Health

Beware of False Wellness

Wellness is a choice. Illness is a choice. The laws of nature are working continually, whether we know it or not, believe it or not, or just choose to ignore them. They just keep on working. We can choose to work with the Laws of Nature, or against them. Working against them brings destruction every time. Working with them maximizes the life in your life.

Most people are living somewhere between false wellness, otherwise known as the comfort zone, and illness. They continually battle symptoms in an attempt to feel better. Why? Maybe it’s because we’ve been told since we were very little that if you have no symptoms, you’re healthy.

How’s that been working? Americans have the worst health score of all the industrialized nations. We spend more money than any other nation and our stats keep getting worse.

What if we’re asking the wrong questions? Have you asked, “What do I have and how do I get rid of it?” or “What can I take to make this go away?” Those kinds of questions only lead to chasing symptoms. If that is what you’re doing, the best you can hope for is to be asymptomatic or symptom-free.

Being symptom-free is NOT health. It’s just symptom-free. There are dozens of illnesses that have no symptoms until it’s so far advanced that you might not recover. Heart problems, liver problems, cancer, hormonal problems, spinal problems…the list is almost endless.

The most dangerous thing is that as you suppress symptoms – your body’s way of alerting you that it needs attention – you move closer and closer to serious illness without knowing it. Then one day you say, “ I got cancer, got a heart condition, got asthma, got allergies, got diabetes.”

You fill in the blank. You didn’t ‘get’ anything. You developed it. You lifestyled yourself into it.

The good news is that you can lifestyle yourself towards Wellness just as easily. It’s really about what you focus on. If you focus on preventing illness, or lowering cholesterol, or lowering blood pressure, you’re focused on what you DON’T want.

Studies from Framingham, Tokyo, Honolulu, Russia and other places show that by focusing on lowering LDL cholesterol with statin drugs, for instance, death from heart attacks goes UP. That’s not a typo. UP. You get more of what you focus on. Change your focus and you can change your life.

If you were to take a PROACTIVE approach, focusing on Wellness and improving function in the body, you would be rewarded with a much higher level of health than by trying to prevent something. For instance, how many points do you score on defense?

By focusing on what you want, you dramatically increase the likelihood of getting that. The first rule of snow skiing in the trees is look for the space BETWEEN the trees, not AT the trees! Focus on health and wellness, not disease.

All the prevention in world will not move you one step closer to wellness. You have to change your thinking about illness and wellness, sickness and health, symptoms and function. If you ate some bad food and were vomiting and had diarrhea, would you be sick? Or would you be having a perfectly healthy response that will allow your body to survive?

The questions that will help you move toward wellness are questions like, “What does my body need to function normally?” or “What can I do to help my body work better and better?” Ask these kinds of questions and you will get much more resourceful answers that will lead you to a wellness lifestyle.

A wellness lifestyle incorporates 5 areas: Proper rest, proper nutrition, proper exercise, proper mental attitude and proper nerve supply. The word doctor means teacher. The role of Chiropractic is to first teach (remind) you how to live a wellness lifestyle, and second, to deliver the Chiropractic adjustment to restore proper nerve supply to brain and body.

When the brain and body are in proper communication, and when you are putting the right food in and keeping the toxic things out (drugs, environmental poisons, etc.), getting adequate rest, moving and exercising the way we were meant to and thinking the right thoughts, you have your best opportunity of being healthy for your whole life. That is lifestying yourself into health and wellness.

Beware of false wellness! It’s your life and your choice, so choose wisely. Your life and those you love depend on it.

By Murray Galbraith, DC

If you have any questions, please ask below!