This information is excerpted from the book, Recapture Your Health, by Walt Stoll, M.D. and Jan DeCourtney, C.M.T. Feel free to use up to 10 tips in an article or story as long as you quote the source and ordering information for the book (at bottom).
The very best health tip is to practice the 3LS Wellness Program. It consists of:
This wellness program is a tried-and-true approach for reversing chronic symptoms, pain, and illness. This basic regimen produces the quickest and most certain health results for the largest number of patients. It is also wonderful for improving and maintaining good health.
Symptoms are warning messages from your bodymind that something has to change because there is too much stress to one or more functional body systems. If you do not get the message, your bodymind will eventually send you a stronger message, i.e., a stronger disease or symptom.
To increase your distance from symptoms, and to restore better function, you have two basic options. You can either:
Combining both approaches is the most effective and prudent thing to do.
However, since modern society has so many stressors, and it is difficult to eliminate many of them, you will usually get the very best result by focusing most or all of your energy into increasing your health condition. This is best done by practicing the 3LS Wellness Program, which consists of regular practice of Skilled Relaxation, a Whole Foods Diet, and Right Exercise.
There are different levels of relaxation, and some relaxation methods have a healing capability. The one that heals the most is called Skilled Relaxation (SR). SR cultivates the ability to reliably reach a deeply relaxed state in a short period of time. During a Skilled Relaxation session, there is a definite shift in the body s relaxation response and a change of brainwave that allows healing to occur. When practiced regularly over a period of time, Skilled Relaxation can reverse many chronic symptoms.
There are moments in ordinary relaxing activities such as receiving a massage, going fishing, swimming, doing artwork, or even drumming when deep relaxation can occur for many people. However, the relaxation in a Skilled Relaxation session is deeper than what most people consider relaxing. The method is called Skilled Relaxation because it is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced.
Find a relaxation practice that you enjoy, and set aside 20 minutes twice a day to do the practice. Pay attention to your body and make sure that you are relaxing body and mind. If you are in doubt whether or not you are relaxed enough, go for a biofeedback session and ask the technician to verify that you are reaching the relaxation response or an alpha brainwave. After you are successfully relaxing in this manner, you should see health improvements quickly with the most dramatic results visible after 6 months to a year.
All of the many widely recommended diets on the market all agree on one point the fewer refined or processed foods eaten, the better. A Whole Foods Diet helps most people improve their health greatly with minimal effort and expense. Following a Whole Foods Diet basically means you eat foods that are whole and avoid refined foods. If a food has been refined, most of the micronutrients have been removed, but in order for the body to metabolize the rest of the food, it needs those micronutrients and has to take those micronutrients from bodily storage. Thus the more refined foods you eat, the less nutrition you get.
A whole food is one that has had no parts removed. In contrast to a whole food, a refined food is one that has had something taken out. For example, a potato with the skin on is whole, but if you remove the skin before eating it, the potato is refined.
If you are even looking for a dietary approach to feeling better, you may assume that you might benefit from a two-week trial of eating exclusively whole foods. Eating all whole foods can help correct or prevent a variety of diseases or symptoms. In addition to healing chronic illness, one effective way for most people to lose weight is to follow a Whole Foods Diet strictly until reaching a normal weight (the level at which you feel best) and then continuing the diet for at least 6 months. Another benefit of this diet is how great the food tastes! After eating fewer refined foods, a person s numbed taste buds come alive and recover their sensitivity to the natural flavor and sweetness of whole foods.
Health food stores carry a wide variety of whole foods. Some communities also have good natural food co-ops. Regular grocery stores are increasing their shelf space for whole foods or may special-order items for you. Whole foods may also be mail-ordered from some health food stores. When changing to a Whole Foods Diet, read every food package label (including the label of any nutritional supplement, vitamin, etc., that you take) to make sure that no refined foods have been included. If you view this diet as an adventure in eating, you can use it as an opportunity to explore new foods and create new dishes at the same time you enhance your health.
If exercise ranks as an activity that you avoid, it may be the single most important thing you can do for your health. This is because people tend to avoid doing the very thing that would help them the most. The important ting is just to begin exercising regularly, even if you choose something simple and easy. Today, with all the different kinds of exercise available (even some you can do while sitting on the couch watching TV), you have many choices for starting an exercise program. Most people who begin one kind of exercise eventually become interested in adding other types. After becoming aware of how good it makes them feel, and the other encouraging messages they receive from their muscles and body, they want more.
Many people hold a deep and ingrained belief that vigorous exercise is the only really healthy kind of exercise. But it is not necessarily best for meeting all health goals. Non-aerobic exercise (anaerobics) includes activities that don t get your heart going fast, like gentle rebounding (mini-trampoline), progressive strength exercise, non-aerobic walking, t ai chi, yoga, stretching, and Alexander Technique. Much variety exists, so you may select one or several types of exercise that are right for you.
