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Free Resource: Key Issues & Healing Principles, Making Diagnoses vs. Identifying Causes & Underlying Health Conditions, Evidence-Based Principles of Healing — for Health & Wellness Coaches, Holistic Healthcare Providers, Yoga Therapists, Yoga Teachers

Please Note: This is part of a series of related topics. Use the quick menu above to navigate within this section.

Lesson Overview

In this lesson, we take a big-picture look at key issues that underlie most disease, and review verifiable healing principles.

Objective

Be clear on the differentiation of naming disease vs. resolving it, and be familiar with key issues that underlie most disease, including chronic stress and chronic inflammation, plus verifiable principles of healing, including specific lifestyle factors that restore the body’s natural healing forces.

Description

Define diagnosis and discuss the scope and limitations of diagnosis Describe the ICD-10CM and the significance of their being 97,296 possible diagnoses. Discuss various perspectives which can help to identify and resolve causal factors of disease. Discuss cellular health as the foundation of health and disease; include key vocabulary. Name four vital inputs to the body-mind that are foundational to health and wellness. Name five underlying conditions that typically underlie chronic disease. Discuss lifestyle factors that directly relate to chronic illness. Cite four evidence-based principles of healing. Cite the ways in which yoga support health. Discuss adaptive yoga. Discuss pressures and issues that have compromised the integrity of yoga teachings, but how the true essence and power of yoga remains intact and accessible. Explain why students don’t need to be informed about these issues in order to begin experiencing better health and well-being. When students want more information, explain what can impede their quest, and what can be particularly helpful.

Naming Disease vs Resolving It

What Help Does a Diagnosis Provide?

A medical diagnosis is a name that describes the symptoms a person is experiencing. [dictionary]

For healing to happen, logic demands that the cause of disease be resolved. But in most cases, a diagnosis is simply a name for a constellation of symptoms with no concern for the cause.

Identifying the cause of chronic illness is vastly different from that of an acute injury. While an acute issue will typically impact a structure such as a bone or tendon, chronic conditions (including chronic pain) involve the body’s physiology. Physiology involves complex interactions between multiples systems of the body such as the nervous system and immune system.

A diagnosis does little to support identifying the causes of chronic disease, and at times can be a distraction from the true need of addressing the cause. Here are specific examples that make this clear:

  1. A diagnosis related to acute injury may be helpful. Diagnosis of a broken wrist, for example, indicates that an accident led to injury to the bone. This information points to the best course of action to address the causal level: support the bone to heal. Similarly, a diagnosis of herniated disc means that a vertebral disc has been displaced and torn. This goes beyond simply describing the characteristics of the pain and therefore, this diagnosis provides useful information regarding the underlying condition that is causing the symptoms.
  2. A diagnosis of sciatica or osteoarthritis may or may not be helpful. Such diagnoses describe the location and physical components of the symptoms, which is a name given to symptoms that, for the most part, one can identify for themselves. There is the potential for helpful information in that the diagnoses describe inflammation, but they provide no information on why and how the inflammation came about, and thus how to eliminate it. However, when the diagnoses are used as pointers toward potential causal factors, further study may lead one to consider (in the case of sciatic pain), a tight piriformis or weak low back muscles, or (in the case of osteoarthritis), chronic inflammation, for example.*
  3. A diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease or depression or Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis describe symptoms with a complete disconnection from underlying conditions that cause the symptoms. The underlying conditions can certainly be discovered (e.g. microbiome imbalance, chronic stress, chronic inflammation, excessive toxic load, vitamin D deficiency, etc.) but the diagnoses themselves are a superfluous naming exercise that is disconnected from underlying conditions, and therefore inadequate for defining and addressing the cause(s). See more below in Who is Helped by the Designation of More Than 90,000 Diagnoses?

*Some may claim that the purpose of getting a diagnosis is to “rule out something more serious.” This may be a valid argument in a few cases involving high-risk symptoms of the heart, for example. But in many cases, it’s reasonable to consider different courses of action that you would choose based on different diagnoses, and begin to test the body’s response to some of them now. If experiencing symptoms of sciatica, what is the effect from gentle, progressive strengthening of the low back? And what is the effect of stretching the piriformis? If sciatic symptoms disappear, no diagnosis was necessary to determine and resolve the cause, and less time, energy, money, and attention was diverted from healing. If the symptoms do not resolve, more information has been gained in the search for resolution.

Who is Helped by the Designation of More than 90,000 Diagnoses? Who is Hurt?

As demonstrated above, a diagnosis of chronic disease is not an understanding of the foundational cause and resolution. In fact, medical literature is rife with diagnoses for which the cause is “unknown” and there is “no cure.”

