Healthy Habits Prevent Disease
A male in the U.S. has a better statistical chance of winning a Super Bowl ring or an Academy Award than they do of reaching the age of 65 without a diagnosis of diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease. With a gloomy statistic like that, it seems we are all destined for illness. As if it is our fate. As if it is out of our control. You may even feel like: “My Mom and Dad had it so I’m expecting to have it.” This is just not true!
These major pathologies are both preventable and reversible through lifestyle choices. These 3 major illnesses which can hinder the quality and length of life can be avoided if we so choose. If you have already been diagnosed with one, or even collected all three, you can still make a choice to reverse the conditions. You can change the habits that you do every day, to allow your amazing body to heal. The details and recommendations are fairly common knowledge now. We all know that we could choose to be healthier. You can even google: “how can I lower my blood pressure naturally?” or “How can I reverse my diabetes?” or “How can I prevent or reverse heart disease?” If you do a little bit of poking around, I’m sure you’ll find that all of the recommendations and healthy habits overlap. They are the same. All will include exercise, (move your body, challenge your body, make it sweat, tear some muscle, burn your lungs with exercise) All will include wholesome nutrition, (Stop feeding yourself things without any nutritional value, eat beautiful colorful vegetables, healthy fats, fibers, protein and drink plenty of water) all will include ways to lower stress and get more sleep. (be sure to get to sleep especially between the hours of 10 pm to 2 am for many different healthy reasons) All should include regular Chiropractic adjustments to allow the Central Nervous System to express itself to the fullest potential. So we all know that we can always do a better job taking care of ourselves. The knowhow is available. The kicker is: What is it going to take to provoke you to change your ways? We are so comfortable and stubborn and afraid of change. We are creatures of habit who are so reluctant to change. You may have heard the words for a person to change; they must be pushed by pain, or pulled by a vision. Otherwise we will just sit right where we are in life. [Arms crossed] “No thanks, I’m fine right here.” To move me I must feel excruciating pain, be it physical or mental, to provoke me to get out of pain. My current state has to hurt really badly. Or, to move me, I must see an inspiring vision of what my life could be. I must see someone doing something awesome that I’d like to do, that I know that I can do if I set my mind on it. Or simply be around someone vibrant with youthful health that practices what they preach and is responsible for making healthful changes in their life. This will help me know that I could have that too. This might pull me toward a vision to change the way I am.
The tricky part of these 3 major pathologies (heart disease, hypertension and diabetes), and a lot of other diseases, is that you can slowly acquire them without any major pain. They can creep up and snatch you in a very ninja-like way. You can succumb to them without being in any real pain. You may have some uncomfortable symptoms that cause you to seek medical care and a diagnosis with a prescription. It gets really messy when you get some strong drugs that mask the symptoms. Then disease can get way out of control! These amazing breakthrough medicines just make it more comfortable for us to live with disease. This is missing the big picture. To prevent or reverse disease in our life, we have to be pulled by a vision of what could be to inspire us to change our daily lifestyle habits. Pain will not likely be the instigating factor. So find a vision and hold on to it.
Some of us treat our body the way we treat our car. No care or maintenance. We just drive it right into the dirt. We wake up every day and count on it to work the way we expect it too. Until too many days go by without attention and we wake up sick and we can’t do what we want. We can’t play golf with friends or we can’t play with our children or grandchildren. Or maybe we wake up and the car won’t start or it breaks down.
Or maybe you’re the guy who dumps all his time, energy, and money into taking very detailed care of the car, leaving absolutely no attention to your body. This guy pulls up in to park his beautiful sports car. It is squeaky clean and shiny. He climbs out of the car dragging a dead leg behind him in a lot of pain. He hobbles into the office carrying a bag of chips and a soda pop and he calls that his “lunch”. He has just come from filling his car with the finest quality products; the most expensive oil and gasoline that money can buy. He spent all his time and energy waxing and polishing it. Here he is spending top dollar on his ride while feeding himself the poorest, nutritionally bankrupt “food-like-substance” available. The cheapest products and care for himself and the best of the best for his car.
The good Lord blessed us with amazing human bodies that are built with an inherent capability to regulate the pressure of our blood as it courses through our arteries and veins. As we abuse the body day to day, over years without care, it begins to show signs of wear and tear. One of these signs is an increase in blood pressure. Our body is struggling to maintain performance with poor improper care. Sadly we attempt to exogenously regulate our BP by introducing a substance into our bodies that tampers with our chemistry. We take BP medication to lower the pressure for some time. Really consider this. Really think how ludicrous this idea is.
Amazing and brilliant mechanics build cars for performance. They install the wonderful capability for a car to cool it as it works so hard to burn fuel and propel itself against gravity to all of the places we like to go. Over time with wear and tear, let’s say my car loses the ability to cool itself and begins to overheat. I’ve got to keep moving so I stop at the quick trip to buy a bag of ice and place it over the top of the engine to cool it down. The ice melts and the car cools. I get in and drive a few more blocks down the road until it begins to overheat again. Then I stop again to buy another bag of ice and place it over the engine to cool it. This is silly right!? This is ridiculous! It would never work, it is not sustainable. You would call me a fool if I tried this. My car lost the ability to regulate its temperature and I’m trying to cool it with external means. What is the difference with this analogy and blood pressure? Your BP is up and you stop at the pharmacy to buy pills to drop it down. You get a few more miles down the road and eventually you use all of the pills and your BP goes up again and you stop at the pharmacy (Quicktrip) to get more drugs (your bag of ice). This is not sustainable. This is stressing your body system immensely. Yet millions of Americans are completely comfortable with doing this every single day. It is the same story with diabetes and blood sugar and with high cholesterol and medications.
Reflect upon your health. What are you using as a bag of ice on your engine?