Choose one or more activities that you enjoy. Get a good book and become knowledgeable about it, take a class, etc. Start slowly, especially if you are older, have been ill, or are overweight. Regular exercise is best, every day or three times a week, in 20 minute intervals. But do whatever you can. Listen to your body and slow down or change exercises if necessarily. Be sure to have fun with this and really enjoy the time you exercise!
Some people believe that they are taking time away from their families, especially their children, if they engage in activities to improve their own health. However, by practicing wellness, you can enrich your family life. You set a good example for your children and spouse by engaging in healthy activities. Not only will you be a happier, healthier person (nicer to be around), but children and other family members will also benefit from having a positive role model. They can look up to and learn from your actions, your taking care of yourself, and your integrating healthy activities and habits into daily life.
You will not lose time with your family members if you include them in your healthy activities and involve them in wellness. For example, some families enjoy practicing relaxation activities together, spend time in the kitchen collectively creating interesting whole foods dishes, and exercise as a group or team. Such family activities can encourage closeness and good relationships.
Some people think the way to give and receive love with family members is to bake sugary cookies, give a box of chocolates, etc. Think how much more you will be loving them by giving them the true treat of good healthy and healthy lifetime habits.
If you are committed to regularly practice a Wellness Program, your health condition will change. Thus as you heal, you may have to change paths, since each of us becomes different as we get nearer to being well. Thus, healing approaches that worked in the beginning may lose their effectiveness, and so you may have to select new techniques and methods to continue to see progress.
For example, if you are practicing a relaxation technique, the one that worked for you in the beginning may stop working as well and you may need to find another. The same is true of diet. With better health, your metabolic processes will likely change, so any dietary approach used alongside eating whole foods that helped when you were over-stressed may need also to change. Staying with that previous diet might actually make you sick, and so you must adapt to the new situation. Also, many people who start on any kind of exercise program eventually get interested in adding other varieties, so your exercise program will likely change as well.
Change is what you want to have happen, so all of these events are good signs that you are moving forward with your healing program.
One of our favorite recommendations for health and healing is to practice self-awareness by listening to your bodymind. The wisdom of the bodymind is one of the most reliable tools we know for finding your own personal pathway to health. When you are following a wellness program and healing is happening, rather than symptoms being suppressed, listening to the messages of the bodymind is a powerful way to choose what works best for the stage of healing you are in at the time.
People with unhealthy bodies are pretty numb and at the beginning, don t always do well with self-awareness. However, by following a Wellness Program, your health will most likely improve enough for you to begin to feel what s happening in your bodymind again. As improvements continue, you become further aware of internal changes. Listening to your bodymind makes it your own personal testing laboratory to determine your own answers for healing, and naturally, you come to find your own next steps for furthering your health.
Body and mind directly affect each other. Their close relationship is one reason why the term bodymind is so appropriate. Since they are so integrated, when trying to resolve physical health symptoms, your mind can be a great resource for your healing.
For example, Here, take this is not the most effective method of taking medicine, even if the remedy you are using or taking is what you actually need. After knowing what to do to help your condition, you can further use the power of your mind by knowing why you are using that particular remedy, and how it works. This actually makes for a more complete cure. Your understanding increases awareness, so that the energies of your mind become part of your healing power. This engages more of you in the healing process, making treatments and therapies work more effectively.
Besides understanding the treatments, understanding the nature and cause of your condition can enhance your healing efforts and recovery. Please note that understanding more about your condition and treatments is different from any kind of futile attempt to search for answers instead of practicing wellness. It s most helpful to be engaging in a wellness program while learning more about your condition.
Many people would benefit from becoming more involved in their own health care and decision making beyond just going to see a practitioner or physician. If you have a chronic health problem that seems to defy resolution, the solution most likely rests in your concentrated personal effort. This means becoming a student and learning as much as you can about your condition and the basic mechanisms causing illness and health. By doing so, it is likely that you will encounter the lifestyle changes and modalities that will benefit you the most, and move to a more direct path of healing.
If this process of learning seems daunting to you, just read and study a little bit every day and you will slowly begin to see the whole picture. There comes a time in the accumulation of knowledge when everything seems to just fall into place and, eventually, everything gets simpler and easier.
By far the most influential and important of the causes of illness is choice. Choice either enhances or worsens what genetics has given you. Choice either increases or decreases the amount and effect of stress in your life. By our choices, we all contribute to, or resolve, our own problems. The positive side of this in terms of chronic illness is that most individuals only have to improve a few items to vastly improve function and health.
Lifestyle is an effective place to start making better choices to transform your health. Lifestyle choices dramatically increase (or decrease) enjoyment of life, resistance to disease, length and quality of life, and can ever reverse (or accelerate) the progression of chronic disease. The single most effective and dynamic lifestyle choice you can make to improve your genetic potential and overall health is to practice all aspects of the self-help 3LS Wellness Program consisting of Skilled Relaxation, Whole Foods Diet, and Right Exercise. The vast majority who practice this program usually also become students of health and start making additional choices for a healthy lifestyle. This gratifying cycle of learning and then feeling more alive can be irresistible.
