Your Health Destiny: How to Unlock Your Natural Ability to Overcome Illness, Feel Better, and Live Longer

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my parents, Jacob and Shirley Selhub,

for beating the medical odds, defying their diagnoses,

and proving to me that it is indeed possible to

change our health destiny for the better.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction: Your Health Destiny

  1.     The Power to Transform Health

  2.     Choosing Healthy, Choosing Happy

  3.     POWER Your Way to Health

  4.     The Immune System: Your 24-Hour Security System

  5.     Opening Your Heart and Reclaiming Your Health

  6.     The Lungs: Letting In and Letting Go

  7.     The Gastrointestinal System: You Eat and You Are

  8.     The Musculoskeletal System: Move It or Lose It

  9.     Stand Up for Your Spine!

10.     The Brain: Mind, Mood, and Memory

Epilogue: The New Strong You, in Your Power, Changing Your Health Destiny

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

About the Author

Also by Dr. Eva Selhub

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Your Health Destiny

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.

—HIPPOCRATES

When our body gets sick, we often feel out of control. Worse yet, when we have to go see a doctor, we can feel even more vulnerable, perhaps even helpless. We go because we want to hear that there is a remedy, a cure. We take the prescribed medication, have that expensive test done, or go see yet another specialist. We fearfully await lab results. Even if the results turn out to be normal, the feeling of relief is brief, because in the end, when we again fall prey to sickness, we will go through the same cycle all over again.

It does not have to be this way. We do have control over our health, and we can make choices that can positively influence any health issue, big or small, acute or chronic.

The truth is, we are supposed to get sick; it’s the body’s way of telling us there’s a problem. The belief that there is some kind of absolute or perfect state of health gets us into trouble, because it drives us to desperately accept answers from health-care professionals without also tuning into our body’s needs and strengths. When the body gets sick, it’s a sign that we are out of balance, and it’s not just a time to seek help from our doctors, but also a time to take responsibility and empower ourselves as experts on our own health.

Your body and its processes do not have to be an enigma to you, and it is through understanding that you can find your power to heal and thrive. It is really your choice to do so.

Take Brittany’s case. Brittany woke up one morning unable to move her neck. She panicked. She had been in a car accident two years earlier and had sustained an injury to her cervical spine. It had been fine for years. The worst possible scenarios coursed through her mind: I have a bulging disc. There is nerve damage. I will be paralyzed. I can’t afford to be immobilized—not today; I have so much to do and so many commitments to attend to. Damn, I can’t work out. God help me, I am in so much pain.

Brittany was thirty-two years old, very active, and healthy, by her own standards. She exercised daily, ate three meals a day, worked as a nurse, took care of her three children, and managed to say yes to every parent committee that the school had. As she lay in her bed in excruciating pain, she wondered how she would manage.

She went to see her primary-care physician, who gave her several prescriptions—a pain medication, a muscle relaxer, and a sleep aid—and a referral to a neurosurgeon for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). After leaving the office, Brittany burst into tears and called me, as she had come to see me before to learn how to manage her stress more effectively.

I don’t want to take all these medications, she cried. I don’t want there to be something wrong with me. I have so much to do. I have so many obligations. I am so stressed as it is. I can’t move my neck. What if it’s something really bad? I don’t want surgery.

I didn’t interrupt Brittany as she cried and complained. I gave her the space to express her fears without trying to tell her everything would be okay or give her advice, not at the outset. Soon Brittany was able to able to relax into my silence and take some deep breaths with me.

Then I spoke. What we are doing right now is creating space for your magnificent body to heal. Whatever is going on is fixable. Remember that. You are in control, not me, not the neurosurgeon, and certainly not your pain. Your pain is, however, trying to tell you something, perhaps something more than just that your spine may be out of alignment. It’s trying to tell you that your life may be out of alignment too, as what is transpiring within your body often mirrors your experiences in your everyday life. For instance, your pain may be telling you that you have been functioning under stress and duress and that you might want to slow down. It may be telling you that you tend to get overwhelmed and out of balance, because you take on too much responsibility and have a hard time saying no when asked to do something or help someone, at the same time that you are unable to accept help or support from others.