You can verify this for yourself by examining the definitions of diagnoses of ADHD, depression, autoimmune disease, chronic pain, OPLL, and so on.

The World Health Organization has developed a classification system for diagnoses called the ICD-10-CM (with “10” referring to the 10th edition). [source] This is a list of diagnosis codes, broken into 22 chapters and 288 sections, each section containing multiple diagnoses. [source]

Nowhere on the internet could I find a total number of possible diagnoses, so by creating a spreadsheet, I determined that the total number of possible diagnoses is 97,296.* [source]

The U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services takes another 115 pages to document “a set of rules” to “accompany and complement the official conventions and instructions provided within the ICD-10-CM.”

How much time, money and attention has been required by people in the medical establishment to understand, track and report on 97, 296 possible diagnoses, and follow 115 pages of related rules, with every person in their care?

How has this diagnostic process impacted the amount and quality of attention individuals have received from doctors?  How specifically has this system affected the intention, motivation and capability of doctors in their role of determining the cause and course of action best suited to healing?

It’s Your Choice Where to Apply Your Energy

To be aware that a diagnosis is typically just an exercise in describing symptoms — disconnected from the underlying causal conditions — may inspire one to direct more of their limited energy toward resolving the underlying issues and restoring health.

For example, with a misguided understanding of the value of diagnosis, it’s easier to identify with the label rather than focusing on investigation of the underlying causal issues. To focus on a statement such as, “I have diabetes” (or high blood pressure or osteoporosis or depression or Crohn’s disease) can lead to believing the propaganda of pharmaceutical companies that benefit from customers who accept such conditions as  lifelong burdens, instead of seeing the symptoms as a prompt to identify and resolve causal factors.

*Medical Diagnoses

From here:

  1. Certain infectious and parasitic diseases (1,307)
  2. Neoplasms (2,093)
  3. Diseases of the blood involving the immune mechanism (415)
  4. Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (1,222)
  5. Mental and behavioural disorders (1,086)
  6. Diseases of the nervous system (912)
  7. Diseases of the eye and adnexa (3,447)
  8. Diseases of the ear and mastoid process (871)
  9. Diseases of the circulatory system (1,789)
  10. Diseases of the respiratory system (461)
  11. Diseases of the digestive system (1,076)
  12. Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue (1,064)
  13. Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (8,633)
  14. Diseases of the genitourinary system (1,037)
  15. Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (3,023)
  16. Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period (565)
  17. Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (1,051)
  18. Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (937)
  19. Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes (53,944)
  20. External causes of morbidity and mortality (10,573)
  21. Factors influencing health status and contact with health services (1,785)
  22. Codes for Special Purposes (5)

Total: 97,296 diagnoses

Identifying & Addressing Causes

Practitioners of holistic health modalities such as naturopathic medicine, functional medicine, Ayurveda and TCM among others, seek to identify and resolve the root causes of illness. They typically have many tools to relieve symptoms as well, but not to mask them in the name of disease management, which does nothing to stop the continuation and escalation of disease.

With chronic disease, when we look deeper than the names (diagnoses), it becomes clear that there are a few common underlying conditions that produce an extravagant number of possible symptom combinations.

In other words, one way to look at symptoms is to parse apart combinations until you can separate them into 90,000 names; another way is to find what unites them by identifying what causes them.

As it turns out, there are five underlying conditions that lend tremendous insight into resolving symptoms at a causal level for an untold number of diseases. Those are listed below. But first, it may be helpful to consider that there are various perspectives one can take to help identify and resolve causal factors. For example, disease can be viewed as the result of:

  1. An imbalance in three fundamental physiological forces, called doshas. (Ayurveda)
  2. A malfunctioning of cellular physiology, caused by deficiency or toxicity.  (See below: Cellular Health)
  3. Issues related to the key inputs of water, food, toxins, and electromagnetic fields. (See below: Four Vital Inputs)
  4. The existence of a few key chronic conditions that lead to various symptoms. (See below: Underlying Conditions)

There are surely innumerable other ways to consider health and healing, and we are happy to add related resources if you would like to write us with more considerations.

To seek healing at the root level: remove obstacles, stimulate healing, strengthen weakened systems, and correct structural integrity.

