
So why is the US healthcare system estimated to be the least effective & twice as expensive as the other 10 first-world countries? (See PEW study.)
Why is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US found to be medical mistakes? (See Johns Hopkins Study.)
(Give examples of the craziness of the applications of the “pure science” model to an “applied science” scenario:
- prescribing & using medications
- Weight-loss programs
- Vaccinations
- Election predictions
- Economic predictions
- Weather forecasts
The next step is to reestablish Health care model priorities based on a continuum of reason. On one end of the scale is wellbeing, based on acknowledging homeostasis, normo-physiology, then to factors supporting health, to prevention of pathology, to disease diagnosis (causal factors not only symptom treatment, then, on the other end, to disease treatment:
A. Wellness care (support of environmental, physical, & mental),
B. Preventive care )Disease-based modalities incl vaccines, smoking cessation and other illness-specific therapies) and
C. Disease care (eradication of pathogens, vaccines, surgery, pain management, physical injury care)
1.) The religious foundation of our concepts of health & disease.
Is disease “evil”?
Are the “gods” happy w/ us when we’re healthy?
Does it make sense to wage war on a disease?
“Fear reduces compassion/ sensitivity & raises disconnecting to one another”,
Can we create a new model of health & disease? (The biome, antibiotic resistance, the opioid epidemic)
Mutual-bacterial vs Mutiobacterial.
2.) Define Disease: over-stress of the body's adaptation system(s) resulting in symptoms.
Symptom: the signs & expressions of the body’s attempt to acclimate to an interference or overload; a distress.
Physicians, if you have to treat the symptoms, make sure your primary focus is organism homeostasis.
“The Mouse-ologist” Story: He doesn’t drop poison; he seals the house from pests,
Regarding infectious disease:
Why haven’t pathogens caused the extinction of man?
Regarding symptom treatment:
“The Allopath’s Dilemma”
The study & treatment of disease, without holding the vital mechanisms of homeostasis at the forefront, lacks a philosophy.
3.) We must then emphasize using the causal model. As Judea Pearl describes in “The Book of Why; The New Science of Cause & Effect”: “There are circles of research that continue to work on diagnosis without worrying about the causal aspects of the problem. All they want is to predict well and to diagnose well.” Furthermore, regarding predicting without regard to cause, Pearl states: “Associations are not enough — and this is a mathematical fact, not opinion.” Once a causal framework is in place, it becomes possible to inquire how the causal relationships would change given some kind of intervention.
3.) Define Health:
Health promotion vs Disease Prevention:
Is prevention still a “disease-perspective” on health? i.e. “preventing what?”
If I care for my health (community, physical body & meta-physically) for the joy of living, this is pro-health. Health-enhancement, supporting homeostasis, nurturing functional wellbeing.
We need all forms of healthcare: medical (disease-based), Preventive (“avoidance” of disease), and lifestyle-based Wellness. However, they must be prioritized as a system and the individual must triage within this competent system.
A.) environment, internal & external) inseparable, life is built by the environment vs life is built (by consciousness) in our environment.
B.) microbiology, our
The amazing complexly integrated biome/microbiome
The brilliant Jenner & his smallpox-protected milkmaid s
Essential “disease care”(medical; allopathic) care for acute care & emergencies, but this isn’t efficient nor viable as a healthcare system.
Prevention is better of a health system. Environmental, community & personal Wellness is the optimum Healthcare system.
How do we best recognize & support all diversity of life?
- “Germs; they’re not all bad”
- Viruses deserve respect”: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2018/why-viruses-deserve-better-reputation
“Natural Hygiene” theory: exposing our young to the natural environment strengthens their immune systems into & through adulthood. (Ref.)
5.) Health Promotion: An epistemology (philosophy) for All Health Care practitioners.
HP psychology & the placebo affect
Neo-Vitalism
Caring for your body’s self-maintenance:
Digestive system:
- The liver, one of our body’s system of detoxification organs. Can you enhance your bodies detox systems?
- Homesis & Cellular Detox
- Fiber
- Unprocessed macronutrients
- Micronutrients (complex sources of water & oil-soluble) vitamins, minerals
Skin (the integumentary system): foods essential fats), water, aerobic exercise,
Respiratory system:
Urinary system:
Nervous system:
Skeletal system:
6.) Spiritual: I do believe & sense that “That”, the All Conscious Creating Source, is within all space, and all arises from this primordial benevolence.
The organization of the macroscopic to the microscopic, the organism to the cell, the cell to the DNA/RNA, the atomic to the quantum, is awe-inspiring (as we temporarily lose the illusion of time & be present in the observation) !These connections then become personally self-evident in this scientific meditation; “nirvana & samsara are one”, and community is nourished through resulting emotions; action.