I instructed Brittany to take only the muscle relaxer at night for two or three days, which would help her sleep and also remind the muscles how to relax. I taught her breathing exercises and guided meditations that she could practice regularly that focused on allowing the universe to soothe, love, and guide her. During this rest period, Brittany was also to journal about why she felt so obligated to be so busy and help others so much, even at her own expense, and follow this with a description of her values, virtues, and victories that make her special and the unique person she is.

Within four days, Brittany’s pain subsided, so that she was almost back to feeling her usual self, but she had more awareness now. Her rest period had given her the opportunity to reflect and realize that underlying her behaviors and actions was a belief that she wasn’t enough, that she was a failure at really getting things done, unlike other people, making her want to push harder and do more. She was ready to reprogram this belief into one of knowing she is enough.

And just like that, Brittany went from feeling out of control to being in control of her health. She still planned on meeting with the neurosurgeon and getting the MRI, but now she did not feel that she had to accept whatever he or she said. This experience had shown her that her body, when given the opportunity to do so, had an incredible capacity to heal itself, and when she was guided to listen deeply to the messages her body had to reveal to her, she could learn how to improve the alignment and support not only in her spine, but also in her life.

The good news is, you don’t have to wait until you are really sick or in pain to start making different choices. I have treated thousands of patients who have had a myriad of problems—from heart disease to cancer, depression to anxiety—who learned to make better choices that supported and stimulated their body’s tremendous natural healing power. Board-certified in internal medicine, I know how to treat most medical ailments, and I understand that when your back hurts, you just want the pain to go away, and you are willing to do or take anything. I also know that when you improve your lifestyle choices, your beliefs, and your emotions and, most important, address how you approach the stress in your life, your need for medications or Western medical intervention subsides or ceases. I will not tell you to stop taking your medication. I will tell you that there are tools and prescriptions available to you that have no side effects and can often get you off your medications or at the very least lower the dosages.

The human body is a living, breathing system. It is in a constant state of flux as it responds to changes in the internal and external environment. When out of balance or facing a challenge, it will let you know through symptoms and illness, so that you can do something about it and actually get better. It is important to listen to and respond to these messages; if you ignore or cover them over, the situation will only get worse.

Modern medicine focuses on getting rid of symptoms and managing body parts, so that you can continue on with your life; it does not address the real core issues of why you are in the state you are in to begin with or the reason the body is reacting the way it is in the first place. Medications like ibuprofen, for instance, are prescribed to treat inflammation, which helps your pain, so that then you can continue doing whatever you normally do. The problem is that inflammation is a natural warning signal for you to do something different, not to keep doing the same thing you’ve been doing. This is the problem with just treating symptoms! It is when you do not heed the body’s whispers that you usually suffer the consequences of its screams.

Choosing to smoke cigarettes or breathe clean air can have a markedly different effect on your lungs. You know that. Choosing which foods you eat, organic versus highly processed and full of chemicals, directly affects your health. You know that too. What you may not know is that the mind has an incredible power to activate the healing capacity of the body. Though our Eastern neighbors have understood this for a long time, modern Western medicine is slowly catching up. Scientific research is showing us that you can even change the way your DNA expresses itself by the choices you make. For example, even if you have a family history of heart disease combined with initial symptoms, the disease can be completely reversed with better lifestyle choices.

The Process of Taking Control

We ultimately do not fully understand why disease occurs. We all have strong cells and weak ones within us. Sometimes our immune system is strong enough to fend off invaders, and other times the system fails. Modern medicine is occupied with figuring out how to kill off cancer cells and viruses, but it would be in our best interest to instead help our immune system get stronger and support our body’s natural healing mechanisms.

I have found that when patients choose to see themselves as having enough resources to manage adversity, they are ultimately healthier and more resilient. In contrast, the patients who consider themselves victims of life’s circumstances are less likely to handle challenges or trauma effectively or adaptively, and this includes those individuals who hand their health over to experts. They are more likely to succumb to negative emotional, psychological, and physical complaints and thoughts, which, in turn, creates more stress, further weakening the mind and the body. There is little benefit in seeing oneself as a victim, no matter the hardship.

In my practice, patients learn to take charge of their own health destiny by doing the following:

1.  Addressing the problem from an allopathic medical perspective: medication, interventions, lab draws, and so on.

2.  Supporting the body with appropriate physical exercises and tools, such as nutrition, stretching, adequate sleep, and so on.

