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A Strategy for Health
By: Dr. Alan Goldhamer
Founder; TrueNorth Health Center.
When I began my practice more than
20 years ago, I still had a lot to learn.
I had the skills and information to
help sick people get well and healthy
people stay well.
But I thought that all I had to do was take a
careful medical history, perform a thorough physical examination, and prepare
detailed diet and lifestyle recommendations. Then, I thought, my patients
would follow my advice diligently and get outstanding results.
But it did not always work that way. I found that people did not want to make
drastic lifestyle changes, or give up their bad habits. They did not quickly or
easily give up cigarettes, coffee, alcohol, and other drugs. The same was true
for meat, fish, fowl, eggs, or dairy products, as well as oil, salt, and sugar.
My patients believed in magic. They believed that despite their bad habits,
indiscretions, and lack of personal fortitude, the magic of modern medicine
somehow would enable them to make a few small changes that required
minimal effort and would instantly overcome years of abuse to their health.
Many of these patients had been given poor advice by their doctors. They had
been told that changing the color of their meat from red to white, or that being
"moderate" in continuing their unhealthful habits was all that was required.
Some patients thought that their problems were "all in the head" some thought
that their conditions were the "inevitable result of aging." Many thought that
they just might have to "learn to live with it." It was frustrating to see people
who were sick and dying, suffering needlessly, hanging on to the very habits
that caused their problems.
Over time, I began to observe that the patients who did the best in the long run
were those who developed a reality-based philosophy of life.
It was not enough to tell these individuals what to do; they wanted to
understand how and why it worked. At that point, I realized that my role as a
physician would involve more re-education than I originally thought.
During these past 20 years, I have had the pleasure and privilege of helping
several thousand individuals learn to get healthy and stay healthy. I would like
to share some of the information that can help you do the same.
Let's take a look at some of the things that influence our behavior tendencies.
To a large extent, our behavior - the choices we make - determines the quantity
and the quality of our lives.
Beyond Survival
On one level, humans are like other animals: genetically programmed,
biologically driven organisms whose fundamental purpose in life is survival.
By survival I mean getting enough to eat and not getting eaten. But humans
also operate on an entirely different level. We have developed the most
powerful tool that the world has ever seen-language.
Language has allowed us to dominate the planet. Unlike other animals, who
acquire knowledge only through direct, individual experience, language
allows humans to accumulate knowledge and pass it on. Language is the
power behind the success of our species.
Knowledge which might take an individual a lifetime to accumulate can be
passed on in a matter of moments by listening to someone speak or by
reading their words. This enables us to benefit from the cumulative life
experiences of those who came before us.
One outgrowth of our unique gift of language has been the development of a
mathematically based system to help us determine what is real which we call
science.
The scientific method is not perfect, but it is a tremendously powerful tool that
helps us separate fact from fantasy. One of the direct benefits of this system is
our ability to monitor and evaluate factors that either enhance or impair health.
Pleasure vs. Happiness
Most animals spend virtually all of their time trying to get enough to eat and
not get eaten. But we humans have been able to gain control over our
environment to such an extent-at least in the powerful, developed
countries-that we have been able to get enough to eat, not get eaten, and still
have some time left over.
Now that we can look beyond mere survival, we can explore what gives life
meaning, or put another way, what makes us happy.
Many people confuse pleasure with happiness. This can be a big problem and
can lead to some very unhappy results. It is imperative that we recognize the
difference between pleasure and happiness.
Pleasure is a stereotypical response of your nervous system to specific
stimulation. Food, sexual activity, even drugs can stimulate your nervous
system in such a way that you can experience pleasure. Happiness is an
emotional state that occurs spontaneously when you perceive the overall
balance of your life experience as highly positive.
Many people, when unhappy, mistakenly assume that they are lacking
pleasure in their lives. They assume that they have a pleasure deficiency and
go about trying to stimulate the pleasure-sensing mechanisms of their
nervous system.