One choice you can make is viewing wellness and the process of getting better as enjoyment. Consider your self-help wellness program as a hobby. Seriously practicing wellness is not only one of the most enjoyable hobbies, but it also offers the greatest potential for a happy life. If you don t think you have enough energy for making lifestyle changes, start small but do start. Once wellness, at any level of commitment, has been your hobby for a year, your increased health gives you more time and ability to make even more positive changes in your life. Actually experiencing a wellness lifestyle is the only way to know how happy you can feel.
Regardless of the chronic condition you wish to overcome, the most efficient use of your time and energy for its resolution occurs by following three steps. The first step is learning and study finding out more about your condition and the health and lifestyle approaches that can help you. The second step is implementing some of those lifestyle changes for your improved wellness. The third step is adding other treatments. While starting with Step 3 is not the most effective way to go about reversing a chronic condition, many opt to start here. Hopefully, doing so will create enough benefits for you to become interested in going back to Step 1 and Step 2. Following the order we listed above gives the quickest, best, and most-long lasting results, but it is more important that you get better than how you do it.
If you have chronic symptoms, it helps to be a detective. Here are a few examples of how decreasing external stressors resolved some chronic conditions. 1) A patient suffered from recurrent severe headaches, and nothing made them go away. Finally, she figured out that she was taking a prescription medication (Estriol) that had the side effect of causing headaches. As soon as she stopped taking it, the headaches went away. 2) Some people who break out in rashes on their feet learn that the shoes they are wearing are causing an allergic reaction. 3) A woman who worked in a wood stove showroom became fatigued and felt ill shortly after she began her job. Only after she found different employment did her health return. Her problem was due to the smoke from the wood stoves.
In terms of working with the causes of illness, we encourage people to put their efforts toward the 3LS Wellness Program, since it is usually more effective to strengthen oneself than to try to remove the mountain of stressors that exist in modern times. Any aspect of Wellness is usually the most important thing you can do to get better. However, it is also a good idea to see what you can do to decrease external stressors.
If you have tried conventional medicine and treatments for your chronic illness or symptoms, and it hasn t helped, and your insurance doesn t cover other healing methods, what can you do?
You can continue to go for free treatment paid for your insurance that has not worked for you, or you can pay out of your pocket for other healing treatments that have a better chance of effectively treating your condition. It is your decision whether you want to be well and whether you are willing to do what it takes to get there or not. The real cost of illness sis not usually the money; it is how you feel and the reduction in productivity and enjoyment of life.
Keep in mind that by using as much knowledge as you can gain about your condition, together with your no-cost or low-cost 3LS Wellness Program, you may not even need other healing methods.
At a time of very rapidly developing knowledge, you are bound to find differing opinions. Learn as much as you can about each one, and then choose what you think will work best for you. Having to make such choices is one reason why it is so helpful that you become self-aware and attuned to your own bodymind, in addition to learning as much as you can about your condition. Combining self-awareness and self-knowledge with the cutting edge of new breakthroughs and discoveries in healing will help you make the best decision about which one to choose.
It may be fine to try any or all of the recommended approaches. If one is less expensive, you might try that one first. They might also work well together synchronistically if you do all of them.
The general area of mental or emotional problems is not so different from any other type of chronic health problem. Especially in terms of health, the body and mind cannot be separated. Because of the connection between mind and body, when a person has what seems to be a physical malady, this does not mean it is unrelated to the mind. When one suffers with mental or emotional distress, this does not mean that it has nothing to do with the body. Like all chronic conditions, mental-emotional difficulties are caused by the same three basic factors, the combination of: genetics, stress, and lifestyle choices.
Current conventional treatment for mental-emotional issues usually consists of drugs to deal with chemical imbalances and counseling for psychosocial difficulties. Sometimes conventional approaches are the best option for certain individuals. However, for many people, other solutions are more effective. Most types of chronic illness bundled into the category of mental-emotional conditions are best treated using a holistic approach that addresses different aspects of a person. This approach works because multiple causes and mechanisms usually create such conditions. A wide variety of methods, techniques, and treatments can work synchronistically to enhance the specific health needs that resolve mental or emotional symptoms.
Here are three approaches for improving mental-emotional issues.
There is overlap in what each of these approaches accomplishes. Each can help the other, although it may take a combination of all three approaches to fully resolve mental-emotional symptoms.
Walt Stoll, MD, and Jan DeCourtney, CMT, are co-authors of the book, Recapture Your Health: A Complete Step-by-Step Program to Reverse Your Chronic Symptoms and Create Lasting Wellness, (ISBN 0965317129), available at local and online bookstores, and from Sunrise Health Coach Publications, 1-877-357-9355 or www.sunrisehealthcoach.com.
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