One of the major shortcomings of our mainstream healthcare system is its lack of addressing the cause of illness. We are very good at treating and managing symptoms, but terrible at addressing or correcting the true cause of modern day health problems.
If you have back pain, you get a pain-reliever. If you have constipation, you get a laxative. If you have a rash, you get a medicated skin cream. Medicines like these reduce the pain, ease the constipation, or lessen the redness or itch of the skin, but the underlying cause of those symptoms are neglected, leading to the ongoing need for those medications. And left unaddressed, those underlying causes can worsen, leading to more advanced health issues as well as the need for higher doses or stronger medications or treatments.
It is well known in the medical community that stress is the underlying cause of, or at least a contributor to, 70-90% of all reasons for doctor visits. Let me repeat those numbers because they are so significant… 70-90%. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines stress as “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation.” So… if a high percentage of reasons for doctor visits is due to, or strongly affected by, a difficult situation, how can your health problem ever get resolved if your doctor does not ask about or address that difficult situation? It doesn’t get resolved. And that is a huge problem in healthcare today.
As humans, we are under a level of stress that our bodies are not designed to handle. Our ancestors had stress… lots of it. But stress came in bursts. Our bodies, when encountering a high tension situation, are equipped to have a nervous system response to help us stay alive. This response is the fight or flight response, which creates a quick and powerful set of physiologic changes so that we can react to whatever is before us.
If we see a bear, our heart races, eyes dilate, blood pressure elevates, blood thickens, digestion slows, immune functions shut down, and our brains begin to hyper-focus rather than think calmly and logically. These are all innate responses, meaning that they occur without us having to think about them, and they are necessary for survival in that moment.
An increased heart rate and blood pressure help pump more blood to our skeletal muscles, which allows us to run. Our pupils dilate, and our brains switch to high-alert because when a bear is present, we need to be able to find safety right away, we need to see places to hide, a tree to climb, or a pathway to survival. A pondering mindset, logic, and rational thinking are not required or helpful in a time like this, so we shut that down. Your blood thickens because if you get scratched by that bear, your body needs to be ready to prevent massive bleeding. Digestion slows because you need all of that blood to be diverted to your muscles. And your body is not in a growth and repair state when in any threatening situation. Lastly, the immune system shuts down because it takes a lot of energy to run the immune system (which is why you can’t get out of bed when you are sick), and you need every ounce of your energy to escape that bear. Plus, an increase in white blood cells does nothing to help in this type of situation.
While all these responses are critical is emergency, life-threatening situations, they are not helpful in everyday life. These responses were meant to be short-lived, quick, and temporary. The environment we live in today demands this fight or flight state too often, and it lasts too long. It has resulted in a whole host of sickness and disease that is affecting most Americans. The high blood pressure, digestive disorders, anxiety, depression, ADHD, chronic low energy and recurring sickness that stem from chronic stress get treated with medications, while the underlying stressors never get properly assessed, addressed, or managed.
