What Creates vs. Sabotages Your Health:
By Dr. Richard Powers

Over the next three minutes I’ll share why it is that well into the 21st century 3 out of 4 people in the US will still likely succumb to diseases that the National Institutes of Health states are “largely preventable” – heart attacks, strokes, cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. I will also share a simple concept, the application of which will increase your chances of being the 1 in 4 who do NOT end up with one of these disabling diseases and a premature exit from this planet.

Let’s start with the question the 1000’s of people who have come to me over the past 40+ years ask, ‘how do I get well’?

To answer this question for my clients I needed to understand the answer to these two questions, ‘what creates health? and what sabotages it?’

What I discovered after decades of study and observation is that most fundamentally there are two opposing forces in play impacting our health. There are the burdens of stress and toxicity challenging us. Stress arising from the loss of loved ones, difficult relationships at home or work, unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and like that. And toxins, which are ubiquitous and more prevalent now than ever, as we live in a sea of toxins – in our food, water, air, clothing, at our home and workplace. Not to mention the invisible electromagnetic “toxins” (cell phone towers, Wi-Fi, satellite transmissions, and more) that didn’t exist at a fraction of what they are today even 5 years ago.

The good news is that our bodies are intelligently designed and have an innate internal resistance to these burdens of life. What determines the strength of our internal resistance has everything to do with our thoughts and (1) what we choose to eat, (2) how often we move our body (and how), and (3) if we are getting a good night’s rest most nights.

Simply put, when the burdens of life are greater than our bodies internal resistance, we tend to break down. Initially our bodies begin to dysfunction, but we usually haven’t been taught to notice and interpret these subtle clues. Then, once things progress to the symptomatic stage, we often either ignore the “signs” and hope they go “away,” or we frequently take something (an over-the-counter medication) to help us “feel” better. When things begin to feel bad enough, we then go see our doctor who then labels our symptoms (disease diagnosis) and writes a prescription for medication (commensurate with that diagnosis). More often than not we leave our doctor’s office without learning of the underlying causes of our health challenges, and without a strategy as to how to correct that which precipitated our problems in the first place.

If we want to turn this around and “get well” rather than just “feel” some better (symptomatic relief), it’s a matter of learning and doing what we can to minimize the burdens of stress and toxicity, while concurrently making some consistent positive improvements with our diet, exercise, and sleep routines.

Over time, the sum total of the burdens of stress and toxicity coupled with not eating well, not sleeping soundly, and not exercising and moving our bodies often enough create functional imbalances (shown in the yellow boxes). These are the areas that integrative doctors trained in functional medicine investigate.

Integrative practitioners are often aware of many types of underlying, functional imbalances. For example, challenges with the gut (dysbiosis, SIBO, and leaky gut), adrenal glands (hypoadrenia), blood sugar regulation (hypoglycemia, insulin resistance), oxidative stress (which damages DNA opening the door to cancer and damage to our blood vessels resulting in cardiovascular disease), problems with methylation and mitochondrial challenges (both of which impact every cell in our body), hormone imbalances (under and over active thyroid, low T, estrogen dominance), and so on.

When these functional imbalances are left undetected and therefore uncorrected, our organs and glands eventually become affected, resulting in a worsening of our symptoms and disease progression. This compels us to visit our doctor who then provides us with a disease diagnosis and a medication prescription. And although medication at times is necessary and beneficial – particularly when our health as significantly declined – it only helps manage the ailment but does little to correct it, as medication does not address and correct the underlying causes.

What all these functional imbalances have in common is they all got their foot in the door from our suboptimal diet and lifestyle choices coupled with the burdens of accumulating toxins and stress. Admittedly there are genetic influences and other forces at play, but what most fundamentally impacts our health outcome (and that we can do something about) is our diet, exercise, and sleep habits, and our ability to mitigate the effects of the stressors and toxins in our lives.

So, in a nutshell, getting and staying well all boils down to this one simple, LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE, concept:

If you give your body more of what it wants (eating well, moving often, sleeping soundly) and less of what it doesn’t (toxic burden, unmanaged stress), you’ll get more of what you want (vitality, peace, resilience) and less of what you don’t (pain, disability, infirmity).

Welcome to Intelligent Health™!