As a naturopathic doctor, we have something called the Therapeutic Order of Health and Healing, which is broken down into a few parts. One is removing obstacles to health. The natural state of the body is health and what is leading to disease is these obstacles such as stress, poor diet, digestive disturbances, and so forth. The second is stimulating self-healing mechanisms. This is done through modalities such as homeopathy, and natural nontoxic therapies. The third is strengthening weakened systems. Is your weakened system the immune system? Is it the digestive? Is it the emotional thoughts and conflicts and traumas in life? What are they? Let’s strengthen that weakened system. The fourth one is correcting structural integrity, which can be done with things like acupuncture, chiropractic, and structural adjustment… [for] aligning the body so the flow of the energy is not [blocked]. And then we use natural substances to restore and regenerate the body. I say all this to [explain] the difference between conventional and integrative oncology. [In conventional medicine] we’re not attending to the body’s needs when we focus strictly on chemotherapy, radiation surgery, or even the more recent targeted gene therapies and targeted therapies… [and] we’re not addressing the reasons for the development of that tumor. – Dr. Antonio Jimenez, Cancer Epidemic: The Alarming Rise in Post Vaxx Turbo Cancers – And How to Reverse Them link

Health = Cellular Health

Image from the 2002 book by Raymond Francis, Never Be Sick Again: Health is a Choice, Learn How to Choose It.

Cellular Health is the Foundation of Health & Disease

A cell is the smallest physical component in the body that has all the characteristics of life, as defined by scientists. The human body is made up of more than 30 trillion cells.

  • Cells are the fundamental biological unit of living tissues. So in essence, cells are “small packets of life.” [source]
  • Cells are made of molecules, with water molecules accounting for 70% or more of cell mass. [Geoffrey M. Cooper]

Observation and logic point to the fact that health and disease, at its root, is cellular health and cellular dis-ease. Chemist and MIT graduate Raymond Francis argues exactly that — that there is only one disease: cellular malfunction. And cellular malfunction happens due to toxicity or deficiency. [Never Be Sick Again: Health is a Choice, Learn How to Choose It]

What Impacts Cellular Health?

A few specific aspects of cellular health are programmed cell death (apoptosis) and regeneration, mitochondrial health, and metabolic health.

Cellular Health Vocabulary

  1. MITOCHONDRIA Mitochondria is the part of a cell that has the primary function of generating energy to power cells. During injury and illness, the function changes to a protective role, or “cellular defense.” “Mitochondria may hold the key to recovering from the most confounding chronic diseases and infections.”[source]Mitochondrial dysfunction is at the root of most all chronic diseases, and it also plays a crucial role in conditions such as long Covid… It’s also a root factor that must be addressed in Covid jab injuries, regardless of symptoms or severity.”  [source]
  2. METABOLISM — Metabolism is “the set of processes that makes energy available for cellular processes.” It requires energy and produces energy. It transforms energy from food and sunlight into forms of energy that the body uses to function.
  3. METABOLIC HEALTH The absence of metabolic disease. [source] Specifically, it is characterized by having minimal belly fat, healthy blood sugar, stable appetite and energy, musculoskeletal health, and normal blood pressure without the use of drugs. [source]
  4. METABOLIC DISEASE — Metabolic disease is defined as being related to faulty chemical reactions of the cells. [source]  It is also defined as disease with symptoms that can be corrected through diet (nutrients), enzymes and hormones. One of many examples of metabolic disease is diabetes. [source]
The Correlation Between Metabolic Syndrome and Many, Many Diseases

While most can easily understand the correlation between metabolic syndrome and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, more research is demonstrating the link between metabolic syndrome and other rapidly increasing prevalence of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and even arthritis. – Jennifer Galardi, The Epoch Times, Many Chronic Diseases May Be ‘Rooted’ in Metabolic Dysfunction: Doctor link

Even the Most Mainstream, Authoritative Sources Agree

Metabolic syndrome is common in the United States, occurring in about one in three adults…. People suffering from persistent and progressive metabolic syndrome, which includes conditions like high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, excess abdominal fat, and abnormal cholesterol, are at higher risk of developing certain cancers. The findings were published in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society… The NIH states that developing metabolic syndrome is preventable. The key to preventing the condition is knowing the risk factors and developing a healthy lifestyle… Some medications can increase an individual’s risk of developing metabolic syndrome, such as those used to treat allergies, bipolar disorder, depression, HIV, and schizophrenia. Preventative measures for metabolic syndrome typically include creating a lifestyle that promotes heart-healthy decisions. Such lifestyle decisions include eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise, not abusing alcohol, and abstaining from smoking. – Amie Dahnke link

