Here I’m going to start with the bad, so I can illustrate the power of something you could call a natural medicine. A study in the 1950s by Dr. Carl Richter involved taking rats and putting them through a forced swim test. Rats can swim, and the rats they used were, as far as they could tell, equally healthy. The rats gave up swimming and sunk (we’ll pretend they ended up ok), fairly quickly–some in mere minutes, some up to 15 minutes. But, if they were removed from the water for a short amount of time before that, and allowed a brief rest while they were held, they could then be put back in the water and swim for up to 60 hours! From 15 minutes max to 60 HOURS!
What?! How could they somehow bring about a Herculean effort to keep swimming for 240 times longer when they would otherwise have given up?
A Natural Medicine
Hope.
They had hope that they might again be rescued. Hope is a powerful natural medicine. It helps us try more, push harder, and persist longer. And, often, eventually succeed.
So, when I hear from patients that they’ve been told there’s nothing further that can be done–to manage their pain, help them sleep, improve or cure their illness, or simply function and feel better–I’m disturbed by that. Why
That’s why I love Traditional Chinese Medicine and most natural medicine practices. The goal is to discover what combination of imbalances have lead to the health issue at hand, and to help strengthen the body, and thus allow healing. There isn’t always cure. There isn’t always a fast fix. But improvement is possible. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that I’m someone’s last resort. At the very least, I aim to offer hope and support while the body begins the process of healing.
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I just spent all day today at a forum held at UBC called “It’s Time to Heal”. It was created by Maple Ridge MD, Dr. Nelie Johnson. As soon as I saw that Dr. Bruce Lipton (PhD in Developmental Cell Biology) would be speaking, I knew that I would have to cancel my busy Saturday clinic day to attend this.
I first saw Bruce at a conference hosted by one of the herbal distributors for my TCM herbs several years ago. I had never heard of him, but after an intro 30 minute talk by him, I immediately called my husband and told him to stop whatever he was doing and get downtown to come see Bruce’s lecture slotted for that afternoon. My husband was writing his Masters in Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), the study of how the mind affects the immune system via the nervous system. PNI is based on quantum physics and quantum physics is Bruce’s area of expertise.
I, unfortunately, couldn’t attend Bruce’s lecture that afternoon as I wanted to attend the lecture on Balance Acupuncture and they were scheduled to take place at the same time. I’m still glad I made that choice as I use those acupuncture skills every day. If you’ve ever had me acupuncture your hand when your lower back is sore or your right wrist to treat your left ankle, you’ve had balance acupuncture. But, I always wished I could have seen more of Bruce’s lecture…especially after my husband spoke on and on and on about him afterward.
Shortly after that weekend I bought Bruce’s CD lecture “The Wisdom of Your Cells: How your Beliefs Control Your Biology” and was spellbound with what he had to say. He says it so much better than me, but basically it boils down to the truth that the foundation of what we teach in medical school is WRONG. DNA does NOT control our biology. Genes do NOT control life; life CAN influence and CHANGE how our genes express. We can control our genes! How? Because it’s the signals that we get from our environment (energy–good or bad, trauma, toxins, and THOUGHT) that can change how the genes express and how how a cell is created. If you take in good energy (Qi) and thoughts, you can grow new healthy cells. If you take in negative energy and thoughts (e.g. fear, anger, anxiety, etc.), you are in protection mode, i.e. fight or flight. You cannot be in growth if you are in protection. Your body chooses one or the other.
If this makes sense to you, then you must have read some stuff about Quantum Physics and healing. If it doesn’t, then you’ve got to learn more from Bruce or someone like him. Why? Because you can be in control of your own health, wellness, and happiness. And, it’s more than just positive thinking.
My husband bought “The Biology of Belief” and I bought “Spontaneous Evolution
“. We have a lot of reading to do now!
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Here I’m going to start with the bad, so I can illustrate the power of something you could call a natural medicine. A study in the 1950s by Dr. Carl Richter involved taking rats and putting them through a forced swim test. Rats can swim, and the rats they used were, as far as they could tell, equally healthy. The rats gave up swimming and sunk (we’ll pretend they ended up ok), fairly quickly–some in mere minutes, some up to 15 minutes. But, if they were removed from the water for a short amount of time before that, and allowed a brief rest while they were held, they could then be put back in the water and swim for up to 60 hours! From 15 minutes max to 60 HOURS!