Integrative Health Blog

Integrative Health: What Keeps You From Being Healthy?

Posted by Robert Johnson on Tue, Oct 08, 2013

Bob Johnson DMD

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Health is the most important “possession” you have.  Unfortunately, health comes with a price in time, energy and money.  Additionally we all have certain handicaps that we begin the health and life journey which must be overcome to live a healthier life.

These handicaps include genetics, toxins, infections, lifestyle and mindset into which we are born.  The good news is that limitations in time, energy and money can be overcome while the handicaps we acquire in utero up to the point at which we make our own health decisions don’t necessarily prevent us from reaching a healthy ripe old age.

An  integrative health  natural approach incorporates nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, and integrative medicine as the building blocks of your healthy life. Start slowly. Try working one  nutrition tip (e.g. cutting back on sugar) into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. It is never too late to quit smoking or start eating more vegetables.

Are You Blessed with Good Genetics?

The solutions to health problems and tools to reach a healthy old age are available.  This can be seen in many populations all over our planet.  What do the Hunzas in Eurasia or the Seventh Day Adventists have that allows a large percent of their populations to stay healthy well into their 90’s or to hit the big century mark?
Exploring the reasons why so many people die early or live decades with disease, illness and unnecessarily compromised health is very revealing.  The reasons people don’t reach a healthy old age are important to understand but are critical to determine if you want to become a healthy centenarian.  These include ignorance about health, unhealthy environmental factors (indoors and outdoors), lack of desire or motivation to be healthy, unhealthy habits, your genetics and erroneous, misleading information from food, drug and chemical companies.
The biggest factor determining whether someone will be healthy is if that person wants to be healthy or has enough motivation (urgency) to take what action is necessary to be healthy.  Health is a proactive “sport” and if you don’t take the necessary steps to be healthy every day, you won’t be healthy.

Two Critical Steps to Health

The next two critical steps to be healthy are to 1)determine your genetic profile (gene snp to take appropriate action) and 2)adopt a willingness to forego unhealthy habits (smoking, high sugar consumption) while acquiring healthy habits such as exercise and good water consumption.
Overlaying the entire topic of “factors that provide great health” is the desire to become a student of health.  Because you make daily decisions on your health including who comprises your health care team you need to be actively adding to your health knowledge base on a regular basis.
Since you make so many decisions about your daily activities you need the knowledge to be healthy and desire to act on that knowledge.

Transition Toward Healthier Habits
Unhealthy habits that must be dropped and healthy habits to acquire are critical.  Ridding yourself of certain habits and acquiring healthy ones is difficult but essential and you must be proactive as you deal with these inner energies, memories and feelings (bad habits) that conspire against your health.
Giving up sugar, smoking, caffeine drinks and alcohol is difficult but critical.  Incorporating exercise, vegetables and stress modification practices is equally difficult yet equally important.
Once you are really healthy it is actually easier and more gratifying than the unhealthy life style version.  It is getting to healthy that is the difficult transition.  That transition though is well worth the ultimate joy of health.
Determine what is keeping you unhealthy and begin the process of reaching that goal of health while you... enjoy the journey.

 

bob_johnsonDMDRobert Johnson, DMD, is a biological dentist at National Integrated Health Associates. He specializes in the use of biocompatible dental materials for all aspects of biological dentistry, mercury amalgam removal, dental surgery, ceramic dental implants and orthodontics.

Topics: integrative health, genetics, toxins