Your Functional Medicine Lifestyle

At its very foundation, Functional Medicine is about lifestyle. It is about the habits that have informed your life up until now, and the habits you contemplate changing to bring about a healthier future. It is about the bumps in the road you have encountered and the bumps you’ve seen family members struggle with that you would like to avoid. We call those risk factors.

Functional Medicine is known for doing the deep dive into your health issues. It engages the conversation about the course of you life that finds you where you are today. For that, you probably need a coach…. and that is the Functional Medicine professional.

However! It’s not so complicated to get started.

What YOU can do

• Start with SLEEP. Have a regular “lights out” time. Start preparing for bed soon after dinner- PJs, teeth brushed, etc.- so that when that sleepy moment hits you recognize it and can just slide into bed. If you are a night owl you have probably learned to ignore that “sleepy moment” cue. You will do better to watch the clock and call for “lights out” a little earlier week by week in 15 minute increments. Quieting your activities in the hour before bed can set the stage for better slumber. As always, aim for 8 hours.

• Commit to managing your STRESS. It is hard to avoid stress, but you can change your response to it. A brisk, purposeful walk can hit the reset button. If you have tried meditation and found it challenging, learn some breathing techniques. Inhale to a count of four and exhale to a count of five. As that gets easier breathe in a little longer and keep the out breath a second or two longer. Just a few mindful breaths can help turn the tide.

• MOVE. Look for opportunities throughout your day to move more. Even better, join a favorite activity. A time commitment and gathering with friends will help the habit stick. Current brain science puts exercise on a par with good diet when it comes to protecting your memory. If you don’t move well, it is hard to move often. If you don’t move often, your health suffers. When your health suffers, you don’t move well or often. It is a vicious cycle. A self inventory of what needs help is your next step. Don’t let your bad knee or stiff shoulder sideline you for life.

• Check out your DIET. Is your plate colorful or shades of brown and white? Start adding color. Choose your favorite red, orange, yellow, green, blue/black/purple, and white vegetable or fruit and strive for a rainbow on your plate. When you have the hang of that, go for diversity and try different foods in the color spectrum. You will go a long way toward healing your body.

What you may need help with

Preventing chronic disease or reversing a current diagnosis.

Prevention might be a little easier, although it is tempting to procrastinate taking action.

After checking out your own lifestyle habits and making appropriate tweaks, look at your family health history. Mom, dad, grandparents. Ask, if you can, what health challenges they have faced. Some issues may be apparent, some may not…so ask.

Ask your mom about her health when she was awaiting your arrival. If you can, ask grandma about her health when she was expecting your mom. It seems weird, but “you” were already present in your mom’s developing little body when grandma was expecting her. All her eggs were already present as she developed into the little girl that became your mom. Your health history starts there. While you were developing, were you bathed in molecules of bliss, or was this a turbulent time for mom? Was mom active or sedentary? On the heavy side, or lean side? Presume that you share some traits, and take action.

Reversing a current diagnosis…. Here, there is a bit more pressure. Get on it!

Diabetes, high blood pressure, memory issues and a host of other maladies are what we call “long latency” conditions. They take a long time to develop. To the trained eye, these can be detected early in routine blood tests and physical exams. Functional Medicine practitioners don’t wait for the results to be printed in BOLD, but look for trends taking you down the wrong road.

We come to our chronic diseases by various roads… think early and frequent use of antibiotics, lifelong digestive problems, poor diet, stress, toxic environment… the list goes on. It is the Functional Medicine practitioner’s goal to do the deep dive with you to discover the particular path that brought  you to this juncture and tailor your recovery.

For more bite sized ideas on lifestyle tweaks join our private Facebook group, Move Better Arizona.