Does Health Matter? Of Course it does!

Those who live with a lack of it, will tell you emphatically that it matters; since how do you live your life without it!

The realisation usually only comes when your own health, or that of someone we love fails and you realise how everything else including wealth, position and power become meaningless and pales into insignificance; all of those things could not save the sad loss of Apple's Steve Jobs for example.

Money may not be able to buy health but it can buy you the time to tune your engine and avoid letting it get to the verge of breaking down. It can allow you the space to return to a state of balance, avoid extreme illness or disease setting in as a result of years of ignoring the need to support optimum health, and recognise any early symptoms and signs that may have set in.

I am a case in point. Today I spend my hard earned money on doing exactly that! I spend time on keeping my body in balance, use funds to pay for things that keep my body in optimum health and allow myself the space to effectively let my body rest and heal itself.

I live by my 3 simple motto's:-

It is easy to ignore the calls from our bodies to moderate our actions and to continue eating food out of packets, drink alcohol in excess, fizzy drinks, snacks and sugar sugar sugar. Not moving enough and becoming deaf to the general malaise of our body becomes the norm and can end up resulting in a vicious circle which makes it difficult to find an exit point.

We can allow ourselves to edge quietly towards malfunction, then start hurtling towards a failing, broken, medicated status which can sometimes lead to more drugs to manage the side effects resulting from the original medication (very few allopathic drugs come without side effects).

It is also easy to fall into the trap of looking only on the surface to identify the health issues bothering us, separating them from the rest of the connections in the body, and the connections we humans have to the energy of the universe, thereby avoiding the root cause and missing the holistic solution, as nature intended.

Slowly, all this either can compromise or eventually shut down the immune system (our protector) leading to disease. Negative feelings about our state of health can then start to consume our overall sense of wellbeing.

This is not to say that we can't enjoy our ‘lifestyle’. Of course we can, and we all should, being happy is important. I know I enjoyed it!

Until I realised "enjoyment" is timed and if prolonged/abused can lead to negative effects such as diabetes, autoimmune conditions and allergies etc, at worst various cancers can manifest. These conditions can start to consume us by lowering the overall ability for our body to deal with the aftermath, which in the end leads to no fun at all.

Filling your body with food lacking in nutrients is unsustainable, so is mentally convincing ourselves that we are totally satisfied in this and our overall predicament. Being true to yourself and those that love you is a revelation when you finally get on board.

A treat once in a while is great for our mind and spirit. However, the approach to 'treating' ourselves can be holistic and balanced. We often read unhelpful general articles in the press, such as that red wine and chocolate are good for us.

However, the benefits are solidly weighted on the side of enjoying small, quality amounts of chocolate and alcohol as that way the body has the ability to re-balance itself. The way forward is to enjoy good dark chocolate and decent wine or spirits. Also bear in mind that the resveratrol and cacao ingredients referred to in those articles are available in their most natural form to consume (in grapes and cacao nibs) without the side effects of consuming either of the above in it's processed forms.

Everyone agrees that little pleasures in moderation are great for the feel good factor and emotional and mental wellbeing! The operative word here being moderation!

If we compare our physical body to the body of a car or even a computer or smart phone, we may find ourselves spending more money on and taking better care of those inanimate objects than ourselves!

We wash, clean, polish our cars, fill them with the right fuel, give them the right type of oil and regularly service them, replacing valves, filters and worn parts to keep it in pristine working condition. We defragment our computers and smart phones, protect them with virus guards, update software and file entries so the systems remain fast and operative to deliver the best performance.

If we did the same for our bodies when they provide us with warning signs that we could liken to the flashing, loud, red light on your car dashboard to alerting us please check what’s wrong, we could pick up malaise before it becomes an issue. These physical warning signs can include fever, pallor, yellowing skin, weak nails, hair loss, dry skin, headaches, exhaustion, depression, lethargy, dark shadows under our eyes, fatigue, depression and a drained life force, to name just a few.

Don't our bodies deserve the same attention and care? Of course they do, human spare parts don't come easy, nor do they come with an exact fit and you certainly can't buy them off the shelf.

Your body is amazing! Yes you read that correctly! It just needs care and to be able to keep within homeostasis. It is not built to hurt you, it is constructed to protect you, to fix you, to keep you healthy. The mechanism of it all is still a mystery in so many ways, even to scientists who still struggle to explain the placebo effect with their science.

The Mind, Gut and Ki (life force or energy), are some of the critical control centres that help keep our whole system in check. When they are being taken care of, and given the right nutrients and environment, they can do their job effectively. When they break down, are out of balance or lacking sync, the mechanics (internal organs that support the body) can start to malfunction and lose the ability to perform optimally.

Traditional allopathic mainstream medicine may get rid of symptoms that appear on the surface, it may be able to cut the pain signal out, silence it; it may even be able to rid the internal issue for a period of time. However, not for long as suppression can often bring on more issues.

Have we wrongly convinced ourselves that when our surface symptoms disappear the body is OK? Have a headache, take a tablet! Dry skin, use external chemical filled moisturiser!

BUT why don't we ask what is causing it? Could it be dehydration? or lack of oxygen? Hormonal imbalance?

The NHS recently started a campaign about the overuse of antibiotics, very late in the game as the damage is well on the way and has already led us to a place where antibiotics have been resistant for some time. Bacterial and viral mutations happen far too fast and nature is too superior even for giant multinational drug companies to keep up with the next tranche of anti-bacteria/virus medication. Last year’s flu vaccine is highly unlikely to combat the strain of flu bug appearing this year, and so on.

Adopting a holistic approach using various methods related to the pillars of health including a Naturopathic Nutrition approach, means you can review all the body systems, assess why they are out of sync, aid identification of the root cause, and avoid potentially leaving issues festering inside, slowly and silently worsening over time.

Prevention is always better than cure, and taking responsibility for our own bodies is the critical first step to a prolonged sense of wellbeing. If we leave/ignore our bodies until they can no longer cope, become ready to give up or are irretrievably damaged, it's a very long arduous journey back to optimal health.

We can all do a little every day to make a difference to our health. Why not set an 70/30 or 80/20 rule where 70-80% of the time you are feeding your body the nutrition it needs and the other 20-30% you are feeding your “I like it” need! If that's too hard, start with 50/50 then build on that.

If your body is still relatively healthy, this approach could be good enough. However, if your health is already poor, it may need to have an overhaul, re-set, service or cleanse, to bring it back to optimal working order.

I hope this gives you “food for thought”, no pun intended, and hopefully leads you to start thinking about your own path to good health. If you need any further advice on naturopathic nutrition designed individually for your needs, please contact me via LinkedIn.

©Farah Gina Condor, Integrity Nutrition and Health