3.  Working on creating the social infrastructure they need to feel supported enough to heal.

4.  Learning about physiology and becoming acquainted with their body’s unique signals for help.

5.  Releasing and reprogramming deep-seated negative emotions and beliefs.

Based on the latest scientific research and my clinical experiences, this book contains the prescriptions you need to transform your health now and in the future. You will learn how to pay attention to your body’s whispers, to understand what these signals mean, and then make the right choices that will bring amazing results to your health, in both the short and long term. You will discover ways to prevent disease from happening or getting worse, and you may find that you can reverse the disease process altogether.

Your Choice to Take Charge

Throughout this book I will guide you through the process of developing the systems your body and mind need to stay strong and vibrant. I will help you develop awareness of the body’s anatomy, from the spine to the heart to the mind, and how all parts are connected to make one unit by providing you with the pertinent medical and scientific knowledge. I will also show you how to hone your perception of your physiology and increase your ability to uncover subtle imbalances that may be harming your health. Finally, I will offer you reprogramming tools and active steps that can help you heal your mind, body, and soul in ways that will improve not only your health, but your life as well.

Over the course of my twenty-year career at Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Tufts Medical School, and the Benson-Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, where I served as medical director and staff physician, I have discovered a fundamental truth: for most people, health, happiness, and strength are a result of the affirmative choices we make despite what life hands us, whether in our genetic makeup, our environment, or the things that happen to us.

If we choose to be happy, we can be.

If we choose to be healthy, we can be.

If we choose to be strong, we can be.

If we choose to change our health destiny, we can.

CHAPTER ONE

The Power to Transform Health

The part can never be well, unless the whole is well.

—PLATO

Like the weather, your health is constantly changing. This fact alone provides you with choice. You have a tremendous ability to influence that change. Simply put, you have the power to transform your mind and improve the functioning of your body. The key to this power lies in your ability to bounce back from illness, manage life’s stress efficiently and effectively, and truly believe in the possibility of good.

A meta-analytic review of the effects of optimism on physical health done at the University of Kansas in 2010 found that optimism was a significant predictor of positive physical health outcomes.¹ Laura Kubzansky, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, has found through her research that optimism can cut the risk of coronary artery disease in half. She says about genes: They are 40–50 percent heritable, which means you may be born with the genetic predisposition. But this also suggests there is a lot of room to maneuver.² In other words, there is wiggle room in the power you have to positively influence your health.

The notion that you have a lot of wiggle room with your genes is an empowering fact. The burgeoning science of epigenetics tells us that by changing our environment, from stressful to nurturing, we can affect how a gene’s DNA expresses itself. Why is this so important?

Genes and the Environment

The drastic changes in lifestyle and human social habits during the last fifty years has been linked to the rise in such diseases as obesity, diabetes, sleep disorders, depression, and certain types of cancers, disorders associated with disturbances in the circadian rhythm, or the internal timekeeper in each of your cells. This timekeeper, or clock, is connected with your stress response and stress hormones and is associated with clock genes. These clock genes have a strong impact on many biological functions like memory formation, energy metabolism, and immunity. A recent review in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that environmental factors like stress, drug abuse, or poor sleep habits compromise the circadian rhythm, causing the genetic landscape of your clock genes to change its shape.³ For instance, sleep loss causes subsequent changes in these clock genes, which then negatively affects these processes.⁴ Have you ever noticed that when you lose sleep, especially for a few days in a row, you have difficulty remembering anything, your metabolism slows down, and you are more prone to catching that nasty bug that is going around? You also likely have experienced the reverse, when a little more sleep goes a long way in improving these symptoms.

Herbert Benson, a physician at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, has found that meditation not only improves health outcomes and brain function, but can also positively affect the expression of genes. An analysis revealed that pathways involved in energy metabolism were up-regulated during the relaxation response, or the meditation practice, meaning that metabolism improved. Pathways known to play a prominent role in inflammation, stress, trauma, and cancer were suppressed, meaning there was less inflammation. The expression of genes involved in insulin pathways was also significantly changed for the better, implying better regulation of blood sugar.⁵

These clock genes and the genes examined in Benson’s study are intricately connected with the wiring in the brain. The ever-expanding science of neuroplasticity, or the examination of how the brain continues to change and remodel, confirms that, by adjusting the environment in the mind and body through diet, emotional balance, better stress management, more sleep, and more time in nature, it is possible to create positive changes in the brain resulting in improved health and well-being. In other words, by lowering the stress your body is exposed to and by improving your lifestyle habits and behaviors, you can actually change the course of your health for the better; the landscape of your brain and your genes improve.

