"A Dangerous Idea..."
By Dr Tony Croke, chiropractor
Like you, I felt shocked and sad at the passing of Heath Ledger last week. The first reports I heard suggested suicide, stating that his body was found surrounded by sleeping pills. Later reports said differently. Either way, what killed Heath Ledger weren't any drugs that might have been in his system. What killed him was an idea.
Like millions of people all over the world, Heath thought that the answer to his health problems lay in medicines. When he felt depressed, he took anti-depressants. When he couldn't sleep, he took sleeping pills. New York police reported finding six different prescription medications in his apartment, all of them powerful sleeping pills, anti-depressants or muscle-relaxants.
The idea that we can fix things in our lives by treating the symptoms we experience is one of the most dangerous there is. Treating symptoms, rather than dealing with causes, lulls us into a false sense of security. It lets us believe that we can make bad choices now, because later there'll be a convenient way to deal with the consequences.
Health researchers say that more than 75% of all deaths in countries like Australia are related to lifestyle factors - the amount of movement we do, the food and water we consume, the level of stress we experience. It's all about the choices we make. Most diseases, indeed most symptoms, can be traced back to a deficiency or toxicity of one of these three factors:
MOVEMENT
Whether it's the micro-movements of all of the 149 tiny joints of your spine, or the macro-movements of getting off the couch and walking, running, lifting some weights or chasing the kids around the back yard, our body needs to move. The health of our nervous system, heart, lungs and other organs depends on sufficient movement. Neither too little nor too much is healthy.
NUTRITION
Vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, water, fresh air ... we need them all. Not too much, not too little. We don't need toxic pesticides, fertilisers or other chemicals in our food or water. Eat organic or as close to it whenever possible. And if you haven't already, get off the smokes.
STRESS
Imagine a life with nothing new, nothing challenging, nothing to stimulate us, no activity or exercise? Pretty boring, hey? Too little stress is just as bad as too much. Sedentary lifestyles combine with increasing workloads to create a dangerous mix of too much mental stress and too little physical activity. Overwhelm comes from too many new things. Boredom and depression come from too few.
If something in your life isn't working, take a look to see where there's too much or too little of something. Rather than giving all of your attention to the problem, focus on what you could do to replace deficiency and toxicity with sufficiency and purity.
It's a powerful, wonderful, life-enhancing idea.
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