To understand what taking a holistic approach to medicine means, you need to understand how we got to the need for it.
For many thousands of years medicine involved mostly natural approaches.
But drugs began to be part of medicine thousands of years ago. Opium has been used for over 5000 years and cannabis perhaps as long. And drugs to treat prostate enlargement have been around for many years as well.
To some extent, the modern-day explosive use of drugs was encouraged with the discovery of penicillin in 1929. Today there are now more than 100 antibiotics.
Mood drugs began with Thorazine and there are now scores of them.
But this explosive use of drugs is not all good.
In fact, at the very least, drugs are the third leading cause of death! Even aspirin and NSAIDs are a major cause of death, as well as GI bleeding and collagenous colitis.
Forty percent of Americans have hypertension. The conventional medicine approach is taking as many as 3 antihypertensive drugs. Doing so you have only a 45% chance of controlling your BP, with an almost 100% chance of having chronic fatigue and erectile dysfunction.
There are four major scientific articles that state that if all the negative studies on antidepressant drugs were allowed to be published, the net result would be zero!
In the 1950s Shealy recognized the serious error of conventional medicine in treating chronic pain with spinal cordotomy, a bizarre barbarian approach of cutting the spinal cord with a razor blade!
His approach of spinal cord stimulation and Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation revolutionized the treatment of pain. It also became the foundation for Holistic Medicine, looking at the body, mind and taking a spiritual approach to health.
Taking a holistic approach to medicine means looking at the body, mind and spirit together.
Although acute illness may require surgery or a variety of drugs, when the illness becomes chronic, conventional medicine inevitably fails.
The side effects of all drugs ultimately outweigh the benefits!
The cause of all illness is stress—physical, mental, emotional, chemical or spiritual stress. Unfortunately, that stress has been greatly increased by radical changes in food and activity.
Prior to insecticides, herbicides and unnatural fertilizers, most food was reasonably healthy.
Taking a holistic approach to medicine became crucial in 1978, as television further corrupted lifestyle. By sitting and watching television, a huge majority of people became inactive.
From a holistic perspective, there are a few absolutely essential health habits:
- Body Mass Index 18 to 24.
Over 72% OF Americans fail this essential! Excess weight is now the number one cause of premature death. - Eating 5 to 10 servings of vegetables and fruits daily.
The average American eats 2.2 servings. Actually, not more than 10% of Americans get the essential plant foods! - Exercising a minimum of 30 minutes five days a week.
Only 10% of Americans get this minimum! Inactivity is as disease creating as smoking one to two packs of cigarettes daily! Incidentally, 22% of adult Americans still smoke! - Sleeping seven or eight hours EVERY night.
Forty-two percent of Americans fail this essential. Those who sleep 6 or less hours function at the level of slightly drunk and create more auto accidents than alcohol and opiates. - Perhaps the most missing habit is spirituality!
Spiritual health is being at peace with life, knowing that you are a soul having a physical life. It has nothing to do with going to church.
Spirituality is living a recognition and appreciation of the divinity of daily life and feeling a purpose in life of helping others.
It is not meditating or praying; it is living at peace, detaching from those things you cannot change, living a Holy life.
In summary, 97.5% of Americans are missing one to 5 of these essential habits despite conventional medicine!
Why Holistic medicine? Because it emphasizes health!
Taking a holistic approach to medicine is a moment-by-moment daily event. It requires LIVING holistically. And that is up to you, the individual.
Although in significant acute situations, conventional medicine may be very helpful, conventional medicine fails everything within 3 months or less. Virtually all drugs damage the brain and mind and ultimately create more problems than help.
The foundation for Holistic Medicine is SELF-Regulation with Autogenic Training and its 68 various Biogenics® exercises, essential nutrition, exercise, and common sense.
Taking a holistic approach to medicine requires individual participation. It is your decision to live a moment-to-moment life, with awareness of soul and spirit, essentially every moment of the day. And when necessary, choosing to work with a holistic medical doctor to help you fine-tune your personal practices.
By choosing to take a holistic approach to medicine, you must know that every thought is a prayer; that thinking sets in motion spiritual forces to bring about change in body, mind, emotions, companions, hope and despair. You cannot afford the luxury of negative thinking!
No one can do it for you. But you can live a holistic life, enjoy it and benefit from it every moment of life.
Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D. is the father of holistic medicine. Dr. Sergey Sorin is a holistic physician as well as the CEO and medical director of the Shealy-Sorin Wellness Institute. Both doctors recommend the Biogenics System as part of your overall commitment to self-health and enhancing your positivity.