Learning More About Healthy Cellular Physiology

The human body is conventionally regarded as being either alive or dead, when in reality it exists in a continual state of both. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a normal and controlled part of growth and development… Though it may sound counterintuitive, by committing “cellular suicide,” apoptosis maintains homeostasis in your body, helping to eliminate cells with DNA damage, for instance, or remove cells that were only needed for a temporary task. One of the clearest examples of the benefits of apoptosis is in relation to cancer. Cells with DNA damage are dysfunctional and can be harmful to the body. Apoptosis exists to eliminate these dysfunctional cells, but a hallmark of cancer is that the malignant cells are able to evade apoptosis. Without this crucial balance, cancerous cells continue to grow out of control and can ultimately bring down the whole organism. Senescent cells, which have stopped dividing and tend to accumulate with age, are another example. Cellular senescence is believed to occur in stressed cells as a tumor-suppressor mechanism, stopping cellular reproduction in order to protect against cancer. (4) But these cells, even if they’re non-cancerous, can become harmful as they accumulate, as they crowd out healthy, regenerating cell lines. As such, elimination of senescent cells is believed to promote longevity and antiaging. There are at least 703 natural substances, such as curcumin, the active component in the spice turmeric, and resveratrol, found in grape skins, that have apoptotic properties and serve as a balance to cellular regeneration. You see, this process of cell death comes with a life-giving counterpart. While your cells are capable of self-destructing, they’re also capable of regenerating, which means your body can create new cells to replace those that are damaged, and in so doing turn over new cells to regenerate the tissues and organs made of them. – GreenMedInfo, 15 Natural Strategies to Regenerate Your Body and Mind link

Implication

From this physiological perspective, optimizing cellular (and mitochondrial) health is the foundational task for optimizing health and disease.

Thus, any technique one uses to improve health ought to be evaluated based on its impact on cellular health.

Four Vital Inputs

At the Root of Human Health & Disease

Water, Food, Toxins, and Electromagnetic Fields

If the practice of medicine were conceived properly in the Western world, doctors would begin by ascertaining four basic factors: the quality of the water their patients drink; the quality of the food they eat; the level and type of toxins, including mental and emotional toxins, to which they are exposed; and finally the level and type of electromagnetic fields to which they are subjected. The vast majority of medical problems can be understood by gathering patient information on these four areas, and the vast majority of health problems can be helped or even solved, by “remediating” these four core issues. – Dr. Thomas S. Cowan MD, The Truth About Contagion: Exploring Theories of How Disease Spreads link

Here are some resources that can help in your exploration of the vital importance of these key inputs to human health.

A Glimpse of the Path Back to Our Natural State of Wellness

Has your Doctor Talked to You About the Quality of Your Water?Water

Since human beings are made up of 70 percent water by volume and over 99.99 percent of the molecules in a human being are water molecules, we need to pay attention to the quality of the water we drink.

Health professionals’ foremost concern should be the type of water and other liquids their patients are consuming. Water consumed by healthy nonindustrialized peoples had four characteristics:

First, the water was free of toxins. This is in complete contrast with the municipal water that most people drink. Today’s water contains chlorine and chloramine, which are toxic to our microbiome, as well as to the rest of our body. Today’s water contains fluoride, an industrial waste that is toxic to the enzymes in our tissues, enzymes needed for every chemical transformation that happens in our bodies. Water also contains microplastics, which can line and congest the intestinal wall, and aluminum, which predisposes us to electrical sensitivity as well as a laundry list of diseases. Municipal water contains residues of many pharmaceutical drugs, including birth control pills, statins, and antidepressants.

Second, traditionally consumed water was abundant in vital minerals such as magnesium, calcium, zinc, and iodine.

Third, all traditionally consumed water was at least partially structured and organized into EZs because in nature, water moves in vortex patterns. Water bubbles up from the ground in springs, swirls in pools, flows over rocks, and forms eddies and vortices. Water flowing in vortex patterns becomes more “coherent,” becoming increasingly structured. The structure actually persists for some time, and does not revert to incoherent bulk water just because it stops flowing…

Finally, traditionally consumed water was exposed to the sounds and wavelengths of the natural world. Water flowing in mountain streams is exposed not just to the minerals, microbes, and other constituents of the forest, but also the sounds and energies of the life of the forest and of the entire natural universe, including the stars, sun, and moon. It’s clear that most water is sick and toxic and a major contributor to illness. If we are ever to change the course of the disease patterns in our world, it must start with clean, healthy water.

– Dr. Thomas S. Cowan MD link

Identifying Underlying Conditions

Chronic disease typically involves one or more of the following underlying conditions.

  1. Over-activated sympathetic nervous system, chronic stress
  2. Microbiome imbalance
  3. Chronic inflammation
  4. Chronic pain
  5. Unresolved trauma

Another consideration is the role of addiction / distraction / disconnection (from body, emotions, inner wisdom).