Drug addiction is an extreme example of pleasure-seeking behavior. Drug
addicts often will destroy their lives just to induce a temporarily pleasurable
response.
Crack cocaine addicts reportedly have sold their infant children for a few
rocks of cocaine. But no matter how much cocaine or other drugs an addict
uses, no matter how much the drug stimulates the pleasure-sensing
mechanisms in the brain, he or she never will achieve happiness through drug
use.
The Need For Planning
To achieve happiness, we need to develop a happiness strategy. That
strategy is to learn to delay gratification and not to be driven solely by
short-term, pleasure-seeking behavior.
Imagine a person who has lumber and nails, and decides he wants to build a
house. Suppose he begins to randomly nail boards together, hoping a
wonderful house will result. Without a plan, what are the chances that these
random actions will result in a nice house?
But with careful planning, a good set of blueprints, and lots of hard work and
patience, the likelihood of success increases dramatically. We need to
approach our health and happiness this way. Without a plan, we are unlikely
to create happiness for ourselves.
Craving Concentrated Foods
There is a reason why we find some things pleasurable and others painful.
There was a time when our very survival depended upon knowing the
distinction between what benefited us and what harmed us.
Many of the behaviors that served us well in a natural environment-when our
focus was getting enough to eat and not getting eaten-may not serve us well
today.
Consider our desire to eat concentrated foods-foods high in calories. The
earliest humans lived in a natural setting where food was scarce. They
needed to eat as much concentrated food as they could get, just to survive.
Those who were successful at getting enough food to survive passed that trait
on to succeeding generations. We all still have this basic instinct in our
genetic makeup to eat concentrated food when it is available. But now we live
in an entirely different world.
Most readers of Health Science magazine live in an environment characterized
by food excess, not by food scarcity. In a natural setting there are no
chocolate chip cookie trees, no hamburger bushes, and no refined or
processed foods.
But in our increasingly artificial world, there are fast "foods" available on
virtually every corner. These processed foods are designed to appeal to our
genetically driven instincts, and they fool our natural senses.
Our natural desire to eat concentrated food whenever it is available no longer
serves our needs, since we are living at a time when concentrated foods are
everywhere.
Unhealthy Illusions
It is not easy to be healthy and happy in an environment that seems designed
to make us sick and miserable.
How many people do you know who drive two hours each day, in heavy
traffic, to jobs they hate, to work with people they dislike, to make a product
they detest, for a company they despise, to make money to buy products they
do not need, under the illusion that if they just could cram a little more
short-term, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent behavior into their lives, they
might be happy.
Why is it that so many of us continue to participate in behavior that is known
to cause pain, disease, and premature death? Why do we continue to use
harmful drugs like tobacco, alcohol, and coffee? Why do we continue to eat
animal products and junk food, despite the known dangers?
We do these things because we like them. They give us pleasure. While it is
true that there is nothing inherently wrong with pleasure-seeking behavior, it
can be destructive, especially if it becomes the primary focus of life.
Sadly, the primary motivation of many people is pleasure-seeking behavior.
They believe that if they are not happy, they must have a pleasure deficiency.
They live under the illusion that if they can just squeeze more pleasure into
their lives, they will be happy.
This life of illusion begins when we are young. We teach our children to be
drug addicts. We teach them that the way you deal with problems is through
drugs.
When we have a headache, we take a pill. When we have a fever, we take
another pill. When we have a cough, we drink syrup. When dad has a hard
day and needs to relax, he drinks alcohol.
When we are so sleep-deprived that we can hardly get out of bed in the
morning, we drink a highly destructive nervous-system stimulant called
caffeine, hidden in our tea or coffee. We give this same addictive drug to
children in the form of chocolate and cola drinks.
Social Roadblocks To Health
There are many barriers to making diet and lifestyle changes that I call the
social roadblocks to health. The human nervous system is wired to recognize
social conformity.
When an individual challenges the social norm by being "different" it can
create psychological pain in people around them. This pain is called cognitive
dissonance.
