Is health your priority? We are subjected to more stresses, of more kinds, for more of the day, at higher intensities than at any other time in our history. For example, I read on a paleo blog site that the average caveman was exposed to the same amount of particulate pollution in the air in their entire lifetime that we would get in about an hour on a busy city street. We are talking about pollution orders of magnitude more intense than our genes evolved to deal with.
Our foods are covered in pesticide chemicals. And even if it’s organic, it’s subjected to conditions that deprive us of the nutrients that would normally be there. Our modern conveniences come with a price. More sitting, less movement, more rapid breathing, more time spent in a stressed out state. Our dependence on screens to entertain ourselves and our children is wiring our brains for stress, and for a lack of focus and healing.
Why now?
It used to be that if someone were suffering from something, they could simply alter their lifestyle and heal. The diseases that are common place today, diseases of immunity, of neurology, of autoimmunity, were practically unheard of. They are have resulted from all of these stressors that we are unaccustomed to
We created these stressors with the modern conveniences that allow us to have so many great things in life. Specialization of our tasks, the creation of computers, and the reduction of physical labor have created a great many wonderful things in our life. But the reduction of movement, the introduction of so many office jobs, the short cuts in food preparation and cultivation, and the over aggressive cleansing of our surfaces are just a few examples of the ways we are damaging ourselves.
It’s not enough.
We cannot simply stand by, and expect our bodies to be able to deal with the literal onslaught of stress coming our way. It’s bad for us, and it is worse for our kids. We all have to make health a priority. We have to consider eating well, moving well, reducing our exposure to toxins of all kinds. On top of that, we have to supplement to boost our ability to be healthy, but in the right way.
Medicine can keep symptoms at bay. It can help us to feel better in the short term, but at a cost. When we only deal with the symptom, we don’t heal. It’s imperative, given the stresses we see in our world today, that we keep our body as healthy as possible. That means true healing, optimal living, and holistic practices that encompass the whole body, mind, and spirit. Our health will suffer when we neglect any part of that whole.