Disorders, Diseases and Syndromes, Oh My!

In the past five or ten years, it seems like a hundred new so-called disorders, diseases and syndromes have been discovered. Restless Leg Syndrome is the most recent I’ve seen advertised on TV (well, it was the medication they were advertising, not the syndrome). What I find amazing is that there is no widespread concern about the fact that everybody seems to have the “Disorder Disorder”–which is the disorder of having many disorders. Surely, someone besides myself thinks this plethora of newly discovered disorders is odd and indicative of a much larger health issue that needs to be addressed.

Just last weekend while giving a talk on Energy Medicine, I mentioned that most people, when thinking about health or wellness, are really thinking about sickness because their mind is fixated on curing, controlling or preventing illness. Their definition of ‘healthy’ is ‘not sick,’ which is not the same thing. Not being sick just means you’ve detected no symptoms. Being healthy means everything is working optimally, in perfect balance with everything else. How healthy do you really think you are?

The way we live, work, eat and sleep in this society for the most part is completely unnatural and disruptive to our natural rhythms and balance. These myriad disorders, diseases and other symptoms we display are a natural consequence of the path society has taken. And the addiction that society has to “magic beans” (a.k.a. medication) doesn’t help the situation. I think it was summed up best in a diet pill commercial I saw a few months ago, “You don’t have to change anything about your life. Just take this pill.” So here we are.

Now, this is not to say that magic beans aren’t useful, or that they don’t have their place. But the place that they currently occupy has a lot to do with the philosophy and intention behind modern medicine, which appears, when one looks deeply, to not really be about health. Interestingly, last night I watched a DVD entitled “Hoxsey,” which was a documentary about Harry Hoxley who, in the 1920’s, claimed to have an herbal cure for cancer. He was arrested hundreds of times, was persecuted by the American Medical Association (AMA), and was basically run out of town (and into Mexico) with his “snake oil.” Did the cure really work? Yes. Did the AMA have evidence to substantiate Hoxsey’s claim? Yes. But according to the documentary, all of Hoxsey’s troubles began when he rescinded his offer to sell the formula to the head honchos of the AMA because they wouldn’t agree to the condition that no one could be refused the medicine, regardless of their ability to pay.

Herbal recipes for various conditions, be they serious or minor, abound. Any of those I’ve personally taken all arise from a very fundamental approach of restoring balance to all of the body’s systems, as opposed to just throwing paint over the crack in the veneer. That is also the basis for energy medicine–to restore balance throughout the entire energy system. The reality is, no matter where a problem localizes energetically or physically, the whole system is compromised—the whole system is out of balance—because that one crack in the veneer exists. And if left unaddressed, or if it is addressed without regard to how the approach to addressing it affects the rest of the body, the crack will inevitably spread to other areas yet appear unrelated because the paint obscures the root of the problem. Thus we end up with all these chronic disorders, diseases and syndromes plaguing society. I wonder how many diseases we wouldn’t need to cure if our attention was instead focused on restoring and maintaining optimal health and balance.

It would be great to see medicine and society as a whole make a big perceptual shift regarding health issues, and reach a true understanding that restoring and maintaining balance systemically (and the human system is more that just the physical body) is what ultimately cures and prevents disease and other problems. What’s the first step in creating such a society? I would say awareness. As a starting point, I recommend a book entitled, “Alakalize or Die” by Dr. Theodore A. Barody. It’s a very powerful book that could revolutionize your understanding of your health, your body, and the entire human system.

What do you recommend?