What is Lifestyle Medicine ?
Within the framework of mainstream Western medicine, the doctor is an expert authority on the diagnosis, pathology and therapeutics of a derangement in the body, a disease which calls for a treatment to be administered to a relatively passive sick person called a patient.
Diseases are believed for the most part to localise themselves in specific organs or tissues, although some, called systemic, can have ramifications throughout the body.
The causal agents of these diseases are invasive external agents, deficiencies, trauma, environmental hazards or genetic abnormalities.
In the allopathic Western biomechanical model, disease denotes a malfunctioning body part, and the physician’s job is to find out where it has gone wrong and to fix it.
Allopathic drugs and corrective surgery are the primary tools used to oppose or alleviate the symptoms. If the body cannot be fixed, it is propped up with medications so that the patient can carry on functioning.
As there are so many systems in the human body, medicine is dispensed by specialists who deal with particular body parts.
As a set of powerful therapeutic tools, allopathic medicine is of unquestionable value, especially in dealing with infectious diseases and medical emergencies.
However, for all its successes in “conquering” disease and increasing longevity, allopathic medicine is failing us.
Our modern health care institutions are overcrowded, our health bill is enormous and growing under the strain of chronic disease and obesity epidemic.
In the developed world, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases have replaced tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria and other diseases.
Moreover, new chronic diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome and a host of environmental allergies and sensitivities have appeared, many of which are related to modern petro-chemical pollution.
It seems that for every disease “conquered” by allopathy a new one arises to take its place.
This discouraging situation serves to underline the limitations inherent in the medical philosophy of allopathy. Medicine is a huge industry practiced within an entrenched social institution with many vested interests which resist change.
The fundamental question has not been answered by allopathic medicine: Does disease always result from infectious agents and from chance factors in our genetic make up or is it, in fact, largely caused by imbalances and disharmonies with Nature -our own and our environment’s -that could be brought under control?
A new medicine of the future called Lifestyle Medicine has grown out of our increased awareness that we must learn to live in harmony with ourselves and with our planet.
This new medicine is holistic and preventative in nature and it perceives disease as a signal that warns us of an imbalance.
If we are willing to heed its earliest signs we could reduce the pain and suffering.
Lifestyle Medicine teaches us that chronic degenerative diseases are lifestyle induced imbalances.
A guiding principle of Lifestyle Medicine is that the prevention and management of medical disorders are more under the control of the individual than it has been previously credited.
The way we eat, the degree to which we exercise and the attitudes which determine our stress reactions all relate directly to health.
We are coming to see that disease is frequently a result of a lack of health-enhancing behaviours.
It is now universally agreed among practitioners of Lifestyle Medicine that a health-promoting lifestyle incorporates plant based whole food nutrition, high in natural vitamins, minerals and fibre from organically grown produce and is predominantly low in animal based saturated fat, sugar and processed, devitalised foods. Regular aerobic exercise for the human body is also essential to counteract the sedentary occupations that predominate in the Western developed countries.
And because challenges, demands and their resulting tensions are endemic to human life, the healthy person must learn and acquire effective coping resources to deal adaptively with potential stressors, and so manage stress resourcefully and learn to relax adequately.
Lifestyle Medicine invites individuals to assume responsibility for maintaining their health through developing and sustaining healthy lifestyles.
Lifestyle Medicine practitioners are taught principles of health coaching in order to provide practical tools and effective methodologies to their clients.
They are trained to create health programmes designed to inculcate the lifestyle changes known to foster vibrant health and well-being.
The process ensures a good caring relationship between the client and a Lifestyle Medicine practitioner. The practitioner serves as a faithful consultant who provides information and resources, teaches concepts and suggests techniques. The client, however, is ultimately the one who makes the final decision about the treatment plan and carries our the active interventions in their own life. After the early stages of programme, when the practitioner provides active support for the client’s lifestyle behavioural changes, the practitioner gradually fades out their input so that the client can become more self- monitoring and self reliant in execution of their specific health goals.
Behavioural and lifestyle objectives must be explicit, realistic and measurable.
In Lifestyle Medicine the practitioner assumes a role of a teacher or a coach helping the client to acquire and practice skills that they will be able to take out into the everyday world and use to foster healthy habits.
In treating chronic disease, the practitioner of Lifestyle Medicine works with the client in four main areas of dietary changes, reduction and elimination of substance-abuse behaviours, such as drinking and smoking, development and implementation of an aerobic exercise programme and acquisition of stress-reduction techniques.
By remedying health risk behaviour patterns and learning new skills in these areas, the client will be able to influence their health situation in a positive and life changing way.
These skills are crucial to counter the effects of future stress as well as the pulls (advertising, social media, peer pressure) toward unhealthy behaviours that are still so prevalent in our societies.
In Lifestyle Medicine, the practitioner and the client work together and problem-solve together in order to replace risky health behaviours with health-promoting ones. Unlike within the context of allopathic medicine, Lifestyle Medicine is predicated on the client’s active role in the development of new self-management skills which have a direct impact on their daily activities and interpersonal relationships.
The time is now!
Together we are creating an exciting health paradigm shift on a global scale.
In this process we are awakening, educating, guiding and motivating millions of people towards sustainable and self responsible self-management which leads to vibrant health, fitness and joy.