People do not like how cognitive dissonance makes them feel, so they work
very hard to eliminate it and, if necessary, you. People evaluate by
comparison. In order to feel better about themselves, people either try to
improve their lot in life, or try to bring you down, so that they feel better by
comparison.
Since most people do not get enough sleep, they are too tired to improve
themselves. They may put what little energy they do have into trying to bring
you down.
When they see you trying to eat well, they may try to tempt you with a very
stimulating, high-fat dessert, or something else that you no longer choose to
eat.
If you decline, they may comment along the line of, "What's the point in being
healthy if there is no joy in life?" or "You are no fun anymore!" or "Don't you
think you're carrying this health thing a little too far?"
They also may become instant nutrition experts. When you were eating hot
dogs, fried chicken, cupcakes, or candy, no one said a thing.
But just start bringing healthy meals to work, and you may start hearing
comments like, "You can't live on that." And, "Where are you going to get your
protein?"
What they really feel, but are unable to express, is that by improving yourself,
you are making them feel uncomfortable about themselves.
Make A Plan For Success
Successful individuals begin new projects with their goal in mind. They focus
on the important things and do not get distracted by the lesser things, no
matter how urgent they might seem at the moment.
If happiness is your goal, remember that health is an important foundation for
happiness, and that health results from healthful living.
Healthful living means taking responsibility for four main areas of your life:
diet-eating the right foods, for the right reasons; environment-maintaining a
healthy home and workplace; activity-getting enough exercise, rest and sleep;
and psychology-engaging in productive activity and developing effective
interpersonal skills.
We are all different, but the equalizing factor in all of our lives is time. We all
get 168 hours per week. At most, we have about 30,000 days left to live.
The challenge for each of us is how to use our time to promote the greatest
health and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.
By: Dr. Alan Goldhamer www.healthpromoting.com
Founder: TrueNorth Health Center.
Article: A Strategy for Health
www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/strategy.htm
More Articles by Dr. Goldhammer:
www.healthpromoting.com/articles
By: Dr. Alan Goldhamer
Founder; TrueNorth Health Center.
When I began my practice more than
20 years ago, I still had a lot to learn.
I had the skills and information to
help sick people get well and healthy
people stay well.
But I thought that all I had to do was take a
careful medical history, perform a thorough physical examination, and prepare
detailed diet and lifestyle recommendations. Then, I thought, my patients
would follow my advice diligently and get outstanding results.
But it did not always work that way. I found that people did not want to make
drastic lifestyle changes, or give up their bad habits. They did not quickly or
easily give up cigarettes, coffee, alcohol, and other drugs. The same was true
for meat, fish, fowl, eggs, or dairy products, as well as oil, salt, and sugar.
My patients believed in magic. They believed that despite their bad habits,
indiscretions, and lack of personal fortitude, the magic of modern medicine
somehow would enable them to make a few small changes that required
minimal effort and would instantly overcome years of abuse to their health.
Many of these patients had been given poor advice by their doctors. They had
been told that changing the color of their meat from red to white, or that being
"moderate" in continuing their unhealthful habits was all that was required.
Some patients thought that their problems were "all in the head" some thought
that their conditions were the "inevitable result of aging." Many thought that
they just might have to "learn to live with it." It was frustrating to see people
who were sick and dying, suffering needlessly, hanging on to the very habits
that caused their problems.
Over time, I began to observe that the patients who did the best in the long run
were those who developed a reality-based philosophy of life.
It was not enough to tell these individuals what to do; they wanted to
understand how and why it worked. At that point, I realized that my role as a
physician would involve more re-education than I originally thought.
During these past 20 years, I have had the pleasure and privilege of helping
several thousand individuals learn to get healthy and stay healthy. I would like
to share some of the information that can help you do the same.
Let's take a look at some of the things that influence our behavior tendencies.
To a large extent, our behavior - the choices we make - determines the quantity
and the quality of our lives.