Dr. Ahvie Herskowitz, a former UCSF professor, treats complex health issues by addressing root causes. He believes microbiome problems and leaky gut are fundamental to many diseases, including cancer and autoimmune disorders. Chronic diseases often result from accumulated toxicities and nutritional deficiencies. Herskowitz estimates 80%-90% of Americans have metabolic syndrome, largely due to processed foods and environmental toxins. “Nuisance symptoms” like toenail fungus or indigestion may indicate underlying health issues. Herskowitz found Alzheimer’s patients had 2.5 times more such symptoms compared to healthy individuals. To measure biological age, Herskowitz uses tests for oxidative stress, chronic immune function, mitochondrial function, and senescent cells. – Dr. Joseph Mercola, Longevity Expert Shares Clues About Drivers of Chronic Disease link

The key subjects listed above encompass vast bodies of knowledge that explain how and why disease manifests and resolves. We encourage you to select the links above and explore these vital topics. Each lesson features evidence-based findings and links to primary research, and there are many accessible techniques for consideration.

To be clear, an underlying condition is not in itself the primary cause, as there is still a cause of that condition. But to know you have a microbiome imbalance or chronic inflammation is a practical way to resolve illness, as it directs attention to addressing causal factors e.g. with detoxification, nutrient balancing, stress reduction, identifying and eliminating the ingestion of inflammatory foods and so on.

The impact of such efforts is invaluable compared to simply getting a diagnosis and consuming drugs to mask symptoms. Most people will know quickly when they are on the right track, experiencing more balanced emotions, better stress management, improved sleep, more energy, and so on. However, this is not to imply that the resolution at a causal level will be quick and easy, and while symptoms may lessen, they may linger due to a need for further healing, as this comment points to:

If you’ve been sick for a year, you probably have 5 to 6 different factors that are giving you all the same symptoms, and they may be multiple infections and multiple deficiencies or multiple toxins or a little bit of all of it. And your body’s inflammatory response to all of those different irritants is the same response. So even if you fix one of them, you’ve got 4 to 5 more that are pushing that inflammation button and you’re having the same inflammatory response over and over and over again, even though you’re actively doing things to fix it. – Dr. Daniel Nuzum, Harnessing Nature’s Remedies

Addressing Underlying Conditions: Lifestyle Factors

Chronic illness is not the result of a pharmaceutical drug deficiency.

While there are capable and principled allopathic doctors, their ability to be of true service is greatly hindered by establishment medicine, which has been provably corrupted at all levels, from medical education to diagnostic tools to treatment protocols. Medical research is also rife with corruption, requiring a discerning look at the primary research before accepting purported outcomes that benefit corporations.

In other words, corruption of allopathic medicine has led to a system now designed to produce lifelong customers. One aspect of this model is to dishonestly portray chronic disease as mysterious and incurable.

While the resolution of chronic illness can be the most significant and challenging undertaking of a person’s life, the underlying factors are not mysterious.

Chronic Illness is Not a “Mysterious Aberration” but a Consequence of How We Live

Chronic illness — mental or physical — is to a large extent a function or feature of the way things are and not a glitch; a consequence of how we live, not a mysterious aberration. — Dr. Gabor Mate MD, Science and Nonduality email Oct 25, 2023

Lifestyle factors that are fundamental to human health are:

  1. Sleep
  2. Diet and water
  3. Movement
  4. Stress management
  5. Social connection
  6. Purpose
Metabolic Health is the Result of Lifestyle Habits Over Time

Improving your metabolic health is ultimately just a matter of building new habits, one by one, until they are a regular part of your life. Most of us know the core pillars of health — diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management — but the challenge is in building sustainable habits around them to improve your health over the long term. — Dr. Mark Hyman MD, email Aug 27, 2024 link

The normalization of a lifestyle that skews our experience of those factors, disconnected from nature’s inherent health and wholeness, has caused widespread suffering. The escalation of unnatural lifestyle factors has escalated with increasing speed and impact, such that people born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s have observed in only one lifetime, the explosion of chronic illness and mental health issues that were rare or nonexistent in their youth.

Modern societies disconnect people from natural cycles and ways of living that are aligned with biological and energetic truths. When we sit for hours a day instead of move our glorious body, stare at screens instead of the sky and the horizon, eat from plastic containers instead of a garden, breathe in toxins instead of fresh air, the consequence is suffering. Such misalignment creates imbalances emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually, including disease and chronic illness.

Small Changes for Better Health

All too often, it’s not a pill or prescription my patients need, it’s a change in lifestyle. Small changes that lead to better health – both physically and mentally. To be clear, this is not about blaming people for their health. Many people do not realize how influential their day-to-day behaviours are for a variety of different health conditions. Much more detailed info on this in my five books. – Dr. Rangan Chaterjee, January 2024 link

“Incurable” Diseases Are Cured All the Time

I’ve healed from many diagnoses which the medical industry and the psychiatry industry calls “incurable.” By the time I was 18, I was nearly bedridden with an autoimmune disease, and consuming a pharmacy-worth of medications everyday. Top doctors across the country had told me, “This disease is incurable. Your only option is to take pharmaceutical drugs for the rest of your life, and likely face extreme surgical procedures in the future.” Yet, at age 19, I learned how to heal this disease using nutrition and holistic approaches… Further, I’ve healed from the kind of trauma and abuse many people consider “impossible to fully heal.” – Lauren Geertsen, 25 Lessons I’ve Learned About Healing From Anything link

See Also

Key Principles of Healing

Learning factual, verifiable information about the following subjects can bring powerful inspiration to the healing process.

