If you read my last blog and are thinking that you’re not the “I can’t be bothered” type or you are changing your ways and want to be bothered with your health, then you may now be asking IF you need to do more, if anything, for your health?
I think this is a very important question as I know that before suddenly being diagnosed with bowel cancer last year, at the age of 32, that I was looking after myself, I had no ‘major’ symptoms and felt ok, thought I was healthy and had nothing to worry about. I now know that was not the case.
One of my first thoughts after being diagnosed was that “I had no major warning signs or symptoms”. Now my thinking has changed. I had signs and symptoms but I just put them down as 'minor'.
Our bodies have this wonderful, amazing and on the other hand terrible ability of coping with so much. It is able to compensate for all the stress and pressure we put it through with only some 'minor' complaints.
The thing is that WE are the ones that label them as ‘minor’ and go on as if everything is ok, but in reality these ‘minor’ complaints are actually our bodies way of screaming at our consciousness that something is wrong.
Now if you complain about lots of little niggling things and people tell you you are being a hypercondriac, don’t listen to them, listen to your body. When you get a pain or twitch or just an itch or 10, make a mental note and monitor it for a week. If its still there and you’ve noticed other things too, then wake up and go and complain to a doctor and make sure they do more than just ask questions and take your blood pressure.
If they cannot find anything majorly wrong with you and say they can’t do anything for you, then that’s probably a good thing but don’t leave it there. All this means is that it is out of the realm of that particular doctor or for modern medicine. Modern medicine in my opinion works on the rule “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Ancient medicine (naturopathy - a thousand years or so of experiences) works on being optimally healthy - kind of like “constant improvement”. If you’ve never considered a naturopath and think its a lot of mumbo jumbo, think about what it would be like to have no ‘minor’ complaints and feel full of energy and life all the time. If you don’t have a plan to get to that state, why not try naturopathy?
I’d urge you to go see one and ask to do a detox program, with a time limit (mine was approximately 3 months - if you want to make up for years of bad food, stress etc its not going to be one pill and an overnight cure). Your body will need time to repair. If you feel you have put in a good effort and no results then nothing lost (except some money - remember you can’t take it with you when you die ;). If it does what its supposed to your niggling pains should disappear, most food ‘allergies’ can disappear and you may even feel better than you have in years! Wouldn’t that be great?!
If you do feel better then make it a yearly ritual to keep your body in tip-top shape as it will slowly start to decline due to usual life stresses, so why not give yourself a yearly boost up to optimal so you don’t break!
If you are still not sure if your body is functioning at its best or not, then you can do a:
-
Health Appraisal Questionnaire (HAQ)
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Nutrition & Immune Status / HAQ Graph
Download them from
here.
I would recommend getting the above two (there are other listed too). The first has a whole bunch of questions with values which you can add up and put into the HAQ Graph which then tells you which areas are at a Low, Moderate or High Priority. I know there is a lot of questions but some of them I found were good to find out they were possibly a symptom of something not working properly as apposed to me thinking it was ‘normal’.
Now you may think that with the results of this information you can probably just go out and buy some supplements, fix yourself and save a few dollars on the naturopath consult fees. I would discourage this.
The experience and knowledge naturopaths provide give you the right supplements at the right time. My naturopath explained that our bodies have certain steps that form a part of how our body combats the problems thrown at it (eg. nutritional deficiencies, stress, chemicals, low grade food, air pollutants etc). Our body functions will use a certain system to fight until it is exhausted and then goes on to the next system to fight (I can’t remember the details but that’s the jist of it). You need to fix it in the same order or the systems will not be able to work optimally. If you don't major diseases can kick in.
These are the biggies that are increasing every year; cancer, heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. I think mental disorders could be added their too, its not a comprehensive list just what I can think of off the top of my head. You probably know them and are nodding your head in understanding.
Doing the Questionaire to see where you are at and then paying for a naturopath will give you the best start on your way to optimal health.
So whatever you do, make sure it includes some thought and effort for your health. Remember, be bothered (you'll be glad you did) and Pumpkin Seeds, Pumpkin Seed Oil and Pumpkin Seed Meal are all good foods to add regularly to your diet ;)
Bye for now. Sharan
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