Why wellness? Why not wellness is perhaps the better question we should all pose to ourselves. It is evident across the nation that change is here and there is more change to come. What is even more startling is how we view ourselves in this new scheme of things, this new era of change. It would seem to some that wellness, health and things of this nature are also getting a face lift or more publicity than ever. This of course isn’t a coincidence. We have created the situations that are now making being well and healthy a sort of phenomenon in and of itself.

By: Tiffany Newton

We as Americans, hear plenty about the war on terror, a while ago it was the war on drugs, who knows what new war will be raged in our not so distant future. However do people realize that the leading cause of death in this country is Heart Dis-ease? Every year we lose 876,000 people because of it. That’s 2400 per day, 1 person every 37 seconds. The second leading killer is cancer with 560,000 people per year that are lost and finally stroke which claims the lives of approximately 143,600 Americans each year. Stroke is also the leading cause of adult disability in this country.

In 2008 the cost of cardiovascular diseases and stroke in the United States was estimated to be $475.3 billion, according to the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). In a time where we are obsessed with economic stress it would seem logical that the prevention of sickness and disease would save us a lot of money. $475.3 billion spent just on CVD & stroke alone?

If those stats and those costs don’t strike a cord with you perhaps stats regarding your children, our children will.

Obesity among children has risen two fold within the past 20 years resulting in 6 million children (over age 6) that are considered obese. The story doesn’t end there. These same children if nothing changes in their health either have or will develop high blood pressure and possibly some form of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol and increased risk of stroke. The most painful reality to this scenario however is the life expectancy of these same children will be cut down by as little as 5 years and at most by 10 years from their parents generation.

Still high blood pressure present in children who are not obese is also on the rise. The reasons are similar to adult causes of high blood pressure; largely due to diet, lifestyle, prescription medications, stimulants, and stress among other things.

Atherosclerosis which simply means the hardening of the arteries due to fatty plaque build up in the walls of the arteries is also on the rise among adolescent youth. It’s very clear that if these things are now starting to plague our children then surely they are already ravishing the lives of many adults perhaps many of us who are reading this article right now; sadly many of us don’t even know it.

Most people seem to think sickness or dis-ease just happens. No it doesn’t just happen. There is always a progression of a particular ailment within the body that causes it to be dis-eased. Our very view and concept of sickness needs to transform if we are ever going be a healthier nation. We have been conditioned to view our entire lives in segments each segment not really having anything to do with the other. From a holistic perspective this is a very dysfunctional way of thinking. For instance parents work to instill in their children that the family is a unit who loves one another, protects one another and provides for one another. The child thus grows in a home where he or she knows they are loved and the family unit is there for them. This basic way of understanding things from a holistic perspective although seemingly simple seems to take a back seat when it comes to other areas of our lives be it our relationships with people and most importantly our relationship with ourselves.

Conventional medicine largely looks at the patient in segments instead of synergistically, all the parts of the whole working together for optimum success. Oftentimes symptoms are treated and underlining causes for a particular ailment are overlooked thus setting into motion a cascade of repeat illnesses and other complications related to prescription drug use. This one size fits all method of medicine is counter product. Therefore embracing the idea that a dis-eased body is a consistently happening event with several factors or root causes rather than a happenstance is difficult for most people to grasp.

I say dis-eased because the body is in fact not at a ease. The body works to get itself back at ease thus the dis-eased state. Many are convinced that being sick is a just a part of living and by the time you reach the ripe old age of 45 then some sort of chronic sickness maybe apparent and this is perfectly normal. As a Naturopath this mind set is not only frightening but it is cause for alarm.

So we ask again, why wellness, because our very lives depend on it. As previously adult conditions are being passed on to our younger generations and now even our pets are being plagued with traditionally human dis-eases of the body, the time for wellness is now. Just as is impossible for a woman to be a little bit pregnant it’s impossible for any of us to just wake up one morning with heart dis-ease, diabetes, cancer, liver dis-ease, kidney failure, pancreatic cancer, gall bladder dis-ease, or wake up and just out of no where have a stroke. The pathology or the conditions and processes of a dis-eased body are something that actually happens; as a result there is plenty we can do to prevent the onset of any of the aforementioned conditions and plenty we can do to reverse these conditions.

It’s not up to our doctors to keep us well. It’s up to us to keep ourselves well. We must take responsibility for our own personal wellness.

We all like to have our fun, have our cake and eat it too. We do things with little regard for consequences later and when the consequences show up we expect sympathy, pity and an exurbanite amount of attention from our friends and loved ones to take care of and provide for us. There is nothing wrong with friends and loved ones coming to our aid however when we simply allow sickness to overtake our lives without regard for the effect it can and inevitably will have on those who love us—this is a selfish notion at best. We must move beyond this mind set toward one that is embedded in love for self and others.

I want you to begin embracing the notion of your personal responsibility for your own wellness. I want you to embrace the notion that you deserve to be well and live a healthy and productive life. I want you to begin to embrace the notion that sickness doesn’t have to be a normal part of your life if you so choose for it not to be. I want you to embrace the notion that perhaps “I am doing things that are causing my body to be in a dis-eased state” be it insomnia, stress, depression, chest pains, chronic fatigue, PMS, etc. We can do so much more when we are well and balanced in mind body and spirit.

Of course as a holistic practitioner I believe that there isn’t much that the body can’t overcome or reverse except death. I believe that if people took a more hands on approach to their personal wellness, and begin to understand how their bodies worked, appreciated the mind/ body/ spirit connection people would see the truth in that statement.

With the statistics expressed in the first part of this article it’s evident that as a nation we are failing in the wellness of our citizens. Where is the out cry for the hundreds of thousands of people who die each year from preventable and reversible conditions? How can a nation, so powerful with it technological advances top scientists and medical professionals have such high mortality rates due to illness? There is something very wrong with this picture. How can we as individuals sit idle and allow our own health to deteriorate and not take action to heal ourselves or to seek healing? How can we continue embracing sickness as a way of life and not realize the repercussions this has on every other aspect of our lives including our personal relationships, our professional goals, and our personal growth and development? The time for excuses is coming to an end. Accountability for our personal wellness, abundance, and happiness begins today.

So I ask again, why wellness?