Together with my patients, we explore the Mind/Body connection. I emphasize that every symptom and disease has an underlying emotional cause.
Thoughts create emotions that establish vibrational energy in the body. This then impacts the individual cells by altering genes and gene expression. Creating interventions that optimize the functioning of individual cells to promote health and well-being, is the focus of my treatment plans. This is done by identifying the factors contributing to the disease or symptoms.
We look at thoughts and emotions, and use stress management techniques to manage and modify these, while promoting self-care and self-love. We also focus on decreasing cellular inflammation through diet, supplements, exercise, meditation, gut/brain health and emotional/physical detoxification. Controlling ongoing, smoldering inflammation is essential because it is at the root of chronic diseases of lifestyle, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia/Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disease and even depression.
Self-talk, thoughts and emotions contribute to the environment in the body that either promotes disease or health. The Mind/Body connection is not only hypothetical.
It is key!
Did you know that we have a whole network of receptors throughout the body for CBD? It is called the endocannabinoid system. This system was discovered in 1992. When I was in medical school, training to become a doctor, I never learned about this incredible body system because we didn’t even know that it existed. That’s probably why so many doctors today are not even aware of how CBD can heal and help the body on so many levels.
I am a strong proponent and a huge fan of this amazing natural product that has a myriad of health benefits. It helps with anxiety, blood pressure, sleep, pain, digestive health, and it has anticancer benefits and best of all, there are essentially no side effects. It is perfectly safe to use in adults and children alike. It truly is the perfect healing plant.
CBD without THC, the part of the plant that creates the high, is safe to use daily and should be. We want to bathe CBD receptors that we have throughout the entire body, with CBD, on a regular basis, to have the optimal benefits. Just like you would not want to take a relaxing bath with a few drops of water in the bathtub, but rather fill the bathtub and submerge the body, we want to submerge the receptors in our body for CBD so we can have the most beneficial experience.
As a life engineer, I highly recommend CBD. It is an incredible tool to re-engineer a life that promotes health, healing and well-being. It is as effective for prevention as it is for treating the chronic diseases of lifestyle that have inflammation at their core, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disease and depression.
Inflammation is at the heart of every chronic disease of lifestyle whether that be cancer, heart disease, diabetes, auto immune disease, dementia and even depression.
Chronic, smoldering, unrelenting inflammation is incredibly destructive to the body. It can be beneficial on a short-term basis when we’re trying to deal with an injury or infection, but chronic inflammation accelerates aging and promotes disease.
A diet high in sugar, especially refined sugar, and processed, packaged foods, fuels the fire of inflammation. As do refined oils, chronic stress, food allergies, lack of exercise and unknown infections. Decreasing inflammation is not as difficult as we might imagine. Changing our thoughts, food, stress levels and lifestyle can have a tremendous positive impact on decreasing inflammation and promote health, healing and well-being.
It is time to be transparent about the choices we are making in our life that may be contributing to inflammation. As a life engineer, I can help you do that.
Stress kills you. And it will if you don’t address it.
Once we understand this, we then have some control over it and its damaging effects. It all starts with the mind.
Let’s look at stress and its effect on the physiology and functioning of the body. All animals in nature have the ability to respond to stress. I saw this in the wild, growing up in southern Africa. For a gazelle to escape the pursuit of a lion, the stress reaction is very helpful and once the threat has gone the gazelle returns to grazing and being calm. Most humans do not have frequent physical threats to our safety. But we do have constant chronic threats to our emotional well-being because of the stress that we take on from everyday living.
The World Health organization has suggested that stress is the health epidemic of the 21st century. We have all experienced the classic symptoms of stress, pounding heart, pit in the stomach, racing thoughts. What we may not be aware of is the toxic environment that stress creates in our body. This environment impacts the genetic makeup of our cells and promotes diseases of lifestyle like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease and dementia. Short bursts of stress, from which we can then recover quickly, are not nearly as damaging as the chronic, constant stress that seems to flavor most of our lives.