Beyond Survival
On one level, humans are like other animals: genetically programmed,
biologically driven organisms whose fundamental purpose in life is survival.
By survival I mean getting enough to eat and not getting eaten. But humans
also operate on an entirely different level. We have developed the most
powerful tool that the world has ever seen-language.
Language has allowed us to dominate the planet. Unlike other animals, who
acquire knowledge only through direct, individual experience, language
allows humans to accumulate knowledge and pass it on. Language is the
power behind the success of our species.
Knowledge which might take an individual a lifetime to accumulate can be
passed on in a matter of moments by listening to someone speak or by
reading their words. This enables us to benefit from the cumulative life
experiences of those who came before us.
One outgrowth of our unique gift of language has been the development of a
mathematically based system to help us determine what is real which we call
science.
The scientific method is not perfect, but it is a tremendously powerful tool that
helps us separate fact from fantasy. One of the direct benefits of this system is
our ability to monitor and evaluate factors that either enhance or impair health.
Pleasure vs. Happiness
Most animals spend virtually all of their time trying to get enough to eat and
not get eaten. But we humans have been able to gain control over our
environment to such an extent-at least in the powerful, developed
countries-that we have been able to get enough to eat, not get eaten, and still
have some time left over.
Now that we can look beyond mere survival, we can explore what gives life
meaning, or put another way, what makes us happy.
Many people confuse pleasure with happiness. This can be a big problem and
can lead to some very unhappy results. It is imperative that we recognize the
difference between pleasure and happiness.
Pleasure is a stereotypical response of your nervous system to specific
stimulation. Food, sexual activity, even drugs can stimulate your nervous
system in such a way that you can experience pleasure. Happiness is an
emotional state that occurs spontaneously when you perceive the overall
balance of your life experience as highly positive.
Many people, when unhappy, mistakenly assume that they are lacking
pleasure in their lives. They assume that they have a pleasure deficiency and
go about trying to stimulate the pleasure-sensing mechanisms of their
nervous system.
Drug addiction is an extreme example of pleasure-seeking behavior. Drug
addicts often will destroy their lives just to induce a temporarily pleasurable
response.
Crack cocaine addicts reportedly have sold their infant children for a few
rocks of cocaine. But no matter how much cocaine or other drugs an addict
uses, no matter how much the drug stimulates the pleasure-sensing
mechanisms in the brain, he or she never will achieve happiness through drug
use.
The Need For Planning
To achieve happiness, we need to develop a happiness strategy. That
strategy is to learn to delay gratification and not to be driven solely by
short-term, pleasure-seeking behavior.
Imagine a person who has lumber and nails, and decides he wants to build a
house. Suppose he begins to randomly nail boards together, hoping a
wonderful house will result. Without a plan, what are the chances that these
random actions will result in a nice house?
But with careful planning, a good set of blueprints, and lots of hard work and
patience, the likelihood of success increases dramatically. We need to
approach our health and happiness this way. Without a plan, we are unlikely
to create happiness for ourselves.
Craving Concentrated Foods
There is a reason why we find some things pleasurable and others painful.
There was a time when our very survival depended upon knowing the
distinction between what benefited us and what harmed us.
Many of the behaviors that served us well in a natural environment-when our
focus was getting enough to eat and not getting eaten-may not serve us well
today.
Consider our desire to eat concentrated foods-foods high in calories. The
earliest humans lived in a natural setting where food was scarce. They
needed to eat as much concentrated food as they could get, just to survive.
Those who were successful at getting enough food to survive passed that trait
on to succeeding generations. We all still have this basic instinct in our
genetic makeup to eat concentrated food when it is available. But now we live
in an entirely different world.
Most readers of Health Science magazine live in an environment characterized
by food excess, not by food scarcity. In a natural setting there are no
chocolate chip cookie trees, no hamburger bushes, and no refined or
processed foods.
But in our increasingly artificial world, there are fast "foods" available on
virtually every corner. These processed foods are designed to appeal to our
genetically driven instincts, and they fool our natural senses.
