I have been writing for years about actions you can engage to improve your health.  This has generally been focused on specific topics that I hear as complaints from patients, but most of my patients are generally already health-oriented.  Today the question is how to start the health improvement journey from ground zero.  I am talking about primarily young folks that are just beginning to feel the consequences of a life of ignoring their bodies and just doing whatever they want.  Young might mean teens, twenties, thirties, even forties.  They are all young folks to me.

I might as well give away the major point of this article right upfront.  The first place to start the health journey is by doing whatever you are willing to do.  More specifically, start with what you are attracted to.  You can override natural resistance to doing something new mentally, but that won't change actual behavior in the long run.  Behavior is driven by deep feelings that we are usually not even aware of.  You can temporarily override natural drives through the force of willpower, but the natural drives always win in the long win.  Health is a long haul endeavor, so short term approaches won't work.  They are good for medical procedures, which are typically very short term, but not for building health.

So, what attracts you?  I look at five basic areas:

Physical Culture

Detoxification

Weight Loss

Supplementation

Energy Medicine

The physical culture movement began back in the middle of the 19^th century for Western countries.  It seeks health through body movement.  Its equivalent has been practiced in India as Hatha yoga for thousands of years.  It began as gymnastics in Germany, added in various sports skills, stretching, weight lifting, calisthenics, breathing techniques, and even massage as it became popular in England and the US.  Today health through physical culture might mean going to the gym to work out, or the yoga studio, or hopping on your bicycle, or running, or just about anything physical.  The concept is that building strength, mobility, endurance, and cardio-vascular fitness all improve health.  This is a super avenue from which to engage in improving one's health.  If something in this realm attracts you, then that is the place to start.  As you will find with the other two basic areas, as you progress forward in your skills you will find other areas of health endeavor become attractive as they assist you in achieving success in the area you are attracted to.

Detoxification is the area of the greatest attraction for some people.  It may take the form of eliminating poisons from the food you eat and the environment you live in, or in the form of eliminating the poisons already accumulated inside your body.  This might begin as simply buying organic foods and toxin-free personal products.  It might take the form of eliminating sugar, toxic vegetable oils, and food chemicals from your diet.  It might take the form of eliminating plastics from your world or hunting down any sources of mold in your environments.  For others, the quality of their drinking water will be the top of the list.  For some, sensitivity to EMFs will drive them to create EMF free zones in which to work and sleep.  The desire to detoxify is typically driven by the appearance of symptoms being caused by these poisons.  Getting rid of these symptoms often finds that avoidance is not enough.  The poisons may already be locked in the system and the goal is to drive them out and away.  This leads people to try a panacea such as detox diets, flushes, fasts, toxin removal processes like colonics, lab testing, and special compounds that trap toxins and carry them away. People are attracted to these countermeasures because it is right for them at that time.

Weight loss is probably the first and biggest driver for the health movement, even though many of the things people do to achieve the socially desirable “look” are far from healthy.  Still, weight loss is often the first driver a person will have to seek better health.  It is true, healthy people are more attractive and more likely to succeed in the scramble to the top.  Attractiveness generates more opportunities and better pay.  Studies have shown that having the perfect body weight for your height directly corresponds to your financial success in life.  So achieving an ideal weight is a big desire for most people.  But having an undesirable weight is largely a health correction issue.  Genetics play a large role in weight, but an even greater issue is metabolic health concerns.  As anyone who has gotten on the dieting bandwagon knows, dieting alone does not work long term.  It might be great for getting into that outfit for your friend's wedding, but the weight comes right back on after the wedding when you stop dieting.  Addressing weight gain is about addressing the health issues underneath it.  Common health issues driving excess weight are poor digestion causing gut inflammation, blood sugar issues, immune issues, food sensitivities, hormonal imbalances, microbiome imbalances, and toxic food choices.The list goes on and on.  So after the average person gets tired of the dieting roller coaster, weight loss pulls them into health improvement.

The fourth area that attracts people to health improvement is the promise of amazing results from supplementation.  The inner drivers are similar to the attraction of magic potions that will give you success, love, wealth, and longevity with a single swallow.  Herbal medicines have been used for thousands of years to relieve symptoms and promote health.  The modern supplementation industry has taken valuable tools from the herbal healers' world and made them “scientific."  The secret essential ingredients in the herbs are extracted and made available for mass consumption.  Now anyone can be an herbalist and an expert on how to fix what ails you.  Many people love the vast amounts of data available to them over the internet and love to fix themselves and their loved ones with supplements.  This applies to vitamins, minerals, and organic molecules that support health as well.  Supplementation also includes essential oils, added light wavelengths as in heliotherapy, laser and infrared light treatment, and basically anything you add to your system to improve health can be considered supplementation.   This too is a good and easily accessible way to get into the health promotion path.

The fifth approach to health improvement lies in the world of energy medicine.  This is a wide arena and includes such diverse modalities as acupuncture, sound therapy, electrical or magnetic brain stimulation, systemic electrical biofeedback modalities such as the DENAS I did an article on a month ago.  In the old days, this would include ultrasound, diathermy, e-stim, and many newer versions of energy-based tools that now exist.  I like to include in this area probably the most impactful energy medicine – meditation.  So many of our health issues are created by stress and meditation practices directly calm this down.  Meditation comes in many flavors - mindfulness training, zen meditation, creative visualizations, binaural sound programs, biofeedback training, and movement practices like yoga, Tai chi, some martial arts, or just relaxing on the beach.  You might like going to energy medicine practitioners such as Reiki, Qigong, therapeutic touch, or spiritual healers.  Faith healing and prayer are also considered energy medicine.  In the old days, Chiropractic was considered a type of faith healing, and many energy techniques are still a part of many chiropractic techniques.  Energy medicine is another excellent entry into the world of health.

As you can see, there are plenty of entryways into the world of health.  Where do you start?  What attracts you?  There is no right place to start. If you want to get into better health, find a direction that you would enjoy pursuing.  Doing what other people insist is right does not produce results unless you feel the desire and attraction for that approach yourself.  Forget what you think is right and go with your gut.  What feels right for you?  Go there and see what results you get.  Sometimes feelings will be all about what your inner child needs to feel okay, which often is what is producing your health problems in the first place.  So when I say go with what feels right, I am not saying to go with what is comfortable.  Go with what excites you and challenges you to focus on your health.  To get different outcomes you have to do something different.  So choose the different route that feels attractive to you.  Intrinsic motivation is an essential component to achieve success.  No one changes until they personally feel the need to do so.  Additionally, the only change they will make is one that appeals to themselves.  

Health is a personal journey. You can't travel another persons path for long and be successful. Allow your health journey to be an exciting expansion to your life.