#1 Genes don’t determine health. (And neither do germs or other pathogens.) Lifestyle choices do.

  • As it turns out, only a teensy-tiny percentage of diseases are actually “caused” by a genetic defect. Genetic determinism was completely disproved in 2003. Diseases may run in the family, but not because of genes.
  • 99% of diseases manifest due to “the environment.” The environment is our lifestyle, especially our levels of stress and our diet.
  • The environment is quite similar to what is called the “terrain” in the terrain theory of disease and health. This model explains why some people exposed to the same pathogen don’t get sick when others do, and why holistic treatments such as yoga and nutrition heal chronic disease.

#2 The body’s capacity to heal and regenerate is miraculous.

  • We witness this every time a wound closes and heals or we recover from a cold or flu. But it’s happening constantly in ways we don’t typically realize.
  • “On a molecular level, every cell in your body is undergoing a constant process of coming into and out of being, much like the flicker of a flame, and doing it so perfectly that we only experience ourselves on a macroscopic level as immutable, relatively unchanging organisms. Yet there are trillions of changes and microadjustments occurring every moment in each cell, completely regenerating damaged and diseased tissue. On the most basic level, regeneration follows from removing what the body does not need and adding back what it does.”— Sayer Ji, Regenerate: Unlocking Your Body’s Radical Resilience through the New Biology  link

#3 Chronic stress halts the body’s natural healing process. Balancing the nervous system restores it.

#4 The immune system is adaptive, and the majority of the immune system is in the gut. Chronic inflammation and microbiome imbalance overwhelm the immune system. Relief restores its capability.

  • The immune system is adaptive and creates synergistic relationships with microbes.
  • A great amount of immune activity begins in the intestines where the health of the tiny life in our microbiome is key to the body’s health or disease.
  • Physiologically, this is activated via the gut-brain axis, which relies (as do all systems of the body) on nervous system balance.
  •  Inflammation is an indicator of the body’s immune response being activated, but chronic inflammation overwhelms the immune system. Chronic inflammation indicates a need to address the cause (as opposed to suppressing symptoms). It’s an indicator of imbalance that needs to be addressed, not suppressed. The tremendous power of the body’s regenerative capability is unlocked when chronic inflammation is addressed at its root.

Where people get their information has a tremendous effect on their belief systems, and therefore the quality of their lives. How different would our world be if most people had been taught life-supporting information such as that of the power of the nervous system; microbiome vs genetic determinism; and the terrain vs germ theory? Simply through empowering students with yoga techniques, you can serve as a model and bridge to support others in freeing their mind (and life) from the hopeless, helpless victimhood stemming from false paradigms, awakening their interest, perhaps, in discovering such truths for themselves.

How Yoga Supports Health & Physiology

How Yoga Supports Health

There is an understanding in many healthcare settings that, when all else fails, yoga works. – Joseph LePage link

There are different perspectives from which we can discuss how yoga supports health. To examine yoga’s impact from the following perspectives, see the lesson, How Yoga Supports Health & Affects Bodily Systems.

  1. Prevention and symptom relief
  2. Support along with other treatments
  3. Balancing stability and ease
  4. Impacting bodily systems and processes

To go deeper into the vital role of the nervous system on health, and yoga’s impact, see Why Yoga Works: Yoga’s Impact on the Nervous System & Stress.

You Hold the Keys to Incredible Power

Your knowledge and experience with yoga are powerful keys to human health and evolution. In particular, we’re speaking of adaptive yoga — yoga that is responsive to the practitioner’s situation.

Adaptive yoga is:

  • Accessible to all
  • A holistic approach with a plethora of tools that help to heal and bring balance at the root level
  • An empowering practice that inspires wise action and continuing evolution
  • A vast body of knowledge that continues to grow while being based in the Universal Truths of indigenous wisdom
The Yoga Techniques Needed for Restoring Health May Require a Different Approach than You Learned in Teacher Training

The term Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCC) describes the reality for one in four people in the US, according to the CDC. And, while only constituting 25% of the population, people with MCC accounts for a whopping 71% of the total health care spending in the United States. Judith Hanson Lasater PhD, describes this suite of ailments as “wear-and-tear diseases,” which are largely the result of poor lifestyle habits. The good news, notes Judith, is that virtually all of the conditions cited can be avoided or improved via lifestyle changes. These include making better choices, modifying negative behavior, and — perhaps most importantly — carving out time in our lives for mind-body techniques like yoga in order to soothe and calm our cranky nervous systems… Bucking the trend in modern postural yoga to go for strength, speed, and challenging asana practice, Judith prefers practices that evoke a calming stillness in order to restore health from the inside out. She maintains that to cultivate inner wisdom, carving out the time and space to be still is an absolute necessity. – Lynn Criminando link

