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THE WEIRS TIMES & THE COCHECO TIMES, Thursday, September 26, 2013
Your Health is in Your Hands by Dr. Graham Moneysmith, DC. Contributing Writer
Have you ever taken the time to consider the difference between what’s “normal” and what’s “common”? When it comes to our health there is much that we accept as normal when actually it’s just common. Here’s what I mean: take headaches. We have many folks who come into out offices and say something along the lines of, “well I have headaches a couple times of month, like everybody else”. See the difference? Headaches may be common, but they are not normal. Our failure to make this differentiation is quite detrimental to our health. We begin to see problems or issues in our health as normal, just because so many other people have the same issues….mom said if your friends all jumped off bridges, right?. We look around at a very unhealthy culture and see issues. We see people in pain, people on a multitude of meds just to “function”, and we see too much illness and disease. We begin to believe that if everyone has these problems this commonly then they must be normal. Here’s the problem: our country is not healthy and a poor example to build a normal. We have high obesity rates, lifestyle disease rates, we spend more on healthcare than any other nation, and we take the bulk of the world’s medication. When it comes to health we are failing and so is our system. A first step in the right direction will be to create a new normal. A normal that may not be common, but more closely resembles what God made
our bodies to do. Here are a few places to create a new normal: 1) Exercise: the common way is to say that you don’t have enough time. The day is simply too busy to find 30-60 minutes of activity. The truth is that the day is too busy because we have fallen into the cultural norm of cramming every minute so full that we are stressed, exhausted, and overwhelmed. You do have enough time, because you will make the time. If you don’t create the space for healthy choices, your body will eventually become worn so thin that it will simply shut you down via exhaustion, injury, etc. Trust me it’s better to create the time on your own terms. 2) Food: we think eating processed, convenient, and cheap “food” is normal. It seems to be, because it is so readily available and look at how busy fast food places seem to be. This cultural “norm” will damage your health, your waistline, and your lifespan. We as a country are overfed and undernourished. It’s time to follow a simple rule: if it didn’t grow from the ground, or walk/swim/ fly…..you probably don’t need to eat it. Or if you can’t instantly recognize the stuff on the ingredients list of a product….you, again, should probably skip it. Don’t overcomplicate it. Michael Pollan in his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” summed it up perfectly: “Eat food. Not too much.
Mostly plants.” Follow this and food confusion should be simplified. 3) Pain: we have begun to believe that pain is normal because it is so common. We say things like “it’s just my normal pain”. This is crazy. No pain is normal. Needing pain meds to function, whether over the counter or prescription, is not normal. People pop Advil like breath mints, but this doesn’t make it normal. Start respecting pain for what it is: not a problem, but information on what’s happening in your body. If you get low back pain, don’t ignore it or cover it with pain meds. Doing this overlooks that your body is signaling that there is damage occurring. If we push the symptoms aside either by drugs or toughing it out, we allow the area to continue to be damaged and eventually it will breakdown and you will require a major intervention. Care for yourself at the first hint of pain; discover the cause and get it fixed not hidden. If you keep living in the common ways of our culture, believing them to be normal, then you will always have the health of our culture. Further, if you have the health of our culture, you probably fall victim to the some of the most common killers of our people: preventable lifestyle deaths. Clearly, it’s time for a new normal and that starts with a change of your mind.
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