CLUES TOWARDS NATURAL HEALTH
[Nyerges is the author of “Extreme Simplicity,” “How to
Survive Anywhere,” “Guide to Wild Foods
Health. What is it, really?
When most of the world speaks of the “health profession,” they’re not
speaking of health at all. They’re speaking about maladies, discomforts, and
disease. They speaking about what the
western doctors can do to relieve or eliminate the symptoms of our problems.
So it always bugs me that we’ve hypnotically switched
“health” with “symptom relief” in our thinking.
It also bugs me that no where in all the “healthcare” debate
about “Obamacare” being forced upon us is there any discussion whatsoever about
what constitutes health! So what
is health? How do we achieve it? What does it look like?
When I was about 17 I got a job at a local health food
store. The owner made a point of telling me that he got into the “health field”
because he’d nearly driven himself to death because of his desire to be an
actor. He would recount for us his
various diseases and symptoms, all of which he says he overcame by a change of
diet. He still died a young death in
his 50s, perhaps because his years of stress and drugs and drinking still
caught up with him. But for awhile, he was the image of radiant health. What
did he do? Perhaps more importantly, what did he not do?
I am not a fan of a big government dictating what
constitutes health, and so I have no faith in the current dictates that
everyone should get “mandatory” vaccinations.
I don’t believe it is safe, nor efficacious, and yes, I am one of those
who believe it can be harmful. (But
this is not primarily about vaccinations.)
What is good vibrant health, and how can we all achieve it?
It is something that Obamacare can give us? Is it something that most doctors can tell
us how to achieve? For starters, just
look at your doctor. He or she might be
the epitome of radiant health, but chances are, your overworked doctor is not
an exemplar of radiant health.
In one of my books, Integral Health, I have proposed the
“Pyramid of Health,” where the bottom foundation of the pyramid constitutes all
those things that are the most important foundations of health. The very tip of the pyramid – those things
that are least important – include the drugs and care of doctors.
What you do, and eat, and think, and how you spend your life,
are the building blocks to radiant health. This is nothing new, and is not a
mystery.
Hippocrates, sometimes called the father of modern medicine,
used a variety of “natural methods” to relieve sickness and bring about a state
of health. These methods included exposure to sunlight, exercise, diet,
fasting, water therapy, etc. There are
whole books today about the scientific foundation for each of these means of
promoting health.
Of course, the greatest focus in our society is upon the
foods that we eat, and the intensity of the exercise we do. It is easier to quantify the effects on our
health of various foods we eat than it
is to quantify our state of mind on our health. But that is the direction in which we should be headed.
In a recent discussion with a mentor, he brought up what he
felt is a major source of mental and physical sickness. He expressed that whenever any of us carries
on with unpaid debts (and these debts can be financial, ethical, moral, or spiritual),
that nightmares and sicknesses result.
The obvious solution is to delve deep within, and find a way to pay that
debt. But what most of us do, instead,
is to dig in our heels and resist, resulting in much mental anguish and even
manifesting as various sicknesses and diseases. Then, the common next step is
to get a doctor (of some sort, even a psychiatrist) to give us drugs to deal
with the pain. Of course, all the drugs
have side effects, sometimes worse than what it was trying to cure. Or maybe we
drink alcohol to relieve the pain so we can carry on with our life without ever
having to deal with the cause.
Healthcare should promote regular vigorous exercise, and an
excellent diet, and should guide each patient to see how our thinking, and the
jobs we do, can ruin our health, or improve it. Real health educators should teach how to use foods as medicines,
and how we can allow our body to heal itself, if we let it. For example, using
the fresh aloe leaf to treat cuts and wounds. Or using garlic (internally or
externally) to deal with infections. I
told a friend how I once used garlic after a root canal, and didn’t use any
antibiotics that the dentist prescribed. He believed I was lying!
Another “natural method” involves using vinegar in our
drinking water and fruit juices to help us adjust to external temperature
fluctuations, or externally to deal with bug bites.
We are, of course, in the early stages of a health
revolution, where people know something is wrong with the overall direction and
focus of the “health profession.” But don’t expect changes from the industry or
from government. Educate yourself, and
learn to treat yourself and your family.
And keep learning!
(Obviously, I’ve only touched on the tip of the iceberg
here – I welcome your questions and comments).
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