If we are to prevent disease, then we have to manage the levels of stress in our body and create the right chemistry. We do this by the choices that we make including our thoughts, emotions, and lifestyle. It is far easier to prevent disease than to treat it. It is not as difficult as it might seem.
Chronic diseases all have one thing in common – inflammation. Understanding inflammation and the mind body connection is a crucial starting point for any kind of treatment or prevention plan. Yet this is not the practice of conventional Western medicine. The mind is an incredibly powerful tool and the starting point to treating disease.
Thoughts create emotions that cause the release of neurochemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin – which in turn, influence the genes in our cells. When the mind’s distribution of chemicals is disrupted that’s when inflammation occurs. Once cells turn on inflammation, the body’s natural ability to heal is overcome, and diseases results.
Even if you have been given a diagnosis of a disease, I am going to show you how to make thoughtful choices to address and even reverse the condition. It does take effort and a commitment, but it is absolutely possible. I have seen this in my own life and in the lives of my patients. Let’s not solely rely on the information that doctors tell us about what we should be doing and taking. That is an important part of a healing regimen, but you also need to be empowered to make decisions for your own body.
After all, our bodies know what’s best for us and how to heal – it’s time we listen.
So much of what we now know about chronic diseases isn’t often relayed to the patient. The question I hear over and over again is – Why don’t I know this? Oftentimes the doctors themselves aren’t even aware of the latest science. For example, doctors are still telling patients that cholesterol causes heart disease. Doctors should be telling patients that inflammation causes heart disease. Even worse is that the medication most prescribed for cholesterol, statins, haven’t been proven to prolong life. In fact there are more side effects than benefits.
Another area in which patients have been misinformed is in the correlation between cancer and malnutrition. In 40% of cases in America, it’s the malnutrition not the cancer itself that causes death. The reason patients are malnourished is a result of the natural progression of cancer feeding off of any available energy in the body. You can support the body so that our energy isn’t ravished by the cancer. The way that you do this is by starving the cancer of sugar and supplying the body with the right kind of fats. Malnutrition is absolutely something we can combat. Reengineering our approach in this way significantly increases our chances for prolonged life.
We all have early cancer cells floating around our body. So when our immune system is depleted then we have a greater chance to develop cancer. The choices we make with our food, lifestyle and thoughts either support or weaken our immune system.
It is so important that you are well informed before making serious decisions about your health and to remember that just because they’re a doctor doesn’t mean they know what’s best for you.
We’re all going to die. For many of us disease will play a part in that. But how do we prevent disease from destroying our lives? The answer is to have a plan. Engage in conversations about wishes before it is too late. It is paramount not to hide, be transparent and unburden one’s self of psychological baggage. Sometimes this can seem difficult and might feel like the last thing you want to do., however addressing wishes and confronting concerns can lift a huge weight off your shoulders. A weight which invariably would have been causing tremendous stress.
Rather than suppress emotions – it is a time to be transparent and not worry about what other people think. We have to be real. When you have nothing to lose you are confronting your biggest fear. What follows is a tremendous sense of peace. Life Support. I encourage my patients to have this difficult conversation. To consider and discuss with their loved ones whether they want machines to keep them alive at the end of life. Having these discussions does not bring on the inevitable. Far from it – it provides a level of peace and comfort knowing that one’s wishes are more likely to be honored if they are stated and recorded.
Most of the money that we spend in healthcare is spent in the last days of life, typically in an ICU setting, with expensive machines and medications that maintain life but do little for the quality of life. Although we cannot avoid death, we can make sure that we live our best life possible focusing on comfort, dignity and quality of life. This is far more likely if we have a plan.
Dr. Heidi welcomes you to participate in this energy enhancing experience in an environment that focuses on a sense of connection and community.
Guest presenters will guide symposium participants through ancient breathing techniques, restorative meditation exercises and modalities that strengthen spiritual connection. Strengthening the mind, body and spirit optimizes true health, healing and well-being.