Fasting: “Managing the dance between eating and not eating is key to healing and longevity. Periodic fasting (not prolonged starvation), according to Dr. Mattson and other brain researchers, enhances a whole soup of gene and biochemical factors associated with better health, lower disease, and longer life. It also improves mental function and lowers the risk for several diseases of aging, including diabetes, heart disease, brain decline, and cancer.”
Film, Ronert Krilich ?
“Oliver Sachs Own Life” movie segment on Science Friday, npr, 2pm, 9/25/20
biolography
On Compassion
Roberta Crisondee
“A man w/ a continuous source of wonder & observations of the world around him”
F.) Compassion, Service and Health Parity:
- “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking, and the most inhumane.” ~ Martin Luther King, to the Medical Community for Human Rights, 1966
- Variables include: Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension,
- Stroke is 50% more likely for Blacks than whites. In some regions of the US
- Hypertension is nearly twice as common for Blacks than Wh
- “Being Black can be bad for your health.” ~ Damon Tweedy in BM in a WC.
Essential elements of a Healthy Lifestyle:
1.) Nutrition
2.) Exercise & Structural Integrity (e.g. Posture)
3.) Rest/Sleep
4.) Hygiene (Cleanliness & Order)
5.) Mental Integrity: Changing our life-perspective cannot be understood or accomplished w/ conceptual/intellectual thinking. Transformation is an “inside job”; only experiential. This requires quietly observing our world experiences, our thinking/feelings, & our still inner Self; mindfulness. Awareness of the intellect and using rational thinking to strategize meditation, “dropping into oneself”, is essential, however. Changing our thinking requires regular practice of introspection & mindful connectedness (to ourselves & others). In the end, transformation is sourced from within Us; the “heart”.
The Mind, Past Trauma & Meditation:
we tend to question our place, grace & meaning in this Great Order. When fear takes over, I fall into thinking it’s perhaps a great disorder & I’m so far from being awakened, not to mention enlightened.
Yes, it’s fabulous when I feel those visceral butterflies of connection, excitement in participation (enjoying nature, giving educational lectures, writing ; ) and mind-blowing mutually-benevolent creativity, there is no question of the awakened presence. What a contrast, slap-in-the-face, when I feel I have no sense of the Great Benevolence! Despite being in the midst of a lifestyle of devotional rituals, this gradual shift of spirit occurs. Guttural fear, unexplained anxiety, unshakable depression, and an uncomfortable disconnect w/ others insidiously emerges. Michael Singer, author of “The Untethered Soul”, describes well this “dark night” as a current event triggering one or more of a plethora of past subconscious associations, which leaves us with primal, PTSD-based, physiological & psychological responses. I can accept this but it’s a minor consolation considering how I feel. (Ref.)
However, with experience, I know well this is the pattern. I return to conscious acceptance of my state of mind & attend to finding the peace between the spinning thoughts. With continued meditation, practiced “attitude of gratitude”, Loved-Ones’ acceptance & support, and a variety of health-enhancing lifestyle measures, connection, the sense of being awakened, will return.
Now these Spiritual Rehabilitative measures take faith, trust, a devotion of time, the energy of concentration and the humility to submit my ego to the great Mind. But was I “awakened” the whole time? Is this an Enlightened life?
I’m thinking trauma & suffering (past & present - even fear of the future) is used to coax individuals to the awakened state. I do believe this is the natural state of being. However, as our brains become traumatized (some more than others) we must train the amygdala - tame it from causing excessive reactions, and practice having our prefrontal cortex lead in awareness (despite the hippocampus’ teasing of the amygdala).
Is this thinking too much conceptual thinking? Is this what it takes to be awakened? To be Enlightened?
The sense of ultimate benevolence is found in meditation (even as being in the flow of sports & art), extemporaneously in many natural experiences, and during extreme physiological duress. Perhaps the experience of death enables this sense &, if we’ve had any positive indoctrination to experience this inner place, trust will carry use to enable a healthy transition away from our material world.
6.) Social Participation; connections w/ nature, community & family.
--
5.) Regarding Wellness Teaching:
Fundamental is an explicit knowledge & philosophy in the non-dualistic concept of health & disease and the knowledge of & ability to integrate physical/mental/social pieces of a whole person/relationship/community. They must have personal experience and heightened compassion in observing diverse healthcare perspectives & cultural competencies. Finally, their lifestyle & behavior exemplify wellness as re-spect-ing (in gratitude, word & actions) one's life, others', and the environment we're part of.
