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Do-It-Yourselfers have always enjoyed keeping their homes and cars in tip-top shape. With the scope of the internet, one can extend this can-do/get ‘er done attitude to everything from homemade essential oil remedies to promoting your own stem cell activity. Still, one has to sort through an overwhelming amount of DIY health information. Whether you take the same supplements as your favorite celeb, follow the training regimen of the athlete you root for, or update your diet to that detailed by the latest health guru, it is likely you have tried to take at least a stab at maintaining or repairing your physical or mental health. So, how’s that working for you? Did going gluten-free actually solve your health concern? Can you notice a material difference if you forget to take your supplements? Are you, in fact, regularly using that gym membership you bought? And what if you have done ALL that and are still crawling through your day?
In general, almost every form of healthcare leads us to rely on something outside of ourselves for help. Whether it was the shaman of our ancestors, acupuncturist, herbalist, chiropractor, surgeon, or internal medicine dispenser of prescriptions, we depend on and expect healing to come from outside ourselves. A pill, potion, device, procedure, etc. The Do-It-Yourself approach, however, knows that ultimately ALL healing is an inside job. All those external activities are just designed to get our innate healing abilities going. If we don’t work at that level (the truly awesome mechanisms evolution already built into our bodies for homeostasis—the body’s self-regulating systems), all those external substances and activities will not lead to healing.
Having empowered a few thousand people to heal themselves over my 50-year healthcare career, I know that just having enough (and the right) information is not enough to budge the needle on some health conditions. Even great motivation and the best tracking apps don’t always yield results. And what if you have a truly complex and serious health condition, such as cancer or autoimmune disease? Is DIY even a realistic option? What if taking the middle ground, using self-empowered actions to amplify and expand the options of modern medical science could combine the best of both worlds, leading to lasting change in your physical and mental health?
Let’s start by looking at the vast amount of research which overwhelmingly supports strong beneficial results from taking control over the three things which we actually do have control over: what we ingest, how we move, and what we focus our minds on. Since there is a plethora of information and opinions on those first two areas of personal control, that is on substances, nutrition and exercise, I will spotlight here data from using the power of your mind to actually effect physical change in the body. Firstly, we can look at decades of sound data showing techniques such as breathing exercises and mindfulness actually can lower blood pressure, improve brain wave patterns, change heart rate variability (HRV), and overcome problems from sleep disturbance to anxiety to irritable bowel syndrome to chronic pain, and many more. Certain mind-body techniques can even lead to improved chemotherapy outcomes with less nausea, etc.
What about stress? Does stress actually cause physical disease? Even just this one statistic asserts what you probably already know: The most frequent time for heart attacks is between 6am-9am on Monday mornings. Or, as ones patient recently told me: “I haven’t been happy with my job for 14 years, and I know it is costing me my health.” Or the patient whose ulcers went away when he got a divorce. And, you may say: “I’m handling the stress just fine.” Or, “I thrive on stress.” While that may be true, you have a strong mind and can decide how to approach stress, your body will still react in myriad ways that show it is in fight or flight (hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, thyroid disease, memory problems, and many more), AND that it is unable to turn on the parasympathetic “rest, digest & repair” so vitally needed to keep us resilient. Thus the epidemic of sleep disorders, digestive issues, immune disorders, and hormonal problems when we don’t get those essential repairs done. We must use specially directed mind-body techniques to get down into the subconscious mind which controls the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine (hormonal) systems in order to turn on healing from the place it originates in our bodies.
Lastly, let’s consider the placebo effect. It is encouraging to see how much research about this well-known phenomenon shows that the mind and body truly can never be separated. From fake knee surgeries which relieved pain and increased mobility for years afterward, to 80% of participants in anti-depressant drug trials who improved on placebos (medications which have no actual action on the body), to one study on coronary artery disease showing the sham procedure recipients actually had better outcomes than those treated by standard protocols. The science is chock-full of research showing powerful mind-body interactions. To learn more about the thousands of studies showing very clear benefit from mind-body interactions and how to apply brain science to empower your own healing, I recommend any of the books, podcasts, or programs by Dr. Joe Dispenza. (See below for a Free Discovery Session to learn how any of this applies to you.)
I want to state clearly that all disease does not arise in your head, and bad things still happen to very good people. What I want to draw your attention to is very real science which supports that taking control of your mind and your lifestyle yields VERY positive physical benefits, when combined with necessary medications and surgeries, or not. Unfortunately, you may not have heard a lot about these options because they are mostly free. They do not make some corporation big bucks. And, to be forthright, they do require you to invest your time, generally 30-60 minutes per day, repeatedly, consistently. Isn’t that what DIYers do? They invest their time to solve a problem, or create something new instead of looking outside themselves for results. And even home or auto DIYers still consult YouTube and the latest DIY shows. Would you like a guide to help you apply science-based self-empowered healing techniques which cost very little yet can yield dramatic results? Twenty-five years of extensive study in this area after my own self-empowered healing miracle has taught me the details of what does work, and approaches that may not be the best fit for a given individual. Schedule a Free Discovery Session to find out how to harness self-empowered healing to get the health results you need.