What should true Healthcare look like?
“.. there are doctors for every inch of the body but there are very few who understand how the whole body works as one complete ecosystem..”, Dr Mark Hyman, The UltraMind Solution.
I am fortunate enough to be attending a course early next year run by The Institute of Functional Medicine, of which Dr Mark Hyman has been a Chairman of over the years. He is also a New York Times best selling author, many times over, and I for one, absolutely dig his work!
I am obsessed with the concepts of Functional Medicine. To me, it is the most logical and sensible way to look at healthcare. Functional medicine employs an understanding of how everything in the body relates / effects / affects / connects to everything else in the body. We cannot separate it into lots of individual or separate little pieces and expect to create overall health. This is what Naturopathy is all about too – working with the body as a ‘whole’.
Functional medicine and holistic healthcare
In a holistic healthcare approach, we can’t take a look at hormone health by just looking at levels of hormones for example. We need to also consider things such as the health of the liver and stress levels as these (along with many other processes) are critical aspects of balanced hormones.
You also cant expect to achieve amazing skin health by just treating the surface of the skin. We need to consider gut and bowel health, and how this impacts our skin health, and so on. Our bodies are 100% connected to everything that they contain. Everything in us and on us connects as one complex whole.
It has given me so much freedom in my understanding, thinking, and most importantly in the treatment of the body by looking for the root cause of imbalances, rather than simply treating a ‘disease’.
Functional medicine breaks the concept of diseases down to imbalances in the body. Imbalances that have occurred over time, which end up in a disease or condition we label as ‘X’. It doesn’t look at treating ‘X’, rather it looks at correcting the underlying causes – things such as overloaded detoxification, imbalanced immunity, under functioning cells, etc. It asks the question ‘why’ you have a disease over asking ‘what’ disease you have.
Getting the body’s detoxification channels running optimally, getting cells to talk to each other optimally, getting our energy powering, and so forth is the roots from which good health grows.
Alternative healthcare models
To correct and treat these imbalances, we absolutely have to understand where the root of the problem lays. Akin to a garden weed, if we only rip out the top part of the weed, without finding the root, it’ll simply grow again – and possibly even stronger the next time round. This is the same in our bodies. We need to get to the roots deep inside and to the soil. We then set about correcting this, and then watch our health grow.
THIS is the detective work of healthcare. True healthcare seeks to uncover the root cause, and aim fire at correcting this / these. This is the detective work that I love to do. Its not always simple, its generally not overly quick (there are no magic bullets when it comes to health), but it tends to be long lasting when the soil is balanced and we’ve done the work of weeding!
Creating wellness through a roadmap to health is a much more positive approach, without having to name it to blame it or take a pill for every ill or to feel helpless and stuck in a world of disease and dysfunction.
True health takes time – there simply are no magic bullets when it comes to health. Its a constant process of doing and refining throughout life. The one thing that is certain however, is that what you do today matters, especially so in a few decades. If you want good health for life, you need to start today.
To book a consultation with Tiina, get in touch on 9713 8688 or book online today. Be well!
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