Let’s Get Specific
by Deborah Gordon
“Great, just a few more questions. You have told me about which foods you really love and which foods you just can’t stand. Now I’d like you to tell me, throughout a given day, what do you actually eat?”
After pursuing threads that lead me to the selection of the proper remedy, I question my patient further, at greatest length on the foods they eat, but also how they set up their home, their body care products, and their choice of exercise (or not!) to round out my vision of the way they live their life. As a younger homeopath, I had bottomless faith in the power of the properly selected remedy to right all wrongs, but since then, I have returned to the wisdom of Samuel Hahnemann. Ready for a little Organon review?
Paragraph 76: Only for natural diseases has the all-beneficent One granted us help through homeopathy…A human medical art for the normalization of the countless abnormalities so often wrought by the calamitous allopathic art, there is not and cannot be.
Paragraph 77: Those disease are improperly called chronic that are suffered by people who:
Continually expose themselves to avoidable malignities,
Habitually partake of harmful food or drink,
Abandon themselves to intemperances of all kinds, which undermine health,
Undergo prolonged deprivation of things that are necessary for life,
Life in unhealthy places…
Reside only in cellars…
Suffer lack of exercise or open air,
Deprives themselves of health by excessive mental or bodily exertions,
Live in constant vexation, etc.
These kinds of ill-health that people bring upon themselves disappear spontaneously under an improved lifestyle, provided no chronic miasm lies in the body. These cannot be called chronic diseases.
Whew! Hahnemann has insights into a LOT of areas that he does not expect to be simply a part of the remedy, areas that could be obstacles to cure, even with the best-selected remedy.
Careful lifestyle interviewing can reveal many obstacles that people may not consider revealing unless asked. Para 76 describes the insurmountable harm done by allopathic interventions, and I would include even those of the most casual nature. Interestingly, I think modern medical research has validated some of Hahnemann’s observations on this one. One of the most common medications people use without thinking is a simple over-the-counter antihistamine for allergies or for sleep. Recent research has observed an association between frequent use of any sleep aid or any anti-histamine with increased risk of dementia, debility and premature death. Sleep science is beginning to realize the absolute supremacy of naturally-achieved sleep, even if conventional medical practice doesn’t quite have that awareness.
Paragraph 77 ventures into territory I find a lot more interesting, perhaps because my interest in nutrition preceded my medical career (and was not destroyed in medical school!). We can only correct “avoidable malignities,” and obstacles to cure are only avoidable if they are recognized, for which a careful search might be required.
Harmful food or drink? I think Hahnemann would be shocked to see what the modern world considers to be food and drink. Chicken nuggets? Coca-cola? Sorry, those do not truly nourish human life, they don’t qualify as “food and drink.”
Besides removing those obvious “malignities”, I suggest subjecting all of our standard fare to the scrutiny of whether or not Hahnemann would consider what’s on our plates to be food. (I know that I’m borrowing from Michael Pollan who famously advised us against eating anything our grandmother would not recognize as food. Hats off to Mr. Pollan!). Such a scrutiny will tread on sacred ground, here’s a prime example: it’s shocking perhaps, but granola is not a breakfast food. Breakfast is oatmeal, perhaps, or eggs and bacon certainly. Again, current science is actually in agreement here: the vegetable oils most frequently used and damaged in the production of cold breakfast cereals, including granola, are highly inflammatory and have been associated in clinical research with diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Continuing through paragraph 77, I ask if people keep uphealthy hours, or unhealthy levels of stress – including too much exercise! Our homes should be free of contamination from pesticides, harsh chemicals, and excessive electromagnetic radiation. Restful sleep is only achieved in truly dark and quiet rooms, separated by time and space from overly stimulating time on the computer, iPhone, tablet and television! Did you know there is a whole malady described as “iPad insomnia”, because the unnatural computer glare suppresses endogenous melatonin production and normal sleep!
It is unfortunately true that only the most serene of modern lives would be the least bit recognizable by Samuel Hahnemann: we are all multiply connected, or we travel beyond imagination, and we all have known more people, tasted more foods, and encountered more toxic chemicals than existed in all of Western Europe 250 years ago. For those truly seeking health, it becomes a serious responsibility to consider seriously all the different ways in which we influence our health.
I think it is important to start with food, something we introduce into our bodies every day with the hope that our sense of taste and our good health will both be nourished. To achieve the best health from our food, we can learn from a savvy combination of traditional practices and current insights, emphasizing both standards of wisdom. Humans evolved with traditional foods, and only those arrangements that favored our survival actually endured to become traditions: animals raised on pasture, milk properly handled and consumed with all its fat, grains properly raised – admittedly hard to find these days – and prepared. Vegetables and fruits in season are both nutritious and most affordable. To sound a familiar tune: current research validates all those traditional practices.
Food is only the starting point from which we can all look at our busy and overly connected lives to ask what serves us well and what is worth an experiment. Will I sleep better if I unplug my clock radio? Will I feel better if I actually get outside for half an hour each day? How much exercise is enough and how much is too much?
I have had the fortuitous pleasure this fall of seeing many patients whom I first saw ten or twenty years ago – some I’ve seen quite regularly, others only rarely. Our protracted conversation of decades has enabled us all to explore different aspects of lifestyle, experimenting with the adoption and release of habits that serve us well or not. Twenty years of aging has shown us the areas where we are vulnerable and where we thrive. The common threads I value in all our interactions have been our collective embrace of fresh and unprocessed foods, a generally organic lifestyle integrated into the heart and limbs of our small community, and hopefully, with a little study and a bit of grace, the right remedy when it is indicated.
(If you would like more information about what Dr. Deborah Gordon considers to comprise a healthy lifestyle, please visit her at www.DrDeborahMD.com or she can be reached through her office at Madrona Homeopathy, in Ashland, Oregon.
