Holistic medicine: getting to the root of the issue

Picture, if you will, a beautiful tree stretching into the sky. Imagine that this tree is several stories high with branches and limbs shooting out in every direction. Green leaves spread out everywhere you look, and in the spring, new buds are visible as you walk beneath it.

Yes, this tree is lovely, it’s true—but its branches and leaves represent something more sobering. As you look closely at each branch, you discover it represents an area of your health that poses challenges. Perhaps you have anxiety or postpartum depression. Or maybe you are experiencing heart disease, thyroid issues—even cancer. The fact is, this tree represents each one of us. No one has a perfect medical record, and many of us are living daily with conditions that can be debilitating.

Now imagine digging beneath the soil under the tree and into the vast system of roots below. Here are the many triggers of the conditions you saw above in the leaves and branches. Factors affecting your health can include poor diet, stress, lack of sleep and exercise, genetics, trauma and quite a bit more. It quickly becomes clear that while each of these can play a role, many of them crisscross one another below ground, revealing how interconnected our body’s systems and experiences can become.

This contrast between the symptoms above-ground and the causes below-ground accurately reflects the value of functional medicine. Rather than looking only at the branches and leaves and treating them — a typical practice among many in medicine—practitioners of functional medicine seek to understand the roots first. If we can truly learn to identify and manage the root causes of any of these health issues, we can begin to help people heal faster.

If you’d like to know more about how functional medicine can benefit you and your family, http://proactivewellness.com with us today. We’re here to help.