APPRECIATE YOUR BODY’S OWN MEDICATION

It always amuses me when someone is skeptical when I talk to them about how exercise will help their brain or how being involved with others will help their heart, yet they have no problem accepting the fact that swallowing a pill that goes to their stomach will reduce the pain in their head or back or will normalize their blood pressure. As a society, we have been socialized to appreciate the real miracles that medication can often provide, often at a substantial monetary cost, while underappreciating the role that our body’s own medication can contribute, free of charge, to making us healthy.

Many of you have heard me speak and write about the “Non-negotiable 4” behaviors that are growth producing and health producing: healthy eating; owning your body through exercise, adequate sleep, and stress management activities such as meditation; keeping the brain active; and staying socially connected.

Having worked for decades in a medical school, I’m certainly not anti-medication; I’m just anti-more medication than you need. Utilizing your body’s own medication by implementing the Non-negotiable 4 behaviors reduces the likelihood (and the cost) of excessive need for prescription medications. There is strong science, reflected in numerous studies, to support the health producing consequences of these behaviors. And when you implement the behaviors that trigger your body’s own healthy responses, you’re learning some really great self-care habits in the process.