Stress to your system does not come only in the form of the food you eat or a lack of sleep, but also in the thoughts and beliefs you hold and the negative emotions that can run rampant through your brain. Without addressing the mind, your beliefs and emotions, and the biochemistry and physiology of the body, the behavior and lifestyle changes you need to make simply will not stick.

Your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, and therefore your perception of yourself and your world, are directly connected to your body’s biochemistry and physiology. Research tells us that your beliefs can affect your body’s biochemical responses and that you have the power to believe in good and thus feel good.⁶ When you expect good, and I mean really believe that a good outcome is possible, your body responds positively. The catch is that you also need to believe in and support your body’s strength and natural ability to heal. Expecting your body to be strong without supporting it does not work. You have to choose to change your mind and your attitudes toward health and your life for the good, so that good can also manifest itself in your body.

Are you as excited about this fact as I am? You should be, because it implies the possibility that changing the landscape of your beliefs and thoughts, not just your sleep habits, can offset your clock genes for the better. You actually have an active choice in what thoughts or beliefs you hold at any given moment in life. You can choose to be happy or choose to be miserable. You can choose to look at yourself, your life, and your predicaments from the standpoint of a victim, or you can choose to be a victor in the adventure that is your life.

If this sounds as though I am telling you that all you have to do is Don’t worry, be happy, I am not. It is not that simple. Fear and stress are naturally present in the world and in our bodies, but you have the ability to control your reactions, move beyond your negative emotions, and achieve a greater sense of well-being.

Emotions and Well-Being

Your emotions and your emotional memory are directly connected to physiological responses, both positive and negative. When you face a challenge in your current life, your brain searches its memory bank to see how you have handled such a situation before and what you know about it. It will also try to match your current emotion to one in your data bank of emotional memories. When it does, your brain will respond in kind with automatic assumptions and physiological reactions associated with it. So if for the past five years you have experienced repeated pain, it is unlikely that you will really believe that next month you will be pain free or at least suffer less. You will be more likely to be fearful and apprehensive when thinking about it and throw Don’t worry, be happy out the window. In other words, stress and fear win out.

You can see for yourself how your emotions affect your physiology:

AWARENESS EXERCISE

Think of a situation that you are stressed about. Perhaps you are angry with someone or something or feel anxious, worried, or upset. Choose a situation in which you feel you have little control over the outcome.

Notice how you feel. Notice how strong the emotion is that you are experiencing. Notice the thoughts that come up for you. Be aware of the sensations you are experiencing in your body, particularly in your chest, jaw, stomach, and the movement of your breath.

Now redirect your focus and think of a situation of awe, love, or laughter. For instance, you might remember how it felt to be looked at by someone who absolutely adores you, when you watched your child walk for the first time, gazed at an incredible sunset, or laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe. Try to stay in this experience for a minute or two.

Once you have spent some time with the positive experience, go back to thinking about the stressful situation and notice if you feel or think differently.

You may notice that you do feel differently, in your body. You might also observe that you feel slightly differently, perhaps less charged, about the situation. By changing your emotion, you change your experience of the current problem, and therefore your perception of it, even if only slightly at first.

The key here is that when you change your physiology from stress to balance, you are able to change your emotion and then have access to positive expectation. When you don’t make this necessary change, stress, fear, and the ensuing physiology tax your body, your health, and ultimately the strength you actually have to heal. The more pressing problem is that you may not even realize how much stress you are under and how overtaxed your body is.

The Body Whispers Stress Before It Screams in Pain

Most of you probably will admit to having a lot of stress in your life. You also know whether you feel good or not; whether your life is moving smoothly or not; and whether you feel you have or are enough or not. What you may not know is that every time the answer is not, you are in stress, or more specifically your body is in stress.

Your body lets you know that it is in stress by causing you some kind of discomfort—physical, emotional, mental, or psychological. Experiencing hunger? The body is letting you know it needs food, that you don’t have enough fuel. Feeling tired? The body is letting you know it needs rest, that you don’t have enough energy. Feeling frustrated? The body is telling you to reassess your situation, because you are not getting your needs met, that you are not, perhaps, feeling validated enough.

The body first communicates subtly, in whispers—a pang in the neck, a tingle in the stomach,