And why can’t we choose both: Team Holistic and Team Medical?

I recently had a friend, whose husband is a physician, ask me: I know you’re more holistic, but your dad is a surgeon. How does he feel about the holistic side of things? In other words, I felt like she was curious as to which side of the spectrum he fell on as a surgeon with a pretty holistically-minded family.

My answer? Both! We can marry the two, because each approach has a valuable role to play in the overarching goal of keeping you and me healthy and strong.

If my dad could go back to seeing patients again, however, I know he wishes he could spend more time giving them the tools they need to prevent the diseases that brought them into his office in the first place. This would fall under the holistic umbrella when we talk about the right foods to eat and avoiding the toxins prevalent in our food sources, products, and most household products. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough time in the average physician’s busy schedule to cover all steps A through Z, so they focus on curing, not preventing.

What does the holistic side of things cover?

The holistic side of the spectrum seeks answers to questions like:

• “What can we do to stay well enough to avoid hospital visits?”
• “What foods can we eat to stay energized, have good gut health, and keep our organs functioning optimally?”
• What products can I swap out in my home to avoid toxins and harmful chemicals?

Most issues I have resolved alongside my friends happens in their kitchen pantry and bathroom cupboard. Because the root cause of countless diseases stems from what we put in or on our bodies, this is the place to start. Did you know anything we put onto our skin is absorbed into our blood stream within 26 seconds?¹

Learn more about how things absorb into our bodies in this blog article. Talk about fascinating!

After checking off those boxes and making sure my home, routines, and meals are all conducive to an optimally healthy lifestyle, I can pursue the medical advice I need to fill In the gaps.

I think of the holistic side of things like the part of my health I have the most control over and, as a result, the highest level of responsibility to steward well. I control what I eat, I control the decision to switch to a toxin-free product once I learn about a harmful ingredient, and I control the allotment of time towards educating myself.

I’m not anti-medicine, and I’m not holistic-or-bust. I’m pro-research, information, big-picture-perspective, and marrying the world of preventative medicine (food, processed foods, etc.) with treatment medicine (surgery). I have had plenty of the latter, by the way!

Where can I learn?

A few of my favorite resources to learn from are Dr. Mark Hyman on YouTube and Podcasts, Dr. Deanna Osborn on Podcasts and her book, and Dr. Tanda Cook on Instagram. There is a lot of free content out there ready and willing to educate us on how to live long, healthy, fulfilling lives. We just need to take advantage of it and let how we spend our time reflect our desire to be healthy!

Hopefully this encourages you to join both Team Holistic and Team Medical in your approach to securing longevity.

1. https://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/skincare/where-does-skincare-go ↩︎