11/01/2023
Yes to everything here! There are systemic societal issues that can have hugely negative impacts on your health. There are other foundational things that will impact your health. Any good herbalist will tell you this, which is why tackling a health issue has to be a multi-faceted approach, starting with the most foundational stuff.
I totally get where they’re going with this, and absolutely agree that diet alone doesn’t cause and can’t fix everything, but nutrient deficiencies and food sensitivities do wreak SO much havoc on the body, and are one thing impacting our health that we usually have some control over.
This is why a multi-pronged approach incorporates sleep, stress reduction, movement/exercise, lifestyle, and diet/nutrient repletion. This stuff should be more widely known. You shouldn’t have to seek out someone and pay them for this knowledge. Folks should be able to know that stress basically shuts off their digestive system (and conversely, digestive issues will trigger a stress signal to the brain), that poor sleep alone can cause insulin resistance, and so can stress. The added weight gain because of the insulin resistance may cause sleep apnea, which feeds into this loop, so you get even worse.
Stress and mental health are HUGE factors to consider. What coping mechanisms have you developed? They might be healthy or unhealthy. Certain nutrient deficiencies (from poor diet or poor digestion) have symptoms that mimic mental illness. There’s just far too many things that go hand in hand to list.
Your mind and body are not separate, it’s one, and it tries to compensate for whatever happens to it, or whatever it’s missing. When parts aren’t functioning well for whatever reason, it effects EVERYTHING. When it doesn’t have the optimal building blocks to repair something, it uses what it has, which may be less strong, and that may be a weaker point in the system in the future. Diet IS important, but it’s not at all the only thing, and it’s not a failure on people’s parts. It’s also not something to lord over people, especially since it’s so dependent on economic factors. When it comes to helping people, you have to meet everyone where they’re at.
We’re all just doing what we can do. But changing ONE thing generally isn’t enough to make the significant shift that folks are looking for. They have to address the whole. (Which is why we call it “holistic”.) There’s no magic bullet for any of us. We are an organism full of complex processes, and we don’t even understand all of them fully yet. We’re still constantly discovering new things. Reductionism (looking at only one part/process/function separate from the rest) can only do so much, and doesn’t address or encompass everything else that matters for the health of that part.
You aren’t sick because of ONE thing. Why you’re sick might have nothing to do with anything you’ve done, or not done. However, that doesn’t make you powerless. You can absolutely empower yourself with knowledge like this, and take your health into your own hands. As herbalists, we strive to be educators, so that you know this fundamental stuff, and we can support you in any way you need, but the goal is for you to feel empowered in your own health, so that you DON’T need us anymore. (This is why there are very few wealthy herbalists. 😂)
If you’d like some help setting up a gameplan to navigate your health issues:
www.FunctionalPhyto.com
