Creating Wellness in New Jersey

I went to New Jersey this weekend for a Creating Wellness training and seminar. What is Creating Wellness you ask. That's a really good question. You can get a good idea here.

And for those of you who don't like clicking links (although you'd get a much better idea of what it is), it's a system of objectively measuring stress on your nervous system, and therefore health, in three areas: psychological(how you think), biochemical(what you eat/drink), and physical(how you move). The system measures such things as: heart rate variability(which is the biggest indication of a nervous system heading towards disease), range of motion, skin conductivity, EMG, heart rate, weight, body mass index, cognitive stressors, lung capacity, and many other things. All these measures are then combined to give you one number that is labeled your "wellness quotient"

There are coaches that coach clients weekly on achieving goals the client sets at the beginning of the program. The program involves exercise, psychological/mental health suggestions/advice(by way of weekly CDs tailored to each individual), and nutritional support/meal planning/food journaling sorts of things. This only barely touches on what is involved in this program, but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at that.

What I also wanted to touch upon is the STAGGERING statistics I learned over the weekend about the "health care" (heretofore labeled HC) industry. Did you know that 2.2 trillion dollars went into the HC industry last year. 15% of the gross domestic product went to HC. And this was the most fascinating to me, 50%, or 1/2 of ALL bankruptcies are due to a major health crisis. $1 in every $6 US dollars goes towards health care.

And what about insurance? Insurance involves risk. 60% of all insurance payments are prepaid doctor's visits. Our premiums go up based on use. This in and of itself is a prepaid benefit. As I mentioned, insurance involves risk, and currently, the insurance companies aren't taking any. What we have now is NOT insurance. More companies are moving towards health spending accounts, catastrophic insurance policies, and wellness care for their employees. Hospitals are using this Creating Wellness system to take care of their employees so they don't have to pay higher premiums. How ironic is that?

The fact of the matter is, is that insurance is going away. It's not a matter of if, but when. Premiums are going up, benefits are going down, doctor's are still getting sued. I believe, it is why there is a large trend towards Wellness care. The "Wellness" industry is booming. Seems to me we've been putting the cart before the horse for so long now. Try for a second to think about where the United States ranks as far as health care quality and taking care of it's people? 5th? 7th? Not anything lower than 15th, surely?

37th!

As a health care provider, I'd rather have hundreds of clients seeing me less frequently and paying cash, than more frequently and using insurance. We've created a very unhealthy reciprocal relationship between our treatment and our "sickness". Lest ye think I'm too much a ranting Seattle hippy, the HC industry is vitally important is keeping people alive, but it IS sick care, and not health care. As a massage therapist, what happens when the pain is gone? I end up being a fix, people don't change their habits, and no one learns, becomes healthy or thrives in the long run. The only thing between where you are and where you want to be is your habits - or so they told me. Made me think a tiny little bit. So many clients come into be and say I just wanna feel goooood. Would you rather be healthy, liver longer, and thrive, or just "feel good"?

So what is "wellness"? It's the principle of engaging the world. It's the degree to which and individual experiences health and vitality in any dimension of life. The nervous system is bodies central processing system. When you don't have a cps that functions correctly, you get fractionated information to the system. The body can't function well with nerve interference. Nerve interference leads to subluxation of the vertebrae, and the cycle starts all over again. When you are subluxated, your body does not process information correctly. This is true in all three areas: psychological, biochemical, and physical.

They did a test with people and ask them to move their ankles while administering an MRI to scan their brains. The first scan showed activity in many of the motor areas of the brain. They then gave these people chiropractic adjustments, had the move their ankles again, administered an MRI, and it took 1/20th the energy to complete the same task. Just think how much energy we didn't have to be expending.

Wellness is a continuum and a process. It's not I'm better now, so I can stop the behaviors that make me feel well. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that all things head towards entrophy(breaking down). This is why working towards wellness is a life long process. It is absolutely natural and right for the body to thrive, and be well. Just surviving, is not natural. Wellness is an active process that is all about action. Inactivity and indecision leads to a drift to the left of the continuum(towards death and entrophy). A wellness quotient below 75 indicates that you are aging faster than the norm. Wellness reflects a state of inner and outer harmony. Inner order is governed by the nervous system, and outer order is a product of informed choice and behavior, and both inner and outer order are affected by stress. But it's got to be a matter of changing thinking patterns about disease, sickness and pain. Words are things, they are energy, and instead of saying "rehabilitation" say "rehabituation". We should be "changing habits" instead of "changing symptoms". It's about "release" as opposed to "relief". They told me that where I am and where I want to be is only separated by behavior. Bastards!

Disease is the absence of something essential, as opposed to the presence of something evil. Anything you hate, owns you.

The obvious gene issue comes up in my mind. Surely many of my maladies are related to heredity and my DNA. And I found out that less than 5% of all disease is actually due to heredity. A gene, mutant or not, is either on or off. And lifestyle stressors affect the expression of the on or off in a gene.

Suffice it to say, I learned a lot. So I am in the process of training to be a Creating Wellness coach. I am also looking into the possibility of learning some things about chiropractic assisting. I start my cranial sacral certification in April (which I'm totally jazzed about). This weekend was a really good reminder of why I'm on this earth. I wanna be a catalyst for change in people's lives. I want to show people their inherent ability, and right to heal themselves. Anything's possible people.

Thanks for listening.