Our natural desire to eat concentrated food whenever it is available no longer
serves our needs, since we are living at a time when concentrated foods are
everywhere.
Unhealthy Illusions
It is not easy to be healthy and happy in an environment that seems designed
to make us sick and miserable.
How many people do you know who drive two hours each day, in heavy
traffic, to jobs they hate, to work with people they dislike, to make a product
they detest, for a company they despise, to make money to buy products they
do not need, under the illusion that if they just could cram a little more
short-term, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent behavior into their lives, they
might be happy.
Why is it that so many of us continue to participate in behavior that is known
to cause pain, disease, and premature death? Why do we continue to use
harmful drugs like tobacco, alcohol, and coffee? Why do we continue to eat
animal products and junk food, despite the known dangers?
We do these things because we like them. They give us pleasure. While it is
true that there is nothing inherently wrong with pleasure-seeking behavior, it
can be destructive, especially if it becomes the primary focus of life.
Sadly, the primary motivation of many people is pleasure-seeking behavior.
They believe that if they are not happy, they must have a pleasure deficiency.
They live under the illusion that if they can just squeeze more pleasure into
their lives, they will be happy.
This life of illusion begins when we are young. We teach our children to be
drug addicts. We teach them that the way you deal with problems is through
drugs.
When we have a headache, we take a pill. When we have a fever, we take
another pill. When we have a cough, we drink syrup. When dad has a hard
day and needs to relax, he drinks alcohol.
When we are so sleep-deprived that we can hardly get out of bed in the
morning, we drink a highly destructive nervous-system stimulant called
caffeine, hidden in our tea or coffee. We give this same addictive drug to
children in the form of chocolate and cola drinks.
Social Roadblocks To Health
There are many barriers to making diet and lifestyle changes that I call the
social roadblocks to health. The human nervous system is wired to recognize
social conformity.
When an individual challenges the social norm by being "different" it can
create psychological pain in people around them. This pain is called cognitive
dissonance.
People do not like how cognitive dissonance makes them feel, so they work
very hard to eliminate it and, if necessary, you. People evaluate by
comparison. In order to feel better about themselves, people either try to
improve their lot in life, or try to bring you down, so that they feel better by
comparison.
Since most people do not get enough sleep, they are too tired to improve
themselves. They may put what little energy they do have into trying to bring
you down.
When they see you trying to eat well, they may try to tempt you with a very
stimulating, high-fat dessert, or something else that you no longer choose to
eat.
If you decline, they may comment along the line of, "What's the point in being
healthy if there is no joy in life?" or "You are no fun anymore!" or "Don't you
think you're carrying this health thing a little too far?"
They also may become instant nutrition experts. When you were eating hot
dogs, fried chicken, cupcakes, or candy, no one said a thing.
But just start bringing healthy meals to work, and you may start hearing
comments like, "You can't live on that." And, "Where are you going to get your
protein?"
What they really feel, but are unable to express, is that by improving yourself,
you are making them feel uncomfortable about themselves.
Make A Plan For Success
Successful individuals begin new projects with their goal in mind. They focus
on the important things and do not get distracted by the lesser things, no
matter how urgent they might seem at the moment.
If happiness is your goal, remember that health is an important foundation for
happiness, and that health results from healthful living.
Healthful living means taking responsibility for four main areas of your life:
diet-eating the right foods, for the right reasons; environment-maintaining a
healthy home and workplace; activity-getting enough exercise, rest and sleep;
and psychology-engaging in productive activity and developing effective
interpersonal skills.
We are all different, but the equalizing factor in all of our lives is time. We all
get 168 hours per week. At most, we have about 30,000 days left to live.
The challenge for each of us is how to use our time to promote the greatest
health and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.
By: Dr. Alan Goldhamer www.healthpromoting.com
Founder: TrueNorth Health Center.
Article: A Strategy for Health
www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/strategy.htm
More Articles by Dr. Goldhammer:
www.healthpromoting.com/articles