--------
Medical & Natural approaches (and patients) commonly fall into the “panacea”, one-solution-fits all, mindset (either for proprietary reasons or the wonder of a “cure”).
Celery is great but many plants benefit healthy skin - supporting the homeostasis of the body through local & multi-organ system complementary balance.
This author has created an attractive (albeit simplistic) concept map based on theorizing & supported by newly recognized plant benefits to skin health (used topically & orally).
This kind of presentation is the same we see for drugs & nutrients being marketed.
Although adding celery to our diets will likely show benefits to many people’s skin, it won’t for others. The results (whether immediate, aggravating, or latent) depend on so many other individual factors.
It’s the diversity of vegetables & fruits (along w/ a balance of foods providing proteins, essential fats, and other carbs & micronutrients), proper sleep, exercise, stress-management & finding joy in our lives that will have whole-health benefits.
xo, Dad
———-
'So appreciative of emergency
Medical care and its improved applications through rigorous evidence-based research.
'Grateful for the heightened interest in preventive healthcare measures so to avert physical & mental suffering and reduce costs of emergency / disease care.
'Excited to observe the heightened interest, science & participation in personal wellbeing; health & fitness.
'Passionate to work w/ all wellness-minded & holistic-spirited people & communities co-contributing with homeostasis, mutual systems of biology and the fundamental consciousness of life.
We all know the problem: A myopic intellect re-enforced by power & proprietary greed & capitalized on through fear-based control & consumerism.
This is evident in all places of self-serving, opportunistic human involvement.
We all know the opportunity: Present quality of life for one & all through goodness, service to others, and cooperation w/ our (mutually-dependent) environment's life-systems.
----
As the 1840's medical establishment rejected hand-washing in favor of continuing to travel back-and-forth from dissecting cadavers to the maternity ward (despite high infant & maternal mortality rate data presented by their own, albeit soon ostracized Medical Director, Ignaz Semmelweis, MD), new perspectives are difficult to present to a single-minded, well-established oligarchy.
A small part of our society must think for itself, care for itself, and have the results speak for themselves, before a larger paradigm is modified (many times despite the observable facts).
---
Our Healthcare system is a for-profit, disease-care industry. - A conflict of interest; The more disease, the healthier the industry.
We may not be able to convert to a wellness-based model where the public would pay to receive supportive modalities & education in lifestyle health-care (and receive, at no-charge, care if they get ill). However, we could ramp-up our programs to promote more research in wellbeing (better understanding the physiology of homeostasis & it's environmental contributors) & giving "credits" to those who, measurably, care for themselves.
6.) Traditional medicinals were created from local foods, herbs, botanicals...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957173/
“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food."
- Wendell Barry
7.) cancer
“The Emperor of Maladies” by Sidartha Mukherjee
8.) Lessons Learned:
- There is no recipe. Yes, there are commonly patterns & these should be looked for. But every person is unique; in our make-up & our environment. Therefore our presentations, needs, reactions, and responses are & will be different.
- Supporting homeostasis must always be in the care. From nutritional needs (perhaps even fasting) to belief systems, the body’s self-maintenance & healing potential is paramount.
- The Placebo & it’s Effect: the baseline of the efficacy of any active medical intervention; a standard deviation (p) from the “belief” effect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094553902903640?via%3Dihub
- Intuition & intension, on the part of the traditional medical practitioner in caring for their patient, is a rare attribute /characteristic. Sending/feeling are skills that tend to be minimized in society, let alone in the practice of medicine. The “subjective” nature of disease is of paramount importance to the practitioner looking to complement, strengthen the homeostasis of each patient. Our bodies require an integration of the psych, physical systems & our cognitive awareness. By “listening” to the subtleties of our patient’s perspectives & complaints, we begin the process of facilitating healing; just as touch itself it a validation to our Being & is essential to physical health/wellbeing.
🌿"A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique are the form and veins of my skin, unique are the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. " 🌿
- Herman Hesse
References:
1.) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
2.) https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.20728
“The Case For Innate Source of Wellness”
(The Non-Physical Science of Health Care)
#healthspan
#systemsscience
#systemsthinking
#holistichealth
#vitalism
#healthenhancement
#maximizeresistance
#neovitalism
History of Wellness: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/industry-research/history-of-wellness/
The Ontology of Being: what does it mean to know the definition of ethics if you’re not ethical (if you dismiss your community’s rules); the essential attributes of altruism if you give nothing...
The Age of Fitness; The Antecedent of Disease.
“Healthier by Choice