HOW CAN WE MAINTAIN OUR HEALTH IN DAILY LIFE?

HOW CAN WE MAINTAIN OUR HEALTH IN DAILY LIFE?

So the amount of money that we spend on health care every year is almost inconceivable to spend about 316 billion dollars on cardiovascular-related. Another 327 billion on costs associated with diabetes the last year we spent over $11,000 per person on health care. The irony of this is that most of that money is going to sick care, not things that help us with healthy behaviors or wellness, so what are we buying with all of that money? Is it good health is it may be a long life expectancy do we have more vitality and resilience and endurance than citizens of other countries that spend significantly less than we do on health care every year, unfortunately, no actually not only no but hell no now growing up I didn't want to be a doctor what I wanted to be was a shaman more specifically what I wanted to be was a healer.

Physical, Mental Emotional, and Spiritual Emotion:

 I wanted to care for my community's physical, mental, and emotional, and spiritual health while living my life ensconced in that web of relationships that make up a tribe. Now you may not be surprised that shaman was not a career path that was listed in my high school guidance counselor's college catalogs, so I decided to choose medicine instead, and I thought that becoming a family doc would be the most current path to serving my community as a healer. Still, I had no idea what I was getting myself into now. It might surprise you to know that only about 20% of the health.

Outcomes here in the United States are directly related to the clinical care that we receive so that's like the quality of the doctors and then nurses and medical facilities we can access the remaining 80% is directly related to our own health behaviors socioeconomic factors and the impact of our physical environment so the chronic disease epidemic that has really emerged over the last 50 years including cardiovascular disease diabetes cancer dementia these things can really be attributed to the cumulative effect of our lifestyle choices that we make every day for the most part these diseases happen by choice not by chance and unfortunately all those pills and procedures that we use to try to combat them it might slow down this impending train wreck of disability and disease but it rarely is able to bring us back to a state of resilience and well-being but what if we could change the game what if we could create a new paradigm something that actually brings us both along health span and a long lifespan well I studied hard in medical school .

Medical Research:

 I learned many things. I met brilliant clinicians, devoured cutting-edge research studies. I experienced the joy of delivering babies. I also found that peace and solace are possible even for those that are dying if someone has time to sit and breathe there for the experience with them, so I found a quote during medical school that I felt distilled this essence of being a healer and is said to cure sometimes to relieve often but to comfort always and so I chose that as my Creed. I absorbed everything that I could from the late 20th century Western medical paradigm my memories for me.

And physiology and pathology microbiology and all these evidence-based guidelines for treating hypertension and heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes. I eventually became a practicing physician with my panel of wonderful patients forced by the system to spend 15 minutes or less with each of them but still finding my purpose and trying to live that Creed Cheers sometimes we leave often but comfort always but unfortunately, I began to see that the medical paradigm that I had been trained in and practiced was not working I cared for many children who struggled with obesity and had very poor cardiovascular fitness so much so that they could not even run one lap around a gym without getting out of breath.

HEALTHY FRUITS AND DRINKS FOR HEALTH:

I could see that they were already well on their way to a lifetime of chronic disease just because of the lifestyle choices and social norms that were surrounding them, so coming to see me once a year on their excellent child check and being told to drink less sweetened beverages eat more fruits and vegetables participate in active play for 60 minutes a day oh this was utterly ineffective I mean especially compared to the tsunami of competing messages that they were exposed to every day in our society asking them and urging them to eat more sugary sweet-salty foods to exercise less and to consume as much digital entertainment as possible.

I felt like that I was trying to prevent an avalanche from burying them by flicking cotton balls at it, which is an exercise in futility, and how about their parents well following evidence-based guidelines on how to treat my patient's hypertension and diabetes, and heart disease did not reverse these problems I frequently found that I needed to either increase their medications or maybe even add additional new pills to try to combat the stubbornly rising blood pressure and blood sugar and chest pain the drugs and procedures that I had been taught we're the gold standard for maintaining and improving health had failed.