CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

An Overview of the Wellness Pentagon Last month we introduced the wellness concept and said how we used a pentagon to explain it all. This issue we're going to have a brief overview of the pentagon, so that you can start to get a feel for wellness. The Centre In the centre of the pentagon there is the Innate Intelligence. This is what actually does all the work of keeping you well and restoring and repairing you when there has been a problem. We believe that the major transmission route for the Innate Intelligence is the nervous system. The nervous system can be compromised by bones being out of alignment, muscles going into spasm, or twisting of the fascia (the proper name for the connective tissue of the body). What we do therapeutically is to adjust boney misalignments, relax and tone muscles, and unwind twisted fascia. The Context Now that's all well and good, but if the context in which all that is happening is poor then we can treat you every day and you still wouldn't enjoy total wellness. The context is described by the pentagon. The Innate Intelligence is brilliant at keeping you well in the environment and life-style conditions we evolved in, however, we no longer live in those conditions. There are five broad areas of life where we have got seriously out of balance in the last 150 years and the Innate Intelligence won't be able to adapt for many, many generations. Why not make some simple life-style changes now and enjoy the benefits of total wellness rather than waiting for a thousand years or so for our evolution to catch up? None of the following is rocket science and all the things we will suggest are easy to do. Ready to leap into the wellness pentagon? Nutrition Basic Nutrition Most of the people we see are malnourished to a greater or lesser extent. It's not surprising really given that there has been a radical reduction in the quality of our foodstuffs in the last 60 years or so, and that most people's diets simply aren't broad enough. There are about ninety nutrients that the body needs on a daily basis and if you were eating a locally sourced organic diet of which 70% was raw you would need to eat about 30 different foods a day to get these basic requirements from your diet. Other basic requirements are sufficient water, sunshine and air. Super Nutrition Getting the basic nutritional needs met is great if we were living in the environment we evolved in. Due to various social and life-style changes our nutrition suffers. This area covers ways to offset the changes to our environment and the effects of aging. Diet There are more beneficial ways to eat the diet we already have, and there are less beneficial ways. In this area we look at what to eat at which time of day and what not to eat in combination with other foods. How an over abundance of certain foodstuffs can adversely affect us. Toxicity Most of the people we see are toxic. It's not surprising really as we have pollution in the air we breathe, water we drink and the food we eat. In this area we look at how to detoxify the body, to get the bad stuff out and how not to re-intoxicate the body by changing what we put into and onto the body. Rest The simple fact is that people don't get enough. You know, people who live a more natural life-style, like native peoples for instance, are in the stress mode for 20% of the time and siesta-under-the-tree, hanging-out-with-their-mates mode about 80% of the time. We're lucky if we even have reversed ratios. If we get as much as 20% down time we're lucky. And it's mad really as it is in the down time that the body does all its repair and house keeping. In this area we will be encouraging you to take more time for yourself, more sleep and stress management techniques. Exercise Most people don't get enough; some people get too much; and some people get the totally wrong kind of exercise for their body shape, or what has happened to them in the past. So we will be looking at appropriate levels of exercise for the different body parts. Attitude This area is very important because if this area isn't right then people won't be motivated to make changes in the other areas. We need to make sure that your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial attitudes are all conducive to wellness. We need to give you enough information so that you can make whatever the correct decision is for you to bring your life back into balance. We need to encourage you to nurture yourself. In future issues we will be looking at each of these areas in more detail.

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