While adaptive yoga is not alone in its power to heal (there are many amazing modalities and techniques on our planet), it has great potential as a change agent — as a corrector of imbalance. And YOU hold the knowledge of profound tools that guide people back into balance. Empowering others to seek more balance sets the stage for them to experience their wholeness, which is a feeling of freedom. And when more and more of us experience that, the scales will tip and we will live in a new world.

The Knowledgebase You Need is at Your Fingertips

We have found that these knowledge standards will help you maximize your effectiveness. From those foundations, your ever-growing knowledge of teaching adaptive yoga is, we think, key to healing the imbalance in our world. To prepare to be ever-more adaptive in your teaching, see Adaptation Principles and the Adaptation & Coaching Hub. This is a really important area to keep growing in. Many teacher trainings prepare new teachers to think more from an asana perspective than a student perspective. Teachers can help so many more people when they’re prepared to meet students however they are, which may include any number of health conditions.

Despite Issues, Real Yoga Perseveres

Yoga teachings are far more widespread, accepted, and accessible than any time in the past 2,000 years. (Deep bows to Swami Vivekenanda and Paramahansa Yogananda for their critical roles in spreading this wisdom beyond its birthplace and bringing the knowledge to the west.)

However, the true essence of the teachings may or may not be associated with some offerings that are called yoga. Yoga professionals and practitioners have faced significant issues and pressures:

Nevertheless, the true essence and power of yoga remains intact and accessible and is available in an amazingly widespread way.

Yoga is like “weeds” that will grow right up through the cracks in the pavement. They won’t be stopped! Nature never stops trying to regain balance. She knows that too much pavement makes everything imbalanced, and when she pushes the dandelions up in those tiny spaces, she’s also sending us a plant whose leaves are healing in extracts and teas. In other words, there is no such thing as waste or “weeds” in nature.

Like nature, yoga never stops trying to help us restore balance.

What Yoga Students Need to Know (Nothing)

If students or clients are interested, there’s plenty to study and consider, but the fact is, it doesn’t matter what they know or don’t know, or what their intention is for coming to yoga. They simply have to show up!

Most suffering people will have been misdirected, misinformed or distracted from realizing that the core issues above have contributed to their biological “terrain” being ripe for dis-ease. So when students come to yoga they have any and all levels of awareness of what they need, and various intentions for coming to yoga. And any intention is okay. If someone practices yoga, things tend to take care of themselves after that, because yoga is experiential, enlightening, encouraging and empowering.

Because it’s based in experience and the natural healing power of the mindbody, yoga inspires sovereignty and empowerment, thereby healing the victimhood and helplessness that results from methodologies that rely on prescription and control.

No matter what a person is experiencing, yoga tends to relieve symptoms and offer moments of peace, wholeness, samadhi. Especially when experienced in a regular, consistent way, this awakens the innate capacity each person has to embark on a successful journey to recapture their wholeness. This may appear as symptomatic relief or the healing of a chronic condition. Or it may be experienced as a sense of peace while living with a long-term issue.

When They Want More

If and when students seek more information, take care in your responses and teachings. One unfounded statement can turn some people away from verifiable knowledge that could help them:

If you are a yoga teacher and are not that well-schooled in science, tread carefully. Realize that the people who taught you may also have not understood physiology or medicine that well. Be careful when propagating scientific-sounding information that may not be accurate. For some scientifically-minded students, a single bogus claim could lower their opinion of you and maybe of yoga itself. If you have read research on yoga that had an interesting result you want to discuss with your students, by all means do so. If possible, also mention where and when the study was published. If all you did was read a news story about it, say that. Acknowledge your sources, whether a claim comes from the yoga tradition, your teacher, or is the fruit of your own personal yoga practice or teaching. It may not sound as impressive as invoking science, but it’s a lot less likely to get turned on you or on the ancient practice you love by a skeptical journalist or scientist in your midst. – Yogadork article published Oct 16, 2017, no longer available online

Research & Mentorship

A GREAT place to begin with students who want to know more is by sharing research. We make it easy for you to cite it. Please see the Research Hub for efficient navigation.

Once students have had their own personal experience with yoga and have read some research about the wide-ranging effects of yoga, it’s likely that the wonderful experience and knowledge you share will resonate with and inspire them.

