Is Your Health OUT OF ORDER?

By Melanie Banayat
Holistic Health & Nutrition Coach

Most people have dreams and goals that they want to experience in their lifetime.  You know - the infamous "Bucket List".  However, if your health is out of order it’s going to make it a lot more difficult for you to find the energy to achieve those dreams and goals.

We live in a society where being highly successful in your career or personal life is a mixed blessing, because often times it comes at a price and that price usually begins with your health, followed by your relationships.

Here’s how it plays out - You notice that your daily energy is only a fraction of what it used to be, and the pounds are beginning to add up, eating habits that used to work are starting to fail you, you don’t feel as great as you could, and you haven’t slept well in several years.

You’ve been so busy running the affairs of your organization or family that your health has gotten away from you.  Maybe you’re taking a handful or more of various supplements, stimulants, or medications to help you make it through each day, but at the end of the day you’re still too exhausted to exercise or take care of yourself or your loved ones without feeling irritable.

This is precisely the time when you need to stop, step back and look at your life from a different perspective.  Your body is trying to communicate to you that something is out of balance and taking a pill is not necessarily the right answer.

I want it, and I want it NOW
Somewhere along the line as we have been duped into the “I want it NOW, instant relief, instant gratification lifestyle, we forgot that what we should be doing is paying attention to what our body is trying to tell us that it needs us to do in order for it to heal itself.

Years ago in my second marriage I wish I had never walked into my doctor’s office telling her that I was feeling stressed.  She handed me several free sample boxes of an anti-depressant, which sent me on a long path of more and more medications for the onslaught of other symptoms that I developed over time.  The anti-depressant didn’t fix my problems, it just made me numb, and as an extra nice side effect I gained about 20 pounds, which resulted in a different kind of depression.  Then my doctor said those dreaded words to me, “You will probably need to be on these for the rest of your life.”  Unfortunately, my husband was in the room at the time and fell for it hook-line and sinker!  He was instantly sold on the idea.  Yes!  She’s mentally ill and needs to be on meds forever!  His reaction was not surprising.

Well, fortunately I wasn’t sold on that idea of taking meds ‘til death do us part.  I mean, I did take them for a while, but eventually I realized that my stress and depression was due to how ineffectively I was coping with and living my life.  So, out went the meds, along with the husband, but that’s a whole other story.  

A Pill for Every Ill
The sad fact is that billions of people have found themselves trapped on this never-ending hamster wheel of a pill for every ill, and simply accepting their doctor’s claim that you will have to remain on this medication for the rest of your life.   After all there is no money in healthy people, right?  We’re talkin’ everyday people like you and me to well known celebrities that get caught up in this trap. For example, what do Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley have in common? They were all taking tranquillizers – prescription drugs for insomnia, depression, and anxiety – at the time of their deaths.

Here are two important facts that you should know:
#1. Medication side effects are the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. annually, and  
#2. More than 100,000 deaths per year are related to taking medications correctly, as prescribed.

These two astonishing statistics wake me way up!  Hopefully they wake you up too.  We clearly live in a grossly overmedicated society.  In Dr. Mercola’s article, “Nearly 250,000 Deaths From ONE Common Mistake: Here's How to Protect Yourself”, he reports that an estimated 450,000 preventable medication-related adverse events occur in the U.S. every year.

What we have today in the United States is an impatient society where people are eating whatever they want (on short order) then they take a pill - this magic pill, or that purple pill, or how about this teeny-tiny blue pill - and all the discomfort will disappear. We refuse to tolerate even the slightest discomfort. And to top it off we demonstrate an unhealthy willingness to take a pill for anything and everything, in the name of immediate relief - like constipation from a poor diet, or cough from too many cigarettes. We want to get “better” without any effort, and we want to get “better” right now!

While I do believe that medicine and medical care has its place and it has helped to keep many people alive and living longer I cannot help but question whether the quality of a person’s life is any better if they are then made to believe that they must remain a prisoner to their prescribed drugs in order to survive.

My daughter would probably not be alive today if it were not for the emergency medical care that she received to save her life when her appendix burst.  But what landed her in that situation in the first place was her poor diet, and high-level of anxiety at the time.  So over time she changed her diet and learned new ways to deal with her anxiety vs taking anti-anxiety pills.

Change is on the Rise
As comedian Chris Rock points out, the advertisements for medicine don’t even inform you about precisely what the pill supposedly does. “You see this lovely lady sitting on a beautiful, dappled grey horse or a hefty he-man reclining in a bathtub,” says Rock, “and the voice-over just keeps naming symptoms: “Are you depressed?” “Are you lonely?” “Do you have performance anxiety?” “Do your teeth hurt?”

Then he makes mention of that one commercial which might ask: “Do you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning?”

“They got that one?” asks Rock. “I got that. … I’m sick. I need that pill!”

Chris Rock’s routine hits home pretty hard because baby-boomers and their children have become the most medicated generation in history; the most devoted consumers of pharmaceutical products from the cradle to the grave. They take pills that not only cure real disease, thank goodness, but also pills that promise, according to Greg Critser, the author of How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds and Bodies, to "do everything from guarding us against our excesses of drink, food and tobacco, to increasing our children's performance at school, to jump-starting our own productivity at work, to extending our very time on this mortal coil."

We have substituted anti-depressants and medications as a cure for stress and anxiety, while there are hosts of other natural and safer ways to manage the problem. Is it because these other methods require more time, and work, whereas popping a pill seems like an easy solution?

Reversing symptoms that occur from stress, anxiety, weight gain, inflammation, digestion problems and other health issues can happen quickly and the results are much different than what medications have to offer.  Medications only mask or supress the underlying problems, and often create more problems; they don't actually heal anything. 

Many people are changing their lives for the better through natural healing.  Essentially poor diet and an unhealthy lifestyle is the underlying cause of degenerative diseases and a healthy diet and lifestyle can stop or reverse it.  There are many doctors, pharmacists, pharmaceudical reps stepping up and talking about what the general public doesn't know about medications.  There are a host of documentary movies revealing how people are healing with the help and support of health professionals that focus on natural healing.  Watch these movie trailers and then rent the movies: "Forks Over Knives", "Food Matters", "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". 

True Healing is what we should ultimately be pursuing - that is how we can regain and maintain a healthier, more energetic, happier life. Nowadays holistic healing is done in a way that is flexible, fun and designed around each individuals bio-individual needs, preferences, history, genetics and circumstance vs a one size fits all approach.  More and more people are catching on to this, because more and more people are realizing that they aren't getting better from all their meds - they're just surviving, not living vivacious lives.

Live freely! Live healthfully! Be you!
Melanie Banayat

Former "Stress Junkie & Emotional Eater"
46 year old mother of 2 + 2, wife, and accidental entrepreneur

I now coach women in how to take charge of their own health, and implement pleasure into their life experience, while reaching their personal health goals through holistic health and nutrition practices.

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