Healthy By Design

All it takes to be healthier than yesterday is a step in the right direction.

No matter where we are with our health, we can always get better. We can lose weight, feel terrific, eat more, sleep better, and be energized with

no notion of a lotion or a potion. And this can be done easily. Unless you’ve stayed in the hospital, I bet you never knew there were so many kinds of physicians—cardiologists, endocrinologists and pathologists, to name a few. One function of a pathologist in particular is to study the history and evolution of disease. When we abuse ourselves for long periods of time, we get little “stings” in the form of headaches, colds, bad breath, low energy, bad nerves and insomnia. When we continue this abuse, we look for something to make us better, instead of wondering what

in the world we are doing that’s making us sick. Then we get a bigger sting. Eventually, we really get stung and can wind up with cancer, heart disease, diabetes or strokes, thinking we inherited them.

I myself was chairman of the board of that mindset for years. I was a sick, fat, miserable, unhealthy kid, and thought being healthy was something for the select few (or you were just born into it).

STAGES OF DISEASE

Well, now is the time for us to understand how disease forms over time. These are the six stages of pathology in a nutshell:

1. ENERVATION. In this stage, you’ll just feel tired and irritable. You need more sleep, you get more colds and you may wonder why you’re suffering from bad breath, gas and constipation. You probably also find yourself with a short temper because your nerves are shot.

2. IRRITATION. Your physical body is beginning to reflect your health. You may suffer from sore joints, rapid heart rate and migraines or severe headaches.

3. INFLAMMATION. This is often your body’s first line of defense against allergens and disease. You’ll have red sores around cuts, pimples, shortness of breath, fever and inflamed areas around the kidneys, lungs and liver.

4. ULCERATION. Ulcers will appear in the stomach, lungs, liver and other organs. You’ll also be dealing with a lot of pus and boils.

5. INDURATION. By this point, hormonal glands are barely active. You’ll be suffering from the formation of fibroid tissues, as well as poor arterial blood flow, senility and tumors.

6. FUNGATION. This is where life is hanging by a thread. The intelligence of the cell, the DNA, has lost control and can no longer guide cellular function.

THE GOOD NEWS Diagnosis defines conditions of a disease. Prognosis defines the chances of survival. Prognosis of stage four is usually terminal. The good news is that at every stage, disease is still reversible.

Since we are all healthy by design and sick by default, it stands to reason that we want to be well and it would be good to stop making ourselves sick. But we need to want health in a special way, because we only pursue what we want when the want is greater than the effort.

All success starts with a beginning. Everyone who got where they are had to begin where they were. Opportunities are all around you.

Develop tendencies toward action. Break your big plan into small steps and take the first step right away. You can make something happen right now. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Take one.

We all know that what you do from Christmas to New Year’s doesn’t matter that much, but what we do from New Year’s to Christmas really matters. Let go of perfection and settle for excellence, knowing that excellence is no accident.

B Y WAYNE PICKERING, ND, ScM