You are Uniquely Qualified to Serve

If you haven’t yet come to the conclusion that your authentic, unique self is exactly what the world needs, we invite you to hypothesize and seek to test the presumption that your greatest service is not molding yourself into something, but building on your unique perspective.

We propose that you will find that the world doesn’t gain true value from teacher clones or people who talk or dress in particular ways. It isn’t in need of a particular, prescribed approach, and it doesn’t heal and evolve because a select group of people with certain titles and accomplishments “fix” things. In contrast, we think you’ll find that the world benefits whenever a person connects with their inner calling and serves from that place.

Each person draws from an infinite field of inspiration and intelligence and is unique in how they integrate their experiences. When you are learning new information, that particular bit of information may be the same that others have learned, but how you integrate it into your unique set of life experiences and ultimately apply it over time will be a unique expression that no one else can replicate.

The world benefits from “teachers” (guides, mentors, friends, fellow souls) who shine their vibrant, unique light as they stay connected to themselves and their students, taking each moment breath-by-breath.

Online Sources

  1. AAPC — What Is ICD-10? link
  2. Cleveland Clinic — Autoimmune Diseases link
  3. Columbia University Irving Medical Center — Ossification of the Posterior Longitudinal Ligament (OPLL) link
  4. Cooper, Geoffrey (NIH) — The Cell: A Molecular Approach. 2nd edition. link
  5. Cowan, Dr. Thomas S. MD — The Truth About Contagion: Exploring Theories of How Disease Spreads link
  6. Criminando, Lynn C-IAYT (YogaUOnline) — How Yoga Heals: A Balm for Stressful Times with Judith Hanson Lasater link
  7. Dahnke, Amie (The Epoch Times) — Worsening Metabolic Syndrome Linked to Cancer: Study link
  8. The Free Dictionary — Metabolic link
  9. Galardi, Jennifer (The Epoch Times) — Many Chronic Diseases May Be ‘Rooted’ in Metabolic Dysfunction: Doctor link
  10. Geertsen, Lauren — The Psychiatry Industry Debunked in 18 Minutes link
  11. Geertsen, Lauren — 25 Lessons I’ve Learned About Healing From Anything link
  12. GreenMedInfo — 15 Natural Strategies to Regenerate Your Body and Mind link
  13. Hite, Adele (Metabolic Multiplier) — What Is Metabolic Health? Your Plain Language Definition link
  14. Ji, Sayer (Waking Times) — Why The Law Forbids The Medicinal Use of Natural Substances link
  15. Johns Hopkins Medicine — Chronic Pain link
  16. Kessler, Aaron, et al (CNN) — CNN Exclusive: The More Opioids Doctors Prescribe, The More Money They Make link
  17. Kshirsagar, Rijul & Priscilla Vu (In Training) — The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Role in U.S. Medical Education link
  18. Langdon, Amy, et al (GreenMedInfo) — The Effects Of Antibiotics On The Microbiome Throughout Development And Alternative Approaches For Therapeutic Modulation. link
  19. Le Page, Joseph (Yoga Journal) — 5 Steps to Create a Yoga Therapy Program For Your Students link
  20. Mercola, Dr. Joseph — Longevity Expert Shares Clues About Drivers of Chronic Disease link
  21. Mercola, Dr. Joseph — Strategies to Optimize Mitochondrial Health in Long COVID link
  22. National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) — Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder link
  23. Otto, Jonathan & Health Secret, LLC —  Cancer Epidemic – ebook link
  24. Sawchuk, Craig, Ph.D. (Mayo Clinic) — Depression (Major Depressive Disorder) link
  25. Seth, Cecile (Metabolic Multiplier) — What Is Metabolic Health? A Biochemist’s Definition link
  26. U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services — ICD-10-CM document link
  27. Your Genome (Youtube) — What does DNA do? (4min video) link
  28. Zhang, Marina (The Epoch Times) — ‘Mitochondrial Dysfunction’ Is Not Dysfunction: Experts link
  29. Zhu, Huanhuan, et al (GreenMedInfo) — Dandelion Root Extract Suppressed Gastric Cancer Cells Proliferation And Migration Through Targeting Lncrna-CCAT1 link

Books

  1. Francis, Raymond & Kester Cotton — Never Be Sick Again: Health Is a Choice, Learn How to Choose It link
  2. Ji, Sayer — Regenerate: Unlocking Your Body’s Radical Resilience through the New Biology link
  3. Morell, Sally Fallon — The Truth About Contagion: Exploring Theories of How Disease Spreads link
*Most of our book links use Amazon Associates, which pays a tiny commission on purchases made through those links (80 cents on a $20 book, for example). On average, we receive less than $15 per month from Amazon. Our goal in providing book lists with quick links is to make it easy for you to get a sense for the variety of possible resources and to access them easily.

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