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Wednesday, August 4, 2010

MAKING SMART, INFORMED CHOICES IN HEALTHY LIVING

By Coralie Raia Darsey-Malloy

Everyone wants independent choice…
whatever that may cost…
and wherever it may lead.


--Fyodor Dostroyevsky

When I began my quest for health and wholeness in the mid-eighties much of what has gained mainstream acceptance was considered ‘fringe new age thinking” and viewed with suspicion or flatly rejected. When David and I met in 1990 I made his head spin with my concern about the free radicals and high glycimic factor in his diet. I rambled on about that and the importance of low fat, moderate carbohydrate diet and using food combining as a way to lose weight. He and others patted me on the head and admitted that it all sounded a little too weird for them at the time. Now these ideas have been accepted and utilized by many because they are endorsed by researchers. The growing emphasis on healthy living has created less polarity within formal medicine and complimentary healing systems.

This trend has already started towards more sensitive patient care with a multitude of options that were not available even twenty years ago. The emerging changes in preventative health and wellness techniques can and does compliment today’s precision diagnostic services. Inevitably, professional patronizing, and obscure terminology will give way to cooperative educational approaches, and client-orientated therapies. Future medicine like future world politics, will increasingly acknowledge choice making and empowerment of the individual.

Even before these changes are fully implemented, there is much we can all do to optimize our health. Eating less and eating well are basic premises of preventative self- care. Avoiding the known health hazards of smoking, alcohol, fat, sugar, caffeine, salt and processed foods are another commonsense approach. Breakthroughs in health care reveal that many of the diseases and ailments being treated by symptom relief alone can be readily overcome with social and lifestyle changes.

A long, healthy life is a reasonable expectation under most conditions, and self-reliant health care involves one’s authority over their right to choose what they determine is best for them. As the paradigm of whole-person healing continues to evolve, the knowledge it brings not only liberates it unites people as well. Today personal fitness and healing practices once considered outlandish are gaining mainstream credibility—because they work. Large corporations are underwriting relaxation and stress management courses to reduce employee absenteeism. Insurance companies offer financial incentives to non-smokers and aerobic dancers. Healing in the 21st century will witness the final convergence of science and psychology, body and soul.

As science, medicine, the biology of emotion and thought, humor, health and healing attitudes are promoted as a plausible option to symptom relief, drug therapy, invasive procedures there will be more inclination to become well informed before choosing any course of treatment. New attitudes and modalities provide much hope in the form of simple, yet powerful whole-person self-care systems. They are often equally or more effective than prescriptions and are cost effective, encourage self-responsibility, do no harm, educational, fun and provide positive outcomes! So the good news is…there truly are many ways to achieve health, wholeness and abundant living for those willing to explore options and think outside the box.

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