Imagine the operating gears of a battery-operated mechanical clock – smooth, precise, efficient. Now imagine shoving a few grains of sand in those gears – they still might work, but less smoothly, less efficiently. Put in more and more sand, or larger and larger grains of sand, and the gears will work slower, louder, burn more juice from the batteries, and start affecting the time on the face of the clock – or the clock may stop altogether.
Obviously this is my metaphor for our bodies. The way our bodies work, to me, is the most complex example of science. NATURE. Natural science. All of our systems (internal organs, muscle groups, or neural pathways for example) interact with each other in order to respond to the “grains of sand” that are introduced on a daily basis. We were built this way for a reason, and our bodies will make every attempt it can to exist the way it was designed to exist – just like the gears that will keep moving as hard as they can to keep the clock ticking.
Our lifestyles, environmental factors, stress, diet and other external elements (our “sand”) cause much of the illnesses and general health complaints that we experience on an increasing basis. To remedy these, we claim ’science’ – basically Western interventions – as the savior that we rely upon for a quick solution to the problem. By Western interventions, I not only mean pharmaceuticals (the foundation of Western medicine), but today’s “diets”, synthetic supplementation, cosmetic surgery, etc. Of course there are always exceptions – but they are fewer than you think – but otherwise what I’ve just listed is very myopic. They are not NATURAL science. They are band-aids that do not address in the long term any causes or solutions that will get our clocks back into natural working order on a whole basis – that is, without experiencing side effects or systemic damage, which then repeats the cycle of relying on “science”.
What I am saying is this: we are getting further away from knowing how to return our clocks to being smooth and efficient as they were meant to be. We may think that we are living healthy by subsisting on protein shakes and meal replacement bars because the marketing sounds logical and we want to lose weight, but we are actually cheating our bodies from the nutrition that enables them to function the best. We lose weight in the short term but risk long term damage to our internal systems because it wasn’t lost properly. Women take a synthetic drug to conveniently have 1 or 2 menstrual cycles per year, because a voice on the commercial told us 1 per month is unnecessary. We gain convenience and “freedom”, but again we incur long term risks for cancer and other diseases or side effects because we are cheating our hormonal system.
Be careful what you adopt as a “healthy” alternative to the status quo. I applaud your efforts to lead a healthy life – but so does the multi-billion dollar ‘health and wellness’ industry. Listen to the claims that are made by these products, do your research, and try to change your mindset from those who fall prey to the allure of convenience and immediate gratification promised by a “magic bullet”. It does take time to do this – and that is why I do it full time and offer it as a service to people. And there are multiple schools of thought on what really makes our clocks tick naturally. So if you are going to listen to someone, listen to someone who knows more than what you just heard in a 30-second commercial or read in a major media headline article. If I haven’t turned you off already, I hope one of the